Welcome (again) to One Percent Wisdom! | #79

New Things: WMHD, Visuals, Substack

Sep 20, 2022

Hey friends,

Greetings from Lisbon and welcome to the latest iteration of One Percent Wisdom!

Those of you with a keen eye will notice this newsletter has arrived in a fresh new format. We’re jumping on the bandwagon and moving our newsletter from Mailchimp to Substack. More on the why behind that decision below.

In this issue, I’m sharing a couple updates on our business and a special offer for the upcoming World Mental Health Day (WMHD) in October for readers of this fine publication.

Next week, I’ll be be back with our One Idea section where I’ll be writing about The Protégé Effect.

Let’s get to it.

World Mental Health Day (October 10th)

Mental health is a growing concern in communities and companies around the world, and it’s a topic we’re actively working on with our training business, Forgewell.

The numbers are shocking: Gallup’s latest report found eight in 10 employees experience burnout on the job at least sometimes.

In the UK, it’s estimated that poor mental health costs £1,300 annually per employee, and estimates in the US put this as high as $5,000 (mainly due to lost work days).

Not only is this a crisis for businesses, it’s a collective crisis in our society.

Why, despite huge gains in material wealth, are we less happy, satisfied, and healthy than ever before?

One reason is that very few of us have been taught the practical skills to manage our difficult thoughts and emotions.

“Mental health” training is usually pointed towards first-responders or at crisis intervention work.

In many cultures (company and country), struggling with mental health is still stigmatized, seen as a weakness, or just ignored.

The result is that many of us who struggle with the demands of modern life, but don’t have a medical diagnosis, fail to receive any training that could help us navigate the complexity of living in a healthier, more sustainable way.

Enter, Mixed Mental Arts.

Earlier this year, I underwent an incredible 6-month training program with Tough Cookie, a UK-based mental health & resilience social impact company.

I’m now a certified teacher of their flagship program Mixed Mental Arts (MMA), which has won numerous awards for its impact and has been taught at organizations like the BBC, Sky, Shell, and Greenpeace.

MMA is a mental resilience program based on the latest research in psychology and neurobiology that will help you prevent mental health problems in the workplace, rather than just deal with the symptoms.

We teach practical, effective, science-backed tools that you can use to bolster your resilience and develop healthier coping strategies to deal with the ups and downs of life.

Special Offer for Readers

In honor of World Mental Health Day, I’m offering a 30% discount for teams that book a session anytime in the month of October.

Note: I rarely use this newsletter as a place to “sell” but I believe so strongly in the need for this training that I’ve decided to make an exception.

This offer is available for MMA as well as my other offerings (Make Time, Adaptive Resilience, Search Inside Yourself) as I believe they all have a mental health impact in their own way.

If you’re interested in bringing me to your company, reply to this email or drop me a line at connor@connorswenson.com

Check out this 2-minute trailer to get a feel for MMA:

A New Visual Direction for @onepercentwisdom

Most of you know that Claire quit her job in January and together we’re co-founders of our B2B education & training business, Forgewell.

(I wrote more about this evolution in my Year Two Business Review if you’re curious or missed it).

We’re also working together to create inspirational and educational content for a public audience via One Percent Wisdom.

One Percent Wisdom started as this newsletter in March 2020, and is now evolving in three significant ways.

One Percent Wisdom will become the new home for our offering for individuals like you!
A big change will be our website. We’re totally revamping www.connorswenson.com into two distinct sites: one for Forgewell and one for One Percent Wisdom.
We’re also going to build new channels outside this newsletter, starting with with a new visual-first approach on Instagram.

Claire has been diving deep into the world of illustration and has started posting some amazing new work, if I do say so myself.

Like everything we do, it’s a constant evolution and we want to share our progress and thinking in an open and transparent way with all of you.

We hope you like the new direction and can’t wait to share the new sites with you soon.

Check out one of my faves Claire posted last week below and head to @onepercentwisdom and give us a follow if our message resonates.

onepercentwisdom

A post shared by Connor Swenson & Claire Dinan (@onepercentwisdom)

Why Substack?

Running a small business these days is great, as there are more tools and platforms to help you grow. It really is possible to do things with one or two people that you used to need a team of 20 to complete.

At the same time, picking between tools is tough. It’s an easy productivity trap and I’m guilty of spending too much time worrying if we’re using the best tool for a specific area of our businesss.

That said, I knew it was time to jump ship and move platforms for our newsletter.

Here are the three main reasons we’re moving:

It makes writing easier. Mailchimp is designed for ecommerce and more professional email marketers. As such, it has tons of features and customization options. Substack is designed for writers, and publishing is a breeze.
It makes us more discoverable. Unlike Mailchimp, Substack is a community platform filled with other writers.
It enables conversation. I love getting replies from all of you, but I noticed they often get buried in email threads and many people didn’t realize they could reply. With Substack, you can leave a comment directly on each newsletter and other readers can see and reply to your comment.
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P.S. I dare you to try out that comment button ^ Do it. Double dare you.