It all starts with intention
You're in more control than you think
Whew! I’m still coming down from my weekend energy rush.
Andrés and I just finished our first weekend of sessions for the 2022 TKS Innovate program. This year we are responsible for ~150 students from around the world (50+ countries in our cohorts!) It’s a complete change of pace from what I’m used to doing, working with startups and executives.
It’s thrilling.
The students’ excitement and curiosity is contagious and energizing. Whereas I normally get bouts of anxiety sharing what I think on Twitter (ironic for someone writing this newsletter), I get excited to introduce students to new ideas, people, and frameworks to help them see the world.
Let me back up for a second.
TKS is an Olympic-level training program for young people who want to change the world. The next entrepreneurs, innovators, and scientists come from this program. We have founders who have raised millions of dollars coming out of TKS and have produced some of the youngest interns at companies like Neurable, IBM, OpenAI, and a handful of other startups.
Did I mention we’ve only been around for 6 years?
The Innovate program that I’m helping run this year is our first-year program that is designed to expose students to emerging technologies, introduce them to some of the world’s biggest problems, and give them the mindsets and frameworks to start tackling them. It’s a time for them to learn about themselves and how they want to succeed in the world.
Boom. Let’s get into it.
Session One: TKS Kickoff
Each week I’ll give you a recap of the important ideas we cover in the sessions.
The opening session is intended to kick the year off right. We want to set the tone for the rest of the program, inspire students, and give them a bit of a reality check around what to expect. Through a series of conversations, examples, and activities, we share our vision for TKS and what they will be up to during the year.
Our sessions are around 3-hours long over Zoom at various times of the day. This comes with its own set of challenges: students are calling in during both morning and evening, sometimes from busy family spaces, and we are trying to keep them engaged for the equivalent of half a school day!
Having done this 3 times (a small sample size), I’m already noticing something remarkably different: students want to be here.
They are excited to participate and engage with their classmates. They want to speak up and contribute. For many of them, it’s the first time they’re able to nerd out on topics that friends or classmates ignore. They are meeting people from around the world (which is not normal for most high schoolers) and starting to build relationships.
And we are only getting started.
We ask students to set an intention for the session as well as how they think about the year. Andrés and I did the same. One of my key intentions was to build and sustain a high-energy environment over Zoom. A challenge for directors is what I call the “touring band” effect. A band plays almost the exact same set at each stop of their tour. Despite that, they make you feel special for being in the audience and as if your show is their favourite stop on the tour. For us, we are doing the same session 3 days in a row and need to bring the same hype that we would if we only had one cohort.
We do this with music, engaging with chat, making sure everyone has their camera on, and calling people in to participate throughout the conversation. We share stories from our past as if we’ve never told the story before. We take breaks every hour and make sure it’s not just us talking, putting students into breakout rooms to collaborate…okay fine, this first one we talked a lot. Virtual engagement is something we will be iterating on throughout the year so I’ll continue to share what we find effective.
Early on we did some icebreaker activities to get the students vibing with each other and getting comfortable in this new environment. We shared tooling, what to expect from the program year, and set the expectations we have for them. More important than all of that, we spent time getting students into the right state of mind to thrive at TKS.
Here are the core things we aimed to highlight:
Focus on the now: It can be intimidating joining TKS having seen some of the successful students leaving the program. But it doesn’t matter what you did before coming here. Getting into TKS is not the accomplishment, it’s the starting line. It’s what you choose to do now with the opportunity that makes all the difference.
Be intentional: At the root of most change is an intention. What is it you are trying to do? Without this, you can’t judge something as success or a failure. So ask yourself at each moment: what is my intention? This small mental reframe can help you get so much more out of any experience.
The unconventional path: We shared a quote from one of our co-founders, “To achieve unconventional success, you need to take the unconventional path”. If you’re attempting to do something unconventional or even extraordinary, then you need to be doing something different than your peers. What are you doing differently that indicates you’re on that path?
Speed without direction: If you don’t know where you’re headed, any path will take you there. In order to make progress, you need a direction. Spend time up front figuring out your direction so you can start compounding progress. If you don’t have a direction, take action to find one.
Build your T: The T-model is common within talent development, it represents having a generalist base and specific expertise. Throughout TKS we are going to help you develop your own T. This is your thing. Shape your T after your interests, not what others are doing. This is how you can stand out, and our program is designed to help you with both breadth and depth.
Your only competition is with your former self: Society is set up to breed comparison. From metrics on social media websites, to grades in school, it’s easy to get caught up in the comparison game. Two key tips here: i) realize that everyone is on their own path. If something isn’t moving you closer to your goal, ignore it. And ii) measure your progress against who you were last week. All that we care is that each week you’re able to move closer to who you want to become. This mindset fosters the collaborative environment we have at TKS → we are all here to help each other succeed.
You are in control of your experience: Through a short pre-mortem, we help you realize that you are in control of how effective TKS is for you. Unlike traditional school, this program is set up to help you achieve your goals. You will get what you put into TKS and as coaches and directors, we are here to support you and hold you accountable. At the end of the day if you don’t have a great experience, you probable weren’t being proactive in what you wanted.
At the end of the session we try to channel the energy and excitement into action. We have students commit to carry that momentum forward and start to explore more program content, learning about a new topic, and start to connect with one another.
💥 All that in session one.
Three hours really flies by when you’re engaging with the students and getting their thoughts to some of these new perspectives. It’s addicting to get the instant feedback in the Zoom chat when you’re sharing something new with them. I can’t wait for this weekend.
If you’re not part of TKS but want to accelerate your own growth, why not take on a few action items of your own 😉
Spend a few hours learning about a brand new topic. Just use YouTube!
Reach out to 2 new people on LinkedIn that you’d love to meet.
We have high school students doing it, why not you too?