“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh but sweetie, that’s not for people like you…

Let’s start by stating something we all know to be true: everyone has a “vibe”.

The “tech bro” vibe, the “artsy fartsy” vibe, the “dorky” vibe, a “gamer” vibe, a “sporty” vibe, a “boss babe” vibe, and the list goes on. 

We had certain associations as kids maybe. 

Perhaps you were the kid who got straight A’s, and your family pinned onto you their hopes and dreams of raising a future doctor. 

Maybe you were a rebel, and sculpted your identity around denim and black nail polish. 

Were you “not good at math” or “not sciencey”? Did teachers chuckle condescendingly when you announced your dreams to travel the world and backpack across Asia?

Some of us didn’t do intense extracurricular sports as kids, so for the rest of time immemorial, we are simply “not athletic”. A decade later, when you start training for a marathon and taking creatine, the peanut gallery is alive with chatter.

We struggled with a single physics class in college, so gave up on becoming engineers. The whole class was white males with vitamin D deficiency anyway. You have melanin and XX chromosomes. Is it a sign?

Once, when frying an egg, you set the fire alarm off, so you decided “I’m just not a good cook”. Someone ate your innocent first attempts at some “easy, 30-minute” casserole a lady on Instagram made, and everyone thought it was too salty. 

So you put away your apron and never stepped foot in the kitchen again. It’s just not “your thing”.

Don’t change your mind.

But what happens when you decide that despite almost failing Algebra I, you want to build a rocket ship? 

Yes, you burnt that egg once when you were thirteen, but now you want to make a frittata to impress your snobby friend who only cooks recipes from the New York Times.

The “vibe” that once seemed almost predetermined- that seemed so entrenched in how other people saw you that it became you for a bit- becomes a prison. 

But Sofia, you’re a writer!

This is what happened to me. 

I have always been a writer, a crepuscular moody introvert whose creative juices come alive between midnight and 3am. 

Guess which ungainly middle schooler with a skirt down to her ankles once made her short stories about murder, betrayal, and “no-one-understands-me”-ness?

Yeah, it was probably (always) me. 

Ever since I was little, this was simply how I made sense of the world. 

It was not through human conversation, but through effusive journal entries, a pile of unfinished drafts in my Google Drive, and reading books way past my bedtime.

So naturally, the societal algorithm destined me toward either law, journalism, or eclectic writerly isolation. 

As such, my loved ones were perplexed when I started talking about nanotechnology, coral reefs, seagrass, and mycelium bricks. 

It didn’t fit my “vibe”. 

I was an error message everyone rushed to debug. 

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” -Henry David Thoreau

In Denial

How does one reckon with being naturally interested in all the wrong, mismatched things?

Well, usually it’s through denial. 

So I swung around, leaning into different molds I thought would satisfy my curiosity and leverage my skills, feeling more and more like I didn’t quite belong anywhere. 

In fact, it took years until I finally found the right balance between my interests, and became comfortable with resisting the prison of other people’s assumptions of what you “should” be. 

Now, I have no problem with being both the scientist and the artist, with being a Renaissance woman, with being at the intersections, with defining my career from the ground up. 

What I Learned From Having Mixed Vibes

#1: There are ways to say “I don’t know” without sounding like a loser. 

When I was in high school, at that stress-induced time when everyone was applying for university and announcing their ambitions to proud (or disappointed) audiences, I felt utterly stuck. 

When everyone around me seemed to have a simple, digestible 5-year plan for their life, I was caught in a web of indecision, overwhelmed by the fact that I simply had no idea what to do and where to go. 

There was this rush to get to that enlightened point of certainty, to have an answer people would be impressed with. 

Fast forward several years later, when all those same people with shiny aspirations have now changed their major seven times, paused their degree for a gap year, or doubted and questioned themselves many a late night.

Now, there is something I know with certainty: none of us really knew. 

We wanted so desperately to have a plan. Our parents wanted us to have a plan. So they told us to study something “safe” like medicine or engineering. 

The lady from down the street asked about the plan too, and told us we should really consider studying AI because it’s all the rage.

Our teachers advised a plan (“Oh Sally, you would be a wonderful candidate for studying French. You would absolutely love it!”). 

But that doesn’t change the fact that you still don’t know. 

Now I’m halfway through college, and while I know more, and have significantly more clarity about my future than I did then, there are still lots of questions. 

What’s the difference?

Now I know how to say “I don’t know” with confidence and authority. 

I say “I don’t know, but this is what I’m thinking…” or “I don’t know, and this is what I’m doing to get closer to an answer.” 

#2: You don’t need labels. You need data.  

Let’s talk about how we’re all lazy but desperate and insecure egomaniacs. 

I mean, let’s be honest, it’s kind of fun to go home for holidays and to nonchalantly throw around phrases that make it sound like you have your life together. 

It’s reassuring to talk about your super-committed, always-romantic “green-flag” boyfriend who makes six figures and volunteers at the animal shelter every weekend. 

We would love to talk about how we landed that coveted Google internship, and like Elle Woods, act like it was no big deal (What, like it’s hard?). 

On the other hand, it can feel discouraging to be the single, not-yet-sure, maybe-maybe-not one with horror stories in place of victories. 

But actually, taking your time can be an incredible strength, and land you in a way more aligned decision in the long-run. 

When I took a gap year, it was easy to feel behind as my friends raced ahead and settled into college. Meanwhile, I took the year to try out different passion projects, jobs, internships, courses, and athletic challenges. 

It was the pause before the next chapter of my life, and it made all the difference. 

Having the space to fail, to test, to messily realize both what I didn’t know that I thought I knew, and what I knew that I thought was a mystery, gave me the confidence to use my time in college to get even more narrow. 

I learned to not simply ask what I would like to do, but to instead consider what I’m already building/learning/exploring, and why it works or doesn’t. 

Then, with that information, I find new ideas to test, curating these options based on my interests and skills already.

#3: Your dreams set the scale. 

I used to think mood boards and “manifestations” were a bunch of fluffy nonsense…until I tried them.

Giving myself permission to imagine my dream life, dream career, dream love, dream home, and more, made me realize that none of it was actually out of reach. 

This changed my mindset about success completely. 

I realized that half of “succeeding” is giving yourself permission to pursue. 

It’s about giving yourself permission to go for it, even if the “thing” you’re going for is wildly ambitious. Often, we shut ourselves down before even considering the logistics.

The answer is simple: allow yourself to imagine that “impossible” life, the one you stopped believing in because someone told you it wasn’t “realistic”. Don’t stop yourself when the “what if…” thoughts roll in. 

“I realized that half of ‘succeeding’ is giving yourself permission to pursue.”

It might be geographical: “What if I lived on the beach and had seventeen dogs?”

It might be entrepreneurial: “What if I owned a coffee shop that was also a pottery studio?”

Maybe it’s about a creative project or an educational pursuit: “What if I directed a short film and went back to school to study medieval poetry?”

 Let yourself dream again, and let those dreams exist in your mind long enough for you to actually treat them seriously. 

#4: Most decisions aren’t binary.

You contain multidudes.

So I’ll be the first to assure you it’s not a problem to be fixed, but rather a strength to be nurtured. 

Sometimes you think you have to choose between two sides of yourself, and you actually don’t.

I thought I had to choose between a “sciencey” path and an “artsy and humanities path”, and I found I could have both in my life, at just the level I wanted them. 

I realized it’s not a choice between being either a starving artist or a creatively-repressed robot who never produces or creates anything. 

There’s a gradient. 

