Watch the full video of our conversation on the Spread Great Ideas YouTube channel.

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Full Transcript of Our Conversation

Meet John Wang: The Leadership Coach Empowering Asian Professionals

00:01.90 – Brian David Crane

Hello, please welcome John Wang. He’s a leadership coach to the Asian American community, corporate speaker, and host of the Big Asian Energy Podcast. Founder of the Mastery Academy. He’s coached Asian American clients from Google, Apple, Amex, Goldman Sachs, and other Fortune 500 companies.

00:19.23 – Brian David Crane

To be honest, he’s a celeb on TikTok. He’s handsome. He makes videos. Those videos have reached over 25 million views on TikTok. He’s also a TEDx presenter. He’s done some pretty cool, I would say intense personal development work, including, my favorite is that he trained to walk on an airplane wing mid-flight in an acrobatic performance in order to become a more confident speaker. So today we’re going to be talking about collectivist cultures, things like the bamboo ceiling, the immigrant paradox.

00:45.95 – Brian David Crane

Culture versus race and much more. Excited to have you here, John. Thanks for coming on.

00:50.71 – John Wang

I’m so excited to be here.

00:53.41 – Brian David Crane

Okay, so I’ll start from the place of, yeah, I’m a white guy. I grew up in the West. What should I know here when it comes to big Asian energy? What should I know here as far as the different experience for Asian Americans as opposed to other ethnic or racial groups?

01:14.68 – John Wang

Yeah, that’s a great question. First and foremost, when I say Asian, there’s a couple of big things I want to say. One, Asia is huge. To try to quantify a category of Asians is basically like, let’s take more than half of the human population on the planet…

01:33.91 – John Wang

And give them a title, so just bear with me when we’re chatting today. ah We’re going to have all sorts of topics and i’m going to say constantly, none of this apply to all the Asians, which could encompass everything from South Asians, from India, ah East Asians, from Japan, third generation,

01:55.75 – John Wang

Yeah, refugees from Cambodia. you know We could go as far as North Asians, but I’m not gonna touch that or West Asians, because this just gets wild. What I’m here, I would love to share a little bit is my own background and my own upbringing and the upbringing of so many different people that I’ve met throughout the years of doing what I do.

02:15.51 – John Wang

We’re just talking about you know what it’s like essentially to be a person who identifies, I guess, as an Asian individual in a Western society.

02:27.61 – John Wang

And that itself is a complex and massive topic.

02:35.84 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, I can imagine why. Yeah, keep going though, because I think that,

02:41.97 – John Wang

And I haven’t. I haven’t answered your question yet. Okay. Yeah.

02:45.18 – Brian David Crane

No, like because I think you’re going to go like, okay, cool.

02:45.60 – John Wang

Uhmm..

02:47.34 – Brian David Crane

Like, who is Asian then and how do you identify as Asian? Right? Like, yeah.

02:50.89 – John Wang

Yeah.

02:51.94 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

02:52.82 – John Wang

I would say for the most part, what we’re talking about is really East Asians and South Asians. That is people who were perhaps of heritage or ethnically from countries like China, Japan.

03:05.28 – John Wang

Myself is I’m born in Taiwan, Korea, you know Vietnam, etc., and South Asians would include India and all of the Southeast Asians. We’re talking about this larger group of people who have immigrated to places like the West. We’re talking about Canada, us, etc., So what we call the Asian diaspora is often times a technical term for it.

03:29.16 – John Wang

I just like to call it Asians in the West.

03:33.29 – Brian David Crane

Got it. Cool. Okay. So now we’re talking about Asians in the West. What is your experience having immigrated to Canada from Taiwan? Like how old were you? What was it like coming in?

From Taiwan to Canada: John’s Immigrant Experience

03:47.54 – John Wang

Yeah, it’s an interesting experience because we’re oftentimes referred to as the model minority. It’s like this myth that kind of follows us around. And what the model minority basically is, is that we are seen as like different.

03:59.25 – John Wang

We’re not white and we’re treated slightly differently. but we’re treated supposedly and seen as being like, quote unquote, like the better ones. And what that means is we are usually seen as, oh, okay, there’s higher socioeconomic attainment, there’s higher educational attainment.

04:15.86 – John Wang

And these kinds of stats tend to result in us being viewed in the lens of, You guys are doing fine. You’re basically white adjacent. And to give you an example of this, I remember a couple of years ago, there was a school, like a school district in Washington that basically decided we’re just going to list all Asians as white people. Cause we’re all the same.

04:37.54 – John Wang

And what’s that?

04:38.02 – Brian David Crane

So yeah for talking about test scores or talking about, that this was not a disadvantage group, let’s say. That’s why they were not being called out.

04:47.89 – John Wang

Yeah, exactly.

04:48.82 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

04:49.48 – John Wang

So a lot of times that the messaging is that Asians don’t need help. And I would say but if you talk to most Asian people, they probably would shrug and be like, yeah, we’re doing us right. We’re doing us.

05:03.13 – John Wang

But when we started to look deeper, and when I started to do a little bit deeper, I started realizing there were small, I would even say at first subtle, but important distinctions. And this really comes from our cultural experiences and identities and how that manifests in the real world actually does have an impact.

The Bamboo Ceiling: Why Asian Americans Struggle in Leadership

05:22.50 – John Wang

So for example, you mentioned the bamboo ceiling earlier, and that’s one of the things that was a surprise to me when I first found out. For people who haven’t heard of it, the bamboo ceiling is basically a discovery that Asian Americans are oftentimes really well represented in early to mid-level stages in companies across every single field that we’re talking about, especially professionals like, you know, finance, law, medicine, research, etc. So places like Silicon Valley, there’s a lot of Asian Americans who work in places like Silicon Valley, but they’re about half as likely as..

05:57.13 – John Wang

Their white counterparts to be promoted into executive leadership, boards, and high-level leadership. So that surprised me when I first found out.

06:08.59 – John Wang

And that was what led into me reading and researching more about this topic because I was like, why? I mean, what’s what makes me different? Is it just my skin color? Is it how I present myself?

06:22.88 – John Wang

Where’s the story coming from?

06:25.10 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, I think we’re. I don’t want to give away the conclusion to the story. I do think that you’re going to get into this culture versus race discussion because I think that they’re not really versus, but how the two interact, because you said, is it my skin color or is it how I present myself? And those are two different sides to the same coin, right? One is race and the other one’s culture.

06:48.43 – John Wang

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that both are equally important and both are worthy of discussion. They’re just different topics. And I think it’s important because a lot of times when these topics get brought up, we usually think of race, right? So we look at the bamboo ceiling and the automatic assumption that we tend to go into is like, is this because of racism?

07:10.30 – John Wang

And I think that to a certain degree, I mean, look, I can’t hide my skin color. I can’t hide who I am. When I go into a meeting and walk out and, or like when I’m in a group of people and someone’s like, where’s John?

07:25.70 – John Wang

And people will be like, oh, which John? The first thing people are going to say, the Asian one, because that’s the main identifier that I present.

07:30.92 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

07:34.76 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

07:34.84 – John Wang

And I can’t change that.

07:36.70 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

07:36.98 – John Wang

And in my upbringing, in my growing up here in North America, you see and experience this. I have been called, I have been called a C word.

07:48.03 – John Wang

I have been um attached to certain, let’s say, stereotypes. People ask me if I’m good at math, people being surprised. You know, I’m like six foot four. And when I was growing up, everyone was just like, you’re tall for an Asian.

08:03.36 – John Wang

I got those kinds of comments so much. Like, you’re tall for an Asian. You suck at math for an Asian was my favorite one, which is just true.

08:10.37 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

08:11.96 – John Wang

I do suck at math. You know, you speak English, you’re very eloquent.That’s another one. I studied English literature in college. And people are surprised.

08:24.04 – John Wang

You studied, you didn’t study Math or Science or Computer Science.

08:26.87 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

08:28.05 – John Wang

So these are things that do exist. And I understand that you walk into a room and you can’t hide your race. And then there’s a second part of this, which is culture, which is we look at things differently.

08:40.21 – John Wang

We might express ourselves differently. We might even think and relate to one another differently. And that has to do with our upbringing. That has to do with our families, etc.

08:50.96 – John Wang

So these are both really big topics, but I think it’s important to identify if we’re trying to solve the problem, “the bamboo ceiling”, how do we address each separately, but equally?

09:06.06 – Brian David Crane

Okay. And so how do you address them? I was going to say like, yeah, how do you address them? If they’re both problems and they both need addressing, what is the solution to both problems?

Culture vs. Race: Which One Holds You Back More?

09:27.39 – John Wang

I mean with racism, yeah, let’s start with that. How do we solve racism in the next five minutes?

09:34.75 – Brian David Crane

Well, but let me know that I want to say about because there is a part with at least in the states from an education standpoint, that Asians you were talking earlier about that school in Washington, but Asians, by and large, do exceptionally like they’re overrepresented in the Ivy Leagues.

00:09:55.50 – Brian David Crane

And I think you’re going to be able to speak to this as far as Mastery Academy goes. And there was a push that you wanted almost like deprioritize Asians for Ivy League entrance in order to deemphasize the race or penalize the race because they were winning too many of the spots that were meant for minorities.

10:10.05 – John Wang

Yeah. Yeah.

10:21.32 – Brian David Crane

If I’m saying that correctly.

10:22.71 – John Wang

Yeah. When I was working with students and getting them into top universities, the number one advice, and this was not just us, this was across the board. I think the New York Times published an article talking about this, that the number one advice given out by admission counselors is if you are Asian, hide your race.

10:44.75 – John Wang

Don’t mention it anywhere.

10:44.82 – Brian David Crane

Crazy.

10:46.31 – John Wang

Don’t talk about if you were really into, let’s say, a certain racial or cultural thing like, you were the Chinese club or the anime club.

10:58.83 – John Wang

Hide it. Don’t talk about it because it will work against you. There are studies at the same time that show that you know applicants and employees who are applying to jobs with Asian names or have mentioned their experiences. They were part of the Asian ERG at the previous company, got half as many callbacks as those who whitewashed their resumes.

11:24.15 – John Wang

And even myself,

11:25.04 – Brian David Crane

All things being equal, just the name.

11:28.07 – John Wang

Yeah, all things being equal.

11:28.95 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

11:29.07 – John Wang

And I’ll even say this was the case. They found it even for companies that had advertised themselves as I was going to say, being inclusive.

