Bartholomew Jae - May 12, 2026

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Today here on the program, we're pleased to introduce you to Bartholomew J. Quincy, resident and now author of the Amasian Way. This is a practical guide to Asian American leadership. We call him BJ because we're friends now. Good to see bj. Thanks for having me. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Great to see you again. [00:00:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Appreciate the opportunity. We had you first here at qatv, representing the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center. Right? [00:00:23] Speaker B: That's right. I'm on the board of directors for that organization and have been for a long time, actually. Right, yeah. Been involved for at least 10 years. [00:00:30] Speaker A: Wow. Very good. But as I mentioned, Quincy native, Quincy resident. [00:00:34] Speaker B: That's right. [00:00:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:35] Speaker B: Yeah. I've lived here for 40 plus years. My family immigrated here directly to Quincy from Hong Kong in 1982. And we've lived here other than the years I spent at Bentley University in Waltham. I've lived here the whole time. [00:00:51] Speaker A: Yeah, so. So certainly call you a native by now, for sure. [00:00:55] Speaker B: I introduce myself as a townie. [00:00:57] Speaker A: Okay, there you go. So tell us a little bit about your background, bj, if you can. [00:01:02] Speaker B: Sure, I'm happy to. I don't often start with my background, but I think in the context of what we're talking about is important. So I am, as I mentioned, an immigrant, grew up in Quincy, very Catholic, went to BC High. I'm actually very involved at Sacred Heart Parish in North Quincy. And professionally, I've spent a majority of my career in what we called leadership development, talent development, or organization development. So helping leaders, teams and people to do better at what they do. And so I've done that internally for organizations as well as an external consultant, if you will. And then I've spent a lot of my volunteer time also helping leaders develop and especially those that identify themselves as Asian American Pacific Islanders. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Why is that so important to you? Why are you so passionate about this? [00:01:59] Speaker B: Yeah, there was an epiphany moment. I grew up, you know, having done a lot academically and in student leadership roles and so forth, and was fairly successful in the corporate world as well. I remember kind of rising up to an AVP level before I was 30, when a lot of people were much older than that and looking at me like, what did you do? Right. And so I. [00:02:24] Speaker A: So executive leadership at that point. [00:02:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And I. Well, there's a lot of AVPs in the. In the financial services. [00:02:30] Speaker A: What's the acronym? Just for folks? [00:02:32] Speaker B: Assistant Vice President. Yeah. So there's a lot of those, but I would call it Middle management. Right. But it was still an accomplishment that a lot of others were Kind of again, scratching the edge, going, I've been at this longer. How did you do that? And so I never really thought of myself as somebody who needed an affinity group or wanted to be an affinity group because I was of that mindset that I did this. I've accomplished this without needing to lean on any kind of groups. By affinity groups, I mean, like leaning on an Asian specific group, if you will. Right. And so Asian American. Then I got involved at Ascend, which is North America's largest nonprofit focused on developing AAPI leaders of today and tomorrow. And it is an organization that has been around created by the big four audit firms, but has certainly expanded across many, many other industries by this point. About 15 years ago, I was asked to teach a class during their national convention by PwC, who I was working for at the time. And I, for the first time, was in a room with 2000 plus other people that looked like me, sounded like me. And I was watching people who were more senior than I am or was and was giving back and paying forward. And I was watching tons of university and college students looking for mentors and coaches and everything in between. And it's still, you know, my mindset was, oh, I can help this group because I've made it. But then later on, what I realized in my career, I was by then a director at PwC, that there was a moment where I was still very stage fright when it came to very senior executives, whether they were the partners of the firm or senior executives on the other side of the table and the client side, which as a director with aspirations of potential to become a partner, that's not good to have stage fright. You mean to have stage fright. And then as I started unpacking that, I realized it's the cultural influence that I was raised with in adhering to the pecking order, the hierarchy. You know, when you're at dinner, it says, don't speak unless you're spoken to. That kind of stuff. It was buried so deep beneath me that, that I didn't realize it was still influencing me. And it was at that moment I realized, oh, I do need this group. I do need this help. And so that made me really get involved at that organization. I'm actually currently the New England chapter president for the third time. So I've been really involved in that organization for 15 years. I'm on the national faculty in helping deliver the L and D programs or learning development