May 15th, 2010. 10am. Atlanta, GA.
North Atlanta graduate Ashley Logsdon (C’03) returns to her high school to address the graduating seniors.
Read her speech below:
Congratulations to North Atlanta High School’s graduating class of 2010.
Seven years ago, I was in your seat. I think I was actually in the section to my right, in a middle seat in a middle row. I remember the excitement I felt, knowing I’d be moving onto a new chapter of my life, but as I listened to our speaker that morning, I realized that: I really should have had more coffee. You see, after a year of IB Chemistry, staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning to study-and then getting up at 6 to make it to tutoring before class… I had developed quite the caffeine habit. But I’d also devised a way to balance my full coffee mug in my book bag so that I could sneak it in and finish it on my way to first period.
Now, I can’t say that the coffee sneak in skill has really come in handy. But, if you’ve ever taken a chemistry class here at North Atlanta, you understand that success is contingent upon how hard you are willing to work.
Your education from North Atlanta is going to serve you well. It’s going to set you apart from most. I know this, because I could have never accomplished all that I have without my education.
In May of 2007, I had enough money to buy a round trip ticket to China, and a handful of pearls.
Never having pierced my ears, I was going to be a jewelry designer.
Never having a job for more than 2 months, I was going to start my own business.
And, at 22 years old, I would be the CEO.
Young, inexperienced, with little start-up capital, I was an unlikely candidate for success.
My family, mentors and neighbors advised me against starting a business. They said to me, “Ashley, you have a bachelor of Arts in Economics from a prestigious liberal arts college. You speak Spanish. You speak Chinese. You graduated top of your class from one of the finest high schools in Atlanta. Your whole life, you’ve been reading, writing, studying, analyzing, memorizing… why throw away your education… and start your own business?
I understood that an education was the most important part of a resume. But after I went to China, I didn’t want to have a resume. I wanted to have my own business. And I thought I could do it. I felt prepared. I could use my understanding of economics to figure out a business plan. I would use my Chinese to buy and import the pearls, and I would apply what I had learned selling jeans at a clothing store in the mall to the creation of a sales strategy. And it worked!
But this idea, this business, was never planned. I went to China to differentiate myself. I wanted to do something extraordinary. I was an unlikely candidate to be accepted into the abroad program. I was an economics major, and would receive no credit for my time abroad. But, I had so many credits from the IB courses I’d completed at North Atlanta, I could afford to substitute them for a semester of college credit.
I had no idea that going to China would lead me to the pearl markets, to find my passion. When I first set eyes on those pearls, something changed in me. They were such a precious, delicate, miracle of nature. I had to share them with everyone I knew.
If you’re not familiar with the way a pearl forms, it is pretty amazing. When a grain of sand, or any kind of irritant makes its way into an oyster, the oyster secrets what is called nacre, to coat the irritant. Over time, you have a pearl. What a metaphor for the human experience: such a special gift, born from crisis. There is an ancient Chinese Proverb that states: Crisis Equals Opportunity. Just like a pearl.
And in these chaotic economic times, I’ve had to create a lot of opportunity to keep my small business afloat. I’ve had to work really hard to boast that we were up 20% in 2009. But do you know what is the hardest thing to do? In any economy? Pass a Latin American History Exam from Mr. Yeargin.
You can’t let the obstacles (that everybody else thinks are real) get in your way. While I was in China, I spent two weeks in Tibet. I don’t speak Tibetan, and they don’t speak English, but we both spoke enough Mandarin to communicate. My time in Tibet was life changing. I was involved with a research project that would determine the current effects that the Chinese were having on Tibetan culture, and predict what would happen after the train.
A that time, the Chinese were building a train that would stretch from Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, to Beijing. Tibet is a region that for all of history has remained mostly untouched. I was one of the last people to experience Tibet before the train.
In Tibet, I traveled in an old bus, at rapid speeds, over high cliffs with one-way dirt roads, with no safety rails… are you thinking what I was thinking? That I was an unlikely candidate to survive the trip?
We traveled from Lhasa, West until we could see Mt. Everest. En route, we stopped at every city to interview monks and school children. I became close to the bus driver, Basam. Basam’s name in Tibetan was Friday-he explained to me that it was typical to name a Tibetan child after the day of the week on which they were born. He gave me a Tibetan name. He called me Samkidolma. Samkidolma is one of several goddesses of foresight. She has seven eyes: one on her forehead, two on the palms of her hands, two on the bottoms of her feet, and, of course, the regular two.
When I was thinking of a name for my business, I could not use my Chinese name, Luo Dan. Luo Dan is impossible to pronounce. I’m also pretty sure that I share the name Luo Dan with Leonardo Davinci. My Chinese teacher giving me the name Luo Dan is comparable to me telling an exchange student here in the US that he should call himself “Stephen Spielberg”.
So, I took my Tibetan name, Samkidolma, and shortened it to dolma: much easier. Unfortunately, I still have to share my company name. I found out quickly after incorporation that dolmas, in Greek, are a stuffed grape leaf-and dolma is also a Polish term for stuffed bread.
Recently, my dolma was on CNN. The most prestigious name in news highlighted my company as one of the few thriving businesses in this wretched economy. We had over 50,000 hits on our website after just 3 minutes on CNN. But who knew that CNN would replay that segment whenever there was downtime on the air? And that they would post it to their newsroom blog. And that other news stations would pick it up. My father called me one day and said that a coworker mentioned seeing him on TV-and my dad said, “Oh, right! CNN!” And the coworker said, “No, Telemundo!” And then the calls started coming in. All in Spanish. A man in Nicaragua wants to start his own dolma franchise. How perfect is it that I speak Spanish? So now, I’m importing pearls in Chinese, and exporting them in Spanish!
This unlikely candidate, with a foolish dream, is now using her education to the fullest, coupling it with her passion, and as a result, has never dreaded a Monday.
Congratulations. You all are unlikely candidates for the unbelievable things you’ll want to achieve. You don’t know where your life is going to lead you; and you don’t know how great you are going to be. My advise to you is to use your education, differentiate yourself, remember that crisis equals opportunity, and keep your eyes open wide-all 7 of them.
I’ll leave you with a familiar quote from Henry David Thoreau:
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
In one of our one-of-a-kind vintage necklaces
