CHINA – A ‘Life List’ Experience to beat them all

I have a long Life List of goals, experiences and opportunities I want to explore while I am still young enough to live them. I have rejected the idea of having a Bucket List – because that is a list off things people generally want to experience before they die. I don’t want to wait that long to start living. I want to start living right now. Because life is too short to put your dreams off until later. I have 4 simple rules for what goals make it on to my Life List – it must be at least one (and preferably more than one) of the following:

1. Glorious: It must be joyful, exciting, purely audacious or give me the warm glow of having achieved something truly spectacular.
2. Challenging: It must challenge me physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually.
3. Outside my comfort zone: It must have the squirm factor – this is different to being ‘challenging’ because some goals that I might find challenging (such as climbing a mountain) don’t make me squirm at the thought of doing them (such as speed dating).
4. New: It must be something I have never experienced before.

This is how I want to spend the rest of my life. Anything and everything is up for grabs. And the amazing thing is that when you start living life like this, with a dash of audaciousness, opportunities arise and doors open that were not even on your Life List – not in your wildest dreams. For example, you will never guess where I spent the last few weeks…

At the invitation of The Australian Embassy in China, I have just returned from a 2 week, 4 city speaking and book tour and program of public diplomacy activities centred around my book – ‘The Life List‘. I spoke at and attended over 30 events. It was an incredible privilege, an absolute honour, and a genuine life changing experience.

I was the Keynote speaker at Australian Consulate events across Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shanghai and Beijing, where I shared my keynote ‘How To Change Your Life in 90 Seconds‘. I met with the Australian Ambassador to China, His Excellency Mr Scott Dewar and Australian Consul Generals Meaghan Shaw, John Williams, and Timothy Kendall.

I gave the International Women’s Day Keynote address at the InterChamber event with Australian, American, Hong Kong and British chambers of commerce on my personal insights into ’Empowerment, Progress and Resilience’ – again lending on key messages from ‘The Life List’.

I had the privilege of speaking to Australian University alumni students and sharing ‘The Life List’ messages with a younger generation, as well as speaking at AusCham events where I met with Australian business leaders based in China.

I was invited to share my time management expertise at events for diplomatic staff from Australia, the United Kingdom, America, Greece, Canada, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Greece along with alumni and Chinese business leaders.

As a writer, I was particularly honoured (and a little emotional) to be asked to sign and donate copies of ‘The Life List’ and the Mandarin translation of my book – ‘More Than One Choice in Life’ – at formal ceremonies at The National Library of China in Beijing and the Library of Shanghai. An absolute life highlight for me.

I got to see the pandas at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding – and spent a solid hour watching mesmerised as two panda cubs wrestled around their mama bear as she quietly and with enormous focus chowed down on bamboo. I found ‘Gong Zai’ the 17 year old male panda who is the prototype for the design of ‘Po’ from the movie Kung Fu Panda (it was like coming face to face with Jack Black). I decided not to see ‘He Hua’ who is such a famous panda that she is considered an ‘influencer’, because the queue was way too long and I was just excited to see ‘any’ panda.

I spent a morning hiking Great Wall of China – a massive dream for me as a mum who literally forced my children to watch Mulan at least 10,000 times. The weather was gloomy and there was snow on the ground, both of which were a huge blessing as it meant we were the only people there (an absolute rarity for the Great Wall which receives 10 million visitors a year). As I hiked the wall with my 2 companions I simply could not resist singing ‘A Girl Worth Fighting For’ (other Mulan aficionados will get the reference…and when in Rome, after all…).

I continued my quest of taking a swim in every country I visit, and took a dip in the Liangma River in Beijing – after roping in a group of women from the Australian Embassy to join me. Tick.

At the People’s Park in Chengdu I visited the dating wall where laminated dating profiles in pink (for women) and blue (for men) are displayed. Think Tinder in the park. My host translated some of the profiles for me – ‘Male 30 seeking woman no older than 25. Must have own home and car and job and no children. Must not be fat’…’Female 35 seeking husband no older than 45, Ok if you have previous children, must have own home, car, job etc etc.’ At first I was shocked by the bluntness of the advertisements, until my host explained that the profiles are not, in fact, placed in the park by those seeking a husband or wife, but by their grandparents who are seeking to find a match for their otherwise completely unaware grandchildren who may or may not actually be looking for a partner.

I rode a bike through the traffic in Beijing – a breathtaking experience (where my host from the Embassy called out to her colleague as she wove through the traffic – ‘Don’t kill Kate!’), visited the famous Pearl Market where I went a little crazy over jewellery and bags, ate magnificent food, walked the cities and meet wonderful people.

When I wrote ‘The Life List’, I never in a million years imagined that this book would lead me to China. That the goal I set of supporting women worldwide to plan for and realise their goals and to design and live a life they love would lead to a Chinese student passing a copy of ‘The Life List’ to a renowned academic and expert on women’s leadership and empowerment in China – Tracy Gan. That Tracy would then embark on a mission to translate my book and secure a publishing deal with China’s biggest publisher, CITIC press. That my post on LinkedIn sharing the cover of the Mandarin translation of The Life List – ‘More Than One Choice in Life’ – would catch the attention of an Australian Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner to China. That her interest in my work would lead to an invitation to China and the opportunity of a life time.

Life is too short – so short that we need to design and live a life we love; to be courageous enough to start doing the things we want to do while we are still young enough to enjoy them; to be strategic enough to manage our time to ensure we focus on investing in our futures today; to be audacious enough to call the shots on the type of life we want to live; and to open new doors to create life changing experiences.

China met all 4 of my Life List Rules and more.

Written by Kate Christie.
Have you read?
The World’s Best Medical Schools.
The World’s Best Universities.
The World’s Best International High Schools.
The World’s Best Business Schools.
The World’s Best Fashion Schools.
The World’s Best Hospitality And Hotel Management Schools.