 Hello, welcome to Think Tech. I'm Crystal on QuackTalk. Today, happy morning. Tuesday, we're going to be talking about some healthy shit. You know what I mean by that? We're going to talk about super moms. Super moms talking about super strength. Now, what does it mean to be super strong? Well, I've got two amazing guests here who are super moms, but are super in their own area. So I'm going to introduce them right now. Next to me is the lovely Joyce Lee. Hello. All the way from Hong Kong, singer-songwriter. I've known Joyce for years. She happens to be visiting, and she's pregnant if you can't see, with number three. Yes, you can model everything. This way. Yay. And next to her is Richie. Richie Kelz is a really interesting woman. I've never met a fire woman before. Is that cool? Yeah, that's my first. Right? You're my first. Captain of the Honolulu Fire Department. Welcome, Richie. Thank you. And you have five kids. All right? Well, okay, clarify. Yeah, yours is a little bit interesting. I have three naturally born children and four step kids. Four? Oh, my God. So that's total? Seven. Seven. I can't add. It's unheard of. You be quiet. Right? That's what happens, though. You lose brain cells when you have too many kids, right? Is that normal? I think you forget things. Yeah. Yeah, I forget things. Yeah. You really have to write things down. Or is that an excuse, because you're pregnant right now? Well, of course I use that as an excuse. So no one will blame me. So, Richie, again, go a little bit backwards. Now, why do you have so many kids and how did you bring them up? Well, when my youngest at the time was like one years old, I met my husband and then, and I had a, how old was, my son was 14. And he had, my ex-husband now had four kids. So we raised them together. So I had, and then my daughter was born. So my oldest is 18 and my youngest is 16 now. So he was, no, no, my oldest is 34. My youngest is 16. So he was 18 when my youngest was born. And so, and then there were four kids in between. And they're, every two years. So how, Carissa was seven, was seven at the time. I forget what age. So basically they're all a young school age when I was helping raise them with my ex-husband. Did you have help? I mean, that's how his mother was helping. Yeah. And we also worked opposite shifts as a firefighter. We worked 24 hours. So your husband was a firefighter too? Yes. Yes. Wow. So he would work one shift. I would work another. And so we would, there would always be somebody home. And you were mentioning off air that you were actually pregnant twice when you're still a firefighter? Yes. Yes. How can you work as a firefighter when you're pregnant? Back in that time, I kind of didn't tell anybody until I was... Until you were bursting out of your suit? Yeah, almost. Yeah. I think, I think I told when I was five months, the first one, and then five months both times. Why? Is that because it's kind of like a man's job and you didn't want to get into... I just didn't want them to baby me. You know, how pregnant are you? Yeah, I'm about six months. Okay, see, and, but I'm tall, so I could kind of hide it. Right, right. And I just didn't say anything. Yeah, I don't know. People are probably going to say, oh, I should have said something, but no. At that time, I felt like I could do it. And I did. I was on fire. Was there a certain time that you had to stop? At six months, I decided to stop, only because when you fight fires, especially brush fires, you're breathing, smoke. Yeah. You think? Kind of a little dangerous. A little bit. Yeah, but I don't know. You know, at six months, you're strong still, right? I'm sure you're working out and swimming or whatever you do. Yeah, you're doing for exercise. Swim. That's the easiest one, like, you know, that part on the bottom. You know, Joyce being in Asia is actually a very different lifestyle and concept with concept of strength, right? Yeah. You want to talk a little bit about that? Well, in Asia, it's very different. Like, you know, I really look up to you. I mean, in Asia, especially in Hong Kong, if you're pregnant, then people are like, okay, don't move. Yeah, you're doing it. You know, don't walk and watch out. You know, everything's so careful, you know, and I'm like, come on, you know, it's like, it's not that bad. But, um, yeah, it's a different culture. But isn't it more of a modern culture for you not to be doing anything? I'm sure in the olden days women did stuff until they went into the bushes and popped it out. I don't know. It depends what kind of class you're in, I guess. You're either the person helping somebody who's flying down or that's true. That's true. Yeah. I think it's good to be strong and pregnant at the same time because you don't want to be, you know, so weak and you can't do things for yourself. Yeah. And strength, you can, you know, break it down to many different categories. So we're talking about the obvious, you know, physical strength that you need as a firefighter. What, you know, mental strength is something that they always say, I don't want to be too gender biased, but do you think women are stronger mentally than men? Let's just put it out there. You know it. You know it. See? Right? I think women are stronger. We live longer. Yeah. And I think because