• Blog
  • Archives
  • Bio
  • Awards
  • Speaking
  • Book
  • Contact

The unglamourous work you love

Published: Thursday, 28 February 2013

I love the process of getting an idea, making a plan around it, and then bringing it to the world.  It usually involves a lot of emailing, fleshing out a plan, meeting with people, learning, designing, daydreaming…

It's not very glamourous, but I just love it so much, and find it so invigorating.

And then if I've done it successfully, good things happen in the world to a lot of people.

And if I've done it unsuccessfully, then I look at what went wrong, and I try again.

It's the whole process of always trying to improve myself, learn more, and then see the impact of that on the world, that gets me excited.

And that's why people tell you to follow your passions.  Because you're going to be spending most of your time working on unglamorous things with a bunch of people who are working on their own unglamorous tasks to make a bigger project happen.  And if you don't enjoy that, well then life's not going to be very fun.

But no one sees that.  All people see is the glamour and glitz of winning awards, receiving publicity, and hobnobbing with celebrities.  But all that glamour takes up such a tiny fraction of it all.  And is just a lot of filming and camera flashes to capture a tiny fraction of time, and then distributing that far and wide.

The work you do though, and bringing that to the world - that takes ages.  And no one would want to capture it, because it's so unglamorous - just doing the same tasks over and over again.

So follow your passions and do what you love.  Because living a successful life isn't about fame or awards or external kudos.  A successful life is one where you live each day striving to make yourself better in an area you're passionate about.

About Me

Marita ChengForbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.

I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • Playing with robots

    Playing with robots in the office with Kyle van Dordrecht.  We timed ourselves putting a robotics kit together...  then we modified the kit.  

  • Success is in the doing

    Even if I know my chances of success are slim because I've been disorganised, have missed deadlines, have generally not followed my own rules for...

  • #TechMyWay with Ashton Kutcher

    Spoke at a Lenovo event by myself for 12 minutes and then on a panel with Ashton Kutcher.  Met with Hollywood’s Steve Jobs and had a yarn about...

  • Losing focus

    From an organisational point of view, it's better to focus on doing a small number of things right, than a large number of things wrong. In...

  • World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts

    Spoke in Hong Kong at the the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) on 9 July.  The WAGGGS is the largest voluntary organisation...

  • Pebble Beach Authors & Ideas Festival

    I was invited to speak at the Pebble Beach Authors & Ideas Festival (PBAIF) in Pebble Beach.  What a stunning part of the world!  Most other speakers...

  • Woman in STEM

    For National Science Week, I spoke at the Super STEM Careers event about my career in STEM.

  • You admire the things you can't do

    I've noticed in contests I've been on the judging panel for that those who have an expertise in a field, are more critical of entries that cross...

  • A regularly pleasant airport experience

    One day, as if overnight, all the airport check-in people and desks disappeared.  In their place appeared computerised self-tagging stations.  Across the...

  • Unless people you’re working with support you, you are going to fail

    Who are the guys that you are going to have pizza with when you successfully raise capital? Who are the guys that are going to inspire you? Who are...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top