Last Friday, I went back to Los Angeles City Hall to help celebrate the 10-year anniversary of “Cash for College,” a program which connects students and their parents with the public funds to help them go to college.

Shown in this photo are some of the friends who have sustained the project over the years. I’m near the holding the certificate, and to my left in the red tie is my good friend, Los Angeles Councilman Eric Garcetti. (Shown at right are my husband Dave and baby daughter Pip who came to City Hall to celebrate with us.)

Los Angeles is famous as a city of “beautiful people” – rich, good-looking people who live perfect lives in sunny weather — but the reality is that ours is a city of rich and poor.  As Deputy Mayor, I was very much troubled by the intergenerational nature of the education gap in our city. Children of well-educated people have a strong chance of going to college and graduate school, while children whose parents have little education have a very low rate of college-going.

I started the Cash for College program to address this disparity. It grew from an idea into a statewide program signed into law by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  By now it’s helped over 100,000 Angelenos and nearly 200,000 Californians gain access to college.  Many are the first in their families to go to college, so the legacy of our project will be felt by their siblings and their children and their communities.  I can’t tell you how happy that makes me feel.

To have meaning in life, change the world

A Global Rencai reader once asked me:  Should we be successful, or should we change the world?

This is a false dichotomy.  We become successful through changing the world.

As human beings, we’re programmed to pursue meaning.  Meaning does not come from money.  Says London Business School professor Gary Hamel, “As an emotional catalyst, wealth maximization lacks the power to fully mobilize human energies.”

Meaning comes from doing work that matters.  We need, as Steve Jobs urges, to “make a ding in the universe.”  Truly successful people allocate their resources in service of something bigger than themselves.

To have fun and be happy, change the world

And changing the world is incredibly fun.  It’s the most fun thing to do.  As the Singaporean-Chinese-American Google engineer Chade-Meng (“Meng”) Tan said in his wonderful TED talk at the United Nations, “Compassion is not a chore.  Compassion is something that creates happiness. Compassion is fun!”

In his talk, Meng tells us about the world’s happiest man, Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk and the son of a renown French philosopher.  When neurologists measure happiness through brain activity, Matthieu Ricard scores by far as the happiest man in the world.  Which leads one to wonder:  what was he thinking about when he was being measured?  Something naughty, perhaps?  No, actually, he was thinking about compassion.  It turns out that compassion is the happiest thing ever.

To grow your leadership skills and make lots of friends, change the world

What’s more, compassion creates highly effective business leaders.  Compassion reduces our natural tendencies toward self-obsession because, in Meng’s words, “the cognitive and affective components of compassion are understanding people and empathizing with people.”  Compassion builds our capacity for the number one leadership skill, empathy.

And changing the world will bring you the best of friends. Friends who share your values.  Friends who believe in the same things you do.

They say that Americans always want to change the world while Chinese are only out for themselves.  But I look around and see staggering evidence to the contrary.  I am constantly moved by the beautiful voices of the writers and artists and others out there envisioning a better China.  I see the disaster-relief, child-location, and other volunteer efforts popping up everywhere around China.  I see how people naturally strain toward finding ways to leave their communities a little better than before.

To make the world a better place you don’t have to become poor.  And you don’t have to wait until you first get rich and powerful.

When you approach life from a standpoint of abundance and of connection to others, you will have more success in all that you do.  When you share of yourself with the world, you always will get back more.

Crazy English founder Li Yang and wife Kim Lee

As I write this, the ongoing drama of Crazy English founder Li Yang’s divorce from Kim Lee continues to reverberate in a remarkable public discussion of domestic violence and whether and how it’s tied to culture.

People’s Daily reports that 35% of Chinese families have experienced domestic violence, which is comparable with other societies worldwide.

But even more prevalent than physical abuse is emotional abuse. And emotional abuse is an issue that’s even more hidden.

Emotional abuse is also abuse

We can’t examine something we can’t define, and often the hardest part of confronting abuse is knowing when it’s happening.  That’s why I appreciate that the New York Times bestselling author and psychologist Terrence Real in his book The New Rules of Marriage offers a definition of abuse:

• Yelling and screaming
• Name-calling:  Any sentence that begins with “You are a …”
• Shaming or humiliating:  Communicating that someone is a bad or worthless person.  Ridiculing someone, mocking, being sarcastic, humoring or being patronizing.
• Telling another adult what she should do, or how she should think or feel.
• Making promises and breaking them
• Lying or manipulating:  Deliberately falsifying information or dishonestly changing your behavior in an attempt to control your partner, for example: “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine out here in the rain.  You go have a good time.”

As Dr. Real explains, having a list of abusive behaviors is useful, because if a particular behavior does not appear on the list, it isn’t abusive. Both men and women can be abusers, so beware abuse in all your relationships.

When abuse is ignored, our children – and their children – will suffer

What makes abuse so confusing is that most abusers are not like the evil bad guys that we see in the movies.  Abusers are human too, which means that at times, they show kindness and generosity.  Usually they don’t even know they’re being abusive.  In their minds, they’re the victims, misunderstood and under attack, and their abusive behavior is only a response to a provocation. Many abusers lack the basic emotional skills necessary to be competent adults with functional relationships.

But just because abusers don’t recognize their abusive behavior does not make their abusive behavior any less dangerous to those who try to love them.  When we ignore or cover up abuse, it doesn’t go away. It escalates.  And when children are present, abuse has cascading effects on future generations, since children who grow up witnessing abuse become perpetrators and victims of abuse as adults.

