‘I thought I was a loser’: how a career coach’s book showed this Hong Kong woman it’s OK to have many interests. Now she’s CEO of her own start-up
- Olivia Chan had multiple interests but no burning career ambition when she was at university, and it made her feel like she was a loser in Hong Kong society
- When she read Margaret Lobenstine’s book The Renaissance Soul, it showed her how to balance a variety of passions without losing focus, and how to prioritise
Career and life coach Margaret Lobenstine’s The Renaissance Soul: How to Make Your Passions Your Life – A Creative and Practical Guide (2006) details how people can be successful while balancing a wide variety of passions without losing focus, feeling overstretched or flitting from job to job.
Olivia Chan Yuen-ue, founder and CEO of Hong Kong-based BeautyFact, an app that allows users to check the ingredients in cosmetics for safety and sustainability, tells Richard Lord how it changed her life.
I read this book about eight or nine years ago. It was recommended by a mentor I had when I was studying Chinese literature and comparative literature at the University of Hong Kong.
Those subjects don’t really lead to anything professional in Hong Kong, and I was quite lost on my career path. A lot of the other people there were studying business, and it was clear what they were going to do in their careers.
I had an interest in so many things but I never specialised in anything. In Hong Kong, everyone prefers you to have one ambition, to be a doctor or a scientist or whatever, from when you’re very young. You need to have a chosen career path. Before I read this book, I thought I was kind of a loser in Hong Kong society.
I felt the book was relatable – it talks about what it’s like to have more than one career path. It suggests that it’s OK to be interested in lots of things. It talks about how to prioritise your time – how to do one thing at a time and incorporate new things into that.