I thought my life would be trapped in the same four walls every single day. From the hours of traffic with the same cup of black coffee at my wooden desk under the dimly lit fluorescent lights in Silicon Valley… to hanging off thousand-foot cliffs with ocean blue waves crashing all around me… life’s been a trip.
I’d like to share with you a story about how I went from being an awkward Asian kid to a mind-numbing 9-5 job to becoming the founder of a 7-figure company in a span of 3 years while traveling the world full time.
Growing up in an Asian household, I had four choices that were put in front of me: become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or get a stable corporate gig that would comfortably pay the bills for the rest of my life. There was no entrepreneurship. There were no chasing passions. There was no taking risks. There was no doing things that “make you happy.” To be honest, throughout my childhood I was taught to remain within the status quo.
I’m sure many of you can agree with me, but most Asians grow up with the forced plan to do whatever their family wants. Add in cultural norms and societal expectations, most of us had a one-way ticket to the life of no return. What I mean is that I see too many people go through life doing things that they hate. They go to school, work every single day for the rest of their lives, with the hope of being able to retire to enjoy what’s even left.
For me, I want to enjoy my entire life before life happens to me. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against those who are happy with where they’re at.
And really at the end of the day, it’s all about designing a life that you’re truly happy about. But I implore you to explore different paths. If you’re reading this, you might be at that point in your life where you’re looking for something new.
Since I started my entrepreneurial journey, I made it a mission to help people break their chains and help them recognize their passions and all the opportunities in the world. I feel like I’m at a point in my life where sharing my experiences, struggles, and accomplishments could genuinely help someone once in my position. As I get older, I start to realize that the one thing everybody is chasing after is freedom in every aspect possible. As corny as it sounds, it wasn’t until the last few years when I fully understood the possibilities of what you can do if you put your mind to it. At 26 years old, I still have a lot to learn, but I hope my journey so far inspires you to start believing in yourself and finally chase the life you want.
The best part? It feels like we’re just getting started.
Rock music, skateboarding, long dyed hair, playing the electric guitar, overly tight skinny jeans, posters plastered all over my wall (yay for the early 2000s)… all signs of a weird rebellious kid who was “lost.“ Growing up as an introverted Asian kid, you were taught to conform. Show any sign of misbehaving and rebellion and you had a broomstick or belt whacked across your tender skin.
Call it a higher sense, or just fate slowly hinting at me... I wasn’t sure why at this point, but I didn’t like fitting in. I wanted to be different. I found my comfort in being “different.”
It’s weird… it wasn’t like I wanted to. It just felt like I wasn’t interested in the same things as the people around me. I went through the motions of school and everything my parents expected of me, but everything just felt so dull growing up.
I’d find excitement in hobbies that were a bit more, “exciting.” Skateboarding, going to heavy metal concerts, learning photography, going ghost hunting, and even joining bands and performing all over my hometown... Doing the things that caused others to label me as an “outcast.”
As I grew up, one of those hobbies was developing a business savvy mindset.
I didn’t know what it was called at the time, but the action and feeling of being able to make money always excited the living crap out of me.
I hosted frequent garage sales.
I bought candy in bulk at Costco and Daiso to sell at school.
I imported fake shoes from China (back before Alibaba was cool) and flipped them.
I hustled Yu-Gi-Oh cards.
I borrowed my dad’s credit card so that I could have an eBay account to sell stuff around the house.
And here’s a crazy one… my family is Vietnamese (so you know they love to drink). So I would mix drinks at family parties and sell them to my aunts and uncles. Seriously.
Then it got a bit more serious. I started my first clothing brand when I was 16 called, “Create and Destroy.” I would order them in bulk from sites like Customink, then take orders on a clipboard and sell them out of boxes during lunch. I then discovered the platform Big Cartel and started selling my merch online. Borrowing my dad's financial info (you can’t have a PayPal account unless you’re over 18), I started to scale up my online shop through word of mouth around nearby high schools.
That next year, I just made my first $10,000 as a teenager. Could you imagine if I knew Facebook Ads at that time?
Wow, a commuter school really freaking sucks…
In my 2011 souped up Honda Accord, I was struggling for parking every day (at least an hour each time) in the tiny parking complexes just to attend hour-long classes…
“Wait Danny… What happened to all the money you made from your mini ventures?”
