Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

stay hungry

stay foolish when my doctors introduced

me to this quote when i was much younger

i was like what i thought steve jobs was

supposed to be smart

why would he tell us to do these things

that we obviously want to try and avoid

but now looking back many years later i

think that might have been one of the

best pieces of advice that i’ve ever

received

and today i want to share with you three

short stories

about how i came to understand this

quote stay hungry stay foolish

and how i came to realize that maybe

steve jobs is pretty smart

after all my first story

is about math in junior high i was

invited to the international math

competition

to represent canada and it was a

fantastic experience

i got to explore the world and broaden

my horizons but what’s more i had the

chance

to really better understand myself

because the issue

was that all three years i never

achieved anything higher than a merit

an honor roll award while at the same

time my friends on the team

improved each year from a merit to a

bronze

to a silver so at the end of the three

years

i went home and asked myself why

couldn’t i do the same

why wasn’t i hungry to strive for that

gold medal

and do my best to prepare and improve

and now some people might say oh it was

just a lack of motivation

but for me that lack of motivation

stemmed from a deeper problem

satisfaction because i was satisfied

with simply being invited onto the team

and being able to go and travel across

around the world

that was enough for me to go home and be

able to chat with my friends about what

it was like

riding an elephant in thailand but what

it did

is it stopped me because i didn’t need

to try harder to try and improve and to

set high goals

and risk the chance that i might not be

so in high school i decided to redeem

myself so to speak

i made it my goal to qualify for the

canadian mathematical olympia

the highest level math competition in

canada and at the start

my journey seemed to be going well in

grade 10 i placed as one of the top

contestants in our province

and i was invited to canada math camp

for some of the top contestants

across canada but here’s where the

problem began

because once i arrived in toronto for

the camp

i realized that i was suddenly

surrounded by people who are so much

smarter and more talented

than i was i had no chance of catching

up

whenever the teacher would ask a problem

i would always be the last one

to solve it or i might not even be able

to solve it at all

and because of this experience when i

went home i was about ready

to give up on that previous dream

but then something happened in grade 11

that made me really question

what i enjoyed not what my parents

expected from me

or what my friends wanted me to do but

what really made me happy

and i realized that solving a math

problem

wandering through a dark forest of

possible solutions seeing the light and

connecting all the dots together

that was a thrill that i wasn’t ready to

give up

and so that summer after grade 11 i did

my best to prepare

and in grade 12 i went into the contest

room ready to face that challenge

and so that year a week later when the

results came out i found out that the

cut-off score

was 66 and i had scored

65.5

and so here i was about ready to give up

once again

but you see i have one last chance a

qualifying competition for contestants

like me who are just barely off

from making it and so one week later

when i wrote the contest

it was a challenging one i thought i had

no chance of

making it to the cmo i was ready to dig

a little grave for

my dreams but then when the results came

out

i found out that i had made it and so in

march

this year i finally had the chance to

complete my goal

for all three of these years in high

school to compete

in the canadian mathematical olympiad

but that’s not quite the whole story as

some of you max contestants out there

might know

because the cmo itself is only the

qualifier for the international level

so here you might be asking well why

didn’t you stay hungry like you said why

didn’t you try to strive for your place

on the national team

does part of you not regret taking that

step and staying hungry

if i had to honestly answer it would be

yes

of course but overall this experience

with math

was worth it because it taught me that

sometimes it’s important for us

to put aside our ego and to stop caring

about what other people think about us

and to take that first step and dare to

set high goals

even if there’s a chance that you might

fail

my second story for today is about a

fraud

in a well this frog has lived in this

well

for his entire life to him the entire

sky is just this little round circle at

the top of the well

that’s his entire world and he’s never

stepped outside of the well

and him he has everything that he needs

right here in this little space

and one day a turtle from the ocean

comes over

and pokes his head into the wall and so

