Dear Ones,

Thanks to all of your support on this, I am a mentor for Write of Passage next cohort. Writing this newsletter is “evidence” of writing consistently, one of the key attributes the Write of Passage team was looking for!

Coach vs Collaborator

As I’m planning mentor sessions, I thought about how many would use this as an opportunity to spin off their courses. Offer just a bit more than what the main Write of Passage curriculum does.

I understand why—it’s a way to provide continuous support for students, just as they fall into the inevitable “cohort-based course hangover.” That moment where you go “oh…this is it. But did I really get it? Maybe just one more course…”

I was there. (And many would say I am still there!) But I find myself examining whether taking courses is truly beneficial for the student.

Learning can prevent taking action.

When one is learning, one can never fail. So courses become a safe coddle zone.

While I’m sure that none of my course creator friends are encouraging their students to actively not try, offering more courses can indirectly promote inertia through no fault of the course creator.

But what can be an alternative to this static mind state?

I’m imagining a world where after course ends, the creator can be more of a collaborator/consultant rather than a coach (should they choose to—again this is an alternative to coaching, not a replacement!)

The student can be in a place of empowerment this way—they direct their fates. The creator is there to support them via problem-solving, rather than teaching. Daniel Vassallo is a good example of this ethos. He often pops into the Small Bets Discord quite actively just to give some smile and heart emojis, or suggest some tools he tried.

Creators might be well-positioned to provide productized services to students to execute their goals too. That’s another reason why Small Bets works—it’s at the end of the day, a great funnel for Gumroad, whom Daniel used to consult for.

Perhaps creators can support their students through partnerships with SaaS, as an alternative of the standard course/community/coaching approach.

Commonalities to good communities

The community matters too. I have more observations than fully-fleshed out hypotheses at this point. To share a few:

• Communities seem to “seed” better if the founding members are genuinely inquisitive about each other. What does inquisitive mean in this context? To me, this means going beyond “sharing what I’ve been up to” and “giving feedback.” It’s the ability to ask open questions and develop long-term friendships. Notice when one is taking up too much space and encouraging others to join. Give in a roughly 5:1 ratio. If the balance of inquisitiveness is lacking, people disengage and it’s tough to recover.

• Courses that truly achieve their outcomes might not have a vibrant community (or need one.) Because now everyone’s chugging along on their doing-train and there’s not as much reason to hang out! Unless long-term friendships have been developed.

• Learning is scalable, but community participation is non-scalable. (A student can take many courses, but will not have time to join all the alumni communities. Perhaps not every course needs its own community?

• Students might need to find their own people organically. But they might need to be shown the unspoken etiquette of inquisitiveness. Or be shown how to share more of themselves beyond what they have gathered to learn, so that common ground that can be discovered.

What are your thoughts on this “controversial” take? Does it match your experience?

Warm Wishes,

Christin

I am completely guilty of tilting the balance of inquisitiveness in communities, so this observation is not about anyone in particular except me!