Changing Things Up | Ahnaaf's 19th Update
2 weeks full of change feels great once life has been stale for far too long.
Welcome to my 19th Update
Did I forget what month it was on my last update? Yes. Did anyone notice? Hopefully not. How the hell did I forget what month it was…. I’m getting old I guess.
If you're new to my update, welcome!
I'm a 16 y/o web2 + web3 + neurotech developer currently trying to build the future of neurotech R&D funding with NeuraDAO + Bring electricity to 10,000 Liberians.
Changing Things Up
These weeks were all about change. I was switching up my routines, building new ones, and iterating on old ones. Going into the summer, I want to make sure that I can maximize the fun that I’m gonna have as well as work on something meaningful before I hit Grade 12.
Having an effective routine that makes me feel great throughout the day is (in my opinion) the best way to build a great week, month, and year.
Rundown of the past two weeks:
Final session of TKS Activate
Revamping my days + planning my weekly learning
Building Brands
Commencement Speech?
This past week was the final session for TKS Activate. For those who don’t know, it’s a 2-year human accelerator where I built a lot of relationships with mentors, and friends, and learned a lot of lessons.
The final session marked the end of an era that was one of the highest growth parts of my life so far. I highly doubt I would be writing these words to you if TKS wasn’t in my life. Not going to lie, I have no clue what I would be doing right now if I wasn’t in TKS.
I owe TKS a lot, and graduating from TKS felt bittersweet like I’m biking without training wheels. It’s great having the independence, but now there’s nothing to catch you if you screw up.
I’m sure I’ll be fine, in fact, I’m pretty excited. I wonder how my life will change now that I’m done TKS. That’s what these updates are for though, right?
To celebrate the end of TKS, here’s a story of Michael (our TKS director) when he came to Toronto.
The Osmow’s Specialist.
In April, TKS had a director retreat in Toronto, where the directors from TKS (basically our mentors) would get together in person to “jam out,” about the future of TKS. Michael, who was our director ended up staying a couple of extra days so that he could do our session in person.
This was a treat for all of the Toronto Activates as Activate is a virtual program. Most of us had actually never seen Michael in person until today. He’s a great dude, and one of the best thinkers I know.
We did the session in person and it was great. We talked about human trafficking (not so great) and did a case study on Patagonia’s run-ins with labour trafficking.
Afterwards, we had some time and decided to just get some food afterwards and have dinner together. Whenever we’re in downtown Toronto, my go-to place is Osmow’s, which is a Mediterranean-Canadian chain. So I asked the group, “You guys wanna go to Osmow’s?” To which everyone responded with dismay, “Bro… we always get Osmow’s, let’s get something else.”
We went to Osmow’s. On our way to Osmow’s, we realized that we needed to call in our order as there are a lot of us. Enter me: the Osmow’s specialist.
Time was of the essence, there was no way we were all going to sit in line and order one by one… Nobody had time for that. That’s why, me, the Osmow’s specialist, talked to everyone one by one taking their order to phone it in.
You might be visualizing us all sitting down and talking, and me running around with a notepad and jotting down everyone’s order. You would be wrong.
Instead, we were already walking to Osmow’s, so I had to walk to people and ask them for their order on the fly! However, most people didn’t know what they wanted to order.
This wouldn’t be an issue normally, as usually there’s a menu and people can pick what they liked. But as we were walking to Osmow’s, there was no menu that people could look at… other than me, the Osmow’s Specialist.
I created a line of questioning which worked like a mental flow chart that would likely get people food that they probably liked. It went something like this:
Do you want a wrap or platter?
Are you vegetarian or would you like chicken?
Do you like spice or no?
Depending on their answers it was clear what they should get. If they wanted a platter, chicken, and spice → They should get a “Chicken on the Rocks” with 3 lines of Hot Sauce.
It’s really just plug and play between Shawarma vs On the Rocks, Chicken vs. Falafel, and 3 lines vs 1 line of hot sauce.
Once I had my framework built out I went around and started to memorize their orders as I have a pretty good memory; especially regarding food. I collected all the orders and phoned them in.
As we were waiting for the orders, I was straight up stressing out because I might’ve forgotten an order and I wasn’t sure. Michael heard me talking about it and asked me “what would you do if that happened?” I said, “I have no clue, hopefully, it doesn't.”