Yeah… Like any morally responsible Asian kid, I blew it all on this car that depreciates tenfold every year. It was slow as sh*t… So low I couldn’t even drive into shopping plazas. But hey, at least it looked cool right?
I guess I’ll major in… Entrepreneurship?
5 minutes… That’s all the time you have to book your classes when they announce your dedicated time. If you don’t land the class you NEED to graduate, game over. Good luck trying to add that class the day of unless you’re a 5th year graduating senior with a sob story.
I had absolutely NO freaking clue what I wanted to do with my life. And that’s the thing, most people around this time think they need to have it figured out. After everything I’ve been through and “successes” I’ve accomplished, truth be told… I still have no idea what I’m doing. So if you’re stressing over it… just RELAX. Here’s a secret I truthfully (and painfully) learned after all these years…
What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be.
Anyway, when I declared this major, I expected to learn all the business knowledge I needed to finally start my own business.
Boy was I disappointed.
After interviewing hundreds of successful entrepreneurs and going through the motions of college myself, I can safely come to the conclusion that if you want to build a successful business, what they teach you in school is not even remotely close to what you need in order to succeed in today’s world.
Business is constantly changing. Marketing and strategies will be different. The digital landscape changes quicker than you can blink. There is nothing in text books that can fully prepare you for the real world. Not to mention it takes YEARS for anything to be published… so anything you learn will be outdated by the time it hits the classroom.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against the education system whatsoever. Some of the most successful people came from great schools. Certain industries require you to have specific degrees to dive into.
So I’m speaking strictly towards the ones who have the entrepreneurial spirit in them and need to pursue something greater for any sense of happiness. School provides a great foundation. It teaches you a lot of the fundamentals and basics.
HOWEVER... You need to take it upon yourself to invest into outside learning. How you spend your time in college (should you decide to go) will depict how the next few years of your life will play out. Courses. Mentorships. Internships. Masterminds. Networking. Whatever you can do to get REAL WORLD experiences. I can’t stress that enough.
Everything happens for a reason...
Being that life has a funny way of listening to your deepest desires, one of my friends had mentioned that studying abroad was one of the best experiences they’ve had in their life. I wanted to make college something I would remember… so I applied to multiple summer study abroad programs that SJSU offered.
The one that stuck out to me the most was an opportunity at the European Innovation Academy (EIA) in France. And out of a small group of 30, I was one of the lucky acceptances.
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In short, EIA is the world's leading entrepreneurship program that helps turn ideas into startups. Being from Silicon Valley, I was always intrigued with the high-tech startup scene. This is where the biggest spark in my love for building businesses happened. In a matter of weeks, we had to form multidisciplinary teams and create a fully functional mobile application.
With a team of four, we launched a product (mobile application) to the market in record time and had the opportunity to pitch in front of major investors from around the world.
To this day, the weeks spent in France was one of the most stressful, yet rewarding things I ever faced. The entire experience was that pivotal turning point in my life that crafted my mindset to want something bigger and more impactful.
This was also my FIRST time I was ever abroad, so I had to take advantage of it all. With some of the people in my team, I started to get a taste of what it meant to travel the world.
During the weekends of downtime, I explored beautiful countries of Spain, Italy and Monaco. New foods, new cultures, new people, new environments, new experiences, a new life from what I had always known.
My worldview was flipped a complete 180. The seed was planted and I was obsessed. Like all great things, my time in Europe came to an end and I went back to my normal everyday life.
Thanks Professor! Of course I’ll work for the company you invested in!
A bright colorful flyer on the dirty cork board in the smelly hallways of the school’s business building… A headline captured my eye.
“Internships with cool startups and venture capital firms!”
After my experience with EIA, I made it a mission to get more into business. I didn’t really didn’t know what the next steps were. I knew I needed real world experience and a bigger network. I rarely knew anybody at the time. So I thought this could be my huge breakthrough in getting that “experience” that every soon-to-be college graduate was looking for. When I came back, I had one final year before I graduated as a 5th year senior (no shame).
So I applied. Turns out this would be an invite-only class with a maximum of about 15 people in the cohort. And everyone who gets in the program would be paired with a start-up company for an internship. Guaranteed.
Luckily for me, I had a tiny sliver of talking points (due to the EIA program the previous summer) so the interview was a breeze.
I was accepted. Holy crap.