11:37.58 – Brian David Crane

Progressive hiring.

11:42.85 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

11:43.80 – John Wang

And they were saying, yeah, exactly.

11:44.32 – Brian David Crane

Progressive hiring practices inclusive. Yeah, sorry.

11:48.03 – John Wang

And they found that it didn’t matter because it was just there. So there’s this term called the invisible minority because there’s this general part where we hide who we are because we know that to get along better, it’s better to not emphasize or even point out the difference that we have.

12:08.96 – John Wang

Myself included. I grew up, there was a time in my life where I thought, Hey, if I’m going to write a book or I’m going to show up on stage, should I change my name from John Wang, which is a pretty, I would say identifiably Asian name.

12:23.69 – John Wang

Dude, every possible joke you can make about that I’ve heard.

12:23.93 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

12:29.58 – John Wang

Right? Like it’s not. And I’m like, my middle name is Yang. Maybe I’ll change my name to like Young, which is kind of like, I don’t know, you could, there’s white people who have the name Young.

12:39.01 – Brian David Crane

Yeah..

12:40.89 – John Wang

This kind of stuff comes up when I was, this is really funny. Cause when I was about to write this book – Big Asian Energy, an Asian friend of mine pulled me aside and was warning me with all the love he had was like, dude, are you sure you want to do this? Like you’re going to put yourself in a box. People will put you in a box.

12:59.41 – John Wang

And I just said, we’re already in a box. When we walk out of the room, like we know that we are seen in a certain way, we are seen in a certain light. So why not just talk about it?

13:11.70 – John Wang

Why not just embrace it? Like, why are we hiding this thing that we can’t hide anyway?

13:19.32 – Brian David Crane

Makes sense. You had made it. You had made a comment to me that I thought was so fascinating. I was trying to go back and look in the email portion to find it. But then you had said, going to get this phrase right, about the high context versus low context communication in terms of how you speak.

13:36.99 – John Wang

Yeah.

13:37.89 – Brian David Crane

What does that mean?

High-Context vs. Low-Context Communication: Why It Matters

13:40.18 – John Wang

So when we started taking a look at this topic of, okay, so the bamboo ceiling exists. We know that that’s factual. We know that Asian Americans, statistically speaking, are not seen in the same way as leaders that white individuals aren’t.

13:56.64 – John Wang

and what I mean by that is that there was a study that was done by, I think it was like the AAIM organization, and they found that about 67% of respondents reported that they think Asian and Pacific Islanders are seen as “not a good leader”.

14:12.83 – John Wang

Or not a good people person. However, we’re seen as paying attention in detail, smart and good with numbers. Like these are like 92% said that they’re seen as diligent workers.

14:25.35 –John Wang

And this resonated deeply with me and I couldn’t help but shake my head because growing up, my parents always were like, okay, look, this is a different world than the one that we are from, that they were from.

14:41.35 – John Wang

People are going to look at you in a certain way. So it’s important that you work hard, keep your head down, and don’t make waves. And your secret to success is to do more work than anybody else and then wait for your chance to be called.

14:54.00 – Brian David Crane

Right.

14:54.95 – John Wang

And it makes sense. And I was like, okay, that, that like, why not hard work and humility are great values. So let me just go and do that. Let me work harder than anybody else and wait for my chance to be called.

15:06.41 – John Wang

The only thing was I didn’t realize, and I think my parents didn’t realize that’s not the same culture that exists here. Right?

15:16.83 – John Wang

In other words, if we’re waiting for someone to come to save me, if I’m waiting for someone to come to save me and call on me and tap me on the shoulder and say, hey, I’ve been secretly watching you. I recognize your potential. That is probably never going to happen.

15:28.77 – John Wang

And because we are, when I say we, I mean like a lot of Asian Americans myself grew up in what we call collectivist cultures.

15:38.44 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

15:38.57 – John Wang

So collectivist cultures, like if your sociologists kind of broke down these two major division points, and It’s on a scale. Collectivist cultures focus more on family, on the community, on the country as being coming first, whereas individualistic countries typically focus on the individual. So I’ll give you an example..

15:59.91 – John Wang

When you’re growing up, when you hit 18 years old and become an adult, the expectation in the West is you move out, you start your own family. Like your life was on your own now. Like you go and be independent. You go and find your own path.

16:11.87 – John Wang

In Asia, that doesn’t really exist. The idea is that you become an adult and you take care of your family in their old age. You continue to support them. You continue to honor them. You continue to oftentimes, you know, even live together and obey, I say that not from a perspective of subservience, but respect your parents’ wishes in following that path.

16:39.07 – John Wang

And again, generalizing here, but there’s that difference in culture and I never realized this, but this cultural difference is so deep and so pervasive that it’s in almost every part of what we do.

16:55.22 – John Wang

And that includes how we speak. So there’s a really great researcher.

16:59.22 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

17:03.09 – John Wang

She talks about, yeah..

17:06.26 – Brian David Crane

Well, please finish. I do have a comment to come back to when you finish, please.

17:10.87 – John Wang

Sure. So there’s a researcher who talks about this and she studies communication styles across the world. And she said that there are two different types of cultures. There’s high context communicators versus low context communicators.

17:24.17 – John Wang

And what high context communicators basically communicate with each other with a greater understanding of..

17:38.93 – John Wang

I would say implicit information is in the room. So an example of this is Japan. Japanese people, generally speaking, are much more high context. So when they speak with each other, all that meta context, like the understanding between them is understood.

17:57.22 – John Wang

And they don’t need to speak to us directly. Whereas in places like the US or Canada, Australia, these are much more low context countries in which things are stated very directly.

18:09.97 – John Wang

And this also includes things like negative feedback as well as positive.

18:13.18 – Brian David Crane

And..

18:13.31 – John Wang

But I’m gonna hold that thought. Yeah.

18:15.53 – Brian David Crane

Well, using Japan as an example, I believe in their language, they also indicate when they’re speaking to someone, like deference or authority, as far as saying, you are older, like there’s a way that the sentences are constructed.

18:34.25 – Brian David Crane

Let me give you a different example.

18:35.48 – John Wang

Oh, Mm-hmm.

18:36.15 – Brian David Crane

In Spanish, for instance, if you’re speaking to somebody that you don’t know, or an older person, you would say, ‘Usted’, as opposed to two, and there’s like implicit… It’s not obedience, but it’s like manners almost built into the language. And I assume it’s similar in Japan because I had read that when you are… that if I’m talking to you, whether I know you or not, especially Americans, or known one as being very informal. They address you by your first name.

19:04.33 – Brian David Crane

They don’t have any problem. Yeah, there’s almost no salutations a lot of times when you start speaking to somebody. Even your elders, it’s like, Hey, Bob, right?

19:15.08 – Brian David Crane

There’s no like, pay you know hey, mister..

19:15.15 – John Wang

Oh yeah.

19:17.11 – Brian David Crane

Wang or whatever, right? like it’s Even that’s gone away.

19:18.85 – John Wang

Yeah.

19:19.99 – Brian David Crane

But yeah, that’s one point. And the second one is, I think the context of that concept you were speaking about earlier filial piety.

Filial Piety and Social Hierarchy: The Asian Cultural Mindset

19:27.64 – John Wang

Mm-hmm.

19:28.05 – Brian David Crane

As a general kind of a Confucian idea. Is that right?

19:32.93 – John Wang

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I’ll probably say there’s five core cultural values that we definitely see the greatest division in.

19:34.42 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

19:39.86 – John Wang

And, I listed them as being, honor is the big one, like understanding the recognition of honor, which is like our face as how we present. And that’s not about ego. That’s not about pride. That’s really about politeness.

19:53.79 – John Wang

We don’t want to offend other people with our negative emotions or emotional messiness, etc.

19:54.28 – Brian David Crane

Hmm…

19:58.18 – John Wang

So this whole idea of Americans being very direct and talking to somebody and immediately going to, “Hey, are you doing?” And like, this is what I’m going through and struggling is very foreign. Like, it’s very foreign.

20:09.23 – Brian David Crane

Think.

20:11.63 –John Wang

We don’t like, we’re like, okay, I don’t know what you want me to do with this. That’s not the right context for this.

20:15.78 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

20:17.51 – John Wang

Right and so that’s one and filial piety is absolutely another one and filial piety is the understanding the respect that there is a social hierarchy that we appreciate and could be something as simple as age, so you know even when Ii was going to school in Taiwan, if somebody is like a year older than you you treated them with a greater amount of respect because they were year older, they understood that there’s these social rules. Like if you go out to eat together, the good thing is somebody older will be like pay for you because they’re taking care of you.

20:54.48 – John Wang

And if you’re younger, you don’t speak against them because even if you know something more about a topic than they do, you’re very respectful in how you deliver that because that’s the social hierarchy.

21:06.54 – John Wang

And that’s the rules everyone plays by. The oldest person in the room deserves the most respect unless sometimes they are like the person who has the highest, let’s say company, like let’s say you’re in a business, like the CEO has earned his spot. So you will give them the most deference and respect. And this is down to everything. Like who takes the first bite at dinner?

21:27.32 – John Wang

Who takes the last bite at dinner? Where do they sit at the table? Like all of these rules are invisible and everywhere.

21:37.26 – Brian David Crane

So I mean, yeah, I think it’s nice in a way that that exists. And I don’t want to sound like I’m, what’s the way for you to say this?

21:50.39 – Brian David Crane

I think it’s special and it’s, like having lived in Asia, when I go to Asia, to me, it’s manners.

22:00.80 – Brian David Crane

It’s like a lost art in some sense, that the West has lost or certain parts, the West have lost.

22:02.70 – John Wang

Yeah.

22:08.02 – Brian David Crane

But I think one of the things that you get into in Big A’s Energy, as I understand it, is that in and helping people kind of crack the code here, part of it is to be more assertive, and also part of it is to be more charismatic.

22:22.36 – Brian David Crane

And I think the assertiveness goes ahead into this issue, of them taking the first bite at the meal, right? Like, let’s say, as opposed to waiting on the elder to initiate the meal.

22:32.41 – John Wang

Yeah.

22:36.63 – Brian David Crane

Is that right?

22:37.94 – John Wang

Yeah, absolutely. Or like pouring tea or like these things.

22:39.57 – Brian David Crane

So that..

22:40.73 – John Wang

Yeah.

