Tạ Minh Tuấn is no longer an unfamiliar name among young entrepreneurs. The former Bách Khoa student has now become founding Chairman and CEO of HELP International, a pioneer of the “Personal Doctor–Home Healthcare” model in Vietnam.
The circumstances that brought Tạ Minh Tuấn into business seem like a heaven-ordained ‘affinity,’ leading him deeper into the journey of discovering himself. Because the necessary answers to every problem lie within oneself.
1.Engineering and economics
Tạ Minh Tuấn was born into a family with a tradition of studying at Bách Khoa University. His older siblings studied there, and his parents, both teachers, also encouraged him to attend. At the time, he too thought he belonged at… Bách Khoa. Tạ Minh Tuấn shared: “Back then, the word engineer felt sacred to me and stirred my heart, so I thought that was where I belonged. After thoroughly researching admissions information, I found Industrial Systems Engineering. My intuition told me this was my profession because I realized I was a systems thinker.”
However, while studying, he missed many classes to attend to outside matters. Close to exams, he read books and applied practical knowledge to his answers. As a result, he consistently earned high marks, sometimes the highest in class, and was still elected class monitor. Earning high marks without much effort while others studied hard but scored poorly, Tuấn saw that the difference lay in methods and an unsuitable field of study. From this, he learned: With a suitable method and environment, we can apply the principle of minimal effort for maximal results.
Afterward, he stopped attending classes to seek an internship at a construction company and launch his own business. At 19, he and a friend built an event-based social network, but it failed. They then redirected the company into a Digital Marketing Agency. During this period, he had to meet investors, raise capital, and stay busy with outside business activities, so he felt some regret at not having a complete student experience. In return, he saw a broader world and tested what he had learned against reality.
2.Lasting success
After many years of entrepreneurship and business experience, Tạ Minh Tuấn has discovered and distilled insights into sustainable success. He shares: “We cannot have lasting success until we understand ourselves. Yet this can take a lifetime, because we must continually destroy the old to make room for the new and continually recombine our inner skills to create a new person.”
“However, if at the end of the path I leave something called a legacy for others, then even if my current success is not sustainable, I am moving toward sustainable success. A legacy passes to others to continue. Nothing lasts forever; everything arises, ceases, and reappears in another form, in another space and time, carried out by others. That is impermanence, and also my philosophy of sustainable success.” – Tuấn added candidly.
Asked whether there is a right or wrong in each person's choices, Tạ Minh Tuấn believes that even when we open the wrong door, if somehow we keep believing and committing ourselves, it will lead us to the right door. Many young people today like Marketing but study finance-related subjects. After graduating, they take short courses and read Marketing books, then systematize and distill that knowledge into practical principles. Combining it with their financial expertise and recombining existing skills with new knowledge, they acquire “Quantitative Marketing” skills. That is a strength, because Marketing can easily become fanciful, while investors and business owners always need a “Return on Investment.”
According to Tạ Minh Tuấn: Even if what we do is not yet suitable, continuing to commit will always reveal a path toward what is. Choices may be right or wrong, but we must try; if wrong, correct them to become right. However, a wrong choice wastes time. Imagine a student wasting 4 university years; with 1 million students doing the same, the loss to society is enormous. Yet he also reassured students: “Life is long and choices remain plentiful. You can always find ways to repair your life. Do not regret the past; live fully in the present.”
3.The answers needed for everything are within
When asked, “Should today's graduates become employees or start businesses?”, Tuấn believes the particular job does not matter; what matters is doing something you are passionate about and good at, that meets social needs, complies with law and ethics, and creates maximum value. From there, you can identify what you want to do.
Young people today face a crisis of faith and values. In the marketplace there is unsafe food, rice that may be bleached, phở treated with chemicals, fruit injected with ripening agents… Many people deceive one another for profit. Those who suffer are young people, the generation inheriting the country. When bad causes are sown, the results cannot be good. Today's youth face a crisis of values, unable to direct their lives, unsure what they live for or ‘why they came to Earth,’ unaware of their dreams, strengths, or life goals.
This world is sharply polarized. On one side are the poor: more than 1 billion people exist on no more than 1 dollar a day, which is no recipe for peace. On the other are the rich, overwhelmed by material abundance and separated from their true selves by material values, then blinded by illusory values. Many young people think material things govern everything. According to Tạ Minh Tuấn, young people need to seek more answers “from within.”
All lasting success comes from within. The answers needed for every problem are inside, not outside. All great people do one thing well: understand themselves. It is a battle to eliminate the falseness hidden within human beings. There are many ways to go inward, such as Meditation or spiritual practice, because every religion's goal is to unite, liberate, and bring love and freedom to people. “Carry out 1 spiritual revolution; go deeply within and explore the ‘most primordial’ part of being human. When we reach that most primordial part, we can create a different person while still being ourselves,” Minh Tuấn shared.
An interview with the Young Vietnamese Ambassador
Reporter: Trương Bá Anh Tú
