• 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

  • Are you a knowledge junkie?

    Knowledge junkies are people who love to learn and accrue knowldge.  They’ve read all the books, registered to all the web communities, heard of all...

  • The way things go

    You set up a meeting time, ten people email back and say they’re keen, passionate and that they’ll be there.  One person shows up.   So what’s there to...

  • Insights from another student entrepreneur…

    Kieran O’Neill started up holylemon.com, a sight that shows funny videos, funny movies and funny videoclips when he was 14, and sold it for US$1.25...

  • 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...

  • What's in a name?

    From August 2009 to August 2011, I was the "Founder and Director of Robogals Global".  Before that, my title was "Founder", and we hadn't created...

  • AWW Women of the Future Awards

    On 22 September, by an esteemed panel that included Honourable Dame Quentin Bryce, Chloe Shorten, Today show co-host Lisa Wilkinson, 7.30 anchor...

  • Australian of the Year Award winners video

    The Australian Department of Home Affairs decided to celebrate the Australian of the Year awards with this short animated video of past award...

  • Being your word

    If you tell people you are going to be at X location at X time, people take your word for that. If you’re not there, they decide that next time,...

  • Why everyone dolls out the same advice

    "Follow your passions." "Dream bigger." "Focus." "You can get there with hard work." "Do what you love because then you'll never have to work a day in...

  • World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts

    Spoke in Hong Kong at the the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) on 9 July.  The WAGGGS is the largest voluntary organisation...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top