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