Let’s stop the legacy of abuse right now

There is absolutely no reason that abuse should be a part of your life.  There are plenty of good men and women in this world who do not perpetrate or condone abuse.  Do not date or marry someone who abuses you.  If you are married to someone who abuses you, seek help right away for yourself and your family. You can and must demand that your family be healthy.

And because we choose not to live in a society governed by abuse, let’s not tolerate abuse when it’s directed at our sisters, brothers, friends or colleagues.  For us all to say no to abuse would be for us to step out of women’s traditionally passive role and stop the legacy of abuse in Chinese society.

Because we’re making culture now, too.  And the culture we create will be based on dignity and mutual respect.  If together we link arms to say no to abuse, then in a generation’s time, no one will be able to say that abuse is a normal part of Chinese culture anymore.

The world contains one woman, a Chinese woman, who has changed society on a global level for over three decades. Born in Guilin the daughter of a painter, she became a musician herself before starting her first TV show in the 1970s. Ever since, she’s enchanted the world, as a bestselling author, journalist, and business and cultural leader.

You know her as the beauty icon Yue-Sai Kan, an idol to millions, but I first met her in a very personal way. By then, Yue-Sai already was China’s most famous woman as the host of CCTV’s One World. I was a nobody, just another college student in need of a summer internship. Yue-Sai not only gave me an internship, but even welcomed me to stay in her own home in New York City.

The upcoming start of Dragon Year is the perfect time to think about what we want to meaningfully achieve this year. Dream big. Yue-Sai taught me to dream big.

Yue-Sai: changing the world with integrity, character and vision

I’d imagine that few of you have actually met Yue-Sai in person, so I’ll fill you in on the fact that she possesses a wicked sense of humor, as known by her many friends among the world’s entertainment and political elite. If you ever get an invitation to meet Yue-Sai, jump on it, as she’s simply sparkling fun.

Yue-Sai is famous as one of the world’s most stunningly beautiful women. But what’s most stunning about Yue-Sai is her deep inner humanity. Yue-Sai has changed the world with integrity, character and vision, focusing her life on lifting the hearts of modern Chinese women and teaching us how to be modern.

She’s as generous with the individuals in her life as she is with the world. Two decades later when we reconnected, she barely even remembered me, over the years having mentored so many young women.

By now, Yue-Sai has achieved so much that no one would fault her for now relaxing and enjoying the fruits of her hard work. But she’s not done. She continues to work tirelessly, leveraging all of her fame and power, to infuse the world with more of what the world needs right now: beauty, honor, grace, style, and love. The world is a better place thanks to her.

“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Power and fame don’t bring you worth. They don’t bring you meaning and joy. Joy comes only from having meaning in your life. Meaning in your life comes from giving to others. When you do give, you will get back even more.

The French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote, “The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with purpose.”We all can have meaning in our lives by using our limited time here to do something that matters. Truly successful people work toward something bigger than themselves. In the words of the late Steve Jobs, they “make a ding in the universe.”

They say that Americans are always about changing the world, and Chinese are only focused on themselves. But I look around and see staggering evidence to the contrary. I am constantly touched by the beautiful voices of the writers and artists and others out there in the blogosphere who envision a better China. I see the disaster-relief, child-location, and other volunteer efforts popping up everywhere around China. I see how so many people in China are straining to find ways to leave their communities a little better than before.

Right now, you have within yourself everything you need to make a difference in the world. And yet, since the day you were born, society has been in a massive conspiracy to squash your spirit and make you lower your sights and become average and ordinary. But you are neither average nor ordinary. The way to demonstrate that to the world is to do something that matters.

The poet Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” That’s the challenge that we all can draw from Yue-Sai’s blazing-red example. It’s the challenge that I pose to myself as well as to you at the start of Dragon Year: what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Bonjour mes jolies laides!

You all have been much in my heart as I’ve been rushing to finish writing my book for you. I’m thrilled to report that – it’s done. Thanks for all the加油s! I’m now working on the Chinese version with my darling translator Jianbo Wang. We’re having such fun working through the delicious intricacies of the Chinese and English languages. The book will be available in all geographies in Chinese and English in 2012. Below is an excerpt from the book.

These photos show Linyan and me (we don’t work ALL the time!), and my family. From all of us to all of you and to your families, warmest wishes and big hugs for the new year!

Joy

For that half-a-person feeling so common among Chinese women, we can blame a society that demeans and trivializes every aspect of a single woman’s life. Like this:

Are you single? You’re too picky. You’re self-centered, immature, lonely, desperate and miserable. You may have a fancy job, but your fancy job won’t love you back. Are you having sex? Slut! Not having sex? Drying up! Are you devoted to your career? Just compensating for not being married. Are you happy? You just think you are. Without a husband you could never know true happiness. You will die alone.

It doesn’t matter if your life is filled with great accomplishment as well as friendships and passion. Society wants to define you by whom you belong to. If you do achieve, you will be targeted. Don’t take it personally.

“Was it all really worth it?”

Barbara Walters is a trailblazer, one of the world’s first serious female TV journalists. In 1976, she became the first TV journalist, man or woman, to command a million-dollar salary. She has interviewed Chinese Premier Jiang Zemin, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, Russian presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, and every American president since Richard Nixon.

