Shanzhai Lu

I was looking for some sort of reset button for my life and found it here in Hawaii.

Six summers ago, I was actually living here in Waikiki.

Completely burnt out and hung over from five insanely fast years in Shanghai.

I wanted a place I could just stay still in for a while as the rest of my life caught up to where I had been and where I was going.

I was looking for some sort of reset button for my life and found it here in Hawaii.

Then events in my life pulled me away from this island before I was ready to go.

Yet emotionally I never really left. I know this from the sense of place I feel each time I visit.

And I've visited about 9 times in the last year and a half alone.

So I think it was only a matter of time until I found my way back again.

And while I still have yet to pick up the tangible pieces of my life and ship them over here in the coming months…

In my mind, I've already moved back.

photo: CC // Anna Gay

self-efficacy: a fancy academic way of describing someone who's not only brave enough to reach for the stars ...but crazy enough to believe they can touch them too.

I had a very interesting lunch meeting today

with a very interesting person

who has lived a very interesting life.

As a husband, he is still in love with the woman he was set up on a blind date with many many years ago.

As a father, he's raised three wonderful boys who mean the world to him.

As a record industry exec in the 80s, he was there when signing "a relatively unknown band at the time called Guns n Roses" - I must look younger than I am because he said it in a way where he really didn't think I knew who they were.

As an art collector 6 years ago, he stumbled upon the talent of a young contemporary Chinese artist whose work is now worth -- well, let's just say a whole heck of a lot more now than before she became famous.

As a man now in his mid-50s he attributes his own financial success to some big wins accompanied by a lot of failures in between.

As an entrepreneur on his second China venture -- or should we say ADVENTURE -- he prides himself in proudly but modestly recognizing things on the verge of breaking through to another level -- years before everyone else catches on. Hey, I believe him. See above mention of relatively unknown band called Guns n Roses for proof. Child of the 80s here. Enough said.

Anyways, so with that in mind, towards the end of our lunch he told me about a Harvard study that was conducted on a bunch of successful people from all walks of society.

He asked me if i knew what the single common trait was that they found in all these successful people.

Their education? I asked.

No.

Their family background? I asked again.

No.

Their upbringing? I asked for the third time.

No.

Ok. Then what? I asked.

A high level of self-efficacy. He said.

Self what? -- crap! -- I was thinking. I really don't get what that means. I feel stupid.

Self-efficacy. A person's belief in themselves that they can succeed in what they set out to do. You have it. He said.

(or something like that. paraphrasing at this point. but you get the picture.)

Thank you, I said.

So we talked a bit more about the new company I'm working on. He gave me some advice ...along with some stuff to research and some valuable contacts to follow up on before our next lunch in a few weeks -- a process I have nicknamed "startup founder homework". I love it. I embrace it. It's invaluable. I digress.

After lunch, I picked up some cupcakes for my son. Yes, that was me you might have seen walking blindly for a few blocks in Santa Monica, almost tripping on my platform shoes because I had my face down in my iPhone googling "self-efficacy". After all, when someone goes out of their way to spend some time sharing their life lessons and then pays you a compliment (and teaches you a new word) after learning a bit about your life, you owe it to yourself to at least read the wikipedia page on the term to make sure you understand what it means:

Self-efficacy has been defined in a variety of ways: as the belief that one is capable of performing in a certain manner to attain certain goals,^[1] as a person’s belief about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives.^[2] It is a belief that one has the capabilities to execute the courses of actions required to manage prospective situations.

Awesome.

[insert confidence here]

I have self-efficacy.

Although, I didn't always have it. I know that much. Pretty sure I picked it up during this little five year journey I've been on.

Being that I'm a simple person who needs to break things down in easy to understand terms, my remixed definition of self-efficacy would be that it's a fancy academic way of describing someone who's not only brave enough to reach for the stars ...but crazy enough to believe they can touch them too.

That's my version. Actually, come to think of it, just pay close attention to the people I've chosen to surround myself with in recent years. They all definitely have a high level of self-efficacy too.

Not a coincidence I would say.

Reminds me of a recent conversation I had with my friend Dan Martell. We were catching up on the phone and looking back on how much we had both done in the last 12 months since the first GeeksOnAPlane Asia trip. The paraphrased dialog went something like this:

Holy shit we've done a lot in the past 12 months. He said.

That's because we're the type of people that likes to get shit done and we hang out with other people who like to get shit done. So when people who get shit done hang out with other people who get shit done. Guess what? Shit gets done. I said.

(Yes. You can ask him. I really said the word shit a lot of times during that phone call. It is most certainly in fact Dave McClure's influence.) 

I digress again.

So yea, that's all I have to say about today's awesome lunch meeting.