programs. But it is what that epiphany moment that I just described to you is what drove me really into this work and ultimately this book. [00:05:27] Speaker A: So this has been 15 years in the making. [00:05:29] Speaker B: BJ yeah, well, the book itself, at least 10, really. It is funny because when I decided to write, it wasn't a book. What I decided to do. About 13 years ago, my son was born. And 12 years ago actually this week, my daughter was born. And being married later in life, I was like, I should put down some advice for my kids so that, you know, when they're old enough to understand it, you know, I hopefully I'll still have my memories, but, you know, at least it's written down. And so Original Thought was a kind of daily calendar, advice from daddy kind of thing. So I was going to write 365 pieces of advice. As I was socializing this among my network, my friends, my colleagues, and the people in the Ascend network, they're like, you know, you have done so much in your career and you've learned so much, and what you do specifically around leadership development, you should write a book. And I was like, okay, challenge accepted. Wow. [00:06:26] Speaker A: Okay. [00:06:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's been more than 10 years of kind of piecing it together. [00:06:31] Speaker A: Okay, so is this book a culmination of those tips that you would provide your children? Is that advice you'd provide? [00:06:37] Speaker B: It's minus the life tips that I would have put into, like, you know, close to toilet seat and things like that. [00:06:45] Speaker A: Right. [00:06:46] Speaker B: But, you know, don't, don't, don't overemphasize becoming popular at school and things like that. But this is really kind of a everything that I've learned on my own personal journey and the experiences that I've learned from others who I've been helping through their journeys or others who've mentored me using their experiences. [00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah. So when you had that epiphany moment, you know, what did you look back on in your life and say, oh, that's why I did that, or, oh, that's why I'm where I am now, you know, what was it about your experiences growing up as an Asian American that influenced you to write this book? [00:07:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think it's a combination of a number of things, but the immediate thought process was that I was raised by pretty traditional parents, traditional Chinese parents. And. And I came here when I was 10. So a good amount of my development years had already taken place in Hong Kong. As Westernized as Hong Kong is, there's still very traditional Chinese values. Right. And so as I mentioned already, it's a lot of, like, kind of knowing the moments when you're not supposed to speak and just be quiet. However, in the consulting world, it's the opposite. [00:08:02] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:02] Speaker B: They expect you to speak. [00:08:03] Speaker A: Right? [00:08:04] Speaker B: Right. They expect you to bring a point of view regardless of who you're speaking with. [00:08:08] Speaker A: That's why they're hiring you, that's what they're paying you for. [00:08:10] Speaker B: I was just about to say, because in their head somewhere, eventually it'll happen and say, I'm paying this person an average rate of X number of dollars per hour. They haven't spoken in the last hour. [00:08:19] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:20] Speaker B: Where did that money go? Yeah. Okay. [00:08:23] Speaker A: You dedicate the book, number one, to God, number two, to family. So as you mentioned before, you grew up very religious and that's still an important part of your life. It is. [00:08:32] Speaker B: I mean, I'm still lector at Sacred Heart Parish every month. I've been lecturing there for 30 plus years. I just realized that about a few months ago. And so we're raising our kids Catholic. My wife and I actually met, it's a fun story. In the Boston Chinatown Catholic community, the BCC's when I first immigrated here. And so we were actually in the same CCD classes. [00:09:03] Speaker A: Really? [00:09:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, it wasn't like we'd been dating for all that time. We just were in the same CCD classes. We actually overlapped three years in college because she ended up at Bentley University as well. Bentley College at the time. But it wasn't until we're, you know, well into our 30s before we kind of remat and developed a relationship from there. So she's also very religious. She teaches the religious classes over at Sacred Heart. And so we're very, very much. I think my parents and their parents were first generation converts. And Catholics in Hong Kong is rare because Hong Kong was a British colony, so there were more Protestants. So it's a very tight knit community. As a matter of fact, it got me going. My dad was at a seminary and almost became a priest, but he ended up dropping out for whatever reason. And my mom was going to be going to a convent, but then her grandmother got involved and said no. And they end up meeting each other because my dad was the conductor of a church choir and she was in that choir. [00:10:09] Speaker A: Okay. So it does play a very strong role. [00:10:12] Speaker B: There was a statue of Mary in front of my house and Wallace did that. People used to walk by and go, who are these people? Because it's not the half shell, it's like a giant. [00:10:23] Speaker A: Okay. How does that experience affect the way you