In 2004, she was interviewed about her four-decade career by another icon of TV journalism, Ted Koppel. After reviewing her accomplishments, he introduced the question he cared about most:

“Imagine,” he said, “someone is softly humming in the background, ‘Is that all there is?’ Was it worth it?”

She quickly responded. “Oh yes. I never thought I’d have this kind of a life.”

He reminded her that she’d been married twice and divorced twice. “Was it the job?” he asked. “If it had not been for the job, would you still be married to one of those two men?”

She replied she wasn’t sure. But she had her daughter, and “she is absolutely wonderful.”

Wrong answer. He tried again. “Do you ever sometimes lie in bed at night and say, ‘You know, maybe if I’d given up the job and focused on the family, that would have been – that would have been worth it’?”

No, she didn’t.

Ted Koppel is a skillful and persistent interviewer. But he could not get Barbara Walters to tearfully concede that she should have devoted herself to a husband instead of chasing down interviews with the world’s most powerful leaders.

It’s inconceivable that a reporter would badger a major male figure with: “Was it all really worth it? Wouldn’t you have been better off just being somebody’s husband?”

I came across this interview while researching this book. Reading it, I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. For much of my adult life, I was single and also deflecting the same kinds of questions from reporters. I thought it was just me. If I’d known I was in such illustrious company as Barbara Walters, perhaps I’d have had the nerve to do battle.

Married or divorced? Your accomplishments still don’t matter

If you think that getting safely married will suddenly make you official and let you into the club of legitimate achievers, then unfortunately, ladies, I have bad news. Public scrutiny will turn to whether you’re giving enough care to your man.

Another Barbara, Senator Barbara Mikulski from my small home state of Maryland, was first elected to the United States Senate in 1987, the year I graduated from high school. She’s now the longest-serving female in that august body, commonly known as “the most exclusive men’s club in the world.” Here’s what she says: “If you’re a woman running for office and you’re married, they’ll say you’re not taking care of your man. If you’re divorced, they’ll say you couldn’t keep your man. If you’re single, they’ll say you never could get a man in the first place.”

If only I could hit the REWIND button on my life…

The marriage pressure on single women is relentless, and not just from the media and not just from our mothers. Anytime I was at a dinner party, conversation turned to what others assumed was the major topic of my life. It didn’t matter how much I achieved or what else I was doing. Eventually, it all down came to: “You’re attractive, how does a woman manage to get to your age without being married? What happened?”

All I did, all those times, was to look down at my feet and apologize that no, I didn’t know why I wasn’t married yet. So obedient!

Now I wish I could hit the REWIND button on my life, march back into all those media interviews and all those dinner parties, and, when asked “Why aren’t you married yet,” look them in the eye, smile, and say “Because, frankly, right now, I’m having the time of my life.”

Our society has taken a set of relationships which should be treasured – marriages – and turned them into the only relationships which matter at all to a woman’s life. As a result, married women are considered normal and single women, abnormal. This attitude demeans and trivializes the lives of all women.

Headhunting gave me the skills to choose among men

Whether or when a woman marries is a choice that should be hers alone. Why should society care so much anyway? Marriage as an institution should be strong enough to withstand any woman’s decision to delay marriage without everyone else seeing it as a threat.

Men are taught to choose. Women are taught to be chosen. Being a professional headhunter gave me the step-by-step knowledge I needed to choose among men. But it was because I’d first built my own life that I had the confidence to choose.

Love is profound. Marriage is not. Anyone can get married at any time. Marriage is just another human relationship that one can enter or exit at will. We all need security. But the only security that’s lasting is the security you find within yourself. Autonomy is the basis for intimacy. Don’t wait to find someone. You are someone.

* If you’d like to keep up with the blog, book, and upcoming events, subscribe your email address in the upper right corner of the blog at www.globalrencai.com, and/or join me on Weibo or Renren.

Les jolies laides SJP, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Marion Cotillard, Shu Qi et Karen Mok

Leave it to the sophisticated French to devise a concept of female beauty so abstract, so nuanced, as to defy logic entirely. Their slangy “jolie laide” literally translates as the contradiction “pretty-ugly,” but think of it as “oddly beautiful.”

Use it this way:

He scanned the crowd expertly, passing over the typical blondes, and was immediately captivated by the jolie-laide; with her oversized nose and coquettish eyes, she moved languidly in a vision of urbane elegance.

Jolie laide hints at a world where it might be not be just OK, but uniquely beautiful, to be a little odd.  It means that a woman can be irregular and yet still wonderful to look at.

I love this concept, jolie laide. It’s not the uncomplicated, rural-America pretty of Playboy bunnies. It’s not the perfect-symmetry-pretty suggested by my cosmetic-surgeon friends at dinner parties: “See that? I can take care of that!”  No, as I get older, I find myself increasingly drawn to the more interesting, complex beauty implied by jolie laide.

At this point, some of my feminist sisters will sigh that I’m surrendering women to the position of being objectified the male gaze. It’s true that I do love beauty in all its forms, and I do love beautiful things. But I believe that beauty carries its own power, and I love jolie laide by placing that power within greater reach for all women.

Jolie laide offers hope for the rest of us

In fact, I think of jolie laide as not passive at all, but a very active form of beauty.  Because it arises not from a surgeon’s scalpel, or expensive skin potions, but rather from within the soul of a woman.

Me, I never was a conventional beauty. I grew up the strange, silent Chinese girl in a white American suburb. I have funny dimples on my cheeks.  My face, with its swooping angles and planes, is growing more angular with each passing year.

