Latest / Kickin’ It With KeKe: Life, Love, & MINDSET / Episode #169 w/Jermaine Ee

Transcript

Episode #169 w/Jermaine Ee · Kickin’ It With KeKe: Life, Love, & MINDSET

0:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to Kicking In with Kiki. Kicking it be ki
0:08
Speaker 1: Ki kicking it the ki Ki.
0:15
Speaker 2: For a little personality, switching up the storyline on God.
0:19
Speaker 1: We making this story and books one day at the time.
0:24
Speaker 1: Much problems to the side. Enjoy yourself, free your mind.
0:31
Speaker 1: Kicking it with ki Kee.
0:40
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Kicking In
0:42
Speaker 2: with Kiki, Life, Love and Mindset. I am your host,
0:46
Speaker 2: Kiki Chanel, award winning author and owner of nineteen lifestyle magazine.
0:52
Speaker 2: This is the podcast where we talk about life, love
0:54
Speaker 2: and mindset. Today I am joined with a very special guest,
0:59
Speaker 2: and you guys know I like to do. I like
1:01
Speaker 2: to give my guests the opportunity to introduce themselves. So Jermaine,
1:06
Speaker 2: thank you for coming to kick it with me and
1:07
Speaker 2: tell the people who you are.
1:10
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, very very grateful to be here,
1:13
Speaker 3: and thanks for giving me the space to introduce myself.
1:17
Speaker 3: Absolutely am I'm born and raised in Los Angeles. I
1:20
Speaker 3: am first and foremost. I like to think of myself
1:23
Speaker 3: as a son to two very loving parents, and I'm
1:27
Speaker 3: also a proud brother of one sister and two younger brothers.
1:31
Speaker 3: I like to think of myself that way, because when
1:33
Speaker 3: I think of all the important things in my life,
1:36
Speaker 3: it all kind of surrounds this feeling of being present
1:40
Speaker 3: for the people that I love. But outside of all
1:43
Speaker 3: of those things, I've built multiple businesses in the past.
1:46
Speaker 3: I am a very curious soul. I travel a lot.
1:50
Speaker 3: I'm calling in today from Europe actually, where I spend
1:53
Speaker 3: most of my summers. So yeah, that's me in a nutshell.
1:58
Speaker 2: I love it. Thanks, thank you for being here all
2:01
Speaker 2: the way from Europe. It is amazing to have people
2:04
Speaker 2: like yourself that want to come and kick it with
2:07
Speaker 2: me on the podcast, So thank you again. And we
2:10
Speaker 2: always talk about mindset, life and love because I think
2:14
Speaker 2: the three things intertwined. So we're going to get into
2:18
Speaker 2: the mindset moment real quick, where we talk about how
2:22
Speaker 2: the mindset shapes the experience that we have throughout our lives.
2:26
Speaker 2: So what mindset shift change the way you approach life?
2:32
Speaker 3: Wow, that's a loaded question, you know. I like to
2:36
Speaker 3: think that all throughout my twenties, like many I would say,
2:40
Speaker 3: like many men, you know, we are trying to define
2:43
Speaker 3: success and how we fit into this world of materialism
2:47
Speaker 3: of capitalism, right, this world that we live in that
2:50
Speaker 3: judges a lot of us based on what we can
2:53
Speaker 3: produce and what we can provide, right, So I think
2:56
Speaker 3: a lot of my twenties was spent figuring out how
2:59
Speaker 3: the world work. I worked in politics for a while,
3:02
Speaker 3: I studied everything that I was curious about, economics, religion,
3:07
Speaker 3: political science, and business. And now that I'm in my thirties,
3:12
Speaker 3: I started looking inward a lot more. You know, this
3:15
Speaker 3: whole thought of know thyself. You know, I wanted to
3:18
Speaker 3: understand what makes me happy, what makes me fulfilled, what
3:23
Speaker 3: kind of relationships I want to have with the people
3:26
Speaker 3: I love. And I think I'm at the journey where
3:29
Speaker 3: I am having this mindset shift into how does that
3:33
Speaker 3: all fit together in this very finite time that we have.
3:37
Speaker 3: And I know this will come up. I lost my
3:39
Speaker 3: mom nine months ago, and losing her is I think
3:43
Speaker 3: this trigger of what do I want to spend the
3:47
Speaker 3: rest of my time here doing? You know what really matters?
3:51
Speaker 3: So that's the journey I'm on right.