So here’s the crazy thing, turns out my professor, Steve, was a huge angel investor in Silicon Valley with his hands in dozens of successful companies. To this day, I cannot thank him enough for that experience...
A few weeks later, I landed my very first marketing internship at a Financial Technology startup in Santa Clara, CA with the role to work directly with the CEO.
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I finished my last year and graduated with a B.S. degree in Business Administration, concentration in Entrepreneurship and minor in Global Leadership & Innovation (to this day, I’m still not sure what that minor is good for… but hey, going through as many motions as possible is a good thing remember?).
Again, my parents wanted me to end up with a “prestigious” career like a doctor, engineer, or lawyer. I didn’t see an inkling of interest in those fields so they were just glad to see me graduate with a business degree. In their minds, it was at least SOMETHING as it would probably lead to stable corporate 9-5 jobs.
The only thing I had going for me at the time was my internship. So I figured I would just do my best and learn as much as I can for the time being.
I just want to point out that at this stage in my life after “The Big Day,” I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do or what I was passionate about. For anyone that resonates with this, just understand that you don’t have to have it all figured out. It’s ok to change paths in the middle of everything. It’s ok to change your mind. It’s ok to taste multiple things. What’s important is that you go through all the motions to figure out what you like and don’t.
Clock in, Clock out. Paycheck in, Paycheck out.
8AM alarm clocks buzzing Monday through Friday. Cars and trucks honking for miles on the freeway. Papers shuffling and keyboards clicking around me. The same coffee smell every morning. Was this really it?
After an intense hardworking year with the company, I got promoted to a full time position of Head of Marketing and Business Development.
I was busting my butt off every single day… always going above and beyond… taking my work home… doing ‘outside of work’ FOR work.
I had what you would call a typical 9-5 working 60 grueling hours a week.
At first I loved it. I realized I was super passionate about marketing. I couldn’t get over the fact that I could understand the underlying principles of what makes people excited about a product and most importantly, what makes people buy.
I fell in LOVE with paid advertising and went on to help the company raise their $5M Series A round during my two years there.
Who remembers the SWYP Card (all-in-one electronic credit card) product? Yep, that was me!
Eventually, my job got dull. I started dreading going to work everyday. I would give countless excuses on why I couldn’t come in. The daily bland lunches and happy hours all felt the same. My work efforts dwindled day by day. The passion was no longer there and everyone felt it.
I no longer had that spark… The same one I got when I attended The European Innovation Academy… When I was traveling the world… When I was experiencing something new everyday… The same burning fire I had throughout all of my ventures as a young kid.
I wanted out.
Passion is energy. You can feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you…
“They probably have rich parents… It’s the only possible way.”
It’s 8pm… Another late work day sitting in my stiff office chair that could barely recline as I leaned back. I’m mindlessly scrolling through Instagram’s explore page and I start to see images that catch my eye.
People my age were traveling the world full time and supposedly “working from anywhere.” They called themselves “digital nomads.”
It smelt like the biggest pile of BS in the world. (Looking back at it now, I genuinely understand why people are so skeptical with these opportunities but we’ll touch on that later). There’s absolutely no way that was possible... Right?
Life was about going to school, getting a good degree, and a stable career that comfortably pays the bills.
Or that’s what everybody tells you to do. How in the world could that lifestyle even be possible?
After that day, those images wouldn’t leave me alone. If you understand social media algorithms, they will start to show you things based on your interests and behaviors. Meaning… if you keep on looking at specific types of posts, that’s what your newsfeed will be bombarded with. So I started to see more and more travel photos.
Seeing everybody travel the world every day as I’m working in the same four gray walls started to affect my mental health. I was more than depressed. I felt stuck. Cornered into a place in my life that I couldn’t escape from.
What came next changed everything.
“I don’t know how to say this… But you’re all fired tomorrow.”
“Everybody, we have an emergency meeting today. Drop everything you’re doing and come into the conference room.”
That was a weird first… Meetings at our company were usually planned days in advance. So we knew something was up.
Without beating around the bush (and one of the main reasons why I respected my CEO so much and still keep in touch), he stated that the lead investor pulled out and they weren’t able to secure their next round of funding. The company had absolutely no more cash to maintain operations, pay employees, or even look for other solutions. That Series B round was the last THING to help keep the company afloat.
