On this episode of the Curiosity Podcast, we talk about how to live a life in which you are thriving, what we need to focus on to solve the world's biggest problems, and why Navid avoids mediocrity at all costs.

Some Questions We Ask

• You talk a lot about having a unconventional career and you had a huge range of experiences from being an International Analyst Product Lead at Grameen in Bangladesh to a Management Consultant at Aga Khan Development Network in Tajikistan to Deep Learning and AI at Box in Silicon valley. What drove you to have such a diverse career in terms of places in the world you worked in and things you did?
• What drew you and your brother to starting a student accelerator program?
• What is your vision for the future of education? How do you think educational systems need to change?
• In your Twitter bio you have "I'd rather die of thirst than drink from the cup of mediocrity." can you talk to us about this mentality? What does mediocrity mean to you and why are you avoiding it at all costs?
• What are your biggest tips for students wanting to be unconvential and get past this fear of failure mentality? What are good habits to develop?

Top Quotes

From the hundreds of kids, I've talked to, you know, the biggest things holding people back is, what other people think of them and then not getting things. Like the fear of getting a bad grade, the fear of not going to University these are the shackles, right. And how I kind of the kind of metaphor is like these shackles are attached to you and you're in the ocean and you're swimming up, right? And you're swimming so hard. And as soon as you stop swimming, you'll just sink back down. And again, right? Whereas like if you unshackle yourself and you swim, it's going to be way easier to swim and you'll get to the top way faster, right? If you pause and take a breath, you're not going to sink down again. Just going to float around right or float upwards. So, removing those shackles like, so what is stopping you get out of you know, and right now what I find is insecurity is stopping 80% of people, so get rid of those insecurities, get rid of those fears, get rid of those external expectations, because that's actually stopping you from growing. Then on the complete, flip side is like, what do you care about? What do you, what do you want? Because if you want something bad enough, that's going to be your motivation, desire matters.

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