them behind the scenes. Visionaries and leaders, their visions are usually in the future.
They're things that are intangible and not quite built. They're moving towards, and they may have
built a solid base, but what it does, it just gives people the chance to belong to the entire
experience. So Michael, you come highly recommended, which is a really great sign,
because you come highly recommended by your own son, Jeff Sera, who has just been an amazing,
amazing friend, advocate, ambassador for our brand. He sent us probably more than 20 referrals at this
point. And the fact that he went to the OG, he got you, and he was like, Jackson, you got to meet my
father, Michael. That just says so much about the legacy of your family. So thank you, man, for
joining us. We will end the talk on leadership. Jackson, thank you for the opportunity. And yeah,
yeah. As a parent, you know too, right? That when it goes first circle like this, it's just, yeah,
there's nothing more rewarding. So thank you. And if my kids have this experience in Vegas,
they'll be like, I did something right. Jackson, when your kid buys you, when they treat you to a
meal, that's the first like, oh my God. And when they make you kind of tear up because they've done
something that you're really proud of, that's also awesome. So those are experiences that we as parents
get to experience. So I'm sure you will also have that same opportunity. So cool. Vision pros,
leaders out there. If you have children, this is the episode that should be like our ultimate dream
and bucket list of, man, I hope my child recommends me someday like Jeff did for Michael. So this is
great. Thanks for entertaining it. So we're going to be talking today about how we can bridge cultural
gaps in this divided world. This applies to every vision that's out there. That's one of which we're
trying to serve others. We all come from different walks of life. We now have access to cultures
worldwide. You can literally live in America, but spend your entire time studying a culture
in Cambodia and have more relationship with those people than you do with your own neighborhood.
And it creates new opportunities and new challenges. And so we're going to be talking about what that
looks like in developing communities, of course, too. We're also of course going to dive in first
and talk about leadership resources. So Michael, what are three resources that you recommend for
other visionaries and leaders out there? At my age, you think that you can't learn anything else,
but I would disagree. And so I actually went back to school. And Stanford here locally has a great
one-year program, and it's called LEAD. It's literally L-E-A-D. And if anybody is interested
in just kind of getting a refresh, just to keep, I guess, current, it's a great program. And from
that, I've met some awesome folks because the network is huge and also some great professors.
And if I had to recommend a couple of great books that I always like to refer to, one is from
Professor Jeffreys. He's got a book called Power and why some people have it and others don't.
And he simplifies it by three things, building your own brand, getting out of your own way,
and asking for what you want. And so those are three principles that I always share with
young people as well as students when I give a presentation. And so if you have a chance,
that's a great book. Wow. So I've got to pick a third because these are amazing. So one,
you're going back to school already after all the knowledge you've attained. You're like,
man, I'm proud of this. You never stop learning. One of my favorite quotes, it's anonymous,
is the more you learn, the more you can learn. And it's, yes, it's a gift that keeps on giving.
And then you've got this book called Power. Do you have a third resource you want to recommend?
Well, so there's another book and I think this is also relevant as we get older and that's
The Hundred Year Life. This is by Linda Grayton and Andrew Scott. And what they talk about is,
in the past, we all thought, okay, 65, we're done, we're retiring. But now if you think about
living to 100 with all the modern medicines and technologies, people are going to have to think
about, okay, what do I need to do to sustain myself to 100? So no longer it's three phases of life
where you get educated, you go to work, and then you retire. Now you get educated, you work part
one, and then you work part two, maybe even go back to school like I did, and then think about
retiring. But if you don't have that extra runway, you're going to run out of finances.
And there's really three things that you have to make sure you have, right? And that's your mind,
of course, your health, your physical health, and the finances. So if you follow along with this
book, they talk about having four phases of life and making sure you have enough runway
so that you can enjoy that extra time that you're going to have.
I love that. And huge, so 100 year life and a huge shout out as well to Jeanette Anderson,
a maturepreneur, who's working to bridge the same gap because she's seen, you know, she's
approached that age where she sees, oh my goodness, like life is not what it used to be. There's a
whole nother 30, 40 years to maximize. And in the worst case scenario, figure out how to survive.
Yes, exactly.
The landscape has changed completely. Thank you for those. Those are fantastic for all age groups.
