30Dec 2019 by Navigating the Rise
[S1] [E24] How to Build Up a Successful Business with Alex Yu, Luxury Home Specialist at First Team Estates

[S1] [E24] How to Build Up a Successful Business with Alex Yu, Luxury Home Specialist at First Team Estates

Business
Alexander Yu, Luxury Home Specialist This week we explored how to build up the mentality of having a successful business when the traditional path either cannot or won't serve you. Alex started his career a bit different from most people. He had most of his income came from commissions. That means he gets paid based on results as opposed to time like a regular job. As a result, he had to be creative in how he approaches his career. Like most Asian households, he had a lot of communication challenges with Asian parents. For example, these include what needs to be done where pleasing his parents meant making minimum wage. He decided to chart his path into a real estate business. He also altered his mindset on his approaches toward…
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28Nov 2019 by Navigating the Rise
[S1][E22] How to Disappoint Your Asian Parents w/ Mary Ngo, Founder of Little Shop of Mary

[S1][E22] How to Disappoint Your Asian Parents w/ Mary Ngo, Founder of Little Shop of Mary

Business
This week we explored with engineer turned business owner. She branched out in creating not one, but two businesses. We examined how she went about creating her activities. Also, we examined what Asian traits she utilized to make her business successful. Some sample traits mentioned including the cost-conscious and the hard-working behavior. These behaviors are commonly exhibited in the Asian community. Perfection helped her in addressing all the logistics in opening her first sandwich shop. We also explored how the Asian culture of being obedient and humble hurt our climbing of the corporate environment, which also contributed to her desire to opening her businesses.
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18Sep 2019 by Navigating the Rise
[S1] [S18] Why Social Media Marketing is Better than the Old Ways w/ Chirag Sagar, Co-Founder of Money Matters Top Tips

[S1] [S18] Why Social Media Marketing is Better than the Old Ways w/ Chirag Sagar, Co-Founder of Money Matters Top Tips

Business
This week, I had the opportunity to speak to Chirag Sagar, the Co-founder of Money Matters Top Tips, a media, entertainment, and book-publishing company. The company dedicated to the needs of business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives. Chirag is also the Co-Founder of Digital Luxury Agency. The agency has collectively worked with over 3000 small and large companies, Fortune 500s, governments, non-profits, and investment firms. Their roster of clients includes Richard Branson and Virgin, the country of Panama, SBE Group, Bank of America, Cadillac, and Qatar Airways. Before that, he served as the COO of Destination Luxury. It was a luxury lifestyle media outlet that reaches over 5 million people every month through their various channels. He spearheaded the team that built the website presence to reach 500,000 monthly unique visitors.…
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28Aug 2019 by Navigating the Rise
[S1] [E17] What’s It Like and How to Be an Asian Influencer w/ Jerry Liu, Digital Content Creator @ Jerry Liu Films

[S1] [E17] What’s It Like and How to Be an Asian Influencer w/ Jerry Liu, Digital Content Creator @ Jerry Liu Films

Business, Culture
This week we have the opportunity to speak with Jerry Liu. Jerry is a full-time digital content creator and currently has more than 130K subscribers on YouTube, 181k subscribers on Facebook. Having spent time in journalism, PR, and more than 10,000 hours in the digital media space, Jerry carries unique communications experience in traditional and digital media and offers a unique blend of passion, energy, and focus to his works and to clients and employers. Jerry started his first YouTube channel (called JerryLiuFilms) for fun, but it developed into multiple brands. Since 2011, He gained more than 30 Million views and partnered with Multi-Channel Networks like Fullscreen and BBTV. Besides YouTube, he also experimented with other digital media platforms. He also put videos on YouKu and Bilibili, two of China's…
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15Aug 2019 by Navigating the Rise
[S1] [S16] How to Use Fundamentals of Influencing Principles Across the World w/ Heather Havenwood, One of 50 Must-Follow Women Entrepreneurs (Huffington Post)