Everybody was fired in a day. No warning. No severance package. Nothing. Just a box to collect our belongings and tears. I didn’t know we had to sign a paper to acknowledge that we just got fired. That was brutal.
Wait… Am I really ready to start my own business?
Big dreams. Big goals. Big moves. That was always part of the plan. Remember how I mentioned I was just going through the motions of my parents expectations and depressed going to work every single day?
I was always looking for an outlet. And that outlet was to start another venture from the ground up.
I figured if I understood sourcing and manufacturing physical products back in high school with my clothing brand, launching another brand should be a piece of cake. Especially now with my knowledge in the online space rapidly growing.
In college I met a business partner who luckily was just as entrepreneurial as myself. We became super good friends and always relied on each other for business resources and advice.
If you’re in college now and are looking for a way to make the most of it… the one thing I would recommend is build your network. Not in your close circle of friends. Not in your organization that you party with everyday. Look for the people who could potentially play a huge part in your life post-grad.
It’s hard, but trust me, they’re out there. It’s up to you to find them.
Introducing… the brand that started everything.
I figured I was young and I could use this opportunity to chase this cool thing called “entrepreneurship.” So every single day, we would work on this new project. We saw a gap in the marketplace with watches (yes those things you wear on your wrist that only tell the time – not the fancy schmancy digital contraptions that measure your heart rate).
We wanted to bridge the gap between low quality Chinese sourced products with higher quality imported goods at an affordable price. Good brands also needed stories. They needed a mission. So we tied in the concept of travel (time and travel intertwine… clever right?) and officially launched the brand.
We bootstrapped the entire project with no prior knowledge in the marketplace, and made over $150,000 in sales for the project.
We leveraged scraped email lists, crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, in-person networking events, friends, family, and everything you could think of and had regular 5-figure launches.
Here’s the thing… The way I look at it, the moment you decide to take outside money for your business, you’ve already lost (I can’t say this about all businesses, but for most passion projects, I stand by this statement). There are enough tools and resources out there in the world, ESPECIALLY in today’s day and age, to get your business up and running. It’s a matter of being scrappy, creative, and thinking outside the box.
As broke college kids, we did everything we could to spread the word about the product. Even doing things like using the free printer at school to print our flyers and sticking them on windshields.
With over 6-figures in profit in less than a year, I thought I was on top of the damn world.
The first time you see 6 full digits in your free college checking account (thank you Wells Fargo for no fees), I can’t tell you what that feels like. And I don’t mean to say this to brag, but to show you that it took nothing but grit and hard work to get there.
My goal for the longest time was 6 figures in my early 20s from my own business. Don’t ever think you can’t accomplish something if you put your mind to it. Set a goal. Reverse engineer what it takes to get there and make it happen.
My whole world flipped upside down. What adversity feels like.
When I got the gut wrenching news that I was losing my full-time job, I was devastated. I poured my heart and soul into the development and growth of a company who wanted to change the entire financial tech sector.
But I also saw it as a huge opportunity and the huge push I needed to devote myself to business and entrepreneurship full time.
Our travel watch brand eventually became a company that shipped over to 100 countries, worked with hundreds of social media influencers, and even partnered with a charity to offer scholarships to students worldwide. Also, would you call me crazy for getting a tattoo of the company’s logo to remind myself of the first real business I ever built?
My parents finally heard of the news about me being fired from my job. Being the caring Asian parents (that I appreciate so much) they are, they started forcing me to look for a new job.
The thing is, how does someone go from achieving entrepreneurial success to going back to work for someone else. Pretty damn difficult.
So I pleaded them to give me a chance at this online brand and gave them every reason in the book to let me continue it. At the time, I knew I had what it takes to turn it into a huge success.
With my business partner, we started to plan long term goals… Launches that would really propel the company to the next level. We started to scale…
Multiple manufacturers, tenfold increases in inventory, building out systems to automate the business, deals with influencer partners worldwide.
A week later after telling my parents everything would be ok, we get hit with a serious cease and desist with an incoming lawsuit in the middle of our largest production run.
At first we thought it was a joke… and the situation only got worse when the opposing party thought we were ghosting them.
In short, we were illegally infringing on a trademark of one of the largest corporations in the U.S.
The trademark? We had to abandon it.
The name? We had to change it.
All of our social media partnerships and branding? We had to let them go.
