But reinventing yourself can be very hard. You can face a lot of resistance at times.
但是重塑自己是非常难的。你时常会遇到许多阻碍。
When I was nearly done with my PhD, I got bitten by that entrepreneurial bug.
在我快拿到博士学位的时候,我开始心心念念想创业。
I was in Silicon Valley, and so writing a thesis in the basement didn't seem as interesting as starting my own company.
我当时在硅谷,在地下室写论文无趣极了,跟自己开公司没法比。
So I went to my very traditional Korean parents, who are here today,
因此我去找我那非常传统的父母,他们今天也在现场,
with the task of letting them know that I was going to drop out from my PhD program.
我想告诉他们我打算放弃自己的博士学位。
You see, my siblings and I are the first generation to go to university,
事实上,我和我的兄弟姐妹是第一代上大学的人,
so for a family of immigrants, this was kind of a big deal.
而对于一个移民家庭来说,这是件大事。
You can imagine how this conversation was going to go.
不难想象这次对话会变成什么样。
But fortunately, I had a secret weapon with me,
但幸运的是,我有秘密武器,
which was a chart that had the average income of all of the graduates from Stanford PhD programs,
那是一张图表,上面展示的是斯坦福博士毕业生的平均收入水平,
and then the average income of all the dropouts from Stanford graduate programs.
还有从斯坦福退学的人的平均收入水平。
I must tell you -- this chart was definitely skewed by the founders of Google.
我必须得说,这张图表的数据分布绝对发生了偏移,因为谷歌的创始人们。
But my mom looked at the chart, and she said, "Oh, for you -- follow your passion." Hi, Mom.
但是我妈妈看着那张图表,对我说,“哦,我支持你!追随你的激情吧。”谢了,妈妈。