Archive for the ‘entrepreneur’ tag
My 1st lesson – Altitude
Second Prize Medal
The picture is the medal that I got for the Second Prize in Ho Chi Minh city Mathematics Olympiad. It has always been in my desk since that time. Not because it is the greatest thing I have ever done. It is there to remind me of one of the biggest failure in my life. It is there to remind me what I did and felt when I was in 11th grade.
My feet were off the ground
The second highest winner in the Southern Mathematics Olympiad turned out to be a bad motivation for me. It killed my love with maths. It made me feel that I am too special. It made me overestimate myself. I believed that I couldn’t fail. That was a big mistake.
I didn’t prepare well enough and didn’t try hard enough on the next city contest. The result is: I couldn’t step into the next round. My friends and family wouldn’t know what happened. But I knew what was wrong. I put myself off the ground!
This failure led to the next big failure.
Depression
Now, imagine that everybody is looking at you; the next second, nobody gives you a shit. That was what happened to me. I felt totally useless and lose my orientation. I did not know what to do next, if I should continue studying maths or focusing on other subjects to pass the university entrance exam. I did not know what to do when losing all the attentions people gave to me. I was thirsty for that fame.
This made me lost my focus, forgot what was good for me, what I would like to do. It cost me 4 months living in jeaulous feeling with winner guys before I could realize what was meaningful to me. It was maths! Not the prize, but maths! I felt good that I recognized it early enough to be back on the right track and focus on what I love.
Both of them gave me a difficult time, and always kept reminding me of what is my true value, what I should aim for.
The purpose of this post is to try to remind me of what happened in the past. I know that people are talking a lot about me right now, but keeping my feet on the ground, being focused on my long term goal was the highest priority work.
High Risk – High Return
The best way to predict the future is to create it
People always say about how passion can make you successful, and there are plenty of books around that topic. So for now, I will just look at the problem by some limited financial perspective: High Risk, High Return. Well, all financial guys know this theory, huh? So, I just try to see what I did and achieved in these terms.
Since I was in high school, I started thinking about what would motivate me, what would make me feel good when I did something. I preferred taking risks to get a really good outcome rather than staying and following a safe path since my high school. Until some recent days, I recognized that this is the only way for me to get an excellent outcome in a short time. High Risk means High Return.
The Safe Zone
There is not much fun and passion if I just stay in my safe zone. Everybody does that, there is a safe way for you to go. And most of the time, I feel bored with going that safe way. Passion is important, but I feel that if I don’t go further and take some risks doing what I love, I don’t love it enough. Is it so much fun if you always know how the future works?
Passion will always give you to the edge of the safe zone, you can understand and see further than other people. Now, the thing is that you need to step out of that safe zone and take risks. If you are really passionate about something, do you want to see it become a huge success. If yes, make it! make the future!
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Since the beginning of my career, I started asking myself “What to learn next in the IT career?” and how I can predict the future of this IT industry. And then, the more I move forward into the career, the more I know that the best way to predict the future is to create it. That’s why I get more involved in what I love and believe, joining open source community, try some start-up and cutting edge technologies.
No surprising, one of the most risky situation in IT is to try to invent some new product. People may or may not adopt your product, you may not find any users. And nobody may believe in your idea except yourself.
Try, Run, Fail and Motivate
Running And Failing
I am extremely happy these days, I got a full scholarship of CMU – the first one I got after, uhm…, 10 or more scholarship submissions. This one goes by some luck. You may not believe in that, I don’t either till it happens. I started applying and the decision is out for less than 2 weeks and I had no plan for this scholarship until the chance came and I took it seriously. Here are 3 things I learnt from this happy event.
1/ Keep trying, you do not know what happens next.
Some people love perfection and are scared of failures to try. In many cases, trying does not cost you much except, some money and efforts and in some cases, it is free to try. One important decision I made is to talk and then email CMU representatives to ask some information about my specific case with important background. That let me know some important information about the admission process and I took advantage of it successfully.
For things that are uncertain, the only way you can be sure about is to try it. Start up, scholarships and R&D job is like this. Sometimes, things go out of your hand and strategy, then you just keep moving fast to the next goal.
2/ Everything you do, either succeed or fail make you one step further
I am happy that I tried to apply for President Award of RMIT Vietnam although I didn’t get it. It was a huge step preparation for me for the scholarship. There is no way that I can prepare all documents like transcripts, recommendation letter in around 3 days without any earlier work.
Another thing that I learnt from the fail of President Award is that my approach is kind of not correct. I tried a with a crazy approach in the award essay just to see what happens. And, I think the result gives me some feedback over the approach for the next one.
3/ Fail and run again
I mean RUN, actually run not just to go ahead step by step. I am willing to fail while I am running rather than moving slowly to the goal without any failure. For some people, failure is not an option, you are not allowed to fail. However, in my opinion, passionate is necessary but not enough for people to be successful; sometimes what matters is to keep the highest motivation for long time. Only challenges keep me motivated and moving with my best skills and efforts. That’s why I love the Google quote: “Achieving 65% of the impossible is better than 100% of the ordinary” (Don Dodge’s blog) . Here is what you get from that kind of fail, you know that you did a great thing, you are motivated about what you do all the time and you know you are doing something only a few, the best people can do.
And I always remember the Edison quote, you don’t fail 1000 times, you just found 1000 ways that things do not work, and I am happy to get a confirmation if a way is a fail as soon as possible.
CMU Students
Just some information about CMU and my courses there:
- Top 6 in 2008 in Engineering and IT QS World University Rankings
- Top 12 in 2010 in Engineering and IT QS World University Rankings
- #1 in Computer Science Schools (US News and World Reports)
I hope that this is a great step to the next big goal:)