One of the reasons for my new project, of creating an online video course sharing my experience in starting a career in international development, is that I want to grow thicker skin. I want to be able to take criticism (well-intentioned or otherwise) with grace. What better place to learn than on the internet? I also chose to host it on a teaching platform instead of youtube because the commenters on youtube are generally not very constructive.

This reminds me of when I started to train myself to do public speaking, back in high school. I was terrified. I naturally try to avoid the spotlight; I think much better on paper than in speech. Yet, I knew I had to learn in order to represent my ideas well. So for years I pushed and pushed and pushed, envious of those who had natural public speaking charisma. At one point, I became much better.

Now is time for training for a different type of public speaking.

I read this article called “The Courage to Stay in One Place” back in 2014 and it really resonated with me. The past few months, though, have given me a new perspective and more nuance.

Two paragraphs that particularly stand out:

When the first pangs of anxiety hit, my default is always a suitcase and a ticket to anywhere. I have gotten used to the idea that an Italian train and fields of red poppies are the cure for any sort of trouble, but then at a certain point that is no longer true. Because even in travel there are moments where you pause and it all catches up with you, where you stand on the top of Masada and the Dead Sea looks like somebody painted the sky on the desert floor and it’s so damn beautiful and you’re so damn lucky, but you just think of him and that smile and the email you wish you could send. At a certain point, every breathtaking vista just becomes another backdrop for your broken heart.

There is bravery in traveling, but there is bravery in staying home, too. There is bravery in staying still long enough for everything to catch up with you, in trusting that whatever it is, it won’t drag you down. Because it hurts like hell when there’s nowhere to run, when the only place to circle is within the confines of your own addled brain. I lie awake at night trying to figure out ways to escape the barbed wire thoughts closing in. Every memory digs a little deeper into my skin.

I wouldn’t categorize my need to see and experience the world as an escape from anxiety or unpleasantness in general. Curiosity drives most of what I like to do. Yet, I also understand the feeling of wanting distance between those problems in life largely outside of my control, but, by necessity, are within my emotional sphere.

I resisted coming home to rest back in January. I thought I would be off again, as soon as I could. I knew I needed to rest, yet I didn’t want to believe it.

Now, after a few months, I’m starting to savour the taste of having the bravery to stay still long enough for those dreaded little beasts to come make friends.

One of the biggest personal lessons I’ve learnt in the past year or so:

Being at the desk when inspiration hasn’t struck is just as important as being at the desk (or where ever you work) when inspiration has struck.

It’s the daily steps that build up a project. And it’s easy to forget that when those fingers just don’t seem to be typing or those thoughts just don’t seem to be flowing.

“We’ve forgotten how damaged we’ve been by oppression and injustice. People think that apartheid was just a political yoke, but it got into the psyches of both the oppressors and the oppressed. We’ve not yet found the remedy where we help people recover their sense of self-worth. When I went to Nigeria for the first time in the 1970s. I got on a plane in Lagos. Both pilots were black, something I’d never come across in South Africa. I grew inches in my excitement! We took off, but then we hit turbulence. The first thought that occurred to me was, “oh dear, there’s no white person in the cockpit! Will these black guys be able to get us through this?” The awfulness of racial oppression is so bad that it can make a child of God doubt that they’re a child of God. And you project your self-hatred on others who look like you. We need to recover our sense of self-worth.”

Read from here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elisabeth-braw/desmond-tutu-young-south-_b_899643.html

1. Tried to film outdoors and was thwarted by a cloud (literally) of tiny mosquitos that gave me over 100 bites within 30 minutes. So I was forced to improvise on filming indoors. Didn’t turn out too bad actually. As always, one can prepare, but it’s hard to foresee everything. Flexibility is the key. Also, bug spray.
2. My website had a small glitch I’ve been trying to figure out for almost 2 weeks now. Finally figured it out by adding a small piece of html in the header tag. For someone who completed a crash course on web development (HTML/CSS, JS, small amounts of PHP and MySQL) in February, not too bad! I have also made 3 websites since then (all customized from templates). This has been greatly satisfying because 1) I felt deeply how my lack of technical knowledge was a hindrance with our startup last year and 2) I’ve always had a coding geek in me (learnt HTML from a book in primary school grade 5, learnt STATA mostly on my own 3 years ago while trying to manage field work at the same time).
3. In addition to my goals yesterday, I have set my eyes on a goal with a deadline for this October. If the next few months goes well and I have piloted the expanded vision, then I will apply to the Echoing Green Fellowship. Of course, it is highly competitive, but like a marathon, something to work towards!

