off you go now, reality tv edition

Week five down here in Mexico at Modern Elder Academy writing, and yesterday marked the third conversation I’ve had with producers about a potential sabbatical TV show.?

It has forced me to distill my hypothesis for sabbatical-takers into concrete recommended action-items.?

I’d love your help—specifically:

What CATEGORIES of activities do you think are important to do on your sabbatical?

For example, in my quick brainstorm this morning, I came up with four categories of activities you can do on your sabbatical:?

Mind, Body, Heart, and Spirit.

An example of each would be: art for the mind, a physical challenge for the body, reconnection with loved ones for the heart, and meditation for the spirit.

Second: What ACTIVITIES help us to access those categories??

Applying these to my sabbatical:

Mind/Art: I taught myself ukulele, and wrote and performed a song. It was my first time doing either of those.?

Body/Physical challenge: I walked ~900 miles over the course of six weeks on pilgrimage in Japan. (This is an extreme example. I also completed a few of New Zealand’s famous Great Walks, which were usually ~3 days in length.)

Heart/Reconnection With Loved Ones: I moved in with my parents for a month, helping my dad remodel a small cabin, nursing my mom back to health, and cooking dinner almost every night.

Spirit/Meditation: I did my first silent meditation retreat; ten-days in the Vipassana tradition. Note: I do not recommend having this be your first retreat, and wish someone had told me this beforehand…

I’ve organized my brainstorm about this into categories, skills and activities in this document and pasted the table below, for reference.?

Link to the document to input your thoughts HERE

Zooming out a little, I’ve been reflecting about this potential opportunity, and my creative attachment to it.?

Honestly, this TV thing came out of nowhere.?

(Well, not exactly nowhere -- I actually think that the space in your life and the connections formed by fully dedicating yourself to doing something creative leads to these coincidences and synchronicities.)

It’s been incredibly fun to imagine going in a wholly different creative direction with the Sabbatical Project . I’m learning about an industry I have literally no connection to, and never imagined myself brushing up against. It’s forcing me to think about the relationship between what people want, what they need, and what some TV overlord is willing to finance.

Most importantly, unlike my experience trying to get a book deal in 2020, I’m not holding onto it very tightly.

Over the past five years, I’ve drastically changed how I describe myself.

Five years ago, I was a fintech-slash-social entrepreneur, depending on who was asking. I’d been doing it for over seven years, and I was confident. I was rarely surprised by questions that prospects or customers or panel moderators would ask. I could speak extemporaneously about credit scoring, access to finance, and bank innovation (ha!) in a surprising number of countries.?

Then, I burned out, took a sabbatical, quit my company, (we were eventually acquired, but the order of operations here is important for my ego and psychological fitness at the time,) and set off on the path that brought me here.

Now, I describe myself as a writer—which took a while, especially since it took me ~2 years before I technically got paid for writing anything.?

As an aside, the second thing I got paid for, they actually paid me because the editor cut the story last minute. Adding insult to injury, it’s called a “kill fee,” which is a fun email to get.

[I kept the check as a reminder. Luckily, someone else picked it up.]

The problem with describing yourself as a writer is that it comes with the debilitating pressure to write something. Non-writers trying to make conversation will inevitably ask you “how the book is going,” etc.

For me, this pressure culminated in the form of getting a book deal.?

Despite the fact that the world had fallen apart—in the midst of a global pandemic, with a side of racial reckoning and looming civil war—I’d landed a big name book agent and he felt confident it was worth his time to shop it out.?

When it didn’t happen, it took me months of licking my wounds before I regained the confidence to continue moving forward. Ironically, I got some help from the pandemic, via the so-called Great Resignation and sudden interest in time off.

[If only I’d predicted it would have that effect…]

Fast forward to today, almost two years to the date of that failed book-shopping event. I’ve done what the editors asked me to do—namely growing my “platform” so they don’t have to do any heavy-lifting marketing—but I’m approaching the whole thing with more caution, and less attachment. Will I get a book deal this time around? Well, I’ve got an (new) agent that I love, and the timing is undoubtedly better.?

BUT.?

I’m also relying less on external kingmakers to validate my ideas. Even without a book launch, and the accompanying PR momentum, I’ve managed to get in almost every top-tier media outlet with my message. My audience has grown 3.5x in the past two years, for which I begrudgingly owe a hat-tip to my pals at the publishing houses.

—————— — — — — — — —?— —

Which brings me to the original point of this newsletter, (thanks for sticking with it, mom!): I’m excited about the opportunity this TV show idea is giving me to enrich my thinking around sabbaticals.?

But I’m operating in a world where there’s a zero percent chance this thing actually happens.?

That being said…I’d love to tap into your collective brains for some ideas. So!

What would you add??

[Doc here]

Thanks for your help, and as always, off you go now!

DJ