Film Courage: How many day jobs have you had in your life?
Khoa Le, Entrepreneur and Filmmaker: I’ve had three at the same time. I've had maybe
six day jobs so far, three at the same time and then one after another hours retail,
data entry, computer, a technician and a beer runner, security guard small person
non-profit raising money in and then and then worked most of my life my nine to five job at
Ernst & Young (EY) at that time as a computer fixer, I fixed computers and move that way up into
engineering network engineering analysis and then went into communications and branded marketing
and while running my side hustle what's wrong with having a high paying secure job what's wrong
what's wrong would be that you don't get to put all the time into the things that you want to do
right like I want to be a full-time filmmaker but I got my business to run or you have to or you
have your nine to five job that to make ends meet is that something wrong or is that just real life
I don't know I struggle with that question sometimes because I think that ideally you want to
do what you love to do but you still got to take out the trash right and the trash might be the job
right and but however the reason why you get to do what you love to do is because of the job
and so you can't trash on the job because you get to do that so it's kind of like
is that privileged is that like being spoiled like in in the so in the Buddhist world
it's not it's not about it's you don't you don't you you live to eat I mean you you you
eat to live not the other way around you don't live to eat so you survive it's about survival
and for us my survival is about for me what I feel like I why I'm here why I'm given a lot of gifts
in life is to really help people and be impactful and otherwise I don't understand why why I have
these certain capabilities that is very difficult for people to have and so for me I think it's
I think it's given to me to the obvious thing is to help people
do you notice that when you were a kid that you had these unique I did I knew what I wanted to
do when I was like 12 years old and I went in this place of how do I find how do I build value
where do I go to build value so I started doing with piano being good at the piano okay I'm sure
if I was good at something like that something's going to happen all right okay let me be good in
sports like community and stuff if I was good in that maybe something's going to happen
and then as I would get older I was like I was always looking for the thing that was going to be
impactful and I was always I just stuck to music I don't know why I start to create it forms formats
and yeah I was never confused of what I what in life what I wanted to do I just knew that I wanted
to do something that was impactful and it was in the creative format so you were 12 you were living
in New Jersey and you knew there was a different life for you and 100 I'm like I me being Asian
my parents were Asian family and so we are about trying to please our parents that's our culture
and I went into what I wanted to apply for college I went to Rutgers University I only applied to one
college most people applied multiple colleges in case they'll go in I just had this hunch that look
I'm going to get into Rutgers and then I'm going to I'm going to do I'm going to do my music major
and then I'm going to get a computer job during my music major because because I
just felt like you didn't need to have a me if like a computer degree to get a computer job
so you again strategy you you knew that you saw the big picture okay saw the big picture
so I just wanted to know that I just knew that if I needed to get a degree that at least during
that time that a degree was valued right but they didn't care what kind of degree you got
they just want to know that you got through four years of college or five years of college
and then when you take on the job the specialty you're going to learn the specialty at the job
so that's what I did so I finished in music it was easy for me and got
a computer job at an accounting firm and it kind of worked out it was like it was just
that thing it was weird this is Windows operating system we're working on okay
yeah yeah Windows 95 or so yeah okay and so you could do all that and then is there are there
patterns to Computer Engineering and working with computers that are similar to music or no
no I wouldn't say there's any familiar I think it was just to me it was just a job it was a job that
I knew I could do well because I was just kind of wired for that for the computer stuff and
then I knew that I was I wanted to do the music for the impact stuff right I knew that I wasn't
going to work my way up the latter like going to the music industry and that was just it was just
different way of thinking about it I was and kind of very similar to what I think about in
films too I was like I'm not going to I didn't go to film school and I will do my my feature films
and when did you leave your day job when were you basically your own boss in 2013 um
I had so I saw the situation is this I in 2009 I had pivoted into the film industry did three
short films in a single year I did photography did everything that was about film stuff the
requirement for films I had the prereqs of talking to artists already which is like
my actors like to be able to communicate to I knew I had the skill sets for that
and then what I did is I went into the wedding industry because I saw an opportunity to have
a lucrative business where I don't have to work in it and so I went and built that business and
in 2013 we went from doing like from 12 weddings to 80 weddings in a single year where to a point
where I didn't have to be on the job anymore so when I did that when I knew that I could make
money without having to work my nine-to-five job then somehow somehow the film the film project set
what came to my just kind of jumped in my lap the Walt Before Mickey [movie] positioning positioning
positioning when you quit your day job did you leave room to come back and how did you quit
okay I'm going to probably sell EY on this one Erickson y’all going to sell them on this they
are all for about people wanting to build a better career for themselves that's why their slogan is
about building a better working world and they lived to that so they knew I've always had my
side hustle my side businesses they always asked me about it how is your business doing why I'm
working for them and so I had an office job and as long I did the dead job of being fair to them
they were going to respect me for that but when it came to the point where I couldn't
do the job anymore because I was getting so busy with my side business I said look it's not fair
to you guys you guys been fair to me I need to quit they said well you can't quit I just
gave you this high level position I was like I was an engineer webcaster for them at the time
so what we're going to do is we're going to just give you a contract
so you guys so then we'll pay you but you could do your own thing full-time but when
we need you you're there for us okay good deal no problem and that's that's how that happened
I would say yeah I mean some people call it luck and but I call it positioning
I was like I positioned myself in the place where I was very invaluable to them
is being is like this is like this for for the filmmakers they need to understand how to build
value the directors of diamond dozen cinema times diamond doesn't the positions are diamond doesn't
how do you build how do you be in a position that where they cannot say no to you
but do you think everybody has that in them you can lead a horse to water you can't make a drink
so you can you can provide people instructions but not everybody wants to do that yeah but you
you have it in you I think everyone has it in them I just think that they might not be
honest with themselves what I'm saying like do you like I look I went I became the iron I became an
adjunct professor for another university and I taught like 60 different students
and I would say 99 of them went to film school but they had an idea wanting to be a filmmaker but
they don't want to be a filmmaker what I'm saying it's not like they they got a camera but they're
not making a film trying to make a film every weekend they're now working hard enough to win
what I'm saying if I come from the background where the only reason why I ca I was able to have
these opportunities is because I work my tail off for it 18-20 hour days I go to work from nine to
five nine to six eat to eat for 30 minutes we're from seven to four or five o'clock in the morning
do it seven days a week my vacations were three weeks of vacation were going to work my business
I would never take a day or I don't travel, I don't go to clubs, I don't party, I don't
do any of that, it was just it was a straight whatever I was focused on I would just do it
and it might not be directly to films but it was leading to films it was all about
positioning and getting yourself in the place that I thought was well something
might work or might not work but the fact that I was working to my towards my career for that
I don't see people doing that if you really I look at if you really really really want it
you do everything you can to you can do everything you can to win if you're not you don't really
want it I mean I don't know how else to explain that to people like oh can you work 18 hour days
do you want enough to work 18 hours can you do it without sleep can you
do when you just have to just knock on the floor and sleep on the floor
is that what you're willing to do right why is life better when you're the boss
I am a control freak life is better because you get to shape your future the way you see fit
I'm a Steve Jobs fan because he thinks like that too he says when you start
seeing that you can start poking to the world and start shaping it the way you want to shape
it that that you realize that humans are the one that created the rules you're a human too that
you can create your own rules then you can create the rules that will shaped to something that you
want to see then you have to be the boss to do that being the boss allows you to have that type
of control and and boss doesn't mean that you're bossing people boss means control for yourself.