The first day of the "YouthActionNet Fellowship" program began with a welcome email read out, written by Bill Clinton! How exciting! I've always had it that I'm here and Bill Clinton is over there with no overlap. So to have him (or his entourage) write to the International Youth Foundation the day before our retreat to welcome us was incredible for me.
The first day was about leadership. My biggest insight of the day was that the most important factor that differentiates a successful leader between an unsuccessful leader is their ability to "inspire and motivate others to high performance".
As soon as we were told that, my first thought was: "but how do we train leaders in our organisation to be that?"
They didn't divulge on that though, unfortunately.
But here's what I'm going to do with my team as a result of my knowing this.
Inspiration
Inspiration is intangible - you can't measure it. It's more like a feeling or a sense. So I'm going to work with my team and get them to generate "inspiration" - however they make sense of the world - in their day-to-day interactions. If they generate it within themselves, then it will radiate outwards.
High performance
We set big goals goals in Robogals Global and ensure that our focus is always on achieving our goals. If the Robogals leaders radiate inspiration and keep the conversation about their team's goals in existence and are always looking at finding new and creative ways to reach them, then a whole generation of the best kind of leaders in the world will be created.
What about your thoughts about how we can inspire and motivate others to high performance? What are your thoughts about how we can train others to be this kind of leader?
Today, the most interesting part of the day was a session called "Open Space", where some people wrote topics they were interested in discussing on a flipchart, and then everyone ticked the topic they were interested in discussing, so that we could divide up into different interest groups. It was like one of those crowd-sourced conferences.
I'd been dying to know the size of everyone else's organisations - how long they'd been doing it, their budgets, and whether they have any paid staff. So we went around the group and shared just that.
Robogals is so close to who I am, it was like I was shedding another layer of skin to the group and letting them see who I was.
What struck me the most about this exercise is that amount of amazing things this group has been able to achieve on the leanest of budgets.
Some of the amazing projects include:
These are just a sample of amazing projects that the under-30 year old, 2011 cohort of YAN Fellows spend tens of hours of week on, for no pay, because they are passionate about the cause.
So next time you think, "I don't have the money or resources to implement my idea", look to the YAN Fellows for inspiration. There's a whole database of them here. With a lot of heart, and a lot of hard work, you can achieve anything.
A month ago, I came up with a list of the things I wanted to consider during my YouthActionNet Fellowship retreat. In the 24 hours that it took me to fly and transit to Mexico, I've already come up with a solution for all 10 points.
My rationale behind it is that if I'm going to be spending a week talking to 20-odd people about all these issues, the best way I can prepare is to come with an already executable plan mapped out to build upon... or to completely tear down and rework.
Just by coming up with a "best plan" means that I already needed to think through a number of scenarios and justify to myself why some of them won't work, whereas others may stick; which puts me in a very strong position to answer heaps of questions about all those points, as well as quickly recognise what I don't know about those areas.
My plan I've created is the "best plan" I could have created with all the knowledge that I knew at the time... Which means that there could still exist a "better plan" that can be created through the addition of knowledge that I currently don't know.
I think it's important to come up with a "best plan" by yourself before asking others for suggestions to help you create a "better plan", as it shows your commitment to the project, shows that you've done some research, and shows that you've thought things through.
On 17 May this year, over two months after I'd submitted my application, I received an exciting email in my inbox. "Congratulations! You have been selected as one of 20 YouthActionNet Fellows out of 600 applicants!"
I was stoked! The YouthActionNet (YAN) Fellowship exists to strengthen, support, and celebrate the role of young people in leading positive change in their communities. In order to achieve that aim, it includes a weeklong retreat of skill-building, networking and resources and advocacy-training, at a selected location (this year, it's in Mexico City!) followed by a yearlong mentorship. It's run by the International Youth Foundation and is backed by companies such as Nokia and Starbucks. In total, my fellowship is worth over $20,000! There are over 400 young social entrepreneurs from more than 60 countries who have been YouthActionNet Fellows in its 10 year history.
Since then, there's been heaps of emails to organise things.
A month ago, we were sent a homework assignment to complete before next week. The first task was to construct the work I do into a story, including a 4-page guideline of how to do that.
That activity was surprisingly really useful. I used a variation of it for a speech I gave shortly afterwards, to great reviews, and I've used the structure for interviews since then as well, including this one: Brains Matter . I've probably given a variation of that speech 5 times publicly in the past month, so I found that activity really useful and I'm glad I got that task done early!
The second task was to consider what I wanted to learn from my fellow participants during the week, and what I could offer. This is the list I came up with. (I like lists).
Can teach at YAN:
Want to discover new ideas for the following at YAN:
I am flying to Mexico tomorrow for the retreat, and I can't wait to meet all the other participants from all over the world and am so excited to be joining such a large and inspiring organisation.
Just in the past 2.5 weeks, I've seen my productivity shoot through the roof, I have more energy and I feel great about myself (who wouldn't?)
No, this isn't a new fab drug or wonder-pill. It was just a simple matter of changing the way I see a tiny thing in my life.
So let's reassess where I was 3 weeks ago:
And things were so not going to get done.
I use the HitList, I write a daily plan, but I procrastinated so much it was debilitating.
What usually happens is I pile on all these things to do, don't manage to get them done then delegate them off to someone else at the eleventh hour. Except I couldn't do that this time, because these were all personal things that had to be done by me.
One night, while I was examining honestly what I do with a friend, I realised that amongst everything else, I also spend a lot of my time time watching television and YouTube videos because I thought that it made me more creative. I thought, "really creative people made these tv shows and these music videos. If I watch them, I can store up good creative ideas for the future". But while I was saying this aloud, I realised that I study mechatronics engineering and computer science. If I really wanted to improve my creativity and thinking skills, I could just study my lecture notes or do tutorial exercises. Because while everyone has access to those tv shows and music videos, not everyone has the opportunity to expand their minds through studying engineering. And with that, I knew that I would be able to follow my plan, not procrastinate, and get everything done.
Since then, I have:
And all I can say is, it feels awesome to finally know myself as someone who can make a plan and make everything on it happen!
So what's in the way to you being productive? What do you need to get honest with yourself about?
Forbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.
I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.
This AI named me the 29th most influential woman in engineering from 2000-2020! It looked up frequency of my name being mentioned alongside an...
Spoke in Hong Kong at the the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) on 9 July. The WAGGGS is the largest voluntary organisation...
When I was growing up, my mum earned about $20,000 a year to support herself, my brother and I. By living very frugally and only spending money on...
Do you ever think to yourself that you can’t do this? That you’re not smart enough? That you haven’t practised enough? That you’re not ready? That...
Yeah, I know. I’m so cool, and I’m so lucky. I have DNA, flesh, blood and bones. Barack Obama and Steve Jobs are truly two icons of our time - men...
I was invited to participate in a book, "200 Women: Who Will Change The Way You See The World" earlier this year. The result is this beautiful...
There comes a point when it's time to move on and seek out new challenges. On 31 December 2012, after a year of transition process, I handed over my...
Answer the phone. Reply to the email. Follow up with the guy you met last week. Go to the meeting. Don't go to the meeting. Don't become a board...
When you learn something for the first time, everything is new to you. So you explore, you try different things, you fall down, you fail, you fail, and...
I've noticed in contests I've been on the judging panel for that those who have an expertise in a field, are more critical of entries that cross...