I’d like to devote my career to serving the world and its inhabitants. Currently working to reduce the suffering of farmed animals. I’m interested in many EA topics in general and always happy to connect to like-minded and non-like minded individuals ;)
SofiaBalderson
Karma: 1,437
The Toughest Career Decisions I Made—and the Tools That Helped
I’d like to write:
A post about making difficult career decisions with examples of how I made my own decisions and some tools I used to make them, and how they worked out. I have it roughly written but would definitely need feedback from you Toby before I post :))
A post about mental health: why I’m focusing on it this year, why I think more people in EA should focus on it and what exactly I’m doing, what’s working etc. Haven’t written it yet, but a lot of people are asking about it so I do think there is potential value.
Resources for Farmed Animal Advocacy: 2024 Roundup
Thanks a lot for sharing your progress and what you’ve learned. Very inspiring to read about your updates team, and congrats on finding volunteers!
Reflecting on Hive’s 2024: What Worked and What Didn’t in Our Community Building Efforts
Thanks Zach, I didn’t go to the conference so it’s great to read this update on the high-level thinking, opportunities and direction. Inspiring!
Thanks Richie for reading and your comment! I do agree with you—I think it’s worth testing what you can do and how it feels for you personally, especially if the opportunity cost isn’t very high, and if your role allows it. I’m glad I tested the “conference me” with back to back meetings all three days, because I know that while useful, it isn’t sustainable for me and my role at this time. I think I benefitted a lot from it, but with the number of conferences I go to now I probably can’t do it :)
How to enjoy a conference without burning out
Thank you Sarah, and we appreciate yours and your team’s work too :)
Thanks for sharing and glad you feel better! I had a very similar experience recently. I also agree that the right therapist can make a big difference. My coaching was with Overcome. https://www.overcome.org.uk/ I don’t have depression but I had pretty severe anxiety. Interestingly I also had spirals but with consistent help they are gone and it is easier and easier to deal with setbacks, which for a leadership role was big game changer. What I found most useful about my new coach is not any specific techniques they used (it was a mix of ACT and CBT which work really well on me) but the fact that they had experience and understanding of what my role is like (charity founder) and what it’s like to be an EA trying to make an impact. Also my coach has a similar cultural background to me which was a cherry on the top!
I’m voting for charities that have the biggest room for funding considering the impact the want to make. I am also prioritising meta charities, because they are less likely to receive votes due to most people supporting direct work, while meta charities are important for us to grow as a community.
I’m one of the founders on those stats and Overcome has been essential to my mental health this year. We had a lot of changes this year and I had to learn a lot, which was tough at times. As a result of my sessions with Overcome I’m thriving even though I’m increasingly doing much more challenging work, my charity is doing very well and I do think a lot can be attributed to Overcome’s support. I think their services should be accessible to the whole EA and adjacent community. I was so happy with my sessions we promoted it to whole Hive community and over 100 farmed animal advocates signed up, which says something. Mental health is the foundation of impactful work! Thank you John and the team!!!
Hive: 2024 Achievements, Current Funding Situation, and Plans
Really interesting post Lizka—thanks a lot for writing and your reflections! I found the criticism parts quite useful. The reaction from Ben about your mistake is so wholesome—it’s definitely the kind of manager I aim to be! Running a community myself I found moderation surprisingly hard too. It seems very minor but the actual emotional experience of moderation turned out to be much bigger than I thought it would be. It can take days to resolve and comes out of nowhere—a very online community specific experience. Definitely can relate! Thanks for all your hard work on the Forum and good luck with your next role!
Thanks so much for organising and very much looking forward! Shared with our whole community :)
You are right, Dean! Thanks a lot for your comment and for reading. I think this is a very valuable perspective that folks should consider.
In hindsight, I would have had more money if I invested it into the stock market rather than just saving it. That’s probably one more mistake I’ve made as an early professional, haha!
I’m quite risk averse when it comes to money and investing, so this played into it, but also I was told that if there is a chance I may need this money in the next 5-10 years, the gains from investing are less likely to outperform the highest interest instant accounts (but they still can, just less likely due to the possibility of a crash when you may need to withdraw the money). Since I was unsure how long I could live with my parents, I concluded investing wasn’t for me yet.
Say, if I wanted to buy a house in 2022, I would have found it gutting to have lost some money. But had I invested say, back in 2018, and kept investing until 2024, I would have had more money (which we know now but I didn’t before). I still feel like with what I knew then I was a good decision, because I slept a lot better than I think I would have if my money was in stocks.
On balance, you’re right that stock market wins over, especially if you are more likely not to need this money in the next 5-10 years and can emotionally withstands the ups and downs which I couldn’t when I was younger.
Related to this topic, I found this like for like video of buying a home vs renting quite helpful (it also includes investing as part of the comparison).
What I wish I knew when I started out in animal advocacy
Thanks for writing this Alex, I enjoyed reading it!
I can relate to the experience of precarious funding situation. It’s definitely something to get used to, and the actual experience can vary a lot.
I think my role is somewhat similar but in the online environment. I have definitely enjoyed the variety of the role a lot and a chance to do more high level work like strategy, which seems like it’s been your experience too!
Thanks a lot for your feedback Bojan!
This was actually the intention because one of our flagship programs is our Slack space with over 2000+ advocates where messaging is the main feature. We are largely an online community, so we wanted the logo to reflect that :)
I really like this post! Thank you for writing it. I think people will benefit from more direction of what is best to do a the conference. Personally I have benefitted from reading about how to give feedback gentler and in a non-pushy way, as I found that I increasingly give more feedback at conferences as I get more experience.
I also appreciated that you mentioned not being too tired as something that can be useful to other attendees. I have noticed that people often underestimate just how tired they can get as back to back 1:1s aren’t people’s normal operation mode (this includes me too!) and it can become harder to have a conversion with them, sometimes only because they look tired and you are wondering whether they are tired or just uninterested :) Each conference I make more and more effort to make sure I am well-rest or at most a little tired during meetings.
I recently write a short post about how not to burn out at conferences and I mentioned it there https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WFRT47F5JFLJ76xud/how-to-enjoy-a-conference-without-burning-out