February 24th , 2012, Taipei suffered from rainy spell, but inside the hotel, boiled-hot enthusiasm ran through everyone’s vein. That day marked the Gama Townhall of 1st quarter held by GHQ in 2012. This time, Gamania invited the travel writer who courageously stepped outside his comfort zone and realized his dream, Cyril Chu to share his experience and story with Gamanians. Have a good APP award conferment ceremony was also held afterwards.
Three Crucial Stages in Life: Back to Zero
Cyril Chu has an impressive academic achievement and once worked for a high-tech company in the U.S, living an interesting life of establishing two companies a year. Until one day, he started to think, “Would I do this for the rest of my life?” Then he realized that he had drifted away from his dreams. I thought of the possibility of dying at any moment, and decided to let go of everything. He decided to start traveling around the world and pursue his dreams.
There are three crucial stages in his life where everything was ‘back to zero’. He returned to where he began and restarted again. When he was younger, Cyril carried his big backpack and hoped to see the world, but due to budget limitation, he chose Indonesia as his destination. There, he faced with street children who asked money from him every day and met with one tough question that no one had taught him before, “What do you do when you street children ask you for money?” After this experience, Cyril joined in public welfare sphere, working for NGOs, that marked his first ‘back to zero’ stage.
The 2nd ‘back to zero’ stage took place under the influence of his barber friend. This barber friend had a low income so he took a job in the dialysis center as assistant at night. In hopes of earning a higher income, he went to a nursery school to acquire qualification for nursing. One day an idea sudden came into his mind, “if I could put patients who need dialysis on a boat so they could travel around the world while receiving dialysis treatment, wouldn’t that make them really happy?” Due to his creativity, this friend started earning a lot more income than before and at the same time, he also traveled around the world. This case made Cyril realized that combining creativity, you could not only realize your dream, but gain achievement.
The 3rd ‘back to zero’ stage happened after Cyril joined NGO. Once he had a chance to help out in a farm in remote Burmese mountain. The ‘world’ was kept in a primitive state, the same as 100 years ago. Cyril wanted to help local farmers with irrigation using the latest solar power technology, but the country closed all formal exchanges with the rest of the world, it was very difficult for replacement of machinery parts if it requires international help. The solution to the problem turned out to be an alternative irrigation system, one powered by human. This dawned on Cyril that ‘people’ are the real solution to a problem, not technology.
Give yourself 10 life gits
Cyril reminded Gamanians to face the world as if you could die at the next moment and to start pursuing dreams you have been postponing. To realize a dream is not difficult, you don’t need to prepare, just start doing it. This way, you may realize your dream one day. Lastly, he gave Gamanians 10 life gifts and hoped that Gamanians could be true to themselves and have the courage to pursue dreams.
1st gift: start from within, step out of your comfort zone.
2nd gift: find a sport you can do for the rest of your life.
3rd gift: have 10 friends who know you the best.
4th gift: have the ability to change what is imperfect
5th gift: learn from Q&A
6th gift: accept the gain and loss in life
7th gift: be obsessed about one thing: so much so that you become an expert of some sort.
8th gift: ‘I’ am the gift of this world.
9th gift: be a man who think with hands for one day.
10th gift: never stop expressing yourself.
Cyril Chu’s blog: http://lavender1225.myweb.hinet.net/
Have a good APP Award Ceremony
3 exceptional winners were chosen from Application Group and Game Group respectively in the Have a good APP contest held in 2011. During Gama Townhall, Albert conferred awards and prizes to the winners. In overseas Gamania, the awards were conferred by regional COO. Congratulations!
