I am no writer, and this is not AI generated

I know... information is everywhere and actually too much information kills information! I used to love that phrase. And now is ever more true, myself am drawing under data, documentation and news articles to read, and posts from social media and newsletters that I wanted to read, but will I have time to read them all... probably now! And that's ok, not everything we read is for everyone.

And in addition, well... we all posts everywhere and realise that not everybody see them either. So here is a glimpse of a few things I have been thinking or doing as they are not all posted in the same place either!

Enjoy!

The battle between showing up as a professional and preserving a personal life

For years I was battling how to post professionally on social networks and keeping my private life, well for friends and family.

So my private life online started on Facebook but then progressively I also accepted people I met at tech conferences when I was speaking and then I was doomed that it was no longer "just private".

But what does it mean to be private anyway. What are the risks when "everything" is public?

First, we need to trust the media where your posts are being hosted. Are they safe, who is able to see them, everyone or your contacts and followers only?

When we adopted our son, and he was growing I needed to update our family and friends who are everywhere in the world, so I created a "private" Facebook Group just to post pictures of my son and us to a limited number of people. The rule was simple: no-one could see this group and therefore request to be part of it, only us parents can invite and members of this secret group would have seen our son in real-life at least once before.

Now I always liked sharing thoughts via text or pictures, so I posted for years first on FlickR, then Orkut (remember?!), Facebook, Instagram ... yes, I like to try them all. I have never been a big fan of Twitter (now "X" ??) since this time I thought of it "too public", like being in a market and shouting that I don't like fish and waiting for anyone to respond ??.

A couple of months ago, a friend made me realise that they had no idea of what I actually do for work (Microsoft independent coach), and I realised that I forced this to happen since I was posting on a professional Instagram account, separately from my personal account. I was not being truthful to myself and despite always being a proponent of authenticity and being myself in a work and social environment.

So I then deleted my "work Instagram account" and just use one single account to share my life (holiday, family, rambles...) and my work update and sharing.

Like I say above, it won't suit everyone, but that's ok.

A Week of Not work: But Improv work!

A bit of a change for me, since I joined a 4-day training on Improv Level 3 at The Free Association and loved it! I explained a little bit what this means to me and the link with my work on this post.

How-tos YouTube Videos

Since 2021 I started recording my findings on a YouTube channel, which means that when I hit a complication, I may spend hours troubleshooting it (as we do in IT, we never know if it will take 10 minutes or 10 hours!) and once I finally got it I would record it and publish it.

I didn't think yet of who my audience was, I was just thinking that "if someone is trying the same as me, they would appreciate to find a quick tutorial". I always said that I would keep the video "real", ie very little editing done and under 10 minutes otherwise myself would never bother taking the tips being presented. So I continued, quite irregularly and from time to time I would be notified of a new subscriber. I never really "campaigned" to grow my followers and never really had a theme, such as a 3 months-campaign to grow targeted audience. Yes, I know, I also teach Digital Marketing courses and didn't apply it to me, well, let's say that this was a side hobby.

To my surprise this YouTube channel has over 300 followers, which I know is not much, but for not marketing it much, I am still quite proud of this organic growth. Come and subscribe to here.

Getting Things Done and fighting your saboteurs

I have news for you: We all have saboteurs telling us what we should or should not do, and they are usually not helpful!

A few months ago, I joined Brain Gym and with the talented guidance of Caroline Kay I learnt about Positive Intelligence and started practicing daily quick exercise that are similar to samples of meditation. To my surprise, it really worked and I was less stressed and gain more clarity of my 9 saboteurs that are always here, but can be tampered down to give space to more creativity and calm.

Quasi-daily Virtual Co-working spirit

Did you know that you the loneliness of the freelancer / solopreneur is real, but we can find ways to improve it?

Every Friday morning (and several times a week), a bunch of individuals who never actually met in real life, meet up on line and focus on their tasks for the day. The accountability is really working and our members' feedback is always super grateful of the space that Amelie Taralle and I created over a year ago, where they can really tick the week off and actually do their sh*t before the week-end!

Anyone can join, the link for the first time is via meetup here --> https://tiny.cc/JoinCoWorkAF

After you join us once, you will be able to come back during the rest of the week, meaning that you will no longer feel isolated!

That's it for this one. Have a great week/month!

Fran?ois.