That feeling you get in your belly when you really want to do something, and nothing’s going to stop you.
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.” - Paulo Coelho
Steve Jobs left Reed College after 1 semester because he didn’t want to waste any more of his parents’ hard-earned money. Larry Ellison attended two universities, but graduated from neither. Richard Branson dropped out of high school at 15 to concentrate on his ‘Student‘ magazine.
Their acts are enough to make any Asian parent recoil in horror.
However, not only are these men considered successful entrepreneurs, but amongst the best minds in the world in their fields. They may not be good at everything, but they are exceptionally good at what they do for a living.
For people their age at the time, the conventional paths to success would have been for Jobs to finish college, Ellison to have gotten at least one degree from one of his universities, and Branson to have finished high school.
However, the pathway to being successful isn’t ever the conventional path, but the road less travelled. It takes incredible strength of character and endless self-confidence in very strong dozes to forge your own path of success, because you’re going to meet every road block along the way. People who don’t believe in you, people who don’t like you, people who mock you for dreaming, bureaucracy, lack of money, and personal sacrifices. And the only way you’re going to get through it all is if you have the strength of character to grow as a person constantly; and the self-confidence in yourself that you will succeed.
We’ve all heard stories of people in 9-to-5 jobs they hate and who don’t leave fearing lack of security. Months turn into years, and pretty soon, they’ve been in the same job they hate for a decade.
There are also the top kids in the country who take prestigious places in law and medicine courses because they could, their parents expected it of them, or because they wanted the security of a comfortable life.
I could have gone into medicine. I sat the required exams, flew down to the university for my interview, and I had the grades. My parents would have been over the moon, and I would have had a good life. But I didn’t want that for myself. The thought of taking the ’safe’ option rather than the option that made my heart flutter, depressed me. I didn’t want the well-trodden path, I wanted the road less travelled.
I realised back then, that I could walk in front of a bus any day and get killed. I could have a genetic disease that will cause me to die at any moment. I could perish in an electrical house fire. Life is short. So I chose the road less travelled.
While you still can, don’t do something just because people expect it of you. Don’t live into other people’s opinions about you. Listen to your heart, and choose your own life for yourself.
You choose by enjoying the 10,000 hours it takes you to make a feature film; the 10,000 hours it takes to write the novel; the 10,000 hours it takes to build a billion-dollar company. Choose because you will enjoy that journey, because that is where you will be spending all your time.
And that is the crux of it, really. Being truly successful is when you are proud of the work you produce when you are proud of your contribution to society, when you are proud of how you are spending your short-time on earth, and when you are happy about the path to your goals, (and not blinded by your goal’s allures).
Steve, Larry and Richard all confess to loving their jobs, and Bill Gates once remarked (when he was CEO of Microsoft) that he would still do his job even if he wasn’t paid.
So, define your own success and jump in 10,000% of the way. You will be happy, and you will be successful.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield from the great icecream company Ben and Jerry’s spoke at the University of Melbourne on Wednesday 25 November 2009.
Despite no longer having any responsibilities at the company, they only do about 20 or so speaking agreements a year, and as this was their only university seminar in Australia, I feel very fortunate to have been able to see and hear them speak.
This is a very inspiring talk about their company’s history and the part their company plays in making sure Ben and Jerry’s is doing good while making money.
Being a huge Ben and Jerry’s fan (below: my Ben and Jerry’s collection earlier this year - I knew this photo would be useful one day), I couldn’t wait to meet them and hear them speak.
My glorious collection in London last year.
I filmed them speaking on my iPhone (it gets a bit shaky at the end, but I’d been holding my iPhone up for nearly an hour by then).
Ben and Jerry’s launched in Australia 3 weeks ago and currently has a store in Sydney’s Manly with 16-18 flavours, as well as 180 other retail outlets.
Their strategy in Australia is to start small and let their company grow naturally.
And you’ll be pleased to know I wasn’t shy to follow them around until they agreed to a photo with me. (I’m holding free icecream they gave away at the seminar).
Marita meets Ben and Jerry!
When I was 17, I came 3rd in an international Japanese speaking contest. However, I don’t do anything about my Japanese studies now. The year prior, I got the highest marks in the state in my grade 7 piano exams. Now, I don’t play piano. During high school, I did 30-40 hours of maths during my school holidays. I finished the KUMON mathematics programme and got the highest mark possible for maths upon graduation (VHA 10. In my two maths subjects, I dropped just half a mark the entire year). I now hardly do any maths.
