Belonging Anywhere | Identity, Family, Music & Finding Contentment with Jermaine Ee

What if being an outsider isn’t evidence that you don’t belong, but part of the path toward discovering who you are?

Jermaine Ee attended 14 schools while growing up between cultures, continually learning how to enter unfamiliar places as “the new kid.” Music became one of his first safe places, while the unwavering love of his mother taught him that his worth was never dependent on achievement.

In this deeply reflective conversation, Jermaine shares how his immigrant family shaped his understanding of sacrifice, success, identity, and home. He takes us from an American high school music room to USC, from helping immigrant families access financial aid to humanitarian work in Ukraine and ultimately to the creation of HeirLight, inspired by intimate conversations with his mother about mortality, money, and what we leave behind for the people we love.

Along the way, Jermaine discovered the power of his own voice and began redefining the identity he once tried to escape:

“Being an outsider is where I belong.”

Together, Melissa and Jermaine explore what it means to live between cultures, how a parent’s love can anchor us through uncertainty, why clarity can be an expression of care, and whether home is something we find in a place or cultivate within ourselves.

This is a conversation about legacy in its most human form: not simply what we leave behind, but how deeply we help others know that they are loved.

The Belonging Podcast is presented by Elev8 Villages, a nonprofit creating holistic, resource-rich villages where young adults who have experienced foster care can find stability, opportunity, and—most importantly—belonging.

This podcast exists because we believe belonging is not a luxury. It’s a human need. Every story shared here helps us imagine a world where no one has to walk alone. 

If this conversation resonated with you, please follow, rate, or share the show with someone who might need it today. To learn more about the movement we’re building (or to get involved) visit Elev8Villages.org.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of The Belonging Podcast by Elev8 Villages - where belonging becomes a place we build together. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to another exciting episode of the Belonging Podcast by Elevate Villages. I'm your host, Melissa Kay, and today we are joined by Jermaine E. It is hard to give an intro for this gentleman because he has done so much and there are so many facets of his life I'm interested in. So come along with me and let's just jump right in. Jermaine, welcome to the Belonging Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

So I'm so excited that you're here. And let's start in the beginning. I know that you were born in Los Angeles, but spent a lot of your time in Malaysia. Tell us about your early life growing up and being from two different places.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Wow, that's a very, very heavy topic. I would say I went to 14 different schools in core uh including university.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Wait, 14, 1-4?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah, 1-4. So we're coming kindergarten here. So we're talking a span of about 18 years or so. So everything from kindergarten till university. And that means that I moved around a lot. I had to make new friends over and over again. But a lot of it is better analyzed looking back. In the moment it was difficult to be the new kid all the time. In the moment it was difficult to feel like an outsider all the time. But looking back now, I think I got this blessing of being both in this communal culture of the Asian culture as well as the American culture, which is we celebrate individualism, we we encourage people to be brave and take leaps of faith. You know, on the contrast, the Asian culture is let's fit right in, let's not do anything too crazy. Right. We want the approval of our family. So I think living in between those two tensions have really made me who I am.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

That's so interesting because I I also moved around a lot, was in a lot of different schools, not 14 though. I think you have me beat on that. Um and all my moving still was within the American culture. So I think that that would be such another layer of complexity when you're from two different cultures. So you came back to the US in high school, is that right? After a long time abroad?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yeah, I came back to the US after spending nine and a half years living in Malaysia. And I landed my junior year in October.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

So even coming in late to the school year. So not only late in the high school.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yeah. Yeah. And that would be my third high school. So we're coming into a third high school in October where all the friend groups have been made, all the classes, the path, the extra activities have been established. And that was truly, I think, one of the most difficult times of my life.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Aaron Powell I'm sure. I'm sure. Now there seems to be a little um a really fun twist of I'm gonna call it fate, um, that you started taking piano when you were very young, correct?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah, I think I was four or five years old.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Okay. And then like you didn't like it and you you won it out, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Yeah. So all four of us, I'm the oldest of four kids, and none of us like piano, but we love our mom. And she always wanted to have kids who she wanted to play piano herself, but she always wanted to make sure that her kids can express themselves in music. And so we all four of us did.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