the frog looks out and says

why hello there mr turtles how are you

doing today would you like to come and

take a step into my wall it’s truly the

most marvelous place

there’s enough water to swim in bugs to

eat

sand to relax on and the turtle goes

well i’d love to but i think instead you

should come with me

and visit the ocean where the water

stretches for miles and miles

and it never dries up or goes away it’s

truly

most marvelous and the frog hesitates

for a long time because he’s lived in

this wall his entire life

and there’s no risk of getting eaten but

he goes out there

checks out the ocean suddenly there’s a

chance that he might

take a wrong jump and never come back

out

after a long period of thinking and

questioning he finally

decides why not i’m gonna go ahead and

join him

so when this frog takes his first leap

outside of the well

he realizes that the sky isn’t just a

circle

it’s an infinite blue expanse

and so for me in junior high i was a

little bit like that frog in the wall

i had great friends but they were people

who didn’t really challenge me to

achieve and strive for my full potential

so when i came

to high school and started getting

involved in clubs hackathons

international activities i suddenly

realized

how much i was missing out on because of

this egotism that i had because i was

willing and ready not to be foolish and

to stand on that pedestal

not knowing how much i was missing out

my third story for today is about

fencing

so one year i was fencing at nationals

and in my first single elimination

round i was up against a pretty tough

opponent and by the midpoint break i was

pretty far behind

and normally the midpoint break is a

fantastic time for you to

strategize and think about what points

have gone well

what planes haven’t and how to improve

in the second half of the match

but for me at that midpoint break that

wasn’t what was going through my head

instead it was more like this cracker

crap

i’m losing what are my parents going to

thank all my teammates are watching i

can’t let down my coach i can’t lose

this

and so unsurprisingly once the midpoint

break was over and i had

headed back to the piece my attacks

became

repetitive and uninspired like an animal

trying to claw its way out of a cage

and of course my opponent scored point

after point against me

until the match was over and i was

eliminated

and so that day i went back to our hotel

where i was staying with my coach

and he sort of gives me a look you know

like come here we need to have a talk

and so as i stood there cowering in fear

he told me something that stuck with me

ever since

he said alex when i saw you fencing out

there today

you weren’t fencing to win you were

fencing

not to lose

and that’s when i realized that

something had to change because i wasn’t

fencing to win

i wasn’t having fun i was stressed and

frustrated because my points weren’t

working

i wasn’t ready to take risks and score

touches that i might otherwise have

scored

and that’s when i decided okay at this

next tournament

i’m not going to care what my parents

think about it even if my friends watch

and record it and put it on youtube

i’m not going to care i’m just going to

go in there defense and try and win

and so the next tournament that came up

was the alberta winter games of 2020

and so i took a bus with my team all the

way up to wood buffalo where the

competition began

and at the start it seemed to be going

well i made it to the round province

through the quarterfinals through the

semi-finals

until i was there standing

on the finals for the men’s saber event

at the alberta winter games

and so i was up against an opponent who

i was pretty evenly matched with and we

scored point after point

against each other until we were tied at

match point

14 14. and in that very moment

i wasn’t going to repeat my past mistake

i wasn’t going to let my

head be swarmed with thoughts of what if

what if this happened i can’t lose

instead i decided to do the most

unpredictable thing i could think

i decided to run up and hit him

and so i did and that was how i won

for the first time a gold medal at the

alberta winter games

and so what fencing taught me is that

even when the stakes are high

even when it’s match point 14 14

sometimes

if you don’t take that risk there’s no

chance you have to succeed

because even if you choose an action

that has a 50

chance of succeeding and you commit to

it 100

you have higher chance of succeeding

than if you wait

watch for the correct action but only

commit 50

because when you commit 50 and the

opponent goes 100

the 100 will win every single

so i’d like to wrap up my talk today

with a quote from nelson mandela

he said may your choices reflect your

hopes

not your fears what all of these

experiences taught me

is that we need to be willing to set

aside our fears of failing

of not meeting other people’s

expectations

because in the end if we want to change

the world

a necessary first step is to first

believe

that we have thank you

you