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

The unglamourous work you love

Published: Thursday, 28 February 2013

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.

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

  • My relationship with money

    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...

  • Non-profit founder critics

    Why are people so critical when young people start non-profits? Time and time again, I hear people say, "there are enough non-profits out there....

  • YouthActionNet Global Fellowship Day 0: The "best" and "better" plans

    A month ago, I came up with a list of the things I wanted to consider during my YouthActionNet Fellowship retreat.  In the 24 hours that it took me...

  • No overnight success: Geoffrey Rush

    When I was touring schools with Geoffrey Rush and we were answering questions in front of hundreds of kids, lots of them said, "I really what to be...

  • Don't kid yourself on your priorities

    What are your priorities?  Work?  Family?  Relationship?  Start-up?  9-5?  Non-profit?  Volunteering?  Watching television?  Reading blogs?  Eating?  Meetings? Don't...

  • Wow! I'm Young Australian of the Year!

    Wow!  What a huge honour!  I flew overseas in the wee hours of 27 January, and so the whole experience of being named Young Australian of the Year is...

  • Think about you, think about me

    People don't think about you.  They're too busy worrying about how you think about them.

  • Orlando

    I went to Orlando and gave three speeches in 4 days! I spoke to Baxter Healthcare virtually about failure - my failures, failing fast, failing...

  • Aurukun Advance Queensland

    As part of my Advance Queensland Hot Desq tenure, I was granted the unique opportunity to visit a remote Aboriginal community, Aurukun, to encourage kids into...

  • AI Most Influential Woman in Engineering 2000-2020

    This AI named me the 29th most influential woman in engineering from 2000-2020! It looked up frequency of my name being mentioned alongside an...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top