A couple of months after coronavirus hit, I was fine. In fact, I was so fine that I was really smug about it. This suits me, I thought.
Fast forward to July and I am going out of my god damn mind.
We were out of lockdown and I was leaving my house, going back to my office and regaining some semblance of normal life. But it wasn’t normal.
I realised I hadn’t taken a mid-week day off in almost six months. Not strange for most people but when my day-to-day work is peppered with trips to race tracks, day-long coaching sessions, and afternoons spent working in coffee shops with friends, to suddenly be at my computer all day, every day was a shock.
I started to take days off. I started to draw and paint again. But I was and am restless as hell.
For once, I’m not writing with a clear solution to a problem. Unfortunately this is something we all have to battle through and I feel strangely comforted knowing that people the world over are facing the same restlessness. (But then there are some blithely swanning down to the beach with no regard for others, too.)
I like being challenged and I like learning more about myself. Lockdown and whatever-this-is-now have been good for me in that respect. After a lot of digging and research, I’m pretty sure I have ADHD, which is a big revelation, and I’ll be pursuing a diagnosis when I feel comfortable doing so. (I almost wrote ‘when things get back to normal’. But I don’t know if that’ll ever happen.)
On the upside, little side projects are popping up again.
Perhaps the most important is a future of mobility content hub. It’s in its early stages but I’m really excited about what it means for me as a writer/editor/subject expert. But I’m more excited about the conversations it’ll start because there are some big parts of the dialogue I feel are being left out.
Tell me, how are you doing now we’re out of lockdown?
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Social Experiment
Honestly, because my brain has been quite chaotic, I haven’t really been experimenting with social media in my usual way.
But, I have been pushing forward with the Sponsorship Podcast and have been doing more to promote that via social media.
On Tuesday, when new episodes go out, I use the Racing Mentor Facebook group to start a discussion on the same topic as the podcast and I do quote posts on Instagram. This helps to generate some buzz around each episode.
I’m also getting more involved in discussions on Twitter. By replying to big threads with something helpful and actionable (or insightful/entertaining), I’ve been able to pick up new followers.
Normal Service Resumes
I’m aware that I haven’t sent one of these newsletters in a while but I’m been thinking about my reasonings for sending this out. It started out as an experiment that I’m going to continue with but I want to hear from you.
Your replies really help me gauge what’s working and what’s not so even the smallest amount of feedback on what you enjoy about each newsletter is helpful.
Going forward, what would you like to see here?
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