I want to help you do more of what's important, without being too stressed to enjoy it.

So, you can keep doing it and keep making an impact on others.

How?

By helping you Live Your Philosophy.

(This newsletter is free at this time, so sign up to get access to every entry.)

Why me?

Wisdom is what we get on the far side of the experience.

Wisdom Well is my newsletter, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for everybody.

Because my wisdom, and my experience, may not be what you need.

At this point in my life, I’m on the far side of many failures and successes.

These are some of the experiences that have informed my perspective on life, starting with the failures:

• I failed to decide (and commit to) what I really wanted until 2020.

• I failed to recognize that my motivation was rooted in fear and a sense to prove what I wasn’t to people I didn’t know.

• I failed to sell my business for 3m in 2017 and walked away from the deal after 6-months of awful negotiations.

• I failed to do nothing to run a passive digital business multiple times—often turning the key off only after getting to the point of profitability.

• I failed to recognize that burnout was a sign that something greater being out of alignment in me.

• I failed to recognize that the repeating patterns in my life were indicating something that needed to change.

• I failed to recognize that making other people’s dreams come true wasn’t going to necessarily make my dreams happen, too.

There are more ‘failures’ but being an entrepreneur I always reframe failure to be something that only happens when I stop adapting…

And many of these ‘failures’ occurred just before I adapted.

Usually leading to the wisdom I needed to take the leap to the next thing.

The successes:

• I have built half a dozen seven-figure digital businesses for clients, partners, and myself through 2014-2023 and continue to advise many of the leading personal development authors and organizations.

• I was the second-youngest person, at the time, to work at Mindvalley in 2014-2016, Head Growth Marketer and Copywriter in charge of producing 7-figure launches 2x a month for 2+ years, culminating in the launch of the CEO’s first book which became an instant NYT bestseller.

• I co-launched Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal to become a world phenomenon in 2016.

• I led the mass adoption of the world’s largest and longest-running ongoing citizen science experiment in mapping altered states of consciousness, intermittently on-and-off for the last 6+ years.

• I’ve lived a life of travel and have spent considerable time in Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia, Australia, the United Kingdom, and currently live in USA w/ my girlfriend and dog.

• I lectured ongoing at the foremost design university of London on Innovative Media Strategies and helping Hybrid-Creatives become industry and culture influencers.

• I continue to serve as Growth Advisor & Director for multiple start-up launches to reach the first 15,000 acquired paid users and beyond.

• I have built multiple 6-figure passion-project businesses around my interests, fueling my growth and development in my interests and giving me an excuse to hang out and create with my friends.
  

And I’m grateful for it all.

For the longest time, I was just on the journey.

I recently moved and when I unpacked my boxes, I found old journals from most of this—my 20’s.

Many of the entries go something like this:

“I feel like I’m strapped into a car going 120 mph, and it’s shaking, and I’m the highway. I can’t get off and I can’t slow down.”

I knew then I was blessed and lucky to be given opportunities that I was, and the opportunities were (what I believed to be) fundamentally good for humanity and so it was easy to continually say yes to the next thing.

And stay in the car.

But at a certain point, projects began to blur together, and I realized there was always going to be a next thing.

And next, didn’t mean it was what I really needed to be doing.

At first I only wanted to see what I could do, then I realized, that may not actually be the problem.

I didn’t know then that the only thing that was going to help me realize this was stopping the adventure and I was never going to do that, but then the pandemic happened and made the decision easy for me.

I Realized I Needed to Change My Motivation

At first, I was motivated by fear and then later, being seen my most people as the guy from Ohio, a need to prove who I was, and who I wasn’t.

Thinking, “If I can pull this off, it means I’m this kind of person.”

Then it became, "I’m this kind of person, so I should do more of this.”

But, after being on the other side of many all-consuming projects, I realized the issue wasn’t what I was doing…

But how I was doing it.

And for all of that to change, I would need to change something core to me—the source of my motivation—from what I had to prove, to what I had to give.

When I Did That Things Got a Lot Simpler

And changed rapidly.

The first change was becoming more intrinsically motivated by small victories on the things that mattered most to me, and getting more clarity on what I could do for others.

(Enough clarity to realize that they were in fact the same thing.)

And I discovered that when you start setting goals from that place, things don’t stay small for long. Becuase there’s less holding them back…

Because if things grow out of control, and become bigger than you, as they are one to do—that becomes a very good thing for many people who aren’t you.

And now, I’m dedicating my focus to sharing what I’ve learned over the last 10+ years from the leading edge of the fields of personal growth, altered states of consciousness, and education.

But I learned a long time ago that the wisest thing I could to do help someone grow their message and impact, was to talk to their readers.

And hear what they repeated, and what was important, because if I wanted to give good advice, it would have to come from them, the actual people on the receiving end.

So, now that I’m the author and I’m the owner, I know what the greatest danger is—becoming disconnected from who is on the other side of what I’m putting out.

From you.

Which is why I put together this newsletter:

Introducing, Wisdom Well

This newsletter is a win/win.

For me, it’s an opportunity to share early ideas with an audience of like-minded people who can help me refine them for the mainstream.

For you, it’s free and a way to stay connected to me and my content.

But I’ll admit, I’m getting the better end of the deal because I’m relying on you to tell me what actually makes it Good.

You see, if I write in a vacuum I can spend 2-weeks spiraling out and start mapping colors to shapes and talking to myself about how profound it is and what that means…

But I’ve been around this carousel enough times to know that if what comes out the other side doesn’t resonate with others, it’s not good for my goals.

I’ve made content for individuals…

I’ve made content for myself…

Now I only want to make content that is useful for a lot of people. And ideally useful for a long time.