We should all be looking at how do we, we all have the opportunity to look at how do we maximize our
own life while helping others maximize theirs. I think the latter is part of the secret to
happiness of the first. So we will see you guys on the other side. We're going to take a quick break.
We'll come back in. We'll talk about Michael's vision, and then we'll take some time to talk
about bridging cultural gaps and developing community. All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros
Live with Jackson Calame. I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
Hey, what's up everybody. Welcome into another episode of Vision Pros Live. I'm your show host,
Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of First Class Business. This is a feel good episode today. I'm
super excited. If you're a feel good person, you're going to love it. If you love to learn about
knowledge, you'll learn about leadership, culture, how to bring people together. I mean, this is the
episode to be on. We've got Michael, Sera in the house today, recommended by his own son, Jeff,
Sera, who also came on the show. Make sure to follow up and check in on Jeff's episode as well.
I'm super excited to have the OG in the house today. I get to pick his brain. How the heck did
he create such an amazing son? So we'll be talking about that. But before we do, of course, I want
to give some resources as well. These resources are super valuable. I'd skip them if they weren't.
This is not paid sponsorships. These are people that I really, really care about who I know are
up to amazing things. The first is Melissa Gray with The Lost Spot, who has become a client and
a strategic partner of ours. And we're looking at taking things to even the next level. Why?
Because I went through a $20,000 lawsuit for my own brand name when I was at Restaurant Connect.
And that was a lot of money to lose as a startup. We could have avoided that had we had proper legal
counsel in place. My hope is that you will begin to interview the people that might be your legal
counsel and include Melissa Gray on that lineup, because she's got that nurturing capacity to
listen and understand what you're going through with also having the access to the information
that you need to know about your business. And I think that's a lot of money to do with
also having the accolades of a fantastic attorney who can help you with your business protection
and expanding your network. She is a blessing to all those that she meets. So I highly recommend
giving her a shot, seeing what she's got going on. Why her blueprint? To make sure that you got the
spot on business blueprint, you got the spot on legal audit as well. She's very resourceful and
interviewing athletes about what is their vision once they hang up the jersey and move forward
their lives too. So a lot of fun, a lot of great opportunities there. Then there's Pramilia Parham
with the Healing Institute. Now, Pramilia has been around the block for several decades, and that's
a huge advantage to those of us who are, you know, following in her footsteps. I've got,
she's probably got at least 20 years on me. And I say that with full reverence. She's building an
international wellness community of the people that she's connected with to help you and I
figure out, you know, if we, if we have certain emotional things to heal from, who do we go to?
What about energy healing, integrated healing therapies and coaches as well? As a single father
of four, I know how important it is to get external advice for what do I do in my circumstance? How do
I show up for my kids the best that I can? How do I make sure that I'm running my business the right
way? She's pulling together all of these international community experts. And the cool thing is you can
register as a practitioner. You can also register as a potential client. And the whole point is to
create filters for yourself to know what might you need and be able to get help from this resource of
resources to make sure that you're getting the best help possible. Curating the types of individuals,
the types of leaders that you're, you're able to follow is super important in a world where we're
able to connect with billions of people simultaneously. And it's like, man, how do I, how do I build a
network around myself of people who are really going to help me become my best self? I think
that's what it's all about, at least for me. Then there's the water project. The water project is one
of those causes in the world that when I caught my attention, I couldn't really relate to. And I forced
myself to say, you know what, I need to be able to relate to this. There are millions of people
who do not have access to clean drinking water. I've never had that problem in my life. And so as I
learned about this and saw what the water project was doing, I saw that you get to pick the community
that you're actually giving to you, get to see what they're actually going to build.
And the water project does a social media tracking of that project coming to fruition. You actually
get to see what you contribute to become a live well of water for the individuals who need it.
These are kids that have to leave school to get water, to walk three to five miles just to find it.