And so now you've moved around, you're in high school, came in late so awkward, so just a difficult time for any teenager, let alone coming in when you did. And so music had a way of kind of coming and helping you find belonging. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yeah, it was really a few factors there. You know, the first one was that I didn't have any friends and there weren't that many classes that was easy for me to just jump right in. I wasn't gonna be a football player. I was probably five, four at the time. And and I didn't actually didn't know anything about football. So we didn't have American football in Asia where I grew up. Sure. So so my counselor thought, you know what, you you can play the piano. You can probably learn another instrument. So I joined the marching band. And because I needed credits to graduate high school, I also joined the jazz band and later on the orchestra. So I did all of it.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Wow. Okay. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, and that was the that was the first time that there's a the little corner on campus that I got to go and feel a little bit of a safe space. You know, and I got to hang out with people. I actually picked up the French horn, which I never played before. And I I never I was never really that good at it, to be honest, but I I can read music pretty well. And so picking up a new instrument wasn't difficult.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

You know, but but if you told my mom or you told me that at four or five years old, learning piano would become the key to assimilating into the American high school. Right. I I don't think any of us would have seen that coming.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Yeah, I think that's just how life works out. This is the belonging podcast that we talk so much about when we when we don't belong. And I think all those instances are very obvious. Um, anybody could feel everything you had to go through as you were growing up and in adolescence. But then where is it that we find belonging? And we find it all around us. We just really have to look for it. And so I love that something that your mom really just gifted you with. And even if you didn't like it, like she saw the vision for you, and that that ended up being the thing that created a little bit of belonging for you in those rough high school years.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Arguably it's still creating a little safe space for me, you know, because I listened to music to reconcile my feelings. I listen to music to take me back to places and memories of times of my life. I think as I'm I'm 34 now, as I'm you know, thinking ahead of becoming a father someday, someday soon, hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yeah. I think a lot about how there's not a whole lot we can control in how we the in the outputs of our children, right? It's like all we can do is really try to do our best to give all the inputs that we think is best for them. And, you know, I I've been talking to a lot of my friends with kids, and some of them very successful in their career. And of course, they're trying to optimize, they're trying to do as much as they can to give their kids a head start. But I always ask them, you have the first child, how how did it turn out? Is it is it as you expected? Did you nurture the environment for your kid to be a six foot five basketball player, maybe? Or or is one of them driving carts, go-karts, and becoming a Formula One driver someday? And as it turns out, none of them could have predicted how their kids would have turned out.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Interesting. So no matter all the best intentions, yeah, life has a way of keeping us in a certain path that we don't even know exists. I wanted to go back a little bit to music because you've had such an experience with it and it still plays such a role in your life. What do you think it is about music and and possibly even art, but let's say music for now that makes people feel belonging. I've not had this conversation with anybody, and it's it's very curious to me, but I I sense that there's a lot of there's a depth of wisdom here. And so I'd love to know if if you've thought about it, if this resonates with you at all.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Certainly. I mean, there's a science aspect to it too. You had a brain training startup in New York right before COVID. And one of the things that we try to do is we we understood that kids between the ages of four to six, if you're able to give them a tactile and an audio and a visual experience, it develops their frontal cortex a little bit more. And the frontal cortex is where executive functions come into play. And, you know, without knowing all of this, I think my mom gave me this ability to sit in discipline, right? To learn something that I really didn't want to learn. It was so difficult. But to push through this discipline and to give myself the confidence that if you keep up with something for long enough of a time, you can look back and see progress. And I think that's a gift that a lot of kids these days are lacking because we tend to we see kids giving up things too quickly.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Right. As soon as things get difficult, we say, oh, you know, it's okay if you don't want to do it. And I think that's a very difficult skill to instill these days. So on the emotional side of it, I think on the belonging side, understanding music has, you know, they say music is a universal language. And I think I what it means to me is just that I can walk into any situation and feel deeply in conversations with people about their culture, right? About things like, you know, what what is something that we share, you know, music that we listened to as kids, and how we can share this really unique piece and understand the depth of it. I remember going to Poland for the first time and I and I walked by Chopin's uh music school. It's this famous composer from Poland, and I didn't know much about it except for that I knew some of the pieces, and I just walked into the school and and had a great conversation with them. So I think it's this gift that it's just uh yeah, it's this gift that keeps on giving.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

I agree. Music is just so multicultural, multidimensional. Let's go back to your mom, because it sounds like she's had such a um lovely presence in your life, and I know that you did lose her. Um tell us how did your mother affect your life and what do you want us to know about your mother and that journey?

