Standing on a bedside at life's crossroads

This article is about: Cancer, Longevity, Digital Nomad and Network States, and how I am on my way to connect the dots (Part 1).

1st, it started from a painful lockdown.

2022 marked a very special year to everyone who lived in Shanghai during lockdown.

To me, it is my ultimation to live with constraints. The constraints on personal finance, my loved ones’ & my health; on the environment & location I am at. The Shanghai lockdown made time for me to learn a new perspective, in fact, several perspectives that I rarely had time to explore while running my company Haalthy. With the fact that I was not able to run Haalthy by sitting at home & the country’s concern on healthcare was only on COVID-19 for unseeable long time, I decided to lay off everyone & gave it a pause.

For 2 months, with limited food & no outdoor activities to do, I explored new things every day. From reading Chip Wilson’s book on how he built Lululemon, to taking videos on TikTok; from preparing for my ACE personal training exam, to understanding Web 3.0 and DAO; from AI, to hardware.

Looking back, it was such a chaotic period where I had no idea where I was heading to. And somehow the universe had helped me re-connect a few dots that I purposely ignored in the past: health, longevity, crypto, AI and digital nomads.

How the 1st 2 dots were connected - Diseases x Digital Nomads

During my lockdown, my 92-year-old grandpa in my hometown Guangzhou when to the hospital. He asked my uncle to call me on video, and it was heartbreaking, because he was saying goodbye to me, ON THE VIDEO.

It was torturing to me that I could not satisfy my dying grandpa’s need to see all his beloved grandchildren one more time in person. Hence, I decided that I had to escape Shanghai at all cost, to see grandpa one more time.

Since then, well I have been escaping without bringing my money, clothes, etc. whenever there was a lockdown, since it happened so sporadically. You guess it right, my life was like a nomad, except that traditional nomad is “resource-based”, but I am baseless.

How the next 2 dots were connected - Longevity x DAO

When I was a kid seeing beggars in the street, I was wondering why the world was so unfair. I had once told myself, if I have 100 RMB, it would be nice to give 50 RMB to people in need, isn’t it?

That’s my naive but pure motivation to become rich, to help people.

But fast forward, as myself became an entrepreneur, I realized that’s not what business is about. Business is about maximizing profit.

Before 2023, I struggled. I have been struggling to find the balance between helping people & become rich, despite that I have accumulated so many resources & tried to learn & do as much as I can. The problem, finally I figured, is about Business itself.

A new form of structure ought to replace “business” in order to balance the two - helping people & become rich at the same time (not become rich first and then help people, which I was told by so many people who had been successful financially).

It was such a disruptive idea if anyone were able to do it! However, it has nothing to do with my passion & experience on health, longevity & on helping people. I still did not know how to connect the dots. But I knew back then, if the dots were not connected, it is impossible to create a world that I would love to live in.

One day, my friend Sky who had been in the crypto space, saw my post on WeChat about longevity & reached out to me. He said:

You have to check out vitaDAO! And you have to go to Zuzalu!

I quickly checked what Zuzalu was about, and found out that it is a pop-up city in Montenegro that gather a group of similar minded people, “to learn, create, live longer and healthier lives, and build self-sustaining communities”

I was immediately hooked! That’s exactly what I envisioned the future community should be. It kinda of remind me of Kibbutz in Israel, that people voluntarily live & work together. And when I visited one of Kibbutz there, there were the happiest people in the world.

And what intrigued me the most, was the longevity conference & its organization vitaDAO - a DAO that funds promising longevity projects in a new way. And crucially, vitaDAO had connecting the dots for me: helping people live better & longer (Longevity) under a new form of “business” (DAO). In fact, it connected more than two dots:

The foundation of longevity is to discovery how to increase not only lifespan but also healthspan; The foundation of DAO is to allow similar-minded people around the world to make decision & work together, and eventually form the Network State.

For someone like me, who worked on cancer data for the past 10 years, you would understand how cancer is associated with aging;

For someone like me, who witnessed my beloved grandpa deteriorated within one year after a fall, you would admire the importance of prevention than treatment for old people;

For someone like me, who succeeded in making my company break-even remotely but failed to control where I would end up living at night, you would appreciate the flexibility provided by your organizations;

For someone like me, who had hard time finding people dedicated to breakthrough research during COVID, you would probably want to join an organization that everyone is taking bold action to be healthy & live longer.

To be continued…

6 years after starting my company...