22:41.67 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. So how do you blend the two? How do you make it so that you’re not an asshole? Because like, there’s part of it that’s charming where you’re like, okay, cool. I mean, if I went to Asia and I sat at a table, didn’t know formality, they would,

23:02.26 – Brian David Crane

Generally speaking, they would give me a pass because they’re going to be like, he just doesn’t know any better. But if there’s kind of an element like, you think it’s nice and you want to respect it and you do it. And if you’re Asian American and you’re in an organization, You’re raised a certain way at home, you come into an organization where you’re surrounded by people who weren’t raised that way and they don’t have any sense of manners. Like, how is it that their way in a Western organization is by being more assertive while also not being assholes, basically, you know?

23:40.44 – John Wang

That is an excellent question. I should have rewrote the chapter called How To Be An Asshole. Yeah, but a better one. And to me, it’s about building bridges because I think that’s the biggest thing is understanding context.

23:56.21 – John Wang

And you’re absolutely right. I freaking, there’s no part of what I talk about that will ever say I disparage Asian cultures, because I think that there are so many things personally, I think individualist culture could use a little bit more collectivism.

24:14.22 – John Wang

And I kind of love that.

24:14.35 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

24:16.18 – John Wang

I feel like we are a little bit out of balance these days. And I think that, you know, like collectivist cultures could use a little bit more individualistic mindsets when it comes to how we present and feel about, let’s say, the pursuit of our purpose and the pursuit of who we truly are, right? And I think that we are seeing that cultural exchange happening anyway.

24:36.19 – John Wang

We are seeing that, newer generations of Japanese, Chinese, etc., individuals and younger people are becoming more self-aware of these kinds of more Westernized ideals.

Finding the Balance: Assertiveness Without Losing Cultural Respect

24:49.51 – John Wang

If anything, one of the things I constantly hear about is people are saying, especially for my Asian American peers, it’s like growing up, my mom is always like, you’re becoming too American. And I’m like, what does that even mean?

24:59.19 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

25:00.40 – John Wang

And I think that’s what it means. Like you’re becoming too independent. You’re becoming too individualistic. What I think about is I like to use the example of it depends on where you’re doing the business, right? Understanding the field of play. So if you’re in Japan, it is absolutely normal.

25:15.21 – John Wang

If you have like two leaders, like two team leads, two CEOs, whatever, when they’re meeting each other to bow. And that bowing is a signifying of respect. And I personally, love that when I was spending time in Japan, freaking love every part of that thing. People are so polite.

25:31.77 – John Wang

People don’t like to say no. That’s part of the high context communication. They find polite ways to navigate around so that you would take the hint instead of me having to say, “No, you’re being an asshole. Can you please get the fuck out?”

25:46.20 – John Wang

Like.. They will find every hint, right? They’ll be like, unfortunately, that is not a convenient thing to bring forth today. Like, there’s a lot, did a lot of this.

25:59.54 – John Wang

But take the CEO who’s from Japan, and you put him in a New York boardroom, coming into a business negotiation, he starts off bowing to the other side. Like, that changes the optics, right?

26:11.58 – John Wang

So I think this is an important part of it, especially for people who grew up in a culture or environment in which that deference to authority, that deference to someone older than you, um not self-promoting because it’s seen as being too, you know, self-obsessed or narcissistic, where that respect is not understood the same way because the environment doesn’t understand it, it gets misconstrued.

26:37.03 – John Wang

And this is why it is that, yeah.

26:37.21 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, I think that’s the key. Yeah, that’s the key right there is like you’re trying to arm people to basically say like you need to figure out what the playing field is that you’re on and adjust to the rules accordingly based on that playing field. But the playing field can change from the New York boardroom to the Japanese tea ceremony if I’m sitting in Tokyo versus if I’m sitting on Wall Street.

26:57.32 – John Wang

Exactly. There are these myths that I have said about Asians. Asians don’t like to speak up. It’s a common myth. I hear this. I think I had somebody post this on my Instagram one time. It’s just Asians aren’t confident. They would never speak up. And I’m like, dude, it’s not that we’re not confident, don’t speak up.

27:15.51 – John Wang

We speak up all the time. We just value respect in that social context because that’s what we’re taught.

27:21.93 – Brian David Crane

And yeah I would say you and you speak up in a way that is

27:22.28 – John Wang

Like, we’ll speak up. but Mm-hmm.

27:28.20 – Brian David Crane

It’s noticeable if you know what to look, and since we’re talking about Japan, the example that comes to mind, as you will say, they will say it’s not a convenient time for this thing in a way of saying no, but they also in their facial expressions, like they will indicate, their eyebrows will raise a little bit when they’re not comfortable saying something like there’s certain facial cues that will indicate.

27:51.16 – Brian David Crane

This is, this is a no take the hint.

27:51.22 – John Wang

Yeah. Take the hint.

27:53.61 – Brian David Crane

If you’re aware of it, it’s a clear, no, you just need to actually know what it is you’re looking for.

27:58.26 – John Wang

A hundred percent. Yeah. And if you’re from that culture, those clues, you would recognize those, and you know what is meant underneath that.

28:10.08 – John Wang

It’s great. Everyone gets along. But if you’re in a place where that isn’t being communicated, where people don’t understand that sometimes it comes off as either being miscommunicated, misunderstood.

28:22.82 – John Wang

And then the opposite, when there’s direct feedback, it comes off as harsh. So if you’re a leader and you are working with an Asian person and you say, no, this is not going to work, like go back and redo it.

28:34.28 – John Wang

They may not know that this is a normal context. and um I’m generalizing. I think most Asian people who are growing up North America are perfect communicators, capable of understanding communication. ah But if you are unfamiliar with that context, it could feel very direct.

28:49.18 – Brian David Crane

So..

28:49.43 – John Wang

It could feel very harsh. And again, these are cultural values that in the context that they’re from, makes perfect sense.

28:54.54 – Brian David Crane

Why?

28:59.93 – John Wang

Outside of that culture, sometimes it gets misconstrued. So how do we bridge that gap? How do we make sure that we understand that, no, speaking up for yourself, self-promoting, asking for what your needs are, saying no is not disrespect.

29:07.86 – Brian David Crane

Both public.

29:12.89 – John Wang

It is just communication.

29:15.88 – Brian David Crane

S why do you care about this? And what I mean by that is you were doing mastery Academy. What was that? You talked about this prior to the show, as far as trying to square two different initiatives, let’s say, right?

29:31.76 – Brian David Crane

Like where you have Asian kids who are coming to you saying, I want to get into these amazing schools and go to work at these fortune 500 companies.

29:31.87 – John Wang

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

29:40.23 – Brian David Crane

And you’re also saying, well, actually to succeed in these Fortune 500 companies, you need at the higher levels, you need to be charismatic. You need to be assertive. You don’t necessarily need, you do need the degree to get in the door, let’s say, but like to move up the chain, it’s actually, you need to be able to not bow to the opposing CEO and the in the Wall Street boardroom, right?

30:02.38 – John Wang

Yeah.

30:04.58 – Brian David Crane

Like it’s a bad example.

Mastery Academy: John’s Mission to Equip Future Leaders

30:05.31 – John Wang

Yeah.

30:05.85 – Brian David Crane

You understand what I’m saying?

30:06.53 – John Wang

Yeah. You need to have a little bit more of a backbone and you need to be able to have a little bit more of what I call fire, right? Like bring it’s okay to bring a little more fire because people in the cert, these circles will respect that.

30:19.84 – John Wang

They won’t see that as a lack of politeness. They will see that as honesty and integrity. And you know anyone who’s been in the corporate space probably has some familiarity that it’s not just what you know. It’s not just the technical skills.

30:38.35 – John Wang

It is also about soft skills. As a matter of fact, there are so many studies that I won’t get into that show that soft skills, typically speaking, results in much higher you know return on investment than technical skills.

30:48.73 – John Wang

As in, how many times have you known somebody you like? This guy is like the smartest person, but they have no idea how to market themselves. And that’s why it is that they’re being underpaid, undervalued. And then over there, you got Jim and Bob, who’s like, honestly, don’t know what the hell they’re doing, but they’re now the VPs of the company because they understood how to schmooze.

31:08.84 – John Wang

And we tend to look at that as being like, that’s a terrible thing. We should not be like Jim and Bob. I’m saying take a look at what Jim and Bob is doing, because what happens if you can combine your technical expertise and your capabilities and also know how to speak that language, how to promote yourself, how to speak for yourself.

31:25.79 – John Wang

Because that I think is the most important thing.

31:28.15 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Then you’re untouchable, right? You sit across from Jim and Bob at the same VP level that they’re at, and these guys don’t have any idea what the hell they’re talking about. Not only are you as assertive or as charismatic in your way, but you’re also technically deep and knowledgeable about the topic, let’s say, right?

31:45.94 – John Wang

Yeah, absolutely.

31:46.24 – Brian David Crane

You’re not just there to schmooze. Yeah.

31:49.31 – John Wang

Absolutely.

31:49.78 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

31:50.49 – John Wang

Because this is…

31:50.61 – Brian David Crane

So, but sorry, explain mastery Academy for those who aren’t familiar with it. Like what were you doing or what are you doing with it? And how does it tie in with big Asian energy?

32:01.86 – John Wang

When I first started 15, I think, I don’t even know now, almost 20 years ago. God, that just makes me feel so old. ah When I first started this whole journey.

32:12.68 – John Wang

So my first business was actually teaching Asian Americans. It wasn’t supposed to just be Asians. It was just like I was teaching communication, writing and college admissions at the time.

32:24.98 – John Wang

And I was helping these high achieving, super hardworking go getter kidsbreak into the upper echelons of these top universities. And there is a kind of formula and a skill that you have to know how to promote yourselves.

32:39.71 – John Wang

And mostly kids have never ever taught themselves that because, again, they come from a place where the work speaks for themselves. I’m like, the work is not going to speak for themselves. You speak for the work.

32:51.11 – John Wang

That’s the only way anyone is going to recognize you. And you have to think about who you are talking to? What do they care about? And not just go, this is what I’ve done, but like why this matters.

33:02.69 – John Wang

So I worked and I helped all these kids. and they you know, they’re getting to these top schools, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. And they get these great businesses, you know, they get into the works, they get into great companies. And then they come back and they say, John, I’m burning out.

