June 2018 — New Chapter. | Review Notes
Always, when I look back on the whole month, I am not able to remember what happened during this month, so I usually go through my Wechat moments and try to regain some memories hopefully.
The past two months are quite overwhelming for me so comparatively June went smooth and less stressful. I went back home for around 10 days and flew to Sofia, Bulgaria for a 3-month internship. Today happens to be the 30th day since I been to Sofia and a Friday, so might be a perfect time to write a review for June.
Life is all good in general, not because it is perfect, but because I am trying to learn how to live with imperfect. Still feel boring most of the time when I have nothing to do, but one good thing for me is I begin to feel more comfortable to stay with myself rather than force myself to stay with a group of people for not feeling lonely. Maybe it is a sign to grow up, though slowly.
Sometimes you feel that every day is so long to finish, you even begin to count every second; but at certain moments, you feel a little bit lost because you just realize yesterday is not the day you thought it should be.
Without further ado, Let’s get started.
Life
Life is always the hardest part to describe since it contains many aspects. So I was always thinking, how do we define LIFE? To some people, life might be the time that they spend with their family members; might be the time people used to full fill their value; might just the time people chilling out and doing nothing serious.
For me, the purpose is one of the most important things that must be contained in the definition of life. Life without purpose is like a body without the soul. I am quite a spiritual person and I want my everyday life is bold with purpose. So, one of the ways I try to approach is to fulfill my time with meaningful things. But oppositely, Why I always feel boring when I am not doing those things that I defined as “meaningful”, I will be surrounded by a sense of insecurity, and the very direct sign is: I will feel boring, and feels it is not right to just doing nothing.
It helps to keep myself motivated, but on the other hand, this feeling keeps me in a very intense situation that my mental status is always stressful and focused which actually make me very tired at the end of the day. And I might feel guilty if things turn out that I wasn’t productive enough.
So trying to “Enjoy my life” becomes my goal for this year. I clearly know that the meaning of life is not just about how many things that you finished or what achievement that you attained. For me, It is about how you maximize the effect of time with most prioritized issues that help you to become a better person.
Learning how to relax is also an important thing for me.
And I know I am making progress.
Work
I joined Out2Bound, a tech consultancy company based in Sofia, Bulgaria and its mission is quite straightforward: Help tech company sells more. I see this internship as my first destination of my Gap Year and this to bring me a whole new experience.
Out2Bound was originally founded by five AIESECers with the same vision, and keep growing disruptively with its great team spirit and niche target. Also because it is based in a co-working space: Puzl in Sofia with 70 other companies, this also a great chance to get to know the atmosphere of startups in Sofia.
Since sales are the core of Out2bound so our day to day tasks are majorly in Lead Generation and Reporting. I also take part in Marketing research and content creation for China and the US because my background and company need. Overall the colleges here and the team atmosphere is really nice and I am comfortable with working with them.
We went to the Black Sea last weekend as a retreat together for four days. Living together in a Villa, barbecuing and drinking one of the best draft beer in European, hanging out together on the beach and partying non-stop until morning to welcome July 1st. That was a great and unforgettable experience!
One of the former international interns from Netherland also coming together with us and I am kind of jealous with European people since they can travel easily among different countries just like travel from a province in China to another. Also, this made me again deeply believe in Life-Long Connection. People still have invisible deep connections though you might not physically be together.
So If possible, I would like to join in next retreat in winter or next-next retreat next summer.
What I wrote
June is quite a productive month when it comes to writing. Since I was I got lots of time to focus on content creation and I begin to realize the value of good content, and how great content can add value to others.
Content is king.
This will never go wrong.
English:
Chinese:
What I Read & Watch & Listen & Learned
Future University
It is a 4 months course that designed by Beichen which is a leadership focused organization based in Guangzhou, China. FU contains 20 required courses and I finished 6 of them this month and learned a lot from them. And I also admire Beichen for design these non-traditional courses to really help Chinese youth to develop leadership and inner discovery. I will blog some of the insights I learned and try to start designing my own courses.
Podcast: Tim Ferris Show — Witney Wolfe Herd — Founder and CEO of Bumble.
Whitney Wolfe Herd is the founder and CEO of Bumble, one of the fastest-growing social networking apps in the world. She launched Bumble in 2014 as the only dating platform where women make the first move, and in three years, her vision has led to Bumble’s growth to more than 28 million users worldwide in 144 countries.
This episode brought me some unique perspective of how women make the first move in relationships and how women leaders stay strong in the business world. It is a must hear Podcast!
Podcast: Crazy Capital — Story of Starbucks
Starbucks has grown from several stores in Seattle to international brands with a market capitalization of more than $84 billion. Revenue in the Chinese market also surged by 30% in Q1 in 2018, and same-store sales increased by 6%.
This episode answers a few questions about: how can consumers be infiltrated and changed by the coffee culture under the guidance of Starbucks? How does it capture consumer love through marketing methods such as store design and membership systems?
And brought me a strong sense of how a business succeeds from a small brand.
Podcast: Crazy Capital — Pinduoduo = Costco in China
From the obscure startups two years ago, to the tens of billions of dark horses in the end of 2017, Pinduodduo is the fastest growing e-commerce company now. At the same time as the consumption upgrade is fierce, the term “reduction of consumption” represented by many people has begun to appear frequently.
This episode brought me a fresh new idea about “reduction of consumption” and how Pinduoduo’s business model can threat Alibaba in it own way. Strongly suggest to professionals who hold strong interest to Chinese e-commerce industry.
Online Courses
I registered with several marketing and data related courses online and finish some of them.
What I am planning
Travel
There are still around one and half month here in Bulgaria and everything is on the track. I might plan to travel to other cities within Bulgaria during weekends and it might be a little bit difficult since all the signs here is in Bulgarian so I have no clue if I got lost. Will do some research about transportation and plan a little bit.
Learning
Life is pretty regular so I will put more time into learning new data related skills through online courses. Hopefully, I can finish Business Analytics and Big data course on Coursera by the end of July and begin Python from August.
Reading
I didn’t read a lot during June and listening collecting information through audio makes me feel inconsistent and easy to lose attention during autoplay. I might try to clock some time every day even only 15–20min to spend on reading without interruption. Ideally, I can find a pace and write a Reading reflection during July.
Great June! Keep on conquering!
Monthly Soul Sentence.
Feelings are much like waves, we can’t stop them from coming but we can choose which one to surf.
My name is Meiling, a marketing master student at NYU. I am during my Gap Year and write reflections and business related inspiration.