You can also be: an artist with a day job, an artist who also does freelance work, a hobbyist, someone who starts out with a day job and transitions to being an artist full time. 

Personally, I’ve made the decision that I don’t want my art to be my main income source. I simply don’t want financial pressure on my creativity. 

That said, I still take my creative pursuits seriously even if it’s not how I plan to make money.

In reality, when it comes to career paths, it’s usually not a choice between “do” or “don’t” but more so a question of “how” and “to what extent”.

“When it comes to career paths, it’s usually not a choice between “do” or “don’t” but more so a question of “how” and “to what extent”.”

#5: Your education is only as good as how you keep learning. 

Going to college for me is about learning how to self-educate once I’m done. 

It’s about learning how to think, conversate, read, how to study and pursue opportunities.

College teaches me how to engage with peers and people who are experts in their field, and about what I want to learn more about and to what extent.

We live in a world that places a huge emphasis on pieces of paper that say what you did, when, and with what institution. 

But once you have those pieces of paper, what really gets you across the line is those skills you actually acquired. 

So yes, degrees are useful tools, but what affects you most over the course of your life is how you independently develop knowledge and wisdom. 

I Gave Up The Search.

The biggest misconception I had about building a career that blends, and diverges, and takes its own unique shape, is that I had to “find” it. 

The truth ended up being that a career isn’t something you find; it’s something you build. 

How do you build it?

With the small decisions to pursue a project or not, to apply for a certain role or not, to reach out to a person in a certain field or not. 

It’s about finally giving yourself permission to define what a dream job can be, and then being bold enough to make it a reality.

“If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Thought to Action

1. Treat Your Life Like a Lab: Reframe one uncertainty as an experiment instead of a decision.
2. Shorten the Feedback Loop: Ask: how can I learn something in a week instead of a year?
3. Document What You Learn: Keep a simple log: what I tried, what happened, what surprised me.
4. Detach Outcome From Worth: Let experiments succeed or fail without meaning anything about you.
5. Practice Staying in Motion: When something doesn’t work, don’t restart. Adjust and continue.

Sources

No external sources were used for this post. 

The post When Your Vibe Gets In The Way Of Your Heart appeared first on Green Also Green.

“Simplicity carried to an extreme becomes elegance.” -Jon Franklin, American author and Pulitzer Prize winner

Design is small tweaks over a long time.

For several months, I have been staring at my laptop screen, knowing I had to talk about evolutionary biology and design, but not knowing exactly what shape to make the words and what angle to enter into the topic. 

I first got the inspiration to write about it when completing an assignment for an evolutionary biology class. As part of this project, I had to conduct a phylogenetic analysis, using software to construct a sort of “family tree” of related species, called a phylogeny. 

Through it, we could see how species have evolved, where they branched in the evolutionary tree, and when certain traits adaptively radiated. 

It was fascinating, with lots of crossover to how ideas evolve, or how etymology shapes, or even how culture spreads across geography. 

But nowadays, we seldom make the link between biology and other domains. 

So I thought about this. For months. 

Then, as I munched on a bag of highly addictive caramel popcorn, it hit me: design is not about the idea coming to you all at once. 

It’s about riffing, iterating, and building something better than what you had before. 

And guess what?

That’s also exactly how design works in biology. 

Much like in evolution, it’s not about starting out perfect. It’s about making many small tweaks over a long period of time until you arrive at an end product you’re proud of. 

#1: The Underrated Power Of a Terrible First Draft

The idea of being struck by a bolt of lightning and suddenly having a stroke of creative genius is a widespread myth that afflicts millions of perfectionists and overthinkers worldwide each day. 

We are tormented by the fact that we will somehow blasphemize the idea in our head by putting it out into the world, and realizing it isn’t that great in real life. 

It’s the fear that we will turn potential into actuality, and in doing so, be confronted with so many mistakes and imperfections.

 And these mistakes? 

They will have the final say over what we are capable of on a deeper level. 

The sappy poem you wrote about your crush in seventh grade? Definitely nowhere near Jane Austen or Maya Angelou level. So your literary career is over. 

The lumpy scarf you knit three Thanksgivings ago, where you messed up the pattern and ran out of yarn? Yeah, you better give up knitting now. 

If you make that “cringe” post about that incredible passion project you’ve been working on, your cousin’s friend’s sister will not be impressed. 

And who are we if our cousin’s friend’s sister doesn’t approve of us?!

Maybe no one will care. They might think you’re being “performative”. 

Evolution doesn’t work this way. 

It throws out so many terrible first drafts it would make you dizzy. It leaves so many of its genetic “ideas” behind.

And yet?

And yet. 

Look around you. 

There is life everywhere, in the most impossible niches (check out this magnetic bacteria I heard about recently). This life is designed impeccably. Why? Because of those terrible drafts that paved the way. 

#2: Random Mutations 

The irony is that as much as we are creatures of habit, we are also built on randomness. 

While a lot of the traits we have as humans seem to make sense, they are also the product of random differences in our genetics being passed on because they help people survive and perpetuate the human race. 

But random mutations aren’t just biological. 

They also apply to the design process, where we not only ideate, but also iterate and test. 

For example, if you’re inventing a new pasta recipe, you might add some of the more “classic” ingredients (marinara sauce, cheese, basil…). 

Then, you separate the pasta, and decide to test out some ingredients you have never added before. For one bowl of pasta, you throw in some edamame beans. In the other, you add some chopped spinach. The last bowl gets some broccoli. 

You have tried something completely random that in all likelihood will end up tasting either neutral (i.e. you don’t mind whether it’s there or not) or worse (i.e. you will never add it to your pasta again).

However, if you do this enough times, you will also get the third outcome: realizing that your random new ingredient makes this dish taste better. 

After trying potatoes and corn on pizza (I condone it!), a flavor unique to audacious Japan, I have come to realize this is a tried and true approach to generating masterpieces. 

Creative genius isn’t about just knowing to put potatoes and corn on your pizza. 

It’s about having the courage to try pizza with a bunch of other weird toppings, knowing eventually, you will stumble across a great combination. 

#3: Steady Rivers Cut Through Immovable Mountains.

This is the age of doing everything all at once.

You must cram every big life milestone into a 5-year plan. Log it in your bullet journal. Post about it with a “candid” (but also totally staged) photo with a caption that reads “#blessed”.

We are in the “instant coffee”, “instant results”, and “instant progress”  world. 

Evolution doesn’t work that way. 

Instead, evolution makes the smallest changes you could imagine, but compounds them over millions, and even billions, of years. 

This act of compounding and iterating on tiny mutations is what has produced some of the best designs we know to occur within life. 

Consider the eye, which first evolved only as a light-sensing organ, and later developed the lens, retina, iris, and more. 

Across the animal kingdom, eyes take all sorts of weird and wonderful appearances. 

One of the common traits among all of them, however, is that they sense light, and have been knee-deep in the evolutionary design process for millions of years. 

So take it slow.

Small consistent changes will get you way farther that sporadic drastic steps.

#4: It’s not the strongest or smartest, but the most adaptable…

There is a beautiful quote attributed to Albert Einstein that goes, “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” 

Isn’t that such a relief?

Maybe in second grade you did not always ace your spelling tests, and in third grade you weren’t the first to learn your times tables. 

In fact, maybe right now, you feel like kind of an idiot because you cracked an egg in a way that made the yolk break. You turned all your white clothes pink because one red sock snuck into the washing machine. Maybe you accidentally clicked “send” on an email before actually adding the attachment. 

