My definition of Success is accomplishing my goal. To be successful, I need four elements: Visison, Plan, the Right Resource, Time.

  • Vision determines how far and how clear that you can see into the future.
  • Plan determines how steady your actions can be executed.
  • The right resource determines whether you have the support you need to do things.
  • All all these above multiplied by the last one, TIME, can generate an impactaful outcome.

First Element of Success: TIME

It is gonna take as long as it is gonna take.

Taking me passing Ontario’s road tests as an example, from G1, G2, to G:

  • Passed G1 on Aug 23, 2021.
  • Failed G2 once.
  • Passed G2 on Feb 21, 2022.
  • Failed G once.
  • Failed G twice.
  • Passed G on Nov 03, 2022.

Did I feel upset for the failures? Yes. Was there anything I can do about it? Yes, move on! What have I learned from this experience? Failure is miserable if you only cry for it, but it is good as long as you gain something from it.

That’s true for everything involves learning. Learning English took me almost 20 years to get the level I am today. Only god knows how many things I messed up. How could I expect a smooth learning experience for other staff? Coding is hard, fixing a printer is hard, and even changing a light bulb can be harder if you are doing it for the first time.

The Second Element of Success: VISION

My goals are beyond your understanding.

Back in China, people always asked me why would I want to come to Canada. Was that just for not being a work slave? At first, I tried to explain deeply. But later, I realized it would be better for both of me and the audience if I just kept my mouth shut. Cause they wouldn’t understand the importance of freedom. Just like not everybody can see why bother prision break even after watching “The Shawshank Redemption” a thousand times.

One quote from Eobard Thawne in the Flash resonates with me: “My goals are beyond your understanding.” And that, I believe, is called Vision.

The Third Element of Success: The Right Resource

Full tank of water would take you nowhere.

You need resource for business. Renting an office, hiring people, buy equipments, … Maybe there has been someone in the history with zero resouce ended up a huge winner. But I never met anyone like this, so for now I will assume this guy hasn’t been born yet.

The Fourth Element of Success: PLAN

Imagine living in a country where you don’t have access to the outside internet. You can’t access Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Netflix, BBC, New York Times. How can you educate yourselve? How can you bypass this firewall that you aren’t even awared of?

It is very hard. Or I would borderly say, it is impossible.

In this case, the plan made by the government garantees that it is the winner. It set a rule that nobody living inside it can break.

After came back from Singapore, the game was a little easier for me because I know the exitence of this firewall. All I need is a logical plan. Here’s how I bypassed the firewall of network.

  1. Downloaded a VPN tool monitored by government, which provides limited access to the outside network. All I need was the access to Google.
  2. Searched how to build a VPN with unlimited access to the Internet on Google.
  3. Registered on Google Cloud Platform and got a free trial for one year.
  4. Ran Python scripts to build a VPN channel on a computing instance on GCP.
  5. Download a pre-built VPN app and connected it to my GCP.

I did these steps in one day, and got full access to the Internet in 2018. That year, I had zero knowledge of programming.

In sum, Success is not gonna happen by chance, it can only happen by deliberate planing, gathering in-demand resouce, patience, and decades ahead vision.