At noon on October 28, 2021, Professor Heidi Chang invited Ms. Yu-Tong Liu, the CEO of Yongling Foundation, to speak to students of her course “Career Preparation” of NSYSU’s College of Management’s master’s program. Ms. Liu shared with the students that when you face confusion about your career, you should take a holistic and systematic approach, looking for different ways to solve problems rather than looking for standard answers.
First of all, Ms. Liu reminded students to have a holistic or “macro” mentality. Rain may seem like a normal weather pattern, but rain in Greenland, within the Arctic Circle, is a warning sign of serious climate change. Holistic thinking allows us to be more open-minded about what is “possible”, “impossible” and what we “like” and “dislike”.
CEO Liu further stated, “Whatever is in front of you, do it with all your heart and soul, regardless of personal results.” The ability to create good results in life depends on the cumulative system of life, not on the specific goals. Liu cited the example of the graduate school: if every regular quiz required a high score and it was not always possible to achieve the target, the result would be a very painful process. However, if you treat the quizzes as part of your accumulative experience, even if they are not satisfactory, you can use them to reflect on what changes you need to make. Through continuous accumulation and compounding over time, all of our life experiences will reward us in some way in the future.
In conclusion, Liu reminded students that life is extremely imperfect, so holistic thinking allows us to focus more on the core of the problem and further develop microskills. Similarly, resources and time in life are limited, so how we allocate them is very important. Finally, Liu echoed the day’s theme: “Instead of learning the standard answers to life, what we need is to learn how to answer the questions.”
(Written by Jui-Hsuan Chen, Department of Business Management/Edited by the College of Management)
