 Loretta Chen today, here on Think Tech, here on Community Matters, we have Loretta Chen and she is a crazy rich Asian, am I right? A crazy rich in spirit Asian, yes sir. Okay, because all the people in Singapore like that aren't they? Well, some richer in spirit than others, some richer in their pockets than others. I think we have like the largest number of millionaires per capita, I think. So I think you're onto something. She's from Singapore. We wouldn't know it necessarily. And now she's teaching at Leeward Community College in theatre and various other things and she's an author too and we're going to focus mostly today on her authoring. So you wrote a number of books Loretta about women, why? Yes, sir. I mean, first off, first off, I am woman, hear me raw, right? That's me. But I feel like there is no better way for me to put my stories out there if I don't speak from my own body, my own experience. And I think that that's always the best place to start from because I think I have greater depth of experience than say if I try to write about your life. So I think that was how I got started being, you know, having my stories to tell or people asking me to tell my story and that led to me being really curious about other people's stories. And the more I went down that rabbit hole, I think the books just grew and now we're on to our fourth book, inspiring women of Hawaii. Okay, well, let's talk about the first book. The first three real quick. Yes, sir. What do you got? And if we have, we'll look at some slides on this. Sure. Okay, what do we got? So the first book is called Woman on Top, haha, maybe that's for a late night show. Woman on Top, the art of smashing stereotypes and breaking all the rules. And basically, because I'm a media personality in Singapore and what I really wanted to do. What did you do to become a media personality in Singapore? Radio, television, what? No, that's, so a lot of it was radio, TV and the theater. The theater was where I really cut my teeth, told searing controversial stories that mainstream media in Singapore did not quite allow. So that was how I cut my teeth. And then I got recognized by brands that decided to ask me to helm their marketing campaigns because it's about connection. And this was way before social media. So I found out. You don't look that old. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I love it. Yeah. So this is way before social media. So I found a niche in being able to communicate messages to a live audience. So that was my medium. So to answer your question, yes, it was theater, radio, TV, but it was a theater that got my name out there. And then the marketing campaigns and then the radio shows and the TV appearances. Oh, wow. You were pretty active. Yeah. You're a PhD, what's the subject? In critical theory. Yeah. Critical theory. Does it philosophy or something? Yeah, it is. It is a PhD. That's right. It's a doctorate in philosophy. I always admire philosophy and PhDs. We just keep thinking about a whole lot of nothing. It's a thought process. It's discipline thought process. I mean, I laugh at myself, but it's a discipline process. Okay, so back to the first part. So back to the first part. Women on top. So I wrote that because I really wanted to use my platform to inspire young women. Because men, because I felt that speaking as an Asian woman, there was a lot of shame and people often felt embarrassed about owning up to their own issues or problems because I think in Asian culture, we all need to look like a crazy rich Asian. And so I felt like that's not right because I remember my niece coming home from school one day. She was asked to audition in a play and she turned on that role because she was afraid that she would fail. And I thought, well, that's not right. I mean, she's a pretty smart, talented girl and she has all this fear because there is this culture and climate where people just don't dare to talk about failure or loss. And it's a taboo. It's Singapore. We all need to look like we have these perfect social media lives. So I decided to use my platform to enable the discussion on the things that are taboo to Singaporeans, namely on failure, on not getting it always right. And so I used my platform to have those conversations. So that was how that started and that led to a tech talk, a tech talk called Power Failure, which became quite popular. Oh, tech talk? You gave a tech talk? Yeah. We always admire tech talk people. Thank you. I don't know about that. But the Power Failure. And so then I wrote my second book called Driven By Purpose, Destined for Change. And in it, I interviewed an entrepreneur because, again, I wanted to highlight or showcase or underscore the fact that we don't always get things right the first time. Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs because they take risks. And taking risks mean you fail and sometimes you get this. Is Singapore a place where people do take risks? They do take risks. They take calculated risk. And I think a lot of it of risks that people are comfortable talking about is financial, monetary risks. But the kind of risk that I also wanted to enable a conversation on is emotional risks, mental risks, taking risks on your beliefs, your social values. And ego dashed, whatnot. Right? And, I mean, get this, I mean, Singapore, we don't have freedom of speech is one of the things that we campaign and champion because we still don't have, there is a law called repeal, we're part of a team working on repeal 377A because homosexuality is still banned in Singapore. But it's not just homosexuality. I mean, it really is a subset of a bigger picture that not everyone is equal, right? So I