Perhaps one of my proudest moments professionally was when I conducted a School Crisis Response training for the school staff and community members in Saipan. It was the culmination of 3½ years of work assisting teachers and the school system with classroom and school crisis management. I had plenty of help from people who believed in me, e.g. my wife, Congresswoman Cinta Kaipat and her staff, and Congressman Absalon Waki, Jr.

Congresswoman Kaipat had so much faith in me that she funded the production of the School Crisis Response Handbook and she had the local community college, Northern Marianas College, videotape my three-hour presentation! The two video guys treated me like a celebrity. They tested my cordless mic and helped set up the video and audio system. All I had to do was talk — which came naturally for me since that’s never been the problem.

It’s hard to describe in words the feeling of being recognized and validated for what I do from my colleagues and the community. The outpouring of gratitude and positive feedback was amazing.

On that day and in that moment…I felt “big” (validated) and that was a great feeling.

When was that moment for you, the moment when you felt “big”?

Founded in 2000, it has successfully used print, billboard, television, and online media to inspire others to create a better life filled with positive values, and to pass it on. Its sole objective is “to promote positive values, using print and broadcast media.”

“We want the stories we share about the actions of others to inspire someone to do one thing a little better, and then pass on that inspiration. While a few individuals living values-based lives seems small, collectively they will make the world a better place.”

One of the individuals the Foundation featured on its billboard campaign is a woman named Liz Murray. Her story is remarkable and truly touches the heart and uplifts the spirit. Liz grew up with drug-addicted parents. Her life took a nosedive when her mom was diagnosed with HIV and moved out. Her dad then went to a homeless shelter and Liz was sent to a group home. Faced with unpleasant experiences at the group home, she ran away, living on the streets of New York City, eating out of dumpsters, and sleeping on the subway trains.

When Liz was 16, her mom died of AIDS and Liz’s view of the world changed dramatically. With just an 8th grade education, she was determined to go back and finish high school. She did that in just two years.

“Life rewards action. I was going to go out there and… have action in my life every day instead of this stagnant behavior that I had been partaking in for so long.” —Liz Murray

On a school-sponsored trip to Boston, Liz walked through Hardvard Yard and she made up her mind then and there that she would do whatever it took to better her life. She applied for the New York Times College Scholarship and was accepted into Hardvard!

Liz Murray grew up with drug-addicted parents. Her mom died of AIDS. Her dad left. Liz was homeless as a teenager, living on the streets and eating out of the trash. Those were her obstacles. She overcame them all.

Today, Liz Murray is working on completing her Master’s degree in psychology and sociology at Columbia University. She is also a member of the Washington Speakers’ Bureau, sharing her story with audiences throughout the U.S. Lifetime Television made a film about her in the 2003 film “Homeless to Hardvard: the Liz Murray Story.”

Do you know of anyone with a story like Liz? Do you have a story of overcoming obstacles in your own life?

For of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these: It might have been!
-John Greenleaf Whittier

Back on August 11, 2003, I asked for feedback regarding what I should do with my life on a chat forum. Yup, I was that desperate. I had recently completed my Master’s in Counseling Psychology, but felt increasingly restless with my job and life at that time. I wrote that I was feeling “Blahhhh.” Blasé. Bored. I shared with strangers online that I was seeking Adventure, Excitement, and Something Different.

But deep down, I just needed affirmation that I was doing the “right” thing, that I was on the “right” track. And that’s exactly what I got back, things that I already knew deep down.

This New Year, as I look back to four years, four months, and 21 days ago, I want to reflect on “lessons learned.” My hope is that the lessons of hindsight will inspire and hopefully help someone else going through these crossroads in their lives right now.

When people ask me, “Why did you leave?” “What made you do it?” I always answer, I had to. I had to quench that thirst for more, for a “different” life because for so long, I was an armchair adventurer. That is, I vicariously lived through listening to other exciting people talk about their lives and what they had done.

I was always a cautious person. I try to calculate every move and every direction in life. The problem was that it wasn’t working because I was trying to calculate my way out of nowhere.

My psychology professor always says in regards to problems, “Everywhere you go, there you are.” If I had moved to a tropical island with the mindset that I had here in Dallas, my life and state of being would have remained basically status quo. And while the scenery would be different, the things that I carried with me would have been the same.