If you have ever felt stupid, or weak, or incapable, or unworthy of success, there is good news: you don’t have to be perfect; you just have to be adaptable. 

When climate change strikes, or human beings destroy yet another vital habitat, the way species perpetuate is by adapting to change. 

If there is an extinction, they fill the empty niche. 

New mutations occur, and the old species adapt to the new habitat, food sources, and conditions. 

Evolutionary biology says that when Life (yes, with a capital ‘L’) happens, you adapt. 

Design should adapt the same way too.

Design is dynamic. 

The unifying theme connecting evolutionary biology with design thinking is that, contrary to what we might think about both domains, they are dynamic and evolving.

Both design and evolution are about responding to change and to need. 

Design is the space between stimulus and response where we decide what the next iteration will look like. 

It means saying “this next draft won’t be perfect, but it’ll be closer than what came before”. 

Thought to Action

1. Lower the Stakes on One Creative Act: Make something deliberately small, unfinished, or silly. Let it exist without optimizing it.
2. Feed Your Imagination Intentionally: Consume one strange or delightful input today—a poem, a walk, a conversation, a Wikipedia rabbit hole.
3. Create Without Explaining: Make something you won’t post, monetize, or justify. Let curiosity be the reason.
4. Keep an “Idea Garden”: Write down half-formed ideas without judging them. Growth likes space.
5. Practice Creative Permission: Before starting, say: “I’m allowed to explore this.” Then begin.

Sources

No external sources were used for this post. 

The post The 4 Design Secrets From Evolutionary Biology That Unlock Results appeared first on Green Also Green.

“Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being.”

– Eckhart Tolle

Insights From Mt. Takao

Of all the weird natural systems on the planet, I thought I was over mushrooms. I really did.

Turns out though, we’re back in love. And yes, today I will subject you to that obsession. 

On a strictly academic mission, I climbed Mt. Takao, and got to have a lot of fun drawing different geological features and eating sweet treats (it’s a hard life, I know). 

From that trip- one of the best homework assignments I have ever had to do- I gained some random insights, as many silly backpackers do when swearing off mainstream society and disappearing into the woods.

If you’re wondering about the deep theme of these insights, don’t bother, because there isn’t one.

Rather, I decided to draw from my favorite moment on the trip: the oyster mushroom. 

Me sitting on the forest floor, drawing a mushroom

#1: Systems thinking

It was when I started to see mushrooms cropping up everywhere, and eventually sat on the cool shaded forest floor to draw a few by hand, that it really struck me: this cute little mushroom, right here before me in its dark non-plant-non-animal glory, was part of a huge planetary system that made the perfect conditions for it to end up before me. 

I mean, stop and think about this: mushrooms require particular soil conditions, particular temperatures and moisture, and it’s even larger systems that manufacture these conditions. 

You can zoom out and zoom in, and on all different scales, you can explain the simple presence of a mushroom on the ground. 

Then I thought about it some more, crouched there as one with the little white oyster mushroom, and felt it was a tragedy that when we think about the world around us, it’s often easy to forget about the systems things are made up of. 

Be a systems thinker. 

So what is there to do? 

Try what I did. Choose one object- an apple, an ear bud, your half-eaten sandwich…

Zoom out to the biggest force you can think of that brought that single thing to where it is now. 

Now zoom in. How was your sandwich made – from the bread to the seedling that ended up creative that tomato slice?

#2: Fast-track to replenishing creativity. 

There is nothing like a long train ride followed by a long hike to really clear your head. 

On my way to Mt. Takao, I enjoyed this uninterrupted hour of time on my Kindle, reading about plant leaves and atmospheric gases in David Beerling’s Emerald Planet as my friends napped in their seats. 

It was peaceful, quiet, and I got to let my mind wander along different trains of thought. 

On the trail, it was the same. 

I marveled at the trees, stopping every five steps to take yet another photo of a ravine, towering cedar tree, or translucent spider web. 

But, once again, I had hours upon hours of time to just think. 

No music, no notifications, no to-do list besides keep watching until you reach the top. 

By the time I got back to Tokyo though, I had several new notes on various projects, random tangents, and interesting questions to look up when I got home. 

Make time to think uninterrupted. 

One of the best systems, I realized, to create emptiness in which to nurture the baby seedlings of your creative garden, is to do something where the emptiness is a natural byproduct. 

Hiking is like that. Showering is like that. Reading is like that. Sometimes, even household chores are like that. 

When you do something where you mind can detach from the nagging expectations of a looming Google Calendar block, your creativity will step in and have a play. 

There are probably already tasks like that for you, and you might not even notice it. 

Next time, pay attention as your mind wanders. Savor the creative play. 

#3: Nature is therapy. 

In the deep cavernous well that is my camera roll, there lies a meme. 

On one side is a gray-skinned, sleep-deprived cartoon with bags under their eyes, asking Jesus, “Is this it? Is this the hardest test you have for me?” Jesus replies, “You literally just have to put your phone down and go outside.”

It’s funny, but accurate. 

Why are we always surprised that when we hide from the sun and spend twelve hours a day in front of a screen, we also happen to feel miserable and depressed?

Truth be told, humans weren’t designed to stare at screens. We were made to hike through forests, draw tiny mushrooms, and gaze in wonder at a deep green range of mountains. It’s what humans have been doing for millions of years. 

Nonetheless, I am still impressed at just how rejuvenating it feels to have a day outside, my phone tucked away at the bottom of my backpack, where the Notification Bird can’t get to me. 

Put down your phone and go outside. 

It’s hard to get away from screens- whether it’s your phone, or the laptop where you work all day. 

Still it’s worth making a deliberate effort, because your stress, worry, and constant existential dread will melt away. 

To make it more fun, take someone adventuring with you. Make it fun and easy. Bring a notepad. 

Maybe, like me, you will end up crouched in front of a mushroom, amazed at the multitudes it contains. 

Thought To Action 

1. Map the Impossible: Write down three “too big” ideas you’d pursue if fear, money, or skill weren’t limits. Circle one. Start with the smallest visible step.
2. Use Tech Intentionally: Schedule a daily “digital audit”—10 minutes to check what tools you actually use to create versus to consume. (See this guide to mindful tech habits).
3. Build an Independent Study Track: Pick a theme you want to master this year (creativity, AI, storytelling) and design your own syllabus—books, podcasts, projects, mentors.
4. Pair Reading with Doing: For every chapter you read, add one experiment to test the idea in real life.
5. Reflect in Reverse: Once a week, ask: “What did I not do because I underestimated myself?”—then do one of those things, badly but bravely.

Sources

No external sources were used for this post. 

The post 3 Secrets A Mountain Mushroom Taught Me About Creative Focus, Systems Thinking & Inner Peace appeared first on Green Also Green.

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” – Henry Ford

When Nothing Looks Like Your Mood Boards

In a world of Instagram filters, ugly things are rebellious. 

I have been in an ugly war with acne since I first dipped my timid little toe into the waters of puberty. 

Since then, I have tried just about everything short of accutane- Differin, tretinoin, antibiotics, spironolactone, pimple patches, various cleansers, not eating nutritional yeast, cutting down on dairy, and, of course, plain concealer. 

So many times, I have heard well-meaning internet-people with no dermatological qualifications sell me another easy fix, as though I haven’t already cried myself to sleep and searched the entire internet seventeen times over for solutions. 

Now, it has been almost a decade of pimples and acne scars, a decade of hearing people with clear skin complain about having “breakouts” which look 10 times milder than my face has been since I was maybe ten.

But there is one thing my acne taught me all these years that made me stronger. 

