Zayn's Digest - November Edition
👋 Hey! I'm a 17-year-old from Seattle, WA currently working on VR and using it to impact the cognitive science and health industry eliminating concussions in athletes! 🧠
🦄 2015 was the first time I played The Game of Life. Since then, I’ve been curious about how the game ties into our reality and the life we live. Nonetheless, the game of life has turned into a personal ideology for me. Each week, I pick up the dice and roll again moving towards my goal of impacting billions, week by week.
👨💻 Projects
TKS Focus
Nothing has been more fascinating to me since I first tested a headset five years ago! As part of TKS (a human accelerator program), I’ve been focusing on Virtual/Augmented Reality and wrote some content!
🎅 Storytime: I asked Santa for some google cardboard this Christmas so I can start prototyping VR headset kits!
Entrepreneurial Journey’s with Help LLC
I’m continuing to work on the content side with my startup — Help LLC! Throughout the past couple months, we’ve worked towards brand storytelling. I had the chance to write some more articles and led a cool round-table discussion this month!
Takeaways from discussion
Experience is the difference between knowledge and wisdom
Action learning = huge. If you have the chance to get an internship, work alongside a business professional, OR create your own opportunity through a startup venture, DO IT. Experience is a keystone aspect of everything and it’s allowed me to provide anecdotal evidence as opposed to taking external evidence from another individual.
Work with a team. Collaboration is an amazing part of life and if you have the opportunity to bring people together to achieve a common goal, that’s amazing. The BIGGEST thing we’ve focused on as a startup is culture which correlates with collaboration and building great teams. The people in your team are going to push you to be better and continue to take the business to the next level. Ideas develop from perspective and perspective leads to innovation. Most of our features came from our Friday night meetings as opposed to our independent work time.
Solving a global pandemic
I’m currently working on a business consulting challenge for a contact tracing application!
Currently, my team and I working on a consulting challenge for a contact tracing application. I’ve had the chance to talk to some amazing people to get advice throughout the process and learn about virality and gamification through applications to incentivize users.
🎙️Experiences
Foundations Podcast
ZChat: Are you thinking on purpose? (P.S: Check out the article I wrote on this as well!)
Level Up Podcast
Background: Preparing business-minded individuals to emerge as leaders and entrepreneurs through education, training, advice, and experience. The Level Up Podcast is created by a group of like-minded Washington DECA students.
Always a pleasure to give back to the DECA community, love hosting this podcast as well and excited to continue meeting with incredible guests.
Introduction to the Level Up Podcast
TKS Talks with Cyrus Irani
Huge shoutout to the TKS staff and Nadeem Nathoo for putting on this event as well! Cyrus had an amazing story to share and I loved his perspective on self-awareness and the correlation between work and life to get the balance!
TL;DR for conversation and takeaways
Trust that your unique interests combined with your inherent skills will lead to a fulfilling career — this was the first quote that Cyrus presented during the talk and it stuck with me throughout the conversation. I think it’s vital that we ALL find the intersection between our innate talents/interests and a career that enhances those things.
Deep understanding of one thing (spike) — the concept of finding your niche or T has been brought up a lot lately but I love this idea. I think it alludes to a myriad of things that are important in our life, including the ideas of focus and devotion. Having a spike doesn’t mean that you eliminate the concept of well-roundedness from your life, just devote your time to understanding, learning, and perfecting a niche.
Passion, are you excited for what we are going to build, say it, give examples of what it means to you (passion=skills), knowledge is equally important, need to be an expert on one specific thing — storytelling ties in well with the idea of describing your passion since it’s your story/your hook. I love the fact that Cyrus discussed that knowledge is equally important. Liking AI for example is great, yet if you don’t have the knowledge base it isn’t going to benefit you in the long-term so passion = skills reinforces the idea of proportionality and maintaining that in your life at all times.
Learn programming— foundational to every industry (computer science is at core of everything) — Whether it be marketing, public relations, sports, it doesn’t matter. Computer science is rooted in everything and the more you understand the current landscape of technology and the potential applications of it in the future, the future will be clear to you.
