My Odyssey

My Life Odyssey

I was born in 1969, in Beijing, the capital city of the People's Republic of China. I was raised by a single dad. He grew up as a poor orphan, begging for food on the street. People were mean and nasty to him. He was a survivor. You could knock him down, but you could never kill him. He always got back up, dusted himself off, licked his wounds, assessed the situation, and fought again. He never engaged in vice. When he was in his twenties, he lived in a dorm with eight colleagues; the other seven would be playing cards and smoking, while he’d be studying and working - all in the same tiny dorm room. In this regard, he was the greatest positive influence of my life. He was the quickest and smartest learner. Over the years, I saw him learning so many things by himself on his own, to advance his career, business and life.

He was the worst teacher I’ve ever met. He knew how to figure things out for himself, but he did not know how to explain. He never realized that knowing something is not the same as being able to teach what you know; teaching is another profession. From technical knowledge, to team collaboration, to business negotiation, he was the worst communicator I’ve ever met. Since he could not explain and could not teach, you guessed it, he was not an effective parent. Sure, he set a good example of working hard, avoiding vice, self-discipline, courage under fire, and confronting life's challenges and hardships head-on—treating them as essential opportunities for personal growth rather than trying to avoid them - but he could not explain his knowledge, his philosophy, or his principles. He just got upset and became abusive (verbally and physically). Back in those days, it was called “having a bad temper”. Today, I’d call it “lacking next-level wisdom, and not knowing how to teach life’s wisdom using methods that are inspirational, not painful.”

In 1988, I escaped China for Sydney, Australia right after high school. My father joined me a month later.

(By the way, the China I left is nothing like the China you see on TV today: economic boom, capitalism, corruption, pollution. The China I left, in 1988, the closest thing you’ve seen on TV is that of North Korea today: poverty, hunger, everyone is super skinny, everyone is equally poor, except those who are more equal - for example, that one dude who is anything but skinny. Or, did I tell you, I was hungry until I was 15? Did I tell you, I was skinny, just like the skinny North Koreans you see on TV today?)

In the early 1990s, I attended the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, doing Computer Science. It wasn’t until I came to America that I learned that "college was supposed to be all about drinking." No; my undergrad consisted of studying, figuring out how to get a green card, and earning money to put food on the table, pay rent, and pay tuition. In order to earn money, my dad and I had a little business. A lot of business discussions led to him physically beating me, only for him to realize later that I was right and he was wrong. In 1995, I was 25 years old, and he was still beating me up. So I escaped for the third time, and this time, it has been a success! I made sure he could not find me like the last two times, when he told me a pack of lies to con me into going back.

So, in 1995, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, and I tasted liberty for the first time:

1. free from the Communist dictatorship

2. free from the abusive father;

3. and armed with a solid degree in hot demand

I worked hard, and I loved it. I worked as an IT engineer for businesses big and small. I worked as an IT consultant for the government and military. I never worked less than 80 hours a week. I was often at work from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM, seven days a week. I was working and learning, learning and working. I felt I was so lucky to be given a chance to do what I loved, free from those shackles from my birth: the double dictatorship of government and father. And I now had a new home - Australia, and a new life.

Pretty soon, I realized that my technical skills can only get me so far. I will never forget the “cold brush off” I got from recruiters: "I need to make sure you are a good fit for the existing team there." Translation: "The team of whiteboys don't want to work with a Chinaman." I will never forget the racial insults and provocations I got, to my face, in the office, from other IT professionals wearing a suit and tie. I will never forget the first time I needed to make a business presentation to a client: After I was introduced, before I even opened my mouth, the manager of the client’s team just started laughing at me, basically saying: "What? You guys brought a Chinaman? Why don’t you bring a monkey?” (Yes, they used the term "Chinaman" in front of me.) I became a citizen of Australia, yet the daughter of the owner of the small publishing company I was working at the time for told me during lunch: “But you are not an Australian. You know what I am saying, you know what I mean?”

Around 1997, I started a new job, and HR gave me a bunch of forms to fill out, including some sort of insurance policy, and for “beneficiaries”, I had no family member to fill that blank. I had a girlfriend at the time, but she went "home" every night, for she lived with her parents and siblings. That got me thinking: Family? Where is my family? I knew my mother and little sister were in Los Angeles, but as far as I could remember, I’ve never seen my mom and dad living together as a couple. They were separated when I was very little and divorced when I was five. My dad got custody of me, and mom got my sister. Over the years, my dad made me promise over and over again: “promise me, you will never ever go find your mom.” Here I am, 27 years old, two years after I escaped from his physical abuse, yet the mind control he put on me as a child was still working. (What beliefs do you have, that you are holding on tight to, that are not good for you, but you are still holding on to them tightly? Who put them in there, and for whose benefit?)

At the age of 27, I decided to break that promise I made to my old man and go find my family. The decision to "break that promise" was harder to make than my decision to run away from him, for the idea of running away from him was planted into my head as early as I was seven years old. I found my mom and sister in Los Angeles in 1997. I came to the US as a tourist, on a Australian passport (Yes, with a Kangaroo on the front cover LOL), on an 11 day trip. I had not seen my mother for 22 years. During that 11 days, we talked and talked, and I cried every day. Three years later, July 17th 2000, I came back to the US, with a green card. On St. Patrick's day 2009, in Omaha, Nebraska, I became a Citizen of the USA too.

Here in the US, I had more corporate jobs. Compared to Australia, the US has a lot more opportunities. And I started noticing more and more: 

1. There are opportunities right in front of me, but I only realized they were opportunities much later, for I did not have “the eye” at the time. 

2. There are opportunities right in front of me, that I could identify as opportunities for me, but they were given to someone else! What has he got I don’t? Why was it a wall for me but a door for him? 

3. There were opportunities that were offered to me, but I was a "fish out of water", “picked too green” in terms of skills other than pure technical skills, and I messed things up and totally ruined them.

I began to realize: I’ve come pretty far, using hard work, focusing on tech skills and hard skills. But tech skills, hard skills, can only get you so far. There is a whole other level of skills. It was like, I realized: I’ve been living in a two-dimensional world, and I am just realizing: the world is three-dimensional! It was like seeing color TV for the first time after years of black-and-white TV! The frog at the bottom of the well mistakenly believed: “sky is tiny, no bigger than a coin”, but after being brought to the surface, he sees the real sky for the first time, and now he wants to learn how to fly!

To find out how I ended up teaching leadership seminars and coaching professionals for career, leadership and business:

For the rest of my Odyssey, Click HERE