A dear John letter
Thanks God, I am not an American, but this is a great ice breaker:A Dear John Letter – By Roger
John Flew in from San Francisco yesterday, I was at the airport standing with the sign board “Welcome John Wood “on one hand, and the Chinese version of his best-seller “Leaving Microsoft to change the world “on the other hand; Similar to a fan waiting for the rock star show up at the gate, I am expecting a huge figure who ambitious about Changing the World in front of us – those who dream about the same goal by building his conglomerate.
John walked out the door by 5:45 pm, wore a sweat shirt with the printing of “ California Republic “ on the front, Jeans and light bag, the man who build 4100 school / libraries in 7 years, literary provide 1.2 million children the chance of education, donate millions copies of books and provide 3800 plus girls’ scholarships in Asia finally landing on the ground, John’s last visit to Taiwan is 1999, he served for Microsoft then and put his memory about Taiwan in first few chapter of his book “Leaving Microsoft to change the world “--Now printed in 15 different languages.
On our way to Regent, John tried to capture the flavor of Taipei, brought back his memory when dated with Sophia and fought his jet leg at the same time, but I didn’t want to slip this great opportunity without asked question to role model next to me; Thanks for the traffic Jam, the outcome is John almost broke out and I had a wonderful evening with him.
I asked John if we can turn back the clock, roll back 7 years from now, and he had the chance to reconsider his decision, what he will do. John replies with no hesitation, He said he will make the same decision.
John joined YPO Bay chapter for less than a year (the worst is he haven’t belongs to any FORUM yet ) and he devote his debut YPO speech to Taipei Chapter today;
John was born in 1964, founded NGO Room to Read in 2000, with the believe of “ World Change Starts with Educated Children “, he combine his academic training from business school , professional training from Microsoft , then follow the Private-Public Partnership mechanism, built one of the most innovate and effective NGO in changing the world.
I was once told the golden rule in decision making is “Quick No, Slow Yes “, but for John, his life changing start from many Quick YES – Nepal, Resign from Microsoft, Leaving the one you love, deploy to unknown territory – Ski Lanka and many other Quick YES., and action taking and result oriented attitude making his world changing a feasible goal.
It’s hard to be an entrepreneur; it’s even harder to be a Social Entrepreneur.
2007 / 9 / 4
John Wood Close Up
India Beer House is the restaurant recalled to John’s memory of Taipei, a trendy beer house decade ago with the deco of dinosaurs, he love the food there, Sherwood is the hotel he normally stays and its 10 minutes walk to Microsoft office. Looking out to the window, he witness the foot massage vendor nearby Regent and share his foreigner viewpoint… is it hurt? Well, not really.
According to John, he will present how to utilize business practice to perform and improve nonprofit sector, he set the goal to build Room to Read to a 10 millions scale of influence before he turn 50, John is 43 now and currently 1.2 million children benefit from his Doing Good.
A country by country development strategy can pave the road ahead. World Bank had this number: 10 billion people in the world can’t read and write, 100 million children today can’t afford to go to school, a huge gap of educational market. I will expect his dream turn to reality even before 50 and hope more and more people involve in the world changing mission.
John is now participating on training young social entrepreneur, his idea is to seed the value to younger generation thus a better world may come earlier.
Can’t maintain stable relationship is a slight regret to John, married to room to read and to educate millions of kids is beyond any parent can do. So… you gain some and you lose some. Maybe by 50 he will find someone he love and to change his own world.
Leaving Microsoft to Change the world will release paperback version today ( Sep. 4th 2007), this is an exciting news to everyone
This is John, who I know in person for the last 12 hours.
2007 / 9 / 4
posted by Roger @ 9/04/2007 11:36:00 上午
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