#147. James Hsu: The Art of Being Yourself
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Wait, are we doing the intro right now? Yeah, we're doing the intro. No, no, I thought you were asking, just wanting to know how we felt. No, he is, he is. But I like this idea of authenticity and our personas and how authentic they are, whether they're in life or in the workplace. Yeah, I feel like we put on a persona actually sometimes on the show. And I think that's one of those things that, I mean, personally for me, I would want to

get rid of but yeah i know sometimes i question myself it's like you're not your real self but at the same time sometimes there's a social dynamic to things and it's not necessarily a bad thing like for things to work in groups of people everyone can't completely just like do their own thing so who do we have today justin um we have a really interesting guest we got into an interesting conversation not only about i think authenticity this idea of covering but how that

Kind of applies in the workplace, right? Entrepreneurship, we get into identity, even little state of politics and how that affects us a little bit. Sure. Our guest is an entrepreneur, podcaster, and advisor. He is focused on helping people trying to make the leap into entrepreneurship, striking out on their own, starting their own startup.

This was a really interesting conversation. A lot of ups and downs on this one. So, without further ado, please give it up for James Xu. The night will end with

It was so funny. And you're like, stop recording me! You're like, stop recording me! I don't know how I had any friends. Yeah, it was funny. Had? You still don't have. I know. Oh, damn. First eggers. I don't know. I pay a heavy fee to be on this show. James, welcome. Welcome, James, to the show. Cheers. Cheers, guys.

Well, we haven't seen each other since Chinese New Year. That's right. It's been a while. How you doing, James? I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for having me on. Hey, anytime, man. I find you really interesting, James, and I think there's a lot to dig into.

We have a lot in common, man. Wait, so you're from Canada, right? I'm from Canada, yes. You're not from Canada. I know. You start off with saying we have a lot in common. We have a lot in common, but I'm just noting the fact that he's a fan. Vancouver, Canada is just like New Jersey. They love to attack me. He's so rusty. So rusty. What's that? Like a few weeks, and then he's like, he's lost it. No, that's not what I meant at all. And you guys are trying to dig into this thing. Yeah.

Trying to make it awkward between me and James. We got a lot in common. You're from Canada, right? Me too. Yeah.

He's like, how you doing? Like super New Jersey accent. We're from the same continent. That's, you know, we both, we're basically brothers from another mother. Northern America. Good save. Northern America. Good save. Well, Canada is considered part of the North American continent. Canada is basically America's bitch. So, yeah. Wow. You would say that as a Canadian? But a lot of Canadians admit that. I think it's not even an unspoken thing.

Like the Canadian economy is so tied to the American economy. We have a prime minister that is not a great leader. Okay. Wow. I'm already saying this stuff. We're getting into politics. He's acting American now. No, but like, honestly, like, does anyone like Justin? It's Justin Trudeau, right? Yeah. Does anyone like him? I don't think so. Honestly, I don't. I think he's a glorified. He seems like a nice guy though. I mean, just look up the word nepotism in the dictionary. Oh, I see. Yeah.

I've listened to enough of your show to know that you guys have a certain persuasion. So I'm kind of preaching to the choir here. A certain persuasion? So what is that persuasion? I'm a little curious. Are we that obvious? What is that? Let's just say you guys are not on the hyper left.

Hyper left. As defined by American political axis. Okay, so we're not... Ultra liberals. We're not ultra liberal. Yeah. But we're not ultra conservative either. No, no. Maybe Howie is. I wouldn't put that on you. Maybe Howie is. Me? What are your thoughts on abortion, Howie? No. No.

I'm so sorry, guys. I've gone this off to the wrong. Fuck that. James, look what you've done. I've totally derailed the show. I'm sorry. Wait, hold on. I have to say, because we've mentioned this before about where we kind of lay on the political spectrum. I would say we're pretty moderate.

Even that is subjective, right? Like before even when we started recording, we're talking, you were saying like how you were used to be fat, right, James? And we're thinking, well, fat is subjective. Like what are your standards of fat? And so being a moderate, progressive, conservative, it's a spectrum and everyone's, it's like, that's also a very subjective thing. Cause like I feel over time, the goalposts have also shifted, you know? So what does that even mean to be a moderate anymore? One of the things that I think,

that we oppose is just the herd mentality. Like whatever, like, 'cause like being a moderate, then it's kind of like, well, what do you actually stand for? Right? So again, that term itself is probably not very descriptive, but we, I don't think we believe in like the herd mentality. So like just doing it because it's politically expedient to do, we don't believe in that. And then you see all of these decisions that are like that, right?

I think that's a, that's like a really big piece of it. And then we don't like to see when the politics itself become a lever to be able to, you know, force people to do something either. Like the call out. A tool for manipulation or whatever. Yeah, like a call out cultures and stuff like that. So I think it's hard to,

really know whether you believe in this or that. Because it takes so much sort of understanding and research. But whatever people believe, I don't think it's really rooted in like a deep understanding. I think you put it beautifully, Eric. And I would agree with you. I just think like in this, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, James, as well as like, I think from my own subjective experience, it feels like it's getting so much harder and harder for people to

to be more in an understanding mindset and a learning mindset. And people kind of just really are for, maybe for good reason too, are really just dug in on their own beliefs on any particular issues. And it's more just about fighting. It's a lot of fighting and not so much an understanding, not so much of a conversation anymore. And with all the tensions that are going on in every facet of politics,

It just feels like it's snowballing into that where it's just becoming really toxic right now. Where I just feel like it's almost better to just disengage entirely from politics. And, you know, I used to think, and I'm going on, but let me just finish this point. Like I used to think the idea of disengaging from politics and news headlines was just putting yourself in the dark and being ignorant of what's going on.

But the more I've lived, the more I feel like, well, that's actually not a good way to put it because there are so many other things in life that you could be learning and spending your time appreciating.

That have like even more of an immediate impact on you and the people around you that you can spend your time doing rather than following these political things and issues that are going on that for the most part don't really touch your day-to-day life. And it's more just about outrage and just those endorphin hits of being, you know, vindicated in terms of your beliefs and

Rather than things that are actually immediately impactful to you and the people around you. So more and more, I feel like it's actually, with the state of politics now, it's just better to disengage entirely and spend your time focused on other things. I think so. I think, I don't know. Do you guys follow the news very closely? I'm aware of the issues. I see the headlines. Occasionally, I'll read a little article or watch a video about it or whatever, but I

No, I wouldn't say I'm like that involved, but that's a conscious effort not to be because it's almost hard to do that because you're flooded and inundated with all this stuff every day when you go on your phone. Yeah. What about for you guys? Basically, it all depends on my work-life schedule. So when I'm a little more free, I tend to dig in a lot deeper into what's going on in the world and other topics that I'm more interested in. But lately, I don't know what's been going on.

Similar to Justin, I think, you know, like you follow along sort of at a high level day to day. I also think that we've talked about this before is what sources that you choose, because there is this habit building and routine. So, okay, I just go to the New York Times, right? Like I default to like, let's say I default to certain things.

And then, you know, you have lots of apps on your phone and you just default to a couple. So there's like two or three. So for me, it's, I have a New York Times subscription, Economist. And I mean, those are going to be probably pretty biased. And then occasionally I'm just curious. I'll just go to Fox News. I'll just go to the other side and see what they say. And it's just, it's interesting because what you find is that for any issue, no matter what it is, it's just going to be like two different perspectives completely on

And, uh, I guess that's good. Right. But it's, it feels like there's an agenda on both sides. So like, no matter what, there's a pattern that emerges, then what's the real truth. So we've always said like, well, just read stuff that was written a thousand years ago. Cause they couldn't have had an agenda for today. Right. Um,

So yeah, I think definitely history repeats itself over and over and over. And when you really step back and again, you remove the labels, like you take China and you change the label. Like we've talked about this, like take an article and just switch all the country names. People wouldn't even know the difference sometimes. Yeah, the dynamics are still the same. Yeah, the dynamics are the same. That's incredible. So Eric, I think you and I are more alike than I realized. Because the reason why I asked you guys about this is because I feel like, number one, I feel like you, I'm very similar to you

You and Justin, in terms of the news consumption, I just try to get the high level. And sometimes I have friends just ask me, do you hear about this thing? And I say, I don't. And then they just tell me about it and then I get the news, right? Then I get it from them, which is actual literal news. But I think the other thing I've been telling a friend of mine recently is exactly what you're saying, which is that

I've stopped following news closely. I've started reading more histories and biographies. I just finished reading a book about World War I and II. It's just basically the origins of the start of the 20th century and how people thought that it was going to be a peaceful century.

that this is going to be the most peaceful century ever. And I'm just reading that and just thinking about, wow, isn't that what we thought at the beginning of the 21st century? Or some of the forces that were gripping the world at the time. For example, nationalism, right? Nationalism, socialism, capitalism. And nationalism and the rise of the far right

in these countries, you know, the rise of Nazi Germany and all these things that happened later. And then you just realize like history repeats, but also things seem to be a bit more factual with time. So I was actually joking to my friends, like, I think to really understand what's going to happen, what's happening today, probably have to wait for the book, like 50 years later. Just like if you get into a personal argument in the heat of moment, you're too emotionally invested to have any sort of like real objective view on things.

