Helene Kwong: Renaissance Woman

I came up with this item for my “30 Things to Do Before 30” list because I had been acquainted with Connie Hozvicka’s Dirty Footprints Studio and her Total Alignment Art Retreat back in 2011. When I saw how much fun the first annual Total Alignment Art Retreat was, I was determined to get myself to the retreat in 2012.

Luckily for me, my friend Chanita was also interested in going to that retreat, so we both put down our money at the beginning of 2012 to go to Sedona, Arizona in October that year. It was a bit surreal up until we arrived in town.

There were thirteen of us ladies there, including Connie. I was nervous at first since I didn’t know anyone! There were a few people who had returned for their second year, so it already felt like we were going to clique us. That wasn’t the case, though, thankfully: we soon bonded as we whipped out our paintbrushes and just painted our feelings out.

The retreat last for 3-4 days: the majority of our days were spent painting, but we also went on a couple meditative hikes. Because Chanita and I were trying to save money, we made sure we had packed enough extra food to last us through the long weekend, since the retreat only provided several meals in the cost. I remember I was eating a lot of beef jerky, instant oatmeal, and fruit during the retreat, but thankfully I didn’t feel too hungry!

By the end of the retreat, we were friends with everyone and all of us had produced at least three paintings each. Connie made the retreat feel so inclusive and fun with her instruction; I left Sedona feeling more at peace and fearless with my painting skills.

That was also my first time in Sedona, and it’s true what people say about the place: it is indeed magical. I hope one day I will be able to go back and visit Sedona again.

Since my initial weight loss in 2006, I have tried many different diets and meal plans to either lose more weight or maintain my weight. I have even tried Weight Watchers three times: once in high school haphazardly, once during my final semester in college, and the last time was in early 2012. Doing Weight Watchers was a great experience to help me with portion control, but it didn’t help me with getting enough nutrients from the foods I ate.

What I have discovered from all the diets and meal plans I’ve tried is that a healthy, balanced diet is the key to successfully losing weight and keeping it off. It is the simplest advice that most doctors have recommended for many years, but no! We are always looking for a quick fix or depriving ourselves of essential nutrients because some magazine has told us to do so.

I have done the vegetable soup diet, and even though I enjoyed the soup, it began to feel limiting after several days. I have eliminated carbohydrates from my diet before, and even though I saw some weight loss, I realized it was not sustainable. I have done a 3-day juice fast and even though I also saw some weight loss there, I know I cannot just have juice as my meals.

Nowadays, I make sure my meals are balanced with enough fiber, carbs, good fats, and nutrients. I practice portion control and I limit my intake of added sugars and processed foods. Sure, the weight loss may be slower than when I tried the other diets before, but I know that this is what my body needs to lose weight healthfully (and keep it off). And yes, I still have that slice of cake from time to time and enjoy every bite of it.

Ah, the proliferation of online learning for relatively low costs compared to taking classes in-person: technology has come a long way and I am thankful to live in this day and age. One thing I had noticed over the years though: with the availability of online courses, I was signing up for a lot of them (a lot of them free, some of them not but I could ‘keep the materials forever’) and not completing any of them. So I committed to my “30 Things to Do Before 30” list that I would finish an online course.

I had several platforms to choose from to finish a course: after all, I am registered at Udemy, Coursera, Skillshare, Craftsy, EdX, and probably a few other places. I decided I would go ahead and finish a class on Udemy though: I had paid for a social media class and thought that the class would help me with my career a bit.

Sadly, the class was pretty basic and did not teach me much. The videos had typos in its slides and the quizzes were way too easy; anybody could pass the quizzes, really. However, I slogged along with the class last year: it took me several months to complete the course since I could not stay focused on the videos for too long (the presenter was rather dry with his teaching).

In late November/early December of last year though, I finally completed the course. At the end, I received two certificates of completion: one from Udemy and one from the organization that provided the course through Udemy. Even though I didn’t learn as much as I had wanted to in the class, I was relieved that I at least finished the course.

I have several more classes in my queue that I can dive into next on my learning platforms, so I hope to complete some more classes this year.