physically we have to have, we give birth to the children a lot of times, you know, if there aren't any husbands or men around, or they are making money, you've got to take care of them, right? Take care of your children, I'm saying. So you have to be strong to take care of your children and be pregnant at the same time. To give birth requires a lot of strength. Yeah. And multitasking. I think women are very, very strong at that. Yes. Yes. Men cannot do two things at the same time. That's a fact. But you know, going back to the firefighting, I mean it's really fascinating. Have you ever had to go and rescue some men who look stronger than you and they're like, what's this? You know, do they, do they approach you in a different way? For work-wise? No, I never, other than in training to rescue, you know, because we have intense training where we're rescuing each other just in case we have to do it for real. And I believe that men have different types of strength. They have more upper body strength. So we have to adjust on how we would work in that same environment. We use our legs more, I believe, you know, but no, I lost track of your question. That's okay. No, but it is, you know, you think about physical strength and, you know, in the Army with the new regulations saying it's all equal and women can go out to the front line, is it, do you think that's something that makes sense because of this whole gender equality, you know, thing going on? But are we in fact, like you said, we're built differently. And in fact, you know, there are some differences that should be respected in whichever field you work in. I mean, Joyce, you're in singing, but maybe that doesn't really affect you so much. But there are different strengths, right? There are, but I think in every situation you need a well-rounded team where there's the strength in the brains and the mechanical brain. And there's all these different aspects within the team to help take care of the situation, whether it's to rescue somebody or to fight a fire, to mitigate an emergency. I mean, I'm sure it's the same thing with, you know, singing and band and stuff. We all have our different parts of the team. Yeah, definitely. Like when we work on our projects, our music projects, it's like, okay, we're the creative team. And then we have to have someone with the finance and the marketing. And so we have to work together to, you know, to make it work the whole project. Right. Do you think in Asia, the concept of strength is different? So a woman really may not necessarily use her physical strength because that's just not something that, you know... So you find someone who's physically strong, right? Having said that, recently there's been a female police officer. I think she used to be a singer or something. I don't know if you saw in the news. So that was like big news. It's like, whoa, she's a policeman. You know, it's like, it's still so gender-different. It is. It is. I don't know. I think back in the day, it was all about finances and stuff, and women stayed at home more, right? And now it's like women really need to bring home money. So we have to choose a job that might, you know, you want to make equal money also. So men's jobs tend to pay you a little more. Do you think you have to choose between staying at home or having a career? Can you have both, you know, that stupid ultimate woman's question? Can you have it all? I think so, but I think as women we want to raise our own kids too. We want to be their influence in those formative years. So we sacrifice possibly the, maybe a decade of our life, depending on how old our kids are, to be there for them during the younger times and just to prepare them, you know, for adulthood. Joyce, you're pretty good at juggling your career and your kids, right? Yeah. Well, because of my job, it's more flexible. Like as a, you know, firefighter, I'm sure you have times you have to be at work, right? And so for my work, it's, I mean, it could be very demanding if you're promoting an album, right? Then you have to be doing makeup and hair, preparing for interviews and music videos. And it takes a lot of time. So you have to really delegate the time really well. This time is for family. And then you have to probably cancel some things that you can't do. That's going to ask. Have either of you, I'm sure you've had times when you had to sacrifice for your career, you know, at the price of neglecting your kids or doing something really bad or forgetting something. Yeah. Well, for me, I've been lucky because I did my career when I was younger and I got married later in my life. So I kind of like did like what I needed to do for my career. And then now I can just concentrate on my family. So I didn't plan it that way. But you would suggest that to like, you know, women out there to get things out before you have kids? Yeah, I like, you know, doing your career at the beginning when you have boys and I had kids because you started my first was at 21. So I was right in the middle of college. I actually brought him to classes with me. Oh, cool. And how did that affect your studies? You're like breastfeeding while you're like listening to the teacher? Almost, almost. I remember one class with my one of my girlfriends, she was outside holding my son who was