Finally, I have found my place and community in writing & financial research.
Reminiscing back last summer, I was really unmotivated with school/extracurricular and relationships. I watched a lot of motivational videos and Steve Job’s Standford Commencement Speech was really inspiring and I would like to say, it is very true.
I started this medium blog with an intention to boost my resume and demonstrate an interest in finance in front of employers. In the first few articles, I handpicked a few companies that I feel really interesting, e.g Snapchat, Tesla, LVMH. During these weeks, I was just genuinely spending hours and hours onto these articles without expecting anyone to applause, even notice about them.
However, the more articles I have written, the more skilled I have become, the more research I have done towards different industries, the more quickly I can learn a new subject. The idea of boosting my resume has gone and I have become genuinely interested in converting my strategic thoughts into words and post them to Medium.
When school begins, I applied to be a contributor to my school’s FinTech magazine and was chosen to write an article about Initial Coin Offering (ICO), I have had a really great time learning about Fintech and in the same time I have met other people who shared a similar passion like myself. Along with their feedbacks, I have learned to organize my medium articles a little bit more constructive, such as linking every source I used, articulate my articles like Seeking Alpha, and drawing basic financials from their filings into the articles.
In the second semester, I moved forward to writing more articles with a specific theme — Merger & Acquisition (M&A). Because of the storytelling nature of it, often a merger entails a lot of implications that are beyond financial and operational. It is really interesting to figure what the underlying assumptions and rationales are within each deal.
At the beginning of the summer, when my internship hasn’t started yet I devoted a lot of time to reading a lot of strategy blogs and writing a lot of the articles about COVID-implications and M&A.
Little did I know, a few of my articles were noticed by a student-led publication organization and I was invited to join their team as their Canadian Lead and Partner. Since then, I am no longer alone nor directionless, I have made new friends at universities all across the world and I feel invested by peers around me who are just as supportive and passionate about finance.
I am a big believer in the “Connecting-The-Dots”, Steve Job’s calligraphy class has led to his idea of revolutionizing how we communicate. Every decision you make today will directly or indirectly impact your future, the most important part is to connect them — drawing your own unique path.
Often times, I get caught on with failures and competitions, which led to the imagery of a definable success. Then, I will pay less attention to my personal development and more attention to how could I best position myself to compete against other people.
Guess what, the dots are still made, but differently. Trying to be a person you are sincerely not is exhausting yet difficult to circle back, which implied — your dots are not connected naturally. If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing — it would definitely be “the dots will connect eventually, keep looking out for opportunities. Your possibilities are unlimited.”
Last but not least, I am going to pause on the publications in Medium. In the future, I will be devoting the same effort and passion for the FocusFinance International M&A portfolio. I am so glad that I did not give up on this, and it pays off. To anyone who is questioning whether if they should continue, please do! As long as it aligns with who you truly are, it is worth pursuing even if no one is paying any attention. Don’t give up!
P.S To anyone who is interested into joining the community, message me on Linkedin or Facebook!