Jolie laide offers hope for the rest of us.  It opens up the democratic possibility that a woman can be beautiful because she thinks she is, in spite of her oddities. She loves herself, and that love shines through in how she carries herself, in how she expresses herself to the world. Others who would not otherwise be drawn to her looks are yet enchanted because of who she is.

Who is and is not jolie laide

To be a jolie laide requires both the jolie (pretty) and the laide (ugly). The laide stems from what’s outside; the jolie radiates from within.

Who is not jolie laide? Lindsay Lohan. Constantly cycling in and out of jail for shoplifting and drugs and alcohol, she’s too conventionally pretty, too confused, too laid-bare. Lindsay possesses neither the external laide nor the inner jolie required by the French. A jolie laide does not put her problems on public display.

Who else is not jolie laide?  Maggie Cheung. I love and admire Maggie Cheung. But her beauty, inside and out, is so luminous, so ethereal, so otherworldly, as to be incontrovertibly undemocratic. Maggie Cheung is not jolie laide because she lacks a single molecule of the requisite laide. For the same reason, I disqualify Fan Bingbing – pas de laide.

Who is jolie laide? I propose the following women:

* Sarah-Jessica Parker. People accuse her of having a face shaped like a horse’s, but it’s her horse-shaped face, and she does wear it beautifully, along with every other thing she wears. I still miss Sex and the City, the TV version, but it’s always fun to see her pop up in magazines and fashion venues. SJP is a regular presence in my life, and I like it that way.

* Kristin Scott-Thomas. Another lovely animal-shaped face. In Four Weddings and a Funeral, her desperate crush on the Hugh Grant character was made even more endearing by the fact that he referred to her as Duckface.  So acutely talented, so witty, ironic, elegant, an Englishwoman who’s lived in France since age 19, Kristin to me represents the very best of both the English and the French. Magnifique!

* Marion Cotillard.  With her sleepy/sultry eyes, Parisian Marion Cotillard’s look is not at all cookie-cutter, and thus I think it would have been hard for her to have made it big first in American Hollywood. Marion so naturally balances art, fashion, film, music, and environmental causes in just her own way. And she’s ravissant in her campaign for Dior.

* Shu Qi and Karen Mok.  As I’m in Los Angeles, I don’t know many of the Chinese celebrities, but to me these are two jolie laide stand-outs. Shu Qi with her wide-set eyes, and Karen Mok with her long face, are so fresh and so gifted as to redefine pretty. I hope they go global across the Pacific, because I want to see more of them both.

A jolie laide is driven by ideals of her own. And that makes her irresistible.

Each of these women offers up prodigious creative talent coupled with a beauty all her own.  Each has not only avoided being submerged by society’s norms, but has transcended and redefined those norms, establishing herself as an icon of beauty for our generation.

A jolie laide radiates with her own grownup sophistication, her own delicious sense of innuendo. She’s independent. She’s an original. Its her very own particular je ne sais quoi that the world finds simply irresistible.

UPDATE:  To the above post, blog reader Erin raises an interesting question:  Do men like jolies laides? Well, yes, the world does contain common, unexceptional men seeking simple, uncomplicated young girls, but you are not interested in such men, are you?  You want an exceptional man who will have a singular love for exceptional you. The way to attract him is to revel in and then radiate outward your own unique beauty.

** Let’s play a game!  Which women do you propose as jolies laides? They need not be movie stars! They could be your friends – and you!

From The New Yorker magazine

Readers often ask me questions like:

• How do I show that I’m more than what’s shown my resume?
• How can I set myself apart from the hundreds of other candidates applying to the same jobs as me?
• How can I overcome cultural barriers and show Westerners my full talents?
• What if I’m too good for the menial, mindless entry-level jobs available to people at my level?

If you’ve ever wondered any of those things, then I have good news for you. There is one thing you can do starting today to address all these issues. You tell the world how great you are by showing them.

Create something of value to the world

In my last blog post, I showed you how to find your voice by creating something. Well, some creative projects should be made public and some should not.  I see blogs filled with long-winded catalogues of personal gripes, and wonder if those bloggers ever wonder why they never get a job interview or a date. Look no further than the cautionary tale, sad but true, of the American girl who committed career suicide using nothing more than a webcam, a pushup bra, and two minutes fifty-two seconds of too much free time.

Nobody – no employer, no man – enjoys being around such heaps of negativity.

To find your voice, create something. To find meaning in your life, do good for others. We’re all busy.  So, consolidate your efforts, and create something of value to the world.  And shock them with how special, how luminous is your contribution.  Because it’s a reflection of you.

When you create something of value, immediately you transform yourself from someone who needs something (a job, a promotion, new opportunities), into someone with something to offer (expertise, help, wisdom).

Center your personal brand around your creative works of value

I’ve written before about how, in life, hard work alone will get you nowhere, and that to get anywhere, you need a combination of Performance-Image-Exposure (PIE).

Center your image and exposure around how unique and special YOU are. Do this by using your creative work as a base from which to promote yourself. Comment on top industry blogs, join online forums, always identifying yourself with a link to your project. Put a link to it in your email signature. At every job interview, talk about your project.

Your creative work is the perfect talking point for you to the world

When I was a politician, each day I had “talking points,” that my team and I developed for what I should talk about.  Wherever I went, if I had a press conference, or a one-on-one interview, or other public event, my talking points were what I tried to focus on. If a journalist tried to uncover (or create!) a scandal, or asked about my love life, I’d go to battle to ease the conversation back to my talking points.

