Hello everyone 👋
Lots of recent developments going on in my life right now. It’s an incredibly busy time that has forced me to kind of reevaluate how I’m spending my time. There’s quite a bit, so let’s dive in.
What’s New With Me?
I’ve joined Jemi 💎 (YC20, Forbes 30 under 30) on their growth and operations team! Quite a serendipitous arrangement actually — an email outreach led to a brief meeting which led to where I am today with them. I’m a week in, and I regularly interface with one of their coCEOs and together we’re putting a something big :)
Finished up with the Laidlaw Scholarship. This is a huge step that has recently happened over the week. The scholarship has been one of the most pivotal experiences of my life, and has set me up for things such as iAscend, my career in research, and indirectly even BioDojo. I’m super grateful for my time there and am excited to see what the next steps are for me!
Back at school and feeling the pressure! We’re 1/4th done the semester already (yep, three weeks in). My first midterm’s in about a week’s time, and I’m already falling behind. I’m still fully virtual so that’s good in the sense that I have a little bit of flexibility with my schedule.
Working a little more hours. I’ve been taking a couple more shifts at work to really push my limits. I’m not sure why to be honest, but my wallet’s thanking me. Thank God I have somewhat decent time management and organizational skills — otherwise I’d be good as dead.
I’ve caught a cold (not COVID). Yep, I was sidelined for the week as I caught a little wheezer. It’s been a while since I got sick, I lowkey forgot how uncomfortable that whole experience is. Plus, haven’t been able to workout in like two weeks now and I’m feeling very jello-y.
New-letter?
As you’ve probably read from the title of this week’s newsletter, it’s all about tradeoffs. I’m taking on quite a bit of projects coming up, not to mention going to pick up research again and taking a stab at studying for the MCAT all throughout this school year. Obviously, that means cutting down on some of my commitments.
So, big change: I’ll be switching over to monthly newsletters. This is going to be a little bit more sustainable for me as I balance some of the more bigger fish in my life right now. I’m also doing bi-weekly YouTube uploads in the same spirit.
Format wise, it’ll be similar to what you’re reading right now: a few updates, a dive into one of my thoughts this month (something I’ve been thinking about mostly), some of my new videos, and a few memories I’ve had over the past month. Give me some feedback if you have any suggestions or things you’d want to see :)
Choosing Tradeoffs
Funny thing, I first learned about tradeoffs in biology, specifically in ecology. All of the various ways animals would employ different life-history strategies (I believe there’s R vs K reproductive strategies — but I can’t double-check because there’s no internet and I’m too lazy to search it up afterwards). For example, fish would lay a bunch of eggs, hoping that a significant portion of them would make it past Mr. Whale and make it to maturity. The trade-off would be to limit your parental involvement in raising these kids. Alternatively, there are other organisms that don’t have lots of offspring but because of that are able to invest high parental care into each one of them.
So Brandon, what’s with all of this tradeoff talk? Well, life is all about tradeoffs and the more that we understand and are exposed, the better decisions we’re able to make. Take my brother for example. He recently started 1st year of university with me (woohoo), and on the second day of school was already making textbook notes for his biology chapter. Sure, those textbook notes may get you a certain increase in your test but is it really worth the 5-6h of writing that it takes? One could be using that time to instead apply for jobs, or to learn about something that you’re passionate about — that will end up giving you higher returns in the future.
I’ve recently had a conversation with one of my professors that led to this tweet:
It sucks to be honest, that’s the reality of school = a trade off (or at least that’s a dimension of school that I have chosen to focus on). It’s a mere example, but it does demonstrate that almost all if not every single interaction comprises of a tradeoff, most commonly selecting for/against time.
How do we select for the optimal tradeoff? Well, that’s something I’ve been looking to figure out and I’d appreciate some pointers.
Identify what you want and what your values are — selecting for transparency with your priorities will help you pinpoint what you want to achieve, and thus be able to select for what would be most beneficial to you at that current instance or during that specific situation.
Expose yourself and connect with other people’s experiences — this is probably the best thing that you can do. By conversationally “living through other people’s experiences,” our world is opened. We’re able to learn through people’s journeys
Pause and reevaluate — life should not be linear. It’s important that we routinely check our motivations to make sure that we are making the right tradeoffs when we come across.
I’ll leave you with this link for you to look into if you’re interested in The Law of Tradeoff. Let me know your thoughts and see you back here in a month!
“You have to give up to grow up”
― John Maxwell , The Law of Tradeoff
Life Captured 📸
A collection of photos from stand out days throughout the month.
New Videos 🎬
A few vid’s I’ve made over the past few weeks.
I really appreciate you for being a part of The One Percent today! if you are enjoying this newsletter, I’d love for you to share this with a friend or two by hitting the share button below. I’ll see you back here again in a month’s time!