The Friday Mindset - Issue #32

November 19, 2021

It's Friday! What a relief. Hope you've armed yourself with some cheap sweets to scoff alongside this week's newsletter. (There's a pun in there somewhere. Welcome to the cheap sweets?)

Anyway, last week's newsletter seemed to divide readers. We had some great comments - thanks so much, it really means a lot when people tell us to 'keep up the good work' or similar... and we also had a couple of thumb-down emojis. Maybe we'll divide opinion again this week, who knows? Kick back, unwrap your chocolate limes/blackcurrant licorice/spangles and prepare to be so outraged you never read a word we write again.

Something to try...

We've been contacted a lot recently by folks asking for help with students who are feeling directionless and down, lacking motivation. Of course, there are loads of activities in our books to help, but recently we've also been exploring the problematic advice, "follow your passion" and trying to offer alternatives.

There's a lot of resources to help challenge the "follow/find-your-passion" narrative but if it's new to you, a good place to start is Cal Newport's splendid So Good They Can't Ignore You, which is - in our opinion - pretty much the best career advice book we've read.

"American culture", Newport says, "is obsessed with this idea that the only way to be happy in your work is to 'follow your passion'." If you've got twenty minutes right now and you want to hear more about why this is an "astonishingly bad piece of advice," to quote the man himself, check out Newport's talk at 99U here.

There are sections to share with students that would make a really good starting point for a tutorial discussion (...in particular, the Steve Jobs story, which we've made a short clip of. Email us at [email protected] if you'd like access!)

Instead of 'following' or 'finding' your passion, Newport argues, you build it. Because passion is a feeling you get when you reach a level of competency, expertise, skill at something you're interested in. You can't be truly passionate about something without reaching a level of expertise by working hard and building skill. A passionate baker who can't bake? A passionate writer who doesn't write, or a passionate mathematician who avoids hard sums? Newport argues they don't exist.

Instead of waiting for a passion to emerge, passively hanging around hoping for an aha-moment, we should be actively working toward something, persisting when others give up. It's this active forward movement that opens up opportunities for further development. We've only just stumbled across the phrase 'the corridor principle' recently - the idea that by moving forward, as if down a corridor, new 'doors' come into view (ie new chances to develop skill, make connections, take opportunities you can't see if you're viewing the corridor statically.)

Check out the definition in more detail here:

We have more on this next week - including a PowerPoint for you to use, so watch out for it... and take a look at our offer below.

Something we've been reading....

This is a very old paper. Easily older than most of you, we reckon, since it's based on data collected in the 1980s. So why include it here? Well, we were exploring the multi-dimensional nature of time management and organisation, and we're struck by the questionnaire that Britton and Tesser used at the University of Georgia back in the day.

Take a look:

As soon as we laid eyes on it, we knew we had an interesting systems session just waiting to happen. Not only could students complete the questionnaire, they could critique it from a 21st century post-internet perspective, and suggest alternative statements. They could run a session with another class and collect impressions and feedback. At the very least, it would be a tool for self-reflection and the starting point for a discussion about systems.

The paper itself is dense but interesting. If you've a bit of time, check it out:

If not, though, we've filleted the conclusion for you and presented it as a simple word document. You can access it here:

Our latest offer...

For a day out in London plus five hours to chat to colleagues and share ideas, come along to our training day on December 14th in central London. There are a handful of tickets left so jump to it:

Eventbrite - Steve Oakes & Martin Griffin presents VESPA - Full Day (London Course) - Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at Union Jack Club, London, England. Find event and ticket information.

And our new FREE twilight is here! It's all about the topic we opened the newsletter with... Motivating Students. We've been researching and exploring pretty deeply over the last month or so and have some interesting stuff to share. It'll be part theory, but as ever with us, we'll aim to throw in some super-practical activities for tutor groups too. Great for starting 2022 with! If you're a tutor, Head of Year, Head of Key Stage or you've got some assemblies coming up, hopefully, we'll be able to give you some useful ideas. We're going to run it from 3:45-4:45pm on Thursday 9th December.

If you want a free place, say hello at [email protected] and we'll send you the Zoom link.

And that's it for now. The weekend beckons. 'Move over coffee this is a job for Prosecco...' etc etc

Have a good one and see you next time,

Steve and Martin