Inspirational Women Of the Speaking Circuit: Author Helen Chong of Haylen Group On Five Things You Need To Be An Effective Speaker
Think like a child, how would you like to share a story where your child can relate to? The most effective and empowering speech is through personal stories where others can relate. Whenever I speak about my story, I look my audience in the eye, and I can see them nodding, smiling, crying and we connect in that moment. We can feel each other’s emotion and I think that is the most empowering moment for the audience and the speaker.
As a part of our series about Inspirational Women of the Speaking Circuit, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Helen Chong.
Helen Chong is an Entrepreneur and Author of Power to Change Lives, where she tells the inspiring story of how she endured financial and personal struggles to become a multi-million dollar top producer in both residential and commercial real estate. Each chapter is told from the first-person point of view covering different phases of her life in Asia and in the U.S. and offering the reader advice on how to proactively think about their future, how to take control of their finances, how to have a healthy mindset, and more.
Today Chong leads her team of realtors, the HAYLEN Group in San Jose, serving residential and commercial real estate. She is a Certified Forbes Speaker and writes real estate articles for Forbes.com. Chong is a Certified Commercial Investment Member and alumna of UCLA. In 2021, Chong was selected as a Woman of Influence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Active in her community, Chong has been recognized by the Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) Institute for her outstanding leadership as president for the Northern California Chapter of the organization believes in giving back and has been involved in community philanthropic efforts, including fundraising for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the Travis Manion Foundation.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I grew up in Hong Kong and was raised by my parents who both left their home country, Indonesia, for presumably better education and more advanced life in China. But it was nothing like what they had dreamed of, instead, they went through the cultural revolution, witnessed many sufferings and eventually moved to Hong Kong where my sister and I were born. They’ve worked as hard manual labor, gave birth to us, and eventually started their own business. I watched them work throughout the night in our tiny little rental apartment and finally made enough money to buy their own home after 12 years in Hong Kong. I still remember the day we moved into our very first home: 12/16/1984 because it was the proudest moment at six years old. I had beautiful memories in this home, and I felt like I was finally home. But we lost almost everything including our home just eight years later due to the loss of my parents’ business. We went from a happy, united and hardworking family in our own home to an angry, sad, lonely, still hardworking family who was split into different countries. For the next 20 years, my sister, parents and myself re-started our lives in our own separate ways. I decided to come to the U.S. at the age of 18 on my own, without any financial support, in search of the American Dream everyone was talking about. My parents went back to Indonesia to start a small restaurant business, and my sister stayed in Hong Kong to find her own path.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
Interestingly, real estate was never a career path I had thought of nor an investment my family had ever done. I believed education and America’s democracy would bring me financial freedom so I could set my parents free from their struggle. I wanted to bring my parents back to the happy memories we had in our own home. I went to UCLA, worked up to three jobs at a time and could not wait to find a good stable job upon my graduation. I landed a very reputable position as a pension fund analyst, where I learned how companies help employees to get a secured retirement by investing their pension funds. However, the internet bubble burst in 2002, and I noted performance for some of the largest pension fund portfolios in the country went down 50–70% of their value. I met people who wanted to retire that year, but couldn’t because they lost half of their pension funds. I decided that I will never be put in this situation, and I shall invest into assets where I get to have a better control of my retirement. This was when I started doing research about alternative investments options, and I found real estate investments to be much more controllable, predictable and profitable.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Since I began my career, I realized I was always given a questionable look about my qualifications as a real estate professional and as the company CEO. I was getting so frustrated with how people think of me because of my age, ethnicity, gender and look… Oftentimes I was asked if I got the listing because of my looks where men were never asked this question before. I decided to take many real estate-related courses and earned a lot of designations and certifications to prove my ability and experience. I added all of these acronyms behind my name and it started to look ridiculous. I finally pursued the most difficult designation in Commercial Real Estate — CCIM and I have since used this acronym only.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The funniest mistake I have ever made was to carry 10 disassembled sign posts in the trunk and backseat of my sedan; went to each house; hammered them into the ground in my dress and heels in the middle of a hot summer. I noticed neighbors stared at me while I tried to stay poised and professional, but all of my signs were slanted. The lesson here is not to save money to do something you are not good at and use your time to do better money producing activities.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I am very grateful for my husband, but he didn’t help me in a way that you may be thinking. He was not involved in my real estate career at all, and he had very little interest in real estate. Unlike many other people, he helped me by not questioning my career goal or asking me to give up on real estate despite the fact that I wasn’t making much money to contribute to the family.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging and intimidating. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
The truth is 80% of new realtors give up on their career after one year because they realized the flexibility means you don’t get day-offs, you work on your vacation, you work until you shut your eyes at night, and as soon as you wake up in the morning. You have given so much of your efforts, but you do not see any financial rewards still. So many realtors believe there is a magic pill or new technology which can get them to become a real estate superstar quickly, but real estate is a relationship business that involves trust and trust needs to be nurtured and earned. This is the seeding period where you may not harvest until 12–18 months later. We do not get paid by the hour, much of our work does not guarantee payment. As a result, so many people become mentally drained, stressed, depressed and therefore give up. Surround yourself with experienced real estate leaders and peers to keep you accountable and lift you up when you are down. You will feel down at some point, and it is helpful to have someone there to lift you up.