And so when enough time passes, people are a lot less attached to those events. Yeah, and I mean, the point you bring up, I think it sparks another thought, which is that if you're like the media that we're consuming to look at the news, think about who's writing it.

They're not like scholars. They're not people that have really thought deeply about these issues, right? They're just following where the coverage is. And I don't want to denigrate journalists, but as Zach would say, when he went to the... Remember that when Zach came on and he was like looking to be a journalist. Zach is a... Zach Dykewald. Yeah, Zach Dykewald, previous guest. Real smart guy. Wrote the book, Young China. But he was training to be a journalist or a historian when he was in Hong Kong.

and he was with the foreign correspondence club. And like, there's a guy, I can't remember the name that was leading, you know, pretty well-known guy. And then, you know, he said he wanted to be a journalist. And this guy says, don't, Zach, don't go into journalism, right? There's no, there's no honor, honor in anymore. Right. And anyways, um, so you think about like the journalists, okay, they're, they're highly trained and skilled, but like they're writing, look at the, they're writing very short form form. It's 24 hour news cycle. Right. Um,

Like how much time do they have to spend and dedicate like on one particular topic versus even someone who's written a book and who's spends every single day studying things, looking at primary sources, right? Understanding maybe traveling to the different places. So you're just going to get a different quality and depth, right? Or at least an attempt at truth. And the news media is,

while I don't think it's there to completely to just pervert things, but at the same time, the incentives they have in place and what they're trying to go after and just the limitations, the format and the time make it almost impossible for them to deliver anything of real value to us, right? I mean, if it's like written every single day,

Like, how useful can you be? Yeah, it makes me think back to back in the day, showing my age here, when we used to read the newspaper. And when you read the daily... Like actual paper. Yeah. When I used to read the newspaper. Yeah, when you used to read the newspaper. I'm going to see, like, a mafia boss. A long time ago. Good impression. You can't refuse. But the Sunday... That was the worst impression. But the Sunday Times... That was terrible, dude. I'm bad at impressions. Go on. You should have never left the Descent, you know? Oh, my God. Yeah.

But the Sunday Times was always thick, right? And there's a lot more in-depth articles. You mean cartoons? Yeah, the comics. The comics. That's the Sunday Times. The comics? What? The comics? The Sunday edition. No, it had a comic section. The Sunday edition of the New York Times, right? Where it would be much thicker. You had a lot more in-depth articles about what happened during the week or in the month or whatever. That's what I... Dilbert. Yeah, I get it. All right.

No, Dilbert did not exist back then. First of all, Dilbert is probably the worst of all the comics. James is like, have we ever fought, physically fought before? Maybe not, but maybe today will be the first. Yeah, James, when he first sat down before we started recording, he's like, have you guys actually physically fought before? Because I've been listening to your episodes and it sounds like there's a lot of passive aggressiveness. Yeah. This is quite an experience. Just, are you guys, sorry, I have to ask. Do it.

Is it difficult when there's like several podcasting alphas in the room together?

Wow. No one's ever put it that way before. Is that how you see it? When you want to assert dominance, it's like, I want to be seen as the most critical thinker or the most open-minded, paradoxically. I would say, objectively, there's probably one and a half alphas. That in itself isn't interesting. Wait, so James, do you feel like this dynamic is kind of conflicting? Oh, I mean, I was just telling you guys before the recording that sometimes as a listener, I don't...

don't know you guys personally so sometimes comments will come up or this vibe will come up is the best word i can use vibe and then i'm just not sure what is happening i'm not sure if you guys are actually mad at each other if you're just trading barbs or daggers because you're good friends which i know now that's the case you know i have to speak up for you guys but like there's kind of that and i was just you know how we were talking like before the show like are

Are there guests who have ever felt like, I'm totally fine now because I knew all that stuff, but like, have there ever been times where you get maybe even listener feedback? That's kind of, kind of, they're not really sure what's going on. Like so much of what we do is just, we just show kind of examples and sometimes we're

I think odd, like awkward examples of human nature. I don't know. I never got the feeling that we ever really made it awkward for any of our guests, but maybe we have. And we were just oblivious to it. Really? Like I was saying before, there's moments that, because honestly, you guys get into a lot more than me and any of you guys. Right. So when you guys get into it, I'm watching you guys and I'll look at the guests and

you guys are probably oblivious to the guests because you're in your own world like flexing your fucking chest muscles but I'm here trying to like you know analyze and see what's going on and I'll interject and try to calm it down and you're good at what you do what you're doing right now you're trying to be the middle ground yeah that's what I do yeah do you remember which guests were awkward I don't remember but there's a couple of times every guest no I don't

I'm not saying that they felt awkward, but I saw them kind of darting back and forth and kind of like not knowing like what's going on. There's a little bit of like what's happening. Yeah, what's happening. Like not in a bad way. The tension is good. You got to put some tension. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. And I'm going to say that one more time. There's nothing wrong with that. But I didn't want to let it continue because I also think it's like beating a dead horse when there's no resolution. Right. So it's

It's raw. I like it. Because also, I think as I get older, I feel like we should just stop bullshitting to ourselves and pretending to be somebody that we're not. And that's why I like these conversations because you just let it all out. Like there's no artifice of, oh, I'm doing a podcast and I have to now talk a certain way. And oh, you know, put on my tie. It's nothing like that. This is why you guys have a good vibe. But I'm just, sometimes I see that as also kind of like

a double-edged sword in a way. And I also see like the challenge of just going back a little bit, trying to get this back on a different topic. But like, I think what we have been talking about, which is try to be critical thinkers and try to analyze things from different sources. Like I have struggled so much with that for most of my life. Seriously. The struggle is that when you start both sides in everything,

you start to kind of lose, or at least I start to kind of lose myself and like, do I have an opinion? Right? Because if you're analyzing everything from all these angles and you try to give everybody the benefits of the Dell and the benefit of malice, what is it actually? Then you start going, at least for me, I kind of went down this rattle of like, does anything matter?

Yeah, I can relate to that. I feel like that comes up a lot in contemporary events, in life, in career stuff. You can intellectualize things a little too much. So that's a challenge for me. But how important do you feel it is to have an opinion? I mean, I think there's some ego involved in that too. Yeah, and I think the word I left out is an opinion about everything.

Right? Because obviously there's certain things close to you that of course you're going to have an opinion about that you care about that are important to you in your life. Or you have more expertise on it. Exactly. Or experience, expertise. But also how important, like, I mean, if we go back to the political example, how important is it for everybody just to have an opinion about these things, right? It's like, what do we really care? And even if I think I'm hot shit and my opinion's the best, it's

Has anybody in the history world ever said, oh, you know what? You have great arguments. I am therefore wrong. I'm going to completely change my viewpoint because James has such a convincing argument. You have bested me. You have bested me in this duel of intellect. I relinquish my opinion and my stance on this. Never going to happen.

Well, there is also an issue, but there's also a difference between the issue and then policy or strategy or doing actual things. So they're a little bit divorced because people just love having these arguments and they get all polarized, but it's a little bit kind of like,

They want to live in some kind of soap opera, some kind of drama. The reality is that when you're looking at policy or strategies and things like that, you've got to find common ground. You've got to get people together to work on something. You've got to have a plan. And so once you get into all the details, it's a very different world because you're actually chasing and going after something. But it's easy to just talk about issue. Do you agree with this? Do you not agree with this? Because there's too many...

There's way too many parameters. And so then you intellectualize and you theorize. But when you actually have to do something and implement, it takes money and time and resources. It's a very different ballgame. And then it's all about influence, getting people on board, communicating things in a way that you articulate what's in it for them. It's that gulf between having a take and doing something. Totally. And our opinions are so much more

based on a lot of assumption. Because there's no way for us to know what's really going on behind the scenes and in the heads of a lot of people and events and how it occurred and all the forces that came together to create this event and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? There's no way we can know. Just like there's no way for strangers to know the deepest intimate moments of your personal life and your personal relationships from the outside. There's no way for them to know.

And so when we're talking about really complex issues, there's most of it is darkness and gaps that we just don't know, but we fill it in our brains, fill it, whether we're conscious of it happening or not with a lot of assumption, a lot of assumption of what must have happened, what people must have felt, why they were motivated to do this, what their agendas were. And so when that is the fact, it creates a lot of opportunity for,

for misguided beliefs. And I think on a whole, that's what we're seeing. And so that's why I question the value of an opinion on something you're just not really involved in and you're just observing from afar. At the very least, you lack data. You actually lack knowledge.

