Arcbound Update #8

A LETTER FROM THE FOUNDERS

We can learn a lot from transitions.

Last week we lost a world leader. Queen Elizabeth II, who reigned over the United Kingdom for 70 years, died on September 8, 2022. She’ll be succeeded by her son Charles, and while his coronation will be the first many of us have ever seen, it likely won’t be the last in our lifetime. The United Kingdom will make this transition again, even if King Charles III lives as long as his mother did.

With any transition—even the hard ones—comes the opportunity to grow. Grief allows us to remember, and to reflect. It pushes us to evolve, especially when it’s hard.

The Royal Family, for example, has a lot to learn from Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen was a beloved figure to many people in Britain and, as the first modern ruler, represented much about both the history of the monarchy, and its future. She also represented some of the uglier parts of the UK’s past and present, including colonization and enslavement. The new King has the opportunity to learn from the Queen’s treatment of countries in the commonwealth, and to move forward.

Think about the last time you were part of a transition. Maybe your boss or your favorite coworker left, and you had to learn how to function in a new environment. Maybe you moved from one location to another, and you had to find your place again. Or maybe someone you loved passed on and you’re still grieving that loss, trying to find your way in the world without them.

People come and go from our lives, often unexpectedly. While you have them with you, you can hold gratitude for their presence in your life. When they’re gone, you can keep a part of them by learning from what they taught you.

This week, think about the people who are no longer with you, no matter the reason.

What did they teach you? What can you do with those lessons?

The One Away Show

Skye Michiels: One Divorce Away From Helping Others

Skye Michiels is a recognized Motivational Speaker, Coach and Leader in the Real Estate industry. Fueled by a love of education and creating meaningful connections, Skye has helped thousands of Realtors develop the skills and strategies necessary to elevate their business. Currently, Skye is the National Head Of Agent Development at Compass where he is creating and teaching a national training curriculum across the country, and runs The 6AMERS, an achievement and accountability group.

In this episode, Skye and Bryan discuss:

• Taking care of ourselves first so that we can take care of others better

• Skye's divorce and how they ensured it was a healthy choice and process

• Meeting people halfway when we disagree to facilitate learning

PERSONAL BRANDING

Your arc is the path to reach your fullest potential. Helping you build yours means creating a robust brand architecture so that you can reach the right audience and rally people around your message.

A personal brand architecture is your blueprint—it includes a description of who you are, what makes you and your brand unique, who you’re serving, and how you’re serving them. Creating the brand architecture is a strategic process involving a set of generative conversations and surveys that results in a well-told story that can take you from where you are to where you want to go.

FEATURED ARC

Nanxi Liu: From Enplug to Blaze

In 2012, just three years after graduating from UC Berkley, Nanxi Liu co-founded Enplug, a rapidly-growing tech company that built the leading open software for managing and distributing content on digital displays. That same year she co-founded Nanoly Bioscience, a biotech company that has developed polymers that enable vaccines to survive without refrigeration.

After Enplug was acquired by Spectrio in 2021, Nanxi went on to co-found Blaze. Blaze is a software company that gives teams and leaders everything they need to create custom web applications and internal tools that supercharge your operations. Blaze has helped companies build everything from HIPAA compliant patient portals to custom CRMs to advertising and media spend tracking apps without having to know anything about coding.

Nanxi also serves on the board of several non-profits, including National Foster Youth Institute, After-School All-Stars, and Yes2Jobs. She also is a member of XFactor Ventures, a group of CEOs and founders that invest in extraordinary startups with woman founders. So far, XFactor Ventures has invested in 53 companies including Chief and one of the fastest-growing kitchenware companies, Our Place. 

Arcbound Spotlight

I Don't Belong Here: A Bi-Weekly Newsletter from Arcbound's Senior Content Writer & Developer, Sam Hedenberg

Every two weeks, writer Sam Hedenberg drops I Don't Belong Here into inboxes for a little laughter, a touch of snark, and a whole bunch of internet content. Sam describes I Don't Belong Here as " a fun place where I’ll share what I’ve been working on, the spicy snacks I’ve been eating, the misery of Philly sports, the things I’ve been reading, watching, and listening to, and all the best snarky memes and hot garbage the internet has to offer. Of course, there’ll be plenty of obligatory kid pics."

If you're looking for something to make your inbox a little less boring (and get you some new internet memes), subscribe at beehiiv today!

ARCBOUND HAPPENINGS

The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance by Rich Diviney

During his twenty years as a Navy officer and SEAL, Rich Diviney was intimately involved in a specialized SEAL selection process, which whittled a group of hundreds of extraordinary candidates down to a handful of the most elite performers.

Some could have all the right skills and still fail, while others he might have initially dismissed would prove to be top performers. The seemingly objective criteria weren’t telling him what he most needed to know: Who would succeed in one of the world’s toughest military assignments?

It is similarly hard to predict success in the real world. What Diviney knows now is that true optimal performance goes beyond just skill. It’s all about THE ATTRIBUTES.

Thinking about how to show gratitude to the people in your life?

​​Chris Schembra is the bestselling author of “Gratitude and Pasta: The Secret Sauce for Human Connection” and “Gratitude Through Hard Times.” Forbes ranks his book as the #2 book of 2020 to create Human Connection, USA Today calls him their “Gratitude Guru”, and he’s a Founding Member of Rolling Stone’s Culture Council.

Chris is the Founder of the 7:47 Gratitude Experience — an evidence-based framework used to strengthen client and team relationships in profound ways. He's used the principles of gratitude to spark over 500,000 relationships around the dinner table. Chris and his gratitude practices might be just what you need.

Thanks for letting us play a role in launching your arc.