charvey in Vietnam

Go Rocky, Go!

Just saw this great quote from Rocky in the film "Rocky Balboa."

"You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that!"

Sly, ya still got it.

Don't Watch TV News

Until a few months ago I got my worldwide news from the Internet.  Then a few months ago I made the mistake of getting expanded cable at just about the same time the financial problems started happening.  My new access includes CNN and BBC. 

Good gravy, watching CNN for a few hours would make the happiest, most go-lucky lottery winner want to slit his wrists.  It's a pounding and unrelenting parade of doom and gloom.  These guys carelessly throw around phrases like "biggest fall since the depression" and "Iceland stands at the edge of Europe and the edge of an economic abyss."  Jeez louise, this is ridiculous.  

I still remember the 1980-82 recession when I was a kid.  Inflation hit 13.5% in 1980.  Unemployment hit 10.8% in December 1982.  The prime interest rate was over 21% in 1982.   My dad lost his job and was unemployed for a year.  That was bad recession.

Compare that situation to today, and in every way today is a lot better.  US unemployment is 7.2%, inflation is 3.8% and the prime interest rate is 3.25% as of December 2008.  I mean, come on!!!  The media loves to hype up bad news.  I can't stand 'em. 

Charvey's advice?  Turn off your TV and take a walk in the sunshine.

Wealth is a State of Mind

This story from the Christian Science Monitor really spoke to me.  The author argues that feeling wealthy (and happy) is all in your head.  I couldn't agree more!  Here's my favorite line from the story: "Every time we yearn for something we can't afford, we become poor." 

These thoughts remind me of a book I read a few years ago, The Paradox of Choice.  The author, Barry Schwartz, argues that we make ourselves miserable by always desiring something more or better and not being happy with "good enough."  He's right.  In other words, desire is the root of all unhappiness and suffering.  So very Buddhist.

Here's the story with my favorite parts highlighted:

Want less, spend less – wealth is relative to desire

By Diane Cameron Diane Cameron – Wed Dec 3, 3:00 am ET

Guilderland, N.Y. – We are concerned about the economy. We worry about the stock market, investments, and retirement. We hesitate to open bank statements. We are told: It will get better. It will get worse. It will rebound.

How do we cope? We have to make do with less. Lots of articles offer advice: Eat at home. Take the bus. Rearrange, don't redecorate.

At the heart are these questions: What can you live without? Can we be happy with less? Can we do it when the American way seems to be distilled lately to all about believing that we need and deserve more?

What I keep thinking about is what it was like when I really did have less.

In my 20s I lived in Washington, D.C., and made $13,000. I had an apartment and a car. I packed my lunch and saved up to go out for dinner. Was I really as happy as I remember? Yes. Most of us probably were. The reason isn't complicated.

We wanted less.

I was proud to be paying rent. I wanted to drive instead of take the bus so making the car payment for my used 1971 VW Beetle was great. I bought clothes on sale or at consignment stores, and when friends moved they passed along furniture they didn't want.

But over time, through reading and traveling and meeting people, I learned about nicer cars and better clothes. I bought into the status symbol they stood for. I began to want a real couch and a newer car and I began to fantasize about someday buying a house. Later my hopes included owning a Subaru and – I laugh to remember this – I thought I'd have the perfect wardrobe when I could buy one (yeah, one) really good purse.

Today, four houses later and many closets filled with shoes and purses, I can feel deprived simply by thinking about making my car last a couple more years. Everything I have now is nicer than what I had at 25, but it's easy to feel poor. Why? Because I have seen – and imagined – better.

Wealth is relative to desire.

Every time we yearn for something we can't afford, we become poor – regardless of our resources. It's when we are satisfied with what we have, that we become rich. The hard part is understanding that and adjusting accordingly.

We know there are nicer things and we see people who have them. For this you can blame television and magazines.

Through them, we can see easily what others buy and own and wear. Every new thing whispers its promise of happiness then gradually slides into the background of everyday life. Then we notice that someone else has a different or nicer thing. And we suddenly need it, too. This isn't the same as ambition or reaching for a goal; it's more about tweaking how we think about what we want.

This is why many of us recall feeling better when we were younger. We felt as if we had enough because we hadn't yet begun to compare ourselves with others. We didn't expect that we should have a lot more. It's our expectations that trip us up. We substitute one material desire for another, convinced each time that the next whatever will make us happy. And we then seek out that happiness through spending money.