We hear people talk about wanting to achieve success, but I had something more like a fear of failure. My own definition is that I didn’t want to have a lifeless life, a life empty of excitement, of adventure, of something different. I didn’t want to look back on my death bed and wonder “what if” or have any regrets. Sadly, during the summer of 2003 and for a few years prior to that, my life was just that - lifeless. I went through the routines of life and, on the outside, I appeared just fine. But deep down, where no one else could see, I was yearning for more…much more.

I’m not an expert on how to make your life perfect because I’m not perfect. I fail a lot in life and, for me, the best lessons are those learned in hindsight. To this day, I still refer back to that post back on August 11, 2003 as a reminder to live my life to the fullest, to go after what I want, and to keep doing it eventhough I may not feel like it sometimes.

The words below aren’t some cheesy lines to sell books. They are my life statements. They are my mantra. And they’re a reminder of lessons learned in hindsight. Happy New Year. I wish each and everyone of you out there in the blogosphere, health, happiness, and belief that:

“You Will Because You Can.”
Follow Your Heart.
Believe in Yourself.
Transform Your Life.

“You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.” -Tony Robbins

When I was an undergraduate student at Baylor University, I knew (deep down in my gut) that I didn’t want to be a doctor because I just didn’t like medicine and I hated the math and science components to it. I “knew” my freshman year that I didn’t want to be a doctor. I “knew” my sophomore year. And I “knew” my junior year. In fact, I knew through out my time there.

The problem, as Tony Robbins points out, was that while I knew that I didn’t want to become a doctor and stick with pre-medicine, I didn’t do anything about it.

It wasn’t until the second semester of my third year in college, after taking almost every single science and math classes that they required pre-med majors to take (including Calculus and Organic Chemistry…I took those classes twice), that something inside forced me to acknowledge what I had known all along, that I hated medicine.

I spent three years suffering through boring and difficult science classes because I was paralyzed. I was afraid because I didn’t know what to do with what I knew. It’s like eating something that makes you sick to your stomach. The nausea starts to build slowly at first in your belly and then gradually to your throat. By the time it hits your throat’s gag reflex, it’s all over.

Life Lesson Learned: Knowing what to do isn’t enough, you have to do what you know.

[Continued from Part 4 – From a Law School Student to the “Light Bulb” Moment] Reveling from the excitement of a newly discovered vision, I quickly returned home to Dallas to tell my parents the good news. I shared with them that I finally knew what I wanted to do with my life. When my mom told me that they would no longer financially support me I thanked her and told her that it was my turn now to take care of myself, on my own.

The year 1997 streaked by like a blurry ride on the highway. Because my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, in order to get into grad school in Psychology, I needed to have 18 hours of Psych classes. This was going to be a long journey towards reaching my vision, but I was determined to succeed and felt a strange calmness that everything was going to work out.

From the fall of 1997 to the spring of 1998, I attended the University of Texas at Tyler. There I met a wonderful classmate named Laurie Berner. I told her my life story and shared how scared I was of not reaching my goal. For my birthday, she got me something I still treasure to this day, a tiny framed artwork of a woman reaching for a star with the caption, “You Will Because You Can.” I still get chills every time I read those words out loud.

After acquiring the necessary prerequisites for grad school, I moved back to Dallas and applied to Texas Woman’s University’s Psychology Graduate Program. I explained in my essay how hard it was to not have a “vision” for my life and of trying to live up to the expectations and dreams of other people.

“Because I did not have a beacon of light to guide me, I was nothing more than a tiny vessel, easily wavered by the winds of influence…In the midst of being tossed about by high expectations, the desire for self-fulfillment, and the pressure to succeed – I got lost.”

One of the most important lessons I have learned is that life is not a spectator sport, you have to jump in and live it. And even though it sounds like something from a success novel, my life is far from being a fairy tale. In fact, it’s been anything but that as it’s been a very long journey and continues to be one. But all of those obstacles and challenges have taught me that simple lesson, “You Will Because You Can.”

For anyone reading this who has ever felt lost academically, socially, emotionally, etc., the human mind is a great and powerful thing. While some might argue that my life’s transformation is due to divine intervention (and on some level I believe this is true), I also truly believe that had I not willed myself to “stop talking and do something” that my life would have been exactly the same as it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. For those suffering and struggling to find their place in this world, I wish you the courage and the strength to take one step at a time, one day at a time towards living the life you’ve imagined for yourself. I find myself walking this road alongside you…one step at a time, one day at a time.

