No one knows what will happen in the future. Just do your best at what you're doing now. Then consider your options at the end of this project. Something perfect for someone with your experiences will pop up as an opportunity then.
I love the process of getting an idea, making a plan around it, and then bringing it to the world. It usually involves a lot of emailing, fleshing out a plan, meeting with people, learning, designing, daydreaming…
It's not very glamourous, but I just love it so much, and find it so invigorating.
And then if I've done it successfully, good things happen in the world to a lot of people.
And if I've done it unsuccessfully, then I look at what went wrong, and I try again.
It's the whole process of always trying to improve myself, learn more, and then see the impact of that on the world, that gets me excited.
And that's why people tell you to follow your passions. Because you're going to be spending most of your time working on unglamorous things with a bunch of people who are working on their own unglamorous tasks to make a bigger project happen. And if you don't enjoy that, well then life's not going to be very fun.
But no one sees that. All people see is the glamour and glitz of winning awards, receiving publicity, and hobnobbing with celebrities. But all that glamour takes up such a tiny fraction of it all. And is just a lot of filming and camera flashes to capture a tiny fraction of time, and then distributing that far and wide.
The work you do though, and bringing that to the world - that takes ages. And no one would want to capture it, because it's so unglamorous - just doing the same tasks over and over again.
So follow your passions and do what you love. Because living a successful life isn't about fame or awards or external kudos. A successful life is one where you live each day striving to make yourself better in an area you're passionate about.
Being concerned with what people think about you makes you unable to contribute your best work to the world.
I was thinking about my business idea and wondering when would be the right time to launch, if to launch and how.
It was really doing my head in.
I was going around and talking to people about it. Asking for their feedback. Changing my plan every couple of days. Asking more people. Changing it again...
But always, I would revert back to the same plan, formed through months of thought, planning and research.
Then I realised over the weekend, that there was no right time or right way to launch my company.
Rather than just speculate as to whether I would pursue that company or not, I believed in the idea, the potential of the industry, and I believe in myself.
So I chose to launch.
And that meant that rather than me going around and asking people for their feedback on my potential company, I go around and ask people for their feedback on my company that I'm launching.
You don't need that much money. Just enough to pay the rent, utilities and food.
My plan I created for myself post-uni when I was in 3rd year uni was to not get a job. Live very simply. Save my money.
The more money I saved, the bigger my runway to fail. And then work my hardest to build a company.
Bury the ego.
I was born into a poor family, and I never had any luxuries. So I trained myself from an early age not to care about what other people have or be affected by that.
You don't need all of life's little luxuries. If you live cheaply, you'll have the time, headspace and energy to create your dream company.
When viewed in that context, none of life's luxuries can hold a candle to being able to do the work you love.
Forbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.
I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.
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