Hi Lightfootians,
Happy Sunday.
Last week:
Reached out to a few more product potential partners - will keep you posted on updates :)
I kept refining the pitch (in advance of above). I am really liking how it’s coming out. I'm focusing on developing a niche in Climate Stoicism (discussed more below).
Worked on more product updates and writing more code.
The week ahead:
Participating in a pitch contest hosted by Toronto Starts. You can find the YouTube Livestream here.
Trying to finalize a CRM database of investors, journalists, and other people to market. I want to put things on autopilot and give everyone the same updates. That way, I can simplify the fundraising and marketing process.
What is Climate Stoicism?
I started doing a morning routine that consists of some stretches, meditations, and public speaking exercises. I normally start by taking some big breaths, focusing on my posture, doing some vocal warm ups, then reading a few passages out loud. I tried to find the best book for this and happened to come across the Daily Stoic. It’s a book I read last year but have repurposed for public speaking.
What makes it great is that the entire book is structured as distinct passages from classic stoic texts, along with a modern interpretation. It’s the right amount of reading for a quick morning routine.
The irony of this story is that I had built most of Lightfoot around stoic principles and had never even realized it. For example, one central theme in Lightfoot is “taking ownership” of your participation in climate solutions. I relate this to the core stoic principle of focusing only on things that you can directly impact and worrying less about things you can’t. My observation is that most “climate solutions” are less about personal ownership and more about fitting into a collective. That is, “here’s what you can do” and “we’re in this together”. I personally resonated more with the former, as it’s solutions based and isn’t about signaling some moral stance. If I’m being blunt about it, I think we overweight the latter more than is beneficial to the cause (advancing legitimate voices in climate solutions and technology). Anyway, I would rant but it’d probably bore you.
To answer my own question: Climate Stoicism is about each of us finding our individual storyline in the fight against climate change. We all have something great to contribute should we take the time to reason well and apply good judgement. Climate stoicism is about taking individual action and being the leader of our story, however large or small. It’s also about detaching from the negative news cycle (which I sum up as “distraction does not result in action”) to emphasize solutions and positive developments.
Wishing you well this week,
Adam