February: Extra-Introspection?
Hi All! This is the 11th iteration of this newsletter. Hello to all new subscribers! Really appreciate all of your continued support and interest in my personal journey.
Highlights:
Over halfway done my last semester…
Substack posting has been consistent according to my goals - have to give myself a pat on the back for that.
Since posting regularly on LinkedIn, I’ve been approached by peers, and other individuals on LinkedIn or at school regarding my work. It is quite interesting to see people finding value in my work. I also hope that I have been able to and will inspire others through my writing.
GH part-time work has been great and am finishing up my first project soon!
Co-authored an abstract with Jonathan Rincon Lopez and Oliver Yuan on financing for EMDCs and submitted it to the Global Energy Transition Congress!
The podcast has been going well on the conversion of leads to guests, but the process of actually recording has been slow.
LEADER is getting into full swing and I’ll be traveling to North Macedonia in late April to teach.
Have started working on another company idea (please be the one that works lol).
What’s Included -
1. Reflections of the Month
2. Current Engagements
3. Article Picks
4. Current Goals
5. Anchor Exercise
Reflections of the Month
I’ve been doing a lot of interviews this month. Besides the podcast, my friends, Parsa Fani-Molky and Sherwin Sherkat-Mahician, and I began interviewing researchers out of curiosity. This premise of the project is as follows:
We come into this project with a very specific thesis: Publishing determines career success for researchers, with the h-index being a significant indicator of industry performance. As described in Deep Work, by Cal Newport, publishing requires undivided time and attention. Every minute dedicated to adjacent tasks such as fulfilling coursework requirements, hiring research assistants, screening for student interns, creating short-form social media-related content and lab marketing materials for publicity purposes, and connecting to corporations could take away from time spent conducting your research. Through these interviews, we hope to understand exactly what non-publication/research-related tasks are important to researchers but are tedious and require unwanted attention.
Over the past 6 weeks we have extended invitations to over 300 researchers at Western alone by delivering letters to their offices. It's been super intriguing and interesting to hear about what researchers have to say about their non-publication related obligations and the gaps in tools to help them become more effective at these tasks. Nonetheless, all these interviews got me thinking: What gaps do I have? One thing led to another and I arrived at a similar methodology of learning about myself. I will interview my friends to learn about myself! So, I put together a quick survey and sent it out to around 25 friends, getting 24 replies. I want to highlight a few of these questions today.
I started out with asking everyone's first impression of me and got a range of responses, some of my favourite being:
“I saw you tackle that guy who stole our flag” (Context: this is during Ivey orientation)
“Wore a banana costume at Delilahs”
“Sweat Silicon Valley boy”
“Stole my hat” (Context: also during Ivey orientation)
However, many of these first impressions were also indicative of who I am, such as how I acted during group projects, my contribution in class, the types of jokes I share and enjoy with others, and overall some very nice compliments that warmed my heart. What I determined is that I seem to be quite a stand-up guy, unafraid of interaction. I’m happy with this.
I then moved on to ask if I am different since the time I have known those who did the survey. It is important to note that some of these survey takers have known me since 2006 and others I met in 2022. Overall, 60% of participants noted I have developed as a person or changed since knowing me, although many who’ve known me in the short-term attributed it to possibly just getting to know me better. Many of the changes my friends noted within me were career related, with me understanding more deeply what I am interested in and the pursuit of these interests leading to me becoming “my genuine self”. This was also described with entries like a “narrowed interest area” and “searching for a passion”. I can agree with this, especially as of late (My January newsletter specifically highlighted this). However, I still believe I have a long way to go. I also want to recognize the way that the friends I have met at university have positively impacted me. Each year of university, I’ve found myself increasingly exposed to people with similar interests, ambitions, and goals and these new relationships have helped me push myself further.
I then asked about my ‘bad’ qualities and aside from all the jokes (lol) I was happily surprised to see the candor my friends had shared with me. My shortcomings, to the external eye, were my organizational skills, tendency to talk too much (and neglect listening), being unfocused, and my tendency to go zero-contact every once in a while. I was not surprised to hear any of these and honestly I agree with everything that was mentioned. I drew two things from this: I have friends that are willing to let me know my flaws (positive) and that I have now precisely identified areas I need to work on improving (also positive). This has influenced the G&Os I set for March.
I then moved on to ask my friends for advice. There were three themes when it came to feedback for me:
Slow down sometimes, life passes by too fast
Sometimes procrastination can lead me to believe I am more busy than I actually am and I create busy work for myself. I need to cut through the BS and optimize my time management. There was a point in the summer where I started organizing my calendar, as seen below. (I managed to keep this up for around a month). Maybe looking to implement this strategy again will help me realize how much time I have in a day and also make sure that I’m myself enough time to relax, practice guitar, or watch a movie. This requires me every night before sleeping to plan out my day.