Like if you're gonna build a building, you need electrical engineers, you need mechanical engineers, you need civil engineers, et cetera, et cetera. So imagine the topic is a building and then people have no experience ever doing that, then start debating, no, this is what you should be doing. It's not rooted in any kind of evidence and the world's getting more and more complex and these issues are getting, because the dissemination

of the ability to converse about something, there's absolutely no cost to it. You can talk about anything you want because you have social media. So there's no barrier. Like before, maybe certain conversations would only happen in certain places. Now you can participate in any conversation. You can have no idea what you're talking about. So to that extent, there's no point. And like, you've actually got to filter most things out and just like disengage from channels that don't have any kind of credibility. Absolutely. Data versus projection.

Self-projection on something. I think that ties in nicely with, and Eric started to allude this with your own businesses in the past. But for me, it comes down to this underlying principle of authenticity. And James, you were talking a little bit about it before in terms of how, why be fake? Life is too short for us to pretend in front of each other. What is your view on

in your own life, I guess, about like just this idea of authenticity in terms of being who you are, like no matter what? I think it's a challenge if I'm being honest. I try to go through my life. Obviously, we're all the main character of our lives and we try to be honest with ourselves and what's happening. But I have often felt that when I try to go through life being authentic, we're trying to tell the truth most of the time.

There's just, the world becomes groups of people and there are people that really vibe with that and there are those people that have want nothing to do with that. I don't know if this has ever happened to you guys, but just like on a very human level, I would, I'm the kind of person who makes good friends with few people. Like there's some people that I could just talk to for three hours or something like that and it feels great.

But most people, I just don't want to do small talk with them. Or most people, when I try to put myself out there, I could tell that they are not used to that kind of communication. And they will just instinctively move away, right? You know, you've always, we all have these friends or acquaintances where, yeah, you can drink with them. But when you actually need to tell them something that's going on in your life, they don't want to hear it.

And that's a very, and I don't begrudge anyone for doing that, but I think the challenge for me has always been, how do I be myself and then inject myself in different channels of life, whether it's business or certain social environments. I feel like sometimes I've been burned on just being myself at work as well and in corporate life. And there are other times where it feels good to be myself, but it's a constant challenge

that I feel like I'm navigating. - I've heard this term recently, it's called, I think, covering. Have you ever heard of that term? Like Brene Brown talks about being your authentic self and there's like lots of different movements and I think these go in cycles and stuff. But I think one of the arguments goes is that if you try to be something that's too distant from your natural self,

Then you have to cover, like it takes energy to be able to do that because essentially you're acting. And then over time, you'll break down, right? Like you'll consume a lot of energy and you'll crack over time. And so it's really hard to be something that you're not. At the same time, it doesn't mean you can't change because none of us are finished products, right? We've just talked about like my volatility in my younger years. And so over time, I can actually...

to improve, change, grow, modify my true self so that I don't have to cover because that's really me, you know? And then I think then over, like, you know, as you get older, you figure out like who you really want to be and there's lots of things and you make a lot of mistakes and you get burned and you do stuff and then you're like, ah, you know, I should probably, that was really painful. And some of those most painful learning experiences are the ones that actually change you because

It's like the most powerful teacher, right? They say success is the lousiest teacher. Yeah, definitely have failed a lot in all aspects of my career. And I think that's a great term because throughout my corporate life before becoming an entrepreneur, I always had this feeling like I was covering. I always felt like there's something that I needed to be that I wasn't. And it's not necessarily even a bad thing. It's just...

As I said, you get older and you start realizing your limitations of who you are. You stop pretending you're somebody that you're not. And I think there were just things about... Maybe it's just for me. Maybe it's just me. It was just working with large groups of people, perhaps. Like with different agendas. I'm just not very good at doing that. You can call it politics. You can call it whatever. I think it's just human nature. I'm just not...

great at it. Like I can do it. I can do it at maybe like 60% proficiency, but I'm never going to be at someone else's 90%. It's going to take me a lot of energy to do that. I think I could go outside my comfort zone and overcome it over time. But I think it becomes a question of like, how much energy do you want to spend on these areas of your life? Right? Like, what do you want to, what do you want to master? What do you want to get good at? You know? Yeah. A hundred percent. Like,

If the culture of where you are is vastly different than your own personal culture, then it's going to be really uncomfortable. And at the same time, you know, like you don't want to be in an environment where like everyone's exactly the same as you, you're not going to learn anything. So there's probably some 60% sounds like kind of low because then it's like 40% of the time you're kind of covering. Right. And at the same time, you know, if I think I, I would, I would sort of speculate that people who start their own businesses are

Probably this is, you know, they thrive better in an environment where they don't have to conform. Especially the larger a company gets, there's going to be different types of cultures and agendas. And then you have to deal with that. And that's how corporations function. They're entities where people have to come together and reconcile all of those individual agendas, team agendas, and then serve them.

the purpose of that corporation, which hopefully does good things. And at the same time for you to thrive in that environment, you've got to spend a lot of your time communicating, collaborating, and, you know, finding common ground with people. And if you don't naturally want to do that, then it's tough. And it's not a good or a bad thing. It's just, I think there's different fits for different people. You know, it's really interesting because just by listening to what you guys are saying about

The fit. I had one experience in the past when I was in New York working in a large corporation and working with many different teams and sometimes needed to collaborate, intersect, all that politics like you said.

I did it for like two years and I quit after that. And I never looked back again. And there was a, there was an opportunity for me to go back into that, that type of large corporation again in China. And I decided not to. And ever since then, I've just never done anything that is bigger than, you know, 40, 40 people, let's say. So what was the breaking point at this? So for me, what it was is I, knowing my own personality is very important because

For example, I like to just do what I'm good at and just excel at it. Very simple, black and white.

When I have to start thinking about how my actions are affecting those people over there, or I have to sort of be flexible and kind of, I don't know, let down my guard a little bit more in order to cooperate with that group over there that I don't agree with. Some compromise, right? Lots of compromises or something, maybe something along those lines.

Or feeling taken advantage of because maybe my abilities they're trying to use to their advantage. They're just taking away from my own side. Things like that, that whole balance, that constant balance every day.

When I got into smaller groups, smaller companies, boutique companies, I realized that the smaller the company is, it all of a sudden feels like you really are part of this whole, just like a smaller team. And that means that your identity in that team is quite clear.

As opposed to big corporations where your identity is clear in the smaller sector of your team, but then you have so many other teams to worry about. So I think it's just, I guess, honing in and focusing on one aspect of what you do. And I'm being very general right now because I want people to relate to what I'm saying as opposed to being specific with what I went through. But I think just in general, that specificity of a small company, maybe flexibility of a smaller group,

that's all going in one direction is a lot more attractive to certain type of people. - I'm sure this is very relatable. - Okay, so how many years you spent on the corporate side? - Probably 15 plus. - Okay, and what's your background? Like I guess expertise wise. - I was trained as an engineer or in computer science. Writing code. - Okay, so software product manager? - Yes. - Okay, so 15 years and then now you're on your own. You're doing your own thing?

Yeah, so 15 years, I went and co-founded two startups with the same co-founder. We initially started because of our gaming background. And then what happened was like the four or five years, you know, we did that. Things didn't quite work out in terms of entrepreneurship. And, you know, the odds of success were always on the low side. I kind of came, I tried to rejoin corporate last year. And I just realized that,

I can't do this anymore. So now I've stepped out again and now I'm freelancing. I'm doing kind of my own projects. How long did it take for you to realize you still can't go back to corporate? Or you still didn't want to? About nine months. So nine months back in corporate and you were like, okay, my initial instincts were correct. This is not for me.

Yeah, but I think it's challenging because I also got some good validation. And so there was a little bit of, hey, this is nice. You know, I'm getting, you know, rewarded and value for what I'm doing. But then I think it's just a lot of the human connections, relationships, the things that I mentioned, they come back up again. And then you're just kind of thinking your life is sort of on repeat. And yeah,

A part of that is also just the typical like managing up, managing down, right? Because sometimes you're just dealing with irrational decisions, but you have to, I'm sorry if this is like so direct, but you have to sell them to your team

in a way that feels rational, that they can buy into it, that there is a method to the badness. And that part was the part that I probably struggled with the most. Yeah. From what I gleamed off of you so far in terms of just my impression of you, it sounds like that kind of work really is kind of counter to your authentic self. You seem like the type of person that doesn't really want to deal with

with these people-to-people relationships so much that you don't deem as valuable and in a position where you kind of have to do that it feels very forced and it just feels like like going back to this idea of covering it's like you're you're suppressing your real kind of personality and entering this other persona to do a job that is draining your energy to do

I think you've got it. And maybe this is also by the way I've described my situation. I mean, it's hard to look at myself, but I can just say as a fellow podcaster, like, man, like all the things that I love doing, like interviewing people or talking to people, like creating a YouTube thumbnail, like figuring out ways to express my creativity. Like, where's that in my day job?

