February
Newsletter + Podcast research
Earlybird Application Followup
💌 Send individual emails (with a template) to all applicants (240 so far) 5-7 days before the earlybird discount expires (March 1) ~ introducing yourself and answering any specific questions in their application (Feb 24-26)
March
Application Followup
💌 Send individual emails (with a template) to new applicants 5-7 days before enrolment closes ~ introducing yourself and answering any specific questions in their application (Feb 24-26)
April
Onboarding
ARCHIVED
📆 Week 5
Space for activism x NSM
Low interoceptive awareness - tailoring content to them? First step = complete MAIA.
🔥🌊 Alive this week
How can we make better use of tags/labels in the community?
🔥🌊 Coming up….
↻ Breathe, Work, Breathe, Repeat
Add timestamps to session replays
Check curriculum in Circle for typos
Check on workbook for errors EVERY THURSDAY
Make weekly curriculum live in Circle EVERY SATURDAY
Write wrap-up email EVERY THURSDAY
Write Saturday’s content email EVERY THURSDAY
💌 Weekly Support with Content
- Helping to create resources — e.g. the student FAQ or an NSM coaching directory
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- Add community questions into the Student FAQ for me to answer in the live Q&As.
Student FAQ in Notion or in Circle?- Previewing content before it goes live to help catch dumb mistakes from Jonny ;)
- Of course! Again, let me know when to expect this to be needed so I can make sure I carve out time.
- Draft the emails in Convertkit to go out on Saturdays (announcing new content) + Fridays (wrap up)
- Will the students already be in a mailing list in Convertkit?
- Run through workbook to check for typos / anything that isn't clear.
- Happy to, let me know when this is ready
🖥️ Support on Zoom with the Live Sessions
- Attend the live sessions and help with creating breakout rooms, fielding questions etc.
- Perhaps hire someone to timestamp videos, edit & upload to our YouTube channel?
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👪 Community Experience Design
- Helping me brainstorm questions, prompts, spaces etc. to help create engagement and track their learning.
- Oooh tracking learning is a great idea. One thing that comes to mind is creating a simple poll/survey for start, middle, end, and 2 months after the program. What kind of learning data would you like to capture? What they’re learning, or just that they are learning? Perhaps something simple like ‘what’s one thing you learned this week/so far?’
- Full permission to brainstorm, suggest + experiment with ideas (e.g. what will be our tags or we could automate a welcome message from you using Zapier letting them know that they can reach out with questions?)
- Creating serendipity and connections between students — once we have the full student list, I’d like to find ways that we could act as matchmakers and make interesting connections (e.g. introduce fellow coaches, people in similar time-zones or countries etc.)
- NSM Graduation Badges — something fun (perhaps we find a nice template) to award them with in the final week.
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- Connect with Guia (who will be joining this cohort) to talk about ideas for improving community experience.
- Happy to. Would love a bit more context on this if possible e.g. am I just opening the door to say hey, Jonny mentioned you’re happy to provide feedback on improving community experience (from student’s perspective), let’s figure out the best way to open this dialogue.
💡 J’s Ideas for Student-led sessions
- Empowering students to run their own live sessions — perhaps giving them a clear way to pitch us with a session idea, and also reaching out to specific students and asking if they’d like to run a live session at some point during the training?
- Pim to run a ‘co-napping session’ where students listen to the NSDR recording together
- Sam to run an ‘NSM movement session’ – how to build habits of functional strength into your life.
- Michael Ashcroft to run an ‘Expanding Awareness’ session
- Scott Drummond to run an internal parts work session — exploring the overlap between different parts and nervous system states
- Ben and Richard and Rich Litvin to host a ‘coaches circle’
- Alex Olshonski to run a ‘Nervous System Regulation for Addiction’ live?
😌 Ocean’s Ideas/Feedback
- Maybe an extra channel for scholarship students to post their feedback in to?
- Will onboarding survey results feed into Typeform too?
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- Numbers don’t match (when clicking 1, the page says 2 and vice versa)
- What’s the difference in the two scholarship forms in Typeform (one for 30%)
- Am I right in saying that nothing is taking place in Notion & that it’s all contained within: Circle, Google Docs (handbook), Podcast emails,
- Love the welcome video!!!! 🙂 great work. It felt very calming to watch.
- FYI, updated the reply-to for Circle notifications to nsm inbox
- Discrepancy in numbers on ‘Cohort 2 Students’ (120) & Fully Paid/Free from Applications (118)
⏳ Time Budgeting
- I know that this will be taking up quite a bit of your time. I thought let’s initially budget for 40-50hrs (£2500?) for NSM — but if this isn’t enough we can definitely increase if needed.
- Sounds good to me. I’ll do my best to keep you updated on where we’re at with hours, and also where my capacity may become tighter at times e.g. travelling etc. Overall I’m pretty freed up at the moment though.