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Aaron Ross Powell My mom grew up in a fairly simple family. She was born in the 60s in Malaysia, so this is 20 years after the Second World War. Uh she's the daughter, the tenth of 12 kids. So huge, huge family. And somewhere when she was 19, 18 years old, she decided she wanted to leave the country, leave Malaysia. And uh she went to Taiwan to study computer science. And and in the late 70s, she landed in Oklahoma. You know, of all places, she decided Oklahoma was the most affordable place that her Malaysian parents' save savings can afford to send her to. I went back to Oklahoma with her last year, and we we walked around and looked at these places that she used to live in, or at least we tried to find the places she used to live in. This was 40 years ago now. And at some point in that trip, I asked her, walk me through your mindset 40 years ago when you decided to leave the comfort of your home, being the the baby sister of the family, right? She had she really had nothing to worry about. She had a pretty good life.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

And she just said, you know, I always knew that there was more to my life. I always knew that there's an adventure out there that if I wanted to achieve more, I needed to take a chance. And why wouldn't I take a chance when I was young? So she did, and she moved across the world to this place where she didn't know anybody. And she met my father, who was also studying in Oklahoma at the time. Wow. They had to be in Oklahoma to meet because they they both didn't have so much money. But I think what was interesting was, you know, back to the topic of belonging. I think a big part of them being together was to I think in the late 70s in Oklahoma, there just weren't so many immigrants. There weren't so many Asian immigrants specifically. Sure. And and they of course they connected and they built a life around each other, eventually got married and had four kids. But but the way I got my name, Jermaine, was a such an indication of how they were thinking about belonging. Because when I was born, they thought that they wanted their first American-born child to have the most American name possible so that he or I can belong in this country that carried so much dreams for them.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

And and so in the late 70s, the the most American name they can come up with was Jermaine, named after Jermaine Jackson of the Jackson 5.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

And it's such a beautiful story to me because first of all, they didn't know that Jermaine was a primarily black name, right? They had no idea how being an a tiny Asian guy named Jermaine would affect the way my life is. Getting into Ubers in Atlanta, ordering Starbucks in DC, where people question if I was taking somebody else's drink. And and they asked if I wanted to change my name. And I say, no. Why why would I change something so pure about the the American story that lives in our family?

SPEAKER_02 14:39

That's so beautiful. They wanted you to belong, and that that was one of the ways they could think of doing it. Oh, that's precious. Wow. And so later on, did your mom ever go, huh? Is that why they asked you if you wanted to change it? They were like, wow, that might not have been the choice we thought we were making.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

They just asked if, you know, I thought that my name was hindering my ability to, let's say, get a job or job applications and things like that. And I say, no, I I can't imagine my life being anybody but Jermaine at this point.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Right. You're right.

unknown 15:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Oh, I'm sure you have some stories though having that name, like just those those very uh superficial connections with people could be really like, huh? Well, good on your mom and dad for naming you something bold, and for you for like really like growing into and in just inhabiting that name. In the later years of your mom's life, you actually like took the time to let her walk you through some of her history there, coming over here as an immigrant. And what are some other lessons that you learned from her in those last years of her life?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

I'll take it back a little bit. So when I was a teenager, I was a pretty rebellious student. That's why I moved school so many times. I I just couldn't sit still and I couldn't understand why the size of Saturn matter to me. Right. Like why are we memorizing these things that are so trivial? And to be judged, um, a lot of times our to be judged, our self-worth is tied up to the grade that we get, right? And all along I've always I've always known that my mom believed in me, my dad too, that you know, the grades that I got wasn't a reflection of who I am as a person to them. It wasn't a reflection of my worth to them. But as I look back now, I have so much more appreciation to how they were able to tune out the voices of friends and family, of neighbors, of the other parents. Because the other parents were telling them that what are you gonna do about your son? He's so rebellious, he's getting into trouble all the time, he's arguing with the teacher about stupid things all the time. And I I give my parents a lot of credit now to be able to be strong, right, and not keep up with the Joneses, not compare their rebellious son to whatever standard society set as a a good student.