wrote this book. [00:10:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, one of the last pieces of this book, there's kind of eight steps that I list out for leadership development. The last one is serve. And I completely attribute that to my Catholic upbringing as well as personal. Probably some of my Chinese upbringing as well, where you are willing to give up your time, your talent, and your treasure. [00:10:52] Speaker A: Right. [00:10:52] Speaker B: From the Bible into your local community, your neighborhood and society as a whole. And so that definitely has its touch point in terms of influence. Okay. [00:11:03] Speaker A: All right. So tell me about the book itself, bj. How does it actually flow? Is it a textbook? Is it a workbook? Is it a biography of your life? Or is it a combination of all of the. [00:11:14] Speaker B: All of the above. [00:11:14] Speaker A: It is. Yeah. Okay. [00:11:15] Speaker B: Always the answer to pick right when you are attest. Yeah. So. Well, let me start with the name the amazing way. I can't say that I came up with the word amazian. It's certainly been around for a little while. Combination of Asian American and amazing as you were. And I, as I mentioned, started out thinking of advices for children, then start thinking about as a leadership development kind of guide. So that comes back to a little bit of the textbook pieces. I did add a lot of my personal stories of myself as well as others that I've experienced into it. I call it pepper throughout the book. I call them voice of the experience in a way that's like a textbook. There's also journal activities. [00:11:58] Speaker A: Yes. [00:11:59] Speaker B: So if you were really trying to get the most out of this book, you should stop and do those journal activities because it's a way for your brain to process what you just read. Right. And because I was a training person, or am a training person, the book is written a lot like a training manual as well. But for the longest time, I was stuck for a theme, so I wrote outlines and I would start writing drafts and I'd go back and write a new outline, start writing drafts. And by the way, just a public service announcement for the children out there. Please pay attention to your teachers when they teach you to write an outline first, because it's very helpful as an adult. Most of us just write PowerPoint presentations, blogs, without an outline, and we waste a lot of time moving this stuff [00:12:45] Speaker A: around because you have no beginning, middle, and end if you don't have an outline. [00:12:49] Speaker B: Right. And the flow is always the thing that gets messed up. Right. But if we all paid attention to second grade, third grade, fourth grade teachers, they all taught us to write beginning, middle and end. Right. Topic, sentence support. And my kids are that Age. So I remember these right topic. Supporting conclusion. The moment, I would say a eureka moment, if you will, when I finally, the book came together for me, happened a few years ago. I was talking to my high school friend, someone I grew up with. His name is Tim. [00:13:19] Speaker A: Tim. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Yep. And he's Caucasian. And so most of my friends are Caucasian. Actually, at our wedding, all the groomsmen were Caucasian, except for my brothers. And all the bridesmaids were Asian because my wife is from Chinatown. And so. And you know, Quincy, at the time, in the 80s and 90s or 80s at least, there weren't really that many Asians. So all my friends are Caucasian. He said to me in a high school cafeteria conversation at bci, he said, hey, if I don't look at you, I just think I never think of you as an Asian or Chinese until you start talking to your parents. And I was like, oh, yeah, he's Chinese. And so I took that at the time. As I won, I accomplished what I needed to do because I've become Americanized, because assimilation was the name of the game back in those days. Heads down, don't stick out, don't get made fun of. And I have had people make fun of me and do other things. That is traumatic. But we were also growing up at a time where Vietnam War movies were just prevalent. And so they see you and they just, you know, Stereotypes. Exactly. And, you know, PC didn't happen until. Political correctness didn't happen until the 90s. Right. And then all the DEI stuff didn't happen until the 2000s. So in the 80s, you try to blend in. Right. And so I was like, yeah, it worked out. But as I matured, I realized, well, that doesn't feel right because I'm somewhat surprised or hiding a big part of my identity. And so I went back a few years ago, as I said to the friend, we started talking about that conversation again. And I said, you know, it never really sat well with me years later. And he said, oh, no, no, no, no. He said, what I meant was, I didn't think of you as a Chinese guy or a white guy. I think of you as bj. And that moment made me realize, oh, this can be a theme for the book, where if people get to know you and the impact that you bring to the table, then all the bias and stereotype narratives that they would have filled up without that is gone. And I have to tell you, in all honesty, I've had real experiences where friends of mine have shared with me that some and so may have Been more biased in general, maybe even racist. Loves me because they've gotten to know me. They're still somewhat biased and racist to other people they don't know. So it kind of reinforces this idea that I kind of put into the book. [00:15:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And