I learned that my reality will never fully match my “ideal”. 

Now, I continue to struggle with acne. 

I continue to struggle with bad days, and failures, and rejection, and insecurity. 

There are days when I feel like I’m losing this big race of achieving success as early as possible. 

There are days when I feel ugly, and stupid, and absolutely worthless. 

Acne made me confront this question: What if your reality is always imperfect?

No one starts with clarity.

We like to think we start with clarity, just because we made the mood board and announced our 5-step process to achieving success. 

The truth is a little murkier. 

While it helps to plan and visualize, clarity comes mostly from action. 

#1: Share the draft anyway.

Long-term consistency > short-term perfection, so don’t wait until everything is exactly perfect!

The longer you wait, the higher the bar will get for what it takes to finally be “ready”. 

When we train ourselves to have an excuse for what we do/don’t do, we form a habit of making excuses. 

Instead, take that first wobbly step. Open up that course you keep saying you want to take. 

Send those cold emails you’ve been meaning to pitch. Knock on the doors of people who will mostly reject you. 

Make bold requests that will likely get denied. 

Ask for feedback. Have the audacity to make mistakes publicly. 

Perfectionism is just another way fear manifests to protect us from the big scary monsters hiding behind true effort. 

So to start is not just about starting; it is about having the courage to face reality head-on, and realize that you are way more capable than you thought. 

#2: Keep a list of “Bad Ideas”.

How many times do we decide not to do something just because it might not work out?

Too often. 

Don’t get me wrong- we all have ideas that if we acted on them, we would regret it later, but what if we had better practice at getting our ideas out of our head, onto a list, and maybe even into conversation with someone else?

This is not about impulse-driven decision-making; it’s about getting your ideas out without the pressure to prove they’re amazing. 

Because let’s face it: most of your ideas will not be amazing.

But if you learn how to capture them and think them through, you will make sure that the day you have a real breakthrough, it doesn’t go by like just another “shower thought” or “daydream”. 

Trust me, that day will come, and it will only be possible because you took the time to take your ideas seriously. 

#3: Ask for accountability.

One of the single biggest motivators for me to make progress in my life is, sadly, the social pressure to follow through on my commitments. 

It is the people-pleaser in me that needs everyone to think she is in control of her life and doing great. 

For most of my life, this has been a shortcoming of mine that I have sought to overcome. 

That is, until I realized it could be turned into a strength. 

What if I leveraged people-pleasing to make sure I do what I say I’m going to do?

I put this idea to the test, and found that it was golden. When I use my career coach or a group of friends to make sure I complete a task or bring a project to success, I am ten times more likely to prioritize that thing and make sure it gets done. 

As sad as it may be, we often care more about what others think of us than what we think of ourselves. Yet, often we are also the only person who can say what tasks are the highest leverage at any given point. 

So bring someone else in on the loop, promise to text them when X is done and Y is submitted. Feel the pressure to not let them down, and soon, you will find it is impossible to let yourself down as well. 

You are free.

Having acne sucks, but it means you learn to stop defining yourself by the quality of your skin. 

Likewise, when you embrace the ugly beginning of a project, or the ugly rejection when you apply to dozens of opportunities that mostly tell you ‘no’, you free yourself to stop being defined by rejection and failure. 

Even more importantly than freeing yourself, you will know yourself. 

And isn’t that the mission of a lifetime? 

Becoming who you truly are.

Thought to Action

1. Make Your “Ugly List”: Write down 5 things you’ve been too scared to start and commit to beginning one this week—ugly on purpose.
2. Create an “Ugly Drafts” Folder: Store your roughest starts and revisit weekly.
3. Try a 24-Hour Debrief: After beginning a project, come back the next day and reflect—did the cringe evolve?
4. Post Before You’re Ready: Share one in-progress idea publicly or with a friend to build momentum.
5. Talk o People In Other Fields: Use these 11 tips to start conversations with people from other fields. 

Sources

No external sources were used for this post.

The post How To Make Peace With The Ugly Beginning appeared first on Green Also Green.

“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success.” – Nikola Tesla

Materials shape the world.

All around us are items made of different materials with different life cycles. 

No matter what though, for every material you see, there was also someone who had to decide to use that material, and had to decide how to synthesize it and assemble it into a product. 

For each and every product, there are also different additives, various dyes or preservatives, and a wide range of demands during manufacturing, whether it’s heat or water in varying quantities, or manual labor in dangerous conditions. 

Quite literally, all these materials make up the world around us. 

But that’s not all. 

They are also changing the world around us. 

Because of that, the future of materials is the future of the world.

So today, I want to celebrate some of the 4 most thrilling (but also weird) new materials that will change the way we manufacture the items all around us. 

Ready?

#1: Nanomaterials

After getting close-up experience with a UC Berkeley lab developing new nanotechnology, I have grown increasingly interested in the future of nanomaterials. 

But what is nanotechnology?

The prefix ‘nano’ refers to a billionth. So nanotechnology is tech that involves the manipulation of atoms at the scale of 1-100 nanometers. In other words, technology that requires us to rearrange atoms at 1-100 billionths of a meter. 

The field was first founded in 1959 by Richard Feynman, after a lecture called “There’s Plenty Of Room At The Bottom”. 

He suggested we could manipulate individual atoms as a more robust form of synthetic chemistry. 

It was unusual to suggest something like this at the time, but since then, research on nanotechnology has boomed.

Now, we can easily expect the future of nanotech to have applications in energy storage, medicine, and even environmental protection. 

That said, there are still plenty of research gaps yet to be filled, with research into graphene and carbon nanotubes advancing the quickest.

But as Feynman proclaimed, still “there’s plenty of room at the bottom”- for creativity, innovation, and an exciting new future of materials. 

#2: Mycelium

I’ve had my eye on mycelium-based composites for a while. 

But what even is mycelium?

If you’ve ever seen a mushroom, think of it like the rest of the mushroom’s body. In reality, the mushroom you might be imagining is only the reproductive organ of the mycelium, meant to disperse spores to new places. 

Underground, in a dead log, or wherever it is growing, the mycelial network stretches far and wide. In fact, it is even considered the largest organism on earth (!).

However the wonders don’t stop there.

Combined, the production of concrete and steel contribute to approximately 15% of our global carbon emissions. 

Already, people are using mycelium to replace both of these, which release a huge amount of carbon into the atmosphere every year. 

Furthermore, mycelium has been used in clothes, accessories, and even alternative meats. 

What’s left is to refine our production processes and explore the material properties of mycelium even more.

But who knows?

Maybe in 20 years, you will be living in a house made of mycelium bricks, wearing mycelium leather, and eating a hamburger made of mycelium and peas. 

#3: Carbon-sequestering Carbicrete 

Okay, so maybe I said some ugly things about concrete.

But let’s please talk about concrete’s precocious baby cousin: carbicrete. 

Right now, concrete is the most used substance on earth after water.

A key ingredient to concrete is cement, which emits 8% of the world’s carbon emissions. 

Enter: carbicrete. 

Carbicrete essentially allows us to make concrete without using cement, instead replacing it with steel slag as the primary binder and carbon dioxide as the activator. 

Steel slag is a by-product of the steel industry, so using it as a raw material minimizes industrial waste. 

Furthermore, using carbon dioxide as the activator removes carbon emissions from the environment and helps to mitigate climate change.

Ultimately, curing the concrete with carbon dioxide lets us sequester 1 kg of CO₂ per standard concrete block, which holds a lot of promise in the face of current emission trends.