Imagine your kids had to leave the neighborhood and walk three to five miles just to find a source
of water for you. Imagine you as a parent have to leave work in order to go find water so that your
kids and yourself can survive. We don't have to go through this, but this is something that millions
do have to go through. My hope is that if you're in a financial position to help, you can certainly
contribute. My other hope is if you're not, if somebody came to your mind that might fall in
love with that project and might be willing to, then please share the message with others so that
we can get this out there to more people. And hopefully we can bridge that gap for those who
are less fortunate than we are. There's also 8 billion people in this world to help. So if you
know of another cause that you'd rather see us talk about, it's not a competition. Don't hesitate
to drop that in the comments. Allow us to see it. Maybe we will contribute to it directly. Maybe
we'll put it here live on the show, but you never know the ripple effect of doing good. And we have
so many opportunities to do good in this world, but I hope you join me in that. Now, without
further ado, Michael Cera, welcome to Vision Pros Live. Thanks for joining us today. Jackson,
thank you very much. Absolutely. So Michael, you've got your consulting firm. You're also helping out
with a museum. And then of course your dad, your student at Stanford now. This is fun. You've got
a whole list of things. Let's try to cover the spectrum a little bit. What's your vision for
the people that you serve? You know, it's to be respectful and to let them know that you hear them.
And the other thing that I always try to make sure that people have is, you know, clear purpose.
And one of the things that I always believe in is that you have to lead by example. So
if I'm not willing to do it, then I can't expect someone else to do it.
Yeah, very good. And so let's dive in. I want to dive into the museum first. Actually,
I'm going to pull that up on my screen. I'm going to pull up the page about the board. So
the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, right? You're involved in this museum. It says officers
and board of directors on here. You're one of the board of directors. What's the museum all about?
What do you do and why is this relevant and important? Why should kids care about the past,
you know, when they live in the present? Let's talk about all the walks that we can.
Yeah. So the purpose of the museum and real simply the mission is CPS, and that's to collect,
preserve and share what happened to the Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II.
And so the whole purpose behind this is that a lot of people don't know what actually happened
here in the U.S. to a group of people because they looked just like the folks that we were at war with.
Even though they were born here in the U.S., even though they were U.S. citizens,
because they look like the enemy, they treated them differently. And so the reason why this is
important is because we're always having some kind of conflict or we can have somebody terrorize
our country. And then we make the immediate assumption that anybody that looks like that
person is bad. And that's wrong. And history has repeated itself, unfortunately. And so this story
needs to get told and understood so that people have more respect for others.
Yeah, I agree. I was watching a movie. I wish I remembered the movie. We talked about this last
time we caught up about it. But in the movie, the soldier was dating a Japanese American and her and
her parents were taken into, I guess, a camp, you could say. I don't know the proper term for it,
but they were basically imprisoned just for, like you said, being of Japanese descent, even though
she was American. That's right. And then we're dealing with it today. We're dealing with racism.
We're dealing with prejudice. We're dealing with fear of the unknown at a very large spectrum,
being introduced to so many different realities out there. It can be hard to process,
but if we just justify it, if we just leave it at that, if we don't do something to help people
understand how to process that and how to work together, then it's to our own demise. We don't
have the ability to overcome it. But I think it's just a lack of understanding and communication
with that group of people. Because the more we understand, then we realize that they're just like
us. Yeah, exactly. That's a huge aspect of it. So learning to understand includes learning,
oftentimes what I call superpowers in terms of listening skills. Everybody listens. Everybody
knows how to hear, but it's a very different reality to... I was probably 30 to 32 when it
dawned on me that I unlocked a new level of listening that I was like, changed my life.
And I was like, what the heck, man? It took me 32 years to find this. And now I'm a little bit more
like, oh my gosh, I got to keep listening. How do I find out how to get even more beyond the notion
that we kind of have it all and know it all? So let's talk about your vision. What's your vision
for yourself, Michael? For me as well, right, is to have a clear purpose and have no regrets in life.
What's that look like? Wow. So I'm not one to just kind of
dittle dally around. And so I always have to have something going on. And so that is part of my
purpose, but then also not to miss out on opportunities. And something that happened to me,
and this is partially actually quite a bit of Jeffrey who I attribute this to, is that I had
this subconscious barrier that I didn't know I had growing up. And it was because I was afraid to
insult or make my mom feel bad. And so she had inadvertently put me on a pedestal to the point
where I could not do anything wrong to affect her. And so what that did was it prevented me from
doing things that I would have done if I didn't have that subconscious barrier. But I didn't
realize I had this because it was just buried in deep. But Jeffrey introduced me to a self-development
course. And so I went through this process and I uncovered this. And it was just shocking to myself.