3:52
Speaker 2: Now, absolutely, and that's beautiful, know thy Still if more
3:57
Speaker 2: people had type of mindset, I think the world would
4:02
Speaker 2: be a better place because I too had to go
4:06
Speaker 2: on that journey where I lost myself upon a time
4:10
Speaker 2: and I had to refine who I was where redefine
4:14
Speaker 2: who I was? And I learned a lot of things
4:16
Speaker 2: during that time. So what is one thing that you
4:20
Speaker 2: have learned since you begin that journey of knowing yourself
4:24
Speaker 2: that you would like to share with the audience today.
4:28
Speaker 3: Well, one thing that I've been working on and getting
4:31
Speaker 3: better at, is to narrow the opinions that matters in
4:37
Speaker 3: my life. Right, So I am a weird, weird soul.
4:43
Speaker 3: I have written my own eulogy when I was a
4:47
Speaker 3: young child. I was maybe twenty four years old. When
4:50
Speaker 3: I first did this. I had read somewhere some inspirational
4:54
Speaker 3: quote or some Instagram message that if you wrote down
4:57
Speaker 3: your eulogy, you hold up a mirror to yourself and
5:00
Speaker 3: you get to see what you really cared about. So
5:03
Speaker 3: I tried that right when I was twenties. I really
5:06
Speaker 3: wanted the recognition. I wanted the Forbes thirty and the thirty.
5:09
Speaker 3: I wanted all these things, the external validation from the
5:13
Speaker 3: outside and right around COVID is when I turned thirty,
5:16
Speaker 3: That's when I wrote my second time. And the second
5:19
Speaker 3: time around during COVID, I realized the list of the
5:23
Speaker 3: people's opinion who I cared about shrunk a lot. And
5:29
Speaker 3: again there's a theme here. After my mom's death, I
5:32
Speaker 3: did it again right because I had to think about
5:35
Speaker 3: this topic again. Who shows up to your funeral? And
5:38
Speaker 3: that list is now not only has it shrunk even more,
5:42
Speaker 3: but now I hope and I wish that I have
5:46
Speaker 3: the courage to live a life not too influenced by
5:50
Speaker 3: the people's opinion around me. Right, And I think we're
5:53
Speaker 3: all social beings that we still need validation from the
5:56
Speaker 3: people that are around us. But the journey to who
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Speaker 3: words that, to live a life through us to what
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Speaker 3: I want, that's the shrift that I've had recently.
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Speaker 2: And it's so funny that you said that you are
6:10
Speaker 2: a weird person, because I am weird as well. Shout
6:13
Speaker 2: out to the weirdos in a great way. I wrote
6:16
Speaker 2: my eulogy at the age of twenty five, but I
6:19
Speaker 2: have not done it since, and so you have just
6:23
Speaker 2: inspired me to go back and do it again. Because
6:26
Speaker 2: I'm forty eight now, that's been a long time, so
6:29
Speaker 2: things have shifted, perspectives have changed, and I'm not the
6:33
Speaker 2: same person that I was. That's a great place to
6:35
Speaker 2: be because not everybody is at that place where they
6:38
Speaker 2: think about transitioning, which we all have to do.
6:42
Speaker 3: And I think it's an ongoing journey, you know, it
6:44
Speaker 3: is one that we Yeah, it's one that we you know,
6:48
Speaker 3: we take a few steps and sometimes we lose ourselves. Right,
6:51
Speaker 3: we go too many days in a row and we
6:54
Speaker 3: don't catch yourself falling into trap of keeping up for
6:57
Speaker 3: the joneses. Right, this is nature. But I think this
7:03
Speaker 3: new mission that I've been on is to do things
7:06
Speaker 3: like this, to share my story so that I hope
7:09
Speaker 3: it resonates with one person and if it makes one
7:12
Speaker 3: person sit down today and think, ooh, actually, it's been
7:17
Speaker 3: too many days in a row that I am too
7:19
Speaker 3: concerned about the opinion of someone who actually does not
7:22
Speaker 3: matter at the end. Right, that's like a little shift
7:26
Speaker 3: and a reminder, right, And I wish to surround myself
7:30
Speaker 3: with this reminder so that if I too get off course,
7:33
Speaker 3: that I get this reminder to bring myself back a little.
7:35
Speaker 2: I loved it. What belief did you have to unlearn
7:40
Speaker 2: in order to grow into the mindset that you have
7:43
Speaker 2: right now?