📚 Learning
Video watched — Neuroscience and psychology are two of my burgeoning interests. I loved watching this video; check out the TL;DR below!
You can reprogram your subconscious mind through affirmations
3 main ingredients to affirmations— concise choice of positive words, clear visualization, and a corresponding feeling
Our mind is filled with energy that is broken into multiple thought patterns. Energy doesn’t know how to differentiate between what’s good and bad for you. Anything of a similar frequency gets drawn to you, so if you know how to program and analyze your subconscious through affirmations then you can draw and bring anything into your life that you want.
Favorite Podcast of the Month & Takeaways
Other people’s opinions are the #1 reason why people are held back. Parenting and environment are the two components for how self-esteem is built.
Do something practical that you have been afraid to do for a long time and see the reaction from everyone and realize that it wasn’t as bad as you anticipated.
Pay attention to consumption of content and your behavioral tendencies and then learn how to become a producer of that content.
Attention is the #1 asset in our society, especially in the distraction-ridden world we currently live in.
Anecdote
I recently began the #5amchallenge alongside a subset of the TKS community and WOW, it’s been fun! A couple things I’ve noticed are:
I have drifted into REM (dream state) sleep more now than I did prior.
Developing a routine is imperative and as soon as I discovered mine, my days became more structured as well.
My self-discipline has increased since getting I know I need to sleep early so I can be prepared for the next day.
👇 Check out one of my #5amselfies!
How did I help someone/make someone happier?
As I stated in the October Edition, relationship building is a HUGE part of life. I recently had the chance to receive guidance from Daphne D’sa . She is currently in the process of searching for an internship and thanks to Miri Rodriguez they were able to have a chat!
💡ZThoughts
🕒 Hacking Time, here’s what else happened
I had an amazing interview with the Chief Marketing Officer at Converse! We talked about customer relationships, building a culture within a business, and what Converse is doing to inspire generations!
Recorded podcast episodes with Steven ten Holder, Nathan Chen, and Kristina Naydonova! Stay tuned for December to listen to each one!
🔮 So, what does the future look like?
More meetings for ZLearn! The third series of my podcast kicks off in January! I’m meeting with some of the smartest individuals to continue giving my listeners a glimpse into the industries of the world, and a new perspective on it as well!
TKS Community Talks! I will be presenting a shortened version of my TED Talk in two weeks as I hope to continue spreading positivity through adversity.
Write, write, write! Throughout the next month, my goal is to have 5+ articles completed for both my focus and Zayn’s thoughts!
Hustling to get a meeting with Spotify! SO many student’s within the TKS community are beginning their podcasting journey’s; so I’m at trying to put an event together in order to help everyone through the process.
The Apex of Teen Social Entrepreneurship. Right now, I’m working alongside a couple other individuals to put on an event for Celebration of Life Day. 3 panelists, 1 moderator, 1 conversation about social entrepreneurship and the future of social impact!
Meeting with the MetaVRse CEO! Could not be more excited for the opportunity to talk to Mr. Alan Smithson next month! We are going to be discussing the the intersection of VR and school in order to increase engagement and immersion within the classroom.
📣 Shoutouts
Amna Hyder, one of my TKS directors had her first child! Shot this video to show some appreciation for her!
Elizabeth Trykin— During my 1-1 with Elizabeth, she continued to push my thinking and ask GREAT questions. I was blown away with her amazing enthusiasm and energy throughout our conversation coupled with the fact that she continued to do research after our talk!
Lohit Potnuru— I’ve had the pleasure of talking to Lohit everyday this month since we have been doing stand-ups for the consulting challenge and when pitching ideas to Lohit he continues to prompt questions that push my thinking and allow me to better understand the why behind my ideas and the intention for them as well.
Aryan Saha— From working together on my second startup to going through the TKS journey together, Aryan Saha and I have been working together for the past 15 months and it’s been an amazing journey! He’s one of the best people I’ve worked with and continues to do amazing things within his own life! Check out a message he wrote earlier this month and sign up for his newsletter!