Everything I've done has been entrepreneurial, whether following entrepreneurs' burning passions to change the face of the bikini industry, how people consume food, ways of changing the world through innovation /whatnot/, or on my own to learn the true merits of creation and adding value. As I (and all of us) come of age and awareness, these fundamental building blocks are finally taking on a more concrete form with the realization that these enterprises can only create value responsibly with social impact, conscious effort to be creative, not destructive, and play a deeper meaning beyond 'good experience', text book learning, wallets and whims. I do think we can save the world with great design, open consciousness, and limitless compassion.
Below are the "areas of learning" I've accumulated in the 29 gigs in my 29 years.
Innovation
At the moment the variables needed to kick-start an entrepreneurial spa venture went down-the-drain, ?WhatIf! Innovation came into my life. Wanting to launch its first office in China, I decided to suspend my aspirations to continue working in the Health/Beauty industry and do something much more generalist: help launch an office, grow a team, manage people, and create inspiring stories around the world of innovation for brands in China. In my time there, I have helped produce projects, set-up the office and experience a large office move and design, be trained in innovation behaviours, start interesting programs that would attract candidates/collaborators/clients to work with us, and work with some of the most inspiring, fun and kind-hearted people I know. www.whatifinnovation.com
Health/Beauty/Lifestyle
Some of my happiest memories as a child were playing dress up, putting makeup on everyone around me, doing dance and catwalk shows and flipping through fashion photos of my mother as a young aspiring model/singer in Taiwan. That road took me into a short professional stint modeling throughout high school, to realizing I enjoyed behind-the-scenes work as a professional spare-time makeup artist, to thinking I was going to pursue a career in the cosmetics industry. Cosmetics led me to realize that image, brands and perception were amazing tools that would shape the way people wanted to live and my fascination evolved into understanding what motivated people on how they design their lives and ultimately how they were striving for looking healthy and feeling beautiful.
Sales and Marketing
The first thing I sold for my first job was a $65,000 necklace at Tiffany & Co. in Hong Kong when I was 16 years old. From then on, I was hooked on retail, sales and marketing; learning how to sell everything from back braces to clinics from DC to NY, steak knives door-to-door, legal insurance, instant messaging systems after the .com bust, bikinis in SoHo and Chinese artifacts to rich Long Island vacationers in the first boutique I helped launch. The lessons in all of these jobs taught me more about life than anything I could have learned in the classroom (which was also probably why I was so dedicated to work 30 hours a week while attending 7 courses at University). Above all, Marketing taught me about the value of perception, the need to assign core values and meaning to things, and the grey world in which black & white Ethics lives.
Service and Humility
Most humiliating job? It was the same one that taught me about character: probably as a cigar girl for a National American boxing event. Though extreme, utterly frivolous and pretty whimsical at the time, that job among many waiting tables, managing a French/Thai restaurant in New York, doing makeup artistry for famous executives, and cleaning the dog shit off of a woman's shoes at the Peninsula Spa in New York taught me a thing or two about humility, service and standards--those of other people and above all, my own. In a world where people work too hard for their own good, schedule in times of reward in their day, pay top dollar for an otherwise simple pleasure, service plays a key factor in what makes success and deep impressions possible.
"Gig"gles
On the flip-side of humility, going over-the-top to see how far you can stretch yourself is also a fantastic barometer of your capabilities and work preferences. I discovered I could get in front of the camera with Jean Claude Van Damme and say stupid phrases, walk down a catwalk in lingerie at age 15 and not know any better, MC in broken Mandarin to an affluent crowd of French and Chinese fashion representatives, get filmed on cosmetics advice for an audience of over 5 million viewers, and the dozens of other "gigs" one picks up in life with about 50% chance of knowing whether or not they could "cut it" or admit to be cut. All the gigs I've done since the age of 14 have done more for my education of 'what's out there' and 'what people want' than many of the formalized jobs I've had...plus they were fun and served the ultimate purpose of paying high New York rents and Shanghai whimsies.
Resume
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