7:44
Speaker 3: I think maybe it's a combination of being Asian American
7:48
Speaker 3: as well as American. The American part of Asian American
7:53
Speaker 3: I subscribe for a very long time this notion that
7:57
Speaker 3: to be worthy of loving I had to be somebody
8:02
Speaker 3: who produced, who achieved, who is able to take care
8:10
Speaker 3: of others in a very material way. Right I. Los
8:14
Speaker 3: Angeles is probably one of the most material places in
8:16
Speaker 3: the world, right we're talking. And I went to USC,
8:19
Speaker 3: so I'm comparing myself with classmates who are coming from
8:23
Speaker 3: families with money and and have things handed to them,
8:27
Speaker 3: not all of them.
8:28
Speaker 2: You know.
8:28
Speaker 3: So I think this belief of to be loved just
8:34
Speaker 3: because of who you are, just for being is something
8:38
Speaker 3: that I really had to, you know, have to figure
8:41
Speaker 3: out on my own. And I'm still on this journey, right.
8:44
Speaker 3: I still think about myself as not so much as
8:48
Speaker 3: my net worth or net output or you know, these
8:52
Speaker 3: these financial terms, but more so of I feel like
8:56
Speaker 3: I have to be there for someone to be deserving
8:59
Speaker 3: of dear love, Like I have to do something for
9:02
Speaker 3: somebody in a friendship to be deserving of that friendship.
9:07
Speaker 3: And it's actually an influence of my girlfriend. She you know,
9:11
Speaker 3: she told me once when we were dating, we started
9:13
Speaker 3: dating four years ago now that in her family, your
9:18
Speaker 3: love just because there is no reason. You don't have
9:21
Speaker 3: to be achieved, you don't have to be PhD. You
9:25
Speaker 3: don't have to be anybody who's doing anything incredible from
9:28
Speaker 3: the outside your love just because and I come from
9:32
Speaker 3: that family too, in my small nuclear family, but everything
9:36
Speaker 3: from the outside in my world, the Chinese culture is extremely,
9:40
Speaker 3: extremely materialistic. So I think I had to unlearn a
9:44
Speaker 3: lot of these feelings, the subconscious narrative in my mind
9:49
Speaker 3: that in order for me to deserve love, I had
9:52
Speaker 3: to be successful.
9:53
Speaker 2: Wow. You know, as I's spoken with the last couple
9:59
Speaker 2: of gifts on the past, you guys had something similar
10:02
Speaker 2: to say about the materialistic part. Because I don't know,
10:09
Speaker 2: have we become so superficial to the point where that
10:15
Speaker 2: matters most what the people in our lives can give
10:19
Speaker 2: to us, a brain to the table, so to speak.
10:22
Speaker 2: Why do you believe that is? Do you think social
10:24
Speaker 2: media plays a big part in it? Or is just
10:27
Speaker 2: in the air.
10:27
Speaker 3: I don't know, Yeah, definitely, I think you know this comparison.
10:32
Speaker 3: Comparison is the thief of joy. We've heard that many times, right,
10:36
Speaker 3: but sometimes it's hard to apply it to our own lives.
10:39
Speaker 3: You know, I think I never really believe that I
10:42
Speaker 3: think most humans actually think this, like, oh, branding doesn't
10:45
Speaker 3: work on me, right, But the truth is, if we
10:48
Speaker 3: see something too many times, we have association towards these things,
10:52
Speaker 3: and to see you know whatever, that is like someone
10:56
Speaker 3: on a vacation all the time. And you know, I
10:58
Speaker 3: am guilty of that. I only post my good day, right,
11:00
Speaker 3: I only post the highlights of my life, and to
11:03
Speaker 3: see all these highlights all the time probably makes me
11:07
Speaker 3: feel that, oh, I've got to I've got to do more,
11:10
Speaker 3: achieve more, just to have that. I think it's also
11:14
Speaker 3: interesting because you know, as you know in in the
11:17
Speaker 3: message that we've reached out to you for, I'm building
11:19
Speaker 3: an app of estate planning because I wanted to help
11:23
Speaker 3: people organize what they have right to have more clarity
11:28
Speaker 3: of where they are today. Because my hypothesis is that
11:33
Speaker 3: if you know where you are today, there is a
11:36
Speaker 3: higher chance that you will know what is enough in
11:38
Speaker 3: your lifetime. You know, to define what is enough is
11:43
Speaker 3: also to learn how to be content, and I think
11:46
Speaker 3: that's a missing skill in society these days. I am.
