VLT-Website-Heading

Inspiration from an unlikely source...

Jul 10, 2010 12:23:00 PM / by Vu Long Tran

Have you ever had that time when you were told something or you experienced something and it has challenged your life forever?

Well, this is my story. This is the story of a day where the vital seeds were planted that have now become not only the foundation of 'how' I live my life but also 'why' I live the life in the way that I do...

It was 5-6 years ago (2003-2004). I was in my final years of high school and simply taking a bus from my home to Footscray heading to the library...
 
I was just looking out the window watching houses, cars, trees, watching people get on and off, and you know just daydreaming…  When out of the blue, I was approached by a shabby, tipsy/drunk-looking bloke started talking and poking questions at me such as where I was from, what was I studying, etc.
 
Back then, I wanted to be an engineer, so I told him of my intentions to study engineering and he discussed the strong need for engineers, and encouraged me to keep pursuing that goal as Australia needed more engineers like me...
 
Now it was surprising to hear such words of encouragement, from a bloke that looked like he was struggling to stand and sit in his seat. Saying encouraging and motivating words such as, ‘keep up the great job’, ‘we need more engineers like you’. It was the sort of words that you’d expect to hear from a friend but more commonly, from a careers adviser, yet there I was receiving such kind and reassuring words.
 
Yet it was his final words as he departed from the bus, which, although not immediately striking me then and there, struck me years later during my uni days and still today. These words were, to keep studying and to remember ‘to make something of yourself’, which I interpreted as ‘to make something of myself’…
 
These words are now at the core of much of what I do, much as a corporate strategy sets the strategic goals that it undertakes in business. The phrase, ‘to make something of myself’, has found its way to becoming my core strategy and sets my strategic goals and visions that I undertake in my ‘life’.
 
It has undoubtedly has and will continue to motivate me particularly through many of life's challenges and obstacles, and will inspire me to pursue my dreams. As I seek to turn each challenges into opportunities, I have noticed that they have branched off and reformed itself into a number of areas which one can term as ‘sub-ambitions’ or ‘sub-goals’, some of those only unveiling themselves to me recently. These appear to be things that  one I had found myself  unconsciously already doing as part of my life, yet it has evolved into a phrase  and words of its own.
 
These I have found to be to ‘make a difference’, which I finding I am doing by 'helping others' which I believe this is this that one can achieve both directly or indirectly, i.e. by directing helping others and by supporting the people who help others.  Where this may evolve into later, only time will tell....Till then, take care!
- Vu Long Tran :)

 "Reach what you cannot!" - Niko Kazantzakis

Vu Long Tran

Written by Vu Long Tran

Solutions Engineer APAC. ex-@Forrester consultant. Writing on #cloud #howto guides and #tech tinkering!