Founder's Notes - NDZ Letters

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How to push your limits

Have you ever experienced so much pain that you feel like something broke inside of you? That feeling of knowing you’re not the same person, whether for better or for worse.

This is an extreme example. But it's exactly how it feels when you do hard things that make you feel uncomfortable for a LONG TIME. A lot of people don’t ever get to this stage.

A simple example of this is trying to use your less dominant hand to brush your teeth or write on paper. You’d feel this discomfort you can’t place your hand on, but it’s something you want to stop.

That, my friend, is feedback from your brain that you’re doing something it hasn’t seen before.

You feel this when you’re learning a new skill like playing the piano, guitar, or a language. You can imagine what the outcome is, but your body and mind are not willing. When you endure this discomfort for a long time, you come out the other side a different person.

This concept is called neuroplasticity.

When you’re learning a new skill, just know it’s going to be really hard at the start. It’s better to embrace that it won’t be fun. But it ALMOST ALWAYS gets easier because your brain expands to accommodate harder problems.

You’d look back to see you’ve learned so much, and you’re actually the definition of a cracked person.

So, my friend, pick harder skills to learn; it’s a superpower.

Written by @thanni

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How to finish what you started

Don’t bother trying to pronounce the headline above. I’m also struggling not to bite my tongue.

If you’re a fan of Stranger Things series like me, you’d see that the producers are masters at leaving the audience hanging. Just when you’re waiting for what’s to happen, they end the episode. And you’d have to wait till next week. 😠

Even when you know what they’re doing, you’d still go back to watch it when it drops. What am I driving at?

The Zeigarnik effect is the psychological tendency to remember what you didn’t finish, rather than what you did.

But I’d go one step further, that when you’re working on a long or complex project, you want to give yourself a cliffhanger, i.e, suspense, that makes you want to go back to complete that thing.

For example, if you’re working on a data entry project, after compiling the data and cleaning it up, you can take a break by not turning it into a beautiful graph yet.

Or you created some nice content that you can’t wait to share. You could take a break between.

2 things happen here. You go back to see errors in what you did, or you complete that task powerfully because you started with fresh focus.

So, give yourself an excuse to take a break, so you can complete more projects.

BTW, happy new year, friends.

Here's my gift to you

Written by @thanni

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How to be bold

Being bold is highly underrated and it comes in different flavours. This came to mind due to the online debate of the worst (best is not appropriate) streamers between Peller, Carter Efe and Shank. While they have an audience they appeal to, their content is not my cup of tea. At best, you’d laugh at their dry jokes and waste time doing nothing.

But if you think deeply, you’d see that it’s quite ironic that the world doesn’t reward being average. You’re either a super genius or a full time degenerate. I’ve seen over and over that the ingredient to become either of the two is to be BOLD.

You have to work on, and promote yourself shamelessly to stand out in today’s world. There’re at least a thousand people like you in the world that can do just what you do, perfectly. What separates you now is the boldness to use your free will. No more Mr/Ms Shy person. You have to be out there sharing your work and experience.

Everybody would have to create content now as it’s a new form of identity. Being mysterious used to be cool 2 decades ago. Now, it’s do or die.

I, like every other person, is also struggling with the idea of shoving my face in a camera and sharing ideas no one asked for, but it’s the new norm now. At least until you have too much money to spend for the rest of your life.

Written by @thanni

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How to embrace imperfection

hello, it’s me, your friend. [Human]

Hello esteemed members, your close acquaintance here. [AI]

Isn’t it hilarious that a way to know something done by a human is to look for errors or lose construction? AI rarely makes grammar errors and can be robotic by following the rules of English. We made a monster that makes work feel plastic, faster and perfect. This can make you feel like you’re playing catch up, and if it’s not done by AI, then it’s not your best work.

I’m here to tell you, you’d be making a big mistake to not embrace the thing that makes your work unique. And that you and your imperfections.

Use AI, but within reason. Write that blog post yourself. Design that thing in your own way. Add your flair, make it yours. Don’t beg AI tools to give you ideas constantly.

There’ll always be something to fix. One more course to take, one more project to create before looking for a job, one more, one more, one more. Life’s imperfection is what makes it beautiful. Embrace it.

Written by @thanni

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How to stay relevant

We’ve all watched those futuristic movies, where screens are displayed mid-air and offices float in space. It’s quite surreal that we’d be there in the next few decades.

It’s only a matter of time before AI takes over every digital skill, and we all have to learn trade skills like plumbing, carpentry or even farming. But we’re not sure when that would be. Instead of waiting to find out, I’d simply ride on the AI wave to make something for myself. On Saturday, we had a session on skills for 2026, here are some we talked about - In-demand AI digital Skills

If you should be scared of anything, it should be of yourself. Perhaps, your procrastination, lack of urgency or thinking AI is not much of a big deal. I wouldn’t FAFO on this.

Treat this window of our time as the most unique in history. You either tell your kids how you were at the top of your game to build massive wealth, or were on the side track feeling conquered and unwilling to change.

Written by @thanni

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How to influence your future

Have you ever found yourself saying, “Wait, this has happened before”. And then you try to predict what happens next, and you snap back to real life. That, my friend, is called a Déjà vu.

If you’re into time travel, parallel worlds, and black holes, then you should watch the series DARK on Netflix. To summarize, the premise is that a small German town messes with time and accidentally creates a loop, so the past, present, and future start feeding into each other. As they try to change the future, they are unknowingly creating the inevitable future. So that brings into question, do we actually have free will? Or has everything that will happen been prewritten?

SNAP!

Come back to real life; time travel is fiction, at best. You do actually have free will, and you can write your own future.