Yeah. I'm not saying it's like one is strictly better than the other, but it's just maybe I've been so I've gone so far down that path of like building things on my own. And I think of content. I did build software startups in the past. We build things from zero to one. And I thought of working with other people and hiring and firing and all this stuff as being like the means to achieve that goal.

But when you're in the corporate environment, it can sometimes feel like the means is the means. Like the means is the goal. Like there is no higher... There's no real goal. There is no higher... I mean, sure, there are KPIs. And you know you're contributing to hashtag capitalism and stuff like that. And I'm not going to lie. Like that's what we're doing with our startups. That's what we're trying to be viable. We're trying to get off the ground, be profitable, all the things that you're supposed to do with a business. But...

Yeah, that's just it. It's like, it just feels like a lot of your energy is not necessarily on those kind of things. Do you feel like that's true for most companies? Is there any factors, the size of the company, the industry, like the mission that they have? Like, do you feel like most companies out there are just commercial kind of entities that then force this momentum

like this, this reality on people? I don't think it's all companies and all opportunities or positions, because I would say, and I had this discussion recently with a friend, I would say that if you were brought in, let's say that you have enough power and scope, you're effectively doing, you're running a fiefdom or startup within a company. Like if you're the general manager of, let's say GM China for a brand, and you have global stakeholders that actually trust you and

rely on you to do what you do and they're fairly hands-off. Of course, you have to tell them things, but to me, that is basically like being an entrepreneur or being a startup. You're running a business, right? So it really depends on, it's like the game selection. So, you know, I think what happened for me was I didn't put myself

in that sort of role. So I, in a way, it feels foolish to come back and tell you guys this because I didn't really give myself a great chance of longevity in the first place. You mean with your own business? No, with going back to corporate. Yes. Yeah. I think that's a big part of it is like, where are you actually? Because I think in an organization, you cannot escape like the

the checks and balances of like where you are in the org, your title and your, your, your power and things like that. I think it's also not just, you can't, I don't think you can just categorize entrepreneurism as one type of,

way of working or one way of doing a business as well. I think entrepreneurial is a mindset. Yes, it's a mindset. I think it's a mindset. I mean, we're all entrepreneurs of our own lives, right? It's just like you said, like as a GM of a brand, I mean, that is a very specific type of role, right? That's beyond a mindset to me. It's a role. It's just like you said, there's entrepreneurial mindset is what you're into. It's not the actual role. There's the reality of needing to pay the bills, right?

So what's your take on that? Because that is going to, that hard reality is going to

direct you in the direction you need to go. And it sounds like you've made a couple of pivots. Yeah. Some pivots, some, some sacrifices in the short term. That's real life. You have to pay the bills. Honestly, that's something I'm trying to figure out as well right now is how to balance that. How do you weigh that risk with the potential opportunities and rewards of striking off on your own? Right. Because one thing I really want to dive into with you, um,

I know you're really passionate about helping people kind of make that leap or at least think through that leap of people who might be working in a corporate gig. But for whatever reason, and maybe it could be that like what we're saying before, like it just doesn't fit their personality. It drains them of their energy to be someone or to do a role that they're just not really, that they didn't feel like they were built for.

It could be for other reasons, right? But for whatever reason, they maybe have fantasies of striking off on their own and starting their own business, doing a startup, becoming an entrepreneur. I mean, I know that's a common feeling and desire for a lot of people who are in corporate gigs. What's your attitude towards that? What are the lessons that you've taken away from your own personal experience making those leaps?

And what would you say to someone who might be flirting with that idea now? Yeah, I mean, this is my perspective based on my lived experience. But I would say that for anyone that's even thinking about it, I think the first thing that person has to do is just be incredibly honest with their short-term and long-term goals, right? Like, what does success look like for you five years, 10 years, 15 years down the line? And really just work backwards from that. Like, are you designing something in your life that...

is conducive to that. Because if you don't know why or what you're going for, none of this stuff really matters. Like I do strongly believe that entrepreneurship is a mindset and it's a means to get what you want. It is one of many paths that you can take. So saying I want to be an entrepreneur almost doesn't mean anything. It's like saying I want to be a podcaster. What does that actually mean? Like when you're a podcaster, you're trying to

like you're doing this because I assume, because like you want to have deep conversations with people. You want to explore, you want to learn certain skills and systems. You want to take that into other parts of your life. You want some sort of like happiness or fulfillment. Like what does it actually mean? I feel like people get too caught up in the label. So I think the first thing that someone has to do is just figure out like, what does your ideal thing look like? Like it's, it's a cliche, but like, what do people want to say? What do you want it to say on your tombstone?

when you're gone, like, what do you want to be remembered as? And maybe that's not as important. Maybe it's more important that you're a good parent or you're taking care of your family and things like that. And that's, there's no, there's no issue with that. Right. So just be clear with what your goals are. But if you, let's say that you figure out your goals, then you figure out, then you try to look at your taking inventory of your life. I mean, I think we all do this, like in your current career, your career is just one part of you. Right. And that's,

A challenge sometimes is people put too much of themselves in one thing and they put labels on themselves. Like I'm a business person. I'm a podcaster. I'm a runner or whatever. Right. You can't do that. You just have to look at it. Like what are the things that I'm doing to move the needle towards my long-term goals?

And I think people can do a lot of different things. Some people feel like they have to quit their day job and go into entrepreneurship and do a startup. Some people feel like I can do a nine to five, but five o'clock rolls around, I'm doing a podcast or something. Like they're expressing their creativity in certain ways, or maybe they're working on that side hustle that gets them to that longer term goal so that eventually they can leave the nine to five. Like these are all legit. So there is no...

One size fits all, but it's like, you just have to know your long-term goal. Are there things that you're just working on towards it? Like you can work on things in, for example, in my background, I felt like I was able to do the startup after 15 years of being in corporate, but not before.

I didn't have certain skills. I didn't have certain, I didn't have a certain way of looking at the world. I didn't have a certain mindset. I didn't even understand how I was thinking about risk and like, did I have enough savings or how do I go into this thing and still have like a cushion? Like I didn't have these things. So I didn't, I felt like I was very much an unformed person. And there are a lot of things that I needed to experience and actually learn the hard way before I could do it.

Plus finding the right co-founder, which is a whole nother big topic in itself. Cause I don't, I think that was such a huge part of it. It's the timing, right? I think the practical question is how do you weigh that risk against this potential reward of, or fulfillment of, you know, finally just doing something on your own terms. Right. For me, I think it's always been just kind of a,

expected value EV calculation, right? You basically can work out like what are the probability, what's the probability of success if I go do this thing? And obviously there's a lot of unknown unknowns. Like you don't know things you don't know, right? But you try to put some sort of expected value calculation and you just balance it to like, okay, what is it actually going to look like relative to

having a steady salary or thing for this many years. You basically have to work out like, what is the timeline that I'm giving myself to make it so that this thing can be successful and balance it to the opportunity cost of not doing your startup, right? I'm talking about very particular model. It's like you're either doing this full time. Like a cost benefit analysis. A cost benefit analysis. And then the way to sweeten the EV is to also think about

Because like I said, things don't always work out. If they don't work out, what are things that, what are residuals? What are benefits that you will gain from doing this? Like what are skills or knowledge or things that can be

That will be beneficial to you, even if this thing doesn't work out from a bottom line perspective. So I think it's a cost benefit, but you also have to be a little bit creative with like the additional benefits as well. I like that idea a lot about this idea of residual benefits, even from failure. What are the lessons you feel you've learned the hard way through failure?

This one is something that I've known since the beginning, but it was still tough to realize that I didn't internalize it strongly enough, which is the success is like 99% based on your team. It's 99% based on your team. You know, people say they invest in the team, they invest in the people and you work with people. So therefore you got to work with good people that are complimentary. We all know that. But what I didn't know that was really tough to learn and experience was that

The people you start with on day one, even if they are the same human beings on day 3000 or whatever, people change and you change as well. And you have to constantly reassess and analyze the fit, right? And you have to understand that today versus tomorrow or today versus yesterday, there's people that no longer work out for a different stage of your venture. I think that's the...

That's one of the hard lessons. This reminds me of a story that you shared on your own WeChat channel. You were talking about when you used to work at Yahoo and you had made a friend. You called him Ted in your story. That's not his real name. Can you share that story? Because I feel like that really touches upon this idea of the dynamic of our relationships change.

over time and we often don't take that into consideration. We feel like the way our relationship is now with whoever person, person X, that's how it is. And we don't understand that their situations are evolving, your situations are evolving. There's all these other external factors involved that really change the dynamic of those relationships for better or for worse through experience and time. And

we sometimes don't calculate for that. And so can you share that story? Because I thought it was kind of interesting. Yeah. So way back in the day, I worked at Yahoo. And this was, I was based out of Yahoo China. But of course, we had to work with Yahoo in Sunnyvale, California. Yahoo had just hired a new CEO, Marissa Mayer from Google, who was supposed to

right to ship. So this was like 2012, 2013 era of Yahoo. Uh, the company still had a lot of optimism back then. And what she did, what the CEO did was Marissa, like acquihired, acquired a lot of startups just for the talent. So she would, Yahoo would, uh,

acquire these companies and just kill their products just so they could get the engineers and the founders, right? So one of the founders of these companies was Ted. And I met Ted and I was still at Yahoo, so I was in corporate. And yeah, it's very typical. So Ted was an entrepreneur who was acquired by Yahoo. His company was acquired by Yahoo.

