Moving in Search of Success and Happiness
Everyone has events in his or her life that led them to where they are today. Within the purpose of The Turning Point Publication, I am supposed to choose one. I couldn’t decide for over a month because I believe that every moment leads us to where we are today and there are quite a few big ones for me. I decided that I will submit many of these, so I chose to dedicate this story to moving to Miami [the small town] as my big turning point [and I did this twice, so cheated a bit here].
My First Impression of Miami
I moved to Miami when I was about to turn 12 from Macau without knowing much English. Before relocating, I had all these fantasies about what it would be like and pictured all these sky rises, just like the ones in Hong Kong. Macau was always like the little cousin of Hong Kong that didn’t get much notice, so I was excited to move to a much bigger world, the land of opportunities.
I remember feeling the humidity on my face the moment I got off my first air travel. I remember seeing pitch black outside my aunt’s car window as she was driving on the highway. I even threw up in her car next to my cousin Anna. It wasn’t a good start.
“This is America? I thought it was going to be a big city,” I thought to myself.
I hated it here during the 5 years before moving away to college. The first year, I slept in the same bedroom as my parents and my brother in my uncle’s place. That was actually the good part because I love how close we were to all my family in Miami.
The bad part? I got bullied in school for not speaking English well. My parents had lost all their lifesaving to the furniture business they started right before our move. So I always felt like I needed to save more money without knowing how much was enough. My world was just my family, school, math competitions, and working at restaurants [at one point, I was working at two different restaurants at the same time].
My parents didn’t have a much better time either. Money was always tight. They didn’t, and still don’t, speak English to this day. Seeing me cry so often, my dad once asked if I wanted to move back to Macau.
“No. I haven’t done anything yet.”
I thought I wouldn’t move back to Macau unless I’ve accomplished something “big” first. In my mind, though, my idea of Miami had always been really small. I always thought this is not a “big” city for me to accomplish something “big”.
When I finally left for college, I thought, “I am NEVER moving back here”.
Working After College
I had never thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I chose Computer Engineering in college because that was the most convenient major for me since I already learned how to code in high school, and I was pretty good at math. I noticed a year before graduation that I didn’t really enjoy the tedious part of the work [ie debugging], but I soldiered on. When it came time for college graduation, all I wanted was a JOB. ANYTHING that paid well! I didn’t care. I was happy to get a $55,000 job, a job that would even pay for my graduate degree on top of my salary.
But, as you probably guessed, I didn’t like the work that I was doing. I didn’t know it then, but the company culture also didn’t fit me. I transferred teams and got on the highest visibility project. I later left the company for grad school. I received two job offers, and I ended up choosing to work with the same that I left at a different location with a program that would get promoted faster.
You know the saying “climbing the corporate ladder”, but sometimes we don’t realize that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
It started to feel like that after 8 years. I learned a lot about myself. I knew I wanted to do something that’s making a positive impact to people or the environment. I probably ended up at a position that could be best suited me in the entire company, sustainability management for the company. Something still didn’t feel right.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I just thought I wanted to be able to not have a regular job. I thought maybe success was to have my own company and not have a boss. So I started a real estate investment company with my then-fiance (now husband) and started investing with everything I had. After a year, I felt “safe” enough to not have my corporate job, and I left for real. I still never felt I accomplished enough. We were growing our assets but not so much our cash flow.
Trying to Find Success
I remember going through my finances in preparation for tax. Our portfolio went up a lot more than I thought. It was a number that the 12-year-old Kelly wouldn’t have thought would be possible so soon. Even the 21-year-old Kelly who bought a house right after graduation, she just thought that she would have her first house paid off by 36. Now I definitely have more than one property paid off. Is this success?
When I was little, I often reminisced about this 20-something woman who sat next to me and helped me order food on my flight to the US. She translated for me and was working on her laptop. I remember thinking that I wanted to be like her. Was that success?
One day, during a vacation at Montreal, I didn’t sleep because of a closing gone bad. We almost didn’t close. It was a project that I ended up not making any money with a lot of work. At the end of the sleepless night, I thought creating another job I don’t want is not what this was supposed to be. I needed to do something else. There seems to be no end to this. I could keep building wealth in a way that I was not happy, or I could do something else.
I remember having conversations with my high school math coach about joining him to coach at the Mu Alpha Theta math club at his school, which is obviously in Miami, the “small” town that I thought I was never moving back to. I decided to explore it.
At least, I’ve always enjoyed teaching, from tutoring kids that were older than me in high school to tutoring during lunch hours when I was an engineer. This was what I enjoyed. If I was going to work anyway, I thought, I could follow my joy.
Following My Joy in the Journey to Success
I told my mom about moving back to teach. She said, “When you were little, you told me that you would teach when you have made enough money. Have you made enough money?”
I do not recall saying that at all. But I guess I have? If anything, I am at least confident enough to follow my wants/joy vs what the world thinks is good for me.
I taught for two years with classes ranging from regular, honors, and competition-level Algebra and Pre-Calc, and ended up teaching some Calculus and preparing a few students for AP exams. I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. I learned that I love to help people learn about the world outside and inside of them. [These are also additional turning points, but I also got pregnant a month after I started teaching and baptized with my 2nd son in my tummy.]
I learned more than I was able to teach. Through watching my students, I realized we truly can learn and accomplish anything we want; all it takes are mindset [believing that you can], motivation [uncovering your desire] and methods [figuring out the steps necessary to get it]. Yes, the world is not fair or equal, but we can solve that by giving people access to knowledge, network, and capital.
So on my second year teaching, I found myself delving deep into coaching: Whole Person Coaching, Lifebook, Steve Chandler, other MindValley programs and more. I started coaching professionals and entrepreneurs and dabbled in startup investing. A while after that, I discovered and joined Delivering Happiness and launched the DH Podcast. I learned not to attach my identity with what my work is. During COVID, I finally found the motivation to venture into venture capital.
I know this is just the beginning. With these newfound learnings since my coaching journey, I am so excited for the future generations. In 2020, I found a new sense of optimism. I think that people can be anyone they want to be. We are more powerful than we imagine. I think that equity for the world is indeed possible. I believe that people will solve the climate crisis.
Moving back to Miami, this small town, was a big turning point for me. It allowed me to find my personal purpose: to create, spend, invest, and give resources in alignment with my values and help others do the same.
These two moves to Miami were both in search of success, except the first time around I unconsciously let the world define what that meant and didn’t know it for myself. Still not 100% clear about my path [as our paths in life are not linear], I ventured back to this place with more intention and I now have much more clarity. I want to fill this journey with joy and purpose, rather than pure grit and courage.
My biggest learning? It’s a lesson that I learn over and over again. Success doesn’t give you happiness. While happiness is not necessary to success, happiness definitely fuels the journey to success [the completion of a milestone], making the journey much more fun and the results much more achievable.
