8th March was International Women’s day; I didn’t know until 2 days before. I can’t say I’ve given that day any particular recognition before now. But this year, I chose to follow the hashtag #makeithappen and even volunteered for an interview. 8th March meant there would be so amazing contents about women who have made stuff happen or are still making it happen, I wasn’t disappointed. I learnt about Mae Jemison, Mae is a 58 year old American physician and NASA astronaut. She became the first African American woman to travel in space when she went into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on September 12, 1992. Amazingly, she has 9 doctorates degree…I’m wondering, why? what for? which courses? to which end? how did she cope? what does her brain look like?
Then Elizabeth Holmes, she didn’t get me to wonder like Mae, she got me jealous. Elizabeth is 31 (I’m older than her), and she’s a billionaire, and SELF MADE (that’s it!). She didn’t inherit any wealth, she did not win any lottery but she’s worth $4.5billion. Elizabeth’s academic record says “Drop-out, Stanford University”.
Here is her amazing story; In 2002, as a freshman at Stanford University, Chemistry Department, she was named one of the “President’s Scholars” and given a stipend of $3,000 to pursue a research project. She persuaded her chemical engineering professor, Channing Robertson, to use the money for a project in his lab.
Holmes supplemented her childhood knowledge of Mandarin with summer language programs at Stanford. This helped her obtain an internship at the Genome Institute of Singapore. The Institute was working on developing new methods to detect the SARS coronavirus in blood and nasal swabs.
After her return to the US, she wrote a patent application on a wearable patch that would help administer a drug, monitor the variables in the patient’s blood and adjust the dosage to achieve the desired effect. She showed her application to Professor Robertson, and told him they could put a cellphone chip on this patch for telemedicine. She filed the patent application in September 2003, as “Medical device for analyte monitoring and drug delivery”.
Holmes proposed establishing a company to Professor Robertson in the fall of 2003. She used the money that her parents had saved for her education, to establish the business. . A semester later, she dropped out to pursue her business career full-time. Professor Robertson served as a Director of the company. Today she is worth above $4billion.
She is one of the many proofs that we can actually #makeithappen, one idea is enough to set loose a fortune.
Getting jealous would not put someone else fortune into your home. It will only eat out one’s poor heart and send one to an early grave. If you have a vision of acquiring 10 doctorates, stand up and do it like Mae Jemison. You want to build a billion-dollar empire like Elizabeth, get your idea straighten out, form a synergy if you have to (most times, we need a team). Embrace your fear and drag it along while you go get your goal.
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