think as artists, as educators, we're always trying to fight for those changes. So you know, America for me is a great place to be. I think it, I went out in UCLA, I think it was my formative years. So I decided to come back in 2015. But that was, that's my second book. Should I, is this where I talk about my third book now? Yeah. This is where you talk about the third book. So I love that we're just all over the place. And then we come back to the point. My third book is called Madonna's and Mavericks, Howard Women in Singapore. And I had the pleasure of interviewing 17 of the most illustrious women in Singapore, including our current president, she's the first Muslim female president, Halima Yako. And I realized that the readers were thrilled at reading the stories of these women because we asked them questions on their overcoming, their struggles. It's not just about celebrating our success. So look at me. I'm so rich and beautiful and gorgeous. But these were all the hurdles I had to cross to get to where I am today. And what I also asked of all the women was to contextualize for us the issues, the problems. And that was hugely empowering because it allowed for a dialogue and conversation about then and now and about the battles we have won and the battles we have to still fight. So these are, this is a model is, you have women who are successful. You want to find out how they got to be successful. That's right. And you want to find out what they had to overcome to be successful. That's right. And how we narrow down that list too. It's not your typical Forbes list of successful women about how much money they make, but in the spheres of influence, whether it's in education or the arts or in sport or in advocacy. So it's a whole range of women. And it's a formula that I repeated for our fourth book right here in Hawaii. You're a criticizer? Respectfully. I think to agree, to disagree, because even in my third book, what I did was I had a president and incumbent politician of the ruling party, and I also had the highest ranking member of the opposition party in the same book. Oh, no. And, you know, so you can read, obviously, the differences in opinion. And of course, we leave the audience to either readers to make up their point of view and for me as an author, as an educator, as an artist, I feel like my role is to really create, connect, communicate, and get their ideas and thoughts out as truthfully as I can. So what's your MO in terms of, hi, Ms. President, I'm Loretta, and I want to come over and spend the afternoon with you, and I'm going to bring a little tape recorder, I'm going to bring my Steno pad, and I'm going to take notes and here's some of the questions I'm going to ask you, and this is why I'm writing the book. Right, I'm kind of like how I accosted you too, right, Jay? You'll like that. I am that way. I mean, I'm just like, I mean, I told myself, I got a role of the punches and I better walk the talk, you know, if I, if I, if I'm trying to go out there and urge, you know, young men and women to take risks, I better walk the talk. I can't just like hide behind and I'll say, I do that. And that's pretty much what I did. Are you famous there? Yeah, pretty much in Singapore, I think. It's all those weird questions. I think someone else should answer it for me, but yeah. Okay, there's nobody else here. It's just you and me, Loretta. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so now you've written three books. Yes, sir. About women. Okay, and you're about to tell us about the fourth book, which is the one that's about to come out. Am I right? That's absolutely right. I'm talking about 21st. 21st. 21st. Yeah. Okay, that's very soon. Yeah, yeah. And that's also about women here in Hawaii, right? That's right. So why all these women, what about a man's book? Are we getting to that? Where is that in the, in the offing? We are getting to that. So I would come and accost you and say, Jay, would you allow me to come record you on my little iPhone? And you will say yes. So once I have you down, then the rest will fall in line. It would be very interesting. Okay, now let's do that. So on air. All right, okay, there we are. That's an engagement. All right, so let's talk about the fourth book. Yes, sir. And what is it, how is it different? I guess it's different because these are people in Hawaii. These are women in Hawaii. But the same model, you find the same model and say hi. And I'm coming over this afternoon. Come over to accost you and you don't even know me. I'm from Singapore, from the other island. Yes and no. I think, yes, the ammo is the same. No and that I'm writing from an outsider's perspective. I cannot posit to say that I'm a local girl. I'm writing because I have insider information and perspective the way you have. So I literally, let's take it back a notch. I mean, I came in 2015, didn't know anybody except for Shirley Daniel. She runs PAMI, the Pacific Asia Management Institute. And they did a show on Paul Zaccum, who was the coming down to Coast Guard last week in the Paul Chung Memorial Lecture at the Hawaii Prince. And we took that and we saw Loretta. Not the first time, but we did see Loretta there. Yes, exactly. And I accosted you too. You'll like that. I am that way. So anyhow, I moved here because I just had a calling like I had to be here. And it proved me right because two weeks later, I meet my now husband. And so Hawaii is now my home. So let's take that back a little bit. When I first came here, I had no idea what I was going to do. I just knew that I had a vision that my gifts were to create and that communicate. And so when I decided that Hawaii is going to be my home, I also