I was waiting at the Portola Coffee Lab on a cool Sunday morning when David texted me to say he was almost here. I replied that I had just arrived as well and waited patiently at a table in the courtyard. I looked up from my phone to take in my surroundings. People sat across from one another while enjoying their freshly made coffee. I could sense that many of them were immersed deeply in their conversations from the ways they laughed and the way they nodded their heads. It made me smile.

When he arrived, he waved and sat in the seat across from me. We exchanged friendly greetings and updates to start off. Around five minutes into our small talk, he got up to go order. I had already gotten a Mocha so I stayed and quickly jotted down some extra questions that had popped up in my mind since he arrived. There was so much I wanted to ask him.

I first met David at a beach house retreat for The UP Lab, a non-profit he co-founded during college, earlier in the year. I was there as a newly hired staff writer and intern. I knew nothing about him, but just the fact that he had created something he believed in sparked my interest in him as a person. After many interactions in person and online, I got interested in his story.

You’re meant to be more.

Growing up in Long Beach under immigrant parents, David remembers his family constantly reminding him to focus on his priorities. He was surrounded by many peers who were involved with drugs, daily partying, gossiping, and other negative activities. He didn’t want to be swallowed by the same things and waste his time. He sensed indifference.

“My parents and grandparents knew that there were bad influences all around me. They always emphasized that I should know where my priorities were… They told me to focus and to stay safe. They got me focusing on myself and not knocking the boat over.”

I could relate — in a bigger sense. My experience growing up in a bubble was somewhat similar. I joined all the “good” activities I could during high school in order to stay away from the indifferent attitude many of my peers seemed to have. I longed for richer life experiences in which I could meet people that were living their lives in a different way. Books, writing, and spending time online became my outlets.

For David, his outlet was something more physical. When the movie You Got Served came out, David and one of his friends decided to try and start break dancing. They would go over to his friend’s house to watch clips and then spend hours copying the moves. As a hyperactive kid, dancing became an escape for all of his energy, it felt natural to him.

I asked him what kept him going and how he maintained his focus amongst all the negative influences. David responded, “Dancing helped a lot, but I had this greater sense. You know, that you’re meant to be more. I still don’t know exactly what that thing is… but I keep striving to figure it out.”

What am I trying to do?

David’s determination and focus to make the best out of situations carried on through college. AtSPOP (Student & Parent Orientation Program), he remembers walking into it thinking to himself, “Okay. Let’s see what I can make out of this.”

College didn’t start off as smoothly as he would’ve liked. He had to commute his first two years from Long Beach to Irvine which made it challenging to fully integrate. Many times, he arrived at home past midnight due to dance practices and meeting with friends.

It was fascinating to listen as David relived his college experience — I love transformation stories — but what had me captivated was the way he pinpointed pivotal experiences and connected them to his present-day ambitions.

The only constant throughout his college life was dancing. When David discovered B-boys Anonymous (BBA), David joined and stuck with it. It kept him physically fit, but also mentally grounded. Over four years, he got to see the UC Irvine dance community grow and come together. The dance community helped push him to discover what he wanted to do and who he wanted to spend his college years with. He was mostly looking to discover himself.

While dancing remained a constant, his career ambitions began to shift. Although a chemistry major, David began to see how much he enjoyed his other classes such as art history and writing. He knew there was something changing inside of him. He was doing well in chemistry and yet gravitated toward writing essays more than running experiments. At some point, he started experimenting with other styles of dancing. He started dancing with other organizations outside of BBA. He also took modern and jazz classes. Trying out different dance styles and academic classes “opened him up.” He realized he was not just in college to get a degree but to learn different things.

Experimenting with academic interests is another thing I also did like David. I walked into UCI thinking I’d graduate with a Political Science major and head straight for law school. Over time, I realized that I wasn’t committed. I always found ways to squeeze in interesting classes from other disciplines into my schedule. During my second year, after taking an introductory course to Literary Journalism, I declared it my second major. After a year, I declared it my only major when I changed my Political Science major into a minor. These decisions were made over many conversations with friends and much introspection. It didn’t happen all at once.

Similarly, there wasn’t a single specific moment that caused David to shift his interests. There was an aggregation of moments. He remembers moments during the summer when he was involved in research. He would run a reaction and then run to his laptop to read articles on entrepreneurship and business. By the end of that summer, he began to think that he didn’t want to do research. He strongly believed that he wanted to do something himself and didn’t want wait for someone else to grant him permission. He wanted to call the shots.

