- It is my absolute pleasure to introduce our last speaker.
She's a power house and a style star,
named one of Forbes Top 10 Fashion Influencers of 2017
and Eggie has grossed over one million dollars.
(audience cheering)
But she's a success story.
She's also an amazing person
and thank you so much for closing out our program.
Welcome Jenn to the stage.
(audience cheering)
- Damn. Okay, what an introduction.
Today my talk is about becoming a boss
and I feel like when you hear the word boss,
you got two reactions to it.
You've got, Ooh, I want to be the boss
and then you've got the other side who's like,
I don't want to be the boss.
That's way too much responsibility.
And, you know, for a long time I was on the other side.
I didn't think I could be a boss and, well, here I am today.
So I learned five pillars that I wanted to share with y'all.
First pillar is to self-reflect.
Before you get started, you have to really focus
and see what you're all about.
You gotta ask yourself some tough questions.
I guess they're basic.
You've got, What's your business?
What's it gonna look like in five years?
Why did you start this?
You should know all this
but, you know, for a long time, I didn't know.
(audience laughing)
I just thought it was something I could put off.
Those are tough.
It's honestly like, you know,
when you're filling out your Instagram bio,
you're like, How do I describe myself?
Hmm, emoji.
I started in 2010 and at the time,
my YouTube channel was something that sparked joy,
if you will.
Marie Kondo, yeah, I was in community college.
I got rejected from all my dream schools.
UC Berkley, this is my circumstance.
I was living in my parents' house.
I was working at a smoothie shop
and YouTube was the place where I could be myself.
I had a creative outlet and I had no idea
that it would be what it is today
and all I knew is that I wanted to continue it
and I wanted to be consistent.
So, things got pretty serious in 2013.
There I am at my first fashion week,
got Stephanie there.
You know, we're walking down.
But yeah, 2013 was pretty serious for me
because that was when I graduated college.
I had to think about where I was going
with my YouTube Channel.
My YouTube suddenly became my source of income
for like three years and I was like,
Okay, I'm gonna make this hobby into a livelihood.
I had a manager/attorney.
I had an agent and I had a bunch of people asking me like,
Where are you going with this?
What is your five-year plan?
And so I was like, Ugh, I should have done this before
but that's when I had to crack down
and I had to self-reflect and answer these tough questions
and now you know I know my channel mission.
It's to make people feel more connected.
It's to make people feel less alone when they're watching.
And as an Asian-American, I want you to see me as an example
that you can thrive in this industry as well.
And then when my clothing line came into the picture, Eggie,
I knew exactly what I wanted
because I had done the hard work.
I was like, Yep, Yep, Yep.
I want it to be a reflection of my personal style.
I want it to be for the consumer
that doesn't want to be labeled in one box.
And because I had reflected,
I had a real good foundation
of what I could build on top of it.
So self-reflect, first step.
Pilar number two: Manage your mind.
Your brain is the biggest asset you have
but it could also be your weakest link.
I feel like managing your mind
can determine your success as an entrepreneur
but it also determines every aspect of your life.
So you should probably figure that out, guys.
So, as a double Virgo, so I was born in September
so I'm a Virgo but my rising is also a Virgo
so it's a lot, guys.
So I just always have this deep urgency to plan ahead
and I feel like it's really helped me in my career
because I'm on top of it and I fear the unknown
and so I always plan ahead.
I want to make things easier for my future self.
I'm always looking out for my future self
because I'm just so concerned.
But the thing is like, you know, you look at my feed,
you look at my YouTube videos and you're like,
Wow, her life is so effortless.
It's so spontaneous.
No, I plan.
I plan a lot for it to look like that because everyday,
we're overwhelmed with so many decisions.
You know, when you wake up every morning,
you have this limited amount of brain juice, science,
and so, you know, you've got your basic decisions like,
What am I gonna wear today?
What am I gonna eat today?
Who am I gonna see today?
You know, those are like basic but they are draining
this, like, limited amount of brain juice you've got.
But then you got your professional decisions like,
How am I gonna respond to this email?
How do I see this difficult co-worker?
What am I gonna film today?
You know, like all these things,
those take up more brain power and the thing is, you know,
after a long day, when it gets to dinner time,
you're on Postmates and you're like,
I don't even know what I want to eat right now.
I'm just stressed.
This is called decision fatigue.
This is when you've made too many damn decisions in one day
and you're just tired and the only way
you can defeat that is planning ahead.
When there's too many options, you become crippled.
It's a paradox of choice.
You know, sometimes when I have a free day,
I look at it and I'm like,
Whoa, I can do anything.
So then I spend my entire day thinking
about what I want to do
and then I end up doing nothing.
So this is why you create rules and you stick to them.
I love this like, ooh, I love guidelines
because when I have guidelines,
I feel like it gives me the strength to be creative.
The first of every month, I sit down on my laptop
and I brainstorm all the videos I can do
and it feels uncomfortable but I still do it.
I don't have to, like, I'm not married
to these video ideas but I give myself some guidelines.
