LIFE AND LEARNING:
How One “After-School Program” Could Change Your Life.
A Message to Every Ambitious Teenager
That’s right.
Here’s how joining what was supposed to be another extracurricular activity could’ve been the best decision I ever made.
Sure, the title sounds like the hook to a scammy online course, but I guarantee you that everything I’ll be telling you is 100% real. All my experiences come from seeing how my friends and I grew from just ten months in the program.
No one asked me to write this, and no one’s paying me to do this either. Just think of this article as a beacon — calling out to anyone who’s ready to find out how the world works and change it for the better.
It might even be calling out to you.
Trust me — if you’re the right person, then this is something you seriously don’t want to miss.
The program I’m talking about’s called The Knowledge Society.
My Story.
Let’s start at the top.
The Knowledge Society (TKS for short) is a human accelerator made just for teenagers. It’s a program designed to turn you into a better, happier person, and skyrocket you towards your dreams.
I know everyone’s had their own experience with TKS, so I can’t speak for everyone here. All I can do is share my TKS story, but I’m confident that it should align with most people’s journeys in the program:
It all started when I wanted to intern at a small Ottawa-based business. I thought it might look good on my otherwise empty resume, after all. We needed a LinkedIn account to apply, so I created one — making sure to add a nice profile picture, an “attractive” description, and pulling out all the stops.
While I was at it, I thought that I might as well make some connections, so I didn’t look like I was a newbie to the platform. One of them happened to be another teenager who was an “Innovator at TKS,” which got me a bit curious.
I don’t know why I clicked on the link, but it took me down a TKS rabbit-hole, and I suddenly wanted to be part of the program. I think what got me interested was seeing how average kids, just like me, could do some pretty unbelievable things:
And if I said the TED talks, startups, and media didn’t get me excited too, I’d be lying. If you check out the TKS website I linked earlier, you’ll see what I mean:
But more than anything, it was the fact that whatever you wanted to be, you didn’t have to wait till you were an adult to start. As a kid, knowing that all those things were even possible sold me instantly.
And so I applied, and (to my surprise) I got in.
Looking back, I don’t know what I was thinking or why I even wanted that part-time internship in the first place. But, it led me to TKS, and I never looked back.
In the next few months, I fell in love with healthcare and trying to make people’s lives better. I noticed just how much room for improvement there was for we treated cancer, and I wanted to see how I could change things.
It’s been more than a year since I started researching cancer therapeutics— building new relationships, knowledge, and cool stuff along the way. Now, I’m working on my first biotech startup, LightIR, which focuses on improving the outcomes of cancer surgery.
And on the side, I work for a longevity startup called Biotein, and I’m laying down the technical foundations humanity needs to build a cancer vaccine in the future.
When it comes to the TED talks and the interviews, I’m still not there, but I’m not going to stop improving myself. If you told the old me about the things I’m up to today, he wouldn’t believe you. Right now, I’m having the time of my life. I know that almost every TKS’er feels the same way.
The TKS Experience.
As someone who knows it first-hand, most of us aren’t geniuses — we were more or less your average high schoolers when we joined. In a lot of ways, we still are. Homework, video-games, and hanging out with our friends hasn’t changed.
But looking back, I think the only difference was how we knew there was more to life than just that. We didn’t have that much more knowledge than the average person — we just had curiosity.
Trust me, the last thing I want to do is to brag about the things we’ve accomplished. I’m just trying to get the message across that you can achieve a whole lot more than you think you can:
And even though TKS’ers usually get attracted to tech and business, it doesn’t matter what path you choose to take. I’ve got a friend who wants to be a journalist, one that wants to be a singer, and one that wants to get into politics— and I know all of them are going to do amazing things.
Why?
Because TKS is more about gaining mindsets as it is gaining knowledge. The way you think and approach life is just as important as what you achieve in it. I know you’ve probably heard some version of that statement at least a thousand times before, but it couldn’t be more accurate.
Before TKS, you wouldn’t believe how shy I was. I was an extrovert at heart, but everything I did made me an introvert. I could never bring myself to talk to someone even if I wanted to.
At school, I think I had might’ve known two or three people on a first-name-basis — nobody I knew was close to a friend. I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. I didn’t believe in myself. I was scared and didn’t even know why.
With that mentality, it wouldn’t matter if I became the smartest person in the world and cured cancer. I would never even be happy with myself.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m still far from perfect, but after TKS I started to believe in myself. I saw that there was never anything to be scared of.
Now, I can hold conversations without a problem, and I don’t even think twice before speaking in public. People even began calling me an extrovert. For the first time in a long time, I was enjoying myself. I felt like I belonged somewhere.
Then, every part of my life began to change.
But that leads us to another point. TKS doesn’t change who you are — it just gives you an early start on the journey to become the best version of yourself. And in that way, TKS isn’t supposed to be a program. It’s supposed to be a lifestyle:
That could’ve been the most cliché-sounding thing I said in this entire article, but it’s something most people only understand after joining and finishing the program.
Looking past all the cool conferences, speeches, awards, and interviews, none of those things matter if you didn’t become a better person in the process.
As impactful as TKS has been to me and everyone else, it isn’t life. It’s what you have left after the program that counts. The mindsets, relationships, and habits that you developed should last you forever.
Believe it or not, you’re actually seeing the result of me following the TKS lifestyle right now. It was where I first took up the habit of writing an article every week — and even though I’ve finished my first year in the program, I never stopped writing them.
I made a couple of pretty awesome friends too — that’s something I couldn’t even have imagined just last year. And I don’t plan on giving up my self-confidence or the habits I developed anytime soon.
If you’re still wavering on the line between applying (just like I was), I thought it might be nice to highlight some of the perks I haven’t already mentioned.
Now, I can’t guarantee you a TED talk or getting to interview Elon Musk — it all depends on what you want out of TKS. But at the very least, here are some of the things you can expect:
- Not having to worry nearly as much when public speaking.
- Knowing how to create mind-blowing visuals for anything you want.
- Knowing experts/renowned people in your field.
- Easily being able to stand out from a sea of job or university applications. A lot of the time, you don’t even have to apply.
- You can gain the mindset, tech, and business foundations you need to build a successful startup.
- Finding something you enjoy (or at least narrowing it down), and working on projects you enjoy.
- Processing information up to 2X faster than normal (trust me, it saves you a lot of cramming before exams).
- Habits like exercising, and sleeping well, which might even extend your lifespan by a couple of years.
- A sense of belonging.
- The chance to know some potentially famous people when they were kids (or maybe the chance for you to become famous yourself.)
And the best part of it all — being surrounded by a community of people who care about you, and are going through the same journey you are. People that can rely on you and people you can lean on. That’s priceless.
But above everything else, TKS gives you the power to change the world — because it teaches you how the world works.
You’re the only one that gets to decide what your future will be. You get to choose how much value you’ll bring to the world, and what legacy you’ll leave behind. You have the power to be incredible. It’s in your hands.
Everything starts and ends with you.
It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you start.
The only question is if you start.
“That was my story. Are you ready to start yours?”
