Joy as a Strategy
What drives your passion and creativity today, and where do you see it taking you in the future?
Creativity and business have been important aspects of my life ever since I can remember. One of my proudest childhood memories is being recognized by a local Toronto newspaper for clay-making when I was 8-years old. Much of my early exposure to business was watching my father build his cellphone store from nothing to support my family. He did it to be his own boss and to maintain my family’s legal residence in the United States after we immigrated from Canada. I can remember being tasked with running his shop in my early teens whenever he had to leave to gather inventory. That responsibility scared the hell out of me but I now appreciate it as the catalyst for pursuing my own business now. Those memories inform my current passion for entrepreneurship and helped me land my current role at Google. Wherever my passions lead me, I look forward to creating helpful products and introducing them to the world.
How do you define success for yourself in a world full of external expectations?
I recently read the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and feel inspired by what Steve said during a 2005 Stanford commencement speech, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do?”. Realistically, you can’t live everyday like it’s your last but the principle of choosing to do things that interest you still holds true. My definition of success follows this same principle; if what I’m doing daily interests me and provides joy to others, then I consider it successful.
What message would you leave for the next generation of changemakers?
I would bet that most people in their 20’s and 30’s don’t know what they’re doing or what they want to be ‘when they grow up’. Regardless of their age, people should keep experimenting and they’ll eventually find something that sticks. I’ve heard many people label Gen Z as the “lost generation”. In many ways, we were dealt a rough hand from the get-go: record-high living & education costs, declines in mental health, and unrealistic expectations of success made worse by social media. I think it’s important to push back on the notion that these setbacks define us and take steps to make life wonderful through hard work, practicing gratitude, and determination.