Now just imagine what would happen if we adopted carbicrete on an even larger scale!

#4: Metamaterials

If you’re a fan of Harry Potter, I need to tell you something. 

Invisibility cloaks are real. 

And guess what?

It’s all thanks to metamaterials. 

These are artificial materials (so you can’t find them in nature) that were designed with certain properties in mind. 

Think: noise-cancelling barriers, cloaking devices, and super-lenses. In a lot of ways, these materials feel like the supernatural heroes of the material world. 

They are very much the stuff of comic books and Marvel movies!

But how will they save the planet?

So many ways!

For starters, they can help to increase energy efficiency, such as in solar panels or thermal regulation in buildings. 

Additionally, metamaterials can be used to develop lightweight and high-performance materials for applications like transportation. 

Also, they can be used for passive cooling and heating systems, water purification, and desalination. 

That said, there are still many challenges with metamaterials in terms of fabrication, design, and characterization. 

We still need to work to make them better. That goes without saying. 

But you already know, if you start to see scientists showing off real-life invisibility cloaks, that amazing things are happening. 

It’s enough to make me absolutely thrilled for the next 20 years!

Thought To Action 

1. Design a Life You’d Want to Live In: List three feelings or values (e.g., curiosity, calm, freedom) you want to feel more often. Now ask: What would a day designed around these look like?
2. Choose One Thing to Repair or Repurpose This Week: Whether it’s sewing a hole in your sock or reusing packaging in a creative way, practice seeing value where others see waste.
3. Imagine a Future Without Trash: Write a short paragraph or draw what your neighborhood would look like if nothing was disposable. What would change?
4. Audit Your Footprint (Literally): Check the label on your most-used shoes or clothes. What are they made of? Could a more sustainable material work instead?
5. Read About the Next-Gen Materials: Check out mushroom leather, mycelium bricks, or algae packaging. Explore how artists and engineers are already building that future.

Sources

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381686851_A_review_of_applications_and_future_prospects_of_nanotechnology

https://pubs.rsc.org/aa/journals/articlecollectionlanding?sercode=na&themeid=ff357ff7-0458-45f1-b224-27a11965624b&utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/does-steel-and-concrete-needed-build-renewable-energy-cancel-out-benefits

https://www.theclimategroup.org/sites/default/files/2024-09/The%20Steel%20and%20Concrete%20Transformation%20-%202024%20market%20outlook%20on%20lower%20emission%20steel%20and%20concrete.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/18/namibia-homes-built-from-mushrooms-mycohab-mycelium?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://fungalbiolbiotech.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40694-021-00128-1?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0734975025000035?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://solve.mit.edu/solutions/8782

https://news.mit.edu/2025/mapping-future-metamaterials-0327?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384601877_Metamaterials_A_Comprehensive_Review_of_Design_and_Applications

The post 4 Weird Materials That Will Save The Planet appeared first on Green Also Green.

“I want to be a superhero, I want to be Spider-Man or Batman. Will you let me know if you have any connections? Let’s make it happen.” -Stephan James

LinkedIn is not the problem.

LinkedIn is not the problem; you are. 

Now, before you un-connect with me, hear me out.

So many of us are quick to say we hate LinkedIn. We hate how transactional it is, and how the way professional experience translates into a headline often feels like a sort of strange witchcraft. 

We hate that you can say one thing and be living another, and that it always somehow feels like the person you know IRL is not the one you see online. 

It feels fake, and we all know it.

There are lies, to be sure, and there is a lot of window-dressing. I’m not here to excuse that at all. 

But beneath all that, there is something else…

Today, I want to talk to you about the opportunity of LinkedIn, and by the time you have finished reading this post, you will wonder why you never took advantage of it. 

Furthermore, you will realize that 99% of us are using LinkedIn all wrong, and that with a few small changes, it can be transformed into your secret weapon for success. 

#1: LinkedIn arithmetic. 100 real connections > 500 random connections. 

Ah, the “500+ connections”. 

At the beginning of my freshman year of college, this was the Holy Grail of humblebrags. 

What surprised me, though, was that while everyone obsessed about the number, no one seemed too fussed about the quality. 

So in the end, what happened was that most of those “500+” connections were superficial and ultimately useless. 

They were not people rooting for you to succeed. They were not mentors or people you admired. In fact, lots of times, they were not even people whose profiles you had looked at. 

It was a status symbol more than a tool, and I quickly learned that seeing LinkedIn like this was a mistake. 

Since I downloaded LinkedIn less than I year ago, I eventually got to 500+ connections, but here are a few examples of bigger wins I achieved using the app:

• 9+ months of participating in a UC Berkeley lab focused on applications of carbon nanotubes
• 2 data analysis projects with a women’s health non-profit
• Free mentoring sessions with senior women in the fields I’m passionate about
• Doubling web traffic to my blog

How did I achieve these wins?

Firstly, by changing my mindset from quantity to quality. 

I sought to talk to people, to connect, and most of all, to learn. 

#2: Don’t ask for jobs. Ask for conversations. 

I am under no illusions; in almost every skill I could have honed, I am an amateur. 

I’m only a sophomore in college. 

I’ve only been alive on this planet for 20 years. 

Despite all that, I am armed with strong curiosity and genuine interest. 

So what do I do?

I give curiosity and interest. 

When you reach out on LinkedIn as someone hoping to advance and grow, people will line up to help you. 

When you reach out coldly, asking for a favor without having given one first, people will dismiss you with no guilt. 

#3: Give value to get value. 

Successful people get dizzying amounts of solicitations on LinkedIn. They are used to other people wanting something from them. 

So don’t try to take. Instead, try to give. 

Consider inquiring about what sorts of problems they face and whether they would let you help out. 

Maybe you have familiarity with a certain technical skill, like programming, Excel, or AutoCAD. Perhaps you know someone who could help them. 

Offer value to get value. 

Open LinkedIn & Leverage These Hacks Now.

Set a timer for five minutes. 

Ready?

Okay, first, scroll through all your connections, and pick 3 people who have recently been working on projects that you genuinely find cool. 

I’m talking projects you could fangirl about, maybe even projects you would dream about being a part of one day. 

Have you chosen your people?

Now it’s time to reach out. 

Tell them you are inspired by or interested in their work (be specific!), and then ask if they would be open to a 15-minute informal chat to discuss it more. 

Don’t ask about internships. Don’t ask about job openings. 

Just a chat.  

This isn’t about getting something for yourself. More so, it’s about connecting with people who truly inspire you. 

By connecting them, you will get insights into what they did to succeed and how you can get there too. Maybe it’s a reference to someone else in the field, or some reading material to explore.

Sometimes, you will even find that they need exactly the type of help you can provide, and an opportunity does emerge from the discussion. 

If it doesn’t, though, you have at least become a high-quality contact to reach out to in the future. 

What’s to say in a month that 20-minute chat hasn’t turned into a 10-week internship, a groundbreaking realization, or even a life-changing career pivot? 

The only way you’ll know for sure is if you give it a shot and finally stop hating LinkedIn. 

Thought To Action 

1. Ask “What If” Every Day: Start or end your day by writing one bold “What if…” question. What if your shoes were edible? What if your routines were designed for joy? These questions open space for unexpected insight.
2. Do a 5-Minute Redesign Challenge: Pick an object you use daily (a water bottle, backpack, phone case) and sketch or describe how you’d redesign it to be more circular, comfortable, or creative.
3. Make Space for Creative Input: Commit to one hour a week where you absorb inspiration—watch a documentary, visit a museum, or read outside your field. Creativity is fueled by unexpected collisions.
4. Redesign Something That’s Annoying You: Find one product, system, or space in your life that bugs you—and reimagine it. You don’t have to fix it in reality, just give yourself permission to sketch possibilities.
5. Start Your Future Job Library: Curate a mini reading list around your dream career or project. Not sure where to start? This post will show you how to learn from curiosity, not credentials.