33:16.35 – John Wang

And like, I feel like I’m working as hard as I possibly can to the point that I have an apartment in New York, and I haven’t seen it for the last three days, um because I work on Wall Street, but yet I’m not getting promoted. And all my friends are and all the people around me are, why is that happening? And how do I break through?

33:35.57 – John Wang

And when we, yeah.

33:36.13 – Brian David Crane

Great question.

33:38.18 – John Wang

When we started looking at it and we started going like, okay, well, how are you presenting it? Like, when was the last time that did you ever tell your superiors that you want to have a plan in place for getting promoted? And they’re like, no,

33:51.08 – John Wang

Like, why not? Like, well, the work should speak for itself. And I’m not, there yet. I’m not good enough yet. Well, who was promoted recently? Just like, let me use Jim as an example. I’m like, Jim got promoted. Does Jim have the same results as you do? Has Jim hit more KPIs? I’m like, no.

34:10.47 – John Wang

I’m like, so who are you waiting for? So these kinds of conversations started popping up and that’s when I started going, okay, let’s start talking about this at a larger level. So that’s where I started going, why do I keep seeing this? And it was really frustrating to me.

34:26.22 – John Wang

Because I also personally knew what that was like, you know, growing up, I knew what that was like to be in those rooms and feel that imposter syndrome and thinking like, I have a great idea. I want to put myself out there. But in the back of my head is a voice that says, um dude, what are you thinking?

34:42.74 – John Wang

Like, you’re not there yet. You got to keep waiting. Like, it’s not up to you to be that person to step up. You have to wait for somebody to call on you so..

34:51.09 – Brian David Crane

But then do you tell some of these people who would reach out to you, you would say, hey you need to go do some wing walking on an airplane to, or do some of the stuff that you’ve done as far as personal development goes to, because it transmutes itself into your ability to ask for the raise or ask for the plan of promotion.

Imposter Syndrome: Why So Many Asian Professionals Feel Like Frauds

35:06.45 – John Wang

Thank you.

35:16.78 – Brian David Crane

And you come about this through your own personal experience of saying, hey, this is a skill that has, wing walking was a skill that helped me become a better public speaker. Like, I understand the tie in, but did they understand it?

35:29.70 – Brian David Crane

And if they ask you, are you cool?  I’m looking for help in terms of how to get promoted inside of Goldman Sachs. So what you need to do is go practice pick up lines on, and then..

35:41.84 – John Wang

But..

35:45.70 – John Wang

Yeah day one of my workshop everyone go skydiving, no that’ll be fun though that would be so much fun would love to do that but no I don’t think that’s necessary.

35:50.52 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, really. Cause yeah.

36:03.00 – John Wang

I think that for the most part, really what I take a look at is patterns. Because really when I take a look at it is that we’re not that far off. We have what’s there. The potential is there.

36:14.06 – John Wang

We just don’t yet know the exact words to communicate it. And we don’t feel personally aligned. So those are always two things. One is I always talk about the communication is what to say.

36:20.60 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

36:23.47 – John Wang

And then the alignment is how to feel like you believe in what you say. because those are very different things. And I found that a lot of people tend to focus, hyper-focus on the communication side. They’re like, okay, just give me the words.

36:35.32 – John Wang

What exact words do I need to write into my email? And I went, okay. I do actually have a framework for that where we take a look at like, are you micro apologizing? Are you like to slip in too many mitigating languages?

36:46.30 – John Wang

Like do you write every email with like, I just wanted to share a thought. We look at like languaging styles, but I think what’s really deeper is the mindsets.

36:52.71 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

36:57.54 – John Wang

Behind it. Like, are you still seeing yourself as a kid? Are you still seeing yourself as an inferior in these contexts with these people in the room? And obviously that’s not universal. And obviously a lot of people I talk to, they’re like, no, I know I’m fucking amazing. And I walk into the room feeling that way.

37:15.13 – John Wang

But there are a lot of people who do feel like actually, yeah, I sometimes do still have this kid mindset. I still feel a little bit like I’m not yet one of the cool kids. I haven’t proven myself yet. I haven’t been accepted as that yet.

37:30.17 – John Wang

And then we look at why.

37:30.58 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

37:31.27 – John Wang

Why does that belief come into place? Where is that, you know, whatever that comparisonitis, that imposter syndrome, where does that come from? And then how do we reprogram that? Because I think that the fastest way to change is identifying what that belief is and going, is this belief still helping me or is it holding me back?

37:52.26 – Brian David Crane

What is your journey to identifying those beliefs and changing them i mean because there’s an argument to be made for I believe that i can bench press 400 pounds, I can’t, until I sit down at the weight rack and it comes crashing down on my chest right so there is some physical embodiment of..

38:11.26 – John Wang

Yeah yeah…

38:22.80 – Brian David Crane

Like changing beliefs.

38:24.99 – John Wang

Yeah, absolutely. What you’re talking about is competence. And there is this lie that confidence comes from competence. And I call it a lie because confidence comes from basically, that I’m going to do this until I get really good at it.

38:34.37 – Brian David Crane

Interesting.

38:40.29 – John Wang

And then once I get really good at it, I’ll believe that I’m really good at it and I’ll feel more confident. And that comes out in all these ways. Like it could come out in like dating and be like, once I have a six figure income, like women will love me because once I drive a Ferrari.

38:53.03 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

38:54.76 – John Wang

And the truth is that for most people, that’s just not true. Like we don’t really actually care about those markers. It’s not the marker that makes the difference. And I’ll use a dating example.

39:06.17 – John Wang

It’s kind of like I had a friend who was kind of – once I become rich, then I’ll be able to find a date.

39:06.36 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

39:13.66 – John Wang

I don’t know why I can’t get a woman, to find me attractive. And one day he goes out and he buys a sports car. And we at the time I was younger, we were going to a club and he went into the club and he started chatting up somebody there and they had a romantic connection and he came on and’ just like, see, that’s the magic of the sports car.

39:34.37 – John Wang

And I’m like, “Wait a second. Did you tell her that you had a sports car?” He’s like, “No, of course not. I don’t want to seem braggy.” We’ like, “Yeah, okay. Did you show her that you had a sports car? Did you like to take out the keys and show her?”

39:45.82 – John Wang

And he’s like, No.

39:46.02 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

39:46.99 – John Wang

And cause that’s ridiculous. And I said, okay, so how does she know? And he’s like, well, she didn’t. And I was like, yeah, because she could feel the sports car.

39:53.99 – Brian David Crane

But she could feel it.

39:56.86 – John Wang

Yeah.

39:59.46 – John Wang

It’s just like energy. It’s got a vibe, you know? And I said,  it’s not about them. It’s about you. You believed in it. You believed that you now have the permission to go and be the person that you’ve always wanted to be now that you had a sports car.

40:16.00 – John Wang

But what if you never needed the sports car? So that’s what I’m saying is that the idea that confidence equals competence or confidence equals confidence is a lie because our belief has actually this disconnect.

40:27.53 – John Wang

And this is where the studies around imposter syndrome come from. You’re familiar, I assume with imposter syndrome, right?

40:32.13 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, please explain it to people who don’t know the phrase.

40:32.85 – John Wang

Yeah. So imposter syndrome was first discovered by psychologists as this weird phenomenon where somebody will believe, who has the capabilities, especially in education, somebody who has the degrees, who has the background, the experience, but they are in a room and they feel like they’re a fraud.

40:55.92 – John Wang

They look around the people in their room and they feel like, I don’t think I actually am as good as everyone else around me. I am an imposter. So this is also called the imposter phenomenon.

41:08.58 – John Wang

So there was a study that was done and they found that Asian Americans experience a higher rate of the imposter syndrome than all the groups. And this is where it’s really interesting because again, a lot of these people, highly educated, have the credentials, have the technical skills, but in their minds are thinking, oh, I’m actually not good enough.

41:30.62 – John Wang

People are going to find out any moment that I’m a fraud. People are going to think that I don’t actually know what I’m talking about. And then when that happens, then all hell is going to break loose and I’ll be outed. And this is just going to be the worst.

41:43.72 – John Wang

And when we look at..

41:43.85 – Brian David Crane

And I will, do and I will lose face. Let’s say. Yeah.

41:46.49 – John Wang

And I will lose face, right? Which is like the worst thing. Because I will lose face means that I will then bring shame to my family.

41:53.17 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

41:53.71 – John Wang

I will have dishonored my ancestors. Yeah.

41:58.21 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

41:59.11 – John Wang

Yeah and that’s a real thing.

41:59.39 – Brian David Crane

It’s a real fear. I  mean, it’s a yeah. I think it’s a real fear in any honor culture, like having grown up in the South, which has much more honor culture than other parts of the U.S.

42:03.92 – John Wang

Yeah.

42:10.41 – Brian David Crane

There is this..

42:14.51 – Brian David Crane

There’s a fear of disgracing the family name, let’s say. It’s said differently, but it’s a manifestation of the same fear.

42:23.20 – John Wang

Yes, absolutely. And that imposter syndrome around our belief of who we are. Incidentally, I have had so many guests on my podcast and we talk about this all the time.

42:36.87 – John Wang

And it’s almost universal. It’s something that’s universal. I remember we had an entrepreneur who started an investment company or trading fund in her MIT dorm room that was doing like a billion dollars of trades a day.

42:53.82 – John Wang

And when I was interviewing her, she had already gone through all this and sold and she was just insane, like by every metric, insanely successful.

42:53.89 – Brian David Crane

Hmm.

43:01.38 – John Wang

And she said, to this day, I’m still working on it because it’s so deeply ingrained in who we are. And it’s the belief that you don’t deserve your achievements. Other people are going to find out you’re not good enough.

43:13.94 – John Wang

Any praise you get is false. Like if somebody says, hey, you’re really good at this, their first reaction is, oh, you’re just being polite. Or that they don’t deserve where they need to be.

43:25.19 – John Wang

And that I’ve tricked people into thinking that this is what it is. Incidentally, I experience this personally all the time.

43:32.74 – Brian David Crane

Well, yeah, you’re putting yourself out writing a book. I mean, you’re going to be dealing with imposter syndrome.

43:36.64 – John Wang

Oh, for sure. And this is why I always say it’s like, I’m not trying to be an expert on anything except my own experiences. Because I think there’s a part of it that’s like, I don’t want to be called out for it. Like the first three months after I got my book deal with Penguin Random House, I was semi like low key concerned.