unknown 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

But all along, I think, because of their belief in me, I had an even higher standard for myself that I didn't want to disappoint them. And I think that drove me to work hard, but that also drove me to tie a lot of my self-worth to how proud they were and to keep them proud. I didn't really understand this at the time, but uh I often say that one of the happiest times of my life was when I got into USC, Southern California. It wasn't until 10 years after graduation that I had a conversation with my mom. And I told her, I actually asked her what was the happiest moment of her life, and we talked about it. She she couldn't really tell me one. Um I think she said something about her kids, but but then she asked me the same, and I and I easily answered her. I say, it was the day I got into USC because it was the first time in my life where the validation of my worth in society was validated by an elite university, right? The acceptance. I remember this conversation clearly because we were standing in the windmills outside of Amsterdam, just my mom and I. We were taking a day to ourselves, just mother and son walking around these windmills. It was a cold day. We had hot coffees in our hand and strolling through. And she told me that she said, Did you know when you got into USC I was so happy but I was so stressed because USC was the second most expensive university in the United States, and she knew the price tag, or she googled it. At the time, in 2010, 2011, it was 62,000 US dollars. Or we're talking a year's salary. So what I didn't know was the happiest day of my life was also one of the most stressful days of my mom's life. And in this conversation, I realized being a parent, again, as I'm considering all the things about being a parent, is one of my mom's greatest fear was that she was the ceiling of my ambition. And months later, this conversation came up again, and I I told her that getting into USC was more about the validation, was more about having the opportunity to take a shot. Whether I whether or not I mean it's easy to say now because I did end up going to USC with with a full scholarship, but like I was trying to convince my mom that even if we couldn't afford it at the time, I I would have figured something out. It would have taken a really big loan, a probably a not very good loan, um, to to go, and that I was just grateful for everything that she's done for me. And parts of me sometimes think back and wonder if I should have had this conversation earlier, if it was possible to have come up earlier. But um, that was the most one of the most revealing things about my relationship with my mom.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Where do you find and you may not have thought about this, um, but through the podcast, I've learned that a lot of people talk about like we have to learn to belong to ourself. And I think especially in certain cultures, I think everybody to some degree or another like feels that like we want to impress our parents, we want to be accepted, we finally want to be good enough to live up to their expectations of us. Um where do you find the line between, say, belonging in your family, belonging with your parents, and still like belonging to yourself? And how do you sort of navigate that space in between?

SPEAKER_00 21:37

This is totally, I think, nature and nurture. Right. I think um I forgot which psychologists uh say this. I think it was Arthur Brooks, talked a lot about how the baseline of our happiness is many times predetermined that by the time we're born. If we're someone who's very anxious by nature, you know, we we we got to work through a lot of the the anxiousness, even through our life and our family, but there's still a baseline of anxiousness uh that was running through and and for me I think for me it was always the the switch was probably sometime after university where I realized I'm always going to be an outsider. And it's not because I'm always the one moving. It's actually because I'm the one striving. I'm always the one who's trying to do something more. Growing and if I just stayed in my little bubble I I would maybe finally not be an outsider for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Ooh right?

SPEAKER_00 22:44

But because I'm I'm constantly striving and I'm constantly trying to do more and as you as you know I'm building a legal app and I'm I'm not a lawyer. And so now I'm having conversations with attorneys three, four times a week being the outsider of a field. And I've come to embrace this feeling of being an outsider as an identity. Being an outsider is where I belong. And I just define it as the person who understands that as long as I'm playing the game that I want to play, that I'm playing the game of life by by my rules, that it's worth it. Again, back to the I just needed a chance to apply to USC. I I didn't need to really go. I just wanted to know if I can make it right and I think that switch comes with time and it comes with maturity. It comes with experience you know I mentor a lot of young kids and I mean 12 to 17 high school. Okay. And and then I often try to create the situation for them where they get to feel powerful for the first time. And for me that came in community college when I took up a part-time job and this part-time job because I speak multiple languages had me going out to low-income high schools to teach them how to apply for financial aid FASFA and it was a job it was an hourly job a routine and I went to these all these high schools in my neighborhood to to teach the local parents how to apply for financial aid not thinking much of it and one day a a parent came up to me because I spoke Mandarin and she said thank thank you for teaching us how to find the money to send our child to university and it was the first time in my life that I realized that my voice had some power you know that something I say can create a ripple effect, a positive effect in somebody else's life. And I tried to give this moment to everyone around me because I think that's the confidence we all need at some point. But but we'll never know where it comes from for somebody. And so we just gotta try and try more things.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