Make your creative project your talking point to the world:

• If want to make a career transition, a creative project is the best way to get in the door. Recruiters will be impressed at your initiative and savvy, which sets you apart from 99% of candidates who do nothing more creative than email their resume around the Internet.
• If you’re at a dinner party and conversation turns to whether you’re married and why not (how dull!), smoothly shift the conversation over to the work that excites you. Your conversation partner will be pleasantly surprised at what an interesting and independent woman you are.
• If you want to find the man of your dreams, your creative project is the best possible siren song.

Don’t know what to create? Start a blog.

One American student from a middling law school turned himself into the nation’s most in-demand law student by starting a blog analyzing the high-profile divorce of the couple owning the Los Angeles Dodgers and then became the go-to expert for ESPN and cable news. He skipped a lot of classes and didn’t have time to do much homework, but all that became irrelevant when he found a way to show off his talents by creating something valuable.

Closer to home, check out the beautiful website and blog of Global Rencai designer Yingying Zhang, here. I asked Yingying to share with us her thinking behind the site. She said:

The reason I built my website is to:

1. Show people my skills in website design and development, UI/UX (user interface/user experience)

2. Write down my ideas and thoughts regarding UX (the area that interests me most)

3. Practice my English writing skills.

I originally set up my current website to find a job.  After seeing so many job postings and applying to so many jobs, I made the serious decision to build a formal and professional-looking website for myself.

This world needs more culture-makers.  The best way for you to shock the world with the greatness of YOU is to contribute something new and wonderful.

Now that I got my dream position, I think my target visitors should shift from recruiters to UI/UX community. I will focus more on the blog part of my website, and write some ideas regarding UX.  I believe that with these thoughts, I can gradually improve myself as well as help others to get great UX ideas.

And that’s how Yingying leapfrogged ahead of the thousands of other young people graduating from engineering school to launch herself on the career of her dreams.  Smart woman!

Your turn

By creating something new and fresh and unique and of value in this world, you’ll:

• Find and follow your own true voice* Make the world a better place.
• Attract new people and opportunities which are just right for you.
• Escape the entry-level grind and establish yourself as a player.

This world needs more culture-makers.  The best way for you to shock the world with the greatness of YOU is to contribute something new and wonderful.

NOTES:

• Last weekend, I enjoyed speaking with APEX, the Southern California association of Asian American professionals, and this weekend, I’m happy to be with the Silicon Valley Engineers Association!  These days, I’m mostly locked away writing my book, but it is nice occasionally to get out and say hello to my friends.
• Thank you to贾楠 and her colleagues at CECI China for reprinting my post You are a headhunter. Men are your candidates in their October issue. I loved how they add to the piece such a beautiful and sexy graphic design! If you missed it in the newsstands, check it out here.
• I’ve been hearing some of you who’ve been trying to find and print out all the posts on this blog, so I’ve created a new Blog Index, here.

The best way for you to pay tribute to Steve Jobs is to take inspiration from his example, and create something special of your own.

What is creativity?

Some people think about creativity in a binary way, as if a person is either creative or she’s not, creative people being special *other* people, artists and poets, and those who wear black turtlenecks and change the world forever.

That kind of mythology is nonsense. Creative people are not *other* people. Creative people are YOU, as soon as you start creating things.

Creativity is any act of creating something new, of making something out of nothing. What makes creativity special is that it’s intrinsic. It comes from inside of you rather than from external forces.

Creativity is any act of creating something new

You can be creative at work or at play, when you’re making music, or designing software, or starting a company, or writing a blog. You’re being creative when you’re doing any of those things in just the way that satisfies you.

Here’s my response to the #1 question that readers ask me on this blog: How do I find my inner voice? By creating something.

So, here’s my response to the #1 question that readers ask me on this blog: How do I find my inner voice?

By creating something.

After all, creativity is the process of finding and expressing your inner voice. No creative outlet, no way to access and find your inner voice. That’s why having a creative outlet is essential to your self-esteem and to your having a happy and well-rounded life.  By contrast, lack of a creative outlet has been shown to trigger apathy, loneliness, stress and depression.

Find your inner voice

Everyone’s always saying: “Follow your passion!” But what if, for your entire life, you’ve been so busy following other people’s expectations that you have no idea what your passions are?  What if you’ve lived with so much external static that when try to tune your inner radio to your own signal, you don’t even know what it’s supposed to sound like?

This in fact is the #1 question I receive from blog readers: How do I find my inner voice?

Many people don’t get what they want out of life because they have no idea who they are or what they want.  After all, it’s easy to let inertia govern our lives. It’s easy to blindly proceed along the paths circumscribed by what we studied in school and what other people expect of us. The path of least resistance is the easiest path, particularly if we’re succeeding on society’s terms.

But we each have a self buried deep inside that must find a way out. You find your voice when you create something. Each act of creating is an act of discovering who you are. When you create something that comes from inside is when you focus yourself on thinking, feeling, discovering, and dreaming. When you create something, you begin to see life from a new perspective, and to discover new things about yourself.

The act of creating something new forces you to have an interior dialogue with yourself, to listen to your inner voice. It may be that at first, your inner voice has a really weak signal, small, scratchy, shaky and hard to hear. But each time you’re still, and pay it attention, and let it guide you to create something new, it gets stronger.