“The path from dreams to success does exist. May you have the vision to find it, the courage to get onto it and the perseverance to follow it.” —Kalpana Chawla, the late Columbia astronaut

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They some how already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” 
—Steve Jobs

[Continued from Part 3 - From Being a Waiter to a Law School Student] In late December 1996, while still feeling the aftermath of the results of being dismissed from law school, I took a trip to San Diego, California. For the next two weeks, I confided in my cousin and shared with him the agony of letting others down and of being a disappointment to my parents.

During that trip I stumbled across a website from the Rockport Institute, a career coaching organization. So much of what I was feeling at that time, all the pain and confusion over my lack of direction in life, were retold and resolved right there on those web pages. Somehow, their words about finding a career that matched my natural abilities and talents jumped out at me. That night as I fell asleep comforted by those words, it suddenly dawned on me – psychology matches my natural skills and abilities and it seems like a natural fit. It was as if someone had turned on the “light bulb” in my brain.

When I woke up the next morning, I awoke as a new man, with a new vision for my life!

I knew that I had to go into psychology and that it was my calling to become a therapist and a college professor. It was as clear as day that I was to get my Master’s and then PhD in psychology (I’m still working on the PhD part), have my own private practice as well as teach at a local college.

I was now ready for the next chapter of my life and I just “knew” that I was going to be ok. I just knew.

Read the last part, “Part 5 – “Light Bulb” Moment and Beyond.”

[Continued from Part 2 - From College to Being a Waiter] Coming back home after four years of college and one year post-college without a job, let alone a decent job is unheard of in the Vietnamese culture. Unfortunately for me, this was my predicament.

Looking back to that summer of 1994, I went through what I thought was fatigue, but what I know now to be a mild depression. I remember sleeping a lot but never getting enough sleep. I was always “tired” and I didn’t feel like doing much. A good friend of mine would always try to get me to go out and do something and it would take a real effort on my part to get up, shower, change my clothes, and put on a smile.

This feeling of lethargy and lack of interests in things went on for about 2 months.

At the urging of my parents and not knowing what else to do, I took the LSAT (law school entrance exam) and wrote an essay pleading for the law schools to let me in. Somehow (and I know it wasn’t my grades or test scores) I got in. I’m fairly sure that my essay was the deciding factor because the admissions director at Southern Methodist University (SMU) quoted what I wrote in my essay in their acceptance letter.

However, instead of joy and jubilation, I felt a sense of terror. I was mortified because, once again, I had fallen into that “living by what others wanted for my life” mode and now I’m stuck! What the hell am I going to do in law school? I don’t even want to be a lawyer. But I was so terrified that anyone would find out the truth that I simply pushed it down and once again put on a smile.

I put on a smile a lot that summer, especially when people praised me for getting accepted into SMU, a fairly well-known law school in Texas.

Perhaps it was stupidity or just being blind to the obvious because despite not wanting to be a lawyer, I went anyway. My fall and spring semesters at SMU were spent rollerblading around campus and using cliff notes and cramming sessions to barely pass my classes. My classmates thought I was crazy. I was sabotaging my own grades to prove to my parents just how unhappy I was. Now that’s insane!

As fate would have it, I got my wish but along with it came some awful news.

In late summer of 1996, after rollerblading my way through my first year of law school and barely passing my classes, I received a letter from SMU that would forever change my life.

It was a dismissal letter and when I read it my heart sank. But it wasn’t over just yet because they gave me a chance to explain my case in a committee meeting with my professors and the dean of students. I don’t recall much from that meeting except that when they asked me why I wanted to stay in law school, my half-hearted response was obvious to everyone in that room, on that day, that I didn’t want to be in law school.

And when I received the final phone call from the dean, that was exactly what he told me,

“Steve, it didn’t seem to me like you really wanted to be here in law school.”

The crazy thing was that after hearing those words, I felt a sense of relief and thanked him! Because for the first time in a long time, someone heard my cries.

After that brief feeling of relief came fear. How in the world am I going to tell my parents about this?!

The next steps that I took were perhaps some of the most difficult and lonely steps I would ever take in my life. I would now have to tell my mom and dad that once again, I had failed them. By failing, I had also brought shame to our family name because my father was a well-respected physician in the Vietnamese community here in Dallas.

The words that came out of my mom’s mouth and the look of disgust and disappointment on her face ripped my heart open more than any physical wound could ever do.

That evening and for the next four months were some of the toughest times in my life. I felt so alone, so abandoned, and so misunderstood.