But what we need is less desire, not more money. There are two ways to make a man richer, writer-philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau reasoned: Give him more money or curb his desires.

The solution this year: Expect less and want less. Perhaps the way to sort a real desire from just wanting is to wait a few weeks and see if the want changes. Or maybe to listen carefully to the dialogue inside. Is the inner voice saying "I like this" ... or "They will be impressed"?

• Diane Cameron is a freelance writer living in Guilderland, N.Y.

Arrogance of Power (before getting it)

Check out this news story from Yahoo. 

David Axelrod, the architect of Obama's electoral victory, has had an intoxicating whiff of power.  Now he's playing industry expert and telling Detroit how to run their businesses.  Check out this quote:

"Axelrod couldn't resist taking a jab at the executives. "I hope that they will come back to Washington in early December — on commercial flights — with a plan," he said."

I couldn't agree more that the CEOs of Chrysler, Ford and GM should take pains to look like careful stewards of their businesses when they crawl to Capitol Hill, hats in hand. Taking commercial flights might not be a bad idea for appearances, even if it costs time.

But I can't help but wonder how often Axelrod will take commercial flights once he is on Obama's White House staff? 

"Man of Mystery"

Editorial from the Wall Street Journal that appeared on 3 November 2008.  It expresses my mixed feelings about Obama's election pretty well. 

We have elected a man who will create "change" but few of us really understand what change he has in mind.  I suspect a lot of people will be unpleasantly surprised to discover that Obama's ideas are far to the left of most Americans. 

Leap of Hope

Sometimes the gambles pay off, sometimes they don't.

Every vote for a nonincumbent Presidential candidate is in some sense a risk, given the power and complications of the job. But in both his lack of experience and the contradictions between his rhetoric and his agenda, Barack Obama presents a particular leap of hope. It is a sign of how fed up Americans are with Republicans that millions are ready to take that leap even in dangerous times.

To his supporters, such as Colin Powell, the first-term Senator has the chance to be "transformational," the kind of gauzy concept that testifies to Mr. Obama's unusual appeal. His candidacy is certainly historic, and that isn't simply a reference to his Kenyan father and American mother. One secret to Mr. Obama's success is how little his campaign has been marked by race, at least not by the traditional politics of racial grievance. He has run instead on a rhetorical theme of national unity, a shrewd appeal to voters weary of the polarizing debate over Iraq and the Bush Presidency.

Getty Images

Mr. Obama has also understood the political moment better than his opponents in either party. In the primaries, he used his inexperience to advantage by offering himself as a liberal alternative to what seemed like an inevitable, and dispiriting, Clinton replay. He then turned around in the general election to project sober reassurance amid the financial crisis, which was the moment when his poll numbers began to climb above the margin of error against John McCain. His coolness reflects what seems to be a first-class temperament. And while community organizing may not be much of a credential for the Presidency, Mr. Obama's ability to organize a campaign speaks well of his potential to manage a government.

None of this changes the fact that voters still know remarkably little about a man who is less than four years out of the Illinois state Senate. While he has already written two autobiographies, there are significant gaps in Mr. Obama's political resume. The nature of his relationship with onetime friend and political contributor Tony Rezko, a convicted felon, or with radicals Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, not to mention Acorn, remains ambiguous or contradictory.

They were all early supporters or mentors, yet during this campaign Mr. Obama has eventually disavowed each one. This is perhaps testimony to a ruthless pragmatism, or maybe opportunism, but what do those relationships say about what he really believes? He is fortunate the media have been so incurious about them -- as opposed, say, to Sarah Palin's Wasilla church or Joe Wurzelbacher's plumbing business.

More importantly, it remains unclear how Mr. Obama intends to govern. As a political candidate, he has presented himself as a consensus-oriented bridge-builder. But for all his talk about reaching across the aisle, we can think of no major issue where he has disagreed with his party's dominant interest groups or broken with liberal orthodoxy. Not one. The main example he cites -- "ethics reform" -- is the kind of trivial Beltway compromise that changes nothing about the way Washington works.