Most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the result of creativity

One of the great researchers on creativity is the Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “chick-sent-me-high-ee”), whose own work exemplifies creativity, bringing together not only psychology, but anthropology, literature, religion and philosophy. He writes:

Of all human activities, creativity comes closest to providing the fulfillment we all hope to get in our lives. Call it full-blast living. Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. Most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the result of creativity. What makes us different from apes—our language, values, artistic expression, scientific understanding, and technology—is the result of individual ingenuity that was recognized, rewarded, and transmitted through learning.

When we’re creative, we feel we are living more fully than during the rest of life. The excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab comes close to the ideal fulfillment we all hope to get from life, and so rarely do.

I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals. If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it’s complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an “individual,” each of them is a “multitude.”

Steve Jobs is emblematic of how one blends this complexity, as I pointed out in my headhunter’s assessment of his talent, here. But you’re a creative person as well.

Your turn

Many of you have been loyal readers of my blog for a long time, and I’m blessed to have you here. But creativity is not a spectator sport.

Cultivate your inner voice.  If you don’t have a creative outlet, find one. Create something, make it beautiful, and add to it every day in just the way that satisfies you. Part of the fun is that you don’t have to express yourself perfectly clearly. Your expression can be loud and public, or subtle and abstract, a delicious little innuendo that only you know. Creating something is the best antidote for anytime you’re feeling powerless, or confused, or lonely, or bored, or uninspired, or sad. Revel in the way it feels when you’ve created something especially great!

Creativity is habit-forming. Your inner voice is like a muscle and as you flex it, it will gain power and be stronger than ever before.  In this way, as you continue to create new things, your creative work will center you and strengthen you.  And as you continue to create, your voice will gain power, and you’ll find your creativity begin to flourish. Ideas will pop up from out of nowhere. You’ll find inspiration in big and little events in your life. You’ll find yourself connecting ideas in other areas of your life outside of your creative endeavor.

They say there’s no creativity among the 80后. Prove them wrong.

In your work life, you’ll find yourself becoming one of those rare creatives that policy makers say do not exist among the 80后, and your creativity will give you a key competitive advantage in your career.

By the way, creative people need more sleep, so get your eight hours of sleep a night!

Over time, as your voice strengthens, and you break out of the boxes that society put you in, you’ll achieve more than you previously had imagined, in all aspects of your life. You’ll accomplish what you set out to do. You’ll be a part of creating innovation in China.

And then someday a journalist will stick a microphone in your face and ask:  “They said the 80后couldn’t innovate their way out of a paper bag!  How did you create something so special?”

And you’ll reply: “I followed my heart.”

** Who says 80后 are uncreative?!  Inspire us!  If you are creating something now, I invite you to share it with the Global Rencai community, in the Comments section below. In 4-5 sentences, tell us who you are and what your project is, and don’t forget to include a link so we all can check it out. If you’re reading this post anywhere other than on the blog, come visit www.globalrencai.com to find this post.

Global Rencai blog is now available free on iTunes!  Practice your English by following along the text as Joy reads each post in English.  Download and subscribe to the Global Rencai podcast on iTunes here, or for any MP3 player here. To receive the Global Rencai blog by email, subscribe here.

That’s right, everyone. I’m so happy to announce today that I am writing a book.

Today’s post is the behind-the-scenes story of: how this project came about, why I started the Global Rencai blog, and how I started writing in the first place. So, grab a drink, relax, and enjoy the show.

But don’t get too relaxed, because next time, we’ll be talking about you.

We all need to express ourselves

I’ve previously written about how I discovered photography as a creative outlet when I was a kid growing up in the States. My English was horrible so I rarely opened my mouth at school.  At home, we often spoke Chinese, but we never discussed feelings, so I never learned how to express myself in Chinese, either. I was a girl without a native language.

So I was grateful when my father handed me a used Canon A-1, at the time the high-tech camera of choice for amateur photographers. I jumped at photography as a medium for self-expression. Every week, I snapped new images, then rushed to the high-school darkroom, where I developed my films and made prints by hand.

Typically, I’d go in the afternoons after school. Upon entering the darkroom, I’d wait by the door for my eyes to adjust to the semi-darkness. As I immersed myself, time inevitably fast-forwarded.  When I emerged with prints in hand, often the sky would have darkened, saving my eyes from having to readjust back to light.

Then writing became my creative outlet

By the time I was appointed Los Angeles Deputy Mayor 15 years later, I’d worked hard to polish my English, so writing speeches became a terrific creative challenge. As a politician, I could say something in a straightforward way: “Register for our new college financial-aid program!” Or I could try to inspire someone. I would imagine a young mother in front of her TV, made cynical by the empty promises of politicians who’d come before. I tried to insert just the right golden words, the vivid illustrations, the pregnant pauses, to help her look beyond the daily obstacles in her life to envision an educated tomorrow for her children.

After politics, I entered headhunting and my writing slowed to a trickle.  My clients, busy CEOs and HR directors, had no interest in lyrical turns of phrase.  Each time I assessed a candidate, they wanted to know one thing: “Should I hire this person?” I limited my writing to serving their needs.

Antidote for midlife crisis: Global Rencai blog

Then I turned 40, known in the States as “midlife crisis” time.  It’s when the stereotypical American male divorces his longtime wife (he married too young!), finds a much-younger doll to hang on his arm, and buys a Porsche to carry her around in.