Sources

No external resources were used for this post.

The post How To Not Hate LinkedIn (And Start Building *Real* Connections) appeared first on Green Also Green.

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” -Maya Angelou

Butterfly wings are inspiring new technology.

When you picture the first whispers of spring, and the vivid colors of flowers and butterflies in your garden, perhaps your mind doesn’t first go to the study of photonics in butterfly wings.

Now, maybe, it will. 

As a big fan of biomimicry, I was excited to read this 2024 paper about bio-inspired nanostructures based on the photonic structure of butterfly wings. 

It was facilitated by interdisciplinary research and perfectly demonstrates the power of combining fields to bring new insights to tech. 

The best part is that this isn’t the only example of new tech taking inspiration from biology, and today I want to talk to you about how you can look to this same source for inspiration as well.

#1: Define the challenge. 

It’s hard to imagine how to organically translate what you see on a hike or long drive into a ground-breaking new invention. 

If we could all just look at butterfly wings, chameleon skin, anthills, or gecko feet and see new technology, we would not only have a more efficient world, but also one that is more harmonious with the social and environmental forces around us. 

But let’s start with the (seemingly) easy part: identify the challenge. 

What criteria does a potential solution need to meet?

#2: Discover nature’s strategies. 

The number of natural adaptations and weird but cool talents out in the kingdom of plants and animals (let alone fungi, archaea, bacteria, and protists) is daunting. 

How can one begin to whittle it down?

Align your constraints. 

If you are trying to create a new material that can be used in tropical climates to naturally cool indoor spaces, look to species that live in tropical climates, and research how they keep cool. 

Similarly, if you are interested in keeping warm, why not research a species that lives in the Arctic? 

And if you are interested in understanding how to synthesize materials that can manipulate light, look at butterfly wings!

Don’t narrow it down at first, but think in terms of traits- species that live in particular climates, species that can effectively digest toxins, species that hunt with a particular technique, and so on. 

Once you have honed in on some key inspirational figures in your niche of nature, go deeper. Distinguish their strategies, and think about how these approaches would carry over into your own work. 

#3: Abstract the mechanisms. 

This step is where you shift from biology to design by uncovering how the biological system works. 

Don’t just describe what the butterfly does — ask what principle makes it work. 

Focus on function, structure, and interaction with the environment.

In the case of the Morpho butterfly: The shimmering blue of its wings isn’t from pigment but from nanoscale structures that reflect specific wavelengths of light through interference. These microscopic ridges amplify or dampen certain light waves depending on the viewing angle or environmental conditions.

Abstracting that, we can say the mechanisms at play are:

• Responsive color change through microstructure manipulation, not chemical change
  
• Use of light interference to encode or reveal information
  
• Passive sensing (no energy input required)

#4: Translate into a design idea. 

Now take that principle and apply it to a problem you care about. This is where the “bio” becomes the blueprint for your invention. You’re not copying nature—you’re adapting its logic.

With the Morpho butterfly, researchers studied how its wing structures reflect specific wavelengths of light without using pigment, relying instead on nanoscale ridges that manipulate light through interference. 

The key is not to recreate the butterfly’s wing exactly, but to borrow its logic. 

Ask yourself: how could I achieve a similar effect using modern tools like 3D printing or thin-film layering? 

What problem in my domain could benefit from a responsive, low-energy, visually communicative surface? 

Begin with a rough sketch, a simple material test, or even a thought experiment. 

The most important part is taking that natural strategy and reshaping it into something new, useful, and rooted in elegant efficiency—just like nature intended.

Thought To Action 

1. Start a “Future Self” Journal: Write one page from the perspective of your dream self—what are you building, learning, wearing, prioritizing? Use this to guide daily decisions.
2. Identify Your Personal Design Criteria: What makes a task or project feel deeply worth it to you? Make a mini checklist. Use it to evaluate new commitments before saying yes.
3. Create a “Someday Stack” of Ideas: Start a list of odd, impractical, or ambitious project ideas that you don’t have time for yet. This becomes your personal innovation vault.
4. Study Someone Whose Job Didn’t Exist 20 Years Ago: Look up someone in a role like climate designer, circularity strategist, or biofabrication artist—and reverse engineer how they got there.
5. Fuel Up With Fiction That Thinks Ahead: Read a sci-fi or speculative fiction book this month. Start with something weird. It will stretch your imagination more than any TED Talk ever could.

Sources

The Biomimicry Institute. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved July 13, 2025, from https://biomimicry.org/

The post How Butterfly Wings Inspired New Tech appeared first on Green Also Green.

 “Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.” -Adam Hochschild

The Start Of My (Not) To Do List. 

6 months ago, I quit Instagram. 

Why?

I had been saying I wanted to read more for a long time, and the excuse was always the same: “I don’t have enough time.” 

So I crunched some numbers. 

We have 24 hours every day. 7-10 of those hours are usually spent sleeping. Students and full-time workers spend about 7-8 hours daily at a job, in class, or studying. Then there is unpaid work, like laundry, shopping, or cooking, and the time you spend showering, commuting, using the bathroom, or having meals. 

Altogether, according to estimates from 2024, paid work, housework, leisure, eating, and sleeping takes about 80-90% of every person’s day. 

So what takes up the remaining 10-20% of the day?

And how do we make sure there is time for the activities we care about?

We relentlessly cut out the time-wasters we don’t care about. 

That way, you can be empowered to go through each day with intention and purpose, and actually make room for what you care about most. 

(Not) To Do #1: Committing to anything that isn’t a “Hell yes”.

You know that networking event you feel like you “should” be interested in, but just aren’t?

You know that book you’re halfway through, but you can barely remember what you’ve even read?

Quitting is for winners, and if that makes you nervous, this one’s for you. 

(Not) To Do #2: Explaining your vision to those committed to misunderstanding it. 

When you’re on an incredible journey, you might feel tempted to share your excitement with everyone, all the time. 

Sometimes, though, there will be people who just don’t get it. 

That’s okay. 

Give yourself permission to keep your journey to yourself sometimes, until you are ready to filter out external opinions. 

But right at the beginning? 

Just focus on building. Sharing will come later.  

(Not) To Do #3: Scrolling through social media when task-switching. 

You finished classes, so time for a short break. Let’s check out what reels people sent me today- just really quick. 

Before you know it, one video turns into two, and two turns into ten. You think, “I’ve just been here for 5 minutes”, but it’s actually been 15.

Ever been there? Because I have. 

Most of us massively underestimate how much of our day goes just to social media between the other important tasks (sometimes even during). 

If you want to spend more time on the tasks you care about- bonding with family and friends, reading that book you haven’t gotten around to, starting that business, or launching that passion project- go into Setting right now and see what apps consume most of your screen time. 

If you can cut back on those, imagine what else you could do…

(Not) To Do #4: Sharing for praise. 

Have you ever asked someone what they think, hoping they will say what you want?

If that’s you, join the club. I can’t count the number of times I have shared information with someone hoping they will tell me what I want to hear. 

Honestly, if you already know what you want to hear, consider why you bother to ask. Do you need permission to follow your intuition? Are you afraid to make the decision without external approval?  

Be courageous in your conviction, or ask for feedback that is specific and structured. 