43:52.47 – John Wang

I was going to get an email for them to be like, actually, we did a little more research and we made a mistake.

43:59.02 – Brian David Crane

We decided you’re a fraud. Yeah.

44:00.38 – John Wang

You are a fraud.

44:00.74 – Brian David Crane

Like you.

44:01.85 – John Wang

Yeah. I legit lost sleep trying to send, after I sent them the first draft, because I was like, oh my God, please don’t come back. So the reason is they found there’s this, that the way that our kind of confidence develops is through a number of different hits, right? The first stage is, think of it like bases on a baseball diamond, right?

44:30.60 – Brian David Crane

Facebook diamond, yeah.

44:30.88 – John Wang

Clearly, I know nothing about sports, right? So the first base is you develop competence. You develop like I am doing something that is good.

44:41.72 – John Wang

You get feedback. Second base is you get feedback for your competence. so people say and look at what you’ve done and say, this is good. So you’ve got external feedback. Third stages, you develop that internal upgrade and you say, okay, other people recognize this is good.

44:54.69 – John Wang

I can therefore accept that this is good. And the fourth stage is then you upgrade yourself to go to the next level. So then you take on something newer. And I often say imposter syndrome is not a bad thing. Imposter syndrome just means that you’re challenging yourself, which you should be.

The Confidence Myth: Why Competence Alone Won’t Get You Ahead

45:08.43 – John Wang

It’s good. You’re feeling imposter syndrome because you’re doing something new.

45:12.65 – Brian David Crane

You’re between the bases, let’s say, and yeah you’re stretching yourself.

45:16.53 – John Wang

Yeah, exactly. And you start over and you’re like, okay, now I’m going to practice to get better. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But something goes wrong in our brains when the imposter phenomenon comes in because it’s when we get the praise that we got from other people and we go, they must be lying or they must be tricked.

45:40.45 – John Wang

Then we don’t progress to the next phase.

45:42.88 – Brian David Crane

Or they don’t really know what they’re talking about. Like they’re not really competent to praise me on this topic, you know?

45:48.50 – John Wang

Yes, all the time.

45:48.85 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

45:50.78 – John Wang

All the time, right? If we judge them to think that like, oh, like they’re, they really believe it. Like they’re giving me real praise. Then we judge them for it and being like oh, then you must be an idiot because you think I’m good.

46:02.79 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Yeah.

46:05.78 – John Wang

If you’re really good, you would know that I’m the idiot.

46:08.52 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

46:08.77 – John Wang

And yeah.

46:11.29 – Brian David Crane

Just as an anecdotally happens, I like I’m down here, we’re in the Dominican Republic, I’m speaking Spanish. I have people who don’t speak Spanish. Dude, you’re amazing in Spanish. I’m like, no, I’m not like, it’s not. We’re close.

46:21.72 – John Wang

Yeah, it’s just you suck at Spanish.

46:23.63 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. It’s like I don’t use just like, you just don’t have an ear for it.

46:25.32 – John Wang

Ahh..

46:26.53 – Brian David Crane

Right. Like, it depends on who’s telling you, giving you the compliment. Yeah.

46:31.57 – John Wang

Exactly. And now that I look at that and go like, okay, that’s just being logical and rational if you have real metrics. But the question I always have is, do you actually have real metrics?

46:43.20 – John Wang

What if the person you’re talking to is somebody who’s qualified, who has experience, then why does your brain still not accept that? then that’s where we take a look at exactly.

46:51.82 – Brian David Crane

Why is that?

46:53.58 – John Wang

Like, where is that pattern coming from? And for me, when I’ve talked to people and in my own personal experience, so often it’s a belief that we picked up when we were a child.

47:05.14 – Brian David Crane

That? And you think it’s more prevalent amongst Asian Americans than other ethnic groups?

47:10.55 – John Wang

In what I’ve observed in my own clients and students, it is everywhere.

47:17.39 – Brian David Crane

Across ethnic groups are everywhere amongst Asian Americans.

47:19.21 – John Wang

No. Amongst Asian Americans that I’ve spoken to.

47:20.29 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Got it.

47:23.77 – John Wang

And you know first and foremost, of course, I do think that it is a universal thing in general. Of course, everyone at some point experiences imposter syndrome. This is not like an Asian experience. But I think that if we take a look at our childhood and those educational experiences that so many of us have had,

47:41.08 – John Wang

It is understandable why it is that might show up more often. And speaking of which, I have had this validated because I’ve talked to so many different people about it. I remember I was talking to this guy who’s the Google Global Director of Health and Performance.

47:56.96 – John Wang

I am an honest guest. And we were chatting about this because he said that hisown experiences, he calls it the monster. He said that, you know I have this monster who is sitting in the back of my head and judging me and telling me that I’m not good enough all the time.

48:14.49 – John Wang

And so one day, after the pandemic, he just like kind of had a very vulnerable opening up to his team and said, this is what I’m feeling. I’m feeling so much stress. I’m feeling so much burnout.

00:48:27.71 – John Wang

And he started talking more and more about this. And he said, I would go into rooms at Google. And these are like all high achievers. And he would ask, you know, who here experiences this monster?

48:35.32 – Brian David Crane

Jeez.

48:37.38 – John Wang

Who here experiences the inner critic imposter syndrome? And he said that when I’m usually in rooms with mixed people, it’s like three out of 10 people will see it. And if I go to a high performing tech company, that average jumps to like a six.

48:50.56 – John Wang

And then he said, but if I take a look at Asian American groups, if I’m in rooms where there’s only Asian Americans and I asked this, it’s 12 out of 10.

48:59.19 – Brian David Crane

Jesus..

49:00.13 – John Wang

And I was like, wait, how can it be 12 out of 10? He’s just like, I will have people come up to me. And he said, I have two monsters. Who is saying this to me. And I’m like, that is a shock that that happens so often. but also, I started to think about it and like it made a lot of sense.

Own Your Achievements: Stop Downplaying Your Success

49:20.27 – John Wang

Because for my own upbringing, for example, there was often times a theme of a disvalidation of accomplishment from a positive place of thinking, quote unquote positive place, from a positive intention of saying, um I want you to get better.

49:37.44 – John Wang

And what I mean by that, I’ll use an example of this.

49:39.64 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

49:39.86 – John Wang

One time I brought back a you know math test. And like I said before, I’m terrible at math. I brought back a math test and I got like a 92%. I think I was in grade 9 or grade 10 or something. And I gave it to my mom.

49:52.52 – John Wang

And I was so proud of this, right? 92 was a big deal for me.

49:56.33 – Brian David Crane

And..

49:57.54 – John Wang

And it was just so funny because I just can imagine like so many of my friends are looking at me, shaking their head and being like, you got a 92 in math?

49:58.26 – Brian David Crane

Yeah

50:04.84 – John Wang

Like, why not like 110? ah But that was my mom’s answer. What my mom’s answer was like, like sure what happened to the 80%? And you know, why didn’t you do better?

50:15.28 – John Wang

Like your cousins do better. Your sister does better, the people around you do better. How do we fix you? And yeah, there’s something wrong with you.

50:22.20 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

50:25.71 – John Wang

Not just that you got a lower mark than what you could have done. You didn’t get a hundred percent. There’s always a higher bar you’re supposed to hit.

50:35.47 – Brian David Crane

You’re disgracing the family. We might..

50:38.36 – John Wang

Oh, a hundred percent.

50:39.70 – Brian David Crane

Yeah me..

50:40.56 – John Wang

Yeah.

50:42.00 – Brian David Crane

Why did we immigrate here?

50:42.20 – John Wang

Don’t tell people.

50:43.28 – Brian David Crane

If you’re only going to get 92, why did we, why are we still in Taiwan?

50:45.08 – John Wang

Yeah.

50:48.07 – John Wang

Exactly. And, so often, the answer behind that was not just, why didn’t you do better? It was, what right do you have to talk about your accomplishments? Like there’s something worthy of talking about when other people have done better.

51:06.52 – Brian David Crane

So let me ask you, so what does your mom say about your book?

51:10.69 – John Wang

Ahh..

51:13.05 – Brian David Crane

Come on, dude. Like, we’re going to get into Tiger Moms, I’m very curious, she’s like, oh, do you think you’re now an expert about this?

51:14.18 – John Wang

That is a…

51:17.84 – John Wang

Oh, yeah. We got her to talk about it.

51:18.86 – Brian David Crane

So who decided that you were going to write this, you know?

51:19.08 – John Wang

Yeah.

51:24.29 – Brian David Crane

Like, I don’t know, you know?

51:25.71 – John Wang

We had several deep conversations about it because she was a little bit worried at first. She’s like, you’re going to talk about your childhood? I’m like, yeah. What are you going to say about your childhood? And I remember she got very she got a little, yeah, exactly.

51:34.63 – Brian David Crane

What are you going to say about me?

51:36.82 – John Wang

Going say about me? Because you know I tried really hard and I did all these things. And I really say, look, I’m going to speak truthfully because I think that it’s not about a story about us. I think that it’s a story about everyone else who may have experienced something similar to us.

51:55.70 – John Wang

And I also want to say and recognize that I see their intentions and that they are doing the best that they can. And I say this for all the parents out there that may have self-identified later on in their, you know, like literally I was on a trip a couple of weeks ago and I was talking to a mom and we were just chatting about this. She was really excited about it because she grew up with a tiger parent.

52:20.19 – John Wang

And she asked me, what are the markings of a tiger parent? And there’s actually parenting experts who break this down. And I showed her this chart at this table that’s in the book. And I’m like, these are the things that make a tiger parent.

52:30.22 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Yeah.

52:32.36 – John Wang

And she read it and she was like, oh, I was a tiger parent. And she never realized this because tiger parenting is not necessarily about abuse.

52:37.69 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

52:42.99 – John Wang

Tiger parenting is not about forcing your kids to do piano classes and get into top schools or anything like that. A lot of parents think that tiger parenting is about yelling or hitting or anything.

52:58.74 – John Wang

But the truth is tiger parenting is basically saying, I believe that my views of who you should be is more important than your views of who you should be.

53:09.40 – Brian David Crane

Interesting, okay.

53:11.14 – John Wang

And there’s three types of parenting that we look at. There’s permissive parenting, which is nicknamed jellyfish parenting. There’s authoritarian parenting, which is nicknamed tiger parenting. And then there’s authoritative parenting, which is called dolphin parenting.