I’ve started running again and am currently training for next month’s Fight For Air Climb in Denver at the Republic Plaza (psst, click the link to donate to my team! /plug) and also a 5K over Memorial Day weekend (which race is yet to be determined). While running with Ryan today, I got to thinking about the setbacks that have occurred in my life in the past decade, such as my incredible weight loss from 2007-2010 and then gaining that weight back in the past few years; what especially stood out as a major setback though was my whole experience with TAOpivot, my first company.

Right now, I am in the midst of working on the launch of my third company, a social media marketing business; you may have seen the name floating around a bit on Twitter. I was thinking about how, with this being my third overall business and my second business with a big online presence, I want to do things differently and better.

With TAOpivot, I was passionate about my mission in helping foreign nationals get internships and jobs in the U.S. However, the way I ran the business could have been much better: for once, I could have been a true bootstrapper and really squeezed my pennies at the start. However, at that point I also believed in investments and threw my money at things I thought I absolutely HAD to have: for example, office space. I didn’t need the office space at all, yet I still put money into it thinking that having the separate space from my apartment would help me work more efficiently. I also thought that having the space would allow for me to look more professional when it came time to meet with prospective clients.

Looking back now, I see how I could have been better with my investments and would have been good to forego the office space in lieu of just renting meeting rooms at coworking spaces. Would have been much more affordable!

Another setback I learned from TAOpivot was my pricing structure, which ultimately killed the business: I first priced my services at a premium because I felt that it was indeed a unique business that deserved the high price tag for the value I was providing. However, since I was also asking for the foreign nationals to pay TAOpivot (instead of U.S. employers), I was working with prospects who were not very willing to part with large sums of money for a relatively unknown American company. This discouraged me, so then I set my prices rock-bottom.

The change in my pricing got me many more clients, but they were the kind who wanted to milk every ounce of their money out of me: I even had one client who sent me 40+ job postings and demanded that I write cover letters for ALL of those postings! This burnt me out in the end since I was working way too much for too little money.

With each of these setbacks, I may have been discouraged at the time being, but now looking back, I see that I have learned from those experiences. That’s why I believe that any setbacks in life, whether in career, relationships, etc., are there for us to learn from. It’s only considered failure if you never learn from those setbacks.

I like to daydream a lot; sometimes the daydreams get a little too pie-in-the-sky! But over the years, I have learned that dreams can come true, that anything is possible. Just have a bit of faith!

In 2002, I became immersed in the land of Japanese pop and rock through one of my best friends, Bradley: I had met him at Japanese Language Academy(JLA) and he introduced me to all sorts of Japanese artists. So when I got back to my hometown after JLA, I proceeded to research and buy music from various artists.

I immediately became a huge fan of a J-rock band called Dir en grey: I remember thinking to myself, “Gee, it would be great if they actually toured in the U.S.” But back then, I didn’t think it was possible: I mean, how would they cross over to popularity in the U.S. anyhow?

Then one day, it did happen: they were to be a part of a big rock tour in 2006, and it just so happened that one of my good friends at that point was also into Dir en grey, so we went to the DC-area stop of the tour. Granted, at that point we were pretty far back from the stage and a mosh pit started up behind us; I was unnerved by the mosh pit so we didn’t get to enjoy the live performance as much as we could have.

But then, the following year Dir en grey had their own tour and we got to go to the Baltimore concert together. That summer, Dir en grey was an opening act on another band’s tour, so I was able to see them again in San Francisco and even got to actually meet my favorite guitarist, Die, and get his autograph! I was lucky then, because all the concertgoers hadn’t really known who Dir en grey were, so I was one of several fans for the band that was actually there.

And it doesn’t stop there: over the years, I have seen Dir en grey a total of seven times, even getting to meet the whole band in person back in 2011! Also, I am indebted to Dir en grey in a weird way because they were the reason I decided to spontaneously visit Denver in late 2008 so I could see the band again on their last tour stop that year. If it hadn’t been for Dir en grey, I probably wouldn’t have ever considered visiting Denver!

In general though, it is true: anything is possible. This story is just one example of that.