I resonate a lot with what you were saying about kind of finally being okay with not belonging. Those of us who are constantly trying new things and never just happy staying in in that one place. And so when we do that we go through a lot of in-between seasons. So obviously because of a lot of your history you've obviously been in a lot of in-between stages um how have how do you navigate the in-between at this point of my life you know I've spent most of my twenties trying to figure out how does the war work.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

I I try to understand history, politics, finance and after a decade of chasing ambition, I'm now chasing work that feels true to me. So the last in-between period I had was about the summer of 2023 to let's say last the start of last year. So about a year and a half and and this in-between period had me trying a lot of things to know thyself to try to understand myself more. Yeah yeah um I went to and failed that a meditation camp I tried to sit still failed so it was a it was a 10-day camp where you meditate from 4 a.m in the morning until 9 p.m at night and it's a silent retreat. So you're not talking to anybody you're not you're not reading you're not journaling.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

You're simply meditating right and do you have to stay still or can you walk and meditate?

SPEAKER_00 26:57

You can you have to stay still but oh you you can sit you know with your your back slightly slouch a little just to get in comfort. But for the most part you have to stay still and observe your breath. And I left on day three because I I simply couldn't do it. And and to be honest I was very ashamed of myself for leaving I'm so proud of you for making it three days.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

That's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

So so my girlfriend who I went to this thing with she finished all 10 days which is impressive in itself. So she must be amazing. Yeah I I was really looking inward a lot and I knew I was going to start a company because that's just who I am as a person. I was looking for a challenge, a problem in the world to solve. And I wanted to not take investments because I didn't want to make short-term decisions based on financial outcomes. And and I started understanding the way I wanted to work more which is how many people I would like to manage, how many employees I'd like to have and it's a very small amount and the kinds of uh things I'd like to do every day. And so I'm coming off this in-between season of my life just being very self-reflective of understanding all of it. And because of it I had a lot of conversations with my parents about their lives and to learn more about mine and as well to spend a lot of time with my grandmother to learn about my my father's upbringing to to figure out where where did all the the preconceived notions of the world where did where did that all come from so I would say navigating in between is more introspective than anything.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Jermaine what would you say anchors you in life?

SPEAKER_00 28:51

I'm really loving my identity as a brother and as a son I feel the most proud of myself when I'm able to be present with my siblings I feel the most fulfillment when I'm able to help them with whatever they're going through as well as just the mundane of just hanging out, you know, and and doing not much together. I've been asked to introduce myself very often and I always like to say that I'm a brother and son because that's that's the two things that I love the most as well as being a boyfriend and and soon a father and I'm I'm embracing all of this.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

I love that I imagine because you've embraced being a brother and embraced being a son um I imagine that will give you a lot of the skills and the grounding you need to also be an amazing father. So yeah creating belonging for those children is beautiful. Let's talk a little bit about Ukraine. I understand that you did some work when the war in Ukraine started can you take me back and tell me what what you did there this was 2022.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

The Ukrainians call it the full scale invasion because the war started in 2014 right it's an ongoing conflict that's been going on for a while now. When Ukraine war started I had been very active with Rotor International so I've done a lot of humanitarian work I've mostly fundraised a lot. I've given a lot of speeches around the world to raise money for ending polio and alongside that mentored a lot of students to to do things like create projects, leadership seminars and things like that. So when the war started I distinctly remember I was in Mexico City at the time and I got a call asking if I knew how to transport medicine from Switzerland to uh to Poland and into Ukraine uh specifically for customs. You know and and there are some there are some international trade rules uh with humanitarian aid and things like that. And so I just happened to have this knowledge because I've uh my first job ever was a logistics company and and uh also I started a logistics company with my mom. Interesting so so I have this random knowledge sitting in the back and so I started working on that and one thing led to another I helped a lot of projects in Ukraine optimize their their processes a little bit and through this journey I read about a woman who in her nine day journey of leaving Ukraine created a few spreadsheets and ended up housing 5,000 families outside of Ukraine and in May of 2022 I was sitting on a stage for at a conference talking about humanitarian aid for Ukraine and this woman was sitting two seats next to me on stage and that woman became my girlfriend.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

