(Sibylle Bergemann, Katharina Thalbach, 1974)
Welcome to the 15th edition of Can Do, a newsletter where I share my journey of building a Career Multiverse™.
You can also read my previous editions and follow me on Twitter.
Newsletter at a Glance
Career Multiverse™: Three ambitious projects
Article: We shape web3, then web3 will shape us
Tweet: Intellectual curiosity
Career Multiverse™
September 1st is approaching. It represents the start of a new school year, a time of learning and personal growth.
Although I am no longer a proponent of traditional education, I always loved the beginning of a school year. It felt like something wonderful was about to happen, and I looked forward to new discoveries.
That’s how I feel now.
After months of exploration and testing, three big projects have taken shape. None of them could have been planned. They were natural outcomes of my genuine intellectual curiosity.
While these projects are completely different from each other and target different audiences, they all try to answer the same questions:
How do I build a career that includes everything that is important to me: meaningful work, personal wellbeing, knowledge, family life, and technology?
How do I align my professional life with my personal values?
How do I balance my long-term aspirations with short-term obligations?
This fall will be very busy as I attempt to bring to life the following three ambitious projects:
Walnut - a program that teaches recent college graduates career networking skills
Mental Wellness DAO - a sub-DAO of FTW DAO that aims to support founders in its venture portfolio to prevent burnout and other mental health challenges founders experience on their journey
Community DAO book - a compilation of personal stories from our contributors, especially in Nigeria, to share how web3 is impacting their lives
When I left my corporate job, I was seeking solitude. I wanted to write a book by myself and have a small consulting business in which I was going to be the only principal. Over time, my ambitions increased as I started to follow Justin Welsh’s journey. He is a very successful solopreneur with a diversified portfolio of one-person businesses, and I thought that’s what I wanted as well.
However, as I look at where my intellectual curiosity has led me, everything I am working on right now is a collaborative effort. I have at least one business partner on each project. I have just finished co-authoring one book and am about to start co-authoring another one.
I always mention my introverted nature, but that does not mean that I want to be alone. I am just very selective about whom I allow into my life, and I choose to work only with people I like.
In 2015, I read a book, The 11 Laws of Likability: Relationship Networking . . . Because People Do Business with People They Like. Later, I met the book’s author, Michelle Tillis Lederman. One of her laws is The Law of Curiosity. “Curiosity brings out the best in us and prompts us to naturally do all those things that foster positive connections.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Article
We shape web3, then web3 will shape us
Web3 is in its infancy, and it’s very easy to get caught up in its potential. After all, the mission of web3 is truly inspiring:
However, similar to how social media helped us stay connected but also contributed to massive human issues (ex., addictive use, fake news), we have to be very careful about how we build web3 to prevent unintentional detrimental results.
Tweet
It is very difficult to follow your curiosity when you are under constant pressure to make money right now. Our system, especially in the U.S., is not set up to give people time to explore and pursue their various interests. This is why it is so hard to change a career once you have invested several years into it.
Thank you for reading!
Alina
Excited to see where you all take the mental wellness sub-DAO, Alina!