To me, such voguish midlife accessories held no appeal. For one thing, having first focused on my career, I’d only recently gotten married, to Mr. Right. And I’d already bought my hot sports car.

Headhunting was lucrative. No complaints there. But what I did miss from my days in public service was a way to make the world a better place. I missed helping people, on a large scale, in ways that were personal and important to them.

How could I contribute something meaningful?

As a headhunter, I was at the table as my clients hired ambitious young Chinese at the entry levels, and then consistently passed them over when announcing promotions. I noticed how so many of these young people could benefit from a little mentoring, and how they lacked any mentorship at all. I decided to start a careers blog, in Chinese and English, on the unspoken rules of getting to the top in global companies. I called it Global Rencai.

How the headhunter got headhunted by a book editor

Shortly after starting the blog, I was contacted by a mysterious freelance editor with an unusual single-word name: 汤汤. She wanted me to write a book for Chinese women. Sounded interesting, I replied, but I didn’t want to alienate my male readers. We emailed back and forth a few times, neither one convincing the other.  She disappeared.

Life went on. Headhunting kept me busy. I had a second baby, a girl again. That got me started thinking seriously about the world awaiting my future young women.

Also, I noticed something odd happening with the blog.  Men were reading it, but women were devouring it. Women were pushing it worldwide, across online forums I’d never even heard of. I realized that, yes, the blog had male readers, but it had female fanatics.  In spite of me, Global Rencai had become a women’s blog.

Then 汤汤 reappeared. Still wanting me to write a book for women. It would be a sensation, she was sure of it.

I admired her persistence. And this time, I was ready to talk.

To test the waters, I wrote and posted a piece called “Do not marry before age 30.” Within hours, traffic spiked so high that my servers crashed.

So, 汤汤 and I crafted a book proposal, and she shopped it around.  Ultimately, we chose as our publisher CITIC Press Corporation.

Working-titled “Do not marry before age 30,” the book will build on some of the ideas I’ve explored on the blog since the start.  After all, to bag an outstanding man, you need to be an outstanding woman.

“Writing is easy!”

Spring of this year, I took a sabbatical from headhunting to write the book. I wrote swiftly, the words pouring onto the screen. “Do this, and then do that!” In my mind, the book was shaping up as a savvy instruction guide to life and men.

The first half was done in a snap. I was well ahead of deadline. “Finally,” I thought. “I’ve made it!”  I had worked, so hard, for two decades, and I looked forward to Summer and Fall on Easy Street. A little of this, a little of that. Writing. Tennis. Travel. Chocolate bonbons.

Or so I thought. Until I showed my draft to 汤汤.

She woke me from my daydreams. “Oh no!” she exclaimed. “Readers don’t want a list of do’s and don’ts! They need stories!  Write about when you felt vulnerable!”

When I felt vulnerable?

My breath left my body. This was not what I’d had in mind when I signed that book deal. After all, politics in America is a Darwinian sport, and we who survived did so by hiding our weaknesses. I’d spent 20 years burnishing an image as a Superwoman who leaped from one tall building of success to the next. I was not keen to give all that up.

Did women even want my stories?

Time for another blog experiment. I wrote a piece about how I felt lost and insecure, and posted it. Traffic soared.  Proving two things: (1) Why汤汤 makes the big bucks; and (2) I had to start over on the book.

As they say here in Hollywood when a studio rejects a script: “RE-WRITE!”

Creative work requires risk-taking

So, I’ve started writing the book all over again.

The 2^nd time around is a whole different process from the first. This time, I’m looking in the mirror, making note of all the blemishes that were sympathetically concealed in my recent spreads in Rayli and Marie Claire China (their make-up artists and photographers are magicians).

Going well beyond the glossy magazine images, I feel as if I’m on an archaeological excavation of my innermost thoughts and experiences. Each day, I carefully brush away the sediment, uncover shards of ideas, and raise them to the light for examination. The ones which might prove useful, I painstakingly articulate into physical form on the screen.

It’s quiet in my office. The hours fly by. A book project which began as a Springtime lark has shape-shifted into the hardest, most invigorating, most maddening, most personally satisfying thing I have ever done.

This is better than chocolate bonbons.  After all, I want my two young women to be brave, and I hope that someday they’ll aspire to more than a comfortable life. So I’d better set them an example. The fact is, I’m too young to retire, and damn it, I want my work to matter.

Quite amazingly to me, in the same way that 汤汤 appeared in my life, Global Rencai has brought me others. In Los Angeles, marketing professional Lynn Zhou contributes social-media and translation for the blog. In Northern California, user-experience engineer Yingying Zhang contributes blog design. In Beijing, foreign-language publisher Ivy Wang will be translating the book.  Each of these women has become a professional colleague, creative fellow-traveler, and dear friend.

Many headhunting firms today call themselves global, but none has the consistent reach to assemble such a talented and passionate team across geographies. The irony is not lost on me. Only creative work, globally communicated, can inspire this kind of 缘分.

I’m writing this book for you

Speaking of 缘分, dear reader, Global Rencai has brought me you, this incredible community of modern, independent Chinese women across the planet Earth.

I started this blog 17 months ago with no readers. When publishing my initial posts, I was reminded of the philosophical thought experiment, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?”

Since then, each of you has stumbled across this blog. I don’t know how. What I do know is that each of your retweets and comments emboldens me to reach deeper and write better, in hopes of delighting you. Despite the fact that we’ve not met in person, I feel we’re connected, as if you’re the sisters I never had.