Unlike Newark Democratic Mayor Cory Booker, Mr. Obama opposes school vouchers and would water down the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. Unlike Bill Clinton, Mr. Obama is ambivalent at best about free trade. His promise to abrogate the North American Free Trade Agreement, if Canada and Mexico refuse to bargain, is a more breathtaking case of U.S. "unilateralism" than anything Mr. Bush has done. Nafta is a 15-year old pact enacted by a Democratic Congress and President. The Kyoto Protocol had never even been submitted to the Senate when Mr. Bush refused to support it.

If he is elected, Mr. Obama would immediately face the same kind of large, liberal Democratic majority on Capitol Hill that did so much to ruin Jimmy Carter and the first two years of the Clinton Presidency. Is there anything its liberal barons want that he'd oppose? He hasn't said so. On the contrary, Mr. Obama's voting record and agenda suggest that the "transformation" he may have in mind is a return to the pre-Reagan era of government expansion and liberal ascendancy.

Amid a recession, with the mortgage market already nationalized and the banking industry partly so, the next President needs to draw some lines against further politicization of our economy. Perhaps Mr. Obama will surprise by appointing Paul Volcker as his Treasury Secretary, or postponing his tax increases with the economy in distress. But those are further leaps of hope with little evidence of pragmatism to back them up.

On national security, Mr. Obama is an even greater man of mystery. Perhaps once in office he will take the course of prudent realism. He can certainly sound hawkish when he wants to, advocating unilateral military strikes inside Pakistan and promising the kind of open-ended commitment to the Afghan conflict that he claims we can't afford or sustain in Iraq. Yet he ran irresponsibly against the surge in Iraq and now has his lucky stars to thank that Mr. McCain prevailed in that debate, so Mr. Obama would inherit a far more stable Middle East. His belief that diplomacy can stop Tehran's nuclear ambitions is also naive, and we suspect would be shown to be so early in his Administration with an Iranian nuclear declaration, if not a test.

As Joe Biden recently said, an Obama Presidency would invite challenges from enemies who would tread more cautiously against a President McCain. Perhaps Mr. Obama will evolve into a Truman, or perhaps he'll prove merely to be another Jimmy Carter. Unlike Mr. McCain, he'll be making it up as he goes.

Perhaps this is the kind of leadership the American people want after the Presidential certitudes of the Bush years. Americans certainly are eager for fresh start, and it is typical of periods of economic panic that they may even be willing to reach for the kind of alluring but untested appeal that so marks Mr. Obama. Sometimes these gambles pay off, and sometimes they don't.

Obamamania

It looks like Barack Hussein Obama is about to be swept into the most powerful office in the world.  Intrade.com puts his odds of winning at 88% as of 2 November.  A McCain win looks as unlikely as a snowstorm in Saigon.  Obamamania is at hand.  

Obama looks good, speaks well and clearly is intelligent.  He talks about "change" a lot.  He speaks beautifully about rising above partisan politics.  But who is Obama, really?  What change would he bring?  How would he "rise above" the nastiness that characterizes politics in Washington?  No one knows for sure.

To be honest, I'm a little apprehensive at the prospect of an Obama presidency.  It seems to me that the *idea* of Obama is much more popular than the man himself.

In one word, the idea of Obama is "change."  But change for what?  It's like saying "anywhere but here."  I, for one, am pretty interested in where, exactly, Obama plans to take us.  But all I get is vagueness about change.  

What I do know about Obama the man is that he voted with his party 95% of the time and that he has one of the most far-left voting records in the US Senate.  When has he ever shown courage bucking his party?  Never.  And this is a man who will reach across party divisions and compromise?  Seems unlikely.

Cloaked cleverly behind beautiful rhetoric is a man who is, in reality, far to the left of most Americans.  He supports "spreading the wealth around" in the form of higher taxes and transfer payments.  He's never actually run anything or created value in a business so I doubt he understands how business creates wealth in society, or how additional taxes and regulatory burdens harm the overall well-being of everybody.  

[Indulge me in an interesting tangent here.  Before I moved to Vietnam from Washington, I met a woman who was counsel to a Democratic US Senator, and attorney with zero business experience.  We had a discussion about capital gains taxes.  It became clear that she thought that raising the capital gains tax was "free money" that had zero negative effect on incentives of the people paying taxes.  I.e. she believed that a man who renovates houses for a living and is taxed on the capital gain of each house he improves will not be less incented to renovate additional houses if his capital gains tax rate is higher.  This was a woman who advises a powerful Senate member and didn't understand a thing about microeconomics and incentives!  It scared the hell out of me.  I suspect Obama has a similar blind spot.]