Something must have magically happened today. After starting Haalthy 6 years ago, I have not been keeping up with my blog. But today while I was trying to search my Gmail for my BTC, @Squarespace’s reminder email stole my attention:

Your website is going to expire in 15 days. Time to renew it.

So I got back to my own website…

Since being a CEO of my company, I have tried to avoid being too emotional. However, I bursted into tears after reading my post “The Alabama Guy”. He’s the first human who believed I would be on the Forbes magazine. And I did, in 2017, along with other achievements, one of which that I am most proud of - we have used digital therapy to save over 300 millions RMB for patients and helped them reduce severe side effects by 30%. I could not believe how many “dreams“ have come true & how little I had changed in the past 7 years. Since our company broke even in 2020, I started to wonder myself:

Why, as a first-time founder, we have avoided the 99% failure rate and still survive today (and doing better & better).

Reading through my own writings from 7 years ago, I finally got an answer that explained the fundamental -

Being lucky

Don’t get me wrong. There are so many other contributes that play crucial roles in making a startup successful, which I will write about them as soon as I have free time from now on.

But “luck” is more important that I think. I used to believe as long as someone works hard, they will get whatever they want. I was wrong.

Using me as an example, if my dad did not pass away in 2015, I would not make the decision to go back to China in the same year, which I would missed “the hottest“ era to fund raise for digital health, which I would have not received my angel money.

This is pure “luck”. What I would like to emphasize here, is the luck that we can create. This kind of luck is very subtle but I finally understand how the dots are connected in retrospect.

Here is my version: how to be lucky -

Meeting “the Alabama guy”, Shane, he said and did “everything to make my shitty day better”. Well he is a random co-worker I met during a random field job at NYC. But here comes the first key to be lucky:

Be open, be less-judgemental, be sharing.

He was 44 and I was 25. What a huge age gap. If we held ourselves in our own comfort zone, we would have never talked to each other; He is from Alabama & I am from China. If we keep our bias towards each other’s origin, we would have never be able to continue our conversation; if he was not sharing his knowledge and I was not sharing my dreams, we would have not related our deep thoughts with each other and hence deep emotions.

The story did not end here. What described above are just the phenotypes that we saw as it happened. What struck me was the after effect.

I had a very bad period in my life at that time, but I met Shane, who gave me support and more importantly, optimism. So it wired me to think well when I had bad time, someone would give me support and optimism. This habit lasted for a long time even made a great impact on my startup:

Every time when our startup encountered difficulties, I did not avoid problems but instead asked for help. Every time, without exception, I believed someone was going to help me. Guess what?

Every time, someone helped me.

Shane gave me support & optimism, which I turned them into my subconsciousness, which turned into my belief - there will be someone who will be willing to help me. All I did, is to follow “be open, be less-judgemental, be sharing” every time I met someone new or old. Sometimes it is them who need my help, I would provide the same support & optimism that Shane shared with me; but most time (as far as I remembered) it is me who need help and I can turn to so many people for help. This, is the luck that I create.

There are really two things that are crucial to create luck:

1. let the good things (in my case: support & optimism) from any person & situations to seep into our subconsciousness;

2. be open, be less-judgement, be sharing.

Meeting Shane is my pure “luck”. But meeting so many people like Shane in my past tense is the luck I train myself to create.

To Shane: Thank you for believing in me.

Family

2015 is already a year to remember:

2015.01.05 - my father passed away, from cancer.

2015.08.05 - my uncle passed away from cancer. 

Surprisingly, when talked to my aunt who just lost her husband today and her brother 8 months ago, the only thing she told me was: take care of yourself and find someone who treats you well.

All in a sudden, I realize how much I have taken from my family, but i have never given back enough. I wished I have built Haalthy earlier, such that my uncle would have understood the treatment from other patients experience and had enough encourage to receive chemotherapy (instead of not treating at all); I wished I have built Haalthy three years ago, such that my dad would have known reliable treatment options from other patients with similar disease. At the end of their lives, I have done too little. 

Enough said, enough reminder. Cancer woke me up. I am flying to SF tomorrow, to build Haalthy - for my family, and for other families. 

R.I.P. Uncle, R.I.P. Dad. You will be missed and I will make you proud.

A trip to remember

The beginning of my trip to Mexico is the 102th day since my father passed away. 