What drives you to get up everyday and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?
What drives me is to know that so many people feel sad, lonely and discouraged due to financial struggle and life’s obstacles. The resulting emotional pain can seem unbearable, and I want to share my message to the world that we do have the power to take control of our lives. The power is our mindset. Our life is a maze and an obstacle course. How do you maneuver around these obstacles or take the obstacle down? I do not want to discount emotional pain; rather, we should focus on how to use our own power to change our mindset and lift ourselves up in order to save us from the pain. We talk about needing other people’s help, but we have to allow ourselves to be helped first.
Can you share with our readers a few of your most important tips about how to be an effective and empowering speaker? Can you please share some examples or stories?
Think like a child, how would you like to share a story where your child can relate to? The most effective and empowering speech is through personal stories where others can relate. Whenever I speak about my story, I look my audience in the eye, and I can see them nodding, smiling, crying and we connect in that moment. We can feel each other’s emotion and I think that is the most empowering moment for the audience and the speaker.
As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?
Is the fear greater or more important than the positive impact you will change for that one person in the audience? When we are focusing on the purpose of speaking, we sacrifice our emotional pain for other people’s benefit. I have fear as well, my fear is to be seen in public with negative judgments. However, I was constantly reminded that my story can be helpful for someone out there. If my story can change just one person’s life for the better, or it can stop this person from giving up, then this is worth the feeling of feeling fear.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
1. It is okay to do things differently from other people — be yourself and do it your own way.
2. Use DISC Personality Test: You are supposed to hire people who are not exactly like you.
3. You don’t need to be the best in everything.
4. It is okay to be vulnerable as a leader.
5. Have a coach!
You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?
Thank you. My most exciting project currently is helping agents who did not have any real estate experience but do have a strong desire to succeed in real estate. I am acting as their cheerleader, mentor, and strength to get through the toughest years of their career. During this process, I help them figure out the priorities at different stages of their lives and how to juggle between the demanding real estate career and their own family lives.
Can you share with our readers any self care routines, practices or treatments that you do to help your body, mind or heart to thrive? Please share a story for each one if you can.
To be honest, I was not taking care of my body very well during shelter-in-place. I sat and attended zoom meeting after zoom meeting for hours at a time, so I threw out my back three times within two years. The amount of time to recover took longer after each episode so I finally decided to block my schedule, hire a personal trainer who shows up at my house, and make sure I work out. I feel much more energetic, powerful and it’s also a way for me to release stress from work.
Being a working mother of three and managing a company, my stress level can go through the roof. I strongly believe having gratitude and having a forgiving heart can help us thrive. I started a nightly routine with my children four years ago where each one of us will pray what we are grateful for that day, and what we need help to improve. I believe every experience and obstacles in life can be a learning experience, and we should be grateful for them. Through this practice, I hope my children will form a habit of having a grateful heart everyday, even on the bad days. We also need to learn how to forgive those who wronged us, because one of the worst feelings to have, is to hold grudges for a long time.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
EVERYTHING BAD- HAPPENS FOR A GOOD REASON.
I hated my life when I was younger. I was bitter to see the comfortable life others had with their wealthy and stable family while I had to struggle to start a new life on my own. I thought other people had an easier life, but I didn’t realize that those are my life lessons to do something bigger in the future. I wouldn’t have been working that much harder, and be more grateful if things had come to me easy. I wouldn’t have been able to share my life lessons in my book, and share it with the world. If I didn’t watch my parents struggle financially which split my family apart to different countries, I wouldn’t have had the courage to leave my home in Asia and come to the U.S. alone, and work hard to find ways to provide financial security. All of the struggles I experienced gave me what I have today and I am extremely grateful for it.
You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I wish we could stop categorizing people and be #colorless when we speak about each other. I don’t see white, yellow, black, brown or red skin in us. We are just different shades of brown. There are many amazing movements to protect and fight for vulnerable groups of people. We need to talk more about the similar interests, similar goals, instead of perpetuating stereotypes, gathering similar types based on their skin color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Let’s talk more about those who truly mingle and accept each other because of their interests.
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Jennifer Aniston is an amazing ambassador who has tremendous mental strength and power to take control of her own destiny. She ignores how the public sees her, nor does she care what the public wants to see from her. Rather, she gives back quietly, she contributes to publicity for a cause, she produces entertainment that has an impactful bipartisan message. She has great influence, but she protects her private life as well. She is poised, elegant, smart, talented and kind-hearted. She has never publicly shamed anyone despite the pain that has caused her. I find her extremely inspiring and I’d love to cry and laugh with her over lunch!
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
http://www.powertochangelives.com/
https://www.facebook.com/HelenChongAuthor
https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenhchong/
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