When you’re building, too much praise can keep you trapped in your comfort zone rather than focused on making real progress. 

(Not) To Do #5: Taking advice from someone who hasn’t achieved what you aspire to.

I’m talking financial advice from someone who’s broke, parenting advice from the person with no kids, and business advice from the person who has never run their own business. 

I don’t mean we can’t learn from other people’s failures. I mean, we can’t learn from the person who hasn’t even tried. 

If you ever suffer from advice overload, remember this: the people who know what they’re talking about are the people who have done it, tried it, failed, or succeeded. 

(Not) To Do #6: Measuring your worth in productivity. 

When you’re starting a new journey- whether it’s a new hobby, side project, or even a new fitness journey- it can be easy to get discouraged by the fact that your time seems to get filled with seemingly wasted effort. 

You don’t see the output yet, so it becomes hard to feel like what you’re doing will even amount to something. 

I have definitely felt this way before, and I know it can be incredibly disheartening. 

Just think of all those New Year’s resolutions that only lasted a month because we didn’t see the results by February 1st. 

If you are looking for progress and don’t see any, but are doing all the “right things”, consider this: your progress isn’t linear; it’s exponential. 

This means that at the beginning, improvements will be barely noticeable, but the more you keep it up, the more significant the changes. 

So, how do you give yourself grace?

By redefining what it means to win. 

Instead of saying “if I read 20 pages today, I have met my goal”, I say “I need to read for 1 hour”. 

Some days, I can fill an hour of reading with 50 pages, and other days, I am preoccupied and can only get through 15.

Ultimately, though, if I showed up, I have succeeded. I have made progress. I have cast a vote for the person I want to be. 

Thought To Action 

1. Design a Life You’d Want to Live In: List three feelings or values (e.g., curiosity, calm, freedom) you want to feel more often. Now ask: What would a day designed around these look like?
2. Choose One Thing to Repair or Repurpose This Week: Whether it’s sewing a hole in your sock or reusing packaging in a creative way, practice seeing value where others see waste.
3. Imagine a Future Without Trash: Write a short paragraph or draw what your neighborhood would look like if nothing was disposable. What would change?
4. Audit Your Footprint (Literally): Check the label on your most-used shoes or clothes. What are they made of? Could a more sustainable material work instead?
5. Read About the Next-Gen Materials: Check out mushroom leather, mycelium bricks, or algae packaging. Explore how artists and engineers are already building that future.

Sources

Ortiz‑Ospina, E., Herre, B., Acisu, T., Giattino, C., & Roser, M. (2020, November; updated February 2024). Time use. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/time-use

The post The Ultimate Not To Do List To Reclaim Your Dreams appeared first on Green Also Green.

“There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes.” -R. Buckminster Fuller

Thinking isn’t testing.

When I was little, I used to think the way to tell if you really knew something was by sitting down with a test and then reflecting on your score. 

If you could memorize every organelle, you would have verifiably good knowledge of biology. If you could memorize the names and dates in your history book, you would be a good historian. 

The thing is, none of these tests were true tests, because they really only tested my memorization. 

When I finally realized what it meant to test your ideas was when I did my first semester of college, and I had to conduct assignments in the real world, with other people, or in the city I was living in (San Francisco). 

We didn’t have tests; we had miniature projects in which we had to apply what we learned to real problems. 

Why did we do this?

Because true knowledge and effective learning do not happen solely by thinking; they happen by doing. 

Now, as someone who often lives more in her head than in the real world, I want to let you in on a secret: most of the ideas I ever had didn’t get very far. 

It’s not because they were bad (although I have certainly had some bad ideas).

It was because they never made it out of my head. 

For that reason, I have decided to explore ways to effectively test my ideas- even the ones that are abstract- so that I can easily identify the ones that I should pursue hard. 

Below, I’ll summarize some of the approaches I’ve found most effective and some of the ways you can give them a shot too. 

Test #1: Don’t wait to be ready.  

Taking action will give you clarity on what to do next. 

So don’t wait until you know every exact detail of every step of the process. Don’t wait until you are “in the mood” or “feel like it”. 

I have learned this lesson many times over, but there is one time that really stands out. 

A few months ago I attended a conference for women in tech in Oakland, and got to meet a host of inspiring women working in a variety of jobs. 

During lunch, when I sat down with my friend at one of the tables, we got to hear one woman at our table tell us a story that was both funny and eye-opening. 

She described herself back in college, sitting in a math class where everyone was performing a task in Excel. 

Nervous about whether she was smart enough to be in that class, she then saw one of her peers raise their hand. 

With a mischevious grin, she told us his question, then chuckled. “After that,” she shared. “I had no doubt about whether I belonged there.”

While she had once doubted whether she was smart enough to be in the class, now she had full confidence that she was equipped to succeed. 

If you’ve ever let your fear of not being good enough postpone your pursuit of a goal, consider this: you are way more capable than you give yourself credit for. 

The biggest obstacle in your way is not your preparedness; it is fear of failure. 

So take a small step now. Maybe it’s not the grandiose action you envisioned- that’s not important. 

What really matters is that you start, ask questions, and get your ideas out of your head and into the world. 

Once you do, you will have to face the reality of what your ideas mean, and maybe even realize that the path to success is a lot simpler than you imagined.

Test #2: Give yourself constraints.  

Whether it’s a deadline, a budget, or a specific type of assignment- constraints take the abstract and turn it into the real. 

Better yet, constraints have the power to take a tough problem and introduce ground-breaking creativity. 

I first encountered this power as a young girl, when I would write for short story competitions. 

Sometimes, competitions only gave you a word limit, and some basic formatting instructions. Font must be Times New Roman size 12, double-spaced, with a title page. Don’t include your name in the document. You must be living in such and such countries and be of such and such age. 

The most exciting competitions?

They would give you random constraints. Maybe it was a prompt. I remember once, it was just a number or a picture. 

These competitions were the most fun, because paradoxically, limiting yourself forced you to reach into a treasure trove of unconventional new ideas you wouldn’t otherwise explore. 

Lots of us have constraints set on us naturally, and find this discouraging. 

What if we flipped the script?

Maybe constraints are there to help us succeed. 

Test #3: Increase the quality of your input.

Have you ever met someone who became a pro athlete by eating fast food daily and doing no physical activity?

I’m not talking about looking thin after a round of Ozempic. What I mean is strength, endurance, and flexibility. 

Star athletes don’t become star athletes randomly. 

They fuel their bodies with the right foods to improve their performance and support recovery. Then, they train, stressing their bodies just enough to take their talent to the next level. 

When it comes to healthy living, it’s a lot easier to see the impact visually, but the same concept applies to creative or intellectual work. 

If you’re building, you will need the right fuel. 

Is your mind fueled predominantly by stressful news and cat memes? Or is it fueled by books and podcasts about the ideas you really care about?

Do you spend most of your conversations gossiping about other people, or cheering them on?

Do you spend your free time doom-scrolling, or getting away from your screen?

You don’t have to become a hermit and never engage with others online, nor do you have to never laugh at a funny meme again. 

Think of it like your diet. 

You don’t have to quit eating candy, but your body will support you better if you make sure you are getting enough protein, fats, and carbohydrates as well. 

If you want to increase the quality of what you produce or think, increase the quality of what you fuel your mind with. 

So read. Ask questions. Listen to podcasts.

Test #4: Shrink to expand. 

Define the core hypothesis, shrink the idea, and outline what success looks like. 

