What Is The Bamboo Ceiling For Asian Americans in Corporate America? (How the 'Model Minority' hurts Asian Americans in corporate America, the East vs West clash) Ft. Dennis Yu [Co-Chair of the AAPI Resource Group at Shopify] | SPOTLIGHT/BARBERSHOP TALK

For today's Spotlight/Barbershop episode, I'm happy to welcome Dennis Yu to the show.

Dennis Yu, is a Merchant Success Team Lead and the Co-Chair of the AAPI Employee Resource Group at Shopify. In addition to his long career in sales and business development in corporate America, Dennis is an angel investor focused on e-commerce, and Asian found/led startups and is also the host of the Great Minds Think Differently Podcast where he interviews business leaders from underrepresented groups to share their stories

Today we're going to discuss the Asian American experience in corporate America, the bamboo ceiling, and how our eastern influences can affect how we are perceived at work. 

"What the heck is Bamboo Ceiling?

Harvard Business Review article describes it as the phenomenon that Asian American white-collar professionals are the least likely racial group to be promoted into senior leadership, even though they are the most likely to be hired into technical roles.

AAPI made up roughly 6% of the country’s population but represented only 3% of the CEOs of S&P 500 firms.

In this episode, we discuss:

1:15 - Intro to episode 

2:29 - Dennis Yu introduction

3:00 - Moved to Orange County where it was predominately white. Didn’t speak a lick of enlightenment

5:00 - his interest in retail came from his family business. His father had a manufacturing sportswear company

7:00 - getting hired on the spot after hustling to get a job at a trade show

12:00 - did you ever notice any bamboo ceiling/model minority while working?

12:48 - When you get to leadership executive levels, you start to see Asian representation dwindle down

15:00 - How did you manage the eastern stereotype in the corporate setting?

15:40 - Took on Confucius's idea and studied Phil Jackson, and Steve Kerr and how they were able to mix the two West and East to succeed in a hyper-competitive world 

16:25 - closed mouths don’t get fed

18:23 - Leadership program at Shopify to help train Black, Latins, and Asian Americans

18:38 - Being minorities in a room, sometimes you have a lot of cultural conditioning or a lot of things you try to be overanalytical 

21:00 - Mike talks about himself struggling with overthinking and struggling to reframe 

21:56 - how often do you find yourself in a meeting and you want to comment but you start to overanalyze and miss your opportunity to speak 

22:45 - describing model minority and bamboo ceiling 

25:55 - In New York, the Asian community comprises the highest poverty rate in the state. 

27:58 - when did you decide you wanted to help underrepresented communities?

29:38 - had a coffee chat with the chief diversity officer and expressed his biggest problem was a lack of role models that looked like him 

33:51 - mental health in the Asian community is taboo / what are things we can do to help ourselves 

37:25 - Dennis recalls one of the most stressful and overwhelming times of his life juggling multiple priorities 

43:00 - practical meditation practices to help alleviate stress 

45:15 - “Be Like Water”