This trip mattered a lot to me. First, travel is one of the things that my dad and I have a common interest in. From now on, I would bring the necklace he gave me for my graduation to see the world, keeping a belief that his spirit is there with me. Second, I needed space to be free.

It turned out, my mind was never free. I was reading Paul Graham's hackers and painters instead of going to the famous nightclubs in Cancun (which used to be my favorite thing to do at night and I should have at least done it during this vacation). 

Fortunately, my body was. I realized how much I enjoyed being busy. From one place to another, even though I got lost in a country which I do not speak the language, it was a great experience dealing with obstacles. What is more, is that when I did not know where I was going, there were people who were willing to help, and I ended up on a road that very few people drove on, and to my destination (Chichen Itza) where I thought would be crowded but was not (because I missed the opening time of the park and the guard was nice enough to make an exception for me).

A road with no cars coming or following.

My moment alone with Chichen Itza.

At that time, I started to, first time in my existence, feel that I am living in the moment. In the past, I freaked out too much about rushing to achieve something in the future. But I have no desire of TODAY. As a matter of fact, TODAY is the most critical day of my life, whether I am enjoying a piece of art of the Mayan culture, to reading a book about hackers.

All that I encounter TODAY, assemble who I am tomorrow. 

The trip gave me more than just a new definition of TODAY, but also remind me that I cannot fit in. This is not a bad thing. In fact, it was amazing to realize that I cannot fit in where I am now. There are 2 major environments that I am not fitting in: 1. my current job; 2. a world that I have to brand myself into just one specific type of people.

The 1st one is already known, but the 2nd one is a bit difficult to defend. Before the trip, there was already an inner voice telling me to "don't be afraid to be me". During the trip, I was probably the only one who was traveling alone in the party & honeymoon town. Except some moments when I saw people kissing which made me miss having someone to be with, I was doing very fine, in fact, when I jumped into the water, asked a stranger to take pictures of me like a Victoria's Secret model (yes, i always wanted to do that), a group of girls followed and did the same thing like I did. We turned an empty beach into a photo booth with tons of fun. 

What strike me, is that, when I am being me, somebody wanted to be me.

Parts of the world that I am in have frightened me to be just 1 kind of people (at least we SHOULD only show that side of us) in order to fit in. I felt that I should not be talking about love, sports, sex, places, food, if I am into technology and startups. Maybe it is true that when we are into something, we have no energy left for others. Psychologically, it may be true that tag 1 thing of ourselves will be easier to be remembered. But if we are in denial of who we are besides that 1 tag, psychologically we might not reserve energy for other stuff, which makes life (especially our life) tasteless.

[side note: In fact, many products suck, because in my opinion the creator (who might have exceptional technical background) has not have enough life experience to make sense of the product. I want to make things to help people's dream come true, and to do that, I need to be an expert of being me and being "people".]

I thought I was strange in others' eyes, it turned out others have a completely different opinion.

On my way back home, I could not help but thought that how it was like to be back to NY. The answer to this is: both NY and Cancun are great. Because I finally understand I am in the moment where I can be myself.

Today, having something to look forward to.

The Future of Me

What do we see we will be next year? And in 10 years?

It's a question I have been thinking lately. What is important to me? What do I want to prove to those who never believes in me? After so many bad experiences in the past 3 years, I finally realized that, as much as I want to be better than "someone" or recognized by someone, I had not done enough. 

I have so many things in life that I want to do: learn a new language, start a startup, have a non-profit, make an impact, be a Ph.D student, be an artist, be a dancer, be a traveller, be a risk taker, be free...  

Our future seems so bright that we have no need to worry about as if we have enough time to finish them all. Not until the death of my father that, I realize that the future of me is so blurry. Although I think I know her, she only lived in my dream in the past 3 years. I was only able to see her when I was unconscious, and I was not determined enough to chase her.   

Life is so short.

It is always good to know what halts us from chasing the future of me. For me, it is the dependence on time but not on myself.

il est temps de changer.

www.avenir.cc

Keep ourselves on track to becoming The Future of Me. 

You are welcome.

2015

2014 has been a very tough year, in fact, the most mentally challenging year in my life.

The other side of the Pacific Ocean, my father is waiting for me to go home, not for any particular good reason, but for me to prepare his funeral. He is a dying cancer patient. 

All this struck me very hard, because last time I heard about death in my family was my great-grandpa (I think...). In addition, all my medical knowledge are accumulated because of his illness, my path of becoming an entrepreneur was defined by his cancer journey, and all friends who worked closely with me on the startup project were all brought in because of our father's cancer.