One day, I want to do a PhD. What I really would like is to be able to test out different ideas in an actual lab, but as a sophomore in college, it’s not so easy. I don’t run a lab, and if I were to help out in one, it would be someone else’s ideas I would be exploring, not my own. 

For many months, I puzzled over this with some despair, until a recent conversation with one of my professors, who suggested I think about it a little differently. 

Instead of getting stuck on my lack of a lab, she suggested I take notes when I read research articles. 

Ask questions about the research gaps I identify. Think about what I would do if I did have a lab, equipment, and funding. 

When she broke it down like this, I realized something huge: I was so stuck on the big vision that I had skipped this small first step. 

I had made perfect the enemy of good, and in doing so, not gotten anywhere. 

So now? 

Now I am simply building the habit of keeping up with developments in the fields I would like to study more. 

Then, when I can do research of my own, I will have an even stronger foundation. 

Just keep testing. 

Testing your ideas is not a binary. It’s not like after you’re done, you either implement or kill them off. 

The reality is more like an infinity of different iterations. 

If you strike gold, you can keep pursuing an idea at an even larger scale. 

On the other hand, if you feel like your idea has failed, you can scale it down. 

In the end, we are always experimenting and updating, even without realizing. 

But don’t take my word for it- go test it out for yourself. 

Thought To Action 

1. Ask “What If” Every Day: Start or end your day by writing one bold “What if…” question. What if your shoes were edible? What if your routines were designed for joy? These questions open space for unexpected insight.
2. Do a 5-Minute Redesign Challenge: Pick an object you use daily (a water bottle, backpack, phone case) and sketch or describe how you’d redesign it to be more circular, comfortable, or creative.
3. Make Space for Creative Input: Commit to one hour a week where you absorb inspiration—watch a documentary, visit a museum, or read outside your field. Creativity is fueled by unexpected collisions.
4. Redesign Something That’s Annoying You: Find one product, system, or space in your life that bugs you—and reimagine it. You don’t have to fix it in reality, just give yourself permission to sketch possibilities.
5. Start Your Future Job Library: Curate a mini reading list around your dream career or project. Not sure where to start? This post will show you how to learn from curiosity, not credentials.

Sources

No external sources were used for this post.

The post How To Test Ideas In The Real World appeared first on Green Also Green.

 “Mama always said you could tell an awful lot about a person by the kind of shoes they wear.” ― Forrest Gump

A “What If” Exercise

What if running didn’t leave a trail of microplastics behind?

Let me elaborate.

I have a love-hate relationship with running. We go way back, and the relationship is pretty toxic. 

After several months of walking around in San Francisco and doing almost no running, I am putting my shoes to the test. 

The only downside, though, is that the soles of running shoes, much like most clothing made of plastic, gradually release microplastics into the environment.

But what if it didn’t have to be this way?

Today, I want to use my running shoes to explore what it looks like to “redesign” for circularity. 

But first, let’s talk about how we got to the current design. 

What If The Faulty Design Is Serving Us?

The concept of running as a sport can be traced all the way back to the ancient Greeks, who ran barefoot. Then it was passed on to the Romans, who ran in thin-soled sandals. 

Over time, we started to design more fit-for-purpose running shoes. In fact, spiked shoes emerged in the 1800s, as vulcanized rubber also became more widespread. 

In the 1900s, we saw some shoes made of leather. 

Now, in the 21st century, our shoes consist of materials like ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), nylon, polyurethane, rubber, and more. 

As you might imagine, these materials are hard to reuse once they have gone through their initial life cycle on your feet. They are also predominantly plastic, so they release microplastics as they wear down. 

But let’s stop being haters for a moment and talk about why we use these materials in the first place. 

#1: Performance. 

You might not realize everything your running shoes do for you already, so let me go down the list. 

They help you prevent injury by stabilizing the foot and preventing the skin from damage. 

The stiff plates within the shoe’s midsole also help you to redistribute pressure from the knee to the joint of your toes. 

In fact, your shoes even store energy for you through the compression of the midsole, releasing it as you take another step. 

On top of this technology, there is also a huge degree of customization for each type of user. 

Ultimately, the shoe on your feet is there based on many factors. For example, this includes the distance you typically run, how your foot strikes the ground, and (of course) what colors you like.

#2: Style.

Okay, time for the elephant in the room:

Modern-day sneakers just look cool. 

They come in a variety of shapes, colors, textures, and brands. 

In fact, they are so cool, you probably even wear them when you aren’t about to go to the gym. 

Shoes are a matter of social status, and a big reason why we choose one over the other is simply this: appearances. 

So let’s not brush past that too quickly, because if you want to replace our current cradle-to-grave running shoes with a cradle-to-cradle upgrade, it has to be an upgrade that takes the aesthetic appeal of shoes seriously as well as the engineering.

What If We Can Make It Better?

Now that we’ve paid our respects to the way running shoes are designed now, let’s turn our attention to the future.

 Together, let’s explore what it would look like to design a running shoe that is actually “zero waste”. 

What if we designed running shoes for disassembly?

The way to know if running shoes are “zero waste” or follow a cradle-to-cradle design is to look at what happens after they are done being used. 

So what if, after we finished with our shoes, they could be broken down and fed into the next cycle of innovation?

What if we could actually separate the fabrics, insole, midsole, and outsole, and separate every different material used? 

If we could do this, we could ask questions about each material and how to return it to the manufacturer. 

If we can’t repurpose the material for the manufacturer, we are asking how to return the material to the ecosystem around us. 

What if you could throw your old laces into the compost?

After we have designed for disassembly, we ask whether the materials we use can be returned to the manufacturer or the planet. 

Imagine throwing your old shoe laces in the compost bin. Maybe you’re tossing them into a flowerpot, which releases key nutrients that, over time, degrade into the phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen you would otherwise get from a fertilizer. 

Could you fathom a starch-based plastic outsole that, once you take it apart, could be tossed into a pot of boiling water to dissolve into sugar water for butterflies or hummingbirds?

Maybe, with edible packaging, your shoes even would come in a cardboard box that can be tossed into your garden to grow wild flowers after unpackaging. 

If you think this is crazy, you’re right, but crazy ideas are just what drive progress. 

What if we actually looked cooler and performed better in eco-friendly running shoes?

Now let’s talk about one of the most important aspects of this entire idea. How do we make it fun? How do we make it aesthetically pleasing to wear cradle-to-cradle running shoes?

What if it didn’t have to feel different to wear a shoe like this?

What if you could still be protected from injury, joint damage, and blisters? 

Maybe it’s more feasible than we think. After all, we can take some valuable lessons from the design of shoes already, and apply them to the shoes of the future.

So let’s preserve performance and sleek appearances while upgrading our materials. That way, we can make the life cycle of your shoes just as amazing as what you do while wearing them. 

Thought To Action

1. Start a Curiosity Journal: Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s approach to learning, begin documenting your daily observations and questions. This practice nurtures a habit of inquiry and creativity.
2. Embrace Constraints to Spark Innovation: Challenge yourself with limitations to enhance problem-solving skills.
3. Integrate Artistic Practices into Learning: Incorporate art forms like drawing or music into your study routines to enhance understanding and retention of STEM concepts.
4.  Advocate for Inclusive Design: Engage in conversations and initiatives that promote clothing designs catering to diverse body types and needs.
5. Start A Reading Habit: Check out this post to easily start reading about and enjoying the topics you’ve always wanted to learn more on.  

Sources

https://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Running-Shoe.html

https://www.mmu.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/story/running-shoes-how-science-can-help-you-run-faster-and-more-efficiently

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