And what you don't know is that at a very young age, I was a very young person. And I was
a young age, my parents divorced. And so my natural dad, I didn't know for many, many years. And
this was about when I was five years old. But my mom would always ask me, have you seen your natural
dad? And so that question obviously just subconsciously kept this barrier up. And so I would always
answer, of course not, I haven't, just to appease her. But 50 years later, I go through this
transformation course and I realized that, wow, I do need to see him. And so very quickly I had an
opportunity to go out and meet him for the first time. And just to sit down and chat with him and
to learn about his family's history was just amazing for me. And yeah, it was just one of
these things that I was very fortunate because the timing was such that I was able to get in there,
talk to him, and again, shared a lot about his life and his experiences. And one of the things
he asked me was, how's your mom doing? And it's been more than 50 years since they've talked.
And he asked me, could you bring her here? And I was like, oh my God, there's no way. But
just so I have my mom was staying with me. And so she asked the same question again,
right? Have you seen your dad? And I thought, okay, here's an opportunity. And I was a little
bit hesitant because I wasn't sure how she was going to react. But I told her that I actually
had seen her and I was waiting for her to hit me, but she didn't. And instead, she asked me,
how's he doing? What's he doing? Where is he? And so I went through the whole
process with her and I explained to her what was going on. But then I also told her that, hey,
he wants to see you. And she immediately says, no. And I'm like, mom, mom, I'm not here. It's been
50 plus years, right? I mean, let's let all that old stuff, you got to move forward.
And so I talked to her some more and we were finishing up dinner and she went back to her
room and I see her going through the closet and I'm thinking to myself, what's she doing?
And then she asks me for lipstick. And of course, I don't have any, but I said,
I said, my wife probably has some, so I think I can probably muster up some lipstick. And then
she asked me for an appointment at this hair salon. And so I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh.
And sure enough, that weekend, we went to go see her, see my natural dad after 50 plus years. And
it was the greatest thing, right? Because one, I never thought I would have that opportunity to go
see him, learn about his background, but then to put the two of them together, I just never,
never imagined. And so, yeah, that for me was, yeah. So again, having no regrets. And unfortunately,
six months later, he passed. And so the timing of that was such that if I had stalled, if I waited
any longer, I would have missed that opportunity and I would have regretted it forever. So again,
I'm blessed because Jeffrey got me to do it. Jeffrey got me to do it. So that's why I love him
to death because he made that possible for me. Bridging generational gaps at the biggest levels.
To me, that reminds me of that saying that has all the feels, right? Literally all the feels.
Like there's happiness and sadness. There's the potential for regret and the overcoming of it.
And there's so much risk involved too in those circumstances that you have.
Oh my God. Yeah. But I just said, you know what? I had to do it. And so again, I'm so forever
grateful for that opportunity. Because in addition to that, my oldest brother who is based in Tokyo
was out here visiting. And I asked him the same thing. I said, hey, I connected with our dad and
he hadn't seen him for years. And of course, he went through a lot of hardship as well.
And so he was very much against going to see him. But long story short, we did go see him.
And to this day, I see my brother often because I'm traveling to Japan and we talk about it.
And he's also very grateful for that opportunity because now he has no regrets.
Man, sometimes the best visions are ones that are more inward, right? And more within the family
unit itself. And I shouldn't say sometimes, it's probably a majority, but you don't have the stats
on it. So we'll leave that where it's at. But it is challenging for those of you who
have been put on a pedestal in life, the ability to overcome that. It can be a challenge. And it's
like a first world problem in essence too. I mean, my mom, I'm the youngest of six from our
household. And so one of my older sisters, one day I was in my early, I think it was my tweens.
And she said, Jackson, your mom's last hope, keep doing things the right way.
And you don't really realize how great you are. No, doomsday, I have to be the perfect child.
Exactly. That was my life.
The pressure. Yeah. It's subconscious, but it's huge.
It's huge. So I eventually learned to fight back on that and say, no,
forget this. I'm going to be a normal human being too. I'm glad I did because, oh my gosh,
I didn't last under that pressure for very long. But we go through things like that and we choose
how we're going to come out of it. Sometimes we have a choice and there's an opportunity to
overcome. Sometimes it sticks with us for 50 years. Sometimes it sticks with us for five years,
five months, five days, five minutes. But the goal of this show is to help people realize that you
have an opportunity here and now to start making adjustments, to start making moves, to move forward
with that. So let's talk about a dark subject here. Michael, what's the worst leadership
experience that you've ever had? So as a leader or as a follower of a leader?
