The Friday Mindset - Issue #33

November 26, 2021

Friday, boy is it good to see you wander along. Only five days late, Friday - would've been nice if you showed up earlier - but better late than never. Come in, sit down.

It's a month until Christmas! This means, for most of us, fifteen working days left before we can kick back, relax and enjoy what one cynical staff member we know refers to as, 'a festival of tat and duty.' Blimey, that's bleak. In the staffroom, everyone calls him Scrooge. (Behind his back of course.)

Anyway, let's get started, we've lots to share this week.

Push a cheap mince pie from its foil packet, brew up and let's go.

Something to try...

Last week we began by talking about motivation; about the need for us to challenge the 'follow your passion' narrative, and replace it with something that gives students permission to experiment with many possible paths forward rather than passively waiting for 'the one' to arrive. Rather than follow it, we build passion, because passion is the feeling we get when we become competent in something we're interested in. Here's Cal Newport summarising it neatly:

With that in mind, we've put together a powerpoint for you. It's star is Australian designer, artist and Youtuber Campbell Walker. It's clipped from a longer video of his. If you want to watch the full video it's here, but we've filleted the most relevant bits (we think!) and trimmed them into a presentation. Walker covers:

  • The prevalence of 'follow your passion' advice and the problems that brings

  • How you build passion rather than follow it

  • How to start with interests not passions

  • How to experiment, taking action to turn an interest into a passion

  • The corridor principle: how action itself reveals new opportunities.

January is the perfect time to give this a go! It took us flippin' ages to put together and it's so big Google Drive can't handle it and we're going to have to split it into two sections. This week is part one. (the first three bullets.) Check it out here:

Campbell Walker on building passion, not finding it

Something we've been reading...

We love the work of Derek Sivers - he inspired an activity in The GCSE Mindset called Problem Not Job - and his 2020 book Hell Yeah or No is a winner. Sivers writes with superb clarity. He's phenomenally well read, and he's done so much thinking and editing that his writing is concise, clear and simple. (The kind of simple that comes from understanding something complex inside out, not from short-cuts!)

The super-short essays, mostly a page each - are organised under headings like Making Things Happen, What's Worth Doing and Fixing Faulty Thinking. This listicle on Medium summarises it well, but we'd recommend checking out the whole thing. Such a quick read - packed with wisdom!

Sivers gives a lot of it away free, so check it out here:

Our latest offer(s)...

Our new FREE twilight is here! It’s all about 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 there's just three(ish) weeks left until our London training day on December 14th. We keep these small so we can discuss and share; we'll be giving away and going through new, unpublished activities, covering coaching, implementation and anything else you want to explore! It'll be the first time Steve and I will have presented together in the same room for nearly a year so we might be a bit giddy.

Consider coming along! Tickets here:

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 that's it for this week. Hope you have a great weekend and see you next Friday,

Steve and Martin