Getting Ahead in School and Life with a Growth Mindset

On September 28th, Harmony Plus continued our Monday Series talk show. For our fifteenth episode, we interviewed Amr Mohsen. He has 40+ years of experience in the semiconductor industry and hi-tech industries with 30+ patents. Founder of multiple companies like Ascent Consulting Corp, Apix Corp., Amr also has a Ph.D of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics from California Institute of Technology.

The Journey of Amr Mohsen

His dreams and ambition towards business started when he was in high school. By looking around the country at that time he realized the need to start up a business to satisfy needs and the opportunities that awaited him. Amr had a desire to help the community by addressing the needs people had.

Through every successful journey, there are always failures. Amr reiterated this point when he talked about the lack of experience and failures he faced when he first started. He explained that failure can set you up for success and shape your career. At the early stage of Amr’s career, which started as he was in boarding school, he was curious about entrepreneurship and eager to build things. The support from the others was very important and motivated him to pursue his goals.

“ Being open-minded and finding out the problems and the need for solutions to those problems was the key in me making several companies to fully research and develop products to give great effective solutions to those problems that the community faced. It really kept me going. The feeling of helping your community and making an impact on many lives was like no other.”

When asked how he was able to successfully build up these companies and how he knew they were going to work well, Amr pointed out the importance of really being open to change and keeping an open mind. Digging deep into this, we can also realize how important spending time with the customers is as well. By spending more time with your target audience you get a sense and a perspective from the user. This is one of the most crucial steps because rushing into creating a product without being sure it will work will set you up for failure and is a big reason why most startups fail.

Amr then went into describing two experiences from his past in which he failed. When he was very young around the time when radios were coming onto the market, a radio was too expensive for people. Amr wanted to make a model where people can use a portable version easy to purchase. He followed through with it and made the product. However, when he gave it to his customers, they came back and said it didn’t work. He kept trying again and again and it kept failing. In his community, people just told him to give up because he was failing. But Amr was determined and persistent. With countless weeks and months of continuous work, he finally built a product that worked and he was able to help his community by giving them a product for a much cheaper price. The key takeaway is to keep working and never give up. Nothing is impossible in life and once you believe that you can succeed.

Two qualities that Amr really finds in people that really make them succeed in life are curiosity and passion. No matter how low you can get in life, the passion and the ability to work hard will help you grow. These are qualities more important than how smart you are. If you’re smart but you’re lazy and not passionate about anything and you don’t have the drive to do anything then all that skill will go to waste. So you have to find your passion and goals and work as hard as you can until you reach it. Never stop. You can be successful at any time in your life and you should never stop trying, there is no full stop to success, only commas.

If you want to learn more about Amr’s experiences, please check out the full episode here.