This piece marks an important milestone for Becoming Polymathic – our six-month anniversary. Well, technically our seventh, but this piece will be the 26th.
In the grand scheme of things, this milestone is insignificant. However, as a young venture, it’s important to celebrate and reflect on these small milestones. This piece will be about where we are coming from and where we are going in the next six months.
The Previous Six Months
Let’s begin with where we came from. The first Becoming Polymathic newsletter, titled The Lost Art of Walking, was sent August 27, 2023. From there, we’ve explored a multitude of topics such as dreaming, neuroscience, psychology, and, of course, the lives of polymaths.
Developing these pieces was an exercise in creativity and discipline. Some of these topics were less intense than others, but all of them were difficult to synthesize. These weekly pieces will be a staple no matter how much we grow. I also will be the only one writing them. AI will not be replacing me and my obnoxious tendency to overuse passive verbs.
The most significant change since that first newsletter has been the definition of Becoming Polymathic. Those who subscribed to the newsletter received an introductory piece defining it as an “outlet”. The rest of you saw the “the resources you need to be more, and nothing more” definition in other mediums. Frankly, I despise both definitions. I’ll take that as a sign of growth.
The Next Six Months – Physical Resources
So, then, what is the definition of Becoming Polymathic? The answer, like most of the topics we examine, is not simple. Perhaps in describing my plans to grow it over the next six months we can arrive at a more definitive answer.
We’re going to release two tangible resources. The first one will be a game. The second one will be a journal. Both these items played a significant role in my life and also the development of Becoming Polymathic.
The Game
The game is identical to the one I created for my girlfriend and I at the start of our relationship. We were living on opposite sides of the country at the time and I wanted a creative way for us to balance both challenging and fun topics. The solution was a card game with questions of varying difficulty.
I truly believe it is one of the reasons we were able to navigate that year apart with grace as it helped define our relationship faster and with greater precision. I’m confident this game will provide your relationships with the same invaluable benefit.
The Journal
The journal pays tribute to arguably the greatest polymath in history – Leonardo DaVinci. One of my all-time favorite books is How to Think Like Leonardo DaVinci by Michael Gelb. In the book, Gelb synthesizes the habits and lifestyle of DaVinci into seven categories. One of these categories is Curiosita, “curiosity” in Italian.
In the section about Curiosita, Gelb outlines an exercise called “100 Questions”. As the name implies, your job is to devise 100 questions about things which interest you. Once you have these questions, the next step is to review them for themes, then extract the ten most significant questions.
My ten questions centered around dream significance, human nature (psychology), the power of the human mind (neuroscience), and maximizing my potential. It’s no coincidence these are the themes I explore in Becoming Polymathic. The journal will guide you through this powerful exercise.
The Next Six Months – Audience Building and Distribution
In addition to these two tangible resources, we’re going to release our content through more channels, specifically Facebook and Instagram. We want to leverage these channels alongside LinkedIn and Medium to build our following. Should these additional channels prove fruitful, we will look to further expand into video-based platforms; though, this expansion may not take place in these next six months.
The website will also transition from completely open to a limited viewing model. Subscribing to it and the newsletter, however, will still be free. There will be an announcement when this shift occurs. This transition is in-line with the grand vision of turning Becoming Polymathic into a holistic platform consisting of digital, physical, and technological resources.
Redefining Becoming Polymathic
Through these changes, the ethos of Becoming Polymathic will continue to thrive. That ethos is one of curiosity, discipline, and resourcefulness. We are on this journey of being more together though our desires and paths will be vastly different. I thank you all for your patronage thus far and am beyond excited about this new chapter.
P.S. Hidden in that last paragraph is the definition of Becoming Polymathic I’ve been searching for…
Becoming Polymathic – The Catalyst for More.