Even though I’ve had my fair share of personal & professional struggles, I consider myself a pretty lucky person.

My dad is very entrepreneurial and creative whereas my mom’s work ethic and emotional intelligence are off-the-charts. If I inherited any combination of them, I’d say I hit the jackpot at birth.

Life is ridiculously precious and I’m just trying to fully live it.

I was born in LA, spent a decade of my life in Malaysia, and later moved back to LA for high school. At 15 years old, I tested so poorly on my high school placement test that my counselor said I couldn't graduate high school, let alone go to college. In conjunction with being the new kid in town who got bullied up, this esteem-killer, now in hindsight, would be the greatest blessing.

I eventually found friends by joining band (playing jazz piano and the French horn). Many 6am zero-periods and after school tutoring later, I managed to graduate high school but did not qualify to attend a 4-year university. Instead, I went to a community college. There, I was offered a minimum wage job to speak at local high schools about applying to college and help low-income students apply for financial aid. It was the first time I felt the power my words in changing lives.

For a few semesters, I worked 40-hour weeks, led a student-organization with 800+ members, and secured good enough grades to eventually being accepted into my dream school, USC. But the classroom setting was, for lack of a better word, lackluster and non-stimulating for me. Because of that, I decided to take on a different path – following my curiosity, building businesses and organizations from the ground up.

This became the catalyst for me co-found the leadership training foundation called Big West Rotaract, co-found a creative agency in San Francisco Bay Area, ventured on a humanitarian trip to Colombia, built apps/programs during war time (Ukraine), and travelled over to Mexico to build homes (habitat for humanity type of work). I ended up getting very involved with Rotary International, the world’s largest non-profit organization. Since 2014, I have traveled to over 15 countries to speak at conferences on topics targeted to empower youth and personal leadership through storytelling. Nonetheless, I did graduate from USC after a 6-year run in college.

My philanthropy work strongly intertwined with my professional career. And though I have a pretty hefty inventory of career paths, my more recent endeavors include working in political finance for the former state treasurer of California and building an educational startup called Tactile Brain with the goal of solving America’s fear of math (I hated math).

Nothing makes me happier than being able to share my stories of people, things, places, and passion for photography & video to provoke inspiration and surface new perspectives. If there is one thing that I have learned the most through my journey, it is that life is such a fleeting moment in time, and the formation of this website has allowed me to capture the best parts to not only look back on myself, but to offer insight, knowledge, and motivation to others as well.

Did I mention that I speak five languages? In order of acquisition, it goes Mandarin, Bahasa Malayu, English, Cantonese, and now I’m working on Spanish.