decided that I had to go out there and get to know people. I mean, I could always be a stay home tourist and go Google about Jay or go Google about what's happening at Waikiki or go read up what's on. But I felt that the best way for me to be connected with the community was to go out there, talk to people. My gift was writing, talking, listening. So I thought I was going to propose a book. Given my past experience and some successes, I took it to mutual publishing. So I got an all credit ghost to them. Because here's this crazy girl, crazy rich and spirit Asian girl knocking at their door. And they're like, OK, we don't know why, but we just can't seem to say no to you. I think a lot of people feel that way on the road. So they say yes to me. And the next thing I knew, they helped me narrow down the list of women that we should interview. And again, I think that was probably the most challenging process because we wanted everybody. But my criteria was, I wanted them to be alive. Because I felt like we needed to. Alive is good. Yeah, I wanted to celebrate them when they were alive. I also wanted a range of ages because I felt that having started my career young. I mean, I knew that I was, I don't want to say victim, but I was challenged by ageism. Because people looked at me like, we can't take you seriously because you're only 16. But look at today, I mean, we have activists that are breaking down walls in high school and even younger. So that's what I told Mutual and the team that I wanted a range of ages. And I wanted them to be across a range of spheres of influence. So not just the Connie Laos, who is in the book. Not just Maisie Hirono, who is in the book. But I also wanted like Puan Nani Burgess, who is an advocate. I also wanted Raya Taya Helm, who is a native Hawaiian singer. And we also have Kim Coco Iwamoto, who is a transgender politician and advocate. So I wanted a whole range of women. A lot of them have been here. Oh, yeah, yeah. So I should interview you next time. But that was really the biggest challenge, narrowing down the scope of women. Yeah. So you showed me a list of some 20, or this has to be the most ambitious book you've undertaken. Yes, actually, when I did complete the manuscript, we had actually, I think, closer to 33 women. But publishers said it's going to be like this thick and no one. I mean, even if people wanted to read it, it's hard to lug this book around. And I mean, it won't make financial sense for them as well, because they were publishing it, not me. I'd be like, let's go publish it. So we had to, unfortunately, take out some stories. That was the hardest part. That was the next hardest part to communicate that to my interviewees as well. And we narrowed down to 24 of very diverse illustrious and strong, strong women. OK, Loretta Chen, when we get back from our break, we're going to start talking about some of them of interest. And I'll tell you why you remind me of Dave Heenan. Dave Heenan used to be the president of Theo H. Davies. He was the dean of the College of Business at UH Manoa. And most recently, he was a trustee of the Campbell estate. And he has written a lot of books. And when we come back, I'll tell you why you remind me of him. And it's not because he's a crazy rich Asian. We'll be right back with Loretta Chen. Aloha. I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough of Sister Power here at Think Tech of IE. And Sister Power is all about motivating, empowering, educating, and inspiring all people. And we have various subjects here. Sister Power is here at Think Tech every other Thursday at 4 PM. Again, my name is Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, host of Sister Power. We look forward to seeing you. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at sistersandpowerandkawaii at gmail.com. We look forward to chatting with you soon. Aloha. Aloha, y'all. My name is Mitch Ewan. I'm from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. And I'm the host of Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy. We're on every Wednesday at 4 o'clock. And we hope that we have interesting guests who talk to us about various energy things that are happening in Hawaii all the way from PV, to windmills, to hydrogen, most of my heart, electric buses, and electric vehicles. So please dial in every Wednesday at 4 o'clock on Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy. Aloha. OK, you did it again. You weren't around for the break. You didn't hear what Loretta was saying during the break. But it was very interesting. It was about her secret sauce and how she approaches people. You want to talk about that for a minute, Loretta? I think it's just going in there with a lot of guts and not being afraid that they slam the door in your face and not being afraid to take no for an answer. So if they say no, I'll say, oh, please, please don't say no. But if you say no, that's OK. I completely understand. I'm very respectful. But please don't say no. It's very important to be able to deal with rejection. Yeah, it is. It is. That's actually the secret sauce, being able to deal with rejection. So Dave Heenan, who was a great guy, has written a number of books about business leaders. And he finds a thread. They're both men and women, I might add. And he gives you a little bio sketch or a story that happened in the life of these individuals, many of whom are famous on a national level. And he calls them up on the phone. He goes, he flies to meet them. He interviews them no matter what. And he writes these great books. There's a number of them. We've talked to them about some of those books. Anyway, so let's talk about your new book. And first, I want