My answer to that would be whichever story you feel is most impactful for the audience.
So I definitely, I mean, if I were to, and she is, if I were to call my mom a leader,
she was that person, right? And again, subconsciously, I don't think she meant to,
but she ingrained this subconscious barrier that I had created, right? Which was preventing me
from doing things that I would have not thought twice to do. But what things would you have done?
What things would you have done? Just a little? I definitely would probably connected with my
natural dad, right? And I would have had that opportunity to get to know him and to have spent
the time with him growing up where I didn't because I didn't want to offend her, right?
Because she is the person who made me who I am. And because of that, I have an enormous amount
of respect for her. And I didn't want to tarnish the relationship that we had because I'm very
close to my mom and she literally made me who I am. And out of that respect, I didn't want to
tarnish the relationship nor did I want to upset her. And so that to me was this subconscious
barrier that I had created. And for everybody that's listening is you're going to have these
subconscious barriers that are going to prevent you from doing something. But what I would do is
encourage you to break through and lean into it and just try to find a way to overcome them.
Because if you don't, you're going to have a regret later for not taking the risk and not taking the
chance. Because for me, because I did lean into it and I did take that chance, it turned out to be
a very positive experience versus everything that I thought would fall apart did not. And so take the
risk, take the risk, lean into it, do it. You bring up such a profound example and one that's
so close to the heart that I think a lot of people would avoid to feel, but they miss the power and
dynamic of the question I ask. I'm discovering this right now as I'm talking to you about. I'm like,
wait a second. This is so awesome because I didn't ask who the worst leader was that you've ever
had in your life. It wasn't about the person or labeling them. It was about the experience,
right? And so you bring up about experience there. And so many of us would react about like, oh,
he just called me the worst leader ever. No, he didn't. He's talking about an experience,
right? And if we really think through that too, usually your best and your worst experiences happen
with those you are closest to. That's the byproduct of building a deep relationship is you're going to
have good and bad happen because you're more often together and you've got opinions of different
natures coming together and there's passions involved. There's excitement that's involved.
Like this just, you just blew my mind with it because nobody's had the audacity to bring
somebody close to them up with this question out of over 200 interviews. And I'm like,
and this, my mom does not want me to do that to her. Like we've already had that conversation.
She's like, all right, mom, we'll see. But it doesn't dishonor it. To me, it honors and brings
out the reality that you've managed to find and appreciate and foster and cultivate the importance
of your relationship with her. Know that you're a hidden super established sinner and you recognize
that it hasn't all been perfect. Yeah. But again, I thank her every time because if it wasn't for her
raising me the way she raised me, I wouldn't be doing what I do today. That's correct. I
totally attribute it to her. I see the great love in that. So cool. All right, we're going to go to
the opposite end of that spectrum. What's the best leadership experience that you've ever had?
You know, I had a general manager at one of the companies I was at and he would always tell us
and encourage us to hedge our bets and always plan for success. So when we were putting project
schedules together, he said, plan for success. If you don't do that, you won't get there. And he was
absolutely right. And it served me extremely well throughout my career. And then of course, hedging
your bets so that if it does fail, you have a backup so that you're not caught with your pants
down. So that to me was probably the best guidance I could have ever gotten. And that was from a boss
that I had in early part of my career. I love that. I couldn't agree more. I usually call it
planning out the best case and the worst case scenarios. And a lot of people want to avoid
that worst case scenario, but it's that much more painful. It's that much more awful when you choose
not to look at it. But if you've already embraced the reality, like you're okay. You realize it's
really not that bad. Go, you got a thought on that?
Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. You definitely want to have a backup plan, right? So if plan A
doesn't work, you have plan B. And if you can plan C, because you're going to need to pull it out of
the hat and you want to be able to do that and or pivot, right? And also be aware of failure, but
don't view it as failure. View it as a learning experience, right? Because we're going to all
have those experiences. So you either win or learn, right? It's no longer win and lose. It's really
learned from those experiences.
Debbie knows wins and learns. I like that. I've heard that in a long time. That's awesome. All
right. So Michael, if this was the last chance that you had to talk about leadership and lessons
for visionaries, what powerful lesson can other visionaries learn from your experience?
Wow. The one thing that I think is precious to all of us is time. And so I would encourage
everybody to use your time wisely because the present is all you have. And so don't forget.