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome back to the Asian menswear podcast show. I'm Mike, your host. And today we're back with the spotlight episode. I know it's been a minute since we've done one of these, but I'm super excited to have my guest on today. His name is Dennis hu, who is a merchant success team lead and the co-chair of the AAP I employee resource group at Shopify. In addition to his long career in sales and business development in corporate America, Dennis is an angel investor focused on e-commerce and Asian led. And founded startups and is also the host of his own podcast called great minds. Think differently podcasts, where he interviews business leaders from underrepresented groups to share their stories. Normally I would've asked, uh, Dennis, Hey, how are you doing then go into the intro, but I kind of just jumped into it. But anyway, how are you doing Dennis? I'm doing really well. Thanks Mike. Thanks for having me. Yeah, of course, of course. So a little context here. I saw a LinkedIn post that he created. It was about the model minority in corporate America, I believe. And it, kind of, it resonate cuz you know, this is a pretty Asian centric podcast and his post, you know, did really well and I thought we haven't done a corporate. Bamboo ceiling or model minority episode before. And I thought why not have this episode where Dennis can kind of, you know, elaborate and in lighten us about this topic. And since he's had a long career in corporate America, I think. It'd be nice to hear his experience as well. Um, so yeah, today's episode, we're gonna, have a conversation focused around the model minority myth in corporate America, the bamboo ceiling, and ways we can combat it growing up in an Asian household where it doesn't always translate well in Western culture. So yeah, that's the topics today. And I think towards the end, Dennis, you mentioned you can also talk about some mental health things, so we can tie it all in towards the end on how we can combat, like what are some reasonable steps we can take? When we talk about model minority or like the bamboo ceiling, how's that sound. No, that sounds good. Sounds like. We have quite a bit of topics to talk about, but certainly important topics. And, and I think it's also relevant in a time where the community's facing a lot of, you know, challenges, especially when it comes to anti-Asian, uh, hate crimes. So I think it's also relevant. will bring a lot of awareness in the corporate arena as well. And there's certainly a lot of organizations that do a good job, but so, yeah, I'm very excited for this conversation. Cool. To start let's hear about your background, where you from, how'd you grow up and start with that. Yeah. So I'll kind of bring everybody sort of all the way back. So, um, you know, I think in one way, very typical sort of immigrant experience. I was born in Taiwan. I came here to LA immigrated here with my mother at the age of 12 years old. So I settled in orange county living with my aunt for a while. and it was such an interesting experience to come to a place. of orange county where at that time, um, it was fairly, I would say monolithic in, in a sense that it was predominantly white at that time. Um, I know orange county in LA has changed quite a bit as well. So I stayed there for a while. It was interesting in the sense that I didn't speak a word of English at that time. And I just remember that. You know, the school didn't really have a lot of resources. It didn't have ESL classes such as other areas, too. Um, so I really had to take that sort of self, taught approach. And I remember going to a library every single day, you know, after school, try to read a book a day. Just so I can keep up. Um, but that didn't really last too long. It, it wasn't really sustainable. So about a year I got to orange county, we actually moved up to borough valley. So we stayed at temple city and eventually settled on Arcadia. Um, and that's pretty much where I grew up. Arcadia is obviously part of senior world valley. Predominantly Asian American, Asian, I would say. And right now, uh, it still is as well. So I grew up in a sense of having that deep connectivity with community, I would say, and also had a chance to go back to Taiwan every single year, because most of my family's still there. So I really was fortunate in the sense to kind of see, having a perspective from both sides of the east to. I think because of that experience, I really influenced the way I see the world and the way that try to cultivate, you know, network and also build my community around myself later on in my career. Um, so after that I graduated from UC Y still stay in California in finance. And my job first outta college was working at Merrill ly. So I was in finance. Um, a year in realized that I didn't wanna look at spreadsheets all day. it just wasn't, uh, it just wasn't my thing. And so I wanted to get into retail and my connectivity with retail and also fashion. I like to think it this way, that I was very much influenced by my family business. so my father, my uncles, my cousin, they actually started manufacturing sportswear in the early eighties, uh, for like JC penny, Nike. And so they have factories in Taiwan, a couple other places. I never really got involved in the family business, but, you know, I think there's some kind of like DNA influence in FD towards the industry. So I wanted to get into a retail industry and the story was, it was interesting because at that point, For me to go from finance, into retail, it's quite a bit of shift and a lot of companies are hiring within retail and fashion. They like to hire people out of college that have fashion degrees or came from like F I D M F I T. And so on. So what I did once, I think this is more sort of entrepreneurial side of me where. At that time we still use paper resume. So I would print now like 50 to a hundred copies of resume and went to this biggest trade show that at that time called acronym's magic trade show. It's the biggest para trade show in Vegas that happens twice a year. And I would just go in, put on a suit and went Bluetooth booth. Asking to talk to the owners of the company, talking to the sales director of the company. So that was kind of like the lane I want to get into more in sales. So I would go to Ralph Lauren and Donna, Karen, Calvin Klein, like all the big brands. And so on first time around nothing really happened. Follow up. And so on six months later, I went back again and connected with the people once again, booth to booth booth to booth. And then that came across this company called RP 55. It's a, I would say a fairly good, well known company within the industry, but perhaps not so well known