• Blog
  • Archives
  • Bio
  • Awards
  • Speaking
  • Book
  • Contact

Where are you not looking?

Published: Tuesday, 10 February 2009

You’ve brainstormed and tried all the keywords that you could think of in Google, you’ve asked Jeeves, you’ve spoken to your lecturers and you’ve spoken to all the people you know - everyone you can think of! To no avail. No matter how hard you look, you can’t find anything.

 

So, you decide to set up something on your own accord. You brainstorm with your friends, talk to you lecturers about it, talk to other clubs and societies, set up a plan of attack and put the first steps into motion.

 

Then, something pops up - you get an email. Something that says, “I was here all along, what are you doing setting something up?”

 

I signed up to the entrepreneurs society at my university, and didn’t hear from them for the next four months. I emailed them at three different times, asked them how I could help, and whether I could set something up within them if they weren’t going to. I never heard back from them. So, I decided to set my own entrepreneurial community within the university. Two days later, I got an email from them about an initiative they are setting up. I clicked on their links and realised they had a website all along, as well as a blog! Where was I looking?

 

So, even if you’ve looked, researched, and spoken to everyone you can. Is there anything else you can do? Is there anywhere else you can look? Where are you not looking?

About Me

Marita ChengForbes 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.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • What's in it for them?

    What's in it for the other person? If you look at everything from this perspective, you can get anything you want in life.

  • Future is fuzzy

    I used to get anxious about the future.  Whether I could get a good job, where I would live, if I would have enough money to survive. But then I...

  • Writing my memoirs

    Today I asked myself, what do I want to have achieved in life by the time I’m 50? I wrote down all the major things I would be proud to have...

  • How successful are you?

    “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...

  • Losing focus

    From an organisational point of view, it's better to focus on doing a small number of things right, than a large number of things wrong. In...

  • A regularly pleasant airport experience

    One day, as if overnight, all the airport check-in people and desks disappeared.  In their place appeared computerised self-tagging stations.  Across the...

  • The Bubble

    I used to think the bubble was a bad thing.  The huge number of people who called themselves an entrepreneur.  The over-inflation of entrepreneurs in...

  • Robots for kids missing school

    It’s so exciting seeing our robots make a difference in the lives of others.  Six-year-old Freyja has a suppressed immune system, so coming into...

  • Brain-controlled Teleport

    I was invited to demonstrate my robots on a QANTAS flight from Sydney to San Francisco, while we flew over the Pacific Ocean.  I said yes!  My fellow...

  • The worst that can happen

    When I was growing up, my mum earned about $20,000 a year to support herself, my brother and I.  By living very frugally and only spending money on...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top