A few years later, he left. I assumed his stocks matured or whatever. So it's like he went off to do another startup. I saw on LinkedIn he was doing well. But you guys were close friends. We were pretty good friends. We went for lunch together. We hung out together when we were at the company. And I was friendly with him even after he left. And we chatted and kept up to date on his progress in his new startup that he went out and did. So fast forward a few years later, I...

started my own venture and I needed funding or investments from VCs. And I saw that Ted had, uh, uh, had gotten funding from certain notable VCs. And I just said, Hey Ted, that's awesome. Like, can you give me an intro to the VCs? And Ted is just like, okay, tell me about your idea. So I had a call with Ted. I had a zoom call. It wasn't zoom back then. It was whatever it was, but, um, talk to him. And basically Ted said, yeah, great. Send me the pitch deck. Um, I'll, I'll give you a good word with, uh,

with my VC and everything seemed really positive. And I'm guessing where you're guessing where this is going, right? Yeah. So yeah, then I never heard from Ted ever again. He, he ghosted me. And to this day, I don't know what happened. I can only speculate, but that was a story that I use a real story to illustrate that when you evolve, other people evolve as well. But I think, I think one of the things I wanted to also say in that story was just the last thing is I

Even knowing all the things that happened with Ted, a hundred times out of a hundred, if I go back in time, I would do the exact same thing because that survival of my startup and asking for funding was the most important thing to me at that point in time. And other people can decide how they want to take that request. But in the end, you just have to decide like, am I going to be worried about upsetting somebody or am I going to just ask for it? I think I would just choose a lot. Yeah. It's like, are you worried about rejection or, or being, getting hurt? Yeah.

when like, you know, it's just like, take the shot. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right? That whole cliche. You have to articulate and convey and convince what's in it for them. And I got to think that there wasn't a whole lot for Ted in this scenario. And so while you do it again, the things, the skills that you developed that you're good at as a corporate product manager, but maybe you didn't enjoy,

I wonder if being on the outside is not that much different than being on the inside. And then what are the learnings? So I'm curious, right? How would you get buy-in from someone like Ted if you had to go back knowing that he had resources and that you had to go to him?

I think I probably, yeah, I think this is a super valid question. Like I would probably do a much more detailed job of understanding where he was actually at with his company, his investors. What was his relationship and with who it was? I would probably not even fire that shot until I got to know these things more and maybe even like fly over to where Ted was and like spend some time with him and just try to, I'm not saying in like the super manipulative way, but like it had to get better

to maybe a closer level of friendship and also maybe also thinking about, just thinking out loud, right? Like just what are some of the mutually beneficial outcomes for our ventures? Like if he helped me, could it be a collaboration? Could there be some synergies between what we're building? Like were there things that I could help introduce him to as opposed to just me like, hey, can you give me this? Yeah. And you had to do that before with your stakeholders, like in your corporate role. I feel like it's not a totally...

different skill. Yeah. But then because of the change and, you know, and environment, you might not have immediately realized that there were parallels in the situation. And so it's interesting that it's all a learning experience. Totally. And then like, you don't know too, right? Because you're making...

assumptions. Like maybe that, that guy had the same exact idea and he was just trying to get you, you know, not to, or maybe like he, uh, he had some other challenges in his life. Maybe he had a volatile relationship with his investor. Like why would I go out on a limb? Like, I think actually you're speaking to something which is like as an introverted engineer by trade, it took me a long time to learn this. I had so many challenges with some of the bosses I had earlier in my career because I just didn't realize what am I doing for them?

Like it's all, it's always been about like, James wants this, James wants that. I want this. Right. But what am I actually scratching their back for? Like, what am I actually giving to them? A lot of the times we just think just showing up is enough, but do you think showing up just them showing up? If they just showed up, I criticize them. As if the roles were reversed. Right. And like, I mean, so the cliche of just, you know, walk, you know, walk a mile in someone else's shoes, but it's so easy to forget because when it's life or death for you and your business, like,

You don't have the mental space to even think about that. But at the same time, that person's thinking the same thing as you. And so unless you're able to empathize, you're never going to break through there. Unless, you know what I'm saying? Like, even if I was, if I was to go to these two, what if an ex-boyfriend said, look, guys, I'm broke.

I need $100,000. You guys probably ghost my ass. I'd be like, what do I get out of it? Exactly. And so even with that- 20% interest. Even with that type of friendship, you could sort of get ghosted. This is what I love about this conversation. And I don't know what my thoughts on it are, but I feel like the idea of going back to labels, no matter-

what you think your relationship is with somebody. If you're asking for something, in a way, you have to almost think about it as like a transactional thing. Like, what are they getting out of it as well? And I know that doesn't apply with everybody. Like, you know, you can ask people that are very, very close to you just purely for a favor that they don't get anything out of. And out of their love for you, they will do things for you and vice versa, right?

But I think on many occasions, just like in your example, I feel like maybe with Ted, you over-indexed and just probably assumed, hey, we were close friends at work. He likes me. I like him. We have a good relationship. Hey, bud, can you do me this favor? And just thought very simply of it. And that's really interesting to think about in terms of like kind of re-looking at all our relationships when we want to ask for help for something. Yeah.

that will benefit us, we need to think about it in the same way that we would think about it in a work environment. And I don't know if that's a cynical view, but I don't think so. I think that's just a very pragmatic view of how to get things done. - Yeah, I mean, no, it's a great, but I think just in life, like where are you adding value? Like where is this other person going?

You know, if they're going opposite, like, I mean, something as simple as like, can you give me a ride? But you live on the other side of town and they're going in a completely direction. I don't care how good of a friend you are and be like, sorry, go get it. You go get your own DD. But if you live like literally right on the way, I mean, I pass by your house, get on in.

You know? And so it's like, but in that first example, when they're out of the way, how do you approach that differently to create the buy-in? Well, they will end up giving you that ride, right? Yeah. And part of it is just, you know, first, like, so you first probably want to target to say, well, who's kind of in the vicinity to begin with? And you did that with the friend. And then you say, okay, well, but where are they? Oh, you know what? Ted actually moved across town. He doesn't live in the same location anymore.

And so it's always about the other person. And then I think about something else, which is the long-term relationship, right? What's the cost of him just ghosting? What was the value he was getting from the relationship? So it's actually not a transaction because in a transactional relationship, this is what happens.

You're absolutely right. I think labeling it as a transaction was a mistake because a transaction is actually very simple, right? Like you do this, you do this, you get what you want, everyone's happy. But this is a lot more complex because you have to get creative, like you were saying, James, in terms of how do I add value? What does the other person get out of it when the transactional mean is not so obvious? Right.

Well, this also reminds me of another lesson that I heard you talk about before.

was the idea of like, no one cares about it as much as you do. Right. And this applies to the Ted example too. Like he's, he's not going to give a shit about your thing and getting you the investor because he's consumed with his own life and his own ambitions. And so what, what's your, what's your, what are your learnings from your own experience about that idea and the importance of knowing that no one else is going to care about what you care about as much as you do?

Yeah. I mean, I, I like to, I enjoy talking about that part or recording that because it was just, I just said, Hey, nobody cares. Nobody cares about what you're doing. Nobody cares as much as you do about what you're doing ever. You're always going to be your, your number one fan. That's, that's the honest truth. I don't care if it's your mom or your best friend, they don't care about the thing as much as you do. But the other way I, the other way I would treat the statement as is,

You can also use it to your advantage because I feel like sometimes, or at least for me, I like to overanalyze a lot of things and I'm always in my own head. So I'm always thinking like when I do this thing, if I launched this idea or this product and it flopped, let's say that it was a podcast or it was like my own website or something, man, it's going to look so embarrassing.

But the reality is nobody's looking that closely. Right. Because they're caring about their own shit. They're all in their own mind. Right. So you don't be afraid to fail or to not look like things are going in a straight line. Like it's okay to be vulnerable or to swing for the fences and miss once in a while because people are not looking that closely anyway. So you have to get over yourself in terms of

doing the thing. Well, I liked also going along with this exact same topic. Another lesson that you mentioned was this idea of doubling down, using this as a reason to double down on your own convictions. Again, no one's going to be cheering for you. I think to what you're saying, like you have to have such extreme confidence

conviction that comes from yourself that you believe this is going to work. - Because no one else is gonna do it for you. - Because no one is going to be your own, like a bigger fan than you are, right? You have to have like Kanye levels of self delusion coupled with like extreme execution. Like you gotta have both of these things and everyone has to find that intersection or that combination of whatever idea that they're pursuing.

