Being Vince Mao

I’ve been around on this planet for almost 43 years now.

Turns out, I have a knack for connecting the dots across lots of different areas and seeing commonalities among them. I find that this is the foundation of my “superpower”; the thing that I possess more of than most. I don’t say this lightly, as talking about myself has always made me cringe inwardly. I don’t like to do it all that often…it feels condescending and self-serving in a way.

It’s probably why I hate the term “marketing” so much.

However, I realize now that getting anywhere in life in a meaningful, impactful, and effective way that creates a ripple in society means you need at least the knowledge. Promotion, psychology, and persuasion are the “soft skills” that technically-minded individuals have little regard for.

It’s an oversight that keeps people like us in the background.

Over the last few years, I’ve written to explore what identity entails. I’ve written hundreds of articles about how to discover what makes you tick, why you believe the things you believe. With each piece, I became more and more aware of the dangers of allowing external influences to take control of the narrative before you have enough maturity to grasp nuance and detail.

Technology is making more choices for you than you realize.

But I get ahead of myself. What I want to share right now is how I came to this revelation.

A Well-Rounded Childhood

In many ways, I grew up in the spotlight and on a stage.

When I wasn’t studying or playing video games, I was practicing some type of performance-based discipline. From the age of five, I started practicing martial arts and music. I was exposed to a number of sports as well from soccer to baseball to hockey. They didn’t take, as games weren’t nearly as fun as working towards recitals or tournaments to me.

But they did instill within me a sense of importance when it came to physical fitness.

It wasn’t a humiliating incident in gym class that I fully committed to honing myself in that area, though. I will never forget how I struggled to do a pull up in front of the entire class, to the point where I even tried to use the teacher as a footstool to pull myself up. Sure, I was good at math and spelling and drawing, but I was next to useless beyond that.

That was the lowest point of my elementary school career. It was also the beginning of the foundational mindset that drives me today.

For me, being onstage in some capacity was my solution to this mantra. If there was an opportunity to work towards a big performance or showcase, I was willing to do whatever it took to ensure a successful outcome. From pillow dances to piano recitals to orchestral performances, I became accustomed to the process of rehearsing choreography, practicing technique, and being a part of something greater.

By the time I graduated high school, I had cultivated a number of extracurricular skills centered around music and martial arts. These two disciplines became the catalysts for self-expression that would shape my college career as well as my young professional life.

An Artistic Mindset

Upon starting my near-decade long stint at Duke University, I continued to practice Tai Chi, placed my piano and violin practice behind me, and picked up dancing.

It didn’t take long for others to notice that I could move to a beat, albeit in a way that was raw and untamed. One of my friends encouraged me to try out for a new team that was sorely in need of guys with martial arts experience. The next thing I knew, I was choreographing and auditioning for a spot.

I made it.

Not only that, but I became the longest standing member of the team in its history. I served eight consecutive years from my sophomore year until I graduated for the third, and final, time with a Ph.D. in computer engineering.

I also took a theater class during the summertime and volunteered at the local theater as a backstage assistant. I had no idea that this, combined with my other artistic experiences, would pave the way for my young professional life.

As a newly-minted tenure track professor at South Carolina State University, I moonlighted as an actor and fight choreographer at the local children’s theater. This became the gateway to leveraging my background in music, dance, and martial arts. It also improved my stage presence, my confidence in front large audiences, and my ability to handle stress.

As a result, I expanded my dance experience from solo to partner styles. I started learning Lindy Hop, Swing, and the Charleston. I channeled my martial arts skills in hand-to-hand combat to listening and communicating physically with my dance partner. Eventually, I became proficient enough to have women requesting dances rather than the other way around. I even competed up and down the East Coast.

I met my wife on the dance floor.

So now what?

My technical background and education provide me a means to make a living, but it’s my passion for versatility in the arts that energizes my life.

I’m not searching for truth or meaning. I embody it. The only problem was that I didn’t have a way to fully express it to others. I wanted to make sure that I could pass on hard-earned lessons in a way that only I could. Throughout my life, I had been told repeatedly that I had a knack for teaching.

From how to develop a strong vibrato to breaking boards to computer memory design, musicians, martial artists, and engineers sought me out to explain things. It wasn’t necessarily that I was the most knowledgeable. It was my habit of using analogies, finding common elements among subjects, and connecting them in an amusing way that made sense that stood out.

As I’m now a family man with two boys, two dogs, and four cats, I’m a test engineer by day and a pet and kid resort manager by night. When all is quiet and my family is asleep, that’s when I have time to do something creative.

That’s why I began writing and learning content creation.

I write because I want to share what I’ve learned over the past few decades. I write because I want to harness all skills I’ve curated throughout my life, the ideas I stumble across, and the discoveries that I continue to make. I write because someday, I want my children to see that their father wasn’t just a half-crazed lunatic who sang pop songs and made pancakes.

And yes, I write because I think I might have something to say that’s worth a buck or two.

It’s not easy, but striving to be a Renaissance Man, a knowledge theorist, creating a digital heirloom rooted in identity—to leave a mark only I can make—is why I’m here.