From an international student to a global leader, from career at Google UK to TikTok in China, from an introvert to a TEDx speaker, welcome to my life outside the comfort zone.
Responsibility, Influence, Vision, Motivation, Communication, Decision-making, Teamwork, Integrity, Confidence, Adaptability, Empathy, Resilience, Accountability, Problem-solving, Inspiration
The only move that matters is your next one. In 2017, I went to Burning Man in the Black Rock City. The theme that year was radical ritual. I guess the spirit was to encourage each and every participant to discover inside of themselves, to maximize out who you are, or rather, who you want to be. To radically search the meaning of your life and express yourself to the world with whatever format you may desire. A first time burner, spoiled, only child, living and working in the first world, doesn't matter how many labels I might have before. It was an absolute shock to my soul, if not just my shaking body, when I ate a mouthful of sand right after the bus door first opened to start my two-weeks-long campaign into the desert out of nowhere. However, I'm very proud of myself, making this nonsense decision to chew up all my holidays, normally supposed to be relaxing and do nothing on a beach, into the dust storm without shower for seven days. The decision to force myself out of my comfort zone was clearly a radical decision itself. What I have experienced, people I had deep conversations with, that majority I won't meet again in this default life, sparked me a lot of thoughts into writing a book and share with the rest of the world. If you do have a little time on train, tube, or waiting for picking up your kids, when you want to learn a little about this Chinese little girl navigating through the world, when you want to have a laugh about something funny in life, then welcome to my journey outside my comfort zone. A few years ago, I decided to quit my comfortable job from one of the most innovative tech giants in the world, Google, to join the world's most valuable startup in China, TikTok. I gave myself a certain time frame, as I always do, to not only set a timely, measurable goal, but to also work in China after leaving Australia and the UK for 10 years collectively. And in those past 10 years, away from my hometown, I have the chance to look at the world through different prisms. I learned to appreciate alternative narratives and experience from different perspectives, informing my outlook. After working for Australian companies, funding my own startups, sitting on an executive board for tech startups and US companies in the UK, now it's time to return to Beijing, the explosive growth capital of the world. That is not only a goodbye to Google, where I spent two years in Sydney and two years in London, during which time I learned not to just scale Google itself, but also myself. Needless to say, a lot of exciting projects that I had worked on, Google Arts and Culture that I helped launched in Australia, Talks at Google program I helped host in the UK, incredible colleagues that I have constantly inspired by, and everlasting friendship I'm fortunate to have. In Chinese, we have the proverb, 心有多大,舞台就有多大, means how large your heart is, how large the stage will be, which means depending on how ambitious you are, the whole world could be a stage. In retrospect, I consider Google is my starting point, not my finish point. Joining Google made me strong, leaving Google made me stronger. You may ask, what happened in the last decade working in the technology industry, why leaving at twice its speed, and how? Do not worry, sit back, and I'll give you all those answers from now on.