This week there was no session for TKS.
Instead of skipping an issue, I thought I'd share my perspective on something I think is critical for students to internalize over the course of the year. I'll describe what I expect to be the three stages of TKS for a student. There may actually only be two, but I suspect there's a liminal state in-between. I describe the main two states as before the click and after the click.1
And once you've clicked, there's no going back. The world is yours. As one student put it, I want you to see the matrix.
We all have invisible scripts that were imprinted on us through our upbringing and lived experiences. What our parents tell us, what society tells us, what our teachers tell us. Each of these shape narratives that we tell ourselves about the world. The tricky thing about these scripts is that they are invisible. It's hard to know they exist. To reference the over-referenced, we are often fish unaware of water until something breaks and we zoom out and realize we were trapped in a narrow frame of reference.
That’s what I’m trying to do this year. We’re going to rewrite your invisible scripts.
Stage One: Before the Click
When most students first join TKS they are in Stage One. They are on a traditional path to post secondary, looking for ways to pad their application. To them, putting TKS Innovator on their resume will be a meaningful accomplishment. Look! I participated in this cool program.
Your priority in Stage One is to look impressive and unique.
In my view, TKS is not just an education program. It's an attempt to help you internalize a new view on the world, reclaim agency over your life, and raise your ambitions. I want you to see there's nothing stopping you from starting to do the cool shit you want to with your life, except for you.
Our current education system is outdated and is optimized for a specific outcome, a stepping stone, which is usually getting into university. I think you can take different actions to optimize your life for another outcome — making impact in the world.
I could tell you a hundred times but it's not enough to just tell you. Information alone is not enough to get you to click. Derek Sivers said it best, “If more information was the answer, then we'd all be billionaires with perfect abs”.
So we show you case study after case study. Success stories. The TKS alumni.
Stage Two: Powered On, not quite clicked
After seeing a few examples of what TKS alumni have accomplished, your mindset starts to shift. You see what’s possible for TKS students and so you have a new objective in mind. You still want to get into a good university or college, but now you’re thinking: How can I get those same outcomes?
Students in Stage Two still haven’t broken out of their frame. They understand the potential of TKS but only within the confines of their existing mental model: it’s an extracurricular on my path to post-secondary.
Your priority in Stage Two is to get really good at TKS.
It’s super easy to get stuck here. It makes sense: TKS is something you can be good at. Why wouldn’t you want to crush it?
Here’s the thing, there’s still one more stage.
Over the course of the program year I am going to be trying to break your frame. Our frame dictates how we see most of the world and I want you to get out of your current box.
I want you to get to Stage Three.
And so I’ll try different things. I’ll push you to aim higher, to do more, and to see for yourself that This Shit Works. At some point, something is going to happen in your brain. Cracks will start to form in your frame as your field of view expands. There’s more to success than what you’ve been told. And then, all of a sudden.
Click!
But I'm not naive. It won’t happen over a single session. It won’t happen at the same time for everyone. And in some cases, it won’t happen at all.
Nevertheless, I persist.
Stage Three: After the Click
If you get here, you see the potential of TKS. You realize that the point of TKS is not to put it on your resume or find ways to “crush TKS”, but it’s a system that is designed to help you create an unbelievably ambitious future for yourself. It’s a program that teaches you the skills to do the things you want and to have mega impact in the world, regardless of what that might be.
Things like a growth mindset, a bias towards action, and antifragility are not just to be used in TKS, but are ways to stand out in the world. They are things I looked for as I built my team at Versett. And the funny thing is these are not things most people ever learn. By learning them now, in high school, you’ll have decades for their effects to compound.
Students in Stage Three are no longer thinking “is TKS going to help me get an internship?”. They are focused on doing legit, meaningful work and starting to get noticed as a result. They aren’t just writing a newsletter for their friends and family, but using it as a starting point to grow their network. They aren’t building projects to showcase, but following their curiosity and learning the things that interest them.
The internship becomes an outcome, not an objective.
Your priority in Stage Three becomes doing impactful work in a field of your interest.2
Once a student has clicked they realize TKS is Life. Not in the badge of honor way, but instead that we’ve created a program that closely matches the real world. TKS is like real life. After the click, you’re not putting TKS on your resume3. Instead you’re talking about the research you’ve been doing in the local university lab, or the prototype you’ve built and gotten validated by industry experts, or the conference you spoke at where you shared a vision for the future of the problem you’ve been tackling.
And I believe if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
✌🏼
PS: If you’re an adult following along, it’s not too late to click.
Note: This is me theorizing based on intuition and anecdotes from other TKS team members. I want to remind people this is a personal newsletter not a specific TKS affiliated one. What I am saying could pan out to be totally wrong in the coming months as I get more experience.
This sounds obvious but the focus changes from some future state to the present and your ability to do things now.
There’s no downside to doing this, but it’s no longer the impressive thing about you.