This Urban Life: The Opportunist
“Time is more valuable than money. You can’t get it back. You can’t save it up. If you run out of time, you’re dead. If you run out of money, you find a way to get more,” Kareem Ahmed says.
Image credit: Photo by Marshall Franklin Long
“I’m not as interesting as I seem,” says Kareem Ahmed. This is perhaps the one insincere comment he tells me through sips of a cold press (me) and macchiato (him) at the new Urban Bean location on Lyndale Avenue.
Case in (interesting) point: At 24 years old, Ahmed had his dream desk jockey job—the one he’d studied for and interned for and thought he always wanted. Then he quit.
“I had a beacon of light that I was working towards, and that was to work at a big advertising agency,” Ahmed, now 25, says. So what happened? “I didn’t get as much happiness out of it as I thought I would.”
After giving up the 9-to-5 life, Ahmed has been able to focus on his preferred career as entrepreneur. He’s CEO—lofty title? Yes. Self-appointed? Yes—at InboxCupid, an online dating site that features its top daters in a daily newsletter. Ahmed also runs his own interactive brand agency, New Economy Labs, and is working out the details of a hush-hush social good startup whose goal is to empower youth.
The ultimate networker, Ahmed hovers over the fine line of confidence without ever venturing to the cocky side of the street. Credit his genuine interest in people, their stories and their projects.
Exhibit A: Urban Bean. “I know the barista, I know who just walked in, I know the guy who just left,” Ahmed says. And he does. He jokes with the barista by name, shakes hands with the regular who just walked in and, well, I trust him about the guy who just left.
Ahmed is a walking, talking, convincing argument for doing what you love. This hunt for happiness—no really, his blog, kareemahmed.com, is called Kareem Ahmed and the Pursuit of Happiness—executes what others yammer about wanting and whine about not having enough money or time to pursue.
“Time is more valuable than money. You can’t get it back. You can’t save it up. If you run out of time, you’re dead. If you run out of money, you find a way to get more,” Ahmed says. “Time is the most valuable thing you have, so even spending one day—or even one hour—at a job that you hate is not worth it.”
This Ahmedian logic is loosely reminiscent of author Tim Ferriss’ “lifestyle design,” based on his The 4-Hour Workweek phenomenon. Ahmed just adds more new media and more experimentation to this plan, and constantly tweaks routine habits to examine how little changes affect his mood and wallet.
Recently he abstained from alcohol for 32 days. Next up could be coffee. (Though that might change given his recent garage sale score of a pricey espresso machine for a single Andrew Jackson.) Earlier this year a stranger on the street insisted on buying Ahmed’s car; after a couple weeks and a few persistent phone calls, he told the man to come pick it up. Ahmed’s been blissfully car-free ever since.
Even with his newfound happiness outside the office, Ahmed praises his previous employers, Risdall Advertising Agency (“great”) McNally Smith School of Music (“spectacular”) and Olson (“awesome”). “At the time they were great, but right now it’s just not my thing—but it might be next week. It might be when this column comes out.”
At press time, he hadn’t changed his mind yet, and was finalizing the curriculum for a new media entrepreneurial class he’s teaching at McNally Smith (he’s planning on wearing a tweed jacket to his first day as “Professor Kareem”). After finals, Ahmed will spend 42 of Minnesota’s worst winter days in London, Paris and Cairo. After that? Wherever the pursuit of happiness takes him.
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