I fucking hate to admit that we are defeated by cancer. 

That was the harsh feeling in 2014. But looking back, with the blood record I kept track of my father's, I realized that some of his indexes were magically reverted several times, even doctors had all said there was no hope. I finally understood his choice, it must be really difficult for him to make such a decision and to live, and he has been very strong and did his best.   

Although as sad as I would be in 2 days when I see him, I decided to continue doing what can potentially save more lives, and finally made a list of my 2015 resolutions:

1. Spend at least 1 hour with friends every week. - since whenever, I had become a workaholic. A lot of my friends have already lost contact (aka I am not as important to them), and I need to start making up for it, because 2014 has proved to me that, those friends who I ignored are friends who are always there for me.

2. Pole dancing - I need more physical & fun challenges in life to keep my brain functions. p.s. I finished my last 2014 resolution: Kick boxing!

3. Build a systematic platform to help patients anyway I can - regardless of what happen to my dad at the end, I will build a platform such that patients and family will not make the same mistake as we did. 2015 the startup will be official.

4. Travel once (at least!) for volunteer work - I almost forgot where I came from, doing so will remind me what kindness can save others and ourselves.

5. With the little time left, try to make myself & people around me happy, or do something for them. - I was bullied a lot at school, so it was not really "my thing" to make people around me happy. However, being who I already am today, I should make a change, to forgive and to share.

6. (Secret) - we will know by August.

Hope 2015 will have less war and less pain. Best wishes for everyone!

The happiest day in my career so far.

Notes: I still have a "things I have learned this year" in my daily to-do-list. But decided to write about today, since it is almost like a life-changing day for me.

Yeah, it is the happiest day since I started my job. Why? I was out in the marsh at below 0 Degree Celsius. Well that's not really the reason that made me happy. The people who I worked with does.

But let's see why my job (not the startup) make me happy. Most of my time in the office I was either doing insignificant tasks or re-occurring action. Everyone will think engineer saves the world and do exciting stuff right? At least that's what I was told when I was a freshman. HOWEVER, I really enjoy having my brain fucked, a.k.a. someone/something that constructively challenge my brain. In addition, working in a large thing is just "HSBC" - How Simple Becomes Complicated. That gives me super low arousal and hence, my brain's insula and orbitofrontal cortex just keep activating (my negative emotion), till a point I stop feeling life is good. 

Whom I worked with today are a crew of very interesting and cool people who usually not talk about their families and shit happened around their house. We talked about deep stuff but took shit on each other in a harmless way.

From them, I figured out the qualities the best people who we should work with, regardless in a startup, or corporations:

1. Love what they do.

How to convince a crew of people stay in the cold (below 30F) for 12 hours a day? Give them what they love to do, of course, in a challenging environment and with good teammates.

2. Understand "inappropriateness" ≠ "insult", make fun.

why are "Victoria's Secrets" "policy", etc. not appropriate in office setting? who get insulted if these words are mentioned? Relax. They are human's basic needs (Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs). There is no need to make them a taboo. Sometimes you just run out of topic and/or try to understand each other more. If someone feels uncomfortable, walk away, we are not talking at a house. 

3. Allow a lot of questions and "concerns".

This one is obvious. Yes many of them are older than me and married and have many years of experience and stuff like that. But it does not mean that any opinions (from the young) should be ignored. They do it. All I can feel is that we can all contribute to a project in one way or another.

4. Super nice to each other and be patient.

It's cold outside. Everyone is stressful too. But it should not give anyone a reason to scream at someone for a small mistake. We all are almost frozen and have a lot of stresses too. Be understanding and be kind.

5. Make your shitty day slightly better.

Just like the guy from Alabama, they do tiny little thing to make any individual with them feel good, from waiting to tell us there is a hole on the walkway, to allow you to make fun of their interesting action. Then we realize we all actually feel better. 

Actually, these 5 qualities are for me as well. #LearnAndKeepImproving. 

By the way, it is also a super nice day. Pictures followed:

The Alabama Guy - make your sh!tty day a little bit better

I was in such a crappy mood today (ignored the details please) because i was confused by people at work and felt that my time was wasted.   