All of the inventory that was going to go out? We had to trash it.
All of the expensive marketing and advertising assets? We had to start over.
Everything that we’ve ever started? Gone.
Being careless kids, we lost everything.
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Our world got flipped upside down. Everything that we’ve ever built from the ground up was ripped apart in front of us in a matter of days. To have that happen after coming out on top and feeling like you’re on top of the world will play some serious damage to your every being.
This was the most difficult thing I had ever faced. I knew at the back of my mind that adversity is preparation for greatness, but I couldn’t shake the thought of knowing I just lost everything.
The one thing I learned? Adversity introduces a man to himself. Adversity is also preparation for greatness.
The darkest pit of my rock bottom.
No job, a bankrupt business and pressure from everyone around me made me spiral completely out of control.
I had to get it back. So I resorted to drinking, drugs and gambling. I had a bit of money in my bank saved up from everything, so I was able to sustain this lifestyle for some time.
I started running out of money so I borrowed $10,000 from my own grandma. I said it was to fund the business. At this time, nobody in my family knew what was happening. Everything was smooth sailing for all they knew.
Eventually I gambled every way possible (penny stocks, cryptocurrency, online poker, sports betting) down to my last few dollars.
One day high off drugs and borderline overdosing for a week straight, I took a good look in the mirror. I no longer recognized the person that was staring back at me.
I remember it like it was just yesterday and it is single handedly the image that scares me the most to this day.
I like to say that very moment was my rock bottom. Dead broke, addicted to the world’s biggest sins, with absolutely nothing going for me.
If any of you out there are at your rock bottoms, just know that when you hit it, there’s really nowhere to go but up.
Also, never be afraid to fall apart. It presents an opportunity to rebuild yourself the way you wish you’d been all along.
This very moment… This very rock bottom… became the solid foundation on which I built my life.
Tackle life one day at a time. One opportunity at a time.
A short amount of time goes by and I remember my days being spent laying in my bed like a piece of human trash.
I got an email from an old friend.
“Hey Danny, you were the guy who ran the watch company right? One of my friends is looking for someone to handle their marketing… specifically Facebook Ads and I thought of you to refer to them.”
That moment was the pivotal point that turned my life around.
I took the call and turned out the company wanted a “freelancer-type” employee to help with their marketing. I could work at home on my own time in my pajamas. I didn’t have to come into their office. I only needed to work a few hours every day and they were willing to pay me a few thousand dollars per month. I had the chance to make almost as much as my last 9-5 job by working a fraction of the hours.
I thought that was crazy.
We talked and they eventually hired me on. I just got my first marketing client ever.
From that point, my eyes widened and a whole world of freelancing opportunities opened to me.Let me just say that before I said yes, I wasn’t in the clearest state of mind. My daily binging of alcohol and drugs only led to my anxiety and worsening depression.
But here’s the thing…
Life opens up opportunities to you, and you either take them or stay afraid of taking them. There is no in between.
Have you ever been on Dropzone? You know the amusement park ride that slowly brings you up hundreds of feet in the sky then comes crashing down to the ground in a matter of seconds? That was what my life was like and the second wave was about to go up again. During my rock bottom, I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do with my life… And the one memory that flashed in front of my eyes were my travels when I studied abroad.
With $3,000 in my bank account, I figured I had nothing to lose plus I had the newfound ability to work from wherever I wanted. So I booked a trip to Seoul, South Korea and took some time to myself.
Lost. Alone. Confused. Carefree. That was everything I needed to get my head straight. A few weeks in an unfamiliar land with no direction gave me the time to truly self reflect and figure myself out.
After traveling around the country, the “spark” was finally back. I was more motivated and inspired than ever. I vowed to finally stop feeling sorry for myself and overcome everything that life continues to throw at me.
I stopped viewing adversity as unfortunate events, but rather learning experiences I would grow from. I was finally adopting a growth mindset.
Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Just keep going.
“One double-double, animal style fries and a large Dr. Pepper please.”
Man, how I always miss In-N-Out when I travel outside of California. The first thing I did when I came back was indulge in a 2,000 (probably more) calorie meal at my favorite burger joint in the world (yes it’s better than Habit, Smashburger, or anything else out there).
I got back to the drawing board. Figured out what my plan was and slowly started to build a brand new business from the ground up.
That’s how Highstoke Media started.