That's a extra special blessing from when you're doing really great things for the world.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Actually I think that may be the first time I shared that on a podcast the the story of how we met and it is a very yeah it is it is a great blessing to have met doing something. I've been to Ukraine twice since and what inspires me so much about Ukrainians um I remember meeting her mother for the first time I I asked her do people wear nice jewelry and expensive clothes all the time and she said yes you ukrainians love dressing up Ukrainians used to save a lot of their best jewelry and outfits for special occasions but since the full scale invasion started every day felt like a special occasion to them and so whenever there's a there's an excuse to just go out and have dinner you know people dress up and try to enjoy as much as they can um the second thing that I I found really inspiring for having visited Ukraine twice during the war is that they take democracy seriously they believe that their voice means something and um as we're recording this they're protesting and sometimes it reminds me that it's so sad that I feel so jaded about the politics at home I feel jaded that I can't do much to make a change and it's it's a little sad.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Sure. What what can we do?

SPEAKER_00 33:47

I think it really starts with each other right we we ought to have better conversations with each other we we got to understand that algorithms are built to retain our attention and by that it it's just extremism right it's anger it's things that trigger us it wants us to share and we're moving into a world where a lot of content and video are fake right and it's it's all generated and so I think we got to keep each other accountable and be patient and have good conversations at home as much as we can and I say that as someone who sometimes avoids certain topics at home because it's difficult.

unknown 34:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Absolutely right and and despite our differences the more we talk to each other the more we realize we're actually quite similar. We're just we've just been down a rabbit hole of Instagram reels or TikTok content that is algorithmically trying to get us angry.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Yeah yeah there's I've had a few guests on the podcast that kind of come to mind when you say that when it was talking about toxic belonging that division is saying oh you belong here but they're they don't and so you know and then the other one was I had a lady from Australia and she said the thing is we try to be right she says but what happens when we're both right and I've really taken that into conversations I've had since of not having to be right, not having to prove my point, but just being more curious about your experiences and what would make you come to this point. But it can be hard sometimes. You know, the where I'm in in Texas is very um very red like extremely and sometimes there's not a lot of filters on people and so learning how to navigate without matching their intensity um I I think that's a skill that if we really want to create belonging, we have to learn to master this skill of letting both of us be right and really humanizing each other. We don't have to humanize what's online, what's on our screens but each other the more we're in a room with somebody person to person, you know, like I I love Zoom and I love apps where we can actually see each other's faces from afar. But there's no way to duplicate sitting with a person in real time and spending time with people that we care about.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Aaron Ross Phen's campaign in California I I forced both of my little brothers to they were in high school at the time to go canvassing to stand on the street with me. And I I didn't need to stand on the street. I was doing the fundraising side I was his finance deputy at the time but I wanted my brothers to get a feel of what it's like to take a position to stand for something and to defend it.

unknown 37:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

And to do it gracefully too right to understand that when you talk to somebody, you don't immediately make all your assumptions about them. You don't size them up immediately, but you try to ease your way into a conversation where perhaps you can find some common ground in what we all care about. And there's a lot of it if we can get past the surface level. And I think that's something that is also a missing skill these days because it's so easy for us to stay in the comfort of our own cocoons, whether digitally or physically and so I would encourage anyone who is interested to go and take a stand for for something. And politics may be hard but and it can also be a nonprofit right to put yourself out there to talk to strangers about a cause that you care about and and to defend it if somebody comes up in disagreement absolutely yeah and healthy ways to do that.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

And forgive yourself if if the first two interactions was not a smooth because it it will happen.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

You mean I can't be perfect my first time out the gate yeah it takes a lot of practice.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

I think what I what I realize in this is that every topic that I want to have a a healthy debate or a heated debate even, that the second or third iteration of it is usually better. Not to win, but to be able to see the other side as clearly and um actually one advice I often give people is before you go into an argument, try to just make their argument for them, right? Just put yourself in your shoe and fully play that part of what the other side of the argument of your argument is because if you do that you're you're better prepared and better reasoned to have a conversation. I think the tricky part these days is that the facts aren't always aligned.

