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Each of us has a story. Behind our story are the stories of those who support us: our family, our friends, our teachers, people who have been kind to us and people who’ve challenged us. One of the key people behind my story is my grandma. If you don’t mind, I’d love to share a short summary of her story. Born in 1927, she survived Japanese occupation of her village and immigrated to the USA with nothing after World War II. She worked as a seamstress and raised five kids. Saved and invested every penny while supporting family in China and sponsoring their immigration when she could. Despite her lack of formal schooling, she instilled the value of education, hard work and fairness among her children and grandchildren, who went on to study at Harvard, Yale, and University of Chicago among other schools. She became the best investor of her highly educated family. She gave everything she had to her loved ones. Lived to the ripe age of 93 but in more ordinary times probably would’ve had many more years to give. She and grandpa also inspired me to strive for Harvard when everyone else in my immediate family gave up on me. Growing up, I was challenged with a video game addiction, bad habits, laziness, my parents’ divorce, people giving up on me. But my grandfather and grandmother never gave up on me. Despite all the difficulties they had growing up (my grandfather fought in World War II and worked all his life as a waiter and storeowner), they never made any excuses for their position. Through force of will, persistence, strategic thinking, they wrote their Book of Life in a way that changed their lives and the lives of everyone they supported. When we’re young, we might not appreciate enough the people who have come before us. The people who survived unimaginable challenges, trials and tribulations. It’s easy to just focus on our own world, on our own challenges. But we need to think about the bigger picture, which in this article I will call “The Book of Life.” The Book of Life is the most amazing, tragic, hopeful, inspiring, dispiriting, aggravating, humbling story -- filled with examples of people like my grandma. The lesson we can learn from those who came before us is that The Book of Life is never finished. It is constantly evolving and changing. For our part, we are responsible for how our section is written. Will it be a story of overcoming challenges, or succumbing to them? Will our stories be inspiring, or tragic? Will our stories lift up the people around us, or will we be a burden and drag people down? Your book of life is not over. In fact, for many of you, your Book of Life is still in the beginning. What you may not realize is how much power you have over how your own story unfolds. You may think that you are a passenger to greater forces. “My SAT score limits me.” or “I don’t have enough time to do everything.” Instead, what you need to realize is that you are a driver. You are choosing the course of your life right now . If your time is taken up by social media, video games, or other distractions, that is how your story will be written. But imagine the hero of our favorite stores. Despite long odds, and tough challenges, they persevere. The heroes in our greatest stories aren’t distracted by video games or small things in life. No, they are focused on saving the world! This doesn’t mean they can’t have fun -- but it also means that important things in life require sacrifice, and focus. I want to ask you, how will your story be written? What effect will your story have on other stories around you? Are you a hero that gives up with the slightest challenge, or will you persevere despite challenging circumstances? Our favorite stories would be really sad, if after having a hard time, the main character just gave up. One way to think of the college application is that it is simply sharing your Book of Life. Is it a story of triumph, collaboration, growth, and inspiration? Or is it one that is nice, but mostly conventional? Is it a story of you pushing yourself to the fullest potential, or of someone who might be wasting too much time? Whatever the truth is, it is never too late to change. In fact, many of the best stories are filled with twists and turns, because the world can be unpredictable and because our story is controlled by us and our decisions, which can also change at any moment. I sincerely encourage you, if you haven’t already, to take responsibility and control of your Book of Life. Learn from the stories around you, and work with people who can help you improve your Book of Life with lessons learned from theirs.