And so, you know, use your time wisely. That would be my suggestion to everybody and have a
purpose in life. What I see people doing when they retire is they're going to play golf.
And they're going to just hang out. But if they don't have a purpose, I see them degrade very
quickly. And so continue to have a purpose in life, no matter where you are in stage one, two,
three, or four, have a purpose. And again, use your time wisely.
Wow. That's awesome. Time, it's that invaluable asset that we don't get back. Right. It's the one
that, you know, we, you just don't get more of. You got to use it. And you have the opportunity to.
So that's well said. All right. Diving in to bridging cultural gaps in this divided world
and community development. Do you want to dive into community development first or do you want
to dive into bridging the cultural gaps? Either one. But so I guess the one thing
that, you know, we're all challenged, I think, in our committees is how do you
sustain a leadership environment? And so one of the things that, you know, I'm here in San Jose,
and we have a beautiful Japan town, and we're always struggling with how do we sustain this
and how do we bring in the younger generation so that they'll come in and be active and want to
be a part of this as well. And so luckily, we have three Japan towns in California. So San Francisco,
San Jose, and L.A. And there's a program called Nikkei Committee Interns. It's NCI for short.
And what we do is we bring in college students every summer and it's a eight week internship
program and they work with the different Japan town communities. And then we bring them all
together. So they're going to start this in a week and they're going to start off in L.A.'s Japan
town. They're going to have orientation. They'll get to know each other, get some pro tips from
folks that are working in industry and meet some of the alumni. And then they'll spend six weeks
working with a nonprofit within the different communities to learn leadership. And then we'll
close it out in San Jose and we'll share our community with them and then they'll go up to
San Francisco for the closing event. But this is a way for us to see the future. And our hope is,
through programs like this, we'll develop executive directors and we'll have a lot of
people develop executive directors, volunteers and potential board members for the future.
I love it. And you highlighted some really quick aspects. So if you're building a vision that
brings people together out there, you want that community to develop so that people can get along
and you want to bridge those cultural gaps. You know, Michael already talked about planning for
success, right? You've got to have that mapped out. I heard a lot of details in that plan very
quickly. One of them being there's an orientation involved in the process, right? There's a division
too, a divide of three different communities they are involved in and there's a collective bring back
together process as well. It's like, what did you see? What did you learn? What's going on? How do
we pull us together? There's like a constant process of positive motion that is articulated
very, very clearly. So let's dive even deeper into that. So that's, I think, necessary from a
standpoint of starting an organization that's going to be successful. How do you sustain that?
Yeah, it really requires, I mean, folks like yourself and the community to really want to
step up and support it. So, you know, what I always tell people is, and I think you mentioned this
too during the break, is, you know, if you have money, contribute to one of these nonprofit
organizations. If you have time, volunteer. And so, you know, just get involved because it's so
different when you're on the inside looking out versus from the outside looking in. And getting
involved is so rewarding. And so I, you know, I encourage everybody to spend some time in their
own community and get to know it from the inside out. Spend the time, spend a little bit of money.
And, you know, if you don't have time and you don't have money, you still have to eat. So go to one of
these communities and support the local businesses and dine and wine and dine at one of these
restaurants, right? And you'll have a great experience and the community will love you for it.
I love that. You started to bridge a gap that I'm also going to double down on bridging. And that's
if you don't have the money, right, and you don't have the time, then it's really important to
solve those two challenges for yourself, right? That's a really, really valuable aspect. And in a
world where most people are not, that's why they call it the 1%. Right? If you're not in that group,
then we've got a responsibility for those that we serve to find that resource, to bridge the gap on
our lack of resources. If you don't have time for your family, what are you going to do today to
make time to reevaluate? Well, what are my priorities in life? And how do I make the time
for these realities? What happens? If I give a dollar to Michael today, because that's all I have,
but I could spend that same 15 minutes or an hour learning how to make more money, but
tomorrow I could be giving $2 instead of $1 because I learned how to be resourceful,
then we got to be very, very aware of the opportunities to increase our abundance,
both in terms of finances and in terms of time. So that would be my challenge to you visionaries is
if the pressure is there because you don't have the time or money, then do something to remove
that pressure on yourself. Start working really hard on figuring that part out. All right. So
diving, we're diving even deeper. We got time. So I'm excited about that because we can dive in
even deeper on the sustaining aspect. So in terms of the museum, you've got a board. You got executive
leaders. What are some of the things that have helped y'all put the Japanese American Museum of
San Jose in a position to where you've sustained it? How long has it been open for?
