Unconventionalist
What the ordinary world has taught me about becoming extraordinary
Note: this article is a bit about my life story until now (November of 2020). I hope you enjoy :)
I just got a bad grade on my chemistry test. I feel anxious, disappointed, and mad. But why? Having studied for less than one hour, and not feeling focused during the classes, why was I expecting a different result?
After reflecting a little bit, I discovered that I’m not angry because of the grade that I got. In fact, I feel angry because I feel angry. Let me explain…
Let’s get some context
September and October have signified a big change in my life. Waking up at 5 am every morning, investing more than 4 hours a day doing research and learning about exponential technologies, talking to people from around the world, and more unicorn-activities have been part of my new “unicorn lifestyle”.
Olympic-level Training
The Knowledge Society (TKS) is a 9-month human accelerator program that trains common high school students so we can solve the world’s biggest problems.
As you may have inferred already, I’ve entered this program. Wait, that doesn’t sound very legit. Let me rephrase…
I’ve become an innovator at TKS!
This is not your typical after-school program. It’s Olympic-level training to work with exponential technologies — like AI, nanotechnology, quantum computing, synthetic biology, BCIs, and more— have the right mindset, work in teams, reach out to experts, produce content, speak at conferences, and more!
So in order to develop these skills, you shouldn’t only think of TKS as a program, but as a lifestyle, which (obviously) you follow every day.
This means that unlike school, you should be thinking about how to implement what you learn at TKS in your everyday life. Being curious, and keeping in mind that done>perfect are some of the mindsets I’ve been working on as part of this new lifestyle.
What this has to do with my grade
Before anyone starts making any assumptions that could be very wrong, I want to mention that TKS has impacted me in a 100% positive way. You’ll find out why in a moment, keep on reading ;)
These 2 months have definitely been some of the most exciting ones that I’ve lived so far. Such so, that I’ve found it difficult to concentrate on other aspects of my life. You guessed it: school.
I don’t think that all of my classes are boring themselves. However, when comparing listening to lectures about business management, to actually working on starting up a business, I totally prefer putting things to practice.
This realization is not unique to my time as a TKS innovator. I’d already been thinking about school in this way for a long time. How what I do every day could positively or negatively impact my future.
I don’t know what the best way of explaining this is. What I really want to say is that the TKS community has shown me that there is more to high school students than just high school.
Life is a fairy tale
This whole year for me, there’s been a process behind this realization. Interestingly, it’s the process that heroes in movies normally go through. It’s called “The Monomyth”.
Even more interestingly, this is something that I was once taught at school. What the teacher never mentioned, is that “ordinary” teens like me, could also find themselves in this journey.
If you think about the diagram, this is the same story that we know from almost every movie. At first, the person is in their comfort zone, when suddenly they receive a calling. This sparks the person’s curiosity, but at the same time, it makes them scared.
The wonderful thing about these stories is that no matter how hard the person tries to avoid their calling, they end up taking it: they enter this sometimes fantastic world, in which almost everything is possible, but at the same time, nothing is for sure.
They need to fight against the evil, the tough, and the unknown. Fortunately, they’ll find a mentor along the way. A person who believes in them, coaches them, and pushes hard on them to prevent them from quitting.
After a series of challenges, they’ll have to pass the “proof of fire”: the toughest obstacle they’ve ever faced. They sometimes don’t think they’ll make it. However, they’re actually ready for it.
They’re ready for it because, at the end of that proof, they discover that the real most important battle, was against themselves. So then they realize how much they’ve grown, learned and discovered.
Time to return to their ordinary world and turn it into an extraordinary one by being themselves.
The Ordinary World
An idea that you might have indirectly heard from people who want to stop you. “In real life a 20-year-old kid can’t become a billionaire. In real life no one can make a living by following their passion. In real life you can dream about changing the world, except you can’t change it”.
Either you’re too young, too old, you don’t know enough, don’t have enough experience, you’re not smart or wealthy enough, or you were not born in the right place at the right time.
You watch an inspirational video of a unicorn influencer like Elon Musk who tells us that nothing is impossible if you work for it. You’ll spend the next 10 minutes confirming this idea. Other people will also talk about it, maybe without knowing what it really means but because it’s Elon, everyone agrees.
You’ll feel that desire to start something, you maybe even take that first tiny tiny, step. Guess what? One day later that same person who showed you the video will find a way to tell you that you can’t. That you’re moving too fast, or that you’re not ready.
Do you think that Mark Zuckerberg knew everything about social media before creating Facebook, when this concept didn’t even exist as we now know it?
Our society is either getting this idea wrong, or we’re not getting it at all. Expertise comes after experience! You can’t become a master at something that you haven’t even started with.
So when you want to change the world and somebody tells you that you can’t, they’ll be right. That version of yourself that wants to change the world probably hasn’t taken the smallest first step.
So when somebody says that you can’t change the world, just start.
Creating purpose
Beyond using this as a tool to write good stories, I believe that the monomyth is about human’s search for meaning, for purpose, for a quest.
As I left all the hype for Mark Zuckerberg and the IVY league school behind, I found that his “Commencement Address” is a great speech in which he talks about purpose, and how to create it.
Mark says that purpose is that feeling that you’re being part of something bigger than yourself.
The way I see this, is that things are no longer “me and my homework” or “me and Facebook”. In his case, for example, it would be something more like “I’m helping connect the world”.
You’re involving more people in this mission, in this purpose. This is why Mark suggests that our generation doesn’t only face the challenge of creating purpose for ourselves, but for potentially millions of people.
If the people you work with don’t share your mission, things may get complicated. Some may start doing their job only because of money, and when the time comes to make important decisions, they’ll choose short-term satisfaction over long-term fulfillment.
