Win a mentoring course worth £1000
A special competition, exclusively for paid subscribers.
As regulars will probably have noticed, I’ve ended up doing a lot of random stuff as part of my weird little career. I haven’t written a CV in about 30 years, but I did update my LinkedIn profile the other day. Here’s what it says:
“I am a writer, journalist, author, editor, podcaster, publisher and business owner who has been working in action sports media and communications since the mid-1990s.
In 1995, I had my first story published in Whitelines Snowboarding Magazine. In 1997, I joined the editorial team full time, eventually becoming Editor. At the same time, I established a career as a freelance journalist and columnist writing about action sports for everybody from the Times to Transworld Snowboarding.
In 2005, I co-founded marketing agency . Today we run strategic marketing communications campaigns for the best loved-brands in the outdoor, action sports and adventure travel industries, such as adidas, Arc’teryx, Brompton, Danner, Db, Finisterre, Gore-Tex, H&M and Yeti.
In 2017, I set up the Looking Sideways Action Sports podcast. Over 200 episodes later it is one of the most respected and popular action sports podcasts in the world, loved by hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners.
In 2019, I collaborated with Patagonia to launch the Type 2 podcast, through which I explored issues of activism in action sports and the outdoors. That show ran for 30 episodes.
In my spare time, I still work as a journalist and editor. I am a contributor to Wired, The Snowboard Journal, Pleasure, Huck, Metro, the Telegraph and Sidetracked; a columnist for Whitelines; and was Editor of independent snowboarding publication Curator for its brief run.
In 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, I was asked to be part of the five-person Selection Committee for Natural Selection, helping to choose the riders and shape one of the key events in snowboarding history. In Jan 2022, I was part of the broadcast commentary team in Jackson Hole.
In autumn 2021 and 2022, I was asked to be a member of the jury for the tenth anniversary edition of the London Surf Film Festival. In 2023, I was the official media partner.
In 2021-22, I was part of the cross-industry group that helped establish Opening Up The Outdoors, the initiative aiming to increase equity and diversity in the outdoor industry.
I'm currently working on a podcast documentary called The Announcement about Yvon Chouniard's decision to give away Patagonia, which is due for release in spring 2024.
I've basically always tried to tell interesting and honest stories about the cultures that have embellished my life for three decades now”.
What a mouthful, eh?
One thing I didn’t include on there - for the last few years, I’ve also been using this pretty niche range of experience to mentor people, something I really enjoy. Mentoring the people who work with me is a huge part of my role as one of the co-founders of All Conditions Media, for example.
Anyway, in the last year or so, I’ve also begun mentoring people a little more formally outside of that context, which is what really gave me the idea of this contest. Mainly because I get so many ‘Hey, can I pick your brains for a moment?’ emails and LinkedIn messages from people wanting to get into ‘the industry’ that it’s really the only way I can manage it.
Anyway, like I said in the survey post I sent out last week (above), the fact that there’s a growing community of paid subscribers out there who are actively supporting what I do - with their own cash! - has been one of the great joys of Looking Sideways over this last year.
With all that in mind, to say thanks to these legends I’m offering one paid subscriber the chance to win a mentoring course with me, worth £1000.
At the moment I’m only working with one mentee as I’m pretty close to the line with The Announcement. But it’s something I really enjoy, because it’s about helping people unlock their potential, explore ideas important to them, and generally imparting some of my experience to help them achieve whatever goals they have in mind. So I’m really looking forward to working with whoever ends up winning this one.
Here’s how to enter:
Be a paid subscriber. You use that big button below if necessary
Share a favourite recent episode or podcast, using the big old ‘Share’ button on every post. Do this five times and you get three months paid (worth 20 odd quid) added to your current subscription anyway, so it’s worth doing just for that.
Use the new DM function to message me with why you’re up for it, and what you’d like me to help with. And anything else you fancy messaging me.
Er, that’s it.
Feel free to leave a comment, or message me with any questions. I’ll keep this open for a few weeks, and choose a winner at the beginning of April.
Thanks in advance, and I look forward to hearing what people are up to 🤙
I am down! 9EUR a month vs. the 1000pounds of mentoring deal seems like a no brainer :)