My friend tried to walk the rest of my life through with me. “Most people die at 85, the last 10 years will not be something fun, so you only have 20 good years. The next five years is a quarter of the rest of your life and the best. So why are you doing this?”
He asks me why am I still fighting so hard to run All Gifted.
You have enough and more to retire, you don’t need to run this business. Go learn a new language, do a degree, learn to play a new instrument… something! Not run a company.
I thought hard about it. It is true. I don’t need to run another company, I don’t need more headaches.
But what if there are people who will benefit from me running this? All Gifted provides scholarships to students in the Cambodia slumps with the hope of going to Ivy League universities. Their parents had never been even to Phnom Penh.
Look at Singapore. All we needed were five students who were given educational opportunities and they went to study in Cambridge and other great schools and became our founding fathers. They changed lives for the rest of us – millions of us. I wanted my proteges to change the world because of the educational opportunities only we can provide.
What if we provide information to young parents, and in one afternoon they change their mindsets of how to raise their children? I have seen thousands of children now acing academically without stress. Seven or eight years later, parents of young gifted program kids write to me or tell me personally how just one afternoon impacted the way they raised their kids.
What if we provide paths to those who otherwise do not have another? We have low IQ students who were labelled sub-normal and have never attended mainstream schools. Now, they are on the same path as their age-peers academically with our programs. They now have hope to reintegrate as “normal” people.
What if students who felt incapable from Normal-tech streams can now score distinctions and gain self-esteem as they target world-class universities on our system.
What if bored students from the GEP who are academically accelerated by five to seven years with us. Students gifted in other areas who found joy in pursuing their other love and still taken care of academically. Imagine the contributions they can give to their communities.
I think about all these that All Gifted has achieved. For now, I think that it is still worth spending the most precious rest of my life for the purpose of raising the next generation, even though I am almost done raising my own. I think that I have raised my children well, but is now the time to help others raise their children well too? Four of my children are already not dependent on me financially.
For now, I think I still want to contribute this way. For years now, we have rescued so many otherwise demoralized, bullied, unmotivated, ridiculed, bored and unchallenged students. But for how long more? I am not so sure.
Can I help you to raise happier, more fulfilled and inspired children? It is important for me because it makes our community a better place. It makes my existence more purposeful.