If you're the boss, it's your job
to create these assignments
and it's your job to assign these due dates.
I account for my professional time and my personal time.
If I didn't, I would get nothing done
and I want to live like a really full and rich life.
I am a firm believer of working hard and playing hard.
You guys deserve to do that too.
So once you do that, you need to build your willpower.
I mean, okay, we all have that flaky-ass friend, you know,
and you're like, Hey, let's do dinner
and they're like, Yeah, let's do dinner.
And you're like, How 'bout this day?
And they're like, Yeah, I'll be there
And you're like, No, bitch,
(audience laughs)
like, you're gonna freaking flake.
And the thing is the more times you flake,
the easier it is to flake.
Do not be that flaky-ass friend.
If you say you're gonna do something, freaking do it.
Just freaking do it.
(crowd cheers)
Because the excuse I hear it is just like,
Oh my gosh, I don't have time to do all these things.
I'm so busy.
No, you're doing it wrong.
You need to prioritize your time.
You need to be efficient with your time.
And I know now you're asking me,
How do I be efficient with my time?
I'm glad you asked.
(audience laughs)
Here is a fun activity: set a timer for 20 minutes.
I know this sounds neurotic but I swear to God,
it's helpful in many ways and let me list them.
So, first I set the timer on for 20 minutes
and then, no matter what, I have to focus
on the task at hand.
I'm not doing anything.
I've put my phone on mute.
I'm just focusing on what I said I was gonna focus on
and, you know, 50% of the time, I get that shit done.
20 minutes is a long time.
That's a TV show, guys.
This is a long time and you'll be so surprised
on what you can do in 20 minutes.
Number two, the reason why I like it is
because even if I don't finish it on time,
it like allows me to gauge how long it takes me
to do something and now I know a video treatment,
it takes me 45 minutes to do.
Because I time myself so now when you plan ahead,
you're not just estimating like,
Oh, I don't know how long it's gonna take.
You're gonna be like,
Yes, its gonna take 45 minutes to an hour
so that way you can plan ahead.
So now that you know what you're doing every single day,
you need to work on your will power
and the only way you're gonna do that
is by showing up for yourself every single day.
And your willpower is a muscle.
The more you work on it, the stronger it's gonna get.
It's like the gym.
You know, let's say you have 15 pound weights
and you're like, Oh my god, this is so hard, you know.
But, you know, you show up, you do those reps
and pretty soon, you're like, Oh my god, this is so easy.
I'm gonna go onto the 20 pound weights.
So that's why your willpower is a muscle.
Third pillar: Invest in yourself.
I'm not gonna lie.
I've had many meltdowns and breakdowns
and it took me a long time to realize
that I am my most valuable asset
and if I'm the most important person in my life,
I've got to take care of myself.
So I'm gonna talk about three things
that I will always invest in.
Number one: Therapy.
I think that my mission in life, that's kind of heavy,
but I would say one of my missions in life
is to normalize therapy.
It's not some taboo thing.
Everybody needs therapy.
Even my therapist has a therapist.
We can all use an avenue where we can express
this deep dark side of us and, you know, like stress.
Everyone feels stress and it's gonna manifest in some ways
and if you are not finding a productive and proactive way
to manage your stress,
it's gonna come out in weird ways, y'all.
It's gonna come out through your body.
It's gonna come out through health issues.
It's gonna come out on your friends and you don't want that.
And as someone who cares what,
as someone who really cares about the people in their lives,
I just hated dumping that onto people.
For a long time, Ben was my personal therapist,
not very healthy, you know.
And it can break down the strongest of people
and so that's why two years ago, I sought out help.
Number two: Exercise.
Okay, I'm gonna be real honest with y'all.
The reason I did exercise was
because I wanted to lose weight.
That's another talk but the only reason
why I stick with exercise is because it gives me endorphins.
It stabilizes my mood.
It allows me to center myself when I'm working.
And when I have a horrible day and everything went wrong,
in the back of my mind, if I went to Barry's Bootcamp,
I'm like, Well, at least I went to Barry's.
It makes me feel good.
So, no matter what,
find some sort of thing that you enjoy doing,
whether it's group classes, hiking, dancing, whatever.
Your future self will thank you.
You only have one freakin' body, guys,
and you need to exercise.
Being sedentary is not serving you in anyway.
If anything, just sitting in place, focusing on work
and not getting that energy out,
it's gonna cripple you.
Number three: Absorb soul-fulfilling material.
It's not the universe's job to hand you motivation everyday,
like, here, take it.
It's not.
Its your job to look for it.
So, one of my favorite things is to read.
I like to read.
I never enjoyed reading until I graduated
from school, funny enough.
But I would say that my boss bible
is Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
When I talk to people with that same boss energy,
they either have read it or they know
the seven habits already and I'm like, Okay, great.
So please write that down, very important.
If you don't like reading,
find a podcast that you can use for your life
and even committing to events like this, like, a rare day,
like this was an investment for yourself.
I think that even being in this big group of people
where we all have the same goals
and we're in the same energy,
it's like osmosis and you can feel inspired by this.
You know? Science.