I started to complain about it to a guy who just started to work with me 2 days ago. He is from Alabama, very self-called "Red Neck" country boy (but he is 44-year-old), named Shane. It was the first time I met someone real from Alabama, all my memories come from the song and movie "Sweet Home Alabama". Just as I imagine, they are always happy and funny (of course with their accent as well). Surprisingly, from 2 days of talking to him, I realized that he knows so much about everything from psychology to wildlife and then the Forbes Magazine.

Working with him makes you relieve. You do not have to worry about being ditched, because he always come to work earlier than I am; and if you tell him about something secret, you do not have to worry about him judging you or broadcasting your news without your permission. That's why I could complain to him and even told him my plan of starting my own company.

Without bullshitting around (like i did to him sometimes), he would tell me: let's get this shit started so that you can have your lunch. And then quickly set stuff up so that no time is wasted again.

While he is working, he smile again, and quickly said to me:

"I would do everything to make your shitty day a little bit better!"

and then laugh non-stop again.  

10 minutes later, he told me that he had to leave because some other project needs him more. I felt a little bit sad (although it was just 2 days working with him). Realizing that I could not give him a hug because my clothes was contaminated by potential radiological material on the site, he said:

"I will see you in the future in the Forbes Magazine."

---------------------

Take home notes for hiring:

My company will only hire people who "would do everything to make your shitty day a little bit better" and follow their own protocol. 

End.

No joke, I have depression too.

Some weeks ago, I discovered that I was extreme unhappy. 

It was not that I didn't do well. In fact, I was pushing myself to do extra things than normal days. But I just hated everything. If I went to work, i started to hate the day the moment i left my house; as a healthcare founder, i was disappointed at not being able to loose that belly fat; i disliked the professor who taught the genetic class because i could not understand her; i blamed the investor who dislike my idea because he discourage me to do anything after meeting him...

Oh and my car broke down, DMV gave me a hard time, and my bf was overseas, and my friends did not have time for me and my entrepreneur friends all have just recently raised MORE money for their startup...

If you ever tried to chase your dream, you would probably understand what I am saying here. That loneliness, jealousy and un-satisfaction are so ingrained that we thought the whole world owes us $100,000,000 dollars. At the end, I just completely locked myself up.

After going through the depression, I looked back and realized something: It is all about me, me working too hard and not too hard at the same time that I had confused myself. But let's be clear on one thing first, it is not depression, it is:

Illusional Depression

(and it is treatable)

Here is the lesson I learned during my illusional depression I will remember for life:

1. Working hard does not get me anywhere, working hard on ONE thing at A time until my body does not function will.

• It is not that my professor did not teach well, it is me who did not go deep into the materials enough, which led me to not understanding the class. It is not that the investor thought we are stupid, it is us who wanted to change the world overnight and took too many directions all at once.
  • Results: I ended up studying a whole weekend for 8 hours/day and I got a distinction in that class (see my prove below). Once we decided to stick with 1 direction, all our employees were more enthusiastic and put more time at work. 

2. Working 4-5 days a week is hard? Please work 6-7 days a week. 

• every 40 minutes run makes me sweat. But this is just losing water; every 1 hour of extra time for my startup makes me feel good. But we are not yet executing. So I decided to add muscle training and trained till my muscle is too sore to move; work even on Friday night Saturday and Sunday to make sure the startup is progressing as planned. 
  • Results: The abs is forming and my startup has on the beta phase.

3. Reach out with fearless confidence.

• You think your friends do not like you? No, if they don't like you, they would have deleted you on facebook. Remember last time you posted anything or texted your friends? If it is more than 1 week ago, please reach out. At the same time, build and own a fearless confidence: be active, be humble and keep learning! So one day just completely out of the blue: i texted almost everyone who i have met in the past 6 months, I kept taking more classes online, we dumped our previous idea and re-start a brand new idea (it is not easy, because we have had it for 1 year).  
  • Results: they all miss me and invited me to trips and hence my vacation has been filled with plans up to next summer; I learned more in healthcare (thanks for Coursera and EdX) that had been very helpful for us to re-shape our startup's idea and to my dad's treatment; my co-founder and i finally discovered the best-ever idea since we worked together.

4. It is really you. The world will change when you change your mindset. 

• I am not trying to be philosophical here. Of course we are very highly likely to die if we jump out of a plane in the air even if we believe we won't die. But the sentence applies to us: if we believe the world and people are against us, they really are; but if we believe the society and friends are with us, they certainly are.
  • Results: I am happier, people around me are happier, the world to me looks happier.  

p.s. I found out that almost 67% of the entrepreneurs I have talked to in the past week have been to a similar kind of depression. We really are not alone.

