Navigating the Rise

This short episode describes why face to face meetings are so important to Asian countries

These objects signify death...or bad luck

This week we have the opportunity to speak with Jerry Liu.  Jerry is a full time digital content creator and currently have 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 carry unique communications experience in traditional and digital media and offer 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 biggest video content sites, and gained more than half-a-million views on those Chinese site. I've also tested Vine, Twitter, and Instagram.

Jerry mentioned that he learned how to use metrics to elevate his success.  For example, he started to analyze what product companies care about when it comes to releasing content on a platform and looking how to get conversions and receive wide engagement.  He mentioned there are a few key things to keep in mind when starting out.  For example, he evaluated based on three metrics:  Passion, ROI, and Effort.  He doesn't keep a project going if there is no passion, because in the downturns, it is hard to get things going.  As for ROI, he wants to see how much effort it takes him to generate a profitable ROi.  If there is very low return he might consider starting another passion project.   As for efforts, he mentioned that if it stresses him out in terms the number of efforts require to get things going, he would start and deplete his cognitive and decide to stop completely.

He also shared one of his biggest lessons from my first YouTube channel was to specialize. Every idea should be its own brand on a separate channel. That's the secret to success because fans on each platform and each account are different and expect different content. Applying this lesson, he shared he experienced 600% growth of my brands since 2016 when he started creating focused channels based on the needs and trends of the digital media community.

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, as 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 is the mindset, and we explored how to adopt that mindset to become a successful influencer.  When it comes to becoming a successful influencer, it doesn't mean to have a considerable following but just influencing the community or your specific niche.

Heather and I also dove deeper into specificity for being an Asian influencer.  Because of the typical collaborative culture embedded within the Asian community, there is less of a need for creating disruption, sometimes at the expense of oneself.  We heavily referenced good self-promoters such as Trump and Dan Lok, whether or not we like them or not.  They have a brand, and when we hear specific phrases or expressions, we can think of them.  For example, "You are Fired" is commonly associated with Trump, and everyone paid much attention to him even though he is not the most liked.   However, if we look deeper, do people, not like him?  I believe it is because we are surrounded by people who are similar to us that we forget that there are opposing views, in this case with Trump, there are a bunch of people who love him over Hillary Clinton at the time.   That said, the principles of influencing also work with Asians, as the mental roadblock is more along the lines of self-promotion.

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.

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.  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 where he was told he was stupid in Vietnam but was told he was gifted in America.  The paradigm shift played a part in his acceptance into a top university at UC Berkeley as well as immediately starting his career as an entrepreneur shortly after graduation.

He also mentioned his stupidity is what caused his path to entrepreneurship.  He did not believe he can fail with the founding of Spot Trender (then called QR Pitch)  and he attributed it stupid exuberance.  It wasn't until he met his CMO at a random event where he was told that his initial concepts do not work because the customers he is going after do not have money.  He had to go after people who have the money instead of looking after those customers.  He then pivoted, and the rest is history and changed the company to profitability.  

This week we have the opportunity to speak with Dan Matthews. Dan is an alternative rap artist from Los Angeles, CA. His high energy performance is mirrored with lyrics about self-reflection, addiction, and identity. He draws on electic inspiration from the likes of Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park to the Neighborhoud to Odeza. He’s also a Korean Adoptee and works to speak voices to that community. He’s produced documentaries about the Adoptee and Asian experience including his journey back to Korea in meeting his biological family including an identical twin brother he never knew about. His work has been recognized around the world including the BBC, NPR.

https://navigatingtherise.com/2019/07/15/s1-e14-managing-dual-cultural-identity-with-dan-matthews-partner-lead-producer-at-international-secret-agents/

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 that it would be in the United States, not Taiwan.  Guess what did Harrison do?  He started to copy dictionaries to perfect his vocabulary as he realized he has no way out to go back to Taiwan.  Throughout his endeavors, he succeeded in going to one of the top universities in the US (Stanford) and founded the company.

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 that it would be in the United States, not Taiwan.  Guess what did Harrison do?  He started to copy dictionaries to perfect his vocabulary as he realized he has no way out to go back to Taiwan.  Throughout his endeavors, he succeeded in going to one of the top universities in the US (Stanford) and founded the company.

This week I have the opportunity to interview George (not me) since his last name is Lu.  We give a load down on what it is like to be an engineer in today's world.  Right now being in tech is as crazy as it was to be in finance about 10+ years ago. Given the added pressure from Asian parents to be an engineer, we explored what it takes to be an engineer.  We went through all the tribulation of studying and training needed to be an engineer, as well as a software engineer in modern times.  Some significant points we touched upon include the transition of traditional software engineering to data engineering because of the rise of AI technologies.  No longer will engineers be writing rules and policies, but instead, defer to structuring learning machines and data ingestions to achieve the same outcome.  Yes, that means learning machine learning will no longer be optional in the future.  Also, we analogized what recruiting is like as well as some of the issues engineers face such as lower opportunities to meet the opposite sex (for men) if you don't venture outside of the technology space.

Beyond what was stated above, we also mentioned a trend in the tech space that it is ageist.  Yes, it favors those who are young, especially those in who are age 20's and 30's.  There was a study done that the average income in silicon valley start to decrease after you hit age 35.  Not to say that you can increase your income, just the AVERAGE/MEDIAN drops.  That means for those who are only in it for the money and not for the passion, that might be a time to start thinking about alternative careers.  Perhaps that is when people in the tech space will begin to have a mid-life crisis.  

This week we explored what it is like to be a doctor.  As we all know, most Asian parents want their kids to aspire to become a doctor.  Little did they know, there are many kinds of doctors, with some don't pay that well.  Heck, even being a software engineer these days will pay much more than a generic doctor.  This week, we explored the nuances of the trials and tribulations of being a doctor.  We found out that how much of a thick skin you have to be in order to undergo the trainings.  Instead of encouraging you, many people in the practice point out what is wrong with your work as a way to make you a better doctor.  That makes sense since doctors' actions can mean life and death for an individual.  Another thing we uncovered was, depending on the hospital you train at, you develop different skills, just like different companies have different processes.  After this episode, I hope the listeners have a better grasp on what it takes to be a doctor.