Risks, Rewards & Entrepreneur's Path

Monday, September 22, 2008

Risks, Rewards & Entrepreneur's Path

An inspirational speech full of wisdom about life and career.

I took Professor Grousbeck's class back when I was in GSB. It is even more refreshing and inspiring when I listen to this famous speech again after 3 years' struggling with my very own career, life and entrepreneurial endeavor .

"Work like you don't need the money, dance like nobody is watching and love like you have never been hurt."

Risks, Rewards & Entrepreneur's Path

4 comments:

Lingjie said...: Hi Xiaojin! The link you posted looks extremely interesting. I am about to speak and moderate a session at Media Guardian conference later this month. I am very keen to watch two of the topics on the GSB site. Do I need a pass word to see the full version? currently i can only see about 1min on each topic...
Hope you both are well!; October 6, 2008 at 9:50 AM
Adi said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; November 18, 2009 at 4:51 PM
Josephine said...: I love movie's and I love fashion! Your blog is just perfect ;D; November 25, 2009 at 7:22 AM
Anonymous said...: I love your blog !!!!!!!! I just discovered it while googling the Umbrella's of Cherbourg. You should do post again it was really great!; June 6, 2010 at 11:43 AM

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My Story

Connecting the dots...

It was almost 15 years ago when I was a freshman as a fashion major student in China, I first watched movie Bathing Beauty (出水芙蓉) and madly fell in love with the beautiful clothes owned by the leading character Caroline Brooks. In a degree that I adored the white shawl she wore to the poolside so much, I watched the movie three times and made a similar shawl for myself. It is also from then and this movie, fuchsia has been my favorite color, till today.

My choice of Fashion major was just a childhood intuition. Fashion just started in China back then and there was no much inspiration we could get. Hollywood movies were a source but they were rare in China. Language was another barrier for us to understand the movies well because English listening comprehension skills even for college students were largely poor, needless to say culture or dressing etiquette.

During the next ten years, I didn’t follow the original institution to become a fashion designer, but I did manage a career revolving around ready-to-wear business. Like everybody born in mid 70’s in China, I went through college graduation, changing jobs, studying English, applying graduate schools overseas and realizing the dream of crossing Pacific. In spite of these distractions, a passion for fashion has always been there for me just like an old friend from now and then reminds who I am: no matter it was the temptation to get that glorious $100K consulting or investment banking job as an MBA student or struggle to define myself while going through culture shock in another country.

One day I woke up and found myself armed with abundant resources and capabilities to get around to the language and culture, I discovered my passion for fashion again - I want to interpret the fashion from classic movies in a way that is easy to understand and get inspiration from for those who haven’t been able to do so. And thus my blog http://whenfashionmeetsmovies.blogspot.com/ was born.

“You’ve got to find what you love,” Steve Jobs told us three stories in his graduation speech for us. One of them was about connecting the dots. He said: “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

When I look my life backwards according to Jobs’ suggestion, I did find some dots were connected in some way! Find a passion, stick to it and connect dots. Life sometimes brings me nowhere and I’ll always believe the passion is the guidance and all the dots will be connected in the future.

When Fashion Meets Movies - 影尚随行

Monday, September 22, 2008