What’s Stopping You? Class 2021
The second time I ever gave a class like this, I co-taught it with the spectacular Gavin Leech, and here’s what we did
After doing it a few times, I have some thoughts on teaching agency
Core idea: You don't need to ask permission to just try things, and there's a lot out there that no one has tried, or no one has tried well.
Format: we stand around three CFAR-style easel pads and take notes on what they say
Intro (G): even more than intelligence, what’s mattered in my life is whether I was approaching things the standard way “on-rails” or willing to consider off-rails.
Several times in my life, a shoulder tap led me to something I wouldn’t have otherwise done, and most of the cool things in my life will have happened as a result
What in the world needs fixing? (I thought it was ok to ask about in their life as well, but not the best)
Make a list
Best case scenario is there’s one to pick that we can all talk about, medium case is everyone considers their own, worst case is we pick one and it’s a bad one. Make it concrete.
Then ask them to think of concrete things *they* would do with a year and a million pounds
They frequently accidentally think about what the government or someone else should do
Ask what it would look like to really try
Are you the right amount of ambitious?
Talk about too much and not enough
What can we help with? (make sure to have enough time for this)
Ask each person what would unblock them
This was great, I think, led to us making a lot of follow ups and introductions
But probably only works with some kinds of people
Alternates:
Once we talked about what people seemed ambitious in good ways. I don’t remember this being amazing, but I like in theory the idea of emulating someone concretely
Also might give a range of kinds of ambition
I often aim these classes at getting at the feeling of “permission” and trying to undermine that, but it’s either not present for most people (unlikely) or not at the top of their thoughts, so doesn’t work super well to aim at that