We got the food and started to head back to WeWorks (where the session was hosted) where we started to open up the orders.
Guess what… I fucked up an order.
I forgot the order for Kevin Liu. If you don’t know him, he’s the teddiest bear of all and just such a kind soul. Screwing up his order has to be in my top 10 biggest sad mistakes ever.
In a panic I start to call Osmow’s to order something else, but Michael stops me. In an incredibly thoughtful moment he told me: “Hey, just take 10% of everyone’s food and give it to Kevin. Call it ‘the Ahnaaf tax,’ and have people volunteer.”
Best. Idea. Ever.
It worked instantly, instead of having to wait another 20 minutes to get Kevin food, he got it in 20 seconds.
Nobody had to stress, and instead we had a great conversation. Michael asked the question: “If you were a dictator of your own country for a day, what would you do?”
What ensued was an intriguing conversation about politics, ideal policy, energy, education, and dictatorship. Everyone forgot about my mishap.
I learned a couple of things that day. One, you can save yourself when you’ve screwed up. Two, your worst-case scenario isn’t that bad, you can usually figure it out.
Building My Ideal Day
Recently, I’ve felt the days and weeks fly by me. Everything is happening to me, not by me. Proof of this is when I completely forgot what month it was in my last newsletter.
I hopped on call with Brandon (a director from TKS), and we started talking about ideal days. It made sense, years are made of months, months are made of weeks, weeks are made of days, and days are made of your choices.
In other words, control your choices throughout the day, you control your future self. Simple stuff in theory, putting it into the world where everything is so ambiguous is a different story.
We first started off with Brandon’s day which he’s optimized over 20 years (he’s pretty old lol).
He wakes up at around 5am, and goes for a 4 hour cardio-intensive workout (he recently qualified for world finals in ironman for the half triathlon)
Then he eats something small like a snack
Then a large cup of coffee
Then he works until 6pm(ish)
Then he eats a crazy amount of food (approximately 5000-8000 calories?!?)
Then he sleeps around 9 to do it all again.
His routine is crazy, and I would never follow it. However, there were some principles that I found important to implement into my day. Namely the workout + cardio as well as the coffee before starting the workday.
Brandon’s advice was to do some cardio in the gym and raise my BPM so that I feel amped when I’m actually working.
The Result
I’m currently on day 6 of the routine and it feels great.
I wake up around 7:00 and start the day with my daily plan
I finish school around 11AM (If I go on break with my friends then I end at 12PM) and I eat lunch
I do some work at Starbucks till 2:30pm
I then go to the gym till about 3:30pm
Then come home, shower, and work till about 7:30pm
Dinner is around 7:45pm
I relax until I sleep at 10:30pm.
With this new routine, I feel great and much less tired than I used to. Beforehand, I used to take midday naps and feel tired way earlier than I should. Now, I’m able to feel great throughout the day and get things done.
I also work out basically every day now, so I’m starting to see gym progress coming in!
Insights for you
Years are made of months, months are made of weeks, weeks are made of days, and days are made of your choices.
Something pretty obvious, but the power of compounding is truly underrated. Small compounding decisions that you make daily, have the power to dramatically increase your growth trajectory.
James Clear wrote about it here.
Building Brands.
This week I learned that a brand isn’t just a logo and some pretty colours. It’s actually wild that I previously thought that’s what I thought a brand was all about until I actually took the time to learn how brands are built.
There’s the tangible: Logo, Colours, Typography, etc, and the intangible: emotions, culture, feel, uniqueness, etc.
When I built brands in the past, I only focused on the tangible (what looks pretty). However, I just got the Dunningest of Krugers when I learned that I overlooked what actually makes a brand… a brand.
Here’s a promise I might not be able to keep: Next newsletter, I’ll send you guys some thoughts that I have on building my brands for NeuraDAO and Electrify Liberia. I might even be able to send some mockups to get your opinions on it.
What's Next?
I’m going to Collision! I’ll be speaking on Web3 and Social media along with the founders of AAVE and Edge & Node.
Will keep you guys posted, check my Twitter for more updates!
It’s also the last week of school, I’m so ready to leave. I’m just waiting…
Here’s what I’m going to do next week:
Speak at Collision!
Talk to a bunch of cool people at Collision!
That could be you. Let me know if you’re coming!
Design a brand for NeuraDAO.