Oh and by the way, if you're reading this and you already knew what self-efficacy meant ...well, then good for you. Do me a favor and be sure to treat yourself to a cookie this week ...and make sure to share the cookie and pass on a moment of inspiration with someone the way a friend did for me at lunch today.

photo: CC // seyed mostafa zamani

Anyone who knows me knows that I hate standing still in a shallow little puddle of

indecision.

So a recent conversation with a friend got me thinking about something I read once.

Below are a few simple sentences for any situation where mind keeps heart from taking chances that move us forward.

You have to ask yourself if you really want what you say you want.

If you don't, stop telling yourself that you do.

If you do, stop telling yourself that it's impossible.

~j.cainer

The problem with living life in perpetual overdrive is you sometimes get a bit too caught up in the moment of any number of things you have going on at any given time. So the beauty of self awareness is knowing when you need to downshift a bit to give clarity a chance to catch up with you.

Today was one of those days.

And for no special reason, anniversary or obligation I felt like dropping by my sister's place. So I went. Put some flowers down. Sat on the grass. Looked out at the city. Cried a bit. Thought a lot. Waited for some perspective to come along. Got up. Said goodbye and went on the rest of the day feeling better about the expected -- and unexpected -- changes occurring in my life right now.

Catching up at lunch yesterday I was telling my insanely smart friend Kevin about this frustration of mine.

He said I was a Tummler.

So now I feel much better going into the new year feeling like there's a place for me at the big kids table.

But I'm still not sure how to answer the "what do you do" question.

it's 2010.

wow. where'd the decade go.

i spent much of new years eve on a flight from boston to los angeles looking back on the past ten years. a little out of character for me because i am perpetually moving forward trying to outrun myself and i hate looking back. but a 6 hour flight across the country on new years eve will do that to a person i guess.

ten years ago i was living in shanghai. 23 years old who refused to spend her post college years climbing a corporate ladder within the confines of an office cubicle. china dotcom bubble was in full swing. i had to be in shanghai. it was my first failed startup. and i was hooked. drive fast, take chances my friend jd used to say in our early days in china. lots of crazy drunken nights at bonne sante with jeff, weaver, miyuki, sok, sam, michelle...

i spent 5 fast paced years in shanghai. new york on crack people sometimes say. i loved it most of the times. i hated it towards the end. the money was good. the work hard, drink hard took its toll. you worked hard to try and keep up with the pace of the city. a city constantly torn down and rebuilt while you were living in it. you drank hard because at times it seemed the only thing left to do at the end of the day. i dated a nice australian guy for much of those years. he wanted to marry me. it took me one question about where i wanted to live in sydney to realize i didn't feel the same. i was 27. i missed the states. my parents were aging. my marketing director position was getting localized. a new version of shanghai was emerging. one that didn't need me anymore i felt. it was time to head home.

i looked to hawaii as a transition in 2003. i met joe and can honestly say i know what it feels like to fall madly -- and blindly -- in love with someone. i knew i was going to marry him. i even told miyuki nine months before he asked me. he was a naval officer. a navy diver. and a nuclear engineer. we eloped in hawaii. we were so happy. that was half a decade ago. it sounds more dramatic when you can say it that way. i'm a drama queen at times so indulge me for the duration of the blog post.

life. seriously, you can't script this stuff. because if you could, i certainly wouldn't have written the next chapter the following way.

my sister susie committed suicide 3 days after joe and i got our marriage certificate. i became pregnant with my son a month after. 4 months after he was born, joe deployed to iraq on an aircraft carrier. 6 months after that we were trying to piece our marriage back together. 6 months later the bush administration got the idea to do a surge deployment. off he went again. 3 months later we were trying to piece our marriage back together - again. 6 months after that he left us. 6 months after that the divorce was finalized.

as downward spirals go, we never stood a chance.

...

the past ten years of my life. exhausting at best. depressing at worst. but absolutely necessary in lessons learned about myself.

so what do you do when you find yourself afraid of standing still for fear that you'll stop dreaming.

1. you work.
2. hustle with purpose. because you're a single mom with a boy who needs you.
3. challenge old thinking. because you realize everyone is making things up as they go along in life. some are just better than the rest of us at pretending they know what they're doing and where they're going. 
4. disrupt with new ideas. because change really is the only constant. and i don't know about you but it's much more fun being part of change than holding it back.
5. connect and share. because you realize you spent an insecure part of your 20s thinking you had to deal with a wide variety of assholes who knew better than you in order to move forward. then you wake up one day and realize it doesn't have to be that way. no more. you choose to surround yourself with good people. devil's advocate to your dreams. what is that? sorry. there is no room in my life for the devil or anyone who advocates on his behalf. 
6. move forward. because moving forward is all you really can do when you don't have much to look back on. the other alternative to that would be to stand still ...and stop dreaming. that's just not an option for me. my big sister's depression taught me that.

so here i am. moving forward into the new decade simplifying my life with three lessons i'm carrying over from the last one.

