Wellness Guide v2.0, AI Slide Decks, The Art of Peer Coaching + More

Hey ya’ll — got 5 new tools/practices this week I’ve been implementing. Excited to share these.

This week at a glance:

• 🦾 Wellness Guide v2 (Redesigned + reorganized)

• 🔨 Tool: Gamma AI Slide Decks

• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Practice: The Practice of Peer Coaching

• 📱 App: The Way

• 🔧 Tool: Shakti Accupressure Mat for Sleep

5 MINUTE READ

Send input? My goal to make this newsletter as useful as I possibly can. Reply to this email with any & all feedback — I take it to heart.

🦾 Wellness Guide v2

This past month I hired a Notion designer to revamp the Wellness Guide for Founders + Creators. Really excited about it, it’s way better than the v1 I whipped together.

v2 is updated with new content, a much better design, navigation system, a page with protocols & tools that can be filtered for the desired use.

To access v2, I’m just asking that you refer 1 friend to the newsletter that you think would find it useful by hitting the link below.

They’ll get access to v2 of the guide when they subscribe too.

I put a lot of energy & love into this newsletter and I love doing it — if it’s been useful for you, referring a friend to subscribe is the most helpful way to support.

Hit the link below to share + get access to the guide.

💻 Gamma AI Slide Decks

Gamma is an AI-driven platform designed to simplify the creation of visually appealing presentations, docs, and website designs.

This is the best AI slide deck software I’ve seen — it creates outlines & designs in a breeze from your text prompts, allows for interactive elements, and even writes content within the platform.

With website design - even as just a starting point or to generate layout ideas, it’s quite useful.

I’ve been really interested in the AI web design space as website design is still a pretty decent startup cost to do correctly when testing/launching a new product.

This deck about the CRM platform Folk is a cool example of what the software can do.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 The Practice of Peer Coaching

Dan Shipper and Casey Rosengren at Every wrote a great essay detailing their ongoing practice of Peer Coaching. Key takeaways below:

• Peer coaching is a structured practice where you meet regularly with someone — likely a friend — to support each other’s personal & professional growth

• 3 benefits of peer coaching: accountability, tactical advice, and a safe space to process thoughts and emotions (a space to feel seen, listened to, and understood)

• Entrepreneurs & operators in particular stand to benefit by connecting with people facing similar challenges

• Finding the right partner

  • Someone you respect

  • Someone with similar life experience (ie another founder) OR someone who’s in a different realm entirely that you respect and may provide a fresh outside perspectve

  • Someone who’s a good listener (test this out by asking a potential partner for advice or emotional support on a topic initially — this also gives you an opportunity to give them feedback and see how it’s received)

  • Someone who’s committed to a regular schedule

• Choose a ‘focus person’ — the person being coached for each session

The above points are the high level basics.

If you decide to do this, the rest of the essay dives deeper into the art of doing this well — how to ask open questions, asking permission on sensitive topics, how to approach accountability, integrating feedback, and more.

If you’re interested in finding someone to do this with, reply to this email letting me know a bit about you and what you’re up to — if there’s enough interest, may create a notion doc for people to organically reach out to find a peer coaching buddy.

🧘🏽 App: The Way

I recently have gotten back into a consistent seated meditation practice after a couple years prioritizing other practices.

I randomly listened to Henry Shukman on Tim Ferriss’ podcast a couple years ago and really resonated with his approach and energy, and ended up doing some of his meditations on the Waking Up app.

He’s a Zen master, poet, and writer (author of the zen memoir “One Blade of Grass”)

I’ve been beta testing his new app The Way for the past month, and it’s just gone live on the app store.

It’s a unique approach — there’s only one path to choose, rather than dozens of meditations to pick from.

It’s a methodical step-by-step journey to Awakening that layers upon previous learnings.

It feels akin to the app version of formal meditation training on a specific linear path. It feels slightly more ancient, like you’re training in a lineage.

It starts with the fundamentals of mindfulness (always beneficial to revisit) and works its way up to nondual awareness.

I still prefer unguided meditations, but there’s something about continuing on a path in an app, that motivates me to do a second afternoon meditation with the app. And, I’ve been integrating the techniques into my unguided practice.

He’s a gentle, insightful teacher — been loving it.

🔧 Tool: Shakti Accupressure Mat

I recently got a Shakti Accupressure Mat & am loving it.

I had an accupressure mat from Bulletproof for many years, but lost it a few months ago while traveling. The Shakti Mat is a lot better built and honestly, more intense.

I have a pretty decent tolerance for discomfort and the first few minutes are still pretty uncomfortable.

But the benefits are undeniable for me — releasing tension in the body (after the first few minutes it hurts so good), and most importantly for sleep. I use it for 15-20 min while reading before going to sleep.

Accupressure mats essentially aim to simulate the principles of acupuncture without piercing the skin.

The design features spikes that exert gentle yet firm pressure across the back. It’s theorized the spikes activate sensory neurons beneath the skin, and balance Qi in the body.

That’s a wrap for this week! As always, hope this stuff is helpful. Let me know any feedback by replying to this email.

- Ali