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We don't talk about Fax Club

Fax Club 2.0

I’m just back from a day in London meeting a group of 40 people for the first time.
On top of that - I didn't even know any of their names, just their numbers.

For the past 12 months we’ve been part of an experiment called Fax Club.

This was the 2nd Fax Club to run and after missing out on the first one - I decided I had capacity and the curiosity to give it a go.

Fax Club rules:

  1. Need to be able to receive weekly faxes 
  2. You have to remain anonymous known only by your number
  3. Answers needed to be posted weekly (miss 3 and you’re out)
  4. 100 people max
  5. Don’t talk about Fax Club

It’s this kind of counter intuitive thinking that attracted me to it in the first place. 

  • Doing something that you’re encouraged *not* to talk about. 
  • Having to participate each week. 
  • The freedom to remain anonymous. 
  • Meeting with a bunch of people that you have no idea who they are.

Good questions are at the heart of the pursuit of truth

Uploaded image
One of our weekly questions

When I was at university I thought the point of life was to get clear positions on the big life issues. 

I thought that having strong and clear opinions would create an identity that would help me make decisions and stand out. 

In some respects that is true.  

But as I got older I realised that our strong positions cause us to separate the world into people like us and people not like us.  

Being able to hold complex questions, realising there aren’t always easy answers, and giving yourself permission to change your opinion in the future means that rather than entrenching yourself in a world view, you can engage with others with curiosity. 

Questions cause you to have to reflect deeply on why you think a certain way. 

You may have some initial thoughts - but on reflection you realise there are more important insights you’d forgotten about. 

Lessons learned from Fax Club

  1.  Having a deadline helps me write. I need one to help me get over the thinking that my thinking isn’t clear enough to publish. 
  2.  Putting in the reps is what helps.  My writing got better as I went on.  
  3.  It’s OK not to have all the answers.  Sometimes that is reassuring to others that they don’t have to have them either. 
  4.  Thinking in a group brings new perspectives - thinking in a vacuum isn’t always the best.  
  5.  It’s easy to consume content on socials, it’s much harder to create. 
  6.  Many people start things and don’t finish.  The drop out rate for groups is high.  Use that as fuel. 
  7.  I’m always surprised by the quality of people when I have time to get to know them. 

Counter Intuitive Thinking

The one stand out ethos of Fax Club was the commitment to counter-intuitive thinking.  By committing to thinking about things from a less obvious angle - it brings opportunities.  It’s counter intuitive to put barriers in the way of joining an initiative - but it gets you a group of people that are willing to do hard things. 

In the spirit of fax club - let me leave you with another question. 

What’s one counter intuitive thing you’ve done recently that has brought positive results in your life? 

ps here’s a link to the book that came out of the first fax club.