matter of fact, the theme throughout is. And you say this, your brand is how people experience you. [00:16:03] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:03] Speaker A: So you're selling yourself. [00:16:05] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And you know, I. I love that. I personally, being a huge pro wrestling fan. [00:16:13] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:14] Speaker B: The first name that came to my head was Dwayne the Rock Johnson. [00:16:19] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:20] Speaker B: Because he's half black. [00:16:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:16:21] Speaker B: Half Samoan. [00:16:22] Speaker A: Right. [00:16:23] Speaker B: Never comes up in conversation. [00:16:24] Speaker A: You never. That's not the first thing you think of when you think of him. Right. [00:16:27] Speaker B: And he's 10 days older than me. He's done more with his little finger than I have in my entire life. But he. It's about his impact, charisma, his image. Right. People want him to be in the room. They don't talk about him in a room. You know what I mean? [00:16:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:41] Speaker B: And so I started thinking, well, how does that. How would I help people to get there first with the realization that they need to really help people experience them, that their brand matters, their image matters, and then getting exposure by networking with the right people. But then I take them through that leadership journey. As I mentioned earlier, I kind of did eight because it's an auspicious number, right? [00:17:09] Speaker A: Yes. [00:17:10] Speaker B: So you start out with introspection. Like most leadership development would say, get to know yourself first. For AAPI folks, this is a really important step. Not because they're Asian, not because they're American, because they're both. And that gives them a certain sense of superpowers that others may not have. It gives them a sense of something that they can bring to the table that others may not be able to do if they're all the way, one end or the other. Right. And bringing that authentic self forward and making that your best self, rather than swinging to one side or the other, depending on the audience, will really give you the energy to move forward. [00:17:50] Speaker A: Okay. So do you think this book would help folks? Maybe if they don't want to go into executive leadership, but they just want to self improve in what they're doing now. [00:17:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it absolutely could. Because leadership has a big L and a little L. Leadership. Big L is your title, right? I'm the president, the vice president. Whatever little L is what you do in life, whether you're leading your family, your friends, your neighborhood. Right. It's all that I was actually having an interesting conversation with some of the folks in the nonprofit world. And I said, well, you know, you may need some of the things here to understand what people on the other side, your funders, are looking for, what's important to them and you can resonate with them. So this is a big difference between code switching, which is pretending to be someone else, to flexing, which I talk about in this book. Just flexing so that people understand you better by speaking their language. Right. And so, yeah, I absolutely think that this book is helpful for anyone who's just trying to dig. And it's not necessarily even for Asians. [00:18:58] Speaker A: I was just going to ask, what if non Asians or other folks of multicultural backgrounds, you know, not necessarily Asian American, Mexican American or Irish American or what have you. [00:19:10] Speaker B: One of the things I talk about in this book is a great thing I learned from an engineer. We are all, you, me, everyone watching are all the answer of simultaneous equations. We're all at the same time male, which female. So our gender, our age, our appearance, our preferences, and all that stuff all comes together. Some is overt, you can see it. [00:19:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:19:38] Speaker B: Others are internal, you cannot see them. But we're all something that's not easily defined by the stereotypes and characters, right? And this book digs into that and say, hey, look, grab the best of all of your identities and make that your thing. [00:19:54] Speaker A: Okay? [00:19:55] Speaker B: And so, yeah, absolutely. I actually recently watch a video on Generation X and it started with, in Generation X, you were raised to put your head down, work hard, and you'll be rewarded somehow. And I was like, oh, my gosh, that's the Chinese way. And I literally heard, my dad gave that advice to my older brother once because he was complaining about things that work. He goes, stop complaining. Put your heads down, do the work, and you'll be rewarded. And I was like, no, no, no. He's recognizing problems at work, what he needed to do. Nexus help solve those problems. Right? And so, but yeah, I do think this book is good enough for just about anyone. [00:20:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Why now, bj? Why publish this book now? [00:20:38] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I love to just simplify it as a bucket list or whatever. Things really kind of came together, as I said, from that moment forward of talking to Tim, revisiting that conversation, having a through line for the book allow me to accelerate past all that outline and drafts that I was doing to get