11:52
Speaker 3: I am hopeful though you know, we speak of AI
11:56
Speaker 3: quite negatively these days, but if you think of AI
12:00
Speaker 3: and social media, social media is the extreme, the negatives
12:05
Speaker 3: and the positives are the loudest, everything on the edge.
12:09
Speaker 3: But in some ways, AI, because of it being a
12:11
Speaker 3: predict prediction tool, right, a tool that helps people kind
12:16
Speaker 3: of come back to the mean. By interactive AI more,
12:19
Speaker 3: we actually get to bring ourselves back into the center
12:22
Speaker 3: a little bit, right, which is something about AI we
12:25
Speaker 3: don't talk about too often. It is the average. It
12:29
Speaker 3: is a prediction tool.
12:33
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And you jumped ahead because we're going to talk
12:35
Speaker 2: about the app. But yes, before we get into that,
12:39
Speaker 2: I want to ask you this last question in the
12:42
Speaker 2: mindset moment segment, what life experience worces you to grow
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Speaker 2: the most.
12:48
Speaker 3: I don't know if this is a meeting or is
12:51
Speaker 3: this a very very common I've always felt like an outsider,
12:56
Speaker 3: you know, growing up, perhaps between Malaysia and the United States.
13:02
Speaker 3: I've always felt like I'm the outside looking in. As
13:05
Speaker 3: I got older and I got back, got to look
13:08
Speaker 3: back at the times where I felt like an outsider.
13:11
Speaker 3: I realize feeling like an outsider is a sign of growth,
13:17
Speaker 3: is a sign of ambition, because if I'm always inside,
13:21
Speaker 3: that means I'm not growing, right, I've completely occupied the
13:25
Speaker 3: room of comfort and as I'm maturing into this thought,
13:30
Speaker 3: I realize, you know what, I always want to be
13:34
Speaker 3: the outsider. The question now is how do I quickly
13:40
Speaker 3: learn the lingo of the insider the next destination I
13:44
Speaker 3: want to be. And what I've learned throughout, you know,
13:47
Speaker 3: the last fifteen years of working and navigating through the
13:50
Speaker 3: world is you know, I love putting myself next to
13:54
Speaker 3: people who are smart and people who I look up to.
13:58
Speaker 3: I'll give a very concrete exam. I went into politics
14:02
Speaker 3: for about a year and a half. This is around
14:04
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen. There was an election that really changed the
14:07
Speaker 3: trajectory of this country, and I felt that the world
14:11
Speaker 3: lacked empathy. I felt that people, my good friends on
14:15
Speaker 3: the left and the right could not talk to each other. Right,
14:18
Speaker 3: we're just not hearing each other. And instead of sitting
14:21
Speaker 3: in the sidelines and feeling like an outsider to politics,
14:24
Speaker 3: I thought, you know what, who's someone who I admire,
14:28
Speaker 3: who look like me and who's smart and I want
14:30
Speaker 3: to get as close to that person as possible. And
14:34
Speaker 3: that's when I found out this person by the name
14:36
Speaker 3: of John Chung. He was the state treasurer of California
14:39
Speaker 3: at the time and through a series of cold emails
14:42
Speaker 3: and borderlines stalking him going to campaign events and things
14:46
Speaker 3: like that. I ended up landing a job with him,
14:49
Speaker 3: and it got me so much closer to the action
14:51
Speaker 3: of seeing the world from quote unquote the inside. And
14:57
Speaker 3: what I realized is that the world is a very,
14:59
Speaker 3: very complex, right There's people who are we think are
15:04
Speaker 3: in the inside, who still feel like an outsider to
15:06
Speaker 3: many situations in your life. And I think this feeling
15:09
Speaker 3: of being an outsider, I learned how to embrace it,
15:12
Speaker 3: and this is a lesson that really changed the way
15:14
Speaker 3: I thought of everything moving forward, including what we're about
15:18
Speaker 3: to talk about building an app in the legal space.
15:21
Speaker 3: A total outsider here, Yeah.