to ask you to read something out of it so we can see about your prose. Woo! Wow, they're putting on the spot now. Wow. The title of the book? The title of the book is Inspiring Women of Hawaii by the Reddichon. OK, and it's going to be on sale in October? October 21st, Costco, Target, Amazon, Barnes and Noble. And everyone's invited to the launch party November 1st at the YWCA. That's only the beginning, too. That's only the beginning. Hope you're ready for a best seller. Oh, thank you. Yes, I hope so. And truly, I think all these women have buried their souls and shared their secret sauce. And some of them actually shared some very personal things that they have not shared ever before. Oh, I want that here. So let's talk about your prose. First of all, can you describe for me why your prose is different from all the other prose in the world? First of all, it's my version of the world. But I think what I did with this book, the slightly different two, is that all the women have such distinct voices. And if I had tried to encapsulate all their voices with my prose, because I have a very distinct voice from Singapore, and a completely different accent, I could talk like that as well, right? And throw them off completely. I decided to use their voices. So I turned the format into a question and answer format where you can hear my voice as the interviewer. And I tried as best to capture their prose. But of course, I had to edit, I had to listen very thoroughly and clean up all the pucas and make all the leads and put the reader in the room, right? But I felt like that was the best way to do them justice, because I didn't want the reader to hear my voice, because my authorial voice will come through in a very dominant personality too. I would never have guessed that. Right? I know. So that's already one difference. That you're actually hearing their voice, their ways of saying things. And the other thing that's different too is that, in the introduction that I'll read you a little bit from, I do state the fact that I am the outsider looking in. I am the outsider looking in with a clear lens, nonpartisan, and I can't posit to take any political side, even though I have my own preferences and my own beliefs. I can't posit to do that, because I cannot posit to be a Hawaiian. But don't feel bad about it, because if you're an outsider looking in, maybe you see things and the insider would not see. Totally. And that's exactly what I feel. And let's stretch that a little bit. I also think that that is why a lot of the women feel comfortable with me. I like to think so, because I state my ground that I'm not going to take sides. I am not, I don't know if your history, so this person or that person, so I'm going to just report the story most objectively based on all the facts and figures and data that I collect, and based on the things that you tell me. Robert Heinlein, a fair witness. That's what we want from you, a fair witness. So read your part of the introduction that you wrote. Okay, I would like to think that every part is worth reading, but since I only have 30 seconds. So while no two stories are light, what is common in all these diverse accounts is the overwhelming sense of overcoming. These women unabashedly share what they had to undergo to get to where they are today. The client can be arduous and unglamorous and not always natural, but what does make it beautiful is their unyielding passion, their strength and spirit and staunch belief that things will always get better. They have embraced challenges, pain, taking a step in the back, taking the face, a slam of the door, and they all somehow find the courage to say in their own way, okay, this is how the world rolls, this is how I will rock and roll. They have never allowed their circumstances to define them and instead saw it as a challenge to overcome. None of them used the victim card. Oh, boohoo, permy, it's my parents' fault. It's my ex-husband's. It's my soon-to-be-baby. It's my future lover's fault. None zilch nada. They instead all had a similar rallying cry whether I like it or not. This fault is in my court, so what can I do? So either consciously or unconsciously, these women have all marched to the beat of their own drums and in so doing crafted their own personal worldviews, distinct life philosophies, created their own style of authentic leadership, are true beacons of light, worthy of being exalted as inspiring women in their own right. Is it true that you were a shy and retiring child? Oh, yes, yes, you can call my mom and she will definitely back you up on that. I'm sure she'll let us know. My mommy just adored me and she said, go on and be the brightest, most biggest bundle of joy you can possibly be. And I'm everything. I am everything that I am today because of my parents. I mean, they love me so much, you know, and yeah. That's very nice, very nice. Family is so important. So let's talk about some of the people in your book. Yes, sir. Okay, let's talk about Connie Lau first. Because, you know, she's the CEO of H.E.I. and a tremendous influence in this community and in the business community too. So what did you capture from your discussion with her? What did you write about with regard to Connie Lau? I mean, first off, obviously I was humbled and honored that Connie Lau, who like pretty much, you know, is CEO of half of Hawaii, would agree to speak to this unknown girl. But what I really took away is her sense of humility and of the biggest lesson that I think she embodies and shares is the art of listening. She said that one of the biggest lessons that she learned when she was a fairly young leader during the Board of Trustees or the trust issue was