just, I don't know, less than a month and I was taking an exam. I could hear him crying. But, you know, you know, you just do that. And I remember just buying him like a donut and milk and saying, can you sit there quietly while I'm going in the class and my teacher's back and then this is in the 80s. The teachers I had were flexible and allowed me to do that. But my promise was, okay, after school, we go to the beach, you know, because college is only a few hours, right? But it didn't stop you from continuing your education. No, yeah. Right? That's pretty impressive. It is. It's hard. That's multitasking, you know. Right. Most people choose one or the other. So what about the inner strength? How do you develop inner strength? I mean, how do you both think that you got to where you are today? It's not, I mean, physical training, you can, you can paddle, you can work out, you can do whatever, but the inner strength, where does it come from? I think you really have to believe in yourself that you can do it. Right? Like, it's like, oh, I can't do this. I can't, you have to believe. Confidence. Confidence. Right. I think it's, sometimes, I learned this in high school was, I felt like I was really shy and what I did was I pretended I wasn't. And so what you do is you pretend you're stronger and then you become stronger. You know, it's part of just believing in yourself, but just, if you don't really believe it, you just do it and then eventually you become exactly. Is there a point where it's over strong and it's, it's intimidates like potential dates? Yeah. Even as a famous person, people like, oh, I don't know if I can date her. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think so. I'm single, so maybe, but what? No, I think, I think, I think, and I don't know if it's my personality because I've done my career for so long and that I become what people think is a stronger person. But for me, I think if I try not to tell someone what I do for a living until they get to know me. That's, does it seem very like intimidating your job? Yeah, I'm sure. Don't, don't you, wouldn't you rather have somebody like, like you for you before you tell them that you're, you know, a singer and an accomplished singer. It's the same thing as any job, I think. If you're a little more accomplished, you want them to know you first. But that, you brought up an interesting point. You know, strong women, there is a part, the sensitivity where you don't want it to be the main thing on the table. We're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we'll continue talking about the concept of strength in a woman and where does it come from? We'll be back. For a very healthy summer, watch Viva Hawaii. We are here live on Mondays at 3pm and we bring guests like our best health coach Elena Maganto. Eat well and follow her tips. Viva la comida saludable. Aloha. We invite you to join us on our Keys to Success show, which is live on the Think Tech live streaming network series weekly on Thursdays at 11am. My name is Danilia D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm now the half of the duo, John Newman. Our goal for Keys to Success is to provide a platform for professional and personal development tools and profound insights on how to achieve success in life, career and or business. We have incredible guests from all walks of life, including politicians, successful business owners, leaders, entrepreneurs and authors. As this is a live show, there are live mess ups as well, which are fun to watch. Aloha and we'll see you on Thursday. All right, we're back on clock talk. I'm Crystal talking to Joyce Lee and Richie Keltz on the concept of strength. These two humble women, I mean, it's pathetic. I'm trying to get them to like show us how amazing they are. And they're like, oh no, I don't want to talk about this. Don't tell them I'm captain. You know, I'm just a singer. These guys are like, you know, top of their game. So again, is that something Hawaiian or Asian that, you know, you bring down, you're more humble about your accomplishments or you're saying before the break that you don't want to mislead people too. And you don't want people to judge you just because of your career. They want to see you as a person. Yeah, I go ahead. Well, yeah, definitely as a singer, you know, people would see me, okay, I'm always on TV. And then in the press and then men would be afraid, you know, I don't want to be taking pictures with you. I don't want people to see me or whatever. Or they'll be like, oh, you know, she might make a lot of money, you know, or I don't make enough money. I can't buy her nice stuff or whatever. So yeah, it does affect like, if you're trying to find a boyfriend or a husband, that it'll affect it, you know, how they see you. So you think you've lost some potential dates because of who you are? Yeah, but actually, I think it's a good thing, though, because we talk about how you met your husband. Yeah. My husband was actually an audience watching me sing at my concert. And I give him a lot of credit because he wasn't afraid to get to know me. And but he waited like two years, he never got a chance to meet me until two years later. And when he did see me, you know, he just walked up to me and said, hi, you know, I really like your music