I have a confession to make. For the past couple of months, the book has been developing at a rapid pace and I can’t always figure out what to share. Besides, since this form of communication (emails) isn’t very bidirectional, I don’t always know how much value these newsletters bring to you. Even though I meant to send a newsletter every 2ish weeks, I started defaulting to 1x a month. Recently a few of you told me, in other conversations, that you like reading these newsletters and why. It was eye opening. I know the 90/9/1 rule of online engagement (90% users only read, 9% ‘like’, 1% will comment). And yet I allowed myself to assume that this newsletter isn’t all that valuable to you, that was the story I told myself to get out of it! So here I am, this time with an exciting book update, which I will start with first
My book was ‘green-lit’ by New Degree Press! That means it is promising enough and in good form to get added to their December publishing schedule. The whole thing has become quite Real! I have planned 12 chapters of which nine are written and reviewed by my developmental editor. My personal goal is to finish all content chapters by end of May (doable) and then go back and add visuals and light heartedness to the book. I want this book to drive home the point, light up a few bulbs in your head, and be light and fun. I’d like my readers to smile a few times as you ‘get it’
The manuscript deadline is June 25, I might ship a little ahead of schedule
The graphic shows the major milestones from now until December. I’ll cover the intermediate steps in more detail in the next few newsletters
July: I will launch a pre-sale with access to perks and sneak preview into book
July-November will be full of revisions, I will have a marketing revisions editor as well as copy editor from New Degree Press. I will release chapter content, book cover and design options to my beta readers (which could be you!) for high level feedback
I am dying to have a launch party! Not just for the book, but to celebrate life and a post-COVID world. It will be a combination of digital and physical events, COVID-appropriate of course. This will be closer to book publishing date, December ‘21
I feel like my three and half year old nephew, Veer when he says, flapping his hands: ‘I am so excited! I am so excited!’.
I’ll be increasingly sharing book content with you. Chapter two, which I binge wrote last Saturday, is titled ‘Ambition, Power and The Action Figure’ where I introduce ‘Action Bias’ and address a correlation between ambition, action bias, stress and anxiety, made worse with the proliferation of technology (which ironically was supposed to make life easier for us). Last week’s release of World Health Organization (WHO) report on long hours being a ‘cause of death’ was timely.
For this chapter, I came across an interesting finding from 1881. Here’s what I wrote:
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The technology and digital revolution of the past few decades have only worsened the action bias tendency. There’s so much more we ‘know’ and have to sift through. New information is coming at us faster than ever before causing stress and anxiety. Back in 1881, American Neurologist George Beard wrote a titled American Nervousness, its Causes and Consequences. In it he observed an increase in a class of functional diseases of the nervous system. He wrote, ‘The chief and primary cause of this development and very rapid increase of nervousness is modern civilization, which is distinguished from the ancient by these characteristics: steam power, the periodical press, the telegraph, the sciences’. He was referring to, neurasthenia, a term he coined to describe the earliest recognized form of mental illness due to emotional disturbances. This class of diseases ’seem to have first taken root under an American sky whence their seed is being distributed [to rest of the world]’.
Fast forward to the present day, there are any number of studies pointing to increase in stress and anxiety in students and adults alike, thanks to the rise of something called ‘the internet''. In a study, entrepreneurs reported higher likelihood of mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression and substance abuse. Studies have also found that manic temperament (tendency to mania) is tied to an ambition for social recognition and dominance. FOMO (fear of missing out), an ubiquitous term in our vocabulary is a very telling indicator of what's making our action bias worse.
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Until next time then!
Jinny Uppal
Wishing you all the best!