Peter's book

I received Peter Thiel's book (with Blake Masters) "Zero to One" early in advance. I was so excited that I spent several hours in 2 days to finish the book.

Max reading time: 8 hours (with note taking and some thinking) 

As a general introduction of startup, he took a different approach to write the book, especially teaching you how to think. So do not expect you will learn things step by step, such as "how to brand your company", although it will tell you branding is crucial for durability of the startup. But it does help how to think differently, with a lot of evidences and arguments why you should do it this way. With Peter's background as a Stanford elite/alum and a serial entrepreneur, the examples he provided are very convincing and eye opening. Because not only it gives us concrete examples of successful and failed startups, but also it gives us philosophy and history and even biology reasoning. I like it this way. 

The part of the book that I like the most, is the "7 questions every business must answer". The questions make it obvious to me that why Tesla, Apple, VK, Akamai, Uber, etc. can become so successful, while other business such as FitBit, Oculus, Yo, could have done better if they answer these questions before their launch. 

But I have to say, some examples are taken too far from the original point, such as the (in)definite optimism/pessimism. It took me a while to follow, maybe it is because there is a very thin correlation between the two matters. In addition, I wish that there were more suggestions on the key questions, for example, how to find and convince potential team members? and how to brand a startup? Lists of books and more examples would be very helpful (the PayPal experience is great...), although it might be slightly out of scope of this book.

Some questions are very worth thinking twice, one of which is, "what important truth do few people agree you on?" Even with what I do in a Haalthy and what I learn in online classes and daily interaction with people, I at first struggled to find an answer myself, but eventually do with some deep argument inside my brain. I can imagine how difficult this question would be for those who want to start a company but do not yet know what idea they want to start with. As Paul Graham said in his own page, founders who build great startups are "living in the future". It requires extensive self-exploring experiences and knowledge to get there. Obviously simply reading a book will not be any help. 

That said, time to go back to my work and study. This book is worth reading twice.

Enjoy!

p.s. thank you for using "her" to refer all the successful and nurturing companies in the book. It means a lot to female entrepreneurs.

Cancer. and Me.

[it is a patients' family member guide - to make informed decision]

When bad things happen, it is meant to happen to make us change in order to change the bad situation.

Since my dad has cancer, I became very additive to learning new things, especially in medicine. In the past 2 years, I have read books about nutrition, conducted research on other patients and studied genetics and epigenetics. Of course, this process includes reading a lot of scientific research paper. The great news is, my dad's lung cancer tumor had shrink and is very stable, and no mets yet; we also know exactly what to do if any changes happens in him.

Now in retrospect, I realized reading one book in diet for cancer is not enough, and knowing a genetic mutation causing cancer is too generic. In fact, gene expression can be turned on/off by DNA (de)methylation [epigenetics], diet and parenting habit can alter epigenetics up to 3 generations, while retrovirus can be a gene therapy to change bad gene and at the same time, causes cancer. As a patient's family member, the key to deal with cancer, is to be informed. 

How?

The process would seem difficult if we just start. But it will become easier and easier and the experience itself as well as the results are rewarding.  

1. start with something you know. 

The easiest way to get started, is to type in your answer in Google, and she will give you some suggestion. Or read a book that do not have a lot of medical jargons. One very famous book in dieting is called: The China Study, by Prof. Colin Campbell. [who does not eat anyway?? diet is easy enough] Or here is an article about dieting: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/healthyeating/10868428/Give-up-dairy-products-to-beat-cancer.html

Drawback: we will still be overwhelmed by research data and some terminologies. And we are easy to be fooled by the convincing statement from survivors.    

Please remember one thing: everyone is different. So if one diet works for breast cancer patient for example, does not mean it will work for my dad. How different are we? Besides height, race and gender and any other visible phenotype differences, there are 36,000+ genes and majority of them are linked to each other. In addition to that, epigenetics marks can turn on and off gene expression, and sometimes, not completely turn on/off. The combination of all these genetic and epigenetic differences, make every patient different from each others (although doctors will still treat you the same way as other patients).