Which means I’m going back and forth and drawing deep from the well and everything I’ve learned over the last 10 years and what will help you move the needle most in the areas that matter.

And this newsletter is my way of sharing more of what I’m working on with you.

As well as determining which rabbit holes are worth pursuing my goal of helping you Live your Philosophy.

I’ve said that before, but what does that actually mean?

Living Your Philosophy

I’ve discovered many people are like me: they love philosophy.

(That’s actually what the word philosopher means…)

And we would have chosen that career path if it was there on the list next to Doctor and Barista.

But the truth is, more important than being a philosopher is living your philosophy.

Here’s what that means to me:

While we have control over some things in life, we aren’t fully in control of most things, or which lessons we are given.

But we are in control over how we respond to them.

And from what level of consciousness we respond determines the outcome of our circumstances.

The same challenge, approached from a state of willingness has a different result…

Than being approached from a state of fear.

Or guilt.

Or shame.

Or anything that limits the way you show up in the world.

To me that’s the Good Life.

Everything sucks from a low level of consciousness, and everything is good with a higher, happier, more inherently fulfilling one.

Our philosophy is what we believe to be good for us.

And many of us know what is good for us, half of it is common sense, and the other half we will continually be reminded of until we decide to act on it.

The issue isn’t having a philosophy for what is good for you…

It’s living it.

And that’s a lifelong thing that’s also easier said than done.

But before we talk about how I can help you Live your Philosophy more, let’s talk about….

What Happens if You Don’t

Here’s how you can know if you’re not living your philosophy and there’s wisdom you know, but you aren’t acting on…

Buried in your psyche is a part of you that knows what the right thing for you to do is.

When you’re making a decision and you just don’t know…

This part of you does.

It’s wiser, more intelligent, and has far more perspective than you and luckily it wants to tell you what the right next move is.

To do this, it sends you nudges through your intuition of what direction to move in, and pain when you start veering off-path.

The problem is, we don’t realize where these signals are coming from or just how well informed their advise is.

After all, this part of us that each of us has, is the most qualified person to guide us.

The problem is, we get numb to the signals. We ignore them lessons go unlearnt.

Eventually we believe that’s just the way it is—that’s just the way we are.

We become disocnnected from this wiser part of ourselves.

We stop doing what we believe is most important and we stop enjoying it as much.

This gets worsened by the fact, that when we look outside of ourselves to gauge where we are, we see that a lot of what most people consider to be normal isn’t any good for them at all.

Speaking of wisdom, here’s a poignant one from Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti,

So, if you feel like you’re an Outsider, then maybe you’re right where you need to be.

After all, who wants to be on the Inside of something that’s not good for you.

If you asked me, the #1 problem of the 21st century is that we lack wisdom.

And this is becoming more the case than ever.

We live in a day and age where you are more likely to die from over-eating than starvation.

Instead of ignorance, we’re overwhelmed with information, and not all of it is true.

And now with the addition of Artifical Intelligence we’re more distrusting and disconnected from each other than ever.

More than ever, we’re in need of Wisdom, of what’s good for us and how to live that way.

The solution?

Let’s Get More Outsiders Stepping In And Living Their Philosophy

No Outsider wants to go in.

They weren’t accepted there, or worse they were rejected.

But you don’t have to live like others do to help them.

In fact, you definitely don’t want to.

You’ve gotta live your philosophy.

But that doesn’t mean holding back from doing what you feel called to do, because Outsiders are just that for one very important reason:

They have something that the world hasn’t made normal yet.

Outsiders are where the important changes come from.

They’re a part of the process—not an aberration.

So, if you’ve got something that you know to be true, but others don’t agree with you on—or wisdom your experience has made painfully clear to you that you can still help others…

Don’t compromise your philosophy or how you express it.

It could be a business, a tool, a book, a speech, a lesson—whatever it is for you.

Whether it integrates into what you spend most of your time doing now, or if it can’t be aligned and you start something that you can commit to that will allow you to fully live your philosophy.

That’s how you can best help others.

To reach more of them, and enjoy the process with a higher level of wellbeing, too.

And that’s what I want to help you do.

How I’m Going to Help

I want to help you live your philosophy, so you can go on to live it and positively impact more people.

And make what makes you different a source of your strength.

Take what you’ve learned on the Outsider and bring it in.

In the last 8 years of working with the leading edge of authors, neuroscientists, psychologists, and entrepreneurs—I’ve discovered many tools, methods, and frameworks I can share to help you do this.

And I’ve helped many of them take their solutions discovered on the edge and bring them to the mainstream.

But most of my time is spent working with small teams and organizations.

Which limits the amount of direct impact I can make.

So, my commitment with Wisdom Well is to write more of what I teach and share that here.

But here’s the Deal:

In order to get writing out, frequently enough, I’m going to use this newsletter to workshop ideas for the sole purpose of getting feedback on it from you.

This also means it will be mostly unedited by me and completely unedited by anyone else.

And in exchange for the typos, this publication will stay fast and free.

Deal?

So, here’s what do to now…

And if this resonated with you and you have wisdom you want to share, I want to hear it!

Have Wisdom You Want to Share?

I have no illusions that this is something only I can accomplish.

And ultimately, we all want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

So, if you have wisdom you want others to hear, help me help others by sharing it!

If you have a thought-provoking idea, a lesson learned from your experience you want to share, or any other kind of Wisdom–share it with me here: admin@wisdomwell.co

I’d love to read it and if I think my audience will like it, I’ll share it with them (and credit and tag you as well).

And if you like this newsletter, share it with others!

Share Good Wisdom by Colton Swabb