I also wonder about Obama's patriotic convictions.  Does he believe America is the "Shining City upon a Hill" or a horrible opressor of all?  For years and years he continued to go to a church whose preacher, Jeremiah Wright, screamed "God damn America" at sermons and believed that AIDS was invented by the US Government against African Americans.  Not only that, but Wright married Obama and his wife and was a close friend and advisor to Obama.  That Obama associated so closely with a man like that tells me he either has appalling judgment or he sympathizes with Reverend Wright's opinions.  I find both troubling.

I was similarly appalled with Michelle Obama's comment about never being proud of America before her husband started winning elections.  As the Vietnamese would say, Troi Oi!  It offends my red-blooded American sensibilities.  I want the woman who has the captive ear of the President to love America as I do.  I don't think Michelle Obama does.

Despite all this, I'm willing to put my doubts aside and see what happens with a President Obama.  If he's elected he'll have my support.  He *is* a compelling figure and a moving orator -- those are very important qualities for a president.  And he seems smart enough to listen to other opinions and moderate his position from time to time.  So maybe his liberal leanings will be tempered by the fire of office and he'll become a pragmatic centrist like Bill Clinton.  

I am concerned, however, that his supporters are putting crazy unreal expectations on him.  Listen to them and it sounds like he's Jesus Christ or something -- he'll ride in on his unicorn and solve all of America's and the world's problems!  Despite his talents, it will become clear by next summer that Obama is another -- perhaps quite talented -- politician.  Not even he will be able to deliver on everyone's expectations of post-Bush nirvana.  And then the lefties will turn and eat their own.  I feel like Cassandra ;-).

On the Stool

A reporter friend of mine writes for a weekly addition to the Vietnam Investment Review called Timeout.  Timeout selects a different foreigner to profile each week, asking the same questions.  It's called "On the Stool."  My friend asked me to be profiled recently.  My agent negotiated a lower-than-usual fee since she's a friend of mine ;-).

[Click on the image below to see a larger version.]

Contemplation of the Beautiful

Saw this quote on my igoogle page today.  It spoke to me.

"That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful."

- Edgar Allan Poe

Food for Thought

I came to my blog today to write a new post and saw this quote:

"Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get." 
- Dale Carnegie

Kinda funny this appeared today, because it's very relevant to what I've been chewing over and over in my mind lately. 

Blog Posting Ideas

Hello My Public,

I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I been puttin' out fires left and right and I don't mean maybe.  Seriously though, I've been carrying lots of ideas for new blog entries but honestly, I've been too damn lazy to sit down and bang 'em out.  So before I forget, I'll record a couple right now and work on them sometime later.

• Negotiating in Vietnam - My School of Hard Knocks in Aggressively Passive-Aggressive Hanoi Style
• Vietnamese Helmet Fashion (I gotta get some good pics for this one.  All I gotta do is walk out on the street with my camera for 5 minutes.)
• Karaoke Culture
• Another entry on the Vietnamese language (I know a tiny bit more now than when I made the last entry in 2006)
• Attending the John Maxwell leadership conference
• Visiting Beijing, China and swing dancing on the Great Wall (check the pics!)
• What it's like to travel first class from Saigon to London (yes, it was OPM Other People's Money)
• Ideas about building a company culture as strong as Southwest Airlines, as detailed in "Nuts!", a book about Southwest.  Southwest's founder, Herb Kelleher, is one of my business heroes.
• Ideas about leadership, leading and managing

So, Public -- if you have other ideas you'd like to see me write about let me know!

Stop Talking and Start Doing

On the left column of this blog there is a quote feed.  Today the quote is:

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."
- Walt Disney

I love it.  It reminds me of what MRC, an old college friend of mine, used to say.  "Harv, there's two kinds of people in this world -- people who talk about doing things, and people who do things!"  MRC is now an orthopedic surgeon.  Preach on, brother, preach on.

A Time for Choosing

I stumbled across this 43 year old speech from the Gipper today.  Good stuff.

An Interest in Life

Those of you who know me personally know that I am a fan of quotations.  Here's one that spoke to me recently.  It appeared in my "Daily Literary Quote" application on iGoogle.

"Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people.  Forget yourself." 
- Henry Miller, American Novelist

There will come soft rains...

Nam nay, mua mua den som.  Ok, I'm lazy and didn't use the special Vietnamese script software I've got on my computer.  But it reads "This year, rainy season comes early."

It's getting hotter and more humid.  Although it doesn't rain every day (yet), it has rained cats and dogs a couple times already.  Marking the passing seasons of rainy/hot, dry/cooler is not quite the same as the east coast USA rituals of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter but it'll do.  I do kinda miss springtime in the eastern USA though -- the smell of newness and fresh, wet earth, sound of birds singing, being able to go outside without a coat -- it's like being let out of prison.  There's no feeling like it.

Great Quotes

Some of you many have noticed the "Quote of the Day" I put up a few months ago in the left column.  It's an automatic feed from some site I found.  Here are some particularly good ones:

"The harder I work, the luckier I get."
- Samuel Goldwyn

"You must do the things you think you cannot do."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right."
- Henry Ford

"Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred." 
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

All Reality is Subjective

Last Friday I was waiting for some friends at an expat bar.  I struck up a conversation with a couple somewhat older, somewhat grizzled expats -- one from the US, one from Aussie.  Soon the conversation turned to the nature of the Vietnamese.  "Aww, they're arrogant" said one.  "They're impolite and rude" said another.  "I can't stand it when I hear people say how the Vietnamese are so polite and soft-spoken.  If only they knew the truth."  One of these guys spoke fluent Vietnamese, and told of how Vietnamese often make rude comments about him on the street because they think he cannot understand. 

I've heard similar sentiments from other long-time expats, although theirs is not a universal opinion.  You will find other long-time expats who have nothing but the nicest things to say about the Vietnamese -- warm, kind, generous, etc.  What accounts for the difference?

Thinking about this I had an epiphany -- all reality is subjective and dependent on the observer.  What you perceive around you, how you interpret events and interactions in your life, is completely subjective.  When you encounter one of the ubiquitous shoe-shine boys on the street, is it a positive or negative experience?  The encounter alone has no intrinsic positive or negative value -- it's how we interpret it and what we focus on that creates the experience.  I know expats who are always annoyed at the continual hawking by xe om drivers, gum-selling kids and shoe-shine boys.  Instead of being annoyed, I choose to look upon each of these as a positive encounter - I can practice some Vietnamese and maybe make a connection of some kind. 

I remember a high school physics textbook that explained how the wave property of light beams can interact with each other to produce a stronger beam or cancel out both beams entirely.  Our subjective reality interacts with the outer world in much the same way to create our sense of reality,the difference being that we can control the outcome.  In a very real sense, we actually CREATE our own reality.  That's why I have no patience when someone says "Let's be realistic" when talking about a goal or task.  What is realistic?  It's all in your mind.  Saying "it's not realistic" too often is the mark of a thinker without vision.

Sure, there are negative aspects to living in Vietnam.  Sure, sometimes they do bother me.  But I live in a reality populated by Hung the parking lot kid, who told me to keep my money today and gave me my spot for free, or the enthusiastic "Chao anh Lam!!" I get every morning when I get my coffee at the shop downstaire.  It's a bright and charming place filled with interesting people, not a dour and bitter one.

To be fair, I haven't experienced many negative events since I've been here.  Maybe I've been lucky.  And I've only been here six months.  Perhaps after a few years I'll have the same attitude the grizzled expats do.  Perhaps, but I doubt it.

Thoughts from other Vietnam expats?

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

I want to share with My Public a speech that Steve Jobs made at the Stanford University commencement ceremony in June, 2005.  It contains more wisdom per word than anything I've ever read.  Its eloquence and power helped to inspire me to make a bold move to Vietnam and "stay foolish" in my own way.  I haven't looked back.

You are more free than you believe.

- charvey

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

 When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation.  It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.    

Identity, Nationality & Ethnicity

As my fellow Americans know, the United States is a nation of immigrants. People have come from the four corners of the Earth to the USA. They’re still coming. It’s an important part of our national identity, and we’re proud of it.

My own ancestors came to the USA from a good chunk of Europe – England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Poland and Germany.  But I do not – emotionally or otherwise – identify with any of those countries. I am American.

