{"id":2076,"date":"2019-01-21T18:39:04","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T18:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2076"},"modified":"2019-01-21T19:55:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T19:55:51","slug":"mogul-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2076","title":{"rendered":"Mogul in the making"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em><strong>Kae-Shanae Virgo: award-winning writer, entrepreneur<\/strong><\/em><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>Michael Nattoo<\/strong> &#8211; Staff Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Eighteen-year-old Montego Bay High School Sixth Form\nstudent, Kae-Shanae Virgo, wants to be a millionaire by age 24. For most\n24-year-olds, this is but a pipedream, but for the unusually driven Virgo, it\u2019s\njust another milestone to check off on her collision course with success. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Already, Kae-Shanae is a potent entrepreneur, having already\npursued a number of successful business ventures; a scholar of the highest\norder \u2013 already securing a full scholarship to the University of the West\nIndies, and a classic, yet humble, overachiever, as she was among three\nJamaicans to be awarded by the Caribbean Examination Council for the best short\nstory in the May\/June 2018 iteration of the regional exam. Safe to say, Virgo\nis a Superwoman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>NEVER SETTLE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI want the best for myself always, so even if I\u2019m not\nconsciously aware of it, I\u2019m sort of always bullying myself into doing my\nbest,\u201d explained the aspiring journalist and entrepreneur. Of the prestigious\nregional award she received for her piece, \u2018Betrayal\u2019, Virgo revealed that the\nconstant pressure she places on herself to succeed, made it almost impossible\nto believe that her writing was good enough to be recognized in such a huge way.\n\u201cI\u2019ve always been told that I was good at it [writing], but I guess sometimes,\nmy expectations for myself cause me to doubt my abilities. I felt whatever I\nwrote wasn\u2019t as good as I wanted it to be, so even though I did it, I didn\u2019t\nthink it was as great as everyone else thought it was.\u201d Not what you\u2019d expect\nfrom someone constantly toppling the odds, but we later learnt that for Virgo,\nthis was all part of an unexplainable desire to steer clear of anything\nmediocre, and of anything that remotely resembled complacency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was further made evident when Virgo was asked whether\nthe award served as validation for her abilities. \u201cYes and no. Yes, because to\nbe selected as the best out of thousands who sat the exam means I\u2019m obviously\ngood at what I do. But no, because even though I won, that didn\u2019t ease the\npressure that I put on myself when it comes to my writing.\u201d Virgo continued:\n\u201cI\u2019m not satisfied with what others would consider \u2018good\u2019, and I guess that\u2019s a\npersonal thing. I don\u2019t want to be good, I want to be great, so I\u2019m never\nsatisfied.\u201d While grateful for the confidence others show in her skills, Virgo\nmade sure to point out that if she\u2019s ultimately not satisfied with her work,\neven if it is well-intentioned, what others say won\u2019t matter much to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>VICTORY TRAVELS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As with most things, however, there was an exception to\nVirgo\u2019s refusal to buy into anyone else\u2019s opinion about her skills, good or\nbad. That exception came in the form of her teacher, Ms. Simms, who, even\nbefore she sat the exam, hammered it into her subconscious that she was going\nto win the award. \u201cI didn\u2019t know about the award, and I didn\u2019t care that much\nto be honest, but once I got in the exam room, it was hard not to hear my\nteacher\u2019s voice in the back of my head telling me I could do it, that I could\nwin the award. So, I just wrote,\u201d she explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following the exam, however, Kae-Shanae felt she blew\nwhatever chance she had at being considered for the award. \u201cI hated the story I\nwrote,\u201d she revealed. After her friends left the exam room all talking about\ntheir stories, Kae-Shanae refused to talk about hers. She was not proud of her\nwork, and as quickly as she could, she wanted to put the exam behind her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That was not to be, as not long after, what she regarded as\na less-than-deal type of work on her part, proved to be the one thing that\nwould catapult her onto the regional stage, and under the national spotlight.\nKae-Shanae\u2019s story wowed the examination council. As for her, the news\ncompletely knocked the wind out of her. \u201cI just started crying when I heard. I\ndidn\u2019t think it would happen. I didn\u2019t get time to look over my story, so I was\nsurprised. When I told my teacher, she ran out of the classroom she was\nteaching and started crying too. I then called my father. I don\u2019t know how he reached\nup my school that quickly, but he did, and I\u2019m pretty sure he told everyone in\nthe world that I won the award.\u201d So much for her unusual process of turning\nself-doubt into motivational energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Virgo now has her sights set on the future, and having reaped\nsuccess last Christmas with her cake-baking business, a partnership between\nherself and her father, Doyle Virgo, and with her mother, Andrea Hayles,\nsupporting her all the way, the sky is but the floor of Kae-Shanae\u2019s seemingly\nlimitless potential. Kae-Shanae will complete her studies in Liberal Studies at\nthe University of the West Indies, and no doubt, that will only signal the\nbeginning of her rise to prominence as one of the brilliant business minds from\nthe West. Winning the Best Short Story in the region was only the beginning of\nthat. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Virgo now has her sights set on the future, and having reaped success last Christmas with her cake-baking business, a partnership between herself and her father, Doyle Virgo, and with her mother, Andrea Hayles, supporting her all the way, the sky is but the floor of Kae-Shanae\u2019s seemingly limitless potential<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1077,1078,1079,908,1075,1076,842,1074,26,196,264],"class_list":["post-2076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-caribbean-examination-council","tag-english","tag-english-a","tag-entrepreneur","tag-kae-shanae-virgo","tag-milestones","tag-millennial","tag-montego-bay-high-school","tag-success","tag-university-of-the-west-indies","tag-western-mirror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2076"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2084,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions\/2084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}