Relationship management, take the time to catch up with friends more often
I often can also be quite moody and, depending on my mood, become a complete shut in (my dad would call this my grumpy mode). This negatively affects my relationships and this behaviour even has translated to career oriented relationship management which is very poor practice. Additionally, I think I am better at keeping track of emails and text than I actually am, often resulting in me overlooking important or casual messages which negatively affects my personal and professional image. I should look to utilize the flag or unread functions built into the communication apps or immediately respond once reading/opening the message or at a minimum letting the person on the other end know I need some time to get back to them.
Work hard play hard is a fine balance, don’t lose focus
My friends know I love a good time, especially when I’ve completed all my goals for the day. However, sometimes I can spend a bit too much time out (as seen in the calendar above, I gave myself a bedtime of 4.30am, lol). Sometimes, I even know I’ve neglected my work, telling myself I can get it done tomorrow’. I need to break this habit. I believe by utilizing the calendar structuring strategy mixed with potentially every morning writing down goals for the day, I can address what I need to more easily and work with purpose.
I also want to note that these areas of feedback aren’t things that I haven’t thought about before, so I’m happy that I’m cognizant of them. However, they do require lots of work and I hope the strategies I’ve laid out will help me begin to address them to become my best self.
I also gave the surveyed friends a chance to be on this post, here are a few lol:
“He aight”
“With birth we are guaranteed death, everything in between is up to us."
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
“I didn’t realize we were this close, I am flattered.”
“feature this you weirdo: (˙ ͜つ˙ )╭∩╮”
“im too tired to be creative rn mbmb.”
“Never sell yourself short."
“May the force be with you.”
“Work hard, play hard.” (3 people put this lol.)
"YIPPIE"
“I am a man of fortune, and I must seek my fortune.”
“Keep experimenting.”
“Kaden is the only 21 year old ever to have a newsletter like this, which goes to show how much he cares about his personal development (and how weird he is).”
Current Committed Engagements
LEADER Project (www.leaderproject.com): Teaching in North Macedonia
Guidehouse ES&I Part-time: Finishing up my first engagement as a consultant
Side-questing with start-ups.
Essays Writing
Canadian Climate Tech Podcast
Mentoring a few students
If you have any thoughts on current projects I’m pursuing, please don’t hesitate to reach out to kaden.gulamani@gmail.com.
Article Picks this Month
Biden’s pause on U.S. LNG spurs hopes for B.C. plans while climate activists urge restraint
Canada tops China in global rankings for battery supply chains, research firm says
Canada and Britain team up on nuclear fusion development
COP28’s Nuclear Energy Promise Is Still a Long Way Off
U.S. Bets on Small Nuclear Reactors to Help Fix a Huge Climate Problem
An Urgency for Connective Hydrogen Infrastructure
NYC Thrives as an Unlikely Silicon Valley of Climate Technology
Ekona Power Inc. to Deploy First Clean Hydrogen Production Plant with an Industrial Partner
Shell shows us how not to divest from fossil fuels
Current Goals
This month I looked to set heftier goals but also focus on discipline and setting routine. The G&Os I set can be seen below, green means I completed this goals, orange means I was not close to completing (failed), and yellow indicated a half success (where I could maintain the habit in the goal for over 3 weeks).
Overall the podcast has been a huge pain point, although I’ve been making progress in expanding my network. Rescheduling happens very often, and although I planned for this, it’s at a rate much higher than expected as I’m interviewing some very busy people. Additionally, for the habits I set, 6 times a week was super hard to maintain, so I’ve adjusted that due to recovery needs. Also, last week I did a Murph (1 mile run, followed by 100 pull ups, followed by 200 pushups, followed by 300 squats, then finishing with another 1 mile run with 20 pounds. ) which put me out of commission for 4 days. However, I am proud I was able to complete it in 90 minutes. Regarding mediation, I wasn’t consistent with when I did it and the first week of February found it very hard to get into. Meditiation is not easy when starting out so I had to research techniques to help my mindfulness routines. Finally, I wasn’t thinking about heading to mosque until my day was done, although I made it, it was not a planned event which made it tough for me.
Overall, for each of these disciplines going into March, I’ve adjusted them to be more specific (whether that be a specified date, time period, or workout plan) to make planning easier and executing more consistent.
Anchors Exercise
What are your anchors
I am becoming more and more comfortable with the uncertainty of what my future holds. This has come from continuing to chat with people in the industry at many stages of life. What matters is I know where I want to be, so the focus has now become exploring where I want to create a niche skillset.
What makes you happy
I’ve been gaining a lot of joy from the positive feedback and engagement in my writing. Even acquaintances of mine have read through my article and comment on them. Additionally, multiple people have approached me hoping to write together or even help publish more content. It has showed me that my work creates value for others and I hope to continue down this path.
That’s it for this month, thanks for your continued attention and I wish you all the best in March!
Lets get shit done ~