Why I have a Sounding Board
...a weekly call with 4 strangers (who are not that strange anymore)
Every Thursday at 5pm I hop on a call with the same four people. They are not my colleagues.
But they have skills complementary to mine: a coder and copywriter, a neuroscientist and Buddhist chaplain, a finance and newsletter expert, and so on. They stretch from California to India.
When I started this group a year ago, I didn’t have much of a plan for it, but I knew I could use some help moving forward.
We five are in similar situations: we have either quit our job or started a side business.
Similarly, I think the format, a Sounding Board, is useful for anyone facing new professional challenges:
So it’s a group of peers with similar goals but different skills and experiences.
Sitting in front of your computer at home (or occasionally in an office), facing the "world out there" with all its change and complexity, can make you feel quite alone. Like the Briton fishermen when they prey “thy sea is so great and my boat is so small”...
Our Sounding Board has become an institution for the five of us. We look forward to it every week.
So what is a Sounding Board all about?
This is what happens: in each weekly call, we have one hour. We go around the table, everyone talks about what they have been working on, or what they are planning next.
We give each other feedback, sometimes ask tough questions, sometimes simply give encouragement. That’s it.
We also have a Discord group chat. We don’t use it much, but sometimes we do, for example to ask a quick question or share news. We are “in this together” even though we don't work on the same projects.
We know each other and can speak openly but don’t need to explain much. We’re not each other's bosses. But we know everyone’s strengths, weaknesses and preferences quite well, and we simply enjoy spending time together.
Chris, a member of my Sounding Board, says: “When you start solopreneurship, you quickly find out there are actually benefits to working with other people.”
Or Christine, another member: “It’s the best part of my week – friends that listen to me rant, comfort me, AND offer practical solutions.”
I would also not underestimate the accountability effect: you are more likely to stay active and productive during the week when you know someone cares. And when you know you will talk to them about it soon.
How we found each other
My group colleagues and I met as members of an online community for solopreneurs called Small Bets, run by Daniel Vassallo. While it offers invaluable resources, it has over 3000 members, and we felt we need that smaller "campfire" as a more intimate group.
I had previously heard of the Working Out Loud concept, used by some German corporations to bring employees from different departments together in weekly meetings for 12 weeks. Inspired by that idea, we wanted something a little less organized, without a curriculum or coaches.
So what I did is, I simply asked a couple of solopreneur friends who I liked, who in turn also asked a couple of people they liked, until we were five.
It took us a while to find our "groove". Also to build trust.
Twice someone jumped ship and we replaced them – no hard feelings at all.
Strengths you didn't even know you had
One of the challenges of such a group is that you don’t really have a script or agenda to go by. But this forces you to come up with a purpose for yourself: what am I trying to get out of such a weekly call? What do I need? And, surprisingly: what can I give?
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On the way you might discover skills you weren’t even aware you had.
It happened to me: when a group member asked several sales-related questions, and I was the one answering them, she finally said “you seem to know about sales, you should do something with that”.
Being a market researcher and product manager, I had never thought about it: indeed, selling has been part of my whole life (since school), in various ways, but without ever being my main role. So out of that interaction, where I simply tried to help a Sounding Board colleague, my book and coaching business Sales Without Shame was born.
Over time, I have encouraged a few dozen other people to start their own groups as well.
Probably there has never been a better time for this.
We've never been this connected and yet this alone
Why now, what has really changed? Well we are more connected than ever, yet more alone at the same time.
In the pandemic, millions turned into Kevin McCallister: “Home Alone”. Unexpectedly, having to improvise to survive.
Since the pandemic, the world truly is a village, for good and bad.
Remember spring 2020. For office workers everywhere at once, Wifi became our commuter highway, the mute button our indoor mask.
Over the months, we got used to muting and unmuting instead of commuting.
The introverts among us lived their childhood dream: earning money in your pyjamas!
This was both incredibly long time ago (3 years!) and incredibly little time ago (less than an Olympiad). We adopt so quickly with our day-to-day habits that we tend to underestimate the effects all this can have on our human social needs. I think while the world is a village, we need other formats of campfires and pubs. Reach out and bond in new ways while (often) sitting at home.
Suddenly, everyone in the world is at the exact same distance to us: one Zoom invite away. What an opportunity! So our “campfire friends” or “pub buddies” can be in New Zealand or Hawaii. Or simply across your home country.
Video calls may be the defining tech of our time
Zoom may change work more than anything since the steam engine. Think about it, it was not the invention of the internet that ended the office age, it was a virus that forced the perfection of an existing technology.
And compare all this to transportation: trains, planes, cars and bikes are functionally the same as 100 years ago, just up-designed. Office work, on the other hand, metamorphosed into a completely different animal within weeks, just recently.
But you might say: a screen has no pulse, and when everyone is on mute, you don’t hear a coughing or a smirking. Half the times you suspect that while the others look like they listen, they are actually checking their emails. And as convenient as it may be, it can make you numb to have back-to-back online meetings all day, sitting in front of a screen, alone. So the solution can’t be more and more video calls, right?
True, so instead, I suggest fewer calls, but the right ones that really help us. This is why a Sounding Board only works with people you really like to meet, everyone unmuted, video on, and engaged. It should never feel like a chore. If I ever dread our Thursday 5pm call, hoping for it to be canceled, I should quit. I don’t do it for anyone else. So it’s not “one more call in my calendar”.
And another underestimated feature: nowadays, when every talk needs to be booked in the calendar, serendipity dies. Meaning, you don’t accidentally run into someone on Zoom. We need to induce some randomness back into our lives.
I do believe there is no point in condemning technology, but we should try new ways to make video calls work for us.
Video calls are maybe the signature tech of our time. Go to YouTube and watch that scene from Kubrick’s 2001 – A Space Odyssey from 1968 again where the guy phones home to his family on Earth from an outer space station. In the movie you simultaneously see: 1) 1960s suits and furniture decades behind us, 2) space travel that’s still centuries ahead of us, but it’s 3) the video call that could be straight from 2023. That’s what’s the most “us now”.
Your own advisory group
And last but not least, when our jobs become more and more technical and dynamic, having a group of buddies you can ask any question that is on your mind this week, and who probably have a smarter answer than you could have found yourself, and who know you, and whom you trust, is probably a good idea.
So for all of these reasons, I like exploring Sounding Boards as a format to enjoy a new technological development (not that new, but finally working well) for my social needs and professional benefits. It helps me to get more out of work and life outside of the daily routine, and making friends on the way.
PS: By the way, if you are interested in a Sounding Board, but not sure how to set one up, I might be able to help you: soundingboardhq.com