Hello world.
Welcome to this edition of Misfit Multipreneur!
I'm Amanda and I'm here to share how I'm building intentional businesses to create a better future. I'm sharing what I'm thinking through writing to figure out how to communicate better.
Recent writing
I called this newsletter ‘Misfit Multipreneur’ to describe my current and aspiring states.
After the past 12-18 months of some not-so-great mental health, family and life difficulties, I feel like I’m still in the rebuilding process. I feel like I am a misfit, in many aspects of my life: personally and professionally. I am single in my mid-30s, not that interested at the moment in having children.
I’ve always struggled to fit into any given professional role and stood out (even if for what looked like positive reasons), doing things differently to everyone else without understanding why.
I tried to build my career based on a varied, ‘generalist’ skillset and found the most broad, vague area to thrive in startup ‘operations’ roles. Which actually worked surprisingly well.
And so, I claim the word ‘misfit’ as part of my identity, as a positive thing that I like about myself. I believe it also holds the key to rebuilding my life and career back in the way that feels authentic to me...
Interesting ideas
I've always struggled with uncertainty. Uncertainty over the future of the world, my life, my family, my career.
Two quotes from Rebecca Solnit that I've come to more deeply understand in the past year and try to live by:
another face of uncertainty is possibility
that unknowability (about the future effects of our current actions) gives me a confidence that certainty never could
Multipreneur life
My current career transition has taken me to some interesting places and people. Building my own projects and companies, and helping others build theirs.
During the second half of the year, I'm running some events across the south east with Kristina Pereckaite of South East Angels and Sue Elliot of the British Business Bank to get more women into angel investing.
We want to increase the dismal stat that only 15%-18% of angel investors in the UK are women. I've promoted diversity across every company I've worked in, especially at senior and board levels.
So I'm really excited to run these events, hopefully get funding and make this project into a cohesive program to take amazing women from never thinking about angel investing, through to making their first investment.
We're thinking a combination of educational materials, events, networking, mentoring and more. Watch this space.
Asks for help
I'm looking for an event space to kick off our Future Angels events in London.
Ideally it would fit around 50 people, and we're looking to partner with organisations who are keen to support getting more women into investing, potentially doing more together as we build the initiative.
If you have a space or you know anyone who might do, please get in touch!
Improving my IPO
(Inputs > Process > Outputs)
Part of thinking and writing involves improving my information consumption, processes for... well... processing the inputs of that consumption, and creating outputs.
I recently started using Tiago Forte's Second Brain system which has radically changed my life. It gave me a way of keeping knowledge and info that I want to use, a system for figuring out what to keep (rather than bookmarking a trillion things) and a process for filtering that through to what I want to create.
Inspired by a combination of James Clear's 3-2-1 newsletter, Marc Z-S's one thing at a time (OTAAT), and the classic Lao Tzu quote:
“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.”
I thought keeping a record of a very small number of interesting things would force me to keep my mind sharp and focus on what I'm taking in from the world. This is just a hypothesis so we will see how it goes!
One thing I learnt
There are three settings that contribute to your 'exposure' when you're filming: ISO, aperture and shutter speed. You can't change aperture on most smartphones, but if you can nail these, you can shoot video content on your average smartphone that looks extremely good.
One thing I thought
I need to find a way to describe the ways of building businesses and organisations that I believe in and to communicate who I am and what I do. I now avoid introducing myself and in a critical period where I'm meeting lots of people and finding potential work, this is very counterproductive!
One thing I produced/created/shipped
Here's a recent mandala I drew whilst watching TV. If you don't already know, I draw mandalas and geometric patterns and occasionally share them at amandala.g on instagram. A lot of what I draw is black and white, but this was fun to do some colourful stuff.
Becoming a better human
An ongoing challenge.
In the world of rapid technology developments, I have a theory that instead of competing with AI for jobs and continuing our path of doing work faster, cheaper and optimising ourselves like machines, we would do better to focus on being better humans.
This is a work-in-progress for me personally.
My current focus is on engaging with different opinions and thoughts that I don't necessarily agree with. This is surprisingly difficult on the narrow- tunnelled algorithmic internet platforms.
I'm on the lookout for books and ideas that I initially don't want to engage with, and will force myself to engage with them empathetically as well as critically.
Thank you
Thanks for being here and spending some of your valuable attention here today, I will always appreciate it 😊
If you’re writing or building and feel like either a misfit or multipreneur (current or aspiring) I would love to connect over a virtual coffee (or real-life one in London or Brighton UK).
And I love reading replies to these emails. If there's anything that sparked a thought, idea or conversation in your life, I would love to know more!