15:25
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that, and so thank you
15:28
Speaker 2: for sharing that. Thank you for being vulnerable enough with
15:30
Speaker 2: my audience with me to share that, because you could
15:33
Speaker 2: have kept that to yourself, or put it in a
15:35
Speaker 2: book or something, or just saved it for the app
15:37
Speaker 2: so people can get it. But thank you for being
15:40
Speaker 2: open about that. I think that people need to hear
15:45
Speaker 2: things that are relatable, and your relatability will help other
15:50
Speaker 2: people see that being an outsider is okay. Just don't
15:54
Speaker 2: stay stuck there being on the outside that you forget
15:57
Speaker 2: to walk inside sometimes because sometimes it's okay to go winsid. Yeah,
16:02
Speaker 2: all right, so we're going to talk about a heavy topic, lost,
16:08
Speaker 2: life and mindset. What has lost Tauchi? About life, love
16:15
Speaker 2: and mindset.
16:16
Speaker 3: First and foremost, It taught me that we're here for
16:21
Speaker 3: a very short time, and we don't know when that
16:24
Speaker 3: time is going to end. About eighteen days before I
16:30
Speaker 3: lost my mom, we were in Salzburg, Austria together because
16:35
Speaker 3: she loves loves this movie called The Sound of Music.
16:43
Speaker 3: She was born in the sixties. You know, Julie Andrews
16:47
Speaker 3: is like this, this woman that she looked up to.
16:52
Speaker 3: We went on this trip not knowing that it was
16:54
Speaker 3: her last. We went on this trip just like any
16:57
Speaker 3: other trip. We laughed, we enjoyed each at his company.
17:02
Speaker 3: And you know, when I got the call that she
17:06
Speaker 3: was hospitalized in a coma, yes, I was sad, but
17:12
Speaker 3: at the same time, gosh, I thought, how lucky am
17:15
Speaker 3: I to have really embrace to live the way that
17:22
Speaker 3: I did with her? And I thought, gosh, how finite
17:27
Speaker 3: is that just a week ago I was just hanging
17:29
Speaker 3: out with her. So I think that's the biggest shift
17:32
Speaker 3: when I look at life these days, is you know,
17:35
Speaker 3: I don't take don't take as many things as granted.
17:38
Speaker 3: And now I focus on my attention on my father.
17:41
Speaker 3: You know, he's he's hanging around. You know, we're looking
17:45
Speaker 3: to intentionally do more trips together and to spend more
17:47
Speaker 3: time together. And it doesn't have to be a grand
17:50
Speaker 3: trip to Austria, you know, it can just be a
17:53
Speaker 3: very simple trip, a walk to the park, something we
17:56
Speaker 3: actually don't do enough.
17:58
Speaker 2: What about love? What is it? Talk to you about love?
18:01
Speaker 3: It taught me that my capacity for love is so
18:05
Speaker 3: much bigger. I think I was super close to my mom.
18:12
Speaker 3: You know, it's somebody that if I close my eyes
18:14
Speaker 3: and I had a question, what would Mom do? I
18:18
Speaker 3: have the answer. I can imagine exactly how she would
18:21
Speaker 3: say something, exactly her perspective, as well as her reservation
18:25
Speaker 3: on any topics. And I think losing her made me
18:31
Speaker 3: understand how much empathy I have in my body for
18:36
Speaker 3: others and empathy for grief. You know, I've heard this
18:43
Speaker 3: saying that grief is the receipt for love, and if
18:47
Speaker 3: you have grief, that means you have had love and
18:53
Speaker 3: have experienced loved and the deeper your grief, the deeper
18:57
Speaker 3: you've loved. I never I just did that, you know,
19:01
Speaker 3: just it was a cool quote. But I think losing
19:03
Speaker 3: my mom I felt that very deeply, and more so
19:10
Speaker 3: now than ever. My girlfriend jokes about this all the
19:13
Speaker 3: time because she's with me all the time. She said,
19:15
Speaker 3: you know, since since your mom's passing, I would often
19:20
Speaker 3: look at you and you'd have wet eyes. And I
19:24
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, it's because I feel so much. I
19:26
Speaker 3: feel for so many things and so many people. The
19:29
Speaker 3: empathy runs so deep.
19:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, that you just gave me a new perspective of grief. Wow,
19:38
Speaker 2: that is a great revelation for me to have because
19:41
Speaker 2: it explains how I see life now after experience and
19:46
Speaker 2: that loss, because now I try to lead with mindfulness
19:52
Speaker 2: how I would have wanted someone to treat me when
19:54
Speaker 2: I was going through my grief, because people overlooked my
19:59
Speaker 2: grief because I lost the bonus darter in twenty twenty,
20:03
Speaker 2: so they would ask, how is your husband doing, how
20:05
Speaker 2: her siblings doing? You know, have you talked to her mom?