I have not learned all of life’s lessons. I still have a lot of living to do myself. You may or may not agree with everything I have to say. But it’s my hope that my book will encourage you to go out and grab hold of the life and of the man that you deserve. And that you’ll find a way to translate my stories into a form that’s useful to you.

I am not a professional writer and never will be. Because in my core, I’m a deeply social animal.  Some people say I have an oversized personality for an undersized woman (I’m 154 cm).  Well, after I complete the book, I’ll come to China, and then we can meet, and chat about our lives. I can’t wait to see you!

Creative work engenders magnificent new friendships and opportunities

I started Global Rencai as a way to give something to the world. In return, I have received so much more, in the form of: (1) this book project, (2) my team, and (3) you.

This is what I hope you take away from my story: When you unleash your creativity and create something honest and true, that comes from deep inside of you, and that helps other people, and you share it effectively, amazing things will happen. New friends will appear in your life, fellow creative travelers, people who love the same things you do. People who see in your work a glimpse of themselves.

And they will bring you opportunities for collaboration. Opportunities which are perfectly suited to them and perfectly suited to you, and which you never could have imagined on your own.

Next, ladies, it’ll be your turn to create something.

If you’d like to keep up with my blog and book and haven’t yet subscribed, please type in your email address in the upper right corner of the blog at www.globalrencai.com.

I grew up during the 1980s, the years known in America as the Decade of Greed. The US economy was flying high, and consumers’ tastes in “adult toys”  – cars, boats, LV handbags, etc. – ran toward conspicuous excess.  Bumper stickers and T-shirts sported the axiom of the day: “He who dies with the most toys, wins.”

I was a highly observant, and highly impressionable, young student of life and, lacking an internally-driven sense of self-worth, I began to crave the outward signs of power and success. Over time, how I felt about myself was based on how I measured up against other people. Other extremely successful people.

Bill Gates and me

Take Bill Gates. By the time I graduated from college, Bill Gates already had dropped out of Harvard, built Microsoft, and become a billionaire. He and I even had a bit of a personal connection, since his wife Melinda had preceded me at Duke by just a few months. By contrast to them, I didn’t know how I’d make my first million.

Then there was my UCLA business school classmate who, upon our graduation, moved to Silicon Valley and rented out her garage to a couple of young kids. Right there, that summer, they started a search-engine company and named it Google. She created their original doodles, and became one of the company’s first executives.

Anytime I read news of someone, I wondered:  “Why is this person ahead of me?  What title does she have?”  And then:  “Am I on the right track? Had I make a mistake somewhere?” Newspapers compounded my misery by printing the ages of all those successful people right beside their names. When someone was my age or younger, I felt nauseous: “Where did I go wrong?”

Why we lose in the race to win

Did all this belly-aching serve me any good purpose in life? Does competition motivate us toward better performance?

In his book No Contest. The Case Against Competition. Why We Lose in the Race to Win, psychologist Alfie Kohn reviews many studies and concludes, “the evidence is overwhelmingly clear and consistent” that “superior performance not only does not require competition; it usually seems to require its absence.” In fact, he says, a competitive system perpetuates itself by keeping self-worth low and making even the winners constantly needy of more success. He says, “We compete to overcome fundamental doubts about our capabilities and, finally, to compensate for low self-esteem.”

In other words, when we view life through the lens of competition, we’ll always end up feeling small. This point is dramatized in political scientist Xandra Kayden’s book Surviving Power, about ex-politicians and their experience of leaving office. Some “survived,” while others sank into depression.

The trappings of power can feel great. When I was appointed Deputy Mayor, I began to think of myself as a Very Important Person indeed. I thought: “I deserve to have 50,000 city employees stand to attention when I enter a room. TV news reporters follow me around because everything I say is meaningful!”

But when our term ended and Los Angeles elected a new Mayor, and suddenly, the camera bulbs stopped flashing in my direction. I was adrift. I was forced to look in the mirror and face up to the question: “If I’m not the Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles, then who am I?”

I was 35, with a lot of living still ahead. It was time to identify and build upon what’s unique about me away from the public eye. It was then, after I left office, that I began to amass the true power that comes from within.

You are enough

He who dies with the most toys, leaves the world empty-handed just like everyone else. This can be rather confusing. After all, from the moment we start school, we’re trained to see all the people around us as names and numbers ranked from high to low. As students, our “job” is to be better than everyone else and get to the top.

Other people are not our standard. Your journey is different from mine, and our journeys are different from that of any other person.

Once we leave school and enter the real world, however, the giant spreadsheet disappears. The world will always contain people who are more successful, and those who are less successful, than you and me. All of that is completely irrelevant to our lives. Other people are not our standard. Your journey is different from mine, and our journeys are different from that of any other person.

There’s nothing wrong with pursuing success, or the power to influence society and the world around us. But it’s wrong to pursue success in a way which cuts yourself off from yourself or in a way which isolates you from other people because you view them simply as obstacles and competitors.

When we compare ourselves to others, we only diminish ourselves and our own possibilities. We can instead focus on own unique and beautiful selves, and we can revel in the fabric of our shared humanity. Indeed, we all are more alike than we are different.

Warmest wishes from my family to yours for a wonderful Mid-Autumn festival!

Your comments, in English or Chinese, are welcome on the Chinese version of this blog post, which is here.