Initial Elation

Most of us met on 200WordsADay.com. Using a single word to describe 200WAD then it'd be optimistic.

I was elated to discover a gathering of people I could've never imagined before. Up until then online communities meant either Facebook or Reddit. Facebook was still based on the people I knew in real life. The most it offered was a digital version of talking to people I already knew. Reddit was huge, and the discussions were mostly asocial, strictly focused on the topic. With so many anonymous and random usernames you couldn't really expect to feel a personal connection.

200WAD was the first place that felt small enough where the people mattered, and the people were strangers from around the world. And because 200WAD revolved around writing, it was easy to open the door to these strangers. Just write about your desires, thoughts, and fears, and chances were that it would resonate with somebody else.

Back to elation. What exactly elated me about connecting with strangers through writing? Because I had never been a part an online community untethered to the physical world, all of my social circles were heavily dependent on locality, age, and socio-economic status.

On 200WAD those things mattered less. No longer were age or attractiveness filtering criteria for connection. There was a freedom in this. That's one thing. The other thing that drove my initial elation was the realization that I was within such a novel composition of people. I had never been surrounded by people who valued independent hustles so much. In my physical relationships people accepted or even embraced the more typical way of earning a living. On 200WAD it was normal to embrace the Tim Ferriss method. It wasn't odd to follow Gary Vee here. It wasn't bizarre to spin up your own SASS.

In a way, my initial elation with 200WAD had less to do with writing and more to do with finding this novel group of people who I considered hustlers. People who until then were just talking heads on Youtube. Now I was writing together with them every day!
I have to agree. There were many small things that just added up and made that site unique. I would add that writing almost everyday also made us intimately closer to each other than most physical relationships without expecting or demanding it. Very organically. 
2021-04-14 02:30:47
I think the part that you “had to show” up also really helped to bond everyone together. At least the once who really wanted to get into writing. Everybody had a common topic.
2021-04-14 15:28:59
That's one thing I kind of held back on with this project so far. I thought that designing around 'having to show up' was not good. I thought this because in the long run I didn't think it worked out. I'll write more about that later.

But I guess I was pre-emptively worrying about a longer-term problem when I didn't even get the short-term problem (of having people show up daily) solved lol.

You two have any ideas? Not just as makers but as even users. Like is there anything concrete that if you had you would be feeling that 'having to show up' beckoning?
2021-04-14 16:57:39
Sir Abe, having common projects to work on and/or a competition are ways to have people something exciting to look forward to. 
So far, you are doing a good job of keeping people engaged and making this group a tight bunch. Keep that up. 
2021-04-14 17:20:15
keni
and
phaidenbauer
are there any shared projects that either of you two had in mind?

therealbrandonwilson
and I have been thinking of a shared way for us to take notes on a shared book. 

So if we were reading/read atomic habits, we would have shared place where we can 'note' together



2021-04-15 16:18:27
Well the podcast conversation was one of our very first "projects" together 
abrahamKim
. It doesn't need to be a full blown project that may need excessive planning or commitment but just something we can all decide to share with each other... like our monthly goals or sharing butterfly moment details on a regular basis or sharing our memoir write up status or ideas etc. Some way of sharing our thoughts and ideas to get feedback and an accountability buddy. 
2021-04-16 00:15:25
Hey Sir Abe - 
This project idea is very interesting.  

A peer cohort for propelling ambitious self-directed learning projects. Join for motivation, accountability, feedback, structure, clarity, and creative momentum

https://hyperlink.academy/courses/hyperlink-learning-adventure-club/76
2021-04-19 00:34:27
Keni now I understand what you mean by shared. The thing I'm working on right now i hope will make shared writing more fun. It's an idea that Brandon and I came up with together.

I will do this learning adventure club after the echo writing cohort. I want to do one at a time lol otherwise I fear that I'll feel swamped the whole time.

Did you know about Hyperlink.Academy before? I had never heard of it until
dealingwith
shared.

2021-04-19 13:43:37
I never heard of it before. But it makes so much sense. It is very similar to toastmasters but beyond just public speaking. 
Agreed about one thing at a time. 
2021-04-19 15:46:19

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