You have to be your own biggest fan. There's no other way. I'm sure, I'm guessing that you've studied other companies and entrepreneurs and stuff. Like, are there some that you've, you know, that you admire or are there examples of them maybe getting it right in certain areas? Like, have you studied other models?

The one that I really like and I try to do something similar was not the product, but Warby Parker. Warby Parker. They're a very famous, for those who may not know, eyewear company in North America. I think they were founded maybe 10 years ago. They had an IPO recently.

a few years back and now they're worth just south of maybe $2 billion. Right. So, um, what I found really interesting was that they were, they were founded part-time like, and it was with like four people. They all went to like Wharton business school. Um, it was very famous because like the, one of the biz profs, Adam Grant said he didn't invest in them because he felt like they were not committed enough because they're all doing it part-time.

And they actually, that was very encouraging for me to read about as a case study because they showed that you could hedge your bets. Like they had day jobs. Once this thing started to take off, then they made it a full-time endeavor. Let me ask you something, James. Do you believe that there needs to be a higher calling as an entrepreneur other than making money? Or do you think if a person is solely motivated by...

the ends of making money. Is that enough? I think so. In your personal view? I think so because again, it goes to what the definition of entrepreneur is, right? So if you, for example, I think of a person who opens a restaurant as an entrepreneur, like, do you think they all have a vision for transforming the food industry or something? No, I mean, I think entrepreneurs can be motivated by many things and that can be one of them. Let me, okay, I want to make a huge pivot, okay?

And I want to pull out of this, when I first started off the show and these two started laughing at me, I'm like, hey, we have a lot in common. I was more talking about in terms of our general identity in terms of... Well, starting with the leather J in your name. Is that what you're talking about? The daggers just keep coming. No, because I... That was like a floppy... That was a very light dagger. Very light dagger.

Rubber dagger. I feel like anyone I talk to that's, you know, from back in the States or Canada that's living here, that's been here for quite a while, I almost feel a little bit of kinship with them in a sense that I just feel like from a macro level, we might have a few things in common. I just think from like an identity perspective and given the current times, number one, why are you still here?

living in China, working in China. And how do you feel about the fact that you are here? How long have you been here for? 12 years, mainly in China. So the first question is, what keeps me in China? I think China is still... Oh man, this is such a big question. That's why I asked. I think that there's still a lot of...

Okay, I think the short answer is I got very used to the fast pace of life and change in China. And so it makes it very difficult to go back to Canada or the United States even, where it feels like things are just moving so slowly.

Um, honestly, that's probably the biggest factor, right? I don't think someone with my background has the same professional career advantages as I did maybe 10 years ago. That's a huge, there's a huge shift in the job market and things like that. But I think it's the personal connection that the personal aspects that keep me here is that it's really, really hard to, I mean, I mean, I visit Canada, I visit the United States and I just feel like, um,

I feel like we're just, it's just a different tempo. Where's home? Like what city? Home is Vancouver. Okay. So you're referring to like kind of like the tempo of life here and you just feel it's more stagnant over there. A little slower pace and you're just not used to that. And also I just feel like Shanghai or Beijing is like the New York of China because you just meet all kinds of interesting people all the time.

I'm just meeting you guys now. And you just don't get that in some smaller cities. It's interesting. I just thought... So have you heard of Journey to the East? Yeah. Oh, Journey to the East, not the West. No, yeah. Journey to the East. No, I have not. Yeah. Well, shout out to Derek and Lucas from Journey to the East. But yeah, it's like people who are...

at the beginning of their journey, you know? And so for a lot of different reasons, they, you know, they are, you know, Western born, you know, Chinese people. They haven't really spent a lot of time out here. They, there's this shift in a lot of the things. And then people are like, you know, the last stuff's happening in the US, Canada, et cetera, that might not be favorable in some ways, right? And so there is this movement, right? Of like really,

sort of well-educated, you know, people. And then they want to, you know, they need support like to come out here, right? Whether it's from like work perspective, like social, right? Making friends, cultural, like what's it like, the logistic stuff. So they created like this little community. That sounds like a really cool community. It is. I wish I was, I mean...

It'd be nice to be a part of that, but also like, I wish I had that community where I had access to it like years and years ago. Right. Yeah. But don't you feel like because you've been here for so long, these kinds of communities just feel kind of distant. And even, even if you were to have a chance to enter this community, it almost kind of feels like, am I even a part of that community? Yeah.

Do you feel that at all? I mean, I don't know. I see Justin shaking his head, like nodding his head right now. Let's get specific because like, are you talking about the community of people who haven't moved here yet and are thinking about moving? I'm just going with what Eric was saying. This program of people that's just coming or journeying to China, you know, and they're not like OGs like us here. They're like newbies. Yeah, like more newbies. And...

I'm just putting myself in that position where, yeah, just like you said, when I first moved here and there was some program or group activity like that, that sounds great. That sounds like an awesome way to make new friends, to feel a little bit more comfortable with the transition. But being here for over 15, 16 years now, I feel like

The concept is a great concept, but if I showed up and like, and I just wanted to meet new people, I would be like, oh my God, we're from two different worlds. I'm almost Shanghainese now, you know? But I didn't feel that way because- You didn't feel that? No, because I, so this idea, this feeling of sort of being distant, like, you know, why would you need help? Like, we're so familiar. Yeah, like initially. And then you talk to people.

And then you feel their energy. Yeah. And the reason, like, why did you, why are you coming? And then you, and then instantly there's, there's, there's things that don't change. Like,

they're coming out, they have some of the same, it's the same question. Why are you still here? Why do you want to come out? - Especially in this moment in time. - Yes. - Because back when we first moved, that was like, that's easy. Everyone was coming here, it was fun to be here. It was trendy, it was popular, it was almost an easy choice. - It was mysterious, 'cause not that many people were out here, too. - But once you came here, you were like, oh my God, this is like a whole new great world.

Now, because there weren't the same shit going on back then, right? There weren't the same tensions and complexities that people might have in their heads back then. Now...

the situation has evolved, right? And we're not necessarily in the best of positions, both I think in the domestic situation here, but also in the international relations, especially from the places where we came from. But new people coming in and making the decision to like, let's say move to China now, I would have so much curiosity and fascination. And I think it'd be so refreshing in a way

to hear their stories, their motivations, their reasoning,

I would be excited to meet those people. There's so much energy. Yeah. Instead of the same old, you know, kind of, you know, droning on about, you know, things and being pessimistic. I think moving here, you would have to have some level of optimism to make the move, right? Or it's worse back home. I don't know. No, no. Here's a couple of things that I learned, right? Without like, so we can then go back to like,

to hear like why you're still here and what you love about the city and get your point of view. But there were a few trends and one was, okay, they saw like the center of gravity of, uh, of certain things like moving to the East, right? Like the Korean wave, like all the kinds of stuff. I mean, there's a lot of interesting things that are happening here. And then a lot of these folks, like they're from different parts, like the Bay area, they're like, it's super stagnant. It hasn't changed in like 10 years. Yeah.

And I imagine like if you go back to like where you, you know, Vancouver, things haven't necessarily changed. Right. And then there was this, you know, some of the anti-Asian sentiment and some of the things like that. And then they looked at like there's actually kind of there's models for this. So for instance, like in the, I don't know, the 80s or whatever. Right. There was a whole Japanese diaspora that went to Brazil and

Um, but then the economy in Brazil like tanked and then they moved back to Japan. And then there's like a support system that like with Korean people, like you just join a church and then you've got like the whole thing in place, like everything. Uh, there's even African Americans like moving back to Africa because in Ghana there was some project there and stuff like that. Right. But,

I think what inspired them was first they made the journey and then they met other people and they really felt the passion. And like, it was like life-changing when they can join a community that allowed them to make the shift. It's not for everyone. In fact, most Asian Americans or Canadian Asians or whatever, they're going to stay because like their parents like best busted ass to get there. But there is like probably a group of people that want to, you know, come out here. And then when they made those connections, they,

It was like incredible. If you think about it, like that's the three of us. So it's really interesting. So your perspective of like why you've stayed is very much linked to potentially reasons that they would want to move out, right? Well, how do you feel like, how has your time living in China changed your view, I guess, of your identity? It's like the old saying,

saying or thought right like when you're when you're in north america you feel more chinese when you're in china you feel more western or north american i definitely felt that in the beginning i wanted to hold on to my western identity because i felt like that was the source of stability for me just you know you can speak mandarin but you're not really in the culture right i think language is one part of it but not feeling like you really fit in i remember like when i first

I first started in Beijing, not Shanghai, but I remember being so excited when I connected with other people and we could speak English. I remember being just so excited that I didn't have to speak Mandarin that I could like be myself. Yeah, going back to the authentic, not covering. I think this is very relatable, but I think over, that's the initial, right? But I think over time, I've just kind of leaned more into just being Chinese Chinese, right? I like having...

mostly Chinese life where I'm like watching Chinese shows and reading things in Mandarin or like using WeChat as a local person would. I like, I think this is also kind of because my own worldview of things changed because me back then, like in my 30s, I wanted to be different somehow. Like I wanted to stand out in my own mind of what James was. But I think as you get older, you just start to realize that

None of us are really all that special. We can just lean into just being like everybody else. Not saying be like a Zhou Cai. Don't have critical thinking. But there's a reason why we are what we are. And just don't fight that. And your parents are back in Canada? Yeah, my parents separated when I was younger. So my dad is in Taiwan. And my mom, my younger brother, are in Canada. Okay. Because I was just listening to what you're saying about your...