At this time I was juggling about 3 clients. That regular monthly cash flow kept me alive and things were starting to turn around.
As clients started to roll in, I eventually had this “AHA!” moment when I realized that what I was offering was incredibly valuable to businesses across the world.
Frequently working in local mom and pop cafes, I started to think to myself… Most of these businesses are so damn good at what they do and what they sell, yet why are they struggling?
There was such a huge opportunity and gap in the market place when it comes to digital marketing.
If I could be THE PERSON that can come in and help them market, advertise, and reach a wider audience using social media, that would exponentially blow up their business.
Every business needs more customers to survive. And they’re willing to pay a ton of money for it.
With every new client that came in, we started to further develop our business and most importantly, scale with referrals.
For the longest time, we didn’t spend a single dollar on advertising our own business.
Remember, you CAN bootstrap your way to success. Believe it or not, thinking outside the box is the solution for every unfamiliar problem.
By the end of 2018, our marketing agency was making a healthy $30K/month with ridiculously healthy margins. How? We were a digital business that bootstrapped every step of the way so we had absolutely no expenses for anything.
The secret to hitting higher revenue month is not only increasing the volume of clients, but to increase the amount that you charge.
If you’re in the freelancer space and struggling to make ends meet, I can almost guarantee you that you’re not charging enough.
In addition to that, if you’re able to CONSISTENTLY solve problems for business owners, they will be happy to pay you month after month.
My ‘Work From Anywhere’ Business
The Jurassic Coast, Phi Phi Islands, Santorini, Faroe Islands, Ha Long Bay, Iceland, just a few of my favorite places that I’ve had the fortunate blessing to go visit.
Crystal clear blue waters. Waves crashing into rigid cliffs. Places that look like it came out of a movie. That’s what I live for.
As the business was growing, I started to realize that one of my greatest passions in life was traveling. I started to ask myself, if the main reason why I started entrepreneurship was for freedom and to chase my passions, why am I not doing that?
So I started to travel the world full-time…
I've been fortunate enough to have visited some of the world's most beautiful wonders.
Life is short and the world is wide. It’s made me realize that life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. And the biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.
The crazy thing is… between the time I got fired and all of my failed businesses, my parents tried their best to force me to get a “real job” and my life together. I made a promise to my dad that if I didn’t build a million dollar business by the time I was 27, I would agree and do whatever he thought was best for me.
About two years after I started Highstoke Media, I’m proud to announce that we’ve officially passed the 7-figure mark with the business.
We’ve had the pleasure of working with some of our dream clients all around the world. And the biggest milestone for me, was being awarded the 2-Comma-Club Award (any service that generates over 7-Figures in revenue from a single sales funnel) from ClickFunnels.
It’s made me fall in love with marketing over and over again. We’ve also spent over 2 million dollars in paid advertising and it feels like we’ve barely scratched the surface of much more we can learn and grow.
My biggest piece of advice after this huge milestone is to never overestimate what you need to get started and underestimate what can happen in a few short years.
Because this was all possible using nothing but an old laptop and free WiFi at Starbucks, WeWork, and local coffee shops… with our amazing team all around the world.
The mission is the passion...
Dozens of countries, hundreds of business clients and coaching clients all around the world… and all I can say is thank you.
Goals, dreams and passions change.
The crazy thing is… it’s completely ok. From a young age, we’ve been taught to figure out what we want to do from Day 1, but it’s impossible without going through the motions of life.
Take risks. Make bold moves. Start that business. Try new things. Experience the world. Whatever it means for you.
I started documenting my journey, and people started to ask how I was doing what I was doing. I realized it was such a simple skill set to teach anyone from the ground up and that’s what I did.
One of my biggest passions is helping businesses grow in ways that they didn’t think possible. Nothing gets me more excited than hearing how digital marketing changed their lives. To date, we’ve done some amazing things like do multiple 7-figures in sales to get a client on Shark Tank and even helping a local shop expand to three whole physical locations.
While helping other businesses strike a big spark in me, being able to help people break out of their traditional career path and opening their eyes to new opportunities has been a greater passion, and really a life mission of mine.
I went through the motions of a stereotypical Asian kid trying to make his family proud. I went to a great school. I got a great college degree. I got a comfortable paying 9-5 job. But looking back at it, those “normal” events contributed the least to getting me to where I am now.