20:08
Speaker 2: And stuff like that. I was always a last to
20:11
Speaker 2: be checked on, and so now it's like I lead
20:15
Speaker 2: with what I would have wanted from other people during
20:20
Speaker 2: that time, and it has good days and bad days,
20:23
Speaker 2: as you I'm sure you know, and I'm glad that
20:26
Speaker 2: you have your girlfriend. She sounds like an amazing person.
20:29
Speaker 2: She is. Yes, so we you know, it could be
20:34
Speaker 2: a little heavy, but I wanted to talk about you know,
20:36
Speaker 2: I don't want to. We talk about loss, and we
20:40
Speaker 2: sometimes forget that these the purpose example is what you
20:44
Speaker 2: just said. You know, you had a great relationship with
20:46
Speaker 2: your mom, so you lean on those memories. You can
20:50
Speaker 2: close your eyes and hear what she would say or
20:53
Speaker 2: think in certain situations. So it is important that we
20:56
Speaker 2: don't forget about the people who have touched our lives
21:00
Speaker 2: in an amazing way by just acting like they didn't exist.
21:07
Speaker 2: Have you ever over encountered someone who made you feel
21:12
Speaker 2: like keeping your mom's legacy alive was like almost like
21:18
Speaker 2: a disservice to her.
21:20
Speaker 3: Luckily not yet. You know, I've been very lucky to
21:24
Speaker 3: be surrounded by people who to see what I'm doing.
21:29
Speaker 3: As you know, honoring, I think honoring is the white word.
21:37
Speaker 3: And I also, you know, started putting myself out there
21:41
Speaker 3: much more with this. At first, I wasn't sure how
21:44
Speaker 3: my family would feel, right I'm talking about these things,
21:47
Speaker 3: dear mother.
21:48
Speaker 2: Right.
21:48
Speaker 3: I have three siblings so publicly and the feedback's been great.
21:53
Speaker 3: I think I have the most supportive family. I have
21:56
Speaker 3: a very very supportive inner circle, which I'm so grateful.
22:00
Speaker 3: Four uh And you know, the first two podcasts five
22:04
Speaker 3: podcasts that I did, it was a little cringey looking
22:07
Speaker 3: back at it, you know. And and now I've been
22:10
Speaker 3: I've been able to get better at this and talk
22:13
Speaker 3: about this without completely losing composure. It's still hard sometimes,
22:18
Speaker 3: but you know, what I realized is that it is
22:21
Speaker 3: it is so good to feel so human, like as
22:24
Speaker 3: I was sharing a few things with you earlier in
22:27
Speaker 3: a very short conversation so far, I felt this presence
22:33
Speaker 3: of kind of my mom agreeing with what I'm saying.
22:37
Speaker 3: And that's such a cool feeling.
22:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. That is amazing. Stor're gonna move too.
22:44
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the app. Tell the people about it.
22:48
Speaker 2: When can you? When need it being released? And what
22:51
Speaker 2: inspired it? Let's talk about it. What is the name
22:54
Speaker 2: of it?
22:56
Speaker 3: So my life's work now can be summed up in
22:59
Speaker 3: an application call Airlight. About a year and four months ago,
23:04
Speaker 3: I had a lunch with my mom and my dad,
23:08
Speaker 3: and I asked him, when would you guys like to retire?
23:11
Speaker 3: You know, I think personally that you've made the last
23:14
Speaker 3: dollar that you would ever spend in your lifetime. And
23:19
Speaker 3: my mom said something that gave me an insight, which
23:22
Speaker 3: is she's like, what if I ran out of money
23:25
Speaker 3: before I die? A fear that is so real, especially
23:33
Speaker 3: for an immigrant who moved to Oklahoma when she was
23:36
Speaker 3: in her twenties, not speaking any English, work as a
23:41
Speaker 3: home cleaner and a restaurant cook and waitress, and I
23:46
Speaker 3: don't know how many more jobs she had, and that
23:50
Speaker 3: fear is just so deeply rooted in her. She spent
23:54
Speaker 3: all her life working and saving to take care of
23:56
Speaker 3: the people she loved that she didn't know how to spend, right,
24:00
Speaker 3: And I think this is a conversation that opened up
24:03
Speaker 3: this well, this topic about how would you like to
24:08
Speaker 3: spend instead of how would you like to continue to
24:10
Speaker 3: save until the day you die, not knowing that it
24:14
Speaker 3: was coming soon. Right. So we had this conversation and
24:19
Speaker 3: I built this little chatbot to talk to her, and
24:22
Speaker 3: the chatbot asked her questions like, you know, what is
24:25
Speaker 3: a birthday gift that you really really cherish who gave
24:29
Speaker 3: it to you, and the stories behind it. And after
24:33
Speaker 3: a few months of this, I realized, if I had
24:35
Speaker 3: all the information of the people she loves the most,
24:38
Speaker 3: she cares about the most, the things that she treasured
24:41
Speaker 3: the most, I can organize all of that into a
24:45
Speaker 3: estate plan or a document that says who gets what
24:50
Speaker 3: you know? And so that's how the app started. What
24:54
Speaker 3: was very interesting for me is the joy that my
24:58
Speaker 3: mom had talking about this app to her friends. So
25:02
Speaker 3: she would go to her facial lady and she would,
25:05
Speaker 3: you know, get her facial done, and they would of
25:07
Speaker 3: course talk about everything, including her kids and husbands and everything.