from consumer standpoint. And they were based in Virginia. Um, I went there and they have a few brands under the umbrella. I still remember talking to the owner there like he was outside the booth talking to his partner. When he saw me, he remembered me and he turned to his partner. He said, this kid came to me twice in a row. I'm hiring this guy Wow. on the spot. So, that's one of those moments I feel like in life, like you'd never really forget the inflection point of your life. Uh, long story short, the company was based in Virginia, which I've never been at that time. And he was gracious enough to say, Hey, I'll fly you out here for a day, meet the team. If everything goes well, you're higher. So he flew me out to Virginia Beach. I went there, talked to the team, everything worked out and he just told me whenever you're ready, I'll fly you out here. And I'll relocate you, uh, early on in my career. I say, what the heck? You know, like this is another part of sort of life experience that I don't think I would get a chance to. So flew out to Virginia work at the company. Started out as a west coast sales rep and started sort of building my business, traveling back and forth from Virginia to California, quite a bit, really building that territory once again, door to door. Right? Like my job at that time was represent the brands. And then we sell to like Macy's Nordstrom's. Um, my clients would be some of the chain boutiques, PAC, sun Tillies and so on, and really grew that territory to multimillion dollars within a couple of years. So after that, I really just missed the Palm trees and the food in LA, uh, that came back to LA and started my own company, called natural selection agency started out as a sales and marketing agency representing different brands. Grew the business to a fairly, you know, a good level at one point about 10 million in sales had a few people working under me as well as outside sales reps and did a for about 10 years and eventually went back to corporate again. So I started working for another consumer electronic company called in case and was a global sales manager there for multiple. Channels distribution. And at that time I started thinking, I started seeing the shift in the climate, especially in retail. So online retail is growing quite a bit. It's still very small percentage of the whole market. I think at that point it was only 2% of the entire commerce of retail, but it was growing exponentially and you start seeing brick and mortar decelerating on its growth. And I said, well, I need it basically as what Greski was, say, skate to where the puck is going. and so I shifted, and was fortunate enough to be hired by another company in the LA called leave group it's. It's a conglomerate, it's a small public traded company that owns a few entities, including society, six.com. Satchi art.com deny design, and some of publishing sites like hunker, um, live storm.com and so on. So it was really lifestyle driven. It was right in my. I joined as the head of business development there as kind like one of the first hires to built up the business from ground up for B2B and did it for about three years, you know, had great growth over there. 120% growth, 60% subs in second to third year. And sort of after that three years went to another company called r.com and art.com is based in San Francisco was the head of strategy and also BD. Similar to what I was doing at the leaf group, but in the, I would say bigger scale because they were vertically integrated. It was a global company. Um, the company got sold to Walmart, uh, after one year and somebody from USC, which is my Alma mater, reach out to me and say, Hey, would you like to come and run this center program called Marshall school of supply chain? At first, when I heard that I was like, I don't know anything about supply chain and obviously looking back now, like everybody knows what supply chain is and now how important it is right now. By that time I was a little bit more skeptical, but it turned out to be a very good experience for me. So I was the associate director of the central program, um, really running the program, lucky business, which it was. And a lot of people don't know this, a lot of centers within university environment. There is essentially startups. It's almost like a licensing deal. You have to drive your own revenue. You have to get your own sponsorship. You have to create revenue streams at, at the end of the day, end of the year, you pay a contribution margin back to USC. So in that sense, the business model really fit into my, background in that revenue driving type of roles and just being entrepreneur. And so. So did that for two years, made a lot of great friends, made a lot of great network and eventually I really miss e-commerce and technology. And so I came to Shopify, which is where I am right now, about a year and a half in. And I'm a merchant success team lead right now, uh, lead team of merchant success managers, doing what I love, you know, in the commerce world, serving merchants and really enjoy working at the company. Yeah. I mean, when you think e-commerce, you think of Shopify, so nowadays there's a lot more, people talking about things that you probably didn't know back then about like, you know, the model minority, I presume that no one really talked about those things in the past, and now these things are kind of coming into light. Did you ever feel any of those things as you're moving through the ranks, you're going through corporate America about, you know, the bamboo sailing or. Or like maybe at the time you had this inkling about it, but it wasn't labeled anything yet. Did you experience any of that going through your career? Um, I think unconsciously, I did. Um, I knew about it, but also early in my career, I was still at sort of mid-manager level. So a lot of times when you wanna speak about bamboo ceiling, Not to say, everybody hits a ceiling at the same level, but it's only when it gets harder. When you get to sort of senior leadership executive level, that's when you really see the numbers of Asia representation really, really, really slim down. So it really does though. I have indirectly fell like I was the other in the room in the sense that there's cultures behind. Boardrooms. There's also, um, cultures in big meetings. A lot of times when you look around, whether I'm one of the few, a APIs in the room, or just behaviorally. it's, it's, it's a little bit different. So, perfect example, right. When we're talking about, just being outspoken, being assertive, even at the times where I'm not the only Asian American in the room, I would observe others who are Asian Americans are more quiet or the way they bring out ideas. And the way