This newsletter is 3 years old today.

As the champagne chills on ice here at Fort Grundy, it’s a good time to pause and take a look back at some of my greatest email hits.

Starting with this:

What Countdown taught me about life

My first ever daily email, choc-a-bloc with takeaways from facing TV’s “Queen of Mean” Anne Robinson on the UK quiz show Countdown. 

The email itself is nothing to write home about. 

But the thing I love about this email is the fact I sent it. 

It would’ve been so easy NOT to send this email and wait a week, then a month, then a few more months until another year had drifted by with my life still stuck in neutral. But send it I did, and that’s led to all the other emails and the awesome stuff below.

As a wise man once said, the journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first email.

Next up: 

The Einstein School of Time Management

This email brought me my first digital dollar (or pixel pound?) selling a time management course which I’ve since retired. 

Until then, the idea that strangers would pay me money after reading an email was something I’d only heard whispered in dark corridors and shady corners. I never really believed it was possible.

Creating a useful product, promoting it by email and having people buy it felt good!

7am and life is good. 7.01am and it's chaos

After a year of emails which grumbled about the “rat race”, this is the first time I wrote an email which pointed to the possibility that my experience of my job was coming from me rather than from my job. 

Quite the turning point and still an email which a lot of my older readers comment on.

When problem-solving feels like house-hunting in a ghost town

More of a classic email. Yet I don’t think this metaphor can be beaten (unless you REALLY push it – any metaphor will break down eventually if that’s the nit-picking game you want to play). 

This was a big insight for me too when it came along. A lot of my old problems have simply fizzled away as a result of seeing this.

Advice for anyone trapped, drained or suffocated by their job

Paul Millerd’s cult classic The Pathless Path was what started me on this whole journey.

If I hadn’t quit my job, I never would’ve got into the world of writing and coaching. And it was Paul’s book that lit a small fire and showed me that yes, there are absolutely other ways to approach working life, even if you’re working in the 9 to 5!

So snagging a three-part interview with Paul for THIS newsletter (which in many ways owes its existence to him) felt surreal. It was also a great interview.

Do you feel certain when handling uncertainty?

My most replied to email since starting my newsletter. A fun little story too.

How to loosen the reins on your big, bold ideas

Another “pinch me” moment.

I’m not exaggerating a jot when I say that Michael Neill’s program Creating the Impossible changed my life. About two thirds of the way through it, the penny dropped when I saw how my experience of life really is up to me (and me alone).

Making some sales for the same program knowing just how awesome this program is was deeply satisfying.

I sent five or six emails promoting CTI. That email was my favourite.

Snow Write and the 7 Dwarves

I love this email. 

It’s a good example of how I’ve started to write about the mindset of writing as well as the mindset of work and careers. Not a big surprise after 3 years of writing. And while I certainly ain’t qualified to teach on the technical aspects of putting finger to keyboard, my Subtraction Method is just as relevant for writing as it is for work (as it is for anything else where we get stuck). 

I can feel a course coming on about the mindset of writing, albeit I’ve got a course on overthinking to finish first (as well as my new book…)

Stoic Supremacy at Work

This is one of the few emails that literally had me laughing out loud as I wrote it. Even as I write these words at 8.22am live from my turret office in Fort Grundy, I’ve got a huge smile on my face just thinking about the whole idea of Stoic Supremacy. The email got lots of replies, comments and chuckles, so seems it was a hit all round. 

Anyway, that’ll do for now.

Plenty I haven’t mentioned too. Like becoming a columnist for Rob Wringham’s journal New Escapologist, running a Subtraction Method workshop for John Bejakovic’s readers and hosting a training for London’s Social Wellness Club on “how to change your career without changing your career”. Not to mention new clients, connections and friends from all over the world.

I can tie all this back to my daily emails. 

Starting this newsletter has been one of the best decisions I ever did make.

Here’s to the next three years!

To fulfilment,

Tom