It was going through the motions of things that are against society’s norms and expectations that made me into everything I am today.
And that’s what I hope to inspire others around the world to do. The goal is to build a community of future dreamers and believers. The ones that don’t believe in norms and expectations. The ones that challenge the status quo. The ones who aren’t afraid to be different and want more.
The world and everything in it is your oyster
“Our business is on track to make ten million dollars this year and we plan to triple that next year.”
How often do you hear things like that? Most often, never. Throughout my entire journey, I realized that surrounding yourself with dreamers with big goals is crucial to your success.
You know the phrase, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room?
That holds so many truths and it's imperative that you start changing your environment. Move to another city.
Attend networking events. Buy tickets to a conference. Invest in mentorships or masterminds. Whatever it takes to be surrounded by people in positions you aspire to be in one day.
There’s no one specific event that particularly “changed my life.” It’s the compound effect of attending hundreds of them and networking with like-minded people.
If you surround yourself with people who play small and are comfortable with where they’re at in life, chances are you will be too.
But if you surround yourself with those who are progressively growing and wanting to achieve big dreams, guess what?
That mentality is going to eventually rub off on you too. Traveling around the world and meeting amazing entrepreneurs have been single handedly the things that have allowed me to grow so quickly in every aspect of my personal life and business.
6 figures used to be my life goal. That’s the magic number that society measures success at. There’s a world beyond that. I’m slowly inching my way in with constant networking and investing into mentors. Then we hit 7-figures. There’s another world beyond that. And we’ll keep going.
You ARE a product of your environment. Surround yourself with nothing but the best.
The reason why I’ll never stop…
Everything that you’ve been taught growing up isn’t always necessarily the truth or the “right” thing to do. You just have to go out there and figure it out yourselves.
And that’s the thing. Look at your life as a series of events where you never give up, keep learning, always fail forward, and stay forever progressing, while at the same time having the time of your life doing things that you love.
After the years of adversity, challenges, and hardships at every corner, I started to realize my “Why’s.”
Why do I wake up every morning? Why do I work as hard as I do? Why do I have such big goals?
And it comes down to family. My parents were immigrants who came from nothing. They risked their life coming here on a boat and started at absolutely ground zero. Sometimes it takes a bit of perspective to keep you leveled. So any time I face an obstacle, I remind myself of that fact.
My parents grew up with the mentality that their parents imposed on them. So I can never blame them for wanting that for me… they naturally think that it’s best and that’s a worldview you can never put a fault on.
Man… I’d do anything for my parents. Like literally anything. I cringe at paying an extra $2 for guacamole at Chipotle, but I’d gladly spend thousands of dollars for their vacation without blinking.
The thing is… the BEST thing about my successes with entrepreneurship is that I’m able to share it with the people that mean the world to me. My goal in life is to give them everything that they’ve ever wanted and shower them with experiences they never had.
They’re getting old so it breaks my heart to see them still working. Fully retiring them with enough money to finally live their life to the fullest is my priority.
My one piece of advice is to figure out your whys. It’ll help you overcome all the adversity in this game of life and lead to everything that makes you happy.
And when I look back at my life just two years ago, heck, even just 360 days ago… I can’t feel anything but grateful, blessed, and humbled for everything that has happened.
I’m sharing this story to just give you a glimpse into my journey and what it took to build a 7-figure business from scratch, going through my rock bottom, while chasing my biggest passions in life.
Most of the things I did wasn’t the typical route that my parents wanted me to take. Growing up in an Asian household, breaking out of that mentality and cycle was just that much harder. But I made it happen. And YOU can make it happen.
One other thing I want to say is you need to TRUST and LOVE the journey itself. If you don’t fall in love with the process and are driven by the wrong things, you’ll find that any success you get will be short lived and will be hard to overcome the hard times.
Lastly, I want to give a final shoutout to my rock, Victoria.
I wouldn’t be anywhere close to where I am now if it wasn’t for you. Thank you for never calling any of my dreams crazy and supporting all of my endeavors no matter how ridiculous they are. You’re the person I appreciate the most in my corner. Love you more than you know.
I hope you found my life story so far to be helpful in some way. I can’t wait to see what the future unfolds and I couldn’t be more excited for the things to come.
If you’re reading this, I hope our paths cross some day.
Thank you.
Love,