[S1] [S16] How to Use Fundamentals of Influencing Principles Across the World w/ Heather Havenwood, One of 50 Must-Follow Women Entrepreneurs (Huffington Post)

Business, Culture
This week we explored with Heather Havenwood on how to to be a successful influencer. We talked about the foundation of what it takes to be an influencer as well as how to leverage that foundation and tie that to Asian culture and upbringings. She explored how growing up as a Baptist, she faced many limitations in terms of self-promotion. That was not how she was brought up. That is similar to the Asian culture of being in harmony with the group where self-promotion is not passively accepted. We explored the steps needed from taking a skill to using that skill to being an influencer. However, that is not enough. We explored the missing steps in-between having the right skillset and being a successful influencer. One of the core pieces…
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29Jul 2019 by Navigating the Rise
[S1] [E15] How to Change Your Mindset to Be an Entrepreneur w/ Rick Nguyen, Co-Founder of Spot Trender

[S1] [E15] How to Change Your Mindset to Be an Entrepreneur w/ Rick Nguyen, Co-Founder of Spot Trender

Business, Tech
This week we have the opportunity to speak with Ricky Nguyen, who is the Co-founder of Spot Trender. As Co-founder at Spot Trender, Rick creates and refines enterprise solutions for professional advertisers to win hearts and minds. He built Spot Trender from scratch to profitability. In his spare time, Rick enjoys various projects to promote STEM education and advanced science in the United States. Background Rick appreciates his situation as an immigrant from Vietnam. For him, he believes that because he immigrated, he had the perspective of Vietnamese as well as incorporating the perspective of Americans. Also, Rick attributes much of his success as being able to combine the two different aspects and happy to have immigrated here. Because of the upbringing within America, Rick had a paradigm shift. He…
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29Jun 2019 by Navigating the Rise
[S1] [E13] How You Look at Life When Your Company Is at $100 Million w/ Harrison Tang, CEO of Spokeo

[S1] [E13] How You Look at Life When Your Company Is at $100 Million w/ Harrison Tang, CEO of Spokeo

Business, Tech
This week we have the opportunity to speak with Harrison Tang, who is now the CEO and Co-founder of Spokeo. According to an article from Hyperlush, the company has achieved significant milestones to be where they are now. Harrison gave us many insights on how his upbringing helped him where he is now. He attributed much of the success to the support of his family and words of wisdom. However, what he said made a significant mark on his life was when he immigrated here from Taiwan. He went from the top of his class to the bottom of the class due to the language barrier. His father also told him that going back to Taiwan is not an option. Even if the job is washing dishes, Harrison's father said…
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16May 2019 by Navigating the Rise
[S1] [E10] Why My Race Does Not Accept Me w/ Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Behavioral Scientist – Business School Professor

[S1] [E10] Why My Race Does Not Accept Me w/ Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Behavioral Scientist – Business School Professor

Business, Spiritual
This week we explored how to overcome multi-cultural communication barriers as well as multi-cultural identity crisis. We explored different contexts across communication styles situations where cultural norms can affect perceptions negatively or positively. One of the ways to address those is to have successful context switching when working with different cultural norms. Those who worked abroad or those who speak multiple languages have indirectly developed context switching that can be deployed effectively once further cultivated. That said, having a multi-cultural identity can be a blessing in disguise given the context switching needed at a young age.
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12Mar 2019 by Navigating the Rise
[S1] [E6] America and Asia: Why You Get Frustrated w/ Calvin Shen, Director of Software Architect

[S1] [E6] America and Asia: Why You Get Frustrated w/ Calvin Shen, Director of Software Architect

Business, Culture, Tech
This week we explored with an Asia-West work veteran who had spent a significant amount of time in both regions and noticed the dichotomy of the differences. Specific examples include how the US value the terms in the contracts while those of Asian counterparts only use contracts as a reference and decide to make changes as they see fit. On the other hand, Asia has a tendency to follow the rules strictly, especially in hierarchical structures, yet the western counterpart tends to want to break the rules for innovation and hierarchy hardly exists.
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