Check back for “Part 4 – From a Law School Student to the “Light Bulb” Moment.“

[Continued from Part 1 – From High School to College] After telling my parents about my big plans to become a Philosophy professor, it suddenly struck me…I didn’t really like Philosophy all that much!

My God, what do I do now? I had taken only science classes at Baylor and am about to graduate with a Philosophy degree and zero “marketable skills.” I could barely type. I didn’t know the first thing about computers. And I had no business knowledge or skills.

So graduate I did, with a very expensive Philosophy degree, in May 1993.

In the few weeks leading up to graduation, I felt that perhaps Sociology might be a better fit. So I packed my bags and headed to Austin, Texas. I knew a guy I grew up with who was down in Austin and asked him if I could stay with him and his roommates.

While I was planning my way into the University of Texas at Austin, I got a job selling Cutco knives which quickly turned out to be a waste of time and energy. But they did teach me how to cut a penny to look like a Texas longhorn.

The next job I got was as a waiter at a Tex-Mex restaurant called Pappasito’s. It was a nice, trendy place and the money was ok, although I never made it onto the weekend shifts which was where the “big” money were to be made.

Austin was a lonely place for me because I didn’t find anyone who could relate to what I was going through. My roommates were young college students destined for success in their computer and medical fields. The fellow waiters and waitresses had their own lives, usually involving partying and other late-night activities. So it was just me. Since I barely had any money, I would sometimes turn to my parents for help which usually ended in a lecturing by them, shouting by me, and then silence and ignoring one another.

My mom and dad felt that I was wasting my life and not fulfilling the goals and dreams they had in mind for me. I was a disappointment to them, but even worse, I was a disappointment to myself.

After about a year of idling by, I returned back to Dallas…dreading the thought of facing my friends and family and the favorite question on everyone’s mind,

“What are you doing now?”

Stay tuned for “Part 3 – From Being a Waiter to a Law School Student.“

To mark this new direction for BeyondBehaviors.Com, I’m going to share about my own life and transformation through a 5-part series of articles.

Part 1 – From High School to College
Part 2 – From College to Being a Waiter
Part 3 – From Being a Waiter to a Law School Student
Part 4 – From a Law School Student to the “Light Bulb” Moment
Part 5 – “Light Bulb” Moment and Beyond

Part 1 – From High School to College

I am a product of a truly transformative change – the “light bulb moment in life” kind. I was your typical high school kid except that others thought that I was smart because I wore glasses and was Asian. It was a stereotype that I seemed to fit. Not to discount my own achievements (but therapists sometimes are rather quick to point out), I graduated 11th out of 500+ students. Looking back it wasn’t a difficult feat since I only took classes and had no social life even though I really wanted one.

Almost instantly, I felt as if I was a tumbleweed tossed about by the winds of the western Texas plains. Whichever way the winds blew, I tumbled. My mom told me to go to Baylor University because my older sister was already there. Not having a plan or vision for my own life I went there by default. As an Asian-American, especially a Vietnamese-American, the bar is set pretty high. There was seldom praise for work well-done, but rather expectations that each step up the ladder of success/life would be achieved and achieved well. When I got to Baylor, the expectation was for me to be a Pre-Med major and eventually attend medical school. No one asked me what I wanted and there (at least in my mind) was not an option to say no or maybe, like a checkbox saying “I’m not sure” or “I don’t know.”

I floundered through my Baylor years with highlights of a party here and there and freedom to eat and watch TV whenever I wanted. I felt lost and yet somehow protected and sheltered from the “real world” because I was a college student. Man, how quickly the four years passed by. I had taken and failed a few classes (Organic Chemistry and Calculus were two). By the time my junior year (3rd year) rolled around I realized that I struggled and hated science and math so much that there was no way I would enjoy, let alone succeed in medical school.

Gripped with fear, I cancelled the Organic Chemistry tutor who was to help me “relearn” Organic Chem. Argh! I can still recall my phone conversation with her, “Thank you so much for your help but I don’t want to go to medical school because I don’t want to be a doctor.” And with those words out in the open, a long sigh of relief came over me.

I still remember the disappointment on my parents’ faces as I broke the news to them.

“What will you do instead?” my parents asked.

“I’ll teach Philosophy. I want to be a Philosophy professor,” I told them.

“Part 2 – From College to Being a Waiter“

What about you? What keeps you motivated to live life instead of just “getting ready to live” it?