One of the first things we do at Endurable Education is get students started on building a professional resume. The resume helps each student summarize all their activities and accomplishments in an efficient document, and has multiple uses for college applications, interviews, and even career preparation. The idea is that each resume we help the students build can be updated and adapted for all of the student’s future career needs. My current professional resume is adapted and evolved from my high school resume, although my resume looks very different today then it did back then. This is because I’ve learned many things since I first started. Throughout this time my resume has helped me earn positions in investment banking, finance, technology, and government. I hope to help students similarly get a strong start to their careers as well. It’s interesting to me that many students don’t have a resume, and almost none have a high quality one. There are three main reasons why resumes are important: 1) they summarize your activities, 2) they help you communicate your activities, and 3) they are indicators of your work quality, effort, communication ability and personality. The first and section reasons are ultimately related. If you can’t track your own activities and accomplishments, how will you communicate it to others? If you don’t communicate your activities and accomplishments to others, how will you improve your chances to accomplish your educational and professional goals? Think about it this way. Whether you are applying for a job, or a spot on an elite college’s admission list, your hiring managers or admissions officers need to quickly learn about who you are and what you’ve done. They may consider and review more than a hundred applicants in a day. This means that they will likely only take 1 minute, maximum, before they make an initial decision. That initial decision is: do I read more? Or do I automatically reject this candidate. Once you make it past the “initial screen” then the hiring manager or admissions officer will spend more time getting to know who you are, reviewing your resume carefully, and trying to learn as much about you as possible. This is where the third point comes in: resumes are indicators of your work quality, effort, communication ability and personality. Work quality. Many resumes can be sloppy. Inconsistent formatting, spelling mistakes, and even ugly can be common mistakes. If your resume has poor work quality, that could be a sign of your future work quality too. This is the easiest way for a hiring manager to reject a candidate. If you can’t trust them to put together a resume of basic quality, then you cannot trust them to do their work at a basic quality either. If a college admissions officer sees a sloppy activities list, or a sloppy resume, then they may think similarly as a hiring manager. At the very least, they won’t be impressed. Effort. It’s easy to tell when a candidate doesn’t put much effort or energy into something. It shows up in work quality. If the work quality is poor, chances are the effort is also poor. If a student or job candidate won’t put effort into something that can help them stand out, how can you trust that they will put effort into their job or college opportunity as well? Honestly, for students that I’ve come to evaluate, I’ve noticed a correlation. Students who put lots of effort into self-improvement and challenging themselves will typically put lots of effort into their resumes and other activities as well. These are the students who we can expect more extraordinary results in college admissions (and life)! Students who don’t try hard in their resumes are typically the students that don’t seem to try very hard in school either. Just saying... Communication ability. In a future note I hope to talk more about leadership and teamwork. Suffice it to say, even if you think you won’t need teamwork and collaboration in the future trust me when I say you’re wrong. Nothing happens from a single person anymore. Even Taylor Swift, a famous solo singer, needs a team behind her to help her manage branding, legal affairs, partnerships, choreography, compositions, accounting, and more. Mathematicians need to communicate their thoughts or discoveries to other mathematicians. Need I say more? Communication ability is a basic requirement for collaboration, and everyone needs to collaborate whether they want to be an follower, leader, employee or founder. Personality. This is probably the hardest to describe, but yes, from a resume you can tell a student’s personality. Are they prone to arrogance or exaggeration? Or are they factual, honest, and sincere? Similar to why communication is important (so that people can collaborate), personality is important as well. Students or potential employees who don’t get along well with others will find that their opportunities in life will get reduced. I was motivated to write this article because I see students (and even professionals! After all, I’ve read thousands of resumes in order to help hire people for hundreds of roles) make the same mistakes over and over. I hope by outlining some of the most important points about resumes, and why even small things matter, students can learn from my experience and perform even stronger. Think about it this way, if your resume is so strong it can compete for a job at the best companies in the world, why wouldn’t a college admissions officer be impressed? Chances are, they will.