2. Go deeper.

Although there are some medical terms you do not know, as you wikipedia the meaning of these terms, you start to build your ability to read scientific research. Now it is important to raise questions yourself, what treatment fit me best? Based on gene mutation, gender, habit, age, race, and all other things you already know, to form key words for Google Scholar to search for scientific papers. Try to read the results, and see how similar you (or whom have cancer) with the study subject. For example, in my dad's case, i will search for: EGFR 19 deletion, Asian, Male, Tarceva. Any combination might give you surprising results.

Drawbacks: there will be more jargons that you do not understand. The more you search, the more potential solutions you will find, which will be very confusing.

But another great news is, you collect the dots. Now the next step is to connect the dots.

3. Join the (scientific) discussion.

Yes it is true that there are lots of forums out there regarding how someone beat cancers, what diet they tried, and which doctor they see. But goes back to "everyone is different", everyone is indeed very different. Since you are already in the 3rd bullet point, you are more informed than a lot of people, including authors and survivors who wrote books and leave comments. So go ahead and take classes and shoot emails to research scientists to answer questions you might have. Here are a few classes that I would suggest caregivers to consider taking (they are all free!):

1. Epigenetic Control of Gene Expression, offered by Coursera & University of Melbourne; 

2. Genomic Medicine Gets Personal, offered by edX & Georgetown University;

3. Drug Discovery, Development & Commercialization, offered by UC San Diego.

Drawback: yes it is time-consuming. The biggest drawback is, once you form a habit of learning, YOU CANNOT STOP. 

These classes gather the brightest and the most motivated minds in research and medicine field. Using educational platforms like Coursera and edX, you will have an amazing opportunity to raise questions and even find out new clinical trials that are yet to be published in clinicaltrial.gov. 

This is cancer and me. The journey has been fruitful, although it is somewhat bittersweet. But when i was brave to reach out, the fear went away and there are always people willing to help.

Next step, i will be building something to help guide through this learning process. Stay tuned :)

How to find what you love - Winnie's version

Here is my magic bullet points to find what I love:

1. Start somewhere - to find what we love, we are likely to start with a problem/the gut.

2. Try it till you are sick of it - sorry, you and the thing you thought you love just does not work out...

3. Try a different it, until you get constant butterflies in your stomach. You save every minute in life (in the bathroom, at work, in class, etc.) just so you can know more about it.

4. It will change - if this is the case, go back to Bullet Point 2.

It has been a big old topic, but one of the hardest question for people in their 20s. There are a lot of posts out there that listed bullet points to teach us how to find what we love. But the pursuit of our love is harder to do than said.

I, as one of the typical example, has thought I had an idea of what I love. Even after being accepted to MIT, I was still able to convince the whole world that "my major is the one for me", and therefore, I got so many opportunities to travel the world because my romantic tale with "what I love to do". But going back to reality, one day i asked myself 2 questions:

Do I see myself doing ______ for the rest of my life? And/Or am I doing the best and whatever I can, to make sure I will be able to do ______ in the very near future. 

Then I slowly realize, if the one of the answers is/or both are no, I am INDEED not doing what i love to do. 

Starting in early 2014, I decided to give myself one year to find "what I love to do" by answering these 2 questions with 2 "yes".

so... Where to Start?

Where to start searching? Well it is easier than thought. I started with a problem of myself. It does not mean that we need to be an engineer or mathematician to solve a problem. In fact, when we are not happy and not satisfied of the problem/issue, there must be something we need to change in our life.

My problem started when my dad was diagnosed with cancer. I hated that, the doctor was too busy to help and I was completely out of control since our whole family was so overwhelmed and did not know what to do.   

Based on my limited research skills and talking to many other patients (Hint No.1), I found out that in order to find the optimal treatment for my dad, I have to look to collect a large amount of patients' data, including treatment, how well they feel and how long they live(d), as well as clinical trials, research paper.

But damn, I am not a doctor, and I am not a statistician. I am just an engineer who love to talk and love to learn. So I thought of 2 things I can do, just to give it a try:

1. take genetic class;

2. learn statistics and programming.

Pick the one you love the most - Keyword is?

It's kind of like dating, you go out and date many guys and girls. And to preserve your time and energy, you gonna pick one. But you have to go out and have dinner with them, bring them to movie, concert and maybe your home, to see if you are happy together, and whether you can potentially make good kids together.  The keyword is: TRY.

And I did. I started to take free programming classes in Coursera, edX, codeacademy, etc. Languages including python, javascript, R, PHP, and of course, many other libraries available for these languages. I even built my own Version A website, built an app. But when I went home imagining that i have to learn more and more on this subject, I was not happy, and sometimes even afraid. What would you do if you are not happy with someone you date? You move on. (In the end, I asked my friends Figo to do the coding part, so that I can focus on something else)

The one... 