they communicate would be what we consider more thoughtful. But at the same time, Not strong enough in terms of just being opinionated and how others will perceive those opinions, whether it's just ignoring them or just over, you know, uh, coming up with another type of argument that, that over encompasses. What the real idea is. So I think in a way, um, yeah, it, it was there. Hmm. So would you consider yourself an outspoken type opinionated or did you ever have an issue with that? Right, because I, I think, yeah, there's the stereotype that Asians are, I guess, you know, quiet or they won't. Assert themselves in different situations. And I think a lot of it has to do with the way Eastern culture is. And again, like I spoke about, uh, I dunno if this is before we started the episode or during, but I said, I think a lot of times those values or those influences don't translate well, so. I wonder for you, did you, I don't know. Did you take on that, that influence or that stereotypical, or were you already always kind of assertive and you were opinionated or did you just kind of get it right away? Curious? Um, no. So, so a little bit of both, I would say, so I. By how I was raised. Um, certainly I've taken on that Confucius ideal, right? That's very deep within our roots, which is being flexible, being adaptable, being, you know, not as, spoken. And being just kind of going with the flow and heads down, do your work. I think that ideal certainly is within me, especially in my early twenties, I, I was just a fan of different types of philosophy, especially Eastern philosophy. So I study a lot of TM doms and, and so on. I've always been interested in understanding how you integrate that into high performance environment. Um, not to digress too much. That's why I'm a big fan of Phil Jackson. Steve Kerr, some of these like basketball sports coaches that have successfully integrate sort of, you know, both worlds that could be, you know, that seems in conflict. Um, but really quickly answer your question, going back to your question, which is, I remember once again, when I was with a company in Virginia, like I mentioned RP 55, we had a big meeting within sales reps and in sales, You're gonna have to speak up, right? no matter what, I think that's one thing is that if you're not assertive, you're dead in the water in that field. Um, but I was quiet and I still remember one of my coworkers came to me afterwards. He gave me a line. He said, Dennis, I just wanna give you award advice. He said, close mom, don't get fed. Fed. I know that line too. You know that line too. Right. So, and I'm not sure if you were giving that line too, but that stuck with me once again, really, really deeply. And so, in a sense, yes. To answer your question, if I was to sit in the, in the, whether it's boardroom or big meeting, and I said, I am just going to sort of coast through then perhaps I'm not assertive person. Like I'm not gonna be the loudest person in the room, but I have to basically reframe and essentially reset that mode to make sure that my voice is heard. So it's very intentional. So every meeting that I go to, I know, even on the other end, too, how I may be perceived. If I don't speak up. So because of that, I'm aware enough that I intentionally make sure that I am giving some kind of idea. I'm asking questions. And, but I'm not sacrificing the quality of my idea, obviously, just, you know, so I'm not just saying things just to say things. Um, I do want to bring some quality to my work, but I want to make sure that that is hurt. Hmm. And I like that. You're, you know, when you made that distinction, like, Hey, this is what I need to do to be successful in this situation. And for other people it comes natural. but I have to be aware when those moments come to take advantage of those things. Right. So if you're listening if it's something that doesn't come second nature to you, this is what you kind of have to do and you're right. Closed house. Don't get fed and that's so true. And I wonder how common is that one liner Yeah, I think, I think everybody has different ways to to talk about it right. To say, for sure. I feel like there's different versions of it. And to add onto what, what you're talking about in terms of just being intentional is speaking up in the room. um, we talked about it. So we have this program called leading Y X at Shopify, which is a leadership pro training program for currently black, Latin X and the Asian diaspora. And I can go into this a little bit about how he came about, but one of the things we learned was being minorities in a room. Sometimes you have a lot of cultural conditioning or a lot of things you think about that you try to be over analytical because when you think about it, from a sense of how we grew up, it's always been, we need to play safe. And we need to be careful. So you're always on the defense all the time. So in bigger rooms a lot of times, and not to say, everybody feels great by certain good amount of people feel like, well, if I speak up one, is this gonna make me sound dumb? Two is what I'm saying. Even valuable to other people. Three, how do I come off? So one thing we talk about in the program, Let's take all that out, right? Like you know, other people certainly don't feel that way for sure. Uh, one, if you try to reframe by telling yourself whatever you're saying about you or your idea or your thoughts, you're just stating facts. So if today, Mike came into the room and said, I have a very successful podcast. Here's how many listeners I have. Here's how many impressions I get here are the type of quality guests. I. Certain people may feel like, well, this guy's just boasting, but then for other people, these are just facts. And so to sort of reframe the thought process, that way, I think has really also helped me and other people to say, oh, don't overthink it because other people are not overthinking these types of doubts. Uh, not having these types of doubts that I have. That is so interesting, cuz I can resonate with that. And I struggle with that a lot. For example, you saying, if Mike were to walk into a room and then just lay out his stats, there's a part of me that feels like I don't wanna boast. And I think this is also a reason why it's so hard to see Asian Americans like come out to speak about things, because I feel like a lot of times they feel like the attention's on them and they feel weird about it because now it's like, They don't want people to think that they're just trying to do that to like boost them up. So they're just rather not, I fear that that's the reason why we don't get so many outspoken, Asian Americans willing to go out there and to also say, Hey, I am qualified to talk about this