It may seem like the world is falling apart. This year, nearly everyone in the world faces a combination of political, economic, biological and social challenges. But I am writing to earnestly encourage all students to continue to push on despite challenging and changing circumstances. Whatever problems have arisen this year, and whatever problems continue to arise in 2020 and beyond, the crucial key to all of our salvation will be education. Through education, we can cure diseases. We can fight fake news. We can promote greater compassion, and understanding. Through education, we can build a better world that is more prosperous than the one that came before us. Despite how hard 2020 has seemed to be, 2020 isn’t the most challenging year in our history. The world has fought two world wars, overcome even deadlier pandemics, and defeated untold hardship to be where we are today. In spite of the challenges we’ve faced throughout human history, we’ve conquered those challenges to keep making our world better. And I sincerely believe that we will continue to improve society. Instead of the hardship and challenges, think of new opportunities. Remember that progress doesn’t come in a straight, upward sloping line. It’s a volatile chart, filled with give and take. There’s some progress, and there are some setbacks. But overall, the slope is upward, and potentially even exponentially so (but this is a topic for another day.) In addition to taking inspiration from human history and historical progress, we can also take lessons closer to home. Each of our family histories holds personal stories of perseverance and achievement. Wherever we come from, family situations have put us in a place today where we have the potential to make changes now and in the future that will make a difference. So let’s use this chance well. Don’t be deterred or distracted by turmoil. Instead, look for opportunities to improve and make a difference. It is often said that “the night is darkest before the dawn.” 2020 may feel like a really dark night, but with education we can bring about a brighter day sooner than ever if we try. Even during these difficult circumstances, there are inspirational heroes all around us. Instead of thinking about being stuck at home, or of having opportunities snuffed out by issues beyond our control, ask yourself, “What can I do? How can I adapt? How can I help others around me?” Don’t just get caught up in grades or test scores. Honestly, education is not about a score. Education is learning how to use what you’ve learned in the real world. Einstein famously had challenges as a high school student, yet many of his theories are still being proven correct to this day despite the fact that he didn’t have the technology or data or advantages that we have today. What do you think is more important, his performance in school or what he did with his education? Einstein wasn’t deterred by two world wars, his Jewish heritage and the rise of Nazism in his native country. Instead, he used his life as a literal light with which to bring about greater understanding for society, and his thoughts and conclusions are the basis of many of the technologies we take for granted today. So I challenge each of you, students, in three basic ways. One, don’t think of yourselves as students. You are as much a part of this world as any of us adults. You are just as capable as any of us adults. Don’t settle. Don’t think you are incapable. Try! You may succeed beyond your dreams, and if you don’t, you’ll learn invaluable lessons to make your next attempt at your dreams even better. Two, don’t wait. If you have ideas, inspiration, curiosities, pursue them! Don’t wait until after graduation, or until someone gives you a job to start. Honestly, I’ve heard from many adults who always tell me about pushing their dreams back, and back and back, until they feel too old to pursue them anymore. Don’t let your dream die from delays. Feed it and strive to achieve it as soon as possible and as quickly as possible. At many tech companies, we have a saying called: “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” Three, always be learning. Even if you cured cancer, or solved an important problem as a teenager, you still have 80+ years of life to live! A lot is changing and happening throughout the world. The world is moving faster and faster forward. If we are not moving fast with the world, then we are being left behind. In fact, if you can do something amazing even as just a high school student, think of what you can do with even more knowledge and experience in the future! Keep learning to grow even stronger and more capable in your future. If you can learn what education truly is, and use your opportunity well, then I have no doubt that no matter what the world looks like, you can be incredibly successful and make the world a better place. And even if you are afraid of the future, education is what will protect you. The most educated in society historically have always been among the most prepared to confront and overcome problems. The most educated in society often have the most choices, whether it is to be recruited by the best companies, start their own transformative companies, live wherever they want, and more. Any country, company, investor, or even friend would love to have someone like Elon Musk, who I believe is a real embodiment of what it means to be educated. So don’t just aim for good grades or scores. Aim higher. Aim for an education that isn’t limited by where you go to school, or what class you’re able to take. Aim for an education that gives you the most opportunities and choices in life, and aim for an education that allows you to change the world for the better. In closing, I hope to leave you with two more thoughts that each of us should hold dear: 1) challenges can be overcome, and 2) we are all responsible for creating a better world. It is harder to do either of these things if we don’t focus on what education truly is. I hope today’s difficult times and your real life experiences can give you a head start in truly understanding what it means to get an education and become educated.