Today, I made a decision.

Recently I got a first round interview with an organization I’ve been idolizing for the last few years. I didn’t present myself as well as I could have and lost the opportunity. It was a great learning opportunity nonetheless.

On the other hand, it made me think that I really should choose and focus on one thing at a time. I’ve been flip flopping about whether I wanted to take another venture under my wing so soon. Should I do this part time while I job search? Should I treat this as plan B? Or should I go all in and try to make it work as a solopreneur? My energy is back. I have no obligations at the moment. When would be a better opportunity to make a drastic change than now?

So the decision: I’m going to work on launching and promoting internationaldevelopmentcareer.com for the next two months as my main job.

And if it goes well, the big vision:

I’d make the format into a broader brand that helps young people jump start careers they love, especially focused on the lack of information in the developing world. I think the problem with many current job training programs is two-fold: 1) they are not industry specific enough and 2) they tend to feature people who are too far along in their career. I imagine a podcast-type series in each sector that can be downloaded and shared. Young people can get insights and mentorship to prepare for the job market. Sectors can range from how to start a successful business growing high-value “modern” agriculture products to how to become the best customer service representative. The model would be to partner with young professionals who have successfully navigated a specific sector for the first 4-6 years of their career and produce content along the same model as my course.

I came across a fascinating article, titled “How the Average Triumphed Over the Median”, about why we now tend to use the arithmetic mean compared to the median (or even the midrange – have you heard about that before?).

This is a great example of why we should be teaching science history along with science. Science, no matter how “unbiased”, does not exist in a vacuum. It’s full of fights lost and won, skewed cultural perceptions, and a strong insistence on being the one and only truth.

I remember one time trying to make a point that there is a reason our science PhDs are still a Doctorate of Philosophy to a classmate (and was promptly shut down by her with a “science isn’t like that nowadays”). I didn’t have the words then, but I do now.

How we measure, test, and conclude about the world around us has huge implications on how we treat each other, the environment, and other living things. Shouldn’t we put more time into understanding our own biases within the scientific method before blindly believing it to be as good as it gets? Hence, the importance of remembering that even the scientific method is still one type of philosophical thought.

Some times, the arrogance of those who believe the scientific method without questioning really baffles me (it’s borderline cultish). Don’t get me wrong, I believe the scientific method is extremely important. Our understanding of the world has been able to grow with leaps and bounds because of it. At the same time, we don’t acknowledge that the method also narrows our vision and perceptions. What we can’t see with a particular pair of glasses doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

I was listening to a podcast the other day and the guest speaker talked about his journey from being a super introvert (with low physical appearance self-esteem also) to running huge sales and marketing companies. He became a very successful sales person through what he calls introverted sales. He said he learnt it all on youtube from Brian Tracy.

I started watching the videos and I wished I found out about them 10 years ago! Learning to do sales was one of the challenges I had while running our startup, especially selling without a very refined product, or using the marketing process to gather feedback to improve our prototype.

The other book I found really useful was The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, a very practical step by step on using a lean startup methodology and applying it to client interviews. How to actually get really good and honest data and feedback to improve your product a step at a time. Avoid compliments! Get concrete behaviour insights.

She’s one of my favourite journalists and someone I met randomly on a trip to Rwanda back in 2009. I’ve been following her work since then. She posted this the other day and it’s such an inspiration and reminder to me that even she, as brilliant as she is, had to work so hard to finally land her dream job.

(her name and identification info are erased for privacy reasons).