Yeah, we are celebrating our 36th anniversary. So it's been a long time. But it's really the
original founding and primary storytellers that experienced this whole incarceration
event that were the folks that got it started. And then from there, leadership coming in and
leaving and coming in and leaving, but keeping that legacy going has been really possible because
of the community support. And that's one of the beautiful things about San Jose Japantown is that
the community support is really, really big. And whenever there's an event, everybody is all hands
in and it's just a wonderful, wonderful feeling. And so I'm lucky to be a small part of that
community and to support it in any way I can. You asked a question about how do you sustain it? And
I think it's really, you have to create value for the folks that are coming in and then also a need
or purpose, right? So if you're, again, purpose and vision driven, then it's going to work.
And one of the things that I realized is that the museum for me is a place where I can go
when I'm really down and out, because it's a place where I can go, everybody is very loving and
caring and they're there for one purpose. And that's really to serve the mission of the museum,
of collecting, preserving, and sharing this history, culture, and arts with everybody.
And so when you go into the space, it's just so comforting. And I forget about all the other
bad things that are happening. So it's a happy place for me to go. And yeah.
And so it's people that are doing these interviews. I'm getting excited about it.
I take it you're kind of capturing their visions or stories and allowing them to talk about. So
who are some of the people that we just saw on the screen?
So these are part of our legacy, right? I mean, there are folks that have done some incredible
things. And so as you were scrolling through some of the folks that actually have experienced
incarceration themselves, all the trials and tribulations that they went through,
some of the leaders that are part of the community. So Roy and PJ, Hidabayashi are
the founders of San Jose Taiko, which if you've not heard them before, you have to. It's
the traditional Taiko drumming that came from Japan mixed with the modern
and they put it together and they do such a masterful job. And they just celebrated their
40th anniversary as well. So it's again, just rich, rich in culture. Some of the other folks
that you probably scroll through was a couple of our founders, Jimmy Yamiichi, who is the founder,
one of the four founders of the Japanese American Museum. He was a carpenter. He lived through the
whole incarceration story and he was just a fabulous storyteller. And I learned so much from
him when he was still around and I would just go into sponge mode, but he was a carpenter. And so
he was also very skillful in the craft. And so on my free slots and free times, I would go in there
and try to help them with any of the construction work that they're doing as they were finishing
off the museum back 14 years ago. That's amazing. I love the
passion that's showcased on that high quality video production. I know that you guys put a lot
of heart and soul into showcasing their stories, making sure people understand their involvement,
their belonging to that community. These are all elements that I hope other visionaries and leaders
decide to model and say, you know what, if we want to build a community and one that's sustainable,
it really does. It ties back to honoring these stories, honoring what they're up to and
connecting them together. So this is one. Feel free to continue on insight. How did you guys get
started on the videos? Why? So it's just made possible by a grant and it's a collaboration
between San Jose State University and the museum. And so they pull together an incredible team
to actually record these videos and then post edit them and then lift them up on this page.
And so what you're seeing is a lot of the Asian American leaders that are actually currently in
key roles. And the importance of this is to really give the AAPI community a voice,
because a lot of times we weren't at the table. And so now through a lot of their ambitions and
leadership, we're getting a seat at the table. This is so well done. I absolutely love it. And
I'm super glad that we tapped into these resources today. So those of you listening in again,
your opportunity at hand is to see what can I do better to connect those involved in our vision?
How do we create a community around what it is that we're providing to the world? And of course,
bridging the cultural gaps comes in many forms itself. So one person could look at this, Michael,
and say, well, aren't you guys excluding everybody who's not Japanese in this process?
Aren't you guys creating the silo effect around this? And that's one perspective. I see much
broader one, but I'd love to hear from your mindset. What are you guys doing to
bridge cultural gaps in this process? Yeah. So as you were saying, Michael,
and Yingya, so as you were flipping through the videos, I don't know if you recognized,
but so Evan Lowe is not Japanese American. He's Chinese American. You also had a gal that was a
Filipino American. So they're part of our community as well, because you go back in time,
San Jose Japantown. The reason why San Jose Japantown is where it's at today is because
Chinatown was there first. And back in the early 1900s, it was hard for the Japanese just to plop
down anywhere in the community and rent or buy a house. But what they found was it was much easier
to coexist with other Asians. And at that time, it was the Chinese. And so Chinatown was here first,
and the Japanese came in and started to move in the areas around them for two reasons. One was
for housing, and second was for jobs. So the farmers that owned farmland would come into town,
pick up the Chinese, take them off to their farms. They'd work in on a state and they'd drop them off.