thing. This is my background. So they have to cover their background, which is sometimes it's kind of weird, Right. That's why I, I encourage people to like talk about those things, because it's not you boasting it's you trying to help. And you also need sort of that credibility, I, guess, to be able to speak about things. So it's so funny. You said that because those are things I would think. about. I would think about, um, am I boasting okay? Or if someone's doing better than me, what would they think of me? They, they would think that, oh, that's nothing. And I would start thinking about these things. And then eventually what happens is I don't do it at. I get into that mind. See, and then there, there goes my opportunity, maybe there was someone in there that was like, oh, this is kind of interesting. No, that sounds pretty good. So that's amazing I think that little thing right there, would've been helpful for me. I think. a lot of times too, like when you think about it, perhaps you and your, your listeners, could resonate with as well, is that sometimes when you're in the meeting, how many times have we thought about, Hey, should I make this comment? Well, especially these days where everybody's working remote. You have a grid of like 30, 40 people everybody's talking, everybody's trying to ping each other. Everybody's trying to make a comment. How many times have you thought about, I have a good idea. I wanna make a comment. And then you start thinking about, well, how does that relate? Has anybody else made that comment? Or how does my comment bring some of value to this call by that time the train has left the station. Right, right. It's too late. And you're like, okay, crap. I mean, you know, okay. it, or someone already brought up that idea and then that train is left as well. and to kind of, um, go back a little bit. So, Dennis, could you do me a, a huge favor here? So we talked about the model minority and seems like you have a pretty good handle on that. Um, and then the bamboo ceiling, could you I don't know if I have the really good handle by the way, but or ju, or just like your, your definition of those two things? But if you can break that down for me a little bit, cause I know you wrote this in your, your LinkedIn posts, you described at least a bamboo ceiling. Um, but if you can kind of walk me through, uh, both model minority as well as bamboo ceiling and, and just quickly for those, I guess if people don't know. sure. Um, so like, like Mike mentioned, so I had posted something about bamboo selling and it really came from my conversations with other people that perhaps are. Asian, uh, don't have the Asian background. And what I realized was a lot of people actually have never heard of the term bamboo ceiling. They've heard of glass ceiling, but they've never heard of bamboo ceiling. Um, so I think in a broader spectrum, people wanna learn, and that was sort of the impetus of the post and really the background, the bamboo ceiling it's described, you know, very similar to glass ceiling is. To describe that we in various types of industries that we've done in research, and, leadership ascent organization has done a really good job with this when it comes to just the numbers and data as well, is that the data really shows that we are under very much underrepresented in the CEO levels, as well as executive senior executive levels across all different industries, uh, within fortune 500. I can correct that number if I'm wrong. But I believe right now, there's only currently above two to three out of 500 companies that are at the CEO level who are east Asian. And I think that's the other thing when we talk about mono minority, which kind of links back to the Babu, only as you've mentioned, a lot of people look at Asian community as a monolith, but it's very different, right? We have south Asian. East Asian, Southeast Asians who are all encountering different problems. Um, currently in technology, obviously we have a little bit better numbers of representation when it comes to south Asians versus east Asians, especially at the executive level. And certainly we all faced different types of challenges, the issues. So that was sort of the IMS of the bamboo ceiling is that they're just not a number representation. So we start understanding, we try to understand why, what are the drivers. That we are not being represented, even though we have a decent amount of growth of representation in sort of IC, so individual contributor level, you know, especially when it comes to finance technology, uh, and you know, consulting firms and so on. So that was sort of the understanding of it. I think the model minority myth that we're talking about is, you know, one of the drivers cuz the different components of it, model minority myth, is that. The definitions that Asians are coin as the model minority among the minorities. And that term came from 1960s by a sociologist, at that time where they were using the term to describe Japanese Americans that have gone through internment camps and also gone through hardships. but were able to make a living in America. So it was almost an American's rebranding effort. So to speak, to say, look, everyone, you can be an immigrant and I can put you in term camp and you can go through all these things, but this is the land of opportunity that you can be this minority. So if you are black, Latinx, or any other immigrant, look at Asian people, look at how great they're. So as we know, like mono minority myth, the biggest issue is one we're not monolith. So if you look at New York area, for example, Asian community actually comprises the highest poverty rate compared to any other minority group. Right. And then what you will look at education. Um, I believe Filipino Americans within America only has 56% of them. Have college degrees versus what people may perceive otherwise. And so once again, that that goes with the monolith issue. And the other issue is the media in America has used the term as a wedge between especially African Americans and also Asian Americans time and time again, right. Like the histories of it. So once again, if we're the model minority, the question is who's the not so model minority. Who are you point the finger at? Um, and the model minority myth when it comes to the bamboo ceiling is the broad stroke idea is Asian Americans are successful. Look at how many of them are in tech industry. With high paying jobs. Look at how many of them in finance. So look at how consulting. Um, that basically covers up the bigger issue of are they even growing within the company? Are they being recognized and celebrated, are leaders understanding that they have a lack of diversity especially when it comes to