It's like you've assimilated into Chinese culture. You've assimilated. I'm just curious to see what you think about it.

When I was living in the States, I was mainly around non-Asians. And when I moved here, I felt a certain comfort that I never had before. And I couldn't put my finger on it until living here for a certain amount of time that I realized the comfort is because I was blending in from a visual perspective. And it's sort of like you're nothing special kind of thing, right?

I'm just anybody else in the street in terms of the way I look. You're not the token Asian anymore. Yeah, exactly. And all of a sudden, there's a certain comfort level that I felt. I couldn't put my finger on it until I really thought about it.

And I also gave another personal, I guess, way of thinking that I didn't realize I had until I lived here, which is back in New York, whenever I went out, and once again, only because I hung out with non-Asians, I didn't feel uncomfortable at all, ever, because I grew up around it. But subconsciously, whenever I went to any public place, a party or a venue, I always did a head count of how many other Asians are there.

subconsciously and not that it affected my mood not that it would be like oh shit I'm the only one or oh shit there's five others it didn't affect me at all just observing it's just an observation I didn't realize that until living here after for a certain duration that I had that aspect of me because it all of a sudden I felt like something was missing and I realized because I'm not counting

I'm counting foreigners for anything. I'm like, wow, there's some white foreigners here. You know, like non-Asians. You know? It's like the opposite happened. So in retrospect, was counting kind of a mental tax? I don't know. Maybe. It was just a weird thing that I had that I didn't realize I had. And then I put two and two together and I started realizing, I think it's because I blended it in. I'm blending in now. And it was one of those comfort levels that unless you live a life that I...

personally went through, it's kind of hard to understand. And I feel like what you're saying right now about the reason why I'm going on this for so long is because what you just said about you're just using WeChat like a local person, you're reading your Chinese language show, watching Chinese language shows or reading Chinese language articles, whatever, you're just kind of assimilating.

And I think it is a certain type of comfort level that you kind of can achieve based off of who you are, a Chinese Canadian, but coming back here. Does that make sense? It does. And you actually reminded me when I first came to mainland China, I used to have these weird thoughts like, man, I wish I looked more Western on the outside. So people would know like, you know, they didn't,

They didn't misunderstand. They didn't misunderstand, right? Because, yeah, you know. Exactly. I wanted to be more apparently like a foreigner. So you didn't have to like explain yourself. Exactly. As like, oh, I grew up outside. There would be less awkwardness. There would be like less having to preface everything. Exactly. But over time, I realized. I love prefacing shit. Yeah, he does. But I realized over time that that's an advantage, man.

That's an unfair advantage. Like looking like this and having the Western plus the Eastern ideology or the ways of thinking. In what way do you feel it's an advantage?

It's just something that I can use when I need to. I think it's not, maybe it's not, it's an advantage, but it's a flexibility. Yeah, flexibility, maybe. Yeah, well, it goes back. Changing gears. I remember when we did a podcast with Oscar Fuchs, who is the host of the Mosaic of China podcast. He was talking about this term, passing. Like, we can pass when we need to. We can pass as Chinese when we need to.

And we can also just fit in with Westerners when we need to, right? So it's that both sides of things. That chameleon aspect I like. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's strange because like when you were saying that when you were living in Canada, you never felt like, let's say, more Canadian than ever. I mean, more Chinese than ever. And then when you came here, you never felt like more Canadian than ever or whatever. I felt the, my experience is the exact opposite of that.

When I was growing up in the States, I never felt more American than ever. I was like, yeah, I'm American. Through and through. This is my home. This is my culture. Don't see color kind of thing? No, it's not about color. It was just about like that was the culture I grew up in. That's the society. That's what I identified with. I think it's because we didn't hang out with too many Asians growing up. Yeah, for sure. That's why we had that similar bond. That must have been... That was a huge influence. The fact that we were not around other Asians, right? So...

And, but when I, but once I moved here, immediately, I never felt more Chinese than ever. So it was the opposite of you where once I got here, it was this immediate comfort level that I'm, and then that I never could put my finger on when I was growing up in the States because I just wasn't aware enough of it. And once I moved here, I never felt more comfortable with myself and my identity in society than

And it made me realize, and it highlighted the fact that there was something about my identity that I was just never fully comfortable with living in America. And that's not to say that I had a bad experience. I had a great experience growing up there. I had great friends,

But for some reason, I still just never felt fully comfortable. Yeah. It's an underlying, really subtle thing. You don't know until you move out here. And then you're like, that's why I was never in front of my people. And it's not something I'm proud of to say necessarily because this idea of tribalism is something that I really, especially in this day and age, I really want to fight against. I want to fight against that instinct for all of us

to be tribal, although it's in everybody, right? It's just part of our evolution. But so I'm not immune to that as well. And at the root of it, that's probably what's playing out there. It's this idea of, oh, I'm back in my tribe. I never knew I was out of my tribe. And I can't help but feel like that's what was happening, even though consciously I hate and really kind of despise the idea of being tribal.

No, I mean, that's legit. I think that's human nature, right? Human nature and then how we choose to channel and harness human nature are two different things. Like, I don't think there's anything inherently bad with feeling like, even if you can't put a finger or language on feeling like you're part of a tribe. Isn't it just human nature? And maybe just for me, it feels like it's human nature to just identify people that look like you. That's just a very human thing. That's not like a race thing. That's just like...

That's just a human thing. Did you, but did you grow up around, I'm assuming you grew up around other Asians and Chinese. Definitely. And I would say definitely more exposed to Asians than maybe the average person in North America, because I think statistically in the nineties and especially now, um, there are more Asians in Vancouver than Caucasians.

Oh, really? Like if you consider like Asian, Indian, like the things that constitute like non-white, non-Caucasian. I grew up around that. So Caucasians are technically the minority in Vancouver. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I heard that. Well, I mean, so there's this aspect of like congruence in terms of how you look, stuff like that. But I wonder how much of this is just the cultural legacy that your family has left you.

This sense of identity comes from the fact that your parents came from a place that you just came back to.

When I first moved to mainland China, just, I don't know if you guys got the same experience. Like my family and friends could not fathom why I did. They were not against it, but they were definitely not supportive of it. And for many, many years, I have friends in Canada that were just asking me like, James, when are you coming back? When are you coming back? What, why, what's the root of that you feel? I think to them, especially for my parents, like, cause you know, you talked about like the parents influence, like,

I'm from Taiwan. So there's this whole view that people have me in China and I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. No, we're well aware of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. News at 10, right? China might have a less than favorable reputation, but it's like to them, it's almost like I decided to move to Mars. I think just from that generation, because I can't speak to your friends, but maybe from your parents' generation, because I can relate to that.

From that generation, all they knew was one directional in terms of, okay, leaving mainland China, looking for a better life, immigrating in search for more opportunity. That's the world they knew. And to fathom a reverse direction of that is just so crazy. But like, I don't know, like from like maybe your peers and your friends at that time,

I don't know what might have been driving their feeling of like, why the hell are you there? When are you coming back? I don't know. Would it be different? I think my friends in Canada have a generally negative view of mainland China.

Still. No, not... I mean, it's... To be honest, I don't really talk with him about that much, about this stuff as much as I did back then. He's like, yeah, man. But what do you mean still? It would be even stronger now, right? Because it's just been more propaganda. Honestly, I haven't talked to him recently about it. Not from Asians, though.

No, they're still negative. Because if you're just living in that society and their media is all you're seeing, it's just gotten even more propagandized than ever. And they want to distance themselves even more. I think so. It's like this... One thing I really don't like, and we've mentioned this before, it's like if you're living in... We'll use the States for now just because we're from the States. If you're from the States, born and raised... Let's say if I never came to China and I'm there...

today, and if I started having the attitude of like, I'm not Chinese, I'm American, you know, I just really doubled down on that ideology. That's something that really bothers me. Like if we do the psychological calculus on this,

If you are living in a society where you feel in any way that you might be already at a disadvantage just based on your identity and your ethnicity, especially given a heating and more chaotic political environment, you are fighting for your own survival in a way, right? You are fighting for your own survival.

position in the graces of what will keep you alive, quote unquote. And so from the psychological point of view, of course, you're going to double down on the idea of trying to distance yourself from what the society you're living in is telling you are the bad guys and is the enemy and is blah, blah, blah, because this is surrounding you.

