An old man once asked me, "where are your MEDALS and trophies?" I said, "my parents set up a room in the house as an honor room and put all my MEDALS, trophies and awards there." He told me, "you should put it away because it's all gone."
From that moment on, I've been thinking about that. Because as an athlete, transition is difficult. When I was about to retire, I was thinking about whether I would continue to coach or go to society. If not, what would I do? Can I compete with others? I don't think I can compete with anyone else. So at that time, I decided to go to study, so as to improve myself better, so I chose tsinghua university.
When I first entered tsinghua university, I felt inferior. When I was in my first class, I told the teacher quite frankly, "I can't come up with big classes, especially English courses." The teacher asks me: "your English what level?" I said, "zero." He said, "try writing 26 letters first." So, I didn't write all 26 of them.
At the time of reading at tsinghua, President samaranch appointed me as a member of the ioc athletes' committee. The first time I went to a meeting, it was so exciting! Because all the members can speak English or French, only I carry the translation. When I'm talking about problems, because I need to translate, I'm always slower than others. This meeting has greatly stimulated me, and I should have taken the English first!
In 1998, the international Olympic committee met in Portugal and I will speak at the meeting. It took me a month to practice a speech in English that lasted no more than five minutes. The meeting was presided over by samaranch, who thought I would ask for an interpreter, and I spoke English as soon as I spoke. After I finished my speech, he said, "deng has been studying English for three months and can have a speech like today. We should all applaud her!"
With a bachelor's degree from tsinghua university, I went to the university of Nottingham to study for a master's degree. At that time, confidence came, and I hoped to study for a doctorate in Cambridge. But the idea was that everyone around me -- my family, my friends, my teachers, including samaranch -- objected, saying that you shouldn't read it. Why is that? They thought: "you are so famous that if you can't read it, how ugly it is!" But I still insist.
Today, I have become the CEO of an Internet company. I believe that in the course of life, we should constantly improve ourselves and be brave enough to return life to zero. Start from scratch, maintain a spirit of courage and striving upward.