October: From Singapore to NYC in a Week
Joao's Monthly Newsletter: October in Review
October went from one of the calmest months I’ve had in a while to me organising the craziest trip of my life, to New York City. I’m Joao Nina Matos, a young entrepreneur, developer & student, based in Singapore, and this is my monthly newsletter!
Here’s a quick summary of this month’s newsletter:
🌟 An October Overview
🥞 Starting Velocity
👀 Headhunted: Getting Noticed by a Top Tech Startup
🏁 Starting the Military Conscription Process
🗽 New York City: The Trip of a Lifetime
❤️ Gratitude is Viral
💻 Product of the Month
A principle for the coming month:
”Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength” -Sigmund Freud
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🌟 The October Overview
For the most part, the past month was steady growth in the right direction, until last week, when my whole world turned around - I’m now on the flight of a lifetime to New York City. Soon to publish more blog posts, progress has felt a little more tangible, particularly in tandem with this incredible opportunity to go to NYC (explained later) and that has me excited, grateful, and looking forward to more.
🥞 Starting Velocity
As a part of TKS, I started velocity this month, a program building on TKS principles focused on generating exponential returns & growth, providing students with an arsenal of tools to fuel continued growth in the long term, helping us become highly adapted & dynamic individuals. For context, on a weekly basis, the program involves:
👉 Networking
👉 Studying highly successful individuals; their ideas & habits
👉 Exploring mindsets, mental models, & more
We have a set of weekly deliverables attached to these goals, ensuring continued progress & accountability. It’s been really promising for me so far, and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of it!
👀 Headhunted: Getting Noticed by a Top Tech Startup
Earlier this month, Confluent’s head of recruitment reached out to me about an employment opportunity, for which I was told I was a great fit. For context, Confluent is one of the fastest growing tech startups in the world, having raised over $800 million in their IPO, valued in the billions of dollars, and raking in over $88 million in revenue as of June 2021.
I was thrilled when I was contacted by them, and had a few chats about the role, and the company as a whole. Unfortunately I doubt I’m a particularly viable candidate, with commitments to school and the military, but the reason they reached out taught me volumes about the power of profile - something I’d like to write a blog post about later this month, so be sure to check out my medium! Through the online presence I’ve built over the past two years, I’ve learnt just how extensively the dividends of personal branding can pay off, if done right.
🏁 Starting the Military Conscription Process
Just 2 days before my NYC flight I had my medical examination for the army (usually done several months before one’s enlistment), and while I didn’t think it would be a particularly interesting or remarkable experience, it turned out to bring out far more thought in me than I initially imagined. During a large part of the process, I felt totally vulnerable and insecure, and all of the excitement for my NYC trip vanished literally in minutes. I later reflected a little more thoroughly on how things went and how it left me feeling entirely exposed and defenceless, subject to the will of others, and how the commitment to the military is something I’m still reconciling with. To be clear, I do recognise the army is a powerful opportunity to grow in a way others may not have the chance to, and so I’m actually still interested in going, but the way it is out of my control challenges some strong personal philosophies of mine - this is something I explore in my recent blog post:
🗽 New York City: The Trip of a Lifetime
In the last week of October I managed to get a sponsorship to fly to New York City literally the week after, and in about 4 days I was able to plan & execute the trip of a lifetime to New York City, essentially a childhood dream of mine. Shoutout to Valkyrie Holmes for actually telling me about this opportunity to live a childhood dream.
Only a few days ago, next week was going to be just as normal as any other week, and now I’m literally writing the first draft of this newsletter as I’m flying over the North American continent for the first time in my life, on an 18 hour flight to JFK airport.
SIN-JFK in less than a week - a long story short:
👉 Found out about this opportunity Monday
👉 Got the money Wednesday
👉 Booked flights & sorted accommodation Thursday
👉 Packed Friday
👉 Flew out Saturday Night
This means so much to me because it’s a trip I’ve wanted to do pretty much all my life, and to me it’s also a little bit of a testimony to the dividends paid by my work over the years, exposing myself to more opportunities and cultivating the mindset that’s gotten me to where I am today. I’ll definitely put out a piece on the trip in review later this month, so stay tuned to my medium, where that will come out!
❤️ Gratitude is Viral
Throughout the whole NYC story, I was crazy excited (as I think is normal for someone in my situation), and so I put out a couple posts thanking the people that made the opportunity possible, and just expressing my genuine gratitude for the opportunity, and being where I am right now.
I put out one tweet and one post on LinkedIn and they had more engagement than I’ve ever had before on my socials. At the time of writing, I got almost 20,000 views on my tweet, with 1,600+ engagements, and almost 3,000 views on my LinkedIn post with 68 reactions & 16 comments. When I made that post on Twitter I had around 130-140 followers, and now have over 230. For the relatively small accounts that I have on these two platforms, this was huge, and for me it showed the power of putting forward genuine gratitude for incredible things. I’ve gotten a crazy number of DMs from people all over the place both congratulating and wanting to meet up in NYC, and I’m really grateful for it.
💻 Product of the Month
This month, I’ve really started making the most out of otter.ai - a startup doing voice note transcription better than anyone else
They can help transcribe meetings, and they detect distinguished voices and produce impressively accurate transcripts with their AI
super useful to take notes & discuss ideas on the go, and later digest & process the text
That’s it for this month - it’s been absolutely crazy to get to where I am and I couldn’t be happier to be where I am today. If you’d like to talk about NYC, and/or blockchain & NFTs, drop me an email, or reach out through any other social - I always love to have a chat!
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