Who in the World

Do you have a good friend; someone who you consider yourself close to and who is impactful on your life, although you’ve never actually met them in person? For me, that person is Ian, who I was connected with a long time ago based on a mutual friend and wild life events (long story). For years now, Ian and I have chatted on Facebook and got to know each other, getting to know about each other’s lives, families, aspirations, and even supporting our favorite charities back and forth. ...

When I first moved to Sacramento in 2003, I literally knew no one in the city. Eager to make friends and expand my circle with positive, impactful people, I started volunteering and attending charity events. It paid off with lifelong friends and connections, such as with the guests on the Who in the World podcast today, Sharon Gerber Scherer and Rob Scherer.To me, they stood ten feet tall – they were well-accomplished in business, revered in the community, and incredibly well connected. What’...

In this episode #32 of the Who in the World Podcast, I have the pleasure of introducing you to ML, one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. I first met ML in Sacramento, Ca when we had both newly moved there in the 2000s, her from NYC where she was an actress and arts promoter for 7 years, and me from CT. Upon being introduced by a mutual friend, we became homies instantly, and shared a common vision for community, networking, empowering the arts scene...

In this episode #31 of the Who in the World Podcast, I share part two of my conversation with Kay Kay, live from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I was able to travel back to Cambodia last year – one of my favorite countries on earth and I place I lived for a few years – and had the chance to visit Kay Kay at his home for a few beers and a deep conversation about his life.For those who didn’t get to listen to part one of our talk yet, you can listen here:And in this part two, we start off when Kay Kay w...

In this episode, I travel back to Phnom Penh, Cambodia – one of my favorite places in the world – and sit down with my friend Kay Kay. Kay Kay is one of the “Deportees,” those Cambodian nationals who grew up in the U.S. but were later deported back to Cambodia, to a country and even language they didn’t know. Raised in California in a poor neighborhood amid crime, drugs, and gangs, Kay Kay was more about the breakdancing and graffiti tagging life. However, he did fall victim to the streets an...

In this podcast, I catch up with my old friend Mounika, who tells me about her trip of a lifetime to Japan.I was friends with Mounika and her husband Rohit back when I lived in Sacramento and became good friends with them towards the tail end of my stay there before leaving to live abroad in 2011.Last year, Mounika invited me to speak via video chat to a club with some of her girl friends from India to California. I talked about my adventures, went over a few stories from the books I’ve writt...

In this part two of my podcast with Wicced, or Kalvin Hang, we reunite in Phnom Penh, sitting down in a corner of a bar tucked away in an alley to talk about his story, live from the Kingdom of Cambodia.In episode #26, Wicced and I covered how he was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, made his way across the world to settle in California, and then fell into the street life because of his surroundings. Never a naturalized citizen, he ended up in an immigration prison for years and, post 9/11,...

One of the amazing things about traveling and living abroad is the people you meet in random, chance, and fleeting encounters. Even if you just chat at the airport for 5 minutes or run into someone at a café, you form these deep, meaningful connections that stay with you for life. One of those chance encounters occurred for me in the little mountain spa town of Fortuna in Costa Rica. I walked down into the lobby of my backpacker’s lodge one day and saw this tall European woman strugglin...

I’m honored to introduce you to my great friend and brother, Kalvin Hang, or Wicced as he’s known. Wicced was born in a refugee camp in Thailand as his parents escaped war-torn Cambodia, then emigrated to California, where he grew up in San Diego. From dire poverty to gang violence to prison, to say Wicced had it tough is an understatement. He was even thrown in an immigration prison and deported to Cambodia, never allowed to return to the U.S. - even though he’d never actually liv...

I recently visited Qatar for the first time, the Arabian country set to host the 2022 World Cup. Amazed and impressed by what I experienced, I wanted to learn more. So, I enlisted the knowledge and perspective of my new friend, Jennifer, in this podcast, an American who’s lived in Qatar with her family for more than twelve years. I had so many questions. For instance, what is life like for an American family in a traditional Islamic country? How is it possible that Qatar is so...