How does this all sound?
It sounds good to me. I think there’s also the added piece of engaging with students either through email or Circle (I imagine there will be some questions as we work through).
I’ll spend some time doing a deeper dive into the answers people have written in their applications, so I can get a better feel for whose in the room, as that would definitely help me best support them and come up with ideas as we work through.
Further resources
- Some great nervous system quotes >> https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/nervous-system.html
Feedback from the Community
More Testimonials
“Made some massive changes in my understanding of myself and it has already given me more agency. I think mostly I came to see some modes of myself as just a nervous system response I’m momentarily stuck in, instead of some flaw or way I inherently am” – Pim Ruhe
Really well done! As someone who made a living teaching people how to run these kind of experiences, I can honestly say this is one of the best I’ve been in - so intentional, thoughtful and practical. And you created a warm, safe place for people to explore it all! — Andrew Barry
🏆 What has been your biggest win from the course?
“A renewed sense of placement in the world; all the good feelings that come from knowing a little more about why I am the way I am and exploring the inner terrain with others who face similar life challenges.” — Christina Fedor
Shares via Twitter (full thread below)
Circle Functionality feedback (for Circle)
- chat vs post
- reacting to comments / opening threads
- mobile doesn’t show documents in spaces
- when @’ing someone’s name, it can often offer suggestions for wrong name
Feedback notes
Specific
- Juan Montero - suggestion: more ‘learn by doing’ workshops
- Juel Iverson - didn’t like music at start / end of episodes + would like to understand how breathing protocols are working e.g. voo-hum
- me@richardhughesjones.com - liked podcast format
- christopher scott - suggestion: drop-in sessions
- Kaisa Kirkland - request: zoom chat downloads
- Dom Francks - suggestion: in-person circle spaces
- Andrew Barry - suggestion: Curious Lion for workbook (was a bit clunky) + one-page visual summary of all the concepts and how they’re connected
- Rob Tourtelot - request: longer time in breakouts + would like to have seen more shares in Circle + short video examples of the breathing techniques and similar tools would be great; some easier way to get to NSDR / breathwork type sessions outside of a podcast app
- Karin Friedli - request: make sure replays are available sooner (more in beginning than later)
- Jason Larsen - suggestion: somehow condense all content into one (workbooks, audios, transcript)
- Scott Drummond - suggestion: weekly workbook that is part of the transcripts (slot in exercises) + how can alumni can support as we grow (suggest complementary content/sessions to support each week's theme) + make it explicitly a goal of the course to explore the materials in dialogue with each other
- Pablo Estrada - request: all-in-one of workbook + audio + "homework" before and after live sessions (how-to-prepare + what to do after) + animated videos of key concepts
- Lindsay Mumma - request: ability to listen to podcast in full-episode vs sections or click next vs going back + zoom ‘dial in’ option would have been greatly appreciated + suggestion: email in 6-months to see if I’ve completed workbook
- Lutfi Ucar - felt challenging to open up and share with so many new people - would have felt safer having a consistent small group to connect with + more visuals + weekly or monthly additional content might be useful. Even curating already available content would be a nice way to keep building on top of what we learned in this course.
- Briana Green - request: would prefer unedited replay sooner than edited replay later + suggestion: ‘Curious Conversations’ space + expand week 4 across 2 weeks / combine weeks 1 & 2? + extra content on inner critic and cultivating self compassion
- Christina Fedor - suggestion: having an agenda for the live weekly sessions. more in-week discussion and reflection with other group members on content would have been good. request: more visuals. too many open threads - hard to keep track. request: subgroups for more intimate discussions.
- Ronan Loughney - request: videos of practices
- Mattia Gheda - suggestion: posts for wins + Q&A. hoping for more breathwork/depth.
- Nathan Peterson - valued edge challenge for integrating learnings. appreciated broken up episodes. request: more sharing of completed exercises in Circle. suggestion: regular community-led sessions.
- Tessa Butterner: enjoyed meditations/visualizations. workbook: simpler/cleaner.
- Katarina Tavcar: request: more written info on the theory discussed in content.
- Fern Lim: request: live session chat. recordings of breakout rooms? all-in-one transcript + workbook
- Robinson Crawford: suggestion - map of NSM’ers
General
- Seems that the workbook was either not used, or felt difficult to use
- Circle could feel overwhelming
- Wanted more time for peer-learning/learning by doing/breakouts
- An all-in-one experience between workbook + transcripts + audio
- Lots of requests for regular (monthly, quarterly, twice yearly) alumni check-ins
Kaisa - run a live session when trained
Chris Scott - expand on comment re: Circle feeling one-dimensional?
Christina - run a community-led session / explain how they worked
Fern Lim - community-led sessions calendar
- need better management of the community-led sessions - perhaps a zoom account that they can access?