Asian diaspora within their companies? So it's a very broad joke. Um, I would say irresponsible way to look at, you know, the growth and quote unquote success within the corporate arena for Asian Americans. So yeah, those are sort of the highlighted points. Perfect. I mean, that's exactly what you mentioned in your LinkedIn post. And I think you mentioned this, but like Yeah. a API made up roughly 6% of the country's population, but represented only 3% of the CEOs, cetera. And that takes me to a, a question that I'm, I'm interested in. Cause I know right now you're also, you know, the co-chair of the a P employee resource group. Right. So you're trying to help underrepresented, communities within Shopify. But I guess when did you make that decision to, to see, okay. I think Asian Americas need help or other communities. And then you started to kind of dive deeper and become like a, a topic expert on this Yeah. I think when I first started in Shopify, I recognized that Shopify's culture is very unique. So. Shopify, I think on one end because they're Canadian based Canadians is just nicer. Um, okay. Canadians just nicer, I think in general. Um, but so when I first stepping in the company, the culture is very unique in the sense that it's very high touch. It's very high care, not only for our merchants, but also for the employees. So I recognize there's a lot of resources that are being built when it comes to diversity. When it comes to inclusion that when it comes to employees, you know, sharing in police voices or having them heard. So when I first walked into the, uh, not really walked into the company, um, I actually connected with a chief diversity officer as for coffee chat. And I brought up this point to him where I've been facing my entire life was, which was I say, Hey, um, the biggest problem that I've had in my career is. I don't really have anybody to look up to when it comes to leaderships, uh, this one representation there. And that obviously goes back to what we just talked about, right? The, the lack of diversity there. I said, you know, I've gone through a lot of leadership programs, leadership training programs. I also got my master, got my N B F at USC, uh, great program. But a lot of times all we study from Harvard business reviews or other other case studies are people like Jack Welch, Howard Schultz, you know, bill gates. Rightfully so they're fantastic leaders, but they don't share my background. They don't share my challenges. They don't share remotely anything I can relate to. So as a student and I hopefully I'm a student, um, throughout my life, when it comes to understanding and learning what leadership is about, it's really hard for me to connect. So the only person ever since I was a childhood that I could look up to who was in the media, spotlight was Bruce. and Bruce is fantastic, but Bruce is not a tech executive. Right? Like I wanna understand how he thinks when there's certain things that don't work out. So he's like, well, you know, it's really interesting is that you're saying that because we actually have this program where we're launching called leading YX, which is why I kind of brought it up, that I, I was a part of. And so that kind of got the conversation going and I decided to, uh, get more involved with the ERG, the Asian ERG, and now Asian ERG has been doing a fantastic job in terms of bringing our employees together. Um, our Asian ERG is fairly. New compared to black and Latin X ERGs. When it comes to the years being around, uh, we've done a fantastic job when it comes to celebrating, recognizing different holidays and so on and bring people together. And I feel like I have an opportunity here. One is to bring other important topics or resources for exactly the things we're talked about. And the first thing I talked about. Are we taking care of our Asian employees within the company when it comes to recognition and celebration and promotion, right? Cause a lot of ERGs, they talk about the, the need to build a pipeline, tell a pipeline. I said, that's fine. Like we need to do that. We definitely need to get the pipeline strong. So we always have diversity of people coming in. But what about the people that are here, right? Like cuz if they're not being taken care of, they're not being recognized at the end of the day. They're gonna leave anyway. So you're gonna have a return problem. You you're gonna have, you know, uh, employ term problem anyways. So right now, currently at the ERG, I think have three pillars with some activations we're doing one pillar is career development the other pillar is mental wellness. Uh, as was mental health, the third pillar is that culture part, which is celebration, which is, you know, uh, a recognition of different holidays and different groups of, uh, you know, Asian community. Did you do anything prior to Shopify or was that when you finally made that turn? I was like, okay this is one way I can make impact. Um, at least for the AA. Oh. As you know you, well, you did have that conversation with Bobby, right? Bobby hundreds. Was that recently or was that some time ago? No, that was also within the Shopify years. okay. So that's recently. Okay. yeah. Yeah. And, um, as you talk about like mental wellness and mental health, and, I think, uh, a lot of times. I'm sure. A lot of people that are listening to the episode now can relate, but you know, like another post that you had I think is so relatable was the conditioning, right? You said we have been impressed in condition that we should go for jobs that yield the most money and the most recognition. Otherwise we have filled our parents' expectations in loss security. Um, and I think a lot of us, you know, especially if you're an immigrant family and your parents come over, they work so hard. You almost feel like you don't, you don't have a choice a lot of times. And again, that ties back into the model minority, like, oh, they're like perfect. They're high achievers. And I think now we're talking about like, it comes outta cost, you know, uh, a lot of times that perfectionist. Mentality or just never letting people down. