Stoa Digest #46: Give, Give, Give, Give,

Give, Ask, Give, Give, till you receive.

May 2, 2022

Hullo hullo friends!

Read on for this week’s Editorial by an alum of Cohort 4, and if you’d like to write an editorial in the future, do hit me up on Discord! I’ll be happy to feature you!

💀Warning 💀
In true Substack fashion, this mail has many images, so they will get clipped in your inboxes - I apologise in advance. 🥲

-Nicaia!

I have been reading the Stoa digest for quite some time and was waiting for Nicaia to ask me to write one.

When I finally got the chance, it got me thinking, what should I write about? What can I write about? Then it struck me. I can write about the 2 phenomena that I experienced during the 6 months here, that had a very deep impact on me.

In rap live concerts with the primary rapper, there is someone on the stage called a hypeman.
He is a backup rapper whose main job is to support the primary rapper with audience response and callouts. It is similar to having an opening act, let’s say, during a standup comedy performance to warm up the audience.

I have come to realise that these hypemen help in building up the confidence of the main character. During my Stoa journey, I found my hypemen(the term is not gender-inclusive because of it’s origins, pardon me, but I completely intend it to be). These people would hype me -
Talk greatly about me,
Push me to do better constantly,
Spread whatever word I needed help with spreading,
and Compliment me for a job well done!

They hyped me up everywhere and anywhere, even in situations I didn't want them to.

Be it giving a presentation at Stoa, or for a job interview or even on social media.
At the start I was confused, why would you(anyone) do this? What is the motive?

I was not used to this kind of hyping up and was even embarrassed by it, at first, but then I realised the potential of this.
It helped in building my confidence.
Helped me beat my imposter syndrome and,
gave me the courage to try something that I have never done before.

If you have ever hyped me or been my hypeman(gender neutral world),
genuinely, I thank you!!

And if you are someone who has these hypemen(here I am talking gender neutrally,again), kudos!!
If not, be one for someone else and you just might find one for yourself.

This is a good segue to talk about the other phenomena that I experienced here.
A Positive sum mindset. I know this looks like some Kunal Shah or Naval Ravikant gyaan, but just hear me out. If you are born in India, you are competing from the day you are born. From bus seats to college seats, there is a fight everywhere.

This conditions you to have a zero-sum mindset.
Barring a few people, everyone is out there to get you.
This also makes you doubt the few people who are genuinely helpful. In the past 6 months, I got the opportunity to be in a few communities that have introduced positive-sum thinking to me.
The Stoa community is one of the biggest ones. People are genuinely helpful and nice here. There is no hidden motive, they are just there to help you, without expecting something in return. They want to see you succeed.
This again made me wonder, Why?

I had many questions and as I dug deeper, I realised the answer is actually quite simple.

Most people are good.

It’s our experiences and biases that make us wonder & be otherwise.
The Stoa community had that effect on me. It made me a positive-sum thinker and provoked me to think deeper on this topic.
This is the power of communities. They can bring a deep change inside you.

All of us at Stoa are a part of building this community and if you want to experience this too, I just leave you with one golden mantra of communities:-

Give, Give, Give, Give, Give, Give, Ask, Give.

This was me giving what little I got, in the hope that I could affect your giving too.

Sincerely,

Aayush Mittal

📣 Announcements 📣

This week will also be the week we launch the Stoa Roll-Up which will be all the great content we see shared on our Discord server.

Come this Friday we will be hitting your inboxes with the content that builds your engagement with the Stoa community.
The best music, youtube, books, marketing, strategy, product, no-code content that gets shared.
So if you haven’t yet, and these are topics of your interest, share your best content with us, and we’ll share it with the world. (Quite literally!)

If you’ve been wondering what qualifies as “best” - share the content you think added value to you, when consuming it.
And the same way it did for you, it might for someone else too.

We have channels spanning multiple genres, so we’re sure you’ll find something you want to contribute to, whatever medium it might be!

📆 Upcoming Events 📆

If you’re looking for a way to RSVP to these events, find them in the Discord events panel and click the bell icon there!

We’ll see you on Thursday & Friday night! 🕺🏻