Marita’s Blog

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.

When kids are in diapers, their parents enroll them into primary school. If all goes right, the right primary school could mean the right high school.

No room for error though, so the kids are put in piano, Japanese, speech and drama, voice, painting, soccer, violin, tennis, dancing and deportment classes.

They got in? Great job!

Right, high school time. Marching band, United Nations community-building initiatives, maths club, speaking competitions, official school photographer, Physics Olympiads preparations, cheerleading, science fairs, bake fairs, school plays, volunteer work, president of the Student Representatives, school magazine editor and as many competitions as you can enter. Study a couple of hours each day. Graduate valedictorian. Have they done enough to get into a good university??

They got in? Great job!

…

Childhood is now a protracted process of university entrance. The most successful undergrads go on and do their masters. The most successful masters students go on to do their PhD. The most successful PhD students go on to become university professors.

Planning things with integrity means to plan things such that you have done all you can in your base for things to go as smoothly as possible. It means being prepared for the worst-case scenario, being prepared for the best-case scenario, and actually preparing full-stop. Sure, you can always ‘wing’ something at the last minute - which makes your heart pump faster and you feel like you’ve ‘gotten away with it’ again. But when you actually prepare yourself for what is going to happen, you’re calm, focused, and know that whichever way it goes, you did all you could for it to turn out well. Answer the following questions to plan stuff with integrity.

What am I out to achieve?

By when?

What will I need to do in order to be able to achieve it?

By when?

Will doing what I say I will do really achieve it?

Really?

Have I factored in contingencies?

How will I do those things anyway?

By when?

What are the next actions I can take?

When will I take those next actions?

“I go to Imperial College”, “I’m applying to MIT”, “I play bowls for my county”, or “I’m a pro-series gamer” means nothing to the person who doesn’t know about the world’s top universities, what a county is, or anything about the pro-series.

To the amateur gamer who trawls through gaming sites to find out the latest news about cybergames tournaments and then spends five hours a day practising, being a ‘pro-series gamer’ is a big deal.  To someone like me, who doesn’t understand games or the games industry, I could be two feet within the biggest stars in that industry and not look twice at them.

It doesn’t matter how successful you think yourself to be, what you’ve done or how much effort it took for you to get there, other people won’t be able to appreciate it if they don’t get the context.  So, share the context with them!  Share what it is that makes you think you’re a success, share about all the great things you’ve done and share how much effort it took for you to get there.  Share your life with others - that is true success.