During the peak of the picking season, the Japanese would come into the same area
and jump on those same trucks. And so during the peak of the picking season, you'd have three to
4,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans coming in. And that is how Japantown grew from where it
started. Wow. That's awesome. And so how do you guys go about bridging other cultural gaps,
connecting Caucasians, African-American, Mexican, Latino, other cultural groups? Or
do you also even broaden beyond the scope of race altogether? What does that look like?
Yeah. So what we try to do is there's actually a piece of property that's on the land that we own.
We refer to it as the Kawakami House. And this is a home that was owned by the Kawakami family,
and they lived the Japanese American experience. And so we're going through this rehab right now,
and we're doing a capital campaign to raise the funds to actually do the rehab. But our plan is
to use that space for storytelling for the community at large. So not just Japanese American
stories, but everybody. Because what we want to do is we want a space for everybody to feel
comfortable to share their own stories. So here you have, again, Pinotown, right? The Filipino
Americans that came into Japantown during the war and continued to support the businesses while
everybody was incarcerated. But that's part of their story as well. And they're part of this
community. And so we have the prayer garden, which is an African American church within the
Japantown community. And so again, we have all these different ethnic groups that are part of
our community. And we try to make it as welcoming and as open as possible for everybody. So it's
not just one or the other. And so it's a space for people to share their own stories.
It is. And it takes collaboration. Yeah, absolutely. And Jackson, you know this better than anybody,
but we're all immigrants. It's just a matter of when we arrived. Unless you're Native American,
you immigrated from some other country. And so we all have our own experiences, our own stories.
And so what we want to be able to do is capture and share those with everybody so that they can
feel comfortable and just as welcoming. Yep, absolutely. It's not something that
one group can do without the other either. Both have to be willing to come together
to the table on these. And sometimes it takes one group doing more to inspire the group for that to
happen. And there's all sorts of movies people can watch on it. But also more importantly,
we can live it. We can practice this by coming together and seeing, well, what are our likes
and dislikes? The things that we find most common with each other. What, you know, food is a great
way to bond. You know, drink is a great way to bond. There's all sorts of opportunities there.
And what are the challenges that we face? And how do we help each other overcome those types of
challenges? So I love that you dedicate so much of your time and attention to making that happen.
It's such a noble cause. Those are the types of attraction sites and
opportunities that I think people like myself who travel, yes, Disneyland is fun. And at the same
time, and we love that. And at the same time, we're always looking for opportunities like this, too.
Or it's like, OK, how do we get our kids into environments where they can experience more out
of life, more than what our home is able to provide by itself? And if it wasn't for people
like you who are dedicating your time to museums like that and new cultural experiences, we
wouldn't have that. You know, so I appreciate you for putting yourself in a position in life
to where you can contribute to the degree with which you do. Those of you who are listening in,
we're going to add to the below this vision, action steps, action steps that you can take to
get involved, whether it's for now, it'll be in the San Jose community. We'll have those links.
But you can also use those opportunities to say, well, instead of complaining and say, well, wait,
I wish she had this in Florida, make it happen. Be the one. Just this one person. Yeah. Be the one
who starts it. You know, go to use it as inspiration to realize we need this where I'm at or find your
local chapter, so to speak, your local opportunity if you don't, if you're not in a position to lead
it. And then, of course, those of you who want to share your own visions on our show in the top
right corner, you'll see on the screen a button. This is be our guest, a public speaker. And
apply to be our guest. We'd love to have you on the show. If you're out there serving people,
connecting others, leading, you got a vision that's going to help the world, then join us in the show
and come and talk to us about it. So thank you so much, Michael, for joining us today. Thank you,
Jackson. Absolutely. And anybody who's got comments or questions, feel free to drop those below and
we will see you in the next episode. Take care, everybody. Thank you for being here today. I'm
really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as
these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more
and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for
giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a
Vision Pro user.