53:23.87 – John Wang

I still remember the day there was a book called, I think we actually emailed about this – The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

53:32.99 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, battle him with a tiger mob.

53:34.79 – John Wang

Yeah, the tiger mom. Exactly. And in it, she talks about all these things she did with her kids. You know, there’s no sleepovers, you know, practicing piano all day until they’re about to burst and being told going to throw away your favorite teddy bear.

53:49.11 – John Wang

ah If you don’t do your homework, stuff like that. I’m paraphrasing somewhere in the book, you know, stuff like that, right? And I remember when it first came out, a few years ago, it was like all over the news. Like all the white people came out and were just like, this is what’s wrong with, you know, blah blah blah..

54:07.33 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

54:07.39 – John Wang

And..

54:07.61 – Brian David Crane

If only these Asian kids were allowed to be more permissive, then they’d be more like us.

54:10.90 – John Wang

Yeah. And I remember thinking like reading through it. I’m like, this is tiger moms. I don’t know. This is pretty tame. Yeah.

54:21.65 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Relative to what you experienced as you showed to your mom and be like, oh, you know, yeah brother relatively speaking, this kid, she or he, I don’t, yeah.

54:24.44 – John Wang

Ahh..

54:33.85 – John Wang

I mean, so I think it’s a tough thing, right? Because we tend to think of parenting as these two things. Because I think my Asian parents would have said, all white parents are too permissive. They let their kids call them by their first names and they spent too much time on video games. We need more discipline and they’re not going to get ahead.

54:52.55 – John Wang

And I’m like, it’s not one or the other. It really is about where we find a balance. Is there a parent guided drive that focuses on increasing the child’s autonomy?

55:06.08 – John Wang

In other words, is there a way for us to say there is one end, it’s like the Goldilocks thing. Is it Goldilocks or the you know the the three bears?

55:12.63 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Hey, I’m with the porch.

55:13.30 – John Wang

right The Goldilocks thing. Like what’s the what’s the what’s the warm porridge?

55:14.67 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

55:17.04 – John Wang

You have on one side permissive parents who don’t say no to their kids, who don’t say there are boundaries.

55:17.04 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

55:22.97 – John Wang

You know, I want discipline, consequences, confrontation, goals. These are important. And on the other hand, you have tiger parents who are like so much discipline, so much focus on goals. Like if you are not getting straight A’s, you’re not lovable.

55:39.33 – John Wang

Like you don’t deserve praise. You don’t deserve recognition. And there’s a withholding of love and attention. And I saw that so often with kids that I was working with.

55:51.03 – Brian David Crane

Would you say that the ones who are coming to you trying to get into these elite universities by and large were the product of tiger parents? Like it was almost a one i’ say a one to one correlation?

56:05.49 – John Wang

I would say that, you know, to be fair to the parents, ah it did get better the longer that I was working in the industry. I started seeing more and more inclusivity. I want to include a child’s intentions in this.

56:18.27 – John Wang

Umm

56:19.45 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, but what does that look like?

56:19.55 – John Wang

It did get better.

56:20.57 – Brian David Crane

It’s like, cool, they can go to any Ivy League school they want as long as it starts with s or starts with H.

56:25.38 – John Wang

Yeah. Ahh

56:27.83 – Brian David Crane

We’ll give them a choice.

56:27.95 – John Wang

They could study anything that is an engineer. Like, this is not a joke. My mom literally says something along the lines of like, you could be any job you want, as long as it’s like ending in some kind of master mastery, of which is like in Chinese, you could be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer, or an architect even.

56:42.50 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

56:47.22 – John Wang

And I was like, what about being a teacher?

56:47.24 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

56:48.34 – John Wang

And he’s like, no, she’s like, no.

56:50.69 – Brian David Crane

Hard now.

56:50.90 – John Wang

And guess what I ended up doing? Uh, yeah.

56:53.31 – Brian David Crane

Teaching.

56:54.62 – John Wang

Yeah. No teaching, no acting, ah nothing that involves art. So it did get betterthat I was seeing.

57:00.83 – Brian David Crane

But..

57:03.65 – John Wang

Was it more common?

57:03.70 – Brian David Crane

Well, sorry, the irony for people who don’t know you is that you’re you’ve done a lot of acting.

57:05.02 – John Wang

Oh yeah.

57:10.72 – Brian David Crane

This is an art form.

57:11.19 – John Wang

Yeah, I wrote a book.

57:11.80 – Brian David Crane

It’s like, that I don’t know. Yeah you know..

57:14.43 – John Wang

I became my parents’ worst nightmare. Everything except the drugs, unless you’re counting doing Psilocybin and mushroom journeys under therapeutic context.

57:26.24 – John Wang

Yeah, So did I see a lot of it? Yeah, I saw a lot of it. It wasn’t everyone. It was common. And there were times, and I would say this is definitely our rarity, but there were times that I would see the kids and I would feel a lot of sympathy and empathy because I could see that they had so little sense of identity and so little freedom.

57:51.31 – John Wang

And I could almost have a time machine where I could see, oh my gosh, like in a few years time, when we’re going to chat, and this actually pretty often, you’re going to feel lost.

57:59.79 – Brian David Crane

This kid’s going to be miserable.

58:00.19 – John Wang

You’re going

58:01.12 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

58:01.46 – John Wang

Yeah, you’re going to be like, I just feel like I’m a machine. I was  like I was never allowed to date when I was in high school and all of a sudden I graduated and I’m supposed to be in a relationship and have kids and I don’t even know why.

58:13.67 – John Wang

I was never allowed to make my own decisions.

58:13.74 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

58:15.71 – John Wang

And now that I’m an adult, I’m expected to go and do all these things and I don’t know why. There’s a story that I heard that I still live, constantly hold on to us. Like this is such a good example.

58:26.84 – John Wang

A VP of a major bank said, I’m not, I’m waiting for my father to die so I can quit my job and go do what I want to do.

58:38.61 – John Wang

And she was in her forties because she is like, my parents are so proud of me that I think if I stopped being a VP of a bank, they would die of heartbreak.

58:52.19 – John Wang

And this is where I go into.

58:52.86 – Brian David Crane

But yeah the rug pull of the century for, that’s a bad bad way to put it, but yeah, I could so her parents would,

59:02.44 – John Wang

I mean, yeah, you because that iis exactly what it is, right? like And we’re still seeing stories like this. I remember a while back, there was a story about how there was, as I saw on Instagram, it’s like this kid’s father never smiled until he became a doctor.

59:19.54 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

59:20.40 – John Wang

And it was positioned almost like ah a warm, fuzzy story about a father who finally comes to love his son because he became a doctor. And all I could think of was, man, like love is an unconditional love is your birthright as a child.

59:40.13 – John Wang

Like you don’t need to earn love from your parents. You should never, ever need to earn love from your parents because that’s just what you’re supposed to be given is to be loved and have your parents say, you know, I’m proud of you.

59:54.24 – John Wang

And I’m proud of you for trying. I’m proud of you for working hard. We could do better. Let’s see where it is that we can improve. If this is something you still are dedicated to or passionate to, let’s take a look at this.

1:00:09.44 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, there was a conversation when you and I saw each other in Costa Rica, I had with John O’Connor, who has two kids and he talked about that there’s a window of mastery for his boys where they need to get good enough at something fast enough that it keeps their attention.

1:00:27.95 – John Wang

Mm-hmm.

1:00:27.96 – Brian David Crane

Otherwise, as kids, they kind of like, he tries them in jujitsu, tries them in piano, this other stuff. And if they don’t get good enough fast enough, then they tend to meander off and go in a different direction.

1:00:33.16 – John Wang

Mm-hmm.

1:00:37.80 – Brian David Crane

It’s kind of a slightly off topic to what you’re describing, but it is.

1:00:37.94 – John Wang

Mm-hmm.

1:00:44.60 – Brian David Crane

Tied into the larger picture of you and your wife, if and when you all have kids, how do you envision raising your kids?

1:00:55.16 – John Wang

That’s a great question. By the way, I really love that thing that..

1:00:58.90 – Brian David Crane

And a loaded question.

1:01:03.25 – John Wang

We’re working on that. So I love what John shared about it. And I completely agree. I think most teachers, they don’t know how to give their students a win early on. And I’m like, it’s important that you give your students, no matter who you’re teaching and what you’re teaching, a win in the first three lessons so that they know why.

1:01:21.54 – John Wang

And that is the motivation and that could be your learning piano and like let’s play a song you like and like an easy one and play an easy version. So then you see okay this is why I’m doing it. Because if all you’re doing is playing scales, it gets boring quick.

1:01:35.77 – John Wang

And you don’t know why and there’s no personal attachment to it. I could give you whatever answer.

1:01:40.49 – Brian David Crane

But let me look, sorry let me ask you on that, because when you ask them, I think it’s an important distinction to say, okay, cool.

1:01:41.71 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:01:48.10 – Brian David Crane

You ask them what song it is that they would like to play, and they say, I would love to play,I don’t know. a popular song and you help them do that.

1:01:55.90 – John Wang

Apaté by Rosenberg.

1:01:56.74 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. I was like, I’m trying to name a piano song.

1:02:00.44 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:02:01.48 – Brian David Crane

It would totally sound like a moron.

01:02:02.17 – John Wang

Her..

1:02:02.64 – Brian David Crane

So I’m just going to say, but

1:02:04.96 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:02:05.40 – Brian David Crane

And versus like a participation metal or the, because there is the pendulum swings in the opposite direction, which is like everybody shows up and gets the same medal for just being there, right?

1:02:11.99 – John Wang

Oh, God. Yeah.

1:02:15.93 – John Wang

No.

1:02:18.21 – Brian David Crane

Which is, I think, the antithesis of being a tiger parent, which is like, of course you suck at this.

1:02:18.77 – John Wang

Oh, God. No.

1:02:22.57 – Brian David Crane

Like, you didn’t do anything, you know? Like, anyways, yeah.

1:02:24.36 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:02:26.31 – Brian David Crane

It’s like, what do you think about those two? Like, you need to give them, yeah.

1:02:28.97 – John Wang

Yeah, I hate participatory medals because there is no kid who has ever got a participatory medal and genuinely loved it and felt like they were special in it. Kids are so good at understanding hierarchy and knowing who they are and what they’re good at.

1:02:45.11 – John Wang

And they won’t believe you and you will lose credibility with them. And you know like this whole story of like kids, you know they get put those free medals then they grow up a thing.