America’s history and status as an immigrant nation means that being American has more to do with subscribing to a set of beliefs – freedom, democracy, the ideas contained in the Constitution – than belonging to a certain ethnicity. I call this “ideological nationality.” In my view, America’s ideological nationality makes the United States unique among nearly all nations of the world (exceptions might be Australia and New Zealand, themselves immigrant nations, but the USA is by far the largest and most diverse).  [Above right: A picture I took of new Americans of Central American origin on the National Mall in Washington, DC on April 11, 2006.  I love this picture because it captures clearly their pride and dignity.  Viva Estados Unidos!]

American ideas about ideological nationality contrast starkly with most other countries in the world. In many other countries, nationality and identity are utterly rooted in ethnicity. I call this “ethnic nationality.” This is natural and logical given that, historically, regional ethnic tribes gave rise to nations.

The ethnic nationality model predominates in Vietnam. My conversations with Vietnamese on the topic suggest that their concept of “being Vietnamese” means belonging to a certain ethnic group in addition to its history and culture. For example, they do not consider ethnic minorities here to be “really Vietnamese.” I was quite surprised to learn that it is standard practice for Vietnamese to list their ethnicity on their resumes. About 86% of the Vietnamese population are Kieu, the translation of which is “ethnic Vietnamese.” [charvey note: The proper word actually is "Kinh," not "Kieu."  Thanks to D for pointing out the error.]

Both models of nationality are valid and understandable. The challenge arises when worlds collide, and people on both sides try to interpret the nationality/identity of one individual who belongs to two different groups. Many Vietnamese I’ve met simply do not comprehend the “ideological nationality” concept and instead apply the "ethnic nationality" model to the USA. To them, a “real American” is of European descent, simple as that. I’ve had Vietnamese tell me as much quite bluntly. This statement offends my American sensibilities mightily – an American is an American regardless of origin. It’s our national creed. [charvey note: I speak for myself here. I am not making claims about what all other Americans think, although I do believe a majority of Americans are far closer to the “ideological nationality” concept than the “ethnic nationality” one.]

To be honest, I had a similar blind spot. To me, once someone is an American citizen and carries a blue passport they are American and all nationalities should recognize them as such.  But the Vietnamese don’t see it that way. Looking through their ethnic lens, just as a white person could *never* be considered Vietnamese, a Vietnamese-American is not considered entirely American. They might still “lay claim” to him or her, so to speak, as “Vietnamese.” At the same time, they don’t seem to consider a Vietnamese-American “entirely Vietnamese.” It’s strange. I’m still struggling to understand all the moving parts.

Ethnicity, identity and nationality are emotionally charged topics. I certainly do not consider myself an authority on the subject of Vietnamese nationality (although I do lay claim to that title on the ideals of American nationality). That doesn't keep me from expressing my evolving impressions and views, however.  To those who may consider this post offensive or insensitive – please bear in mind that I wanted to begin a conversation about ethnicity and identity. I welcome thoughtful and insightful responses from all corners.

My Native Land

I arrived in Washington, DC on Thursday afternoon after an uneventful 22 hour journey.  It feels great to be back in the USA.  As wonderful and interesting as my life in Vietnam is, it's nice to take a break from being a stranger in a strange land and reconnect with family and good friends.  I read a quote by Sir Walter Scott in a newspaper story on the plane that spoke to me.  It was:

“Breathes there a man with soul so dead that never to himself has said, this is my own, my native land.” 

I know in my heart that that no matter where I go or how comfortable I become overseas, like the priest in the story the USA shall always be "my own, my native land."

Thursday evening I fought through the jet lag and went out with Katie and Hank to the rooftop bar at Clarendon Ballroom. Clarendon Ballroom is quite a scene and Hank had a great time chatting up some of the young ladies. He number closed a few hotties. Hank, you smoothie!

Friday I had lunch with Joe and Jane, the parents of a former colleague of mine.  They've done a lot of importing and exporting between the US and Asia, and now they're interested in Vietnam.  Joe is planning a trip to Vietnam in October.  They entertained me with import/export stories, such as finding and exporting red-colored contact lenses for chickens in Japan (absurd-sounding, yes, but between chuckles they assured me it was true.)

On Friday night I met some business school chums out for a few drinks and dinner at my favorite Arlington restaurant, Harry's.  Pictured below from left to right are my good friends Jim C, Jim S, Vanessa, Andrea and yours truly.  Yes, the bump on Vanessa's belly is a result of more than Andrea's Italian cooking.  She's due on September 7!  Very exciting, guys.

