Trust, Friendship, Seneca and AI
I can't wait to share more on the Say Again Press thought leadership studio. Check out our site if you haven't yet (Merci, Claude): Say Again Press
Yes, it's actually all coming together! But we still need some... time.
The TL;DR: Some things will be here soon and some will take... longer. Ok that's the reality of it.
#LeGrandeSigh
I'll tell you why though. The inherently good books, the good long form 'content', the pieces you want to read and re-read and mull over? They all take time. Of course they do—try thinking original thoughts, finessing your thesis, your arguments, synthesising your points and crystallising your communication, if you don't believe me. I mean that's not even counting the amount of effort it takes to write it all down and commit to sharing with the world. A monumental amount of effort, and a lot of that goes into quelling your own self-doubt, and dealing with your own inner voice (yes, more common than you'd think).
Good Things Take Time...
And now I'm here wondering why it is good things take time, and bad things (like all bad news, like death of friends or family, like war, like genocide, like destruction)—why are those so sudden?
Eesh. My #WTF moment of the day.
But let me hold on to the momentum I was talking about. Ever since we started working on this project called Say Again Press, bringing together a band of most excellent excellence, we have been convinced of the work we're doing. But doing so quietly, behind the scenes. Building capacity, having the conversations we need to (including with legal, egads! and accounts, double egads!) and thinking the important thoughts we need to, namely *can we actually pull this off?
Well we now know we can. We have a bunch of interesting authors already hard at work and the best part is? Since a short post a few weeks ago, we've had such wonderful validation from a diverse set of talent, and #INCOMING!!!
In more detail: We set up our substack and you can read some of the posts here
Send us your good thoughts and vibes! You can also write in with your pitches 🙃 Editor@sayagainpress[dot]com
💕 So, thank you for your emails, for your talent, for your validation. I'm damn excited to share more very soon. For your patience you will get rewards, I promise. (And merch methinks!) And no 'AI slop'*.
The sneakiest of sneak peeks is that our first title is in the Say Again Essentials series, and will be on Leadership, from a slightly different lens. I BETTER NOT SAY ANYMORE until we're ready for the pre-orders. But boy am I excited about the book. The amazing people we've got a chance to quote have appeared on the pod, and the best part is the meeting of the minds with the design talent that is Devangana Dash. #ComingSoon
*Speaking of AI, a recent Substack by Raju Tai has made me start questioning my own attitude to people using GenAI in their creative writing. Questioning the uncomfortable things like what we take for granted, like privilege and access to resources and ease with English... I am rethinking some of our positioning on The Health Collective, based on this and recent emails I've received from contributors. More on this soon.
Raju Tai details more here (including about the hate she got 😦) and if you're on there, I would highly recommend you follow for amazing posts.
💜 Care-Giving: A Series that Resonates
Speaking of the Health Collective, there is much maintenance and development work happening behind the scenes. But most importantly, we still have various guest posts that we're proud to share. We had a mini-series of posts on caregiving recently, by Sujata Mathur, which is really (and clearly) resonating with others.
A short excerpt here below and you can check out more on the site directly.
Spare a thought for the caregivers... invisible and often forgotten
Do Read and Share if these resonate:
Living On the Edge: The Fallout of Caregiving
Unseen, Unheard and Forgotten: Caregivers
Podcast Highlights
Meanwhile, over on the Say Again Podcast, I've had a few fun episodes. One is with my incredibly talented friend Beatriz Arias, who I first met at Twitter. She's now working as Directora de Desarrollo de Negocio - Social Media at Atres Media and is out with her debut novel, Soy La Nueva. It's already making waves in Spain, and we had a chance to chat right before the release.
🎙️ You can check out Episode 60 of the Say Again Podcast on YT or Apple or Spotify or watch a short clip on success and failure here.
I loved our chat!
For Episode 61, I had to figure out some ways of joining the dots. I decided to talk about the importance of reading for fun (!) as well as learning for the sake of it, not just as a productivity hack. I promise I am in the same boat as you and in the Epsiode I talk about doing the upskilling as well! But learning and developing our critical faculties is going to be more... well, critical than ever, in this Age of AI. And I put some of that money where the mouth is in this shorter solo episode, channelling Seneca himself.
From Letters of a Stoic, I picked this short letter on True and False Friendship (because hey, even the classics are fun and very contemporary! life lessons for all!) I also made the connection to our here and now, my own book The Other Sister (if you've got it, flaunt it wala vibes), but seriously, I do think we need to be paying more attention to human connection in this age of AI
🎙️ You can check out Episode 61 of the Say Again Podcast on YT, Apple or Spotify
(It's a mini-sode, only 9 minutes) Let me know what you think?! We are also on Goodpods, which has some of the 'best of' episodes!
I've given you a lot of links to read so I'm not going to do the usual shortlist of books, except to say I have been devouring Mick Herron's Slow Horses books this year and it's been a great escape. Love the show and the books are super fun. Especially in these apocalyptic times.
As always, do connect if you'd like to. And hey, if you've enjoyed any of the pods, newsletters or chats, you can now buy us a coffee to support if you like! Voila with zero guilt tripping.
PS: Many of you subscribed to this newsletter when it was new and things may have changed. You may not feel the connect anymore or just ain't feeling the vibes? Feel free to unsubscribe with ZERO guilt.
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