1:02:49.46 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:02:53.82 – John Wang

I’m like, kids know. Kids know it’s worthless.

1:02:56.71 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:02:57.29 – John Wang

And you’re just diminishing what it is. It never helps. But what is important is understanding that you’re giving them achievable goals that they know they can work towards and that they’re seeing return on investment.

1:03:08.74 – John Wang

And this is not just kids. This is everyone. If I were to learn a new instrument today or a new language today, these are the same principles I would give myself. Right? Like it’s really the same foundational skills for learning anything is knowing why you’re learning it, knowing what you’ll get, the benefit you’ll get from learning it, and developing things that give you positive feedback along the way from actually challenging yourself.

1:03:18.72 – Brian David Crane

Interesting.

1:03:33.94 – John Wang

Because then that achievement is earned. That confidence is earned.

1:03:38.91 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:39.62 – John Wang

If there’s no risk, there’s no stakes, we’re not going to learn.

1:03:39.83 – Brian David Crane

I think that, yeah.

1:03:43.69 – John Wang

So hard.

1:03:44.41 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. And it also, well, it also speaks to..

1:03:45.44 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:03:50.38 – Brian David Crane

I think it speaks to how one learns as well. And what I mean by that is like, okay, cool. I’ll use Spanish again as an example. I’m conversational in it. I like it. I get a tremendous amount of enjoyment out of being able to use it and, you know, like to navigate with it.

1:04:09.22 – Brian David Crane

And then my wife, who’s Dutch, I don’t think my Dutch is horrible.

1:04:09.71 – John Wang

Mm-hmm.

1:04:14.77 – Brian David Crane

All of her family speaks very good English. Generally, she says to me, the pain hasn’t gotten bad enough for you to learn Dutch yet. So in her mental model, what she’s saying to me is what I need is some sort of like serious pain to make it so that i actually uh take action on this which is the opposite to what you know we’re describing here, which is like I do need to get the Dopamine hit of like, okay cool I’ve gotten some momentum i’m getting progress i’m interested in this but I also need a bit of pain on the downside to

1:04:53.84 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, to kind of spur me into action. Would you agree? Like basically what I’m trying to get at is like this, when you’re thinking about these different parenting styles and you go, okay, cool. Like you’ve got jellyfish, tiger, and what was the third?

1:05:05.49 – John Wang

Dolphin.

1:05:06.31 – Brian David Crane

Dolphin.

1:05:06.39 – John Wang

Dolphin.

1:05:06.64 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, authoritative.

1:05:07.04 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:05:07.87 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, for dolphin. And so, you know, you’re looking at these three different parenting styles and you’re like, all right, cool.

1:05:08.56 – John Wang

Yes, that’s right. Yeah.

1:05:12.37 – Brian David Crane

Like you and Amy, you and your wife, if you should think about how you would raise your kids. And then you also look at it and say, What is the ideal country like from a collectivist versus an individualist standpoint? And like, how do you kind of.

1:05:28.00 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, if you were a dictator, I’m asking you two questions. One would be that they’re two of the same one; they’re dictators in both cases. One is like the head of the family and you’re deciding how your kids are raised. Another one is your head of the country. Like, how do you navigate the collectivist versus?

1:05:41.28 – John Wang

Oof.

1:05:42.39 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, individualist impetus.

1:05:42.81 – John Wang

Oh, man, that’s a good one.

1:05:45.58 – Brian David Crane

And I will tie it in with one more part here which is like, you know, part of the knock, and I don’t know if this is true. So anybody who says something like Brian’s spreading misinformation, disinformation, totally possible.

1:05:57.62 – Brian David Crane

The argument against China or Chinese innovation is oftentimes that like, they don’t really innovate. All they do is copy. And it’s partially because it comes from a collectivist culture, which I don’t actually know if that’s true.

1:06:12.52 – Brian David Crane

And that all the innovation happens in the individualistic or more individualistic cultures. I don’t know if that’s true. I just know that there’s this argument that certain cultures produce certain types of innovations or are better at certain things.

1:06:27.57 – Brian David Crane

What do you think?

1:06:29.60 – John Wang

So there’s a few different parts.

1:06:30.04 – Brian David Crane

What to unpack?

1:06:31.31 – John Wang

Yeah, there’s a few different parts of that. There’s let’s start with the first one was just parenting me and my wife having kids that I’m not going to suggest that I have any idea what that’s going to look like because I could read a billion books, and I’ve talked to a lot of parents and people who are very intelligent, and I’ll chat with them and every single one of them told me is that you could read a billion books, and then you will have your kid and they realize that there is no book for this kid.

1:06:46.57 – Brian David Crane

Excuse..

1:07:01.15 – John Wang

So I don’t know.

1:07:02.49 – Brian David Crane

Well, it depends on their temperament too.

1:07:04.12 – John Wang

Yeah, I don’t know who I’m going to get. And I think, but this is what I do know, is that I would never make love something that’s conditional.

1:07:15.00 – John Wang

I would, because that’s our job as parents not to create a kid exactly what we think they should look like.

1:07:15.15 – Brian David Crane

That’s the core, but that’s the core, yeah.

1:07:28.36 – John Wang

It’s to create an environment for them to find the best version of themselves. Because we’re nurturers. We are here to nurture. We are not here to create. We’re not here to push. We’re not here to  label. We’re not here to do any of these things. Kids will find their own path.

1:07:45.35 – John Wang

And any attempt to try to do that, I have seen it. I’ve seen so many different parents over the years. I’ve worked with their kids. And what’s fun for me is I get to see a side of them that the parents don’t get to see.

1:07:58.97 – John Wang

Because I’m really casual with the kids.

1:07:59.32 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:08:00.36 – John Wang

I’m usually casual with everyone I work with. I just go like, we’re here to be equal and chat as friends. Yes, I’m a teacher. Yes, there’s rules. Yes, there’s discipline. But generally speaking, I’m going to treat you like how I would want to be treated if I were your position.

1:08:14.22 – John Wang

And so they reveal to me stuff from their families, their experiences, their own fears. You know, they will come and tell me things they’re going through that they wouldn’t share with their parents. And the parents in turn would come to me and be really annoyed and be like, I don’t understand. It’s so annoying because we would tell them something and they would ignore it.

1:08:31.17 – John Wang

And then you would tell them that exact same thing and they would take it home as gospel. Like, how do you do that and why? And, you know, almost like, yeah, I take them wing walking.

1:08:38.89 – Brian David Crane

Drugs.

1:08:43.59 – Brian David Crane

Hmm.

1:08:45.24 – John Wang

And my answer to that is because I listen without trying to conform, without trying to shape. Like, I genuinely listen. I’m just here to listen. And I go, I’m going to provide you with what I think I would do.

1:08:58.50 – John Wang

But it’s your job to figure out what you would do. Because that’s your job. That’s not my job. I would tell you what I think I would do in all of your positions. So I think,

1:09:08.03 – Brian David Crane

But I respect your autonomy and your ability to make a decision at the end of the day.

1:09:11.47 – John Wang

Yeah, because I don’t want an obedient kid.

1:09:12.59 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:09:15.06 – John Wang

The thing is that I hate when I hear this because I grew up, again, Chinese culture. One of the biggest things that people said around me was like, oh, he’s such a good kid. He’s so obedient.

1:09:26.81 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

1:09:27.53 – John Wang

Obedient kids become obedient children. I’m sorry, Obedient adults. Obedient children become obedient adults. And why would you want to raise an obedient adult? Like that’s not a kind of child you want to grow up into the world where they don’t have their own autonomy, where they’re looking to everyone around them to say, you’re good.

1:09:47.83 – John Wang

You could keep doing this because they will spend the rest of their life chasing the validation you never give them.

1:09:54.80 – John Wang

And that would, what..

1:09:55.04 – Brian David Crane

So again, we go back to the question of, is the book a means of being disobedient to your mother? Sorry.

1:10:03.70 – John Wang

I hope that if there is something that the parents who are reading this book would take away is that the best work you can do is working on yourselves. Because a child will learn more from watching what you do than what you tell them to do.

1:10:12.51 – Brian David Crane

Badass.

1:10:18.55 – John Wang

And if you work on your emotional intelligence, your child will grow up to be a far more emotionally intelligent human being. And you’re going to have way better relationships with them. They will trust you. They will come to you. They will tell you their secrets.

1:10:30.98 – John Wang

They will hold you in high regard. And they will do that for the rest of their lives because they trust that you have their best intentions in mind and not your best intentions. And there’s a difference.

1:10:42.67 – Brian David Crane

Hmm..

1:10:44.97 – John Wang

When I say to a child, this is who you should be and anything that’s lesser than that is a failure, they stop trusting me because they don’t know that I know them.

1:10:57.69 – John Wang

But if I ask them, who do you want to be and how do we get you there? And is this person that you want to be really in shaping your values and that you care about? They go, oh..

1:11:09.06 – John Wang

I never thought of it that way. Tell me more.

1:11:11.81 – Brian David Crane

Do you have kids then who are coming to you in mastery academy who you actually dissuade from, well, let’s say going to school, but dissuade from the path that they think they came in on when you ask them these kinds of questions and they look at it and they go, yeah, actually, I don’t really want to do this.

1:11:27.64 – Brian David Crane

Or yeah, what I would love to do is go study art in it.

1:11:30.45 – John Wang

Yeah, I will be honest. yeah

1:11:34.26 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:11:35.35 – John Wang

Yeah, I’ve been very honest, and I will explain to them, look, okay, let’s say I’ll use an example. I’ll say, look, this is why your parents want you to be a dentist.

1:11:46.94 – John Wang

Your parents are both dentists. Their parents were dentists. They want you to be a dentist because this is the word that they know. And you don’t want to be a dentist. You want to go into something else. I understand that. And like, let’s look at why.

1:11:59.21 – John Wang

and look at what they had to go through and the struggles and suffering they have to go through. So you have a clear understanding of what’s ahead of you.

1:12:03.25 – Brian David Crane

Yeah and go.

1:12:05.60 – John Wang

I’m not here to tell you what to do because that doesn’t work anyway. Right? I don’t want you to raise you to only do it because you’re doing it for my sake, because then you’re just not going to succeed. But I would say, let’s take a look at what you want to do, let’s say, and you know, I’ll use probably, I think the worst example.

