- Dan, how did you overcome
not having a father figure?
- When I was living in Hong Kong,
I actually didn't see my father that much
when I was growing up.
I remember back then,
it's me, my mom, my grandmom, my dad,
we were living in a small condo.
In Hong Kong, every condo is pretty small.
So it's probably 700 square feet or so.
Because my father was in the international trade business,
so he was traveling all the time.
So I would see him maybe, maybe, once a month,
or sometimes when I do see him,
I would be already sleeping
and he would be coming home quite late,
and by the time I got up, he's already gone.
So I don't see him that much.
And I remember, because we were living
at quite a high up floor there in Hong Kong,
I would wait for him in the balcony.
You can see through the balcony.
And my father would park in the parking lot,
and I would see his car,
and I would yell, "Hey dad!"
and then he would look up and he would wave,
and he would come home,
I would wait for him with a pair of slippers.
And so, I don't see him that much,
and I think, partially, later on
when I got into my teenage years,
I became quite rebellious.
The minute I didn't do so well in school,
I kind of lost a sense of why I wanted to do it,
as a young guy, right?
And then, when we immigrated to Canada,
and later on when my mom and dad got divorced,
so I had a lot of resentment towards my dad.
So, I was here and he was in Hong Kong,
just my mom and I, we were here,
and my mom was just raising me, right?
Not easy to be a single mom.
And shortly after that, my dad went bankrupt.
And when my dad went bankrupt,
he couldn't support us financially any more.
So there was even more resentment towards my dad.
And I had to learn to be self-reliant.
Now why am I sharing all this with you?
Because growing up, I didn't see myself
having a strong father figure,
because I actually didn't have a lot of time with my dad.
And looking back,
I wish I had more time with him,
would have spent more time together before he passed away.
But would I be where I am today
if I actually had a strong father figure?
I actually don't think so.
Because it's exactly because I didn't have
a strong father figure,
and I had to learn to grow up and mature
and turn myself into someone that is self-reliant,
that I could take care of my family,
it forced me to mature, right?
It forced me to grow up.
And it's not easy.
And a lot of people, maybe you're watching this,
comment below if you actually, growing up,
you didn't have a strong father figure, growing up.
It's very very common nowadays,
simply because of how high the divorce rate is, right,
in the world.
And so, I remember, when I was in here,
and one night, I was flipping through the cable TV,
this person came on the screen.
It was the movie, "Return of the Dragon" by Bruce Lee.
Now if you've ever watched "Return of the Dragon,"
or "Way of the Dragon,"
it's a story about Bruce Lee went to Rome,
and he couldn't speak a word of English,
and basically kicked everybody's ass,
and became kind of like a hero.
And that immediately resonated with me,
and afterwards, I quickly became a huge huge,
and still today, a huge Bruce Lee fan.
And in some way, Bruce Lee kind of became
that person that I look up to,
like a virtual father figure on screen.
And I looked up to him,
I got into martial art, I learned and I trained.
And later on, I found my first mentor, Alan,
and he became kind of my father figure.
And then my second mentor, Dan Pena,
also became my father figure.
So without a strong father figure-
A father figure, I don't believe,
is someone that you always have to spend
a lot of time with.
It would be nice.
But it's really someone that you look up to.
They have the qualities,
they have the traits that you want to learn from,
that you want to model.
And you learn from those people.
And being successful is very lonely, anyway.
I mean, you need to learn to be alone without being lonely.
Don't use that as an excuse of,
why you cannot do something,
why you can't succeed,
why you cannot accomplish your goals,
when you don't have that father figure.
But I think use that as your motivation.
Learn to be independent.
Learn to be self-reliant.
And use that,
as fuel.
A lot of people say that,
you got to be at the right place at the right time
to be successful, and there's some truth to that.
But I believe that it's much more so
that you have to be the right person.
That means you have to be the right person
with the right qualities,
the right preparation,
so you could take advantage of some of these opportunities.
So don't use that as an excuse.
Use that as a motivation.
You don't need a father figure to succeed.
There are so many people that you could learn from,
that you admire, that you respect,
that you could do that.
Does that make sense?