and you know, I'd like to buy your CD and all that. And I'm like, huh, just one of those guys, you know, record store. But he kept on pursuing me. And I thought that was, he was strong. He wasn't afraid to approach me. So I thought he asked for like singing lessons. Yeah. And then I was teaching singing. That's a good way. Yeah, it's teaching singing. It worked, I'm sure. And then I was like, okay, so I taught him like a month of singing. But after each lesson, it was about 730. And then he'd be like, oh, it's time for dinner, would you have dinner with me? Okay, why not? And so we got to know each other. And then, yeah, we started dating. That's a good way. Well, let's talk about the concept of the voice because voice, I mean, Joyce, you have a singing voice, you have a beautiful voice, I don't know if you want to belt something out. But you know, the concept of having an inner voice, like Asian women tend to not voice their opinions, maybe it's cultural, maybe it's personality. But how do you think, you know, a strong woman uses that voice? Because there's an abuse of it too. I think in American culture, there's an over loud voice. If you know what I'm saying, what do you guys think about that? I tend to not have that over loud voice until I feel almost at my breaking point. So I don't know, you know, I just let things happen. And then if I get really mad, then I use my loud voice. They're like, oh, no, I shouldn't have dated the farm. Well, I think it's personality, or I might have just learned that from, you know, my parents. Have you ever hit anyone? That's really a stupid question. No, I think I punched my brother once, when he was like, he was like doing that too much. You know, when you, I don't know, I punched my brother once, but no, I'm not a, oh, I hit someone once. Oh, now it comes out. Yeah, when they threw a cigarette at me, but I'm not a, no, that's like twice. I'm 56. So I think I'm allowed to hit twice. See, don't mess with this woman. Have you ever hit someone before? Other than a... Really? You said you were bullied in school in a funny way. I was, like, because I grew up in Canada, in Toronto, in the suburbs. Right. And so there was a very, there was only maybe two Asian people in my school. And so, yeah, I would be bullied and, but I was a really fast runner. So they would run after me and say, I'm going to beat you up, you know. And, you know, I wasn't strong enough to beat them up. So, but I just ran. So you found the strength in whatever you did well. Yeah. Do you think your parents, your mothers, affected who you are today? Yeah, I think so, definitely. Yeah, I think so. Sometimes you, you emulate their strengths and you might not do something that you didn't like. Yeah, yeah. You adjust it. Yes, definitely. It affects me. Or conversely, how do you educate your children to see strength in a woman? You have three boys. You have how many boys and girls? I have three boys and four girls. Right. Yeah. So I think it's, you always lead by example. I think if they see that if you want to do something and you pursue what you want to do, you pursue your goal and they see that as a strength and then, then they realize that they have nothing stopping their potential. Definitely, like, exactly what you do, like how you respect other men or women and, and they will see and they'll learn. Yeah, yeah. In fact, I think, Richie, you, one of your daughters is in the Air Force, right? Yes, she was in the Air Force and then she got out. Right. So now she's in the Air National Guard. But she, I believe she might have done a complete eight years and possibly up to four deployments and to the Middle East. Yeah. Yeah. But she worked security forces. Right. See, like, yeah, that's another amazing thing. That is really strong. Yeah. Yeah. She was affected by you also. Yeah, for sure. Right? Yeah, I think so. I think her, her, her high school years when she got into trouble a few times and I think she realized that, that she could go the other direction. Yeah. Yeah. So if you guys had something to say to younger women out there or men who, who have, have, you know, female partners as they do, you know, what is the way to develop that strength, that inner and outer strength? I think, well, not to be afraid to be wrong, to do wrong things. Sometimes it's, you go through, you know, something, a mistake or whatever and then you learn it and you become stronger. Right. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Do you have an example? Like what's the worst thing you've done? Oh, you can't tell. That's the worst thing. No. I mean, like through, when I grew up, you know, I, I was really taking good care of by my mother. I was a really sheltered child. Oh, okay. So. And so I was just kind of didn't have my own thinking or whatever. So I, at a certain age, I was like, okay, I'm, I have to get out of that mode and just like meet people or do things that could be wrong, but not wrong, but like, um, just risky. Yeah. And then, um, and then learn from it and then you become stronger. So be a risk taker. Yeah. That's a good one, risk taker. I grew up where my sister was six years younger than me and I remember, um, basically taking care of her with not as much adult supervision as I should have had. My dad was in the army, so he was