into a book. And I actually was able to consult with AI to help me with some of the finishing product. And that had his own great moments and terrible moments. And then, and then I serendipitously met a publisher as well. And so it all just kind of came together in the last 12 months for me to get this book out and into the, into the world. [00:21:22] Speaker A: Yeah. What would you like someone who reads this book to take away from it? You know, what are some of the life lessons you think that they'll learn after reading this book? [00:21:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's a great question. I mean I think a couple of things that we've already talked about, right. One being we're all multiple. We all. The answers are multiple equations. So we all have multi identities. And I would love for people to embrace that rather than thinking of it as a crutch, as a weakness. It's a strength and explore what that strength looks like and build upon that strength. I would love for people to take away this book that they can be, they can all take a chance and be bold and be brilliant at the same time. And the thing I say all the time to everyone that I meet is book is not for everyone. It's for people that are go getters. This is not for people that feels entitlement. This is not for people that expects reward from no effort. This is a book for people who are willing to do the work, as I said, introspection, but also do the work of studying the game and learning how to be better. If you do the work. As I mentioned, the journal activities, if you do the work, you're going to find some reward in it. But if you're unwilling to do that may not be for you, but it may be for someone that you know. [00:22:53] Speaker A: Okay. [00:22:55] Speaker B: I say so just as a cap on that. If you're, if you're comfortable but you're not getting where you want to go, then be prepared to get uncomfortable. [00:23:10] Speaker A: Okay. Actually you say that in the book. [00:23:13] Speaker B: Yeah, let's get uncomfortable because it's, it does push you. Right. And this book is like any other good self help book pushes you. But you have to take that step. [00:23:23] Speaker A: Okay? [00:23:23] Speaker B: You have to move. [00:23:25] Speaker A: How will you kind of assess achievement? How will you know if you succeeded in what you were trying to do with this book? [00:23:32] Speaker B: That's a great question. So for me, the next step, now that the book is out, that to me is the biggest challenge. I have a friend at church who self published a book using Amazon and he inspired me. I was like, oh, you can do this by yourself. And then I started studying and all the rules and stuff. I was like, oh. But then as I mentioned, one of the Things that some, surprisingly the humble AI shared with me was you really need a human being involved, a human editor who's experienced. [00:24:00] Speaker A: Okay. [00:24:00] Speaker B: And so when I met Jonathan, who owns Orchid Fire Publishing, he totally coached me. He laid out the book, he helped me with the COVID and helped me with all the, like getting an ISBN, getting copyrights and stuff. So those challenges were all, thank goodness, helped by him. [00:24:19] Speaker A: Sure. [00:24:20] Speaker B: I think the next phase for me is really kind of get the word out part of this. Having a conversation with you hopefully will help. But I, through Ascend, have a good network with ERGs, employee resource groups. [00:24:32] Speaker A: Thank you for defining the acronyms. [00:24:34] Speaker B: Yes, I go by BJ. I worked at PwC. I get it, NFPA. But what I really want to do is get this in the hands of the people that are going to need it. And so whether it's, we've got a lot of universities here in this neighborhood with a lot of companies headquarters or not. Right. And so I'm actually speaking next week at a headquarters next week for an affinity group because this is AAPI month. And then at the Ascend convention this summer, I'm hopefully gonna share about this book to as many people as I. It's not to me about making money because true, true, truth is you don't make a lot of money by selling books. And I think some people do it to get into a speaking circuit as well. And again, to me that's not as important. Know what you're doing? Yeah. I just want people to kind of get this in the hand, get into it and go, wow. And then, you know, when I start to hear stories about how people moved up or changed trajectories because of this book and I will feel accomplished. [00:25:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Will you change trajectory in your life as a result of writing this? [00:25:41] Speaker B: It's a great question. I think certainly I'm doing things I hadn't thought I would be doing. Okay. Right. Like this conversation about the book. Okay. Having some conversations. Bookstore down the street about maybe doing a book signing. And not something I'm thought about, like even just putting the line in my LinkedIn profile saying I'm a published author was like, what? And people are treating me differently because of that too. Like close friends, you know, for family. They're all proud of me for having this. My daughter, my almost 12 year old daughter, when she saw the draft coming together, she said, dad, what are you doing? I'm like writing a book. She's like, what? And then when the physical copy showed her house, like she's just lit up. [00:26:23] Speaker A: Really? [00:26:23] Speaker B: And so, again, for me, you know, this is an accomplishment that I honestly, how many of us really have a book