So, I had it that I was a failure. I had it that I was a quitter. I had it that I was a free-spirit who couldn’t stick through with anything. I had it that I only did stuff so that I could achieve in that area, and that once I had reached a certain level, I would get bored and quit.
If I’d stuck with my Japanese, maybe I could have been a young international diplomat for the government by now? If I’d stuck through with my piano, maybe I could have been a concert pianist by now. In maths? I could have been one of those crazily-young maths geniuses at universities who become tenured by the time they are 25 and spend their life devoted to the art, becoming a historical figure in that field, like Einstein or Newton.
However, while muling over my complete lack of commitment to sticking through with my hobbies, and while thinking about spending my life as Stephen Hawking has, I came to a realisation.
I never wanted to be a young international diplomat for the government. There was so much more I wanted to offer the world than just my language skills. Being a concert pianist didn’t excite me. I wasn’t passionate enough about music to practice for 15 hours a day. And I don’t want to become a professor and spend the rest of my life at university. I want to explore the world. I want to learn as much as I can and give the world as much of me as I can. I want to live life to the fullest.
This conversation came up for me because of programming.
I’m in my third year of a mechatronics engineering/ computer science degree, and passing countless exams and assignments later, I still don’t think I’m very good at programming.
So, over Summer, I plan to do lots and lots and lots and lots and lots (you get the picture) of programming. When I do something, I like to go all the way. I want to be masterful. If I put my mind to something, I can and do achieve it. So, I know that after Summer, I’m going to be awesome at programming.
However, I was scared. I was scared that if I did programming, then I would stop after I thought I had achieved enough to justify that I was good at it. And, as I want to be the CEO of a robotics company, it wouldn’t bode well with me to stop programming when I’d achieved ‘enough’ to prove to others that I was good at something.
But then I realised the difference between programming and all my other activities. Whereas my mum wanted me to be good at Japanese, piano and maths; I really, really, really, really want to learn and be masterful at programming because it fits with my life goals of being a tech entrepreneur. And while I think my mother is amazing for working so hard to provide me with the opportunities to explore and excel in those areas, I know it will make a lot more of a difference if I am empowered to learn for me.
So now, I’m not scared that I’ll get bored of programming once I get good. I’m not scared that I’ll give it up when I’ve achieved ‘enough’. I’m just really looking forward to it, and I cannot wait until my exams end so that I can start programming the things that I want to program.
I’m not a failure or any of those things. I just hadn’t found my passion yet.
So don’t get disheartened if you keep giving up on things. Just keep searching until you find something that truly ignites you, and that you think is worthy of you committing your time to.
When I was growing up, my mother used to always say to me in Cantonese, “people don’t respect you because we’re poor.” Mum worked full-time as a room attendant, is a single mother of two, and I grew up living in housing commission. We were very poor.
This past July, I attended TEDGlobal 2009. It is an invite-only event for people who are up to great stuff around the world. Other attendees at the conference included Gordon Brown, Stephen Fry, Jeff Bezos, Cameron Diaz, Meg Ryan, and millionaires and billionaires from around the world.
At the event however, I mostly spoke to people I’d never heard of, people who didn’t look arrogant, or people who approached me. I didn’t have the courage to approach any of the above mentioned, most of the headlining speakers, or the well-known organisers of the event. I had it that because they were famous and well-known, and I wasn’t, then I wasn’t good enough to talk to them.
Luckily, most of the people there didn’t look arrogant and weren’t famous and well-known to me, so I was able to speak with many people. When I spoke to these people, I could converse freely, joke around, tell them about my projects and ideas and get really engaged with their projects and ideas.
When I spoke to people who I thought were better than me, I just froze up and couldn’t think of anything to say. I wanted to impress them with knowledge about their industry, and I didn’t think that they would be interested in any of the stuff that I was doing, or that any of my opinions about the world were good enough for them to hear. I thought that they were too important to hear from me. So the conversations would start awkwardly (with me praising them) and be awkward (because I couldn’t think of anything else to say), before I shuffled away awkwardly (and relieved!). I had it that my projects weren’t good enough, that I hadn’t proved myself yet (because I wasn’t mega-wealthy), and that hence, I wasn’t good enough. I was comparing myself to them and all their well-publicised successes, and I was failing miserably.