Whatever will happen in your life is written in real time; every time you use productively, or waste accumulates. If you spend every waking moment working on that skill, there’s no way you won’t be super skilled in X months. It’s a 1-1 relationship. To change your future, you have to do 2 things:

1. Write down your goals
2. Work relentlessly every single day until you hit those goals

There’s no world where you’d get lucky hitting those goals without working towards it. You simply have to focus on one thing at a time until your giant checklist runs out and you have to create new ones.

Stay focused

Written by @thanni

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How to prepare for career doomsday

If there’s a trending AI tool out there people are talking about, belief I already spun out a server instance to test it out. Geez, the future is going to be wild. And I don’t say this naively. I believe almost everyone will have to make a 360-degree career change in 2 years, max. Digital skills, as you know it will be heavily commoditised, and many tasks will be one voice prompt away.

I don’t know what to tell you besides encouraging you to work really hard in the next 2 years to learn an AI-proof skill, so you can be ready to squeeze out what comes out of the next decade.

I saw this tweet that lists out skills you can learn to be safe, but I’d lean more heavily on trades skills if I were you.

In fact, being a hairdresser or barber is safer than learning how to code today.

If you’re still procrastinating learning that skill to quickly change your situation, you’re no different from a rich, spoiled kid with zero touch of reality.

For you to have gotten this email, you belong to the 1% on the internet who are privileged to see what’s coming. There are 99% of NPCs out there who don’t even know the meaning of AI.

Take action today and stay focused.

Written by @thanni

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How to achieve your dream

I was talking to a friend yesterday when he said, "Thanni, you know what makes people different from others?" I said "No." He said, "Just dream big."

This sounds simple, but it's the natural ingredient to easily stand out today. And it's free.

The Pygmalion Effect teaches us that higher expectations lead to higher performance. When we set ambitious goals, we unconsciously align our actions with those expectations. We start seeing opportunities where others see obstacles, and we persist where others give up.

Most people limit themselves not because they lack ability, but because they lack vision. They dream within the boundaries of what seems "realistic" or "safe." But history shows us that every major breakthrough came from someone who dared to imagine what others thought impossible.

The beautiful irony is that dreaming high costs nothing. It requires no special credentials, no financial investment, and no permission from anyone. Yet it's the one thing that separates those who achieve extraordinary things from those who settle for ordinary lives.

So start there. Dream bigger. Let your imagination run wild every day.

Written by @thanni

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How to be selfish for good

Focus is very expensive. If you want to do great work, you need to protect it at all costs. A casual outing with a friend that prevented you from being online when a $2k/m job was posted, actually made you lose potential $2k. Now you can argue that the money was never yours, but so is poverty.

It goes beyond just that. That endless social media scroll, attending all family events, going out with friends at every request, and binge-watching movies.

Sometimes you need to enter a period of solipsism - an acute selfish approach to your life where nothing else matters besides achieving your goal. I don’t mean ignoring emergencies, you know exactly what I mean.

You need to brick your mind to not see trivial things around you anymore, but a laser focus lens to where you want to be. And you don’t stop until you see it manifesting.

To do this, you need to disconnect from your phone, give your family an emergency line or way to reach you, and say NO to all things distractions.

I’ll be more harsh in future notes, as these are crucial times. Before the end of this year, it’s going to be clear who’s going to be part of the permanent underclass. I’ll talk more about that next week.

Stay focused.

Written by @thanni

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How to protect your future

You know how it feels when you’re young that you can’t wait to grow up so you can leave your parents home and be independent. You just can’t seem to do something about it because:

1. You are simply young with little to no life experience.

2. Even if you try to earn some money, you can only work menial jobs fit for your age, so you make little money by default.

Now, put this into perspective of a future where some people are permanently at the top, and some are permanently below. No more corporate ladder or career journey. You either have enough social/economic data, or you’re pushed to the factory line.

This is the looming incoming permanent underclass - a joke going around in silicon valley that’s not really a joke for the discerning mind.

In 3 - 5 years, we’re going to have the dirt poor and the dirt rich. No amount of work you do can or will be better than an AI or robot would. Everything as you know it will be reset. The world will go analog, and a few will be at the top, enjoying some returns on their investments and investing more in robots to do your jobs.

I don’t know what the future holds precisely, but now is the time for you to stack real world skills, go out and meet people, start a local business, learn a trades skill, save a lot of money, reduce expenses to bare minimum and keep an open mind to deep tech.

We get about 300 of you guys reading our newsletter every week, so this awakening message is something to cherish.

I implore you once again to be urgent with your life. If you had 10 year goals, compress it now into 1 year.

I’m saying this from a place of privilege as I’ve stacked enough hard and soft skills over the years for me not to worry about this. But I imagine a lot of you are still young and seeking clarity.

Next week, I’ll talk about some tech skills that are still open for learning to stay afloat.

Stay focused.

Written by @thanni

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How to protect your career

I once wrote about the Lindy Effect in NDZ journal.

It’s a concept that means - If something has been around for a long time, the longer it will be. A book that has survived 500 years will probably survive another 500.

The world is moving fast. But some things don’t change.

Maths. Physics. Chemistry. Philosophy.

Everything we call innovation is built on top of these. The iPhone runs on physics and logic. A vaccine is chemistry and biology working together. A courtroom argument is structured philosophical reasoning. The fundamentals always show up somewhere.

The person who knows why something works will always be able to use AI tools effectively.

Here’re AI-Proof Skills worth learning in 2026

Because it’s a bit long, read here - https://ndz.ng/d/486-ai-proof-skills-2026

Stay focused.

Written by @thanni

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