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Because I think it really does, like you said here's the list that you made. You said we have been perceived and described as high achievers, relentlessly determined, self starters, loyal beyond belief, but the truth is. I think a lot of us have a hard time admitting to it sometimes. Um, you know, we're sort of the quiet type kind of push it under the rug. Don't really talk about it too much. The truth is we have fear of failure, degree of anxiety, tendencies to overthink problem sleeping. And it's good that we talk about these things now because it's a lot of pressure, you know, and if you can, what are some steps that we can do to, I don't know, get out of the bad situation that we kind of put ourselves in. Right, right. So I think you have kinda verbalized it pretty well on, on some of the things you're talking about when it comes to cultural conditioning. I think mental health is a big thing. No matter what your background is, who you are, whether you're black, Latinx, white, or Asian American, I think it's a big issue right now for a lot of people. But I think that this is what nuance really comes in for Asian diaspora. I think mental health has been. Fairly widely talk about these days, because you know, during the pandemic, obviously everybody's going through a lot of issues, within the family, outside of the family, along with work, that changes of work. Um, so I think it's a very important topic, but especially for Asian, a P community, because there's so much nuance and there's so, so much a cultural conditioning, which you. Just articulate it before, like, you know, with the question, which is, you know, putting your heads down, respect your elders respect your boss. You know, all these things, which is very, it's almost like a close container within yourself where as stress mounts up, you know, from outside influences, you don't have an outlet to kind of get to, so you don't understand how to, and, and there's definitely. I think in a way, culturally, there's a taboo within a P history in the a P community to go seek therapy. I think for younger generations now it's gotten a little better. I think everybody's a little bit more open, but certainly for all the generations gonna see a psychologist going go see a therapist is a taboo of, uh, something they. Um, but as we understand now, it's a necessary outlet and it's a, it's something I, I think I definitely encourage everybody to seek out. I'll give you a story to kind of exemplify what you're talking about. So, years ago when I was working at the tech company that I just mentioned in LA, uh, at that time I was living in Pasadena and my job was in Santa Monica. So for anybody that knows traffic and geography in LA, that commute is brutal, right? So that commute every single day, I sit in traffic back and forth for three hours, a. So along with that, at that point in my life, I was getting my MBA at USC. So every other weekend I had classes Friday and Saturdays all day. And in between that, we get together with classmates to do group projects. So that's a second sort of big bucket of things I need to take on third. At that point, I had a little child at that time. So I was also a father. So that's another responsibility. So you look at it. Sort of three big buckets of things in my life. My schedule looks like this. I would try to wake up five 30 or six in the morning, try to beat the traffic I would get to work maybe get there before seven o'clock and I would be so tired that I would need to take a nap in the parking lot before I go into the building. Uh, just so I have enough energy, I would try to get out around six O'. Twice a week, go meet with my classmates at USC until 10 or 11 o'clock at nighttime and then go back home and do that again. And so many times I would not see my daughter in the morning and I wouldn't see her night obviously, cuz by that time she she's already asleep. So I would keep on doing that. And at certain point the stress really caught up to me and because I would be tired, um, I would, you know, I would be sort of malnutrition to a certain point, cuz you're always on the go. Um, but my mindset at that time was that suck it up and break through, right? It is that sort of, Hey, the, the, the voice of my parents were in my head saying we have had it harder than. This is what it takes to succeed. So that's the cultural conditioning part. And there's the other part, which is I'm a big sports fan. So I watch Jordan, I watch Kobe Bryant. And if you think about, you hear the stories about them, of what it takes to be great, which is waking up at four o'clock in the morning. Do things other people don't do so you can be better than them. that competitiveness, that killer instinct was what I knew was ingredient to success. So even if you think about that standpoint, I had to look for sports stars as my model to be a leader in a company or to be great. That was a problem because I had nobody else to look up. That look like me, that sounded like me, that also had the same background. Right. So, um, but going back to the story, six months down the road, I burned out. I burned out, well, I woke up four o'clock in the morning. One day, um, tried to brush my teeth and I wanted to throw up. and so I couldn't eat even drinking some water. I, I, I had this sort of reflux issue. so I wasn't sure what was going on. I went to my primary doctor and my primary doctor referred me to a specialist, thankfully. Well, thankfully and nothing fully. They were like, well, I don't see any big issues, but you were just overly stressed and you just have to unload. And I'm like, okay, all three buckets. I can't unload my family. I can't unload, you know, work right now. I need my income and I can't unload school, so there's nothing I can do. Um, so what happened was I had a coach at that time and my coach suggested and say, Hey, um, have you have you meditated before? Have you done mindfulness practice? I said, actually I never have, but I've been study Eastern philosophy since I was in my twenties, just for my own sort of interest.. And so I started practicing mindfulness practice. I went on silent meditation retreats. I started studying some of the books. I started listening to different types of podcasts, whether it's mental performance or psychology based or just mindfulness based and started really getting into that and understand how to map out my day, whether it is starting out my day with affirmations or grateful meditation, or how do I Inc. Mindfulness into eating as well, um, to slowly sort of turn my health around by changing my mindset. So a lot of times when people ask me like the, what, what does that even look like? What does that even feel? The way I like to describe it? Is when you are mindful, you are in the house and you looking through the window, there's a storm outside. You observe it, and those are your thoughts. That's your mind. And you're inside the house. You're not being rained on. And you have the agency to control that situation, even though those are storm outside, that's kind of what it feels like versus, you know, when you're just in a situation you're just within the storm. So, um, that's really helped me a lot. And it took a little while, obviously for me to go from recovering my health, to. You know, have a sustained