Last night, while I was walking home from a date with my boyfriend, I told him that I had to make lots of money so that the next time I went to TED, I would have the confidence to speak to the rich and famous. He told me I was being ridiculous.
What I became really present to, is that “everyone looks silly sitting on the toilet”, and that even though the rich and famous are indeed rich and famous, they are still human. If people are too arrogant or too important for me, then that’s their problem. Most successful people however, become successful by treating people well. Also, just because someone is rich, doesn’t mean that they are respected; and some of the world’s most respected people, like Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, and the late Mother Theresa, aren’t/weren’t necessarily amazingly wealthy. Lastly, having lots of money isn’t a prerequisite to doing great things in the world. I have the will and ambition to do great things in the world, and so I will find the money to do them.
This is a great victory over the past, as I now know that I won’t be shy to tell anyone - whether the poorest beggar on the street, or the wealthiest men in the world - about myself and my projects. If they can’t respect me for who I am and what I stand for in this world, then it is their problem. I declare that all men and women are equal!
I said I would update my blog on my TED experiences every night, but I didn’t do that. Instead, I did what I was encouraged to do by TED, and let myself be swept away by the conversations, the ideas and the experiences. I attended all the sessions, went to all the social events and spoke to as many people as possible. Every morning, I would wake up and get ready for the 8:30am start, to return home at about 1:30am that night. “Go to sleep at 2am, set the alarm for 8am, and wake up excited at 6am” is how I’ve heard TED being described as in the past. Was it mentally stimulating, diverse and challenging? You betcha! Did it take all my energies to stay awake and generate myself, to engage in countless conversations with amazing people from around the world, and to survive on 4 hours of sleep for 4 nights? You betcha! Would I have had it be any other way? Hell no!
Despite the amazing food (crab claws, freshly-opened oysters, prawns, cheese platters, BBQ - a variety of all-you-can-eat buffets and free lunches), stimulating talks (just go to www.ted.com to see for yourself!) and fun activities (I went to Bletchley Park on Monday, and everyone went punting on Friday) the best thing about TED is the people who go, and the conversations you have with them.
TEDizens are a diverse, switched-on, and remarkable group of people who are brought together by their common goal of sharing “ideas worth spreading”. When TEDizens get together, these ideas get ignited, developed and introduced to the world, for the betterment of all people. Before I went, I heard that the TED conferences are a life changing experience for all attendees. I cannot agree more.
My last ten months saw me go to Imperial College London with the intention of getting my act together and regaining my “perfect student crown” while travelling around Europe. Unfortunately, student-on-weekdays/ backpacker-on-weekends didn’t quite work out for me. I got distracted by important things during the week such as Cheese Society (eating cheese with people), going to West End, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as my urge to organise, namely mew (a robot-building team), Robogals (a non-profit that actively works to promote science, engineering and technology to girls 11 ~ 14) and Nudge. My studies didn’t exactly take top priority. Fortunately, I maintained my commitment to travelling around Europe, and managed to get many good ol’ life experiences under my belt.
A short list of my last 10 months abroad includes:
- travelling to
1. Thailand
: Bangkok (stopover, both ways)
2. United Kingdom
: Oxford (4 times - sightseeing, visiting friends, VentureFest, TED)
: Cambridge (windsurfing)
: Bath (sightseeing)
: Windsor (sightseeing)
: Stonehenge (sightseeing… what else?)
: Brighton (relaxing… missed my bus to Stratford-upon-Avon)
: Cheddar Gorge (tour with the Cheese Society)
: Southern coast of Wales (sightseeing)
: Scotland (sightseeing and the Introduction Leaders Program)
: Belfast, Northern Ireland (sightseeing)
3. Ireland
: Hill of Tara (my first night in Europe ever. Spent sleeping out under the stars to catch the sunrise… in December. Brrr!!!!)
: Dublin (intention of sightseeing… but was too exhausted)
: Cork (sightseeing - really recovering from the Hill of Tara experience)
France
: Paris (sightseeing, visiting friends)
Germany
: Frankfurt (New Years, sightseeing)
: Bonn (Beethoven’s House)
: Cologne (chocolate factory)
: Berlin (Heart of Gold, freezing!)