1:12:24.80 – John Wang

I’ve had kids come to me and be like, I really want to be a YouTuber and influencer. You have a TikTok following.

1:12:30.17 – Brian David Crane

I see you on TikTok.

1:12:31.57 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:12:31.60 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:12:31.89 – John Wang

So should I, I want to be like you and have a TikTok channel and I showed them how much money I make from TikTok and they go, okay, maybe not.

1:12:41.20 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. My parents weren’t, my parents weren’t so bad telling me to be a dentist because what they really wanted was me to be financially secure.

1:12:45.62 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:12:48.53 – Brian David Crane

That’s how they equated it, you know?

1:12:50.24 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:12:50.54 – Brian David Crane

And, when I come to him and go, I want to be a TikToker because I saw John Wayne. getting all these views and the parent yeah, they’re trying, but they go ahead.

1:12:59.25 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:13:00.07 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. They’re, which I think is honorable, honorable of you to not sell the sizzle of, it’s amazing, dude.

1:13:01.95 – John Wang

So, no.

1:13:08.96 – Brian David Crane

I’m crushing it. I got all these views on TikTok.

1:13:11.16 – John Wang

So..

1:13:11.24 – Brian David Crane

This is amazing. My life’s so much different. I don’t know.

1:13:15.82 – John Wang

What I’ll share with them is why I do it. And I’ll tell them what I get out of it and why I continue to do it. And I’ll say, this is what I love. I love teaching. I love sharing. I love these things. I’ll tell them what I did to get out of it. I did get a lot of good feedback. I learned a lot.

1:13:30.27 – John Wang

Yes, there were things that benefit. Like I could say there are certain benefits that I got from it. And I would say, you have to think of yourself as an entrepreneur. Right. This is where it gets fun because I’m a really big believer in the entrepreneur mindset, which is, again, no one’s coming to save you.

1:13:45.34 – John Wang

No one’s going to last forever.

1:13:46.00 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:13:47.02 – John Wang

You could think of the safest job you can. And I could tell you right now that there is no safety in it. And we could find examples of that. You need to make your own mind and also realize that it’s not one path that you got to decide. Because let’s say you followed exactly.

1:14:02.52 – John Wang

I don’t want any kid to just obey their parents because their parents don’t know the future. Look at AI. You tell me one industry that was safe 10 years ago, that was a guarantee law, you know computer science, graphic design, whatever it is, that in the next 10 years is 100% going to be unaffected by AI?

1:14:14.64 – Brian David Crane

Yeah..

1:14:17.19 – Brian David Crane

Graphic design.

1:14:20.97 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:14:24.64 – John Wang

Of course not.

1:14:25.83 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:14:26.25 – John Wang

Rather, you learn the skills of how to deal with change, of how to be your own person, of how to set up workflows and frameworks and systems that’s going to help you succeed.

1:14:37.79 – John Wang

And then by all means, if that looks like creating art, there are plenty of people who are very successful at creating art as entrepreneurs.

1:14:46.55 – Brian David Crane

Do you see what you’re doing on TikTok as art and that you’re doing it in an entrepreneurial way?

1:14:46.76 – John Wang

There are..

1:14:51.95 – John Wang

I see what I’m doing on TikTok as a form of what I’ve always wanted to do and what I’ve always been doing, which is teaching. Everything I do, if I’m giving a TEDx talk or a keynote in McKinsey, I’m teaching. If I’m working with clients one-on-one, I’m teaching.

1:15:05.59 – John Wang

This was something that took me about 10 years to find, which is I went on a very spiritual journey of like what is my purpose on the planet.

1:15:13.20 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

1:15:13.50 – John Wang

And where I’ve landed is I’m here to teach. So everything I do, I just ask, am I getting to teach something I believe in? And the modality is almost secondary. It doesn’t matter if it’s TikTok in front of, hundreds of thousands of people, or if it’s in a room with one.

1:15:33.68 – Brian David Crane

Yep. It’s the medium is not secondary to the message. Let’s say.

1:15:39.23 – John Wang

Exactly.

1:15:40.32 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:15:40.93 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:15:42.48 – Brian David Crane

Let me go back to my earlier question about what’s the ideal country. I always find this.

1:15:46.27 – John Wang

Oh boy..

1:15:47.68 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:15:47.77 – John Wang

Well, this is certainly not going to piss people off.

1:15:48.40 – Brian David Crane

Well, because it’s funny. I have spent a very little bit of time in Taiwan. I don’t know, like you got all the distinctions, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, like the Japanese.

1:16:05.47 – Brian David Crane

There’s a lot of historical stuff around like, okay, the Taiwanese are ethnically Chinese, but they’re certainly not part of China for historical reasons.

1:16:12.31 – John Wang

Oh yeah.

1:16:13.54 – Brian David Crane

You know, like what country is, what country or culture inside of a country is nailing it, in your opinion? You think it’s the West? Like, I don’t know. and I’ll play devil’s advocate here, because imagine that you are white and grew up in Canada.

1:16:35.09 – Brian David Crane

Would you go to Asia to um be your best self, make your fortune, depending on how you want to phrase it, or would you be Asian and come to the West and try to do like where is it? Where do you think the grass is, where do you think the most fertile soil is? Let’s put it that way 2025.

1:16:58.38 – Brian David Crane

And 2025..

1:17:00.10 – John Wang

I think that

1:17:03.80 – John Wang

There is no country that I could say is the ideal country because it depends on the people. If I were a Japanese person, I love Japan. I went to Japan. I loved it. um I also found things that it wasn’t for me.

1:17:19.02 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:17:19.21 – John Wang

Like we’re talking about the rigidity of social culture. It’s just like, I’m much more Westernized than that. You know I am very emotionally open and vulnerable and all these kinds of things and very loud. And I wouldn’t fit in well there.

1:17:35.14 – John Wang

It’s just not for me. But I also love how orderly and clean and polite everyone was there. It was to a point where I almost felt like, okay, this is a little bit on the colder side of my preference, but I also saw the value in it.

1:17:47.76 – John Wang

At the same time, I also saw a lot of loneliness there.

1:17:47.91 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:17:50.76 – John Wang

And I think that loneliness is everywhere, but I definitely noticed that in a very pronounced way in my feelings when I was there. I’ve gone to Norway to visit my friends there. I love how peaceful everyone is there. I love cold calm. Everyone is there.

1:18:05.55 – John Wang

And there was a kind of social structure there. Again, Norwegians are very direct and it was kind of cold. I don’t know. They’re physically, it was cold, but it was, it was also like that kind of thing.

1:18:16.80 – John Wang

I really love the warmth of where I come from in Taiwan. People there are so loving and so caring and that’s what I value. So the real answer to that depends on what you value. There is no answer because there are so many people with so many different values.

1:18:31.84 – John Wang

If you value rigidity and you value structure because that’s what brings you peace, you’re going to find a place that understands that.

1:18:35.56 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

1:18:37.77 – John Wang

If you value collectivism, great.

1:18:38.38 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

1:18:39.96 – John Wang

But across the board, I’m being totally just direct. I would say, I think that all countries right now need to learn a little bit from each other.

1:18:45.60 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

1:18:50.30 – John Wang

I definitely think so. I think that there’s a lot that the US and Canada right now, especially younger generations, can learn from Eastern cultures. And I think that the Eastern cultures are and continue to learn a lot from the Western cultures.

1:19:03.76 – John Wang

I think innovation and that mindset is something you mentioned earlier. And I’m like, we are seeing a very fast shift. China’s a really good example of this. I think that… a lot of Americans have a misunderstood view of China and I’m not saying this as a supporter of China and politically speaking because I’m Taiwanese it’s a complex situation but i think that they’re going through a very fast change and i think that that change is not always seen or recognized

1:19:22.54 – Brian David Crane

Yep.

1:19:34.67 – John Wang

I don’t know. I don’t have an answer to this because it really depends on who you are.

1:19:35.80 – Brian David Crane

Hmm.

1:19:38.23 – John Wang

Personally, I like where I am, which is just being international. I love Canada. I love Taiwan. I love being able to travel. I love the US in a lot of ways, like, because the country is not about the country. It’s about where you are and the people around you.

1:19:52.24 – Brian David Crane

Really well said. Cool. Let’s put a fork in it. Call this one done. John, if people, I mean, that was a really nice spot to end it at.

1:19:58.89 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:20:02.40 – Brian David Crane

Like if people want to buy big Asian energy, if they want to get in contact with you, where do they go?

1:20:03.12 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:20:09.19 – Brian David Crane

How do they do so? When does a book come out?

1:20:11.11 – John Wang

The book comes out May 27th, pre-orders are available. Now you can find it pretty much anywhere you buy books. Amazon is usually the best place that people go to, but I prefer, if you go to big Asian energy.com to check out, cause there’s also downloads and stuff like that I can offer.

1:20:30.40 – John Wang

Yeah, go take it take a look. I would say check it out. If you have Asian friends, by all means, let them know. And personally, I think that this book, of course, I am speaking very biasedly as an author, is going to help break free a lot of people from patterns and mind mental limiting beliefs that they may have carried that they may not be aware of.

1:20:55.93 – John Wang

And I think that really the core of the message of the book is how to find your authentic self. And that to me is always the most important thing is who are you truly underneath all these roles you’ve picked up.

1:21:07.09 – John Wang

And if this book can help you do that, then I’ve done my job.

1:21:10.38 – Brian David Crane

And that’s cross-cultural. I mean, that’s ah that’s a message that resonates with people of all races to me.

1:21:14.98 – John Wang

It’s, yeah. 100% I mean, I talk about it from the perspective of my own journey and my own stories and my students’ journeys, but everything in this book, I could say, we are all the same.

1:21:26.42 – John Wang

We are all the same. We have slight differences, but we over exaggerate how different we are.

1:21:35.69 – Brian David Crane

Amazing. Yeah. Thank you, John. I appreciate it.

1:21:39.18 – John Wang

Thank you so much for having me.

1:21:39.67 – Brian David Crane

Check out, check yeah, check check out John’s TikTok as well. And he has a podcast, Big Asian Energy as well, that goes along with the book.

1:21:47.70 – John Wang

Yeah.

1:21:48.97 – Brian David Crane

The book is beautiful, by the way. look It looks great. I haven’t read it, but I’m familiar with your work. Thanks for coming on.

1:21:55.59 – John Wang

Thanks for having me, appreciate it.