1. I am not my business

2. ‘Why do I really feel this way?’

3. My confidence in developing an ambitious vision has grown significantly.

4. Why we charge for our services?

5. Investing in yourself is one of the best investments you can make

6. The value of having a ‘Novelty Index’

7. I need an office

8. 1-1s are much better in person

9. Revamping the operations.

10. A return to things that don’t scale

What lessons am I carrying over from last week?
What actions will I take to ensure my week is productive?
What are the three most important goals this week?

A nutrition coach
A personal trainer
A public speaking coach
A productivity coach

lead and motivate the team
secure investment
partner with new firms

Taking time to plan my week is one of the best uses of my time.

In my personal to-do list, I’ve introduced three new questions:

These questions serve as a helpful reminder of my top priorities. They also make it easier to track the key lessons I have learned over the first half of the year.

To date, I have been constraining the growth of my business because I have tied it to my identity. This means the vision and progress of TCLA is subject to my own anxieties, fears and concerns. By breaking the link and treating the business as a separate entity, I provide the space to create a business that can thrive without me.

Between February and April, my thought process started to change. I began to think, ‘Why not just create a small business?’ and ‘Why do businesses need to grow that fast in the first place?’. I even began to discuss a future where I would hire someone to run TCLA and focus on my writing.

It took me until last month to think about why I was asking that question. The truth is that I felt scared to grow, as strange as that sounds. The idea of becoming a larger, complex business made me feel anxious.

This feeling has generally gone away for now. Partly, I’ve realised how irrational it is to be worried about something that a) isn’t happening and b) is something that many people dream about. I am also trying to internalise the advice I give to other people: this is all a skill that can be learned over time. While the challenges may grow in complexity, the more I do it, the more comfortable I will become.

This comes back to a lesson from the novelty index. You always think you’re at your final self but you’re not.

After I came to the realisation above, it became much easier to develop my vision. In all honesty, this is something I have long struggled with because my default is not to think about the future all that much (sometimes to the detriment of the people around me!).

Reaching the finals of the Centre for Entrepreneurs competition and pitching TCLA as if I was raising investment was an invaluable forcing function here. I had to take the time to work out where we wanted to go.

It took me another month to fine tune this, but what I have realised is my new vision:

Changing the jobs market from being about who you know to what you know.

Opens the doors to investment.

I have long struggled with reconciling our paid platform with our mission. Really, if I was to put it frankly: If we really care about access to information, why do we have paid services?

I’ve written about this before, but I have only become more bullish on this view over time. At one point, I hired:

When tackling a new problem or trying to develop a new skill, I think it makes sense to hire a coach or join a group programme to rapidly accelerate your understanding of that skill, especially when the benefits of that skill will compound over the rest of your life.

Take public speaking, for example. For a long time, I have seen this as one of my weakest skills. But if I can level up my public speaking skills by taking a few lessons, this will impact my ability to:

All of which will compound over time. And that’s not even starting on the benefits outside of business.

I capture every idea or useful article I have read in my personal to-do list. This is then filed into the relevant section. Recently, I came across the concept of ranking ideas by novelty from Julian Shapiro. Ali Abdaal calls this a ‘Novelty Index’.

The idea is simple: when you come across an idea or a new way of thinking, score that idea based on how novel it is to you at the time. I consume a lot of information, and so it’s easy for me to forget how ‘mind-blowing’ an idea really was at the time. I like to come back to this index to remember the ideas that had a substantial impact on me when I first read them.

When I started TCLA, I didn’t know anything about the startup world. I hibernated to build a platform. Luckily, I was able to miss steps because I had experienced the problem I was trying to solve. I therefore had an easier journey building a platform that tried to fixed the issues I had experienced.

We started TCLA by me creating accounts.

My weekly plan has been through iterations. It’s very personalised for me by now, but I hope by sharing this you will begin a weekly plan, too. I believe everyone should have one, no matter what sector you work in. When you have a weekly plan, you can schedule your stress. You don’t need to panic about not having time to respond to people because you have a set schedule in the day when you batch those tasks together. You go into the week knowing you have carved out time to work on the things that matter the most to you and this leaves you able to switch off when you are not working.