Growth is 3D
If you don’t know where you’re going, then any road will take you there
Knowing where you’re going is the first step to finding purpose. However, in my opinion, it doesn’t mean that you’ve already found one. It’s just a calling.
True. Some people don’t even know what they’re gonna do today or tomorrow. If you’ve already convinced what professional career you want to study, it doesn’t mean that you’re one step ahead.
From my perspective, growth is not like a line, it’s not like a road to follow as if you were in a marathon race. Growth is 3D. It’s like some never-ending stairs in which not even the sky is the limit.
Each time you level-up, you’ll have a better perspective of the world, and how you’ve grown. Since nothing is for free, every slope will come with much more complicated questions and challenges.
Steve Jobs didn’t “rest” when he became a billionaire, he just went some slopes higher. He started to face other kinds of challenges, and grow faster.
Sofi’s Calling
I’ve always been one of those crazy people who want to do something big. The problem is that I didn’t know how. I didn’t know who to ask, where to start or even what that big thing was going to be. I still don’t know.
Fortunately, I think I’ve received my first calling. It happened 2 years ago, which depending on your age and mindset, you’ll see either as a long or short time.
The story that I remember is that after watching a video on YouTube about CRISPR, I became totally obsessed with the topic, as well as convinced that it would be something that I’d like to do for the rest of my life.
Unfortunately, by this time in my life, I’d lost the vision of being a young entrepreneur, or scientist who changed the world.
Younger me
When I was in elementary school, we used to have this very little, but nice, science fair. When I was in 5th grade (11 years old), the goal was to create a prosthesis model.
As someone who really liked technology at that moment, and having a father who would support my ambitions, I decided to take the unconventional path. I wouldn’t design a prosthesis with play-dough as the other kids would. I would create a 3D-printed arm prosthesis!
Okay, so I didn’t know CAD at that time, nor was I willing to learn. However, what I did learn, was that there was this awesome cutting-edge technology that I could use in order to create anything! It blew my mind away
The project turned out pretty well, except that instead of being encouraged to continue innovating, the next year, I was called “too ambitious”. When it was time to participate in the next science fair, the 6th grade teacher would tell us that they didn’t want anyone to go that far and use 3D printing or anything alike. What kind of school is that?
After creating lots of 3D-printed stuff, everyone with a good sense of success would think that bigger things were about to come. Well, the complete opposite happened.
As I passed through middle school, teachers now wouldn’t even allow us to be creative in our science fair projects. We’d be assigned a specific speech, specific tasks and specific roles. Everything would look nice and neat, and nothing would turn out as “too much”.
TKS Mafia
So going back to my calling… when that moment arrived, the only thing I’d be willing to do, would be graduating from university, so I could finally be considered enough to change the world.
Then I met TKS. Actually, I first met Nina Khera: the 14-year-old longevity researcher. Apparently, algorithms was favoring me again. I was scrolling down Twitter when I found that David Sinclair, a Harvard scientist had tweeted a photo with Nina.
I was amazed. In my context, the simple fact of knowing about longevity as a 14-year-old would be considered “too ambitious”. Nina was already an innovator.
We talked, I watched one of her interviews, and after wondering what the “secret” was, I discovered she was part of TKS: a human-accelerator for teenagers who were killing it!
What?! There are more people like Nina? More people who want to change the world and aren’t criticized for that? I must be part of this community, I thought.
Then I discover they’re only located in the US and Canada (I live in Mexico). I write them an email asking if they have some sort of online program, or if they could somehow expand to Mexico too.
Since that wasn’t a possibility in 2019, I thought: I can either wait until a miracle happens, or I can start creating my own path.
So I started doing video calls with lots of TKS students who I found on Twitter and LinkedIn, I learned about their frameworks, mindsets and projects. I discovered that there was no secret. They were the same teenagers, with the same ambition, only they were doing something about it NOW.
High school
Entering high school was another change that I had to face, but I now had a bigger sense of purpose. My first goal was to learn the basics, learn all that I could about biology, biotech and longevity. I did.
Then I also kept asking the right questions to the wrong people. What I learned from that, is that there were some questions that not even the smartest or most experienced people have answered, that my best teacher was Google, and that school doesn’t teach you how to learn.
When I thought I’d learned enough, and the summer of 2020 was close, I decided to make the most out of that time: 3 months to do whatever I want! To date, I can say those have been the most productive months I’ve ever had.
I worked on 3 research proposals, which according to some experts I’ve talked to, are thought at a PhD level. I learned how to code in HTML, CSS, and a bit of Python. I met pitched my ideas to people like Tony Kulesa, co-founder of the Petri incubator. I started a podcast, got to top 40 in a global startup competition, and wrote articles!
The Journey
Success becomes a possibility when you take a shot at it
Now I’m starting my journey at TKS, after 2 years of ignoring my calling. The positive side is that I know that success isn’t even near, but it’s become a possibility since I took that tiny, tiny step.
I don’t want this to seem like the education system destroyed my passion. It would be stupid to blame others for what I did or didn’t do. I’ve learned that when you’re not given the tools, you have to create them.
I’ve learned that the path can only be created as you go through it, and that it doesn’t matter how much time you have, but what you do with your time; that school isn’t everything, let alone the real world. I’ve learned that
life isn’t short. You just gotta do more!
Hey! I’m Sofi, a 16-year-old girl who’s extremely passionate about biotech, human longevity, and innovation itself 🦄. I’m learning a lot about exponential technologies to start a company that impacts the world positively 🚀. I love writing articles about scientific innovations to show you the amazing future that awaits us!
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