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H2B2 State of the year Q2 2024

Hey, it’s Nathan.

Today I’m publishing the 2nd Quarterly update for the year.

What’s Q3 going to bring, and how did we get here?

In Q3, the focus is “Promote and Polish”, where we’ll be attempting to invest energy into improving the processes for everything we’ve built so far along the “Second’s Journey”, doing more to promote the Movement of “Secondness” and the value of the identity into the world, and creating an opportunity for Seconds to invest in their next career move.

Which raises a couple questions, like “What do you mean by Movement?”, “What is this Journey of Secondness?”, and what’s this “Opportunity” you’re talking about?

That’s what I’ll be unpacking here.

Looking forward to continuing to have you along for the ride, and excited about whatever energy you choose to invest into the flywheel to help the movement continue forward.

A Movement, and why I think these updates are important

I was challenged by one of my coaches recently (Bill Tibbets – thank you sir) to admit that what we’re doing here is a movement, and to start saying that.

So recently I’ve been practicing explaining H2B2 like this: 

How to be Second is a Movement that Supports and Champions Seconds, which are people with a specific identity, to own for themselves who they are and how that’s valuable.

Because Seconds care about the How, we’ve developed a For Profit organization guided by the question “What is good for Seconds?” which allows us to connect Seconds who want to take their next step to resources and tools – mostly to others, and some things H2B2 provides.

And that’s why I think providing these updates is important – I tell you and the rest of the Second community about where H2B2 is because it’s not just a little company started by me – it’s a movement, within which is a little company that helps power it.

So when you see updates like “We have a board” or “We got so many emails sent”, you can basically read that as “This is how much H2B2 was able to invest into the movement that is telling the world that YOU, SPECIFICALLY, are awesome.”

I sometimes think about H2B2 as the personal marketing and development agency of the Second community… yeah, that’s probably silly, but I think it’s fun.

And frankly, as the First in Command of How to be Second (still feels weird) I’m holding myself accountable in public to the community.

Cause part of what is good for Seconds is knowing the plan.

The Second’s Journey and what we’re building

This quarter was A LOT. I talked a lot, launched a lot, operated a lot, and walked a lot.

(Seriously, over 1M steps. Ditch the Zoom and get on the Phone ya’ll #ElderMillennial)

A bunch of things are in place now, AND… this has all been basically the first step in supporting The Second’s Journey.

What’s “The Second’s Journey”?

  • Being a Second (by Identity) but not knowing about the identity
  • The Realization Moment: Learning about the identity of Secondness
  • Self Discovery – “Am I a “Second?” and “Which one?”
  • Owning your value for yourself
  • Finding Community (and ‘sanity’)
  • Personal Development
  • Looking for roles calling for a Second
  • Professional Development when you’re a Second by identity
  • Learning about the “Second in Command” role specifically

This is something I’ve outlined as I’ve considered the journey that so many people have gone on, including myself, along the journey of life, not just career.

It’s certainly not a LINEAR path or a checklist. I think I’m living in a bunch of these at the same time, most of the time. A lot of people are having their “Realization Moment” when they’re already in a “Second in Command” type role, and they’re trying to figure out more about how they operate within that.

Along The Second’s Journey, the pieces that we’re supporting right now are really “The realization moment” and “Finding Community and Sanity”. 

Posting on LinkedIn, the weekly Emails, the Monthly Meetups, are all ways that someone who is sorting through this can consistently get something to let them know they’re not crazy, not alone, and that things are still happening. (aka it’s not a dead website from 10 years ago, lol)

Being always guided by the question, “What is good for Seconds?”, it’s also been important that sanity and community were/are never locked behind a subscription paywall, which is why meetups, emails, etc are all free, community based things we do together.

The introduction of the Broad Workshops have been a way to give some opportunity to invest in owning your own value (which is really the next step of the Second’s Journey) and also investing dollars into what’s being done at H2B2.

And now we’re almost ready to launch Matchmaking to support the “looking for a role calling for a Second” portion. (Actually, spoiler alert, we’ve been performing the Matchmaking service for our first two “Beta test” clients already over the last couple months. So far feedback is very good on both sides – the First in Commands AND the Seconds we’ve spoken with.)

Along the way, we’ve also been working with other people to develop other tools or resources – because it wouldn’t be good for Seconds if their only options were to buy stuff from H2B2. 

So we’ve mentioned resources like the COO Alliance, Female Executive Mast(her)mind, Rocketfuel, Phil Taylor for Executive Pastors, Vision Spark Search.

As I mentioned in the beginning, I expect to continue down this road of developing resources for Seconds along their journey. Sometimes links, sometimes products, whatever. Always with “What is good for Seconds?” in mind.

In Q3, the focus is “Promote and Polish”, where we’ll be attempting to invest energy into improving the processes for everything we’ve built so far, and doing more to promote “Secondness” and the value of it into the world.

Looking forward to continuing to have you along for the ride, and excited about whatever energy you choose to invest into the flywheel.

Stats for the Quarter

I set out some ambitious targets for the year, and honestly, I’m pretty excited about what’s done so far – because this is the EXECUTION that moves all the IDEAS forward.

  • Q2 Emails – 12/13 (25 of 26)
  • Q2 Meetups – 3/3 (6 of 6)
  • Q2 LNKD Posts – 60/70 (115 of 140)
  • Q2 BROAD Workshop – Done (2 of 2)

Yearly – Board of Advisors Started and Meeting Monthly (5 of 8 Members)

Yearly – Matchmaking work started (And 2 Beta Test Clients)

Yearly – 4 public speaking appearances (3 done, 2 Published, 1 more booked)

Yearly – Continue facilitating HEA Group (On Track)

Finding a Job as a Second

At any point, you may find yourself in need of new work. If you do, here are some tactical resources to get you accelerated in doing that.