My Story
If my life until now were made into a major motion picture, these would likely be the highlights:
The early years: I had a stereotypical privileged Asian upbringing. My immigrant parents were both engineers and instilled “good student” values — I earned straight A's, played violin, was good at math, graduated as valedictorian of my high school, and went to an Ivy League college.
My childhood curiosity: When I was 8, I felt a burning desire for more. I opened Yellow Pages (remember that?), called the closest art studio, and convinced my parents to take me to weekly classes...for 6 years! I came alive deep in the art world drawing, painting, and crafting. This experience was a glimpse into how much joy and satisfaction I could feel following my heart.
Caving into societal pressures: I went on to study business and engineering at UPenn, believing that left-brain intellectual pursuits were valued more than right-brain creative pursuits. This ushered in an era of various digital marketing/product management roles at Microsoft, Fab.com, DigitalOcean, and Blue Apron. In any of these roles, I cared the most about the interpersonal side of things - understanding how people thought, what motivated them, what they cared about, and how I could get everyone to work better together. But still operating as cog in a machine, I felt like I was on a train towards a comfortable, secure and safe life. That felt empty.
Jumping off the train: I made a choice to change after hitting and feeling rock bottom. I quit the corporate world completely, left an 8-year relationship, dove into a 200-hour yoga teacher training, and forayed into the world of meditation. This felt like the start of “human being” vs. “human doing” living. I re-committed to living a life I had gotten a glimpse of at age 8 with art — one that was deeply fulfilling, rich, full of joy, and most importantly, based on my own values.
Coming alive: Following my intuition, I embarked on a year-long solo backpacking trip across Asia, Africa, and Europe. I wandered through 14 countries in 15 months. My greatest gift from traveling was visceral wisdom gained from decision after decision listening to my gut or ignoring it. Anything is possible when I truly operate from this place within. Joy and fulfillment are always on the other side. I came back with a deeper confidence in my calling to the personal growth space — to help others access their own innate wisdom and come alive.
Now: The quote that resonates the most with me now: “Happiness is the joy we feel striving towards our potential” - from Shawn Anchor. My daily intention is to live in that place of “striving” every day, help individuals and teams come alive, enjoy the journey, and be fully present moment-to-moment in this gift we call life.
Quotes that Guide my Life
“Life. It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
~ E.L. Doctorow
"Happiness is the joy we feel striving towards our potential”
~ Shawn Anchor
"I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."
~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."
~ Aristotle
“The most beautiful things in the world can not be seen or touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
~ Helen Keller
"If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal -- that is your success... The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.”
~ Thoreau
