A Newsletter Exploring Self-Sovereignty

This past week marked the 2nd anniversary of The Sovereign Individual Weekly newsletter and it's got me thinking about my journey over the past two years.

A Little Backstory - TSI Weekly

When I started writing online in early 2019, I focused a lot of my work on technology topics related to the digital transformation. Topics like the implications of 5G, extended reality, the metaverse, and even a little bit about the psychological impact of rapid changes in technology. In my mind at the time, writing was a good way for me to explore industries that I might eventually want to work in.

But in early 2020, as Covid spread from China to Italy, my writing shifted to focus on a single question: how would Covid accelerate the digital transformation?

I was fascinated by how the "frontier" topics I'd written about were suddenly taking center stage.

The threat of lockdowns made virtual connectivity relevant, it made concepts like the metaverse less alien, and it raised questions about the psychological impacts of spending more time making connections online vs in person. As I explored the social impact of Covid on technology adoption, I uncovered more questions about where the world was heading. For example, why don't people consider the collective impact that technology trends have on each other and society?

Then, not long after Covid began, I read The Sovereign Individual and something clicked.

Reading that book helped organize my beliefs. It gave me a framework to view the world. And it helped me see that a new society-level narrative was emerging. A narrative that showcased how new technologies are working together to force change in how we live, work, and form relationships.

The Sovereign Individual helped me understand that many of the transformations I had written about were connected and working together to change the world.

As I reflected on the book and the 25 years since its publication, I realized that no one was tracking the progress from where the book left off.

You'd read a book like The Sovereign Individual, and say to yourself, "Wow the authors were right about a lot of these things". You'd do a Google search and see a bunch of "summary" posts about the book but not much else, and then you'd move on without establishing any serious context about where society is now and where we're heading. There was no ongoing thread showing how current events work together to push forward the digital transformation.

So I launched The Sovereign Individual Weekly newsletter. It was a way for me to map current events related to the digital transformation and gauge how they aligned with the forecasts in The Sovereign Individual.

Mostly, it started as a curiosity. I wanted to better understand how the world was changing and how those changes would impact how we live, work, and form relationships moving forward. I figured, if I was curious, others would be as well.

Now I'm 2 years into this adventure and it's become easier for me to see the general direction that society is heading in. I've found a rhythm and cadence to how technologies of our times are influencing people, companies, and governments.

Newsletter topics have settled on some key and recurring themes like remote work, competitive governance, location arbitrage, the formation of a new social class structure, and the financial and social implications of these changes.

As I've gone deeper down the "rabbit hole", the lines that separate society's old structure from the new structure forming has become more clear. And so I'd say that the past two years have provided an important, level-setting context for where we are as a society today. And it's established clear guidelines for where we're heading over the next 5 to 10 years.

That's a solid foundation for the newsletter and creates an opportunity to continue to head deeper down the rabbit hole of the digital transformation. But most importantly, it has emphasized the importance of understanding self-sovereignty and the role it will play moving forward into the depths of the digital age.

Some Changes To How I Approach The Newsletter

My instinct is telling me that now is the right time to take the newsletter through another iteration.

Why the change?

Because I want to push the newsletter to the next level and need to take some new risks to get it there. The two-year anniversary is as good a time as any to jump into the deep end.

I want to explore the frontier of self-sovereignty where current ideas, technologies, policies, and people combine in a cauldron of new possibilities. That means exploring firsthand more of the self-sovereign lifestyles made possible by the digital transformation.

I'll continue to map how current events and technological developments impact the digital age and self-sovereignty.

But I'll now also include a deeper exploration of the choices you can make now and in the near future to design a unique life for yourself according to the new rules and norms of the digital age.

The goal is to provide a more meaningful resource to help you make better choices in pursuit of self-sovereignty.

The Technical Changes

For starters, I've shifted to a new email distribution service provider (Beehive).

It will help me add a multimedia approach and convert all "emails" into "blogposts". This improves shareability and will help capture the ongoing narrative. For example, moving forward, I'll link back to previous emails to show the ongoing story of how current events fit together to drive society-wide change.

The point is to more clearly show how the slow-moving flow of current events work together to build the digital transformation over time.

I'll also be adding images (especially memes), charts, videos, gifs, and tweets to make the newsletter more aligned with modern media consumption.

And I'll weave native polling into the newsletter as a way to align content with evolving reader preferences.

Beyond The Technical Changes

The deeper changes will include more firsthand accounts exploring the digital transformation and its impact on personal sovereignty.

I'm going to insert myself into the digital frontier, experimenting with the variety of lifestyles that have become available in the digital age.

That will mean exploring the range of choices available to a person in pursuit of personal sovereignty.

Core topics will continue to include money, technology, freedom of choice, lifestyle design, & personal development as they relate to the digital transformation, self-sovereignty, and the changes to society from the late Industrial Age to the Digital Age.

Active Learning

This marks a shift to a more active learning framework.

It means lots more personal experimentation on how to use digital technologies and best practices to design a life with limited outside influences. My goal is to become more intimately aware of the problems, solutions, and fears associated with the variety of digital lifestyles.

And I'll distill those lessons into content and share them on this platform throughout the journey.

For example, I'll explore:

• how the expansion of remote work impacts a person's ability to pursue a digital nomad or a slowmad lifestyle.

• What impact does earning multiple digital incomes, working in asynchronous teams across timezones, building relationships online, and then transitioning them to in-person have on self-sovereignty?

• How do each lifestyle, workstyle, and income format impact the choices we can make?

• More importantly, how do the answers to these questions relate to the themes of digital transformation now vs where the world is heading in the near future?

Monetizing With A Paid Tier & Ads

The beginning of this new chapter for the newsletter and journey into the digital frontier includes upgrading the newsletter, monetizing it, and adding an additional paid tier.

That means the free newsletter will now have limited ads and promos with relevant products/services. You can expect these ads will align with reader interests.

The paywalled content will include:

• essays on the lessons learned as I experiment with digital lifestyles in pursuit of varying degrees of self-sovereignty

• quarterly narrative summaries covering TSI Weekly's big takeaways by quarter & forecasting what comes next

• "info products" including the book I'll be publishing this Christmas)

• research reports on trends I'm investing in at the intersection of the digital transformation and personal sovereignty

TL:DR

I'm taking the newsletter through a series of changes. My goals are to be more personal, more visual, and more hands-on.

The new version of The Sovereign Individual Weekly will continue to be free. It will focus on mapping current events to the digital transformation & personal sovereignty narrative.

You can now also buy access to paid content with designed to help you make better decisions in pursuit of self-sovereignty. It's a subscription geared toward people interested in embracing digital age lifestyles and how to live a more self-sovereign life.

Thanks for reading and being a part of this journey. It's so much fun to share what I learn about the world with you and I'm excited to find new and interesting ways to help you navigate the changing world.