25:11
Speaker 3: And she would come back to me and say, hey,
25:14
Speaker 3: you know this other lady at the facial She told
25:17
Speaker 3: me that she's afraid to go to her attorney because
25:20
Speaker 3: attorney is a friend of her husband, and she she
25:25
Speaker 3: didn't really have a say, right, She signed the documents, sure,
25:28
Speaker 3: but she didn't have a say. And she she asked
25:31
Speaker 3: if my app can help her understand the meaning of
25:35
Speaker 3: these terms and these things, and I was like, yeah,
25:39
Speaker 3: of course, right, it's it's definitions of things. It's doable,
25:44
Speaker 3: and it really made me think about this topic not
25:47
Speaker 3: as legal documents, but as clarity. And that's where the
25:52
Speaker 3: anger of the app comes in. We believe that clarity
25:57
Speaker 3: is love and practical form.
26:00
Speaker 2: Wow, clarity is love and practical form. It's kind of
26:03
Speaker 2: bumming a little bit because I love that.
26:08
Speaker 3: You know, there's many things in our life that we
26:10
Speaker 3: put off, right, it's human nature to put off things
26:14
Speaker 3: that are that are important and do what is urgent.
26:18
Speaker 3: And this is just human nature. And so when we
26:22
Speaker 3: started building this about a year ago now, we thought, okay,
26:28
Speaker 3: let's create an app that says complete your will in
26:32
Speaker 3: twenty five minutes or fourteen minutes. We got we got
26:36
Speaker 3: really good at it. We did this really fast. Some
26:39
Speaker 3: people did it in seven or so minutes because they
26:41
Speaker 3: didn't have a lot of things and they knew exactly
26:43
Speaker 3: who to give everything to. But then we got more
26:47
Speaker 3: and more users and what we learned, well, we learned
26:51
Speaker 3: many things. One of it was nobody really starts this
26:55
Speaker 3: process by thinking about things. They think about people first.
27:02
Speaker 3: Amazing insight, What a human insight. The other thing we
27:06
Speaker 3: realize is that the reason why a lot of people
27:08
Speaker 3: put this off it is because of a proximity problem.
27:13
Speaker 3: It feels death feels far away, right, it feels abstract,
27:19
Speaker 3: and things that are far away that are abstract are
27:22
Speaker 3: easy to put off. So we engineer this app, and
27:29
Speaker 3: I think engineer is the right word because it is
27:31
Speaker 3: user interface. User design is trust to bring this abstract
27:38
Speaker 3: thing legal document back to what is close to us,
27:42
Speaker 3: which is who do you care about the most? Who
27:47
Speaker 3: matters to you? And really, why do you even bother
27:50
Speaker 3: doing something like this? Right, nobody wants to think about death,
27:54
Speaker 3: but we sure are a little bit selfless and want
27:57
Speaker 3: to think about leaving the people alone a little bit
28:00
Speaker 3: less overwhelmed when death does come, And so we flip
28:04
Speaker 3: the script around.
28:05
Speaker 1: Right.
28:06
Speaker 3: Clarity is what we're going for. The legal document is
28:09
Speaker 3: just a byproduct of this process.
28:12
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you, I get that's that totally makes so
28:16
Speaker 2: much sense now because we always think about people into
28:20
Speaker 2: the things. Wow, thank you for that, Jamain, Thank you
28:24
Speaker 2: so much, you guys. I've been listening to another episode
28:26
Speaker 2: of Kicking It with Kiki like Love and Mindset. I
28:29
Speaker 2: am joined with a very special guest, Jermaine. He just
28:31
Speaker 2: talked about his app call Airlight. Tell everybody how they
28:36
Speaker 2: can connect with you. Where do you hang out on
28:37
Speaker 2: social media and all the things.