SPEAKER_02 39:03

The facts.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Right? So it gets it gets a little bit difficult and the nuance of it.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

But I love about you know what I love about that Jermaine is that you're saying make their argument for them. What you're really doing there is you're seeing them you're not just coming with all your agenda throwing it at them you're ha even though you might be doing it for a different reason, you're you're seeing them and in that moment that person's finally maybe for the first time going to feel heard. I just think that's really beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

I I use this on on attorneys sometimes you know I I sometimes talk to them and they they tell me what I cannot do in in my app legal stuff. And I say okay how about this? Try to be me and and take my point of view and I'll take your point of view. Right. And and we there's only one person from New Jersey who's done this with me and he's he's pretty funny. We we're just meeting for the first time and I I suggested this and he took me up on it. And we actually ended up in a good place right we we stayed in touch and um he's been helpful. And so it's always yeah it's it's always interesting to try to have a little bit more empathy in the other person's position. And what we end up realizing is not it's not that far apart typically right I agree.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Do you want to tell us a little bit about this app you're developing Yeah so the conversation with my mom led to an insight her underlying anxiety around uh dying really is the fact that she's worried about running out of money before she dies. And so she didn't have clarity as to how much money she had, how much savings or 401k and things like that. So I built this little chat bot to talk to her and in a few months of chatting with the chat bot about her dreams and her people that she loves and her her aspirations, I realized all of that information can be organized into a simple will. And that's when I started working on this project of getting people to create their will from zero to one. And what I find interesting in a lot of life is things that are abstract are really difficult to grasp. We tend to put aside things that are abstract for example going to get our health checkup right it's like it's not that urgent it's we're probably fine let's let's just put it off a little longer or things like uh life insurance are really important like that. And estate planning is one of those things, right? If we even have especially if we have kids estate planning is so important. But beyond all of that, I think the benefit of having these difficult conversations about things that are abstract like death and planning and things like that are is the clarity that comes on the other side of it. How how could we possibly know what is enough if we don't know where we are today. Right? And and that's what I wanted from my mom which is I wanted her to visually see what she had today to convince her that she had enough to live out her life to the fullest I wanted her to know that taking a trip to Europe to check off a silly bucket list in her words isn't going to hurt her savings. And I think that clarity helped give her permission to do more.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

So yes we are an estate planning app but the goal here is clarity.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

And having those conversations I think it is definitely a conversation so many people shy away from um and we are all going to die like that is not a uh maybe you know you can't say well not me it's not gonna happen to me. It is so I love that you're giving people an easier way to have those conversations and to go through and be prepared. It is truly a gift that you can leave your loved ones to uh have that have that taken care of and to have those conversations. So I want to we need to wrap up here but I do want to mention one more thing before we go. I've looked at a lot of your work and you first off you are an amazing storyteller which has made you a really fun guest on the podcast. But you tell stories through video and through photography and I know you've you've traveled extensively and so your stories are so in-depth even just a picture so I want to encourage our listeners and our viewers to I'm gonna put the link to Jermaine E's uh website down below and to his YouTube channel consume his content it's beautiful the way that you look at life and and you're so insightful about it.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

So my last question to you today what does it mean to belong for me belonging feels like when I close my eyes and no matter where I am I am content with myself and all that's happening in my head I'm in a season of traveling my partner and I have gone to 33 countries in the last four years and because she had lost her home in the sense of she couldn't live there safely it has challenged what I feel about my home my home is Los Angeles a physical place anyways I was born there my network's there my family's there but more and more I feel that when I travel and I meet more people I feel like I just belong anywhere and it's a very good feeling and it's not a happy feeling it's a contentment and I wish people can feel that at some point of their lives. It's not a chase I would say it's kind of like weather it comes and goes it's a little unpredictable but the good thing is that I know even at my bad days that the weather will turn around that the contentment will come back because I'm exactly where I need to be in this moment what a beautiful way to wrap up belonging.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

Jermaine thank you for this very compelling conversation thank you so much for being here with us today thank you for having me and thank you for giving me the the chance to share my story it's a beautiful story. Thank you to our listeners we appreciate you being with us and we encourage you this week go out there and build belonging for those around you like Jermaine said just close your eyes and in the moment know that you belong right where you are and who you are and this world needs you. So that's it for another episode of the Belonging podcast let's go build belonging together