health, um, that I can, you know, function to now. Like I still use it quite a bit in terms of just performing at a peak level, what I call peak level once again, correlation to what sports or athletes will think about when it comes to just having that flow. Um, this it's it's really helped me a lot. So when you are asking about stress and also anxiety, those are some of the things that, you know, I have deployed, uh, and used and, and did my. And what does that meditation look like? Is it just like a quick, I don't know, 10 minute every day? Or like in practical terms, what does that look like? Or at least what were you doing or Yeah, I try, I try to be consistent. Um, you know, I try to be consistent, so I would do it in the morning for about 10 minutes a day. When I first wake up in the morning. That's what I realized, my mind is the most clear and the way I like to describe it is what I wake up in the morning. What kind of food am I putting in my brain? So that's the first thing I do. Whether it's guided meditation, I do a combination of APASA, which is basically breath, work, uh, awareness to the body. And sometimes I, I would do it quietly, but sometimes I would use some, whether it's YouTube or calm app or he Headspace app to do it just really depends on how I feel. And then I would start my day writing down, or just verbally articulate. am I grateful for? The three things I'm grateful for and they don't need to be huge. They don't need big. They can be just, I'm thankful that I can wake up in the morning, put my feet on the ground and not breathing, or my family's healthy. I have my family and my friends that love me no matter what. So in a way I I'm waking up in the morning. At the very high level versus going into sort of to-do list and then granularity of things, um, and try to take walks in the middle of the day. Um, sometimes if I could, I do some mindfulness and meditation, you know, in the middle of the day, just to break up the day. And sometimes when I work out or I go running, that's kind of what I. Active or mobile meditation. And at nighttime, I tried to cap it off with just writing down three things that I have done through the day. So the idea was that have accomplished, uh, today and they don't need to be huge. That could be just out of PO I did a podcast where my trend today and it was fantastic. It was fun. Or I, you know, took my daughter to school today. And so on the whole idea. To cap all the day and say, well, this is it. And when I start tomorrow, I don't think about what had happened the previous day I started new. Got it. Beautiful. I love that. And some of those practices, I know about too, so that's awesome that you mentioned those things. So. we have about three minutes. Um, normally I have these last two questions that you were, right. This is a topic that seems like we could have stretched out much further. So if we can, we're gonna run through these questions quickly. Uh, Dennis, so first question, where do you see yourself in the next five? Why? Yeah, that it's, it's hard because my, honestly, my career has gone, uh, nice linear as I thought. Uh, but it has been very, very interesting. What I would say was this my sort of not so newfound interest and passion to help the a P I community. This is something that I want to build on top of that. And I think we have a lot of things going on. There's people like you, there's people that are, that have organizations, ascent, uh, NA. Um, you know, across the board, like gold house, there's a lot of things that are going on as well. Right. And I think everybody's doing really cool stuff and it, the good thing is everybody's kind of coming together, to basically uplift the community. That is something that I want to build on top, um, going forward. Love that love that. And next question. I always ask all my guests. What is one piece of advice? If you are on your deathbed and someone asked you, Hey, what did you learn through your life so far? What would that one piece of advice be in a couple of sentences or one or two? What would you, what would you lived up to? That's helped you so far? If you could give one piece of advice, will that be Sure. Um, not no worries, but I I'm gonna steal this quote from once again, my, uh, my idol, Bruce Lee be like water. Right. So I think this is what's so great about us being here as well. Like his whole philosophy of being water, taking the east, infuses it to the west and being able to have what he called no limit as the limit. Um, his whole style as not being cast in certain type of category. I think that's, that's really, what's beautiful about life a lot. I think a lot of times, I think a lot that kind of goes with the stress and anxiety because a lot of times we think we have to be a certain way or we have to fit in a certain mode. Um, I think that in itself would help if somebody can really adopt mindset, it just helps you to be who you are and that's okay. Either way, whatever other people think. And so, as long as you're comfortable with your decisions of who you are, that's what's most, I. That's great. It's nice to have someone, um, obviously it seems like you're a bit older than me, but you seem so open and, you know, you're seems like you're so open and you're willing to Changed the way things have been. Um, and I love that you made that decision. Cuz I saw a lot of times I feel like people, your age are a little bit more closed and they're still sort of in that competitive mindset, like it's gotta be me or you, but it seems like you've, you've broken through that. And like you said, we're all coming together and this is our opportunity cuz if we don't help each other, no one will. So, um, I think that's beautiful that, you know, you came on and. Hopefully people, you know, now that you see if you're going through corporate America or in general, now we're able to kind of describe what those things are in some ways that, you know, or at least show you that you're not the only one going through it. Right. And there's ways that you can combat it. There's ways that you can alleviate some of those stresses that you've gotten from, you know, trying to always be on, you know, go mode. For instance. Right. Um, but yeah, I, I appreciate Dennis, thank you so much for coming on and lightening us, um, you know, with your experience and all that. And it's really cool that you're starting this whole API journey to help others in the community. And I think, yeah, I think we'll, we'll stay in contact. I think there's more things to come down the road. A hundred percent. Thanks for having me. It's been. Thank you. If you guys enjoy this podcast episode, don't forget to subscribe and we'll talk to you guys for the next one. All right, guys. Bye.