28:39
Speaker 3: I have a one of one name. My name is
28:41
Speaker 3: Jermaine E. I'm named after Jermaine Jackson. I know the
28:43
Speaker 3: Jackson family is getting a lot of love right now
28:46
Speaker 3: because of the great film Great Job by Jaffar Jackson,
28:49
Speaker 3: by the way, Jermaine's son. Yeah right, and I love
28:53
Speaker 3: that movie. Yeah, I am Jermaine E. Everywhere and airlight
28:58
Speaker 3: is spelled h G I R l ight. And I'm
29:01
Speaker 3: going to send you a link. So if anyone listening
29:03
Speaker 3: to this you want to, you want to try it out,
29:05
Speaker 3: You'll get fifty percent off just by coming through Kiki.
29:08
Speaker 3: And you know, thanks for giving me this platform to
29:11
Speaker 3: share my story. You know, I hope you know, if
29:14
Speaker 3: you don't start your estate plan today, start by journaling.
29:17
Speaker 3: Journaling a few things that matter to you, you know.
29:20
Speaker 3: And yeah, I think a little bit more intention living
29:24
Speaker 3: goes a long way.
29:26
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And thank you for that. Thank you for the
29:28
Speaker 2: gift for the for the listeners today. I do appreciate it.
29:32
Speaker 2: All that information will be also listed in the show notes.
29:35
Speaker 2: So we're going to go to the my drop moment
29:37
Speaker 2: where I ask you a couple of questions and you
29:39
Speaker 2: just give your my drop moment. Right, what is one
29:43
Speaker 2: stint about life you want people to remember?
29:47
Speaker 3: The first thing that came to my mind is I
29:51
Speaker 3: was sitting at the Sistant Chapel last week listening to
29:56
Speaker 3: a book by Bonnie Ware and in that book it
30:00
Speaker 3: says she's a caretaker of end of life. The number
30:04
Speaker 3: one regret people have at the end of their life
30:08
Speaker 3: is that they wish they have the courage to live
30:11
Speaker 3: a life true to themselves. And that's what I want
30:15
Speaker 3: to leave with this audience today.
30:17
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, if I had a mic, I would really
30:20
Speaker 2: drop it because that was a mindrop moment. Right, Okay,
30:24
Speaker 2: what is one truth about love everyone should understand?
30:29
Speaker 3: I think one truth about love that everybody should understand
30:33
Speaker 3: that is that there is no one way of loving.
30:39
Speaker 3: That love comes in all shapes and sizes, ebbs and flows,
30:46
Speaker 3: depths and shallow, but all of it is valid.
30:52
Speaker 2: I love that. See. I was not going to get
30:54
Speaker 2: emotional today, okay, but that way there just gave me
30:58
Speaker 2: chills because it is so I've never heard it defined
31:03
Speaker 2: that way and that was amazing. So thank you for that.
31:06
Speaker 2: I'm going to go and re listen to that because
31:10
Speaker 2: that was a big, huge, revelation for me about that,
31:14
Speaker 2: So thank you Jermane. What mindset belief can change someone's life?
31:21
Speaker 3: That everything you know about this world is made up
31:24
Speaker 3: by people who are no smarter than you. It's saved
31:27
Speaker 3: by Steve Jobs, but it is the truth.
31:32
Speaker 2: Absolutely final question. When life challenges you and love stretches you,
31:40
Speaker 2: what mindset keeps you grounded?
31:44
Speaker 3: Just wake up the next day and do your best.
31:48
Speaker 2: And there you have it. That has been the micro
31:50
Speaker 2: drop moment with Jermaine E. And thank you guys for
31:53
Speaker 2: tuning into this episode. If this conversation resonated with you
31:58
Speaker 2: or spoke to you in any level, go ahead and
32:00
Speaker 2: subscribe and share it with a friend. Remember that your
32:03
Speaker 2: story has power, your voice has purpose, and your mindset
32:07
Speaker 2: can change everything. I am back every Thursday with a
32:11
Speaker 2: new episode on all major podcasts streaming platforms. You can
32:15
Speaker 2: also watch it on YouTube. Thank you again for kicking
32:19
Speaker 2: with Kiki, Life Loving mindset, Purple Hugs.
32:24
Speaker 1: Weekend it with