busy. Oh, okay. You know, whatever, you know, deployments or whatever they did back in those days. And I just remember supervising my sister at a young age. So I, I think I got a lot of strength from being responsible younger. So I tend to raise my kids to be responsible also because when, because then they own their own actions. If they're not responsible and then you own their, their mistakes, then they're not really learning. Yeah, exactly. But you need to make your mistakes, right? You don't have to make the, you know, better, the more mistakes you make, you, you remember those. If you don't make mistakes, you kind of forget the route. You can remember more with your mistakes. Yeah. But what about culturally differences? Do you think that that's something that we need to take in consideration of how a woman does grow up? Like, oh, I'm in an environment where women aren't encouraged to speak out in public. So I should stay passive. Do we fight against those boundaries or do we respect what we grew up with our religions, our families? And then even if you don't agree with it, you know, just going forward, how, how do we approach like the whole concept of finding your own voice and strength? I think that if you, if you have too much of a voice, people don't listen, especially to women. But I think nowadays it might be men too, like our politicians right now. If you're too strong of a woman, then they, they call you bad names. Right, right, right. Big B word. So you have to, I think you have to be able to balance it, but it depends on who's, who's watching and who's judging on how assertive they are. They believe you are. Do you find that? I think so. You have to be flexible to see exactly who your audience is and to be assertive at times and then pull back at times. Right. Yeah. It's a big balancing act. It's a, it's a little, a game. So if you were a guy, would you date yourself? Or, or what, what type of woman would you be attracted to? Maybe put it that way. I think you, if I was a guy, that's really tough because, because as a female, I think we choose different types of, and for me to, I don't know. I don't, I, it's just, that would, that's a odd question. I'm just saying to put yourself in somebody's shoes to look back at yourself. Or, okay, make it simple. Okay, go ahead. I think, I think men nowadays actually kind of like a little bit more of an independent woman because then they don't have to be at the weak woman's beck and call all the time because they take, they take care of their own things. Like, I don't know. You know, when you make that phone call, I have a flat tire or whatever. If you take care of your flat tire, your man doesn't have to go do it, but then they like to do it also. So you have to call them enough, but not be too needy. I don't know. I don't know. My female friends who are a little more needy, I think they end up having more male relationships. Men like to be the caretakers too. It's like that, you know, I've been seeing the trailer in the consolidated theater where there's this older couple who've been working and have you seen it? That's a cute, that's a cute, yeah. And the last thing is the guy says, I wear the pants in a family, but the last comment is the wife saying, I tell him which pants to wear. So it's really interesting where, you know, the power plays. Yeah, yeah. And it's quite sweet. Yeah, well, go ahead. Oh, no, I was just saying, my husband actually purposely, he liked me because I was independent, my own. I can make my own money and I can take care of myself. And so he liked that actually. So yeah, it depends on what type of men. Yeah. And then you will attract that type of men, you know. But you do want to be, you know, self-sufficient risk takers. And what else do we say? You know, what are the strong characters that we want to take away with us today? What are some elements that we should, you know, tell the younger kids nowadays what to kind of look for? I think we should allow everyone to be themselves. And if they, if their strengths are to be strong and go-getters, that's good. And if their, if their strengths are to be more nurturing, let them. Because we still need everybody like that to balance our world. Exactly. I think totally. Yeah. Because everyone has different, yeah, strengths and weaknesses. And with people like you guys, I mean, there's always bigger things ahead, right? I mean, you're, you know, I can't, you're paddling when I talked to you last time. So you're like constantly on the go pushing yourselves further and further, which is amazing. Joyce, I believe you're setting up for a concert next year in Hawaii, right? Yeah, we're like trying to bring in together, like organizers and venues. And it'll be really exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a canto pop. Yeah. Yeah. That thing's in English and Chinese. Yeah. It's pretty nice to bring in the Chinese community or even, you know, other cultures of people to come. Yeah. Well, good luck with that. And I hope people can look out for Joyce's concert and Richie, good luck with the rest of your career and your family and everything else that comes with you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for you and I hope you guys enjoyed this and I will talk to you again next Tuesday. Be strong.