in our head that has never been written? Right. [00:26:35] Speaker A: Probably everybody's told one friend or another, you should write a book about that. [00:26:38] Speaker B: In the vernacular terms today, it may be like, how many vlogs or how many blogs or how many YouTube channels have you not done? But in our vernacular, it's like, how many books have been in your head? And I've done this, so I'm really happy with it, whether or not there'll be a sequel. [00:26:54] Speaker A: I was just gonna ask if you'd do it again. [00:26:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I would do it again. I have to be, I think, inspired as to what's next. There are some things fishing in my head as I'm nearing retirement age. I start thinking about what that transition looks like, and there may be a book in there. [00:27:16] Speaker A: All right, stay tuned for more. You mentioned the COVID Tell me about [00:27:19] Speaker B: the artwork on the COVID Oh, thanks for asking. This is if you know, you know, and people who see this and immediately gravitate towards the crate, they know. [00:27:30] Speaker A: So I thought it was a bridge. [00:27:32] Speaker B: It's a bridge that serves as a part that was really narrow. [00:27:36] Speaker A: Like a horizontal ladder, basically. [00:27:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So this is actually a trail in Arcadia national park in Maine. [00:27:43] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:27:44] Speaker B: And it's called the Beehive. And it's, I would say, intermediate level. And I've seen a lot of YouTube videos, and I've done this trail myself. When I was preparing, I watched a lot of videos. I mean, people came and saw this crate. They start to get on the hands and knees because they get so worried that they can see through, Right? [00:28:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:04] Speaker B: And so. Yeah. So this is a trail in Arcadia. And, you know, I had a picture that is like this, and I turned it into what we call an Asian art sansoi, which is mountains and water. So it looks like a Chinese painting, if you will. [00:28:24] Speaker A: I see. [00:28:24] Speaker B: Okay. [00:28:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:25] Speaker B: But the inspiration is from the original picture that I took. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Okay. [00:28:29] Speaker B: On this trail. [00:28:30] Speaker A: And does it have any special meaning? I mean, is it symbolic of anything? [00:28:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that was a major accomplishment for me. I went at six in the morning all by myself. I'm not a hiker. [00:28:42] Speaker A: Okay. [00:28:42] Speaker B: I'm not even an outdoors person. Okay. But I had. I known Arcadia park had many trails, and this was one that I said, I'm to going. Gonna try this. My wife and kids were asleep in the motel, and I got dressed and I went out in the dark and went into this trail. And it was Great. I mean, there was a moment where I am terrible with color, so trailblazes are meaningless to me sometimes. So I went off the trail by accident. A couple of really nice people helped me get back on the path, and it was dangerous because all of these are literally fall to death. [00:29:16] Speaker A: Yes. [00:29:16] Speaker B: Right. [00:29:16] Speaker A: I see that. [00:29:17] Speaker B: And so I think I was in my 40s when I went through this. So it was also like, at my age, I can still do this. And by the way, this trail is appropriate for a lot of ages, but for me, who's never really done a trail or trail by myself, there's a sense of accomplishment, how it relates to what we're talking about. [00:29:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Why did you use it for the [00:29:36] Speaker B: COVID It is a way. Right. So it is a path with which that we. We describe here in the book that there is a path to leadership. For me, that crate represents that moment of clarity, that there's risks involved, but you have to take that risk to gain that reward. [00:29:57] Speaker A: Pushing yourself, again, out of your comfort zone. Right. [00:29:59] Speaker B: Pushing out of comfort zone. And then what you don't see here, it's the story that I told you about. It's allies. You don't go through these journeys by yourself. [00:30:08] Speaker A: Those friends that got you back on the trail, Right. [00:30:09] Speaker B: Yeah, they're not even friends. I don't ever saw them again. [00:30:11] Speaker A: Acquaintances. Right. [00:30:12] Speaker B: But if they weren't there, I was stuck in a very dangerous way. Right. And even when he helped me down, I put both of us in danger. Right. Because if either of us leaned the wrong way, we would have both fallen off. So I think it's just so, so important that we recognize that we are all on journeys that need other people to support us to be our. What do the kids call it these days? Hype man. Right. Like the person that hypes you up. [00:30:39] Speaker A: Oh, all right. [00:30:40] Speaker B: And then people that challenge you to say, hey, you could do better. Right. And those are coaches in our life and then advocates who are pounding the table to get us in the. In the room or pound the table, to tell people that we deserve to be in the room. Right. And so I'm a strong believer that, you know, even though this conversation been somewhat about Asian Americans and this being AAPI month, that as much as I honor those who laid the path before us, I also very, very much grateful for the people, the allies who opened the doors for