Inspirational Stories X : Anita Roddick & The Body Shop
July 23, 2007
I’m going to end our Inspirational Stories series with this feature on Anita Roddick, the founder of The Body Shop. Most of you should be very familiar with this environmental-friendly cosmetic and beauty products provider and I’m not surprised if you’ve ever purchase anything from it. In fact, some of my earlier facial products were from The Body Shop 
But how many of you know about the making of this brand name and the heroine behind it?
Against Expectations
Anita Roddick was a woman of a different breed. After all, who would have that kind of magnanimity to send her husband off to a 2 year expedition while slogging on a new business and taking care of 2 young kids? Read more
Excuse Me, Where is Your Sense of Self Awareness?
July 18, 2007
Many years ago, when I was still in junior high school, my project partner and I decided to be different and submit a self constructed electric bell for our Science project. We were both excited and expected good grades for that assignment. To our disappointment, not only did we nearly flunked it, we were accused of passing off someone else’s project as ours because it looked “too ancient”. Of course it looked old. We made it using some recycled materials found in our backyard!
It was apparent our Science teacher didn’t like our innovation. To add salt to the wound, many of our classmates who stuck with conventional placards and models of the human digestive system did better than us. In her point of view, we didn’t meet up to her expectations and were hence marginalized in the form of lower scores.
On hindsight, I could have just followed what the rest of the class did, do something easy and yet get good grades. But I wouldn’t do that.
Because, doing so would be equivalent to lowering my sense of self awareness. Read more