...

stay resilient.

surround myself with good people.

don't stop dreaming.

...and do it all from hawaii. i can't wait.

...

happy new decade.

cool little horoscope for Pisces this month says:

At school, they teach us all to read, to write, to add numbers together and to behave ourselves.

They give no classes in how to develop intuition - or how to build deeper, more meaningful relationships with our fellow humans - or even how to relax and enjoy life without feeling constantly pressured.

No wonder our world is in such a state. We are all urged to value achievement more than empathy and money more than love.

Yet life now offers you a real chance to unlearn all that.

You can take your highest ideals and pursue them with pride and confidence.

woo hoo. unlearning. i like that.

see. i was a mediocre student.

never felt motivated by the belief that my grades directly correlated with my ability to make something out of myself one day.

i cried during my first algebra test in 9th grade because i got automatically stuck in the honors class since i was Susie's sister.

my transcript was a trainwreck and disproves the theory that all Asians are straight A students.

i secretly think part of the reason I moved to Shanghai in the 90s was because you needed street smarts more than straight A's in that environment. i did well and finally made my mom proud.

proud enough that to this day she still says it's not too late for me to go back and get my MBA.

um, seeing as how that involves taking a standardized test, I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon.

besides, i'm too busy these days.

so many things left to unlearn.

:)

We plot, we plan, we assume things are going to go
A certain way and then they don’t and we find ourselves
In a new place, a place we haven’t been before, a place
We never would have imagined on our own,

And so it was difficult and unexpected and maybe even
Tragic and yet it opened us up and freed us to see
Things in a whole new way

Suffering does that—
It hurts,
But it also creates.

How many of the most significant moments in your
Life came not because it all went right, but because
It all fell apart?

It’s strange how there can be art in the agony…

~Rob Bell

My favorite line is the part about how suffering can also create.

I can relate to it.

I live with a restless desire to make things happen and move things forward every day.

Since my sister's death.

Since my divorce.

Since the failure of a recent startup.

It took the observations of a friend to confirm what I already know about myself.

What I'm doing now.

Where I'm going.

Where I want to be.

Has everything to do with that rear view mirror of where I've been.

...and where I don't want to see anyone else end up if I can help it.

I first wrote this back in May. It was inspired by reflections of my sister's life and death. A few months after her suicide in 2004, I found a journal she had kept during her depression. On a few pages she had noted the things she had said she wanted to do one day when she made enough money or had enough time.

Kind of sad that fear of not having enough held her back from doing things that would've given her more by way of meaning, purpose and balance.

Pushing Proverbial Pencils

I don’t care who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve done or what you’re doing now.

We all have stories of our lives we want to write. Big life changing ideas in our minds of things we want to do one day. Things we’d like to be doing now but don’t have the time or resources for. Things we’d do in a heartbeat if things were different for us or if the opportunity presented itself.

And so we push our proverbial pencils around and tell ourselves we’ll get to writing one day.

And then time passes.

And we’re too busy with the life we have to live to start writing the story of our life we want.

And so we push our proverbial pencils around the desk and tell ourselves that now’s not the right time to start writing the story of our life because maybe our pencils aren’t sharp enough. Yea, that’s it. We need more time to sharpen our pencils. We want the story to be perfect.

And then more time passes.

And we tell ourselves the time isn’t right to start writing the words we really want to say because we’re too busy living the life we THINK we’re supposed to live in order to eventually get around to living the life we really want.

And so we push our proverbial pencils around the desk and tell ourselves we have to make more money and gain more experience in order to start writing the story of our life.  Besides, we haven’t found the right paper. We don’t even know if we have the right pencils. We want it to be perfect. We’re not ready to start writing yet.

And then more time passes.

And our pencils start getting old and start looking a bit dull

…along with the ideas we wanted to write about.

And the reality of this sets in along with the regret.

And we pound the desk real hard out of frustration.

And some pencils fly off the desk in different directions.

One lands in the trash can next to us.

Another rolls under our desk and out of sight.

Another falls straight down and breaks its sharpened tip as it hits the floor.

And then more time passes.

And then life passes.

…leaving sharpened pencils and perfect blank pieces of paper strewn around a desk with a now empty chair.

Sad thought? Yes.

The end? No.

Just start writing.

Anything. Unrehearsed. Off the top of your head. In the direction you want to go.

Complete with typos and bad grammar.

And go ahead and talk out loud as you write so people can hear you. The story gets even better that way.

See, the problem is — and the problem that Susie had — is thinking that the story of your life needs to be written by you alone in the form of a big huge book that no one’s ever going to buy, read or share with others if it’s not perfect. So you proofread it in your mind indefinitely. And the world misses out.

Pushing pencils around a desk is a waste of time.

Just start writing.

Now.

Proofread later.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some writing to do. And so do you.