As a Chinese living in the US, I have a weak spot for expat writing. I particularly love to read blogs written by western people living in China. They are easy to love because they are funny, they look at things I know from a different perspective and they are honest. One of my favorite is Violet Eclipse, an English teacher living in Yantai. Today I came upon this entry about ordering banana in a Yantai restaurant. In short, they tried to order fried banana, an entry on the menu, but were always denied. They finally brought a banana and the restaurant gave in and cooked for them.
And my first reaction was: I miss China!
It’s been a while, but at least I’m picking up the topic again.
Last time I talked about reading American celebrity blogs—Mark Cuban and Donald Trump. While Mark Cuban is a poster child of the new rich, it is hard to label Donald Trump (save for the now contrite hair joke)—he made his fortune a long time ago (so long that I thought he was long dead) but recently enjoyed an even grander comeback, thanks to the Apprentice gig. He takes the word “unabashed” to a new extreme.
While I, like many people, often find his excessive self-promotion uncomfortable, I have a genuine respect for the man for what he does and has been able to accomplish. This happens especially after I read his blog, which despite his busy schedule, he still finds time to write some interesting stuff once in a while. And I began to ask myself, “what can I learn from him?”.
Well, the question is not hard to answer if you read his recent piece here. Here’s a quote:
“Not everything works out as we might hope it will, and certain fields require a bigger dose of luck to succeed in than others, but a very good way to pave your own way to success is simply to work hard, be diligent, and to look at what you have going for you, versus what you don't have going for you - the old cup half full vs. half empty test. Here's where I bring back my tried-and-true theory that you have to think big - because if you're diminishing your own prospects, then it's not likely you will run into a lot of luck.”
To put it differently, to succeed, you have to work hard and you have to be able to evaluate your competitive advantage constantly.
I have heard this before, but to hear it from someone who has been there, done that, it just adds a great deal of credibility.