about listening. That there were many parties who were very upset and very angry and she really learned that listening was the most important. And the other thing that she shares is the importance of service leadership. In fact, I asked her, I said, if you had to write a book, what do you think it would be about? And she said, I think it would be something about being a servant leader. Well, let's go to that for a minute because that's a thread, you know, at least in all of the interviews in this book and maybe in some of the others too. What is leadership in your perception of it? And what did you learn from Connie Lau and others about it in a community which we have a lot of people who are elevated to high places. We have a lot of people who occupy very special, important positions in the community, but it's not clear that we have a lot of leaders. Sometimes one is not the other. You could argue that Connie Lau is definitely a leader and as I said before the show, which you liked so much when I said this, is that women make very good leaders? Yeah, absolutely. I said that, I did say that. So the question is, what did you learn about leadership in your discussion with Connie Lau? I think in discussion with her and other women and just through experiencing life as well, that leadership is not a position. I think you very rightly said so. Is not a position. It is not being the boss. But a leader is able to, I think first and foremost, put themselves in the positions of other people, not just their staff and employees, but the community, to be able to see a diverse, distinct, sometimes even completely conflicting points of view. And a leader must be able to heal, must be able to see both sides and bring them both to the table. A leader must not be afraid to shy away from dissension or argument. It's not to say I shy away and I let's pass on the buck to someone else and get them to solve the problem for me, but to recognize that it is going to be messy, but the leader takes charge. And yet has the foresight to think further, has the hindsight to think about the context and where we have come from, but also have the depth of understanding of the situation or situations and circumstances, but also have peripheral vision to be able to see all points of view and bring them all together. I hope you're making notes about this, because it's very important. We need leaders in the community and every word is relevant here. Loretta is telling you some very valuable lessons. What about courage? What about boldness? You know, what about those traditionally masculine traits that people expect from leaders? Absolutely, and I mean first off, I mean just to speak as a woman, I mean over the weekend, my husband and I went to Strav to see our PCP and my husband freaked out and said, can you please have the PCP to not take the needle to me? I can't do blood. First off, women bear children. Again, I'm not being biological. You heard it here, you write that down too. I'm not being essentialist, but if there's any person living or otherwise that can take blood, it's women. We all come from a mother. I mean, we can say we came from a Petri dish or you know, we're out to feed the sheen. Seminate it, but for most of us, we all have a mother. How we choose to later on regard this woman that bears us, okay, for us it was a different thing, but all of us have a mother, which goes back to if there's any living person that can deal with blood and pain, and back then, no epidural, let's put it in context, it would be women, but that aside, I think just again, at risk of sounding essentialist and I most certainly don't wanna do that, I think because of the role that women play in society, we have to multitask, we have to be the disciplinary, we have to be the nurturer, and in modern day societies, we do have to go out and work and bring home the bacon as well, especially in Hawaii, I mean, you typically have two working parents. So all these roles require women to have a depth of vocabulary, to be able to handle all these different situations, whether at work, at play, at home, manage the husband and manage the child. Well, we need leadership, we need communities to come together, we need to be focused, and we need leaders that we can trust, and possibly we haven't spent enough time with women in that regard. So I think your book has a sort of larger significance, especially in these times when leadership is so important and so needed, not only here in Hawaii, but in the US mainland and in Europe and everywhere. So I really think you're onto something. So I'm sorry to say that we're out of time, but I think it's actually a good segue to say, if you wanna know more about women in this community, and there's so many more, I mean, just the ones that I was going to ask about, Maisie Hirono, Kathy Inouye, Raya Teahelma, who was here recently, Poonani Burgess, Maya Sartoro-Ing, who was the sister of Barack Obama, who was very well loved, yeah. All of these people important that we should know them and see them as leaders and find out how they think and how you think about them. So the point is in October 21st, highly hence, get on Amazon and take a look at the book because there are 24, I get that right? 24 women leaders in the book you can learn from. That's right. Thank you, Loretta. Thank you, sir, and during the break, you also did say we can do a musical on the women, so we're gonna get Jay to do that together with us. Okay, we're gonna make this book into a musical. She's got a theater experience, so we'll do that at Leewood, yeah. We'll all be down. Thank you, Loretta Chen. I appreciate it, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I love her.