Jim C and I shared the thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat all through first year of b-school on the same "learning team."  Jim S and I were roomies for two years (he knows all my bad habits, and I know his).  Andrea and I commuted and worked together at AOL.  He entertained me with funny stories each morning in his crazy Italian accent.  Ah, good times, good times....  Great to catch up with them and share a few laughs.

I'm in Naples, Florida now visiting my father and his wife, Marty.  My sister Dawn (aka Dawner, Dawnold, the Dawninator) is here too.  Just stuffed myself silly on Marty's cooking.  Life is good.

Double your failure rate

I recently added a "Quote of the Day" module in the left column. 

Yesterday's quote was from Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM.  It was "If you want to increase your success, double your failure rate."

Think about that for a minute.  You gotta swing and miss a lot if you want to hit home runs.

Ahhhh, TV

Just a quickie here.  I moved into my new place a few days ago.  It's great and I'll post a full description with pics this weekend, probably.  But first I just wanna tell you about my TV.

I get about 15 English-language channels and lots of American programming.  The other night I watched Leno interview Kevin Spacey on the new Superman movie.  Last night I was riveted (and I mean riveted) by a TV movie about the human drama behind the scenes during the 70s/80s sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes."  Ah, the pathos of Gary Coleman.  Has he not suffered enough?

Don't ask me how, but I remember watching the premiere of that show with my sister and father in 1978 like it was yesterday.  We thought it was absolutely hilarious.  "What-chooo talkin' 'bout Willis?!"

I love the TV.  I forgot how much I miss the TV.  Its warm embrace is like a Denny's Grand Slam breakfast when you're drunk at 3am. 

One bummer though is that although I get Cartoon Network, Adult Swim doesn't air in Asia.  I'm dying to watch the new episodes of my favorties "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," "Family Guy" and "Venture Bros."  I found a website, Adult Swim Fix, that streams full length versions of the shows but it won't let IPs outside the US access the streams.  Is there anyone out there smarter than me who knows how to fool the Cartoon Network server into thinking I'm located in the USA?  I've tried a couple anonymous surfing sites but they haven't worked.  My Public, I'm counting on you!

The Mysterious Piano Player

For the past several weeks I've been hearing someone practice piano in the evenings in an apartment adjacent to my hotel and just outside my window.  The music varies from night to night and sometimes from minute to minute.  My favorite song and the song most frequently practiced is one that is hauntingly beautiful.  It's slow, dreamy, nostalgic and a little sad.  Like a tenderly remembered, cherished memory of a love gone  by.   I wish I knew what it was.

Back in the 'Nam

Viet Nam.  I am here.  Welcome to my blog chronicling my (mis)adventures and experiences in this fascinating country.

For Americans, the word "Vietnam" is fraught with imagery and history.  Jimi Hendrix.  Hueys.  Kent State.  Jungles.  Oliver Stone.   Napalm in the morning.   But that was 30 years ago.  The reality today is totally different.  Motor scooters.  Internet cafes.   English and accounting lessons.  Five star hotels and restaurants.  I love the irony present in the picture to the left -- ah, the empty economic promise of communism (you can tell by their uplifted faces) juxtaposed with the bounty of capitalism.

I arrived this morning, not sure how I would react to actually being here.  Well, it feels pretty much exactly like I expected it to feel -- great.  I was ready to bust a move and make a change.  I crave adventure and new experiences.  So I just did it.  It wasn't so hard, really.  The toughest part is coming to the point of making a leap -- making the leap is actually pretty easy.  It's a lot like standing on a high dive, trying to summon the courage to jump.  The worst part is the moments before you jump where sometimes you can be seized with fear (I have a thing about heights).  But the act of jumping and falling is actually rather exilarating.  "Hey, that's not bad at all!"

The purpose of this blog is to share with my friends and family some of the color of my life in this country.  Oh yeah, and to write.  Writing forces me to think, which I generally avoid doing.  So maybe I'll have some great, pithy entries about the meaning of life and fulfillment.  Or maybe I'll just race to the lowest common denominator and start a celebrity blog about Brad and Angelina.  Or maybe I'll just tell fart jokes.  Stay tuned.