Someday in the future, if I have enough money to provide scholarships to others, this is what I will do. I will put up a full page colour advert on all the major newspapers  and run a month-long online ad campaign on all the major online media, portals, blogs to advertise my scholarship.

My scholarship will have NO application form. Yes you read me right. NO APPLICATION FORM.

The idea is, We have $$$ to be given out for scholarships.  But we are different from the rest. We don’t do things the normal way. Here’s the information that we will provide. An office address. An email address. Your task is to proof to us in the most outrageous, outstanding, radical way why you deserve to win this scholarship.

I love this idea. Students will scramble to crack their brains to be the most creative application since there are no application forms. They are encouraged to use whatever methods to impress. It can be low-tech stuff like sending a big colour package descriving your life in a postcard or sending in dozens of photos with short descriptions or high-tech stuff like creating a 5 minute video presentation of you skydiving explaining your reason or creating a website with support from members from you college and school or using faceboook and creating a group with 10000 followers why you deserve this scholarship. The idea is proof to us in a different manner why you are different. The key is the sky’s the limit. But one thing is certain - just sending in your resume and 10 page essays will get your application tossed into the bin unless it is accompanied by something unique and exceptional.

Send in you application in whichever way to the office address and/or email address to be evaluated. Only the most creative application will be shortlisted.

Your exam results, co-curricular achievements, personality, character and all will/should be reflected in the application. This is cool. This really shortlist the most motivated and determined people.

My 2nd round will be total hard-core business development, marketing idea/brainstorming, creative session individual presentation.

This is all about ideas and selling yourself. I like creativity. I think it’s understated in our current model. It is not being emphasized enough. Let’s go build creativity.

Oh I would love to give out 2 years bond or bond-free scholarships too. Hmmm….I would love to be surprised everyday during this scholarship application. Will I ever get to see this happen?

UPDATE: I was at Sime Darby interview on Monday and I sold this idea to them..Will they take it up? It will be interesting if they do.

Why is it that we are all so afraid of risks? Are we all pre-programmed in such a way to shun risks and take the safest road possible? Ok, take a moment and reflect, when was the last time you took a really huge risk on something. I try to think about my risk-taking behavior and I don’t seem to come out with many answers.

Most of us here have followed the conventional path. We work hard, yes. But that’s because it’s the safest alternative to failing exams. We work hard to be the top student because it offers the path to scholarships and top universities.

So imagine now that if you have achieved all that - rewarded by the system in getting a scholarship and a place in a top university as a result of being a top student - what else is up for in life? No risk taken. Perhaps done all the things that we have been trained to do by our parents and making them proud at the same time.

This post is getting more unstructured and chaotic. I can’t sort out my thinking here either - it’s just too convoluted.

Tony Fernandes says

“Believe the Unbelievable
Dream the Impossible
Never take No for an Answer”

What exactly do we dream of? And given different circumstances, would we compromise our dreams and lower our expectations?

Or is the main problem really about having too high an expectation in life? Or are we simply given too many choices? I recently quoted on my Facebook and MSN the following - “Having too many options is sometimes not a good option”

Philip Loh was kind enough to post a link to this YouTube video on the Paradox of Choice. I think it’s a good video that sums up things rather nicely. Thanks dude.

Given two choices, how do you make a decision? The decision you make will decide how you life will be in the next decade. Robert Frost in his poem The Road Not Taken sums it up nicely.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.”

It’s a risk when you have to make a decision. How do you decide which decision is better. You would normally do a cost-benefit analysis. The problem here is, how do we account for non-monetary benefits and the opportunity costs of decisions?

Life is simple without decision. You are stuck, there is only one way to reap rewards - work hard. But life is unfair. It has never been fair and will never be fair. We just have to play with it. It’s a game. In fact it’s a game of risks. Like a game of poker at times. You just have to be smart and play it right. So do we take the risk?

Great achievements never come by without taking any risks. I always tell myself to look how I picture myself 10 and 20 years down the road. Where do I see myself. What am I doing. How am I leading my life.

Are they in congruence with my dreams and aspirations? It’s time to make a decision and time to take risks. But we are all so pre-programmed to be risk averse. It’s never easy to take the unconventional road because the potential downside is just so high.

*Disclaimer: “We” in the most part of this post refers to the perception of the hardworking student with a slight kiasu syndrom in them.

I was doing some Google search online and I just bumped into a forum post titled Why Do Malay It Graduates Go For Low Hanging Fruit (career)?

It was interesting reading about the average Malay IT graduate perspective on jobs and career. You can see a distinction in the two groups of people, some motivated to work hard and work their way up in MNCs while you can also see another group of people just believing that they are not good enough and choose to simply work in GLCs. Some postings are rather racists in nature against the chinese but they are also people out there who said it is not the chinese to be blamed but they themselves.

Interestingly let me quote what one guy called ikanez said:

“maybe sebab dah kene pampered lame sgt, jadi da hilang daya saing?
i mean if let say we were in the non-malay’s shoes, baru kite terasa pahit getir hidup di Malaysia ni - hence, kene keje extra keras untuk pastikan hidup yang senang.”

I’m not giving any thoughts or views on this. I just thought this forum thread is a really interesting read. Go take a look.

“Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.”

Napoleon Bonaparte

I was reading the Star today and I saw this quote. It suddenly meant very much to me. Does it define you?

Don’t look at “Power” at just literally the power to control things like Napoleon did. But look at “Power” at the way you view yourself having - the power with the string of As that you have, the power that you have in influencing people, the power that you have with the money that you earned.

Are we all guilty of having traces of Napoleon in us?