And so... It's a kind of survival. Based on what all the information they're getting through no fault of their own, they, a lot of them are going to be distancing themselves, unfortunately, I think, from their roots here.

mental self-preservation exactly and doubling down on you know all the anti-china kind of bias and rhetoric that's going on there i can see that as being a behavior pattern but i don't know if that's really the reason why asians may do that and personally i just don't know of asians that do that i mean i it's one thing for um

friends of mine to be saying, like, I'm not so sure about China or, you know, like it's not a democratic country or something like that to doing what I think you're describing, which is almost like

vilifying it. And maybe I just haven't had deep enough conversations with them. I've just... So in your experience, your friends are more just asking honest questions about like, oh, like, why are you there? Are they more curious? They just keep their distance. You know, you can kind of tell that they're not really wanting to understand that. And so I don't try to... It goes back to what we're saying. Like, I'm not trying to convince everybody. So you do you kind of thing. Maybe 10...

Eight years ago, I would try to have these conversations, but I kind of just realized that it wasn't really, we're not really on the same wavelength. And so I've just, and maybe this is me creating my own echo chamber. I mean, I feel like kind of this conversation, especially with people you know and have a certain level of trust, even if you're on opposite sides of a topic or issue, you

To kind of converse about it, especially if somebody has firsthand experience with whatever it is you're talking about or whatever place you're talking about. I mean, isn't that one of the better ways to kind of create more understanding and bridge the gaps and just get more, you know, just get better results, I guess, from what people are thinking. So when I feel like the conversation just kind of gets...

stifled or shut down in a way um it just bothers me you know because i i want to create more understanding i don't want to live in this world where people are so divided and much of that division in my opinion is based on a lot of misguided ideas and concepts and biases and so i

So that's just not a world I want to live in. But unfortunately, I feel like it's the world we have right now. And that's what kind of keeps me up at night. So the optimist in you believes that having these one-on-one conversations in good faith will allow people to overcome that. But then there have been instances where...

that's not the case. And so you're bothered by that or you feel bothered by it. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm not saying that my conversation with them is going to be the solution, but maybe it could be a one small step in that direction, right? So what do you think the anecdote is? Do you think everyone just like kind of disengage? Just kind of keep to yourself? Like everyone has the autonomy and the right just to believe what they want to believe and we just kind of live in our own

our own thought bubbles. This sounds kind of woo-woo, but I just think everyone has a time and place when they're going to be ready for whatever their truth is. And it's going to take something major in their life. It's going to take something that really shakes them up. Some people find religion. Some people find conspiracy. Some people find searching for facts. It's all kinds of stuff. It's interesting that we're talking about this right now because just last night,

I was texting a friend. He was going off about, we were talking about AI and stuff like that. And he was going off just like ranting, right? And I literally just wrote back and I just said, like at the end of the day, I mean, I'm very focused on this topic as well, but the way you're going off and about it, I mean, there's nothing I can do personally, right? I'm just a worker bee. I'm just like trying to make that honey and just do my thing.

And he was just like, oh, that's a horrible mentality. That's so pessimistic and stuff like that. I'm like, well, what do you want me to do? Or I can only be like, yes, I agree. That's horrible. Oh, God. I started asking myself, is this like a giving up kind of way of thinking? Do we feel like the older we get personally...

the more you realize the truths of life. Resonation, when it's giving up, giving up. Exactly. And almost I feel like that's one thing that I've been thinking about is it's like the truths of life. What is the truths of life? And I'm building it a lot more clearly now these days than 10, 15 years ago. And part of that is understanding what are some things for me to really focus on? What are some things that just let it be?

Really, where do you want to put your energy ultimately? Going back to some of the purpose conversations, where do you put your energy that's going to drive change and what's not going to move the needle? There's plenty of things to do. I think it ties very well with what we were starting with in terms of where you're applying your energy and focus. I think we start off the conversation with talking about headlines and politics and

People putting too much emphasis on that and to disengage with that is actually being less ignorant, not more ignorant, because you can start seeing a whole world open up to you of other things that really matter and things that could be more meaningful to you that you actually have some control over that you can start learning more about doing more about instead of so fixated on, I guess,

Things are out of your control. Yeah, because I mean, just to add on to what you're saying, the one thing that I always put, forget about what we were just talking about, about the podcast. I just think in general, this lens idea that you're saying, because a lot of the issues and problems that we all face in our life, whether it's work, relationships or anything, are

It's always because you're putting your own expectations of who, well, you're putting yourself onto, you're projecting yourself onto others and your expectations onto others, right? And when they're not fulfilling that level of standard that you put on yourself, you know, you almost feel like, okay, well, then they're not into it. For example, I always have this issue with my mother, right?

She's always constantly questioning my love of her, right? Like she questions that I'm not, I don't think about her. I don't love her and like whatever, right? It's only because I'm not that communicative. I'm not good at that, right? I'm not good at like reaching out to people and stuff like that. And, but she's good at that, you know? And so I'm not good at that.

And so all of a sudden it's always like, I'm trying to, I'm like, if you only could read my mind, you would understand that. Yeah, of course you're my mother. You know, like I have all my love for you. 100%. You don't understand. People need validation. Yeah, exactly. In your time, you needed validation at that. Well, let's not even talk about the podcast. Let's talk about the example you just gave because like,

1000% exact same situation as you with my own mother. - Yeah. - Right? Because you know how I am. I don't really communicate on text. I don't reach out as often, but like in my head, I couldn't love them anymore. - Exactly. - Right? - Exactly. - And, but they're always accusing me of being like, you don't love me enough. But see, but this is where I want to draw the line because at what point do we have to take accountability for ourselves? - Yeah.

In my mind, I can be like, if only you were in my head, you would know exactly how much I love you. But yet the actual signals I'm sending to her by not reaching out, by not doing this is giving her all the evidence otherwise. Yes. Right? Yes. So one is, okay, maybe their lens is distorted. Sure. That could be a factor. But how much responsibility am I taking or accountability am I taking in terms of what are the signals I'm actually giving out?

I want to continue with what you're saying because the second part of what I was going to say is exactly that. Is after these continued conversations with my mother of that sort of subject matter, it took a couple of times for me to start being like, okay, you know what? She popped in my mind. I'm just sending a text. I just say hello. You have to start changing your behavior. Yeah, I have to. Even if it's, and I love this because it's tying right back to the idea of authenticity and covering what we're talking about with James, is that

I do it now, even though like my authentic self would never send this message in the first place, even though I love her to death. Right. So it's like, it's just weird. It's also like, just like the book, the, the love languages, right? Yep. You just have to know how they want to receive it or what is most effective for them. So it's not, for me, it's not even about accountability or should I do it or not. If you love that person, if you care about them, just figure out a way to,

get into their heart. That's it. I also think that covering is like going against your nature in a way that perhaps... It's not against your nature to text your mother. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, I think it's different. It kind of is. Good stuff. Well, you know, the one thing that I usually talk about that I didn't talk about, then, of course, these guys bring it up, but it's great. The one day you don't bring it up, we bring it up. Yeah.

So we always talk about how Eric always has to bring up his mother. That's why I don't have these issues like you guys do. It's so funny. I'll be honest, like it's hard for me to even like talk about how I'm supposed to talk about entrepreneurship because I feel way more relaxed talking about like, oh, what's my background or like my corporate life. But this entrepreneurship thing is also something I'm trying to figure out. So I'm not saying that there's anything inauthentic, but I definitely like in trying to be authentic as possible. I just don't have like a snappy three points like this is what you should. Well, you're...

Clearly like intelligent and you clearly have I think lessons that you learn and insight to give but like you're you're not only very humble But you're you were very honest about I think the whole situation which is really why I wanted you on the show You know where our show is about honesty

And that's the whole kind of DNA of our show. It's like, we don't have the answers, but here we are live in the moment trying to figure shit out. Why don't you hop along for the ride? Right. And I feel like that's very much where you're coming from, from the whole like entrepreneurship. Yeah. We can get a hundred people that could give you three bullet points of what to do. Right. I think, but that's not the point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, man, thanks again for coming on the show. If people want to find you, where can they find you? They can find me on Xiaohongshu and Weixin. I have a little channel called ABC Entrepreneur James. Awesome. I guess it wasn't as good of a ring as CBC, but most people understand ABC. You're being so inauthentic. Exactly. Anyway. All right. That was James. I'm Justin. I'm Howie. I'm Eric. All right.

All right. Be good. Be well. Peace.