January Newsletter
What I've been up to this month!
About Me! 👋
Hey! I’m Peyton, a 16y/o who is super passionate about making an impact on the world 🌎. A little bit about me, I am an Innovator at TKS, very interested in business and entrepreneurship (in fact, I have even founded two start-ups) and I’m a triple threat. 🎭💃🎶
January has been a month filled with lots of learning and a whole lot of kindness (you’ll see why later). Keep on reading to see what I’ve been up to!
The Knowledge Society 🚀
Fifth month down at The Knowledge Society ✅ and I’ve been enjoying every minute of it! For those of you who are not familiar with this program, let me fill you in. TKS is a 10-month long human accelerator designed to train teenagers to solve the world's biggest problems through training in emerging technologies and mindsets. 🦄 Unfortunately, this month we had to shift to virtual sessions due to the current COVID situation in Ontario but I still managed to make the most of it.
The first session back from winter break was all about Quantum Computing, major start-ups working with the space and learning how to make effective one pagers. I partnered with Molly and Alex and we got paired with Strangeworks based out of Austin, TX. Check out our one pager below to learn more about what they do!
The following weekend we learned about a decision making principle called MECE. 🤔It’s a framework typically used by management consulting firms to describe and organize information. The MECE principle suggests that to understand and fix any major problem, you need to fully understand all of your possible options by sorting them into categories that are: Mutually Exclusive– Items can only fit into one category at a time and Collectively Exhaustive – All items can fit into one of the categories. We were able to apply our learnings to a Nabisco case all about their salty food department.
For the next session we took it up a notch and were given the opportunity to solve a real-world problem through a Harvard Business School case study (MBA level 🤯). The case was all about Starbucks and their growth within China. ☕️ From this experience I learned the importance of digging deeper into data and numbers, rather than just making assumptions from the case text. I also understood the importance of questioning almost everything I read, and constantly saying “so what?” in order to challenge my thinking processes. 💭 ⚙️
While our last January session was all about the Metaverse, Virtual and Augmented Reality. We were given an hour to come up with an innovative use of this technology that more importantly solves a problem. My group and I came up with an AR solution to dyslexia, a learning disorder that almost 700 million people have.
🔑 Takeaways this Month:
Perception is key, we should turn obstacles into opportunities. 👀 An event is not up to us, we have no control over external events. However, the judgment is up to us.
Be intentional. Showing up, and showing up with intention are two very different things. Make your goals and ambitions a reality by working toward them with deliberate intention and actions. 📍
Spend most of your time on compounding activities in order to achieve exponential growth in all areas of life - whether that be your knowledge, skills, mindsets, and relationships. 📈
To build that antifragility mindset you must have an appetite for uncertainty, gratitude for failure and be on a pursuit for constant feedback.
🎉 Launching Project Be Kind 🎉
Most of my time this month was dedicated to launching a new initiative that I recently founded called Project Be Kind. 🧡 As we all know, COVID-19 has dampened the spirits of many and the world has surely become a less kind place. This initiative aims to encourage others to embrace kindness and make it a mindset. One small act of kindness not only inspires you, but has the power to inspire the world. 🌐
I kicked it off with the #BeKindChallenge which started on January 17th, Blue Monday all the way until Random Acts of Kindness Day on February 17th. If you're ready for the challenge, be sure to sign the pledge at ProjectBeKind.ca. It’s never too late to join us in doing 30 kind acts in 30 days! 💙
It has been a success thus far and I have been able to gain the attention of MPP of Toronto-St. Pauls, Dr. Jill Andrew. She has kindly supported my initiative through reposting on her social media platforms and mentioning Project Be Kind in her recent newsletter.
Looking forward to where this initiative will lead me to in the next coming months! 😊
Goals and What to Expect in February:
Continue building out Project Be Kind + run an initiative at school on Random Acts of Kindness Day 🎉
Finish the book “Twelve and a Half” by Gary Vee 📖
Crush the upcoming TKS Focus Hackathon ✅
Consulting with a company (soon to be announced) for the TKS Global Challenge 🤩
Well that’s it for me, I hope you had an amazing January and here's to an even better February! See you next month :)
Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn ➔ https://www.linkedin.com/in/peyton-verhoeven-661a53185
Follow me on Medium ➔ https://medium.com/@peytonverhoeven
Loved this newsletter Peyton, keep crushing it!