Buenos Dias Amigos Curiosos 👋

Mid-way through writing these words—the ground started shaking. Literally. Here in sleepy Puerto Escondido, we felt an earthquake registering 7.7 on the richter scale.

It felt appropriate for these groundless times we’re living through—where the structural integrity of our certainty + beliefs are being shaken to the core.

Perhaps the invitation is to find that solid ground deep within ourselves. A reminder to practice courageous curiosity + lean into those edges of our human-ness.

For me writing these newsletters feels like that sturdy ground—a place to re-centre my own monkey mind and introduce you to others living at their own curious edge.

Onwards!

👀 How to Read This // Welcome new readers! I don’t know about you, but I rarely read every newsletter word for word. So this has been designed to be skimmed in a non-linear manner. I strongly encourage you to scroll first and then use curiosity as your guide.

📚 How to Human User Manual // This life-force in this book idea from last year has been reignited—I’m drafting a proposal for an ‘audio-first’ book which I intend to open-source in the coming weeks for feedback, critique and ideas.

🤜 Can I Help You? // I’ve begun opening up space for 1-1 coaching clients, specifically helping startup founders process unaddressed emotional debt. If you might also be interested in having me in your corner then let’s chat!

🧘 Breathe. Meditate. Journal // My creative amigo Conni and I are back in action with these free weekly live zoom gatherings. Join the conversation in our FB group with 574 others embarking on inner adventures.

👨‍🏫 New Resilience Masterclass // I’m thrilled to announce dates for the final Emotional Resilience Masterclass of the year—specifically for startup founders and team leaders. Previous attendees have hailed from Slack, Google, Salesforce, Harvard Business School and other rad organisations—find more details here.

Without further ado, I give you this long-overdue buffet of interestingness to feast your precious attention upon.

Pura Vida,

~JM

p.s. if we haven’t been in touch before, hit reply to this and let me know where you’re reading from and one thing that you’re excited to learn more about.

Left: Flying into Puerto Escondido 🇲🇽 // Right: Attempting to ride a scooter with too much stuff 🛵

🎙️ Allow Me To Introduce You To Three Awesome Humans

1 // 🕵️‍♂️ The Myth Maker: Erick Godsey

I’ve had more emails and messages from people regarding this conversation with Erick than perhaps any other episode—you're in for a treat! He uses cognitive, evolutionary, and Jungian psychology to help people discover, articulate, and change the stories that rule their lives. Listen here: ‘Make Your Myth, Face Your Shadow & Own Your Truth’

2 // 🧙‍♂️ The Ritual Crafter: Casper Ter Kuile

Casper is one of the most genuinely joy-filled humans that I have had the pleasure of knowing. In this conversation, we do a deep dive into his new book 'The Power of Ritual'—which I found to be a perspective-shifting and heart-warmingly beautiful book on discovering the sacred amidst everyday life and seeing the world through the eyes of ritual—his description of why the sabbath is the antithesis to a tech break was also fascinating to me. Listen here: ‘The Everyday Wizardry of Ritual’

3 // 👨‍🚀 The Experience Designer: Andi Cuddington

Andi is an old friend—I think of her as a modern-day renaissance woman and I’ll typically turn to her for advice if I’m going through something challenging.  Andi is endlessly curious and has a totally unique lens on the world. She found her calling designing + facilitating workshops and has mastered the art + science of ‘unlocking the genius in the room’. Listen here: ‘The Subtle Art of Facilitation’

🧠 Four Mind-Expanding Ideas

1 // Getting Curious About Masculine Archetypes

As mentioned above, I believe the invitation of these times is to look both inwards and outwards with a lens of Radical Enquiry at the emerging weltschmerz (world-pain), individual challenges and insecure canyons that we find ourselves in. One such canyon I found myself in was in the realm of masculinity—specifically the disconnection and lostness I felt in this area. The specific book that pulled me from the brink is titled: “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” and it has given me a whole new lens to view my own masculinity through. Erick Godsey goes into more detail on this topic in our conversation above, but there’s also a powerful youtube series that outlines the four archetypes of King—Warrior—Magician—Lover.

2 // Reviving the Lost Art of Crying

I challenge you to read this in full and not resonate on some deep level. In Nibras’ words she: “…grew up learning not to cry. Only young children were allowed to cry and once I neared 10 years of age, I was encouraged to stop. Crying wasn’t something I saw adults do freely; it was taboo, a sign of weakness and a public loss of control.” Does anyone else relate to this? Tears—whether from joy or sorrow— connect us to the rawness of being alive, so let’s not only normalise crying but celebrate it. Read in full here.

3 // Conjuring Scenius

Every so often I find an intimidatingly long essay that feels worth reading in full, and this is such an essay. He’s pulled together a toolkit for creating modern scenia—or gatherings of brilliant humans—that reshape the world: “Looking backwards, it’s striking how unevenly distributed progress has been in the past...the discoveries that came to elevate standards of living for everyone arose in comparatively tiny geographic pockets of innovative effort.” I thoroughly recommend bookmarking this to read in full and complementing with the book ‘Geography of Genius’. Read Packy’s essay here.

4 // Sketch of the “Amateur's Map”

Curious Humans reader + podcast guest Buster Benson created this fascinating personal website—written using Dropbox paper with the intention of ‘looking for a new, untethered way to organize thoughts in some spatial dimensions that aren’t by chronology or topic, but more around how to function in terms of connecting me to my own intuitions, the world, and to communities’. I guarantee you will enjoy diving into this rabbit hole.

💌 Five Free Newsletters I Subscribe To

Long ago I lost my faith in social media algorithms to surface meaningful things online. I increasingly find the most interesting and human-feeling reflections come from newsletters—so I wanted to share these five that continuously bring joy and thoughtful wisdom to my inbox:

1 // Not Boring from Packy M.

2 // The Institute of Belonging by Victoria S.

3 // The Flow + Wonder Letters by Conni B.

4 // Poetic Reflections by Casper TK

5 // The Museletter by Jason F.

🔗 Et Cetera

🤓 Operating systems for life

🧙‍♂️ Passive income for the soul

🤔 Auto-correct for negativity

🐦 Nature’s incredible gyroscope

💰 9 ways to smoke test new ideas

👐 Navigating this human moment

🗺️ From mental map to mental atlas

🔍 17 superb questions to negotiate reality

🐈 Every type of zoom call illustrated by cats

📱 My new favourite IG account: visualizevalue

🇸🇪 One solid reason to consider moving to Sweden

🧠 Why our moods are extrapolation engines (superb read)

🤜 Don’t question your purpose. Make your purpose a question.

📹 Thought-provoking perspective on wokeness + shaming in light of #BLM

❤️ Interested in forging a conscious partnership? Check out Carmen’s coaching

📝 Parting Poem

This one is called ‘How to Human’

If you can listen deeply, 

without merely waiting for your turn to speak.

If you can sit with the dying, 

holding space for their grief.

If you can sit and observe the nature of your thoughts, 

without needing to change them.

If you can hold a question loosely,

Not grasping for the easy answers.

If you can fall in love with a sandcastle,

Knowing that the tide is coming in.

If you can let go of everything you think you know, 

to make space for something new.

Then you'll be a human, my son.