Then I switched to focus on genetics. I had a thing for biology in middle school. But at MIT, there are some geniuses told me: Genetics is one of the most boring yet complicated subject that everyone should stay away from. But since if I do not do it in time, it is unlikely that I would see my dad again in the next 2 years, I started classes to understand general genetics. Since the start of the class, I am so looking forward to going home everyday, so that I can listen to lectures. Moreover, I even do some additional research to deepen my understanding of the topic. When an answer gets solved, it is like a butterfly in my stomach. See the difference between my feeling towards programming and genetics? Then you really know genetics is the one for me.  

One thing I have been very proud is that, regardless of how my dad's cancer progresses now, I will know what is the best option of treatment for him, and doctors are finally willing to discuss treatment option with me. Next we want to combine the beauty of computer science and genetics to help more patients and family.

Finally, life changes over times... 

Just so people know, it is very likely that "what we love to do" tends to change over times. As I know more and more in genetics, I am now more inclined to study Epigenetics and Psychology. Fortunately, our world is connected with dots and your current love is also likely to be a crucial step to find our next passion. Nonetheless, never stop trying.    

inspiring TED Talks that are memorable and life-saving.

We all have down times. Either breaking up or financial problem, to injury, incident in life, etc.

Recently, when i was doing my work using System 1 (referred to: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman), I had a chance to listen to a series of TED(x) talks. Recommended talks below not only help me stay away from falling asleep, but also motivate me to do something that I did not have a gut to do in the past.

1. How to spot a liar?

2. Your Elusive Creative Genius

The most dynamic talk I have seen so far. Yet, it teaches me how to find my "genius".

3. Why we love, why we cheat 

Sometimes, love and lust need strategic planning.

4. How to start a movement

Embrace our followers. They are the ones who make us a great leader, and make the movement. 

5. Poverty, Money - and Love

Let's change our mindset to: help those who want our help, instead of help because we need to.

XX in Health - you know it was a woman issue

Rock Health recently organized a women public speaking event in NYC. There were amazing Shirley Bergin from TEDMED, Julia Wu from Luminary-Labs and Halle Tecco from Rock Health. 

I used to hate this kind of event, because I thought this event further segregate women and men. As Sheryl Sandberg said, "only minorities will be described with an adjective in front of their job position/achievement". If we are doing great ourselves, why do we need "female event/workshop/training" right? But as I travelled around the world, I found out that I was just the lucky one who is surrounded by people who respect me & my decisions and with parents who raised me untraditionally; hence, I could grow up with resources, ambition and goals. I know for fact that women in Afghanistan are still facing notorious torture, girls in some countries in Asia && Africa are still going through genital mutilation. It is ONLY in more developed countries women have a voice, have the ability to fight back and have the opportunity to belong to themselves.

But I am not a feminist.

It is not my nature to fight. I prefer to cooperate.

I am going to put the ugly truth in front: I do realized (based on events I went to), women fight. We fight for attention, fight for resources, and sometimes, fight against each other. At times, we look like the 2 main characters (Cady and Regina) in "Mean Girls". We fight for a boy, we recommended an energy bar to a girl just to make her look fat. We are not sincere enough to share information and resources with each other. We are jealous of each other. We hate each other.

(i was about to insert an actual event happened to me, but abandoned the thought because it did no good to me... )

But here is the good part. There ARE women out there that wowed the world, and they are the role models of us. They don't fight, the share. As an organizer at MIT Global Startup Workshop and attended countless conferences around the world, I have met fantastic women: Julia Winn (Founder of MyBetterFit), Alex Cavoulacos (Founder of The Muse), Andrea Ippolito (Founder of Smart Patients), Tyras Banks, Krisztina "Z" Holly, Esther Dyson, just to name a few. They are over-achiever, fearless, gorgeous, ambitious. But most importantly, they are willing to share and help.

I totally understand how difficult it is to be a woman and how much stress we have from our family and the society. Sometimes we might just want to retaliate and put our steam somewhere so that we do not blow up ourselves. But only if we bond with other people will we produce more oxytocin (a hormone that evokes all sorts of good stuff including but not limited to: contentment, wound healing, sexual arousal).

Last but not least: please start to share and help more for others.