Choose Your Fellow: Andrew Nguyen
Meet Andrew Nguyen, 2022 VFC and RBC Fellow. He is the founder and owner of KOZU, a family-owned virtual cloud kitchen that aims to bring a creative spin on the sushi flavours you love for take-out.
What does being a lifelong learner mean to you?
To me, a lifelong learner is someone who’s genuinely curious about the people that are around them. I’ve grown up being curious about so many different things…I will always picture myself as the little boy asking his parents questions that they couldn’t answer.
I love learning from other people and from shared experiences – that, for me, was very critical during my time at VFC Training Camp. I was so curious about every single Fellow who was there. I was inspired by different projects that they have been working on, or even their different walks of life because everyone has their own story and everyone has their own race to run.
Lifelong learning can take forms in many different ways, and for me, it’s through other people.
What are things that you engage with to keep you inspired and motivated?
Online content has been a great place for me to learn. During the pandemic, Tiktok was where I learned the most, and all of that learning compounds over time. As I said, I do learn a lot from other people and from shared experiences, so being able to engage myself in people’s stories has been a great resource for me.
Another great learning hack is to lean onto mentorship. Actually, one of my biggest goals this year was to have a coffee with someone new every single week for this year in order to extend my network. So lean into your circle, be curious, and reach out to people. I lean into industry professionals and learn from their experiences, and then I pay it forward by mentoring other students.
Community is an asset – people bring something to the table, and you’re consistently learning from others.
What is one piece of advice you would leave for someone trying to become a lifelong learner?
Lean onto the curiosity that all children have. I think all of us are built to be curious; we’re all trying to learn about the world.
I would also really recommend building the muscle of seeking discomfort. The greatest things in life lay outside your comfort zone. You want to get used to being okay with being uncomfortable. For me, that’s where learning comes from the most. I consistently try to choose the more uncomfortable path, the decision that scares me the most, or something that makes me feel like I’m expanding. I see challenges, failures, or uncomfortable situations as opportunities to learn and grow.
So, explore and lean in your own curiosities, and keep testing those boundaries of your comfort zone.
How do lifelong learners thrive in entrepreneurship?
Entrepreneurs are always learning. There’s never an entrepreneur who feels like they know everything. A lot of people believe that entrepreneurs have it together, but sometimes we don’t know what we’re doing that’s okay. Uncertainty and discomfort get us far because we’re testing things.
Entrepreneurship is making something certain out of something uncertain. Especially in startups with small teams and low funding, you learn how you can make use of your resources. Learning helps you connect the dots, and I think that’s what being entrepreneurial is – being able to find what’s missing in the market, and being able to think outside of the box.
Being entrepreneurial is when you can create ideas out of the things that you’re learning.