us. Okay. And I've had plenty of those in my career. [00:31:18] Speaker A: Sure. It's been out for about a month now. The book. Yeah. Have you had feedback? Reaction? [00:31:24] Speaker B: So A couple of failures. Interesting computer feedback. [00:31:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:31] Speaker B: So after it was out for a week, I was traveling in Asia for April vacation with my family and a friend of mine sent me a screenshot, which is great. It said, number one in new releases. And I knew you have to read the fine print under Asian American Studies. I mean, this is Amazon. And so I was like, this is great. I took a snapshot of it. I, I even framed it, whatever. In a moment in time, I was number one. New releases the next week. It said, this book is in like pre sale. It's not going to be available for months, like November. I had people calling me left and right going, what happened? What happened? And thank goodness for Jonathan again. The publisher was like, this happens all the time. It's an algorithm mistake. They will adjust it. What happened was they didn't order enough because you're in a new unknown author and they ran out of stock. [00:32:21] Speaker A: Okay. [00:32:22] Speaker B: But instead of saying out of stock, it said this. And so as he predicted, in a couple days, it said out of stock. As soon as it's available, we'll send it to you. Sure. And then by now it's totally back up. So it is a little bit funny that this is happening. Although, again, proud moments of number one new releases. They ran out of stock. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it is a 300 page book. So I think people are going to take some time to get into it and get through it. So I'm hoping for more substantial feedback soon. [00:32:56] Speaker A: Sure, absolutely. [00:32:57] Speaker B: I mean, you flipped through it a little bit. [00:32:59] Speaker A: I did, yes, I did. Helpful, Helpful. Certainly as a textbook, as a workbook is more introspection, I thought, you know, to make folks look into themselves and think about the experiences that they've had and can be very similar to what you had growing up as well, you know, maybe not as an Asian American, but just as a person, you know, and being able to look inside and say, oh yeah, that, that happened to me. I didn't realize that it impacted me, you know, 30 years later. [00:33:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:33:30] Speaker A: So that was just a brief moment that I had to flip through it. [00:33:33] Speaker B: That's great. [00:33:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:34] Speaker B: And you know, I think at the end too, viewpoint, at the very end, I talk about how making this your way, because it is, you know, I've read a lot of books, sure. In this nature of my life, and some of it resonated, some of it I challenged. Right. But you always take away something from it, as long as you process it and you make it your own point of view. And so I do challenge people to say, like you, you may have immigrated here just last year. See your difference and you're, you're very different than where I am. You might, might be the third generation of immigrants here. You're still going to experience a lot of stereotypes. That doesn't go away because we have outward diversity. Right. But challenge it, take away what you need to take away and make it your own. I think that's really what you do, not just in my book, but with anything similar to this self help books. [00:34:22] Speaker A: And I think it may help also give you some insight into folks who may not have a multicultural background, you know, as well, and say, oh, that's, that's how they're experiencing life right now. You know, I didn't realize that we [00:34:34] Speaker B: used to have this training program that I was very proud to be involved with at PwC that was really kind of not only the diversity individual come and hear about just to become more aware that they're being pulled in multiple cultures and how that shows up at work. But we brought their, what we call coaches is as close to a supervisor as possible so that they at the same time are hearing about this and then having a conversation about this. And I thought that was just such an amazing effort to not only really kind of help the individual themselves realize what they need to kind of think about as they process through, bring the best self rather than thinking it's a crutch or a weakness, but also having some of their managers here. We replicated this at Accenture when I was at Accenture as well. And it's just the people who come as managers start to share their story about being the son of an Irish immigrant. Right. And how that, what they saw their parents go through, it becomes very personal. [00:35:41] Speaker A: Yes. [00:35:42] Speaker B: And if there's anything we need in this world is us using our personal experiences to come together rather than go in separate directions. [00:35:53] Speaker A: There you go. It's a great place to leave it. BJ Yeah. I wish you great success with the book and in life. [00:35:59] Speaker B: Thank you so much for this opportunity. As I said, I love your show. [00:36:02] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:36:02] Speaker B: And I hope more and more people watch it. [00:36:04] Speaker A: Well, we appreciate that for sure. And please keep us up to date on how it's going. [00:36:09] Speaker B: I'd love to. All right, thanks. [00:36:11] Speaker A: You're welcome. And thanks for watching us here at AM Quincy. I'm Joe Catalano and we'll see you next time.