Senior year became a process of realizing this more and more. He became interested in community projects and marketing, wanting to start something that would empower his peers. He pushed himself to reach out to different kinds of people on campus. Conversations were started with his friends about what their values were and what they were doing outside of school. He started connecting with people who put all their time and energy into one thing they cared about. “I started to ask myself, ‘What am I trying to do?’ ”

Countering Campus Negativity

When I asked David if there were any specific individuals that shaped him and helped him grow, he named a few. Some of them were friends named Kendrick, Alison, and Justin. The conversations David shared with these friends went from simply talking about similar interests to sharing what each of their aspirations were. With his friend Kendrick, David commented they connected a lot through fashion and then about what they were really aligned with. Alison was the President of BBA when David was the vice president. They kept each other accountable and even served as healthy competition for each other.

“My friend Justin is someone that’s kept me grounded. He’s very driven and pushes me in all things. He always pushed me through everything — even the worst situations.”

When David began noticing the negative vibes that came around finals week, he started talking about it with his friends, specifically Justin. They heard their fellow college students repeat phrases such as, “I hate my life,” or “I’m so stressed out.” Everyone was acting as if their entire life depended on each test and quiz that came along. He got together with Justin one day at Portola Coffee Lab. They shared their thoughts about what they could do together to reverse the negativity they felt. From their conversation, they realized that it was more than just a sense of positivity they wanted to promote. It was about success and what it meant.

The first steps consisted of starting The UP Lab blog and something they called The UP Lab Café. Together they wrote articles and interviewed people that explored what it looked like to have your own definition of success. David wrote an article that shared his stories and encouraged his peers to not let their college degree define them. With Justin and a group of friends, David also took on a coffee delivery that someone had done in the past. With permission, they added the UP Lab catalyst logo (shaped as a green arrow start button) to the cups and began delivering coffee during finals week, promoting their new cause.

As the UP Lab grew, David and Justin expanded their team by hiring staff writers and interns. They took on community projects to explore other questions that stemmed from their mission. In November 2013, a week before Thanksgiving, they executed The Looking UP Project. It pressed people to think about the individuals that impacted them on a daily basis. It was the second major display that David and Justin took on with a group of friends following the Before I Die wall several months earlier. The Before I Die wall had not been affiliated to the UP Lab and was just carried out with a group of friends who believed in something. The UP Lab Café and The Looking UP Project helped their cause grow and created awareness amongst their friends and other students.

Most recently, the UP Lab has grown its reach to become an official organization on the UC Irvine campus. As a current student, I helped the UP Lab this past fall as an intern on The Milestone Project. We asked our peers to anonymously share their next milestone in life and had an entire week to meditate on our own goals as well. It pushed me to interact with strangers and spark conversations with them. In the future, David wants to help bring speakers to the UCI student body through the UP Lab and help students connect with people outside of UC Irvine to get where they want to go next.

On Empowerment & Marketing

When David thinks of marketing, he thinks of empowerment: “When you’re marketing, you’re trying to find ways to help that business succeed.” This came off as odd to me. Normally, when I used to think of marketing, I pictured flashy yet annoying commercials and sales pitches. From the perspective of only consumer, it’s easy to miss the story that is being communicated. Listening to David talk about marketing through the lens of empowerment changed my opinion.

With the UP Lab, he hopes to empower students to pursue what they want to do. Through providing students the first step towards the unknown, David wants to create the space that can help them take the next steps after as well.

As of now, entrepreneurship and full stack marketing is the direction David is headed towards. Google Ads, SEO, talking with clients, customer service, and sales are just some of the things he’s been learning about in the past year and a half. He wants to be a jack of all trades in a specific area.

“As an entrepreneur and full stack marketer, I want to be the person on the team that’s trusted to lead on all the marketing fronts. I want to help companies from the beginning to grow into something that specializes in some aspect. I want to know how all the pieces fit, strategize, and get that going.”

Q&A

What’s your own definition of success?

Honestly, I don’t have a certain definition. I’d say it’s more about staying aligned with my values. I want to do something that I care about, something that I feel good doing. I want that something to impact the lives of others and I want to keep working on it. It’s about imagining how I want my life to be and how I plan to get there.

What is it about ‘starting something’ that attracts you?

It’s that excitement of building something out of nothing. Not just something that I can call my own but also something that the people I’m working with… we can say that ‘We made this.’ There’s a driving force in seeing what something can become. How can it be impactful? What can I visualize? I know there’s an idealist mindset that comes with starting something. But it’s really about visualizing how a story that you create can change things.

What about doubt and fear?

Doubt is always going to be there. I once read something that said courage is realizing that there are things that are more important than fear. It’s all about choosing to focus on the success even if it’s more likely to fail. I don’t want the possibility of failure to keep me from doing something.

What advice would you give to freshman transitioning into college?

Meet a lot of people that are going to challenge you and push you to be better. Do things that scare you and get out of your comfort zone. It’s the perspectives and the connections that you make that are going to contribute to your future more than what grades you got on your final.