: Bremen (slept in the Airport)
: Hannover (stopover)
: Braunschweig (German Workshop on Robotics)
4. Czech Republic
: Prague (sightseeing)
5. Denmark
: Copenhagen (sightseeing)
6. the Netherlands
: Amsterdam (sightseeing, the Introduction Leaders Program)
7. Sweden
: Stockholm (aerial sightseeing)
: Helsingborg (Mini Seedcamp pitching to VCs, investors and mentors)
8. Egypt
: Dahab (windsurfing)
9. Greece
: Vass (windsurfing)
10. Spain
: Madrid (sightseeing)
11. Portugal
: Porto (sightseeing)
12. Belgium
: Brussels (visiting friends, sightseeing)
- seeing the following musicals at West End
1. Wicked
2. Phantom Of The Opera
3. Dirty Dancing
4. Hairspray
5. Avenue Q
6. Chicago
7. Billy Elliott
8. Lion King
9. The Sound Of Music
10. Les Miserables
11. Mamma Mia
12. We Will Rock You
13. Priscilla Queen of the Desert
- joining the following societies at Imperial College
1. Cheese Society (explained above)
2. Art Society (cheap tickets to West End productions)
3. Website and Software Development Society (programming lectures)
4. Windsurfing Society
5. Innovation Society
6. Imperial Entrepreneurs (officially, the VP of Marketing)
7. Krishna Society (philosophical discussions and free food)
8. Freetrade Society (to get discounted chocolate!)
- setting up:
1. mew: meeting and making awesome and talented friends, building a robot
2. Robogals: finding great people to work with, running amok in London with setting up the Robo Gala
3. Nudge: finding great mentors, Imperial Entrepreneurs’ Ideas Empowered Finals, Mini Seedcamp London (invitation), Mini Seedcamp Helsingborg, Winner Hooples Ideas Competition
- getting into the semi-finals for the Imagine Cup Photography Competition
- completing the Introduction Leaders Program
- participating in ignite: having a ball and improving my public speaking skills
- staying up all night roaming London and Hampstead Heath
- setting up my blog
- getting into and attending TED
- seeing countless musical concerts at the Royal Festive Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Royal College of Music and many other locations!
- staying together with my amazing Australian boyfriend
Fortunately, I love learning. So whilst I did lots of stuff, I also learnt lots of stuff…
From feeding my curiosity by watching hours and hours of TED talks, while reading and devouring every tidbit about entrepreneurship I could find, sometime between the Imperial Entrepreneurs Ideas Empowered Finals and Mini Seedcamp Helsingborg (i.e., in the 4 days between those two events), my thoughts broke through the chasm and I got “how to be an entrepreneur”. The whole process of setting up an organisation suddenly just seemed so clear to me, and I subsequently mapped out about 4 new projects in quick succession. Yes, TED talks and entrepreneurially planning is how I procrastinate.
I learnt that I could relocate anywhere and still be successful. For me, being successful is being happy, setting stuff up and learning. The first time I did this was when I left Cairns to Melbourne, knowing no one. The second time I did this was when I left Melbourne to London, knowing no one. Maybe I should test this one out by moving to Antarctica next? I don’t know anyone there…
I learnt independence to a whole new level. A whole new level of being self-reliant, self-confident, selflessness, self-empowerment, self-generation and self-integrity. When you’re by yourself in a foreign country where you do not speak the official language, it’s dark and you’re broke, you learn to rely on yourself. :)
But perhaps the most pertinent lesson I learnt to a whole new level is that of love and friendship. The friends I made in the past year were all amazing and marvellously fun people. The biggest shout-out goes to Hok. Hok, you never fail to remind me of the importance of friends and friendship. Thank you. To everyone I met over the past year - thank you so much. You made my past ten months rich with experiences, love and happiness.
Live life to the fullest, people!
Marita
I have been invited to TEDGlobal 2009, from 20 July 2009 - 24 July 2009 in Oxford, and I intend to keep a record of my experiences here, every night.
I am very excited about losing my TED virginity, and the line-up of speakers.
I’m sure it will be an unforgettable experience, and I look forward to sharing it with you all!
My profile on EngineerGirl was uploaded today. Check it out here!