(audience laughs)
And the thing is these three things,
you look at them and they are commitments.
They are financial commitments.
They're emotional commitments
but think of all the random stuff
that you spend your money on
that are temporary and superficial.
Why not spend it on your physical and mental health?
Pillar number four: Be uncomfortable.
I am very uncomfortable right now.
This is not exactly what I want to be doing
on a Saturday but here I am.
I used to be terrified of public speaking
and the only way I was able to get comfortable with it
is by confronting it.
And I'm glad that I pushed myself to do this
because if I had just been afraid all the time
then I wouldn't have been able to share this with y'all.
I also want to use another example.
So, my YouTube channel is very personal to me.
It's a visual diary of my life.
I am basically on a self-inflicted Truman Show.
I realized that with my job,
I felt very, very attached and possessive over my work.
and the only way I was able to grow my business
was by hiring new people.
And whenever I would talk to YouTubers
with larger channels than mine,
I wanted to know what their secret was.
And they all had editors, they were delegating.
I had to learn how to relinquish control
and that was so hard.
I hated the thought of having other people see my work.
It made me disgusted.
You know, when you feel like you're dancing
in front of the mirror and you're like, Hehe.
And you don't want anyone to see that raw footage.
You wanted to look at it first
and then you need to edit it yourself.
But I knew that I had to delegate
and I went through the whole process
of just hiring and conducting interviews.
It was a lot of hard work.
It felt very unnatural to me because, like, I'm me.
I don't know, I just felt like a fraud in some sense
but I knew that I had to find some help.
But I think the hardest part about delegating
was explaining exactly what I do, without doing it.
But now, I have found a team which I am so happy for.
I wouldn't have been able to grow
if I didn't stay comfortable.
So my last pillar is be empathetic and gentle with yourself.
I am really hard on myself and it sucks
because my whole job revolves around me.
(audience laughs)
And, like I said, it's a lot.
You'd think that it would be fun if its all about you
but you know when you just want to get away from yourself.
When your job and your livelihood is about yourself,
you've got to ask yourself some serious questions.
I have deep roots of self-loathing.
I think I almost got addicted to just beating myself up
and I'm not sure if it's
because of my Asian-American background
but nothing I did felt good enough.
And that's such a fricking curse
because anything good that happened to me,
I felt like I couldn't talk about it.
And the problem with being the boss sometimes
is that you have to be the person
that says, You're doing a good job.
You know, like, There's no one above you.
You're the fucking boss, you know?
You have to be like A-plus.
I wasn't doing that.
I was in a toxic relationship with myself.
Nothing I did was good enough.
I was just whipping myself, being like, Work harder.
What are you doing?
You're hanging out?
Shut up, you know how much stuff you need to get done.
And it made me sick because there were
so many great things happening in my life
but I wasn't able to enjoy them.
And then I saw this Red Table Talk episode
where Jada's brother came on and he said,
Treat yourself like someone you care about.
Because when my best friends come up to me,
anyone that I care about come up to me
and they say something great that's happened to them,
I'm like, Yes, I'm so happy for you.
That's fucking amazing.
Let's party, let's celebrate.
Let's lift you up.
I'm, like, the biggest cheerleader
'cause I'm so happy for them.
But the crazy thing is I wasn't doing that for myself.
And the thing is that was my own job
but I wasn't freaking doing it.
I felt like I was in this world
where I'd become my own Asian parent and it wasn't amazing.
(audience laughs)
This is something that I am actively still working on
but I see an effect on other people
because when you are gentle and empathetic with yourself,
it reflects on the people that are around you too
and I think that's a win-win situation, y'all.
You gotta look out for yourself
and when you're proud of yourself,
you're proud of other people too.
That's the difference.
I feel like I've always felt this, it's like semantics,
you got arrogant and the you got confident.
This is truly about being confident in yourself.
If that BDE, that boss diva energy,
once you feel it,
you don't need to prove to anyone what you've done.
It's just there and you're just like, I'm happy for you
'cause I already got the BDE.
(audience laughs)
So, this is my last slide
but if I can leave you guys with anything,
it's to be the boss of your own life.
You don't need a business.
You don't need to be an entrepreneur.
I just want you to be the boss of your own life.
You are the CEO.
You're the CMO.
You are the CFO of your own life.
Who the hell is gonna make
all these executive decisions for you?
It's your freaking job and I know, like, being the boss
can be terrifying but it's something
that you just have to grow into.
It's something that you are still becoming into.
And the thing is, with me, I am still learning
and I'm still growing.
I don't want you to think of me as like,
Oh, well, Jenn can do it because she's Jenn Im.
But no, when I look at myself,
I still see that chubby seventh-grader
who's just silent in class with all straight Cs
because I just have crippling social anxiety.
If I can do it, I know you guys can do it too
because everything that you guys feel, like, I feel
and everything that I feel, you guys feel too.
I just want you to be able to have this confidence
and this urgency to take control of your life
and to create the own life that you want
'cause no one else is gonna do that for you
and that's the end of my talk, guys.
(applause and cheers)