Let's Ride w/ Paul Estrada

Immigrant to Corporate VP: The American Dream is Alive and Well

• Paul Estrada • Season 1 • Episode 20

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What does it truly mean to pursue the American Dream? Sun Kwok's remarkable journey offers a powerful answer to that question.

Moving 31 times before his 18th birthday, Sun's life has been defined by constant adaptation and relentless perseverance. Born in China, he relocated to Hong Kong at age two before immigrating to the United States at seven with parents who spoke no English but carried immense hope for their children's future. His father, having battled cancer at just 28, wasn't seeking opportunity for himself – he was investing everything in his children's potential.

Sun's early American experience wasn't glamorous. His family stayed with relatives in cramped apartments before opening a small restaurant in what he describes as "the worst neighborhood ever" in New Jersey. By 13, Sun was working full-time in the family business while maintaining his studies, routinely skipping school on Fridays to help out. The restaurant connected directly to their apartment through a window Sun would climb through daily – a physical embodiment of how work and home life were inseparably linked.

Despite these demanding circumstances, Sun excelled academically before making a counterintuitive career move. After graduating college and successfully running his own restaurant, he abandoned entrepreneurship for corporate America – the reverse of most career trajectories. Why? As Sun reflects, "I thought about my parents who came to this country with a couple of suitcases and almost no cash, with kids on their backs, into a country where they didn't know the language. Compared to that, was I really exerting myself? Was I really trying?"

That mindset propelled Sun through the corporate ranks to his current position as a vice president in a multi-billion dollar organization. His secret? "When you see something that needs to be done and has value, just do it." Today, as he raises his own children in circumstances vastly different from his upbringing, Sun faces new challenges in imparting the values that shaped his success.

This episode will change how you think about opportunity, work ethic, and what it means to truly push yourself beyond comfort zones. Whether you're building a career, running a business, or raising a family, Sun's perspective offers invaluable wisdom about what's possible when determination meets opportunity.

Paul:

What do you think about how other countries live compared to how we live in the United States?

Adrian:

Well, first I'll tell you Spain compared to America. And did you know that I'm actually a Mexican-Cuban-American?

Paul:

I knew that because you're my son.

Adrian:

I know yeah and anyway. So when I went to Spain and when we went there we would walk like five, six miles a day and it would be crazy.

Paul:

Yeah.

Adrian:

And we only have one bottle of water, one big one.

Paul:

Do you like know your papa and grandma and your rolita molita how hard they had to work to take care of their family?

Adrian:

No, you don't really know. No, because I don't know how it is to be a parent, because I'm not.

Paul:

We do it because obviously we want to provide you guys, our kids, with the best stuff possible right A nice house to live in, make sure that you guys have food, make sure that you get good education.

Adrian:

I just don't know how hard you work to do it.

Paul:

And do you know just how? Some countries. So you know how. We went to Mexico. What did you notice about that's different from Mexico than from here?

Adrian:

They have more taco places there.

Paul:

They definitely have the best taco places, that's for sure.

Adrian:

Looks different.

Paul:

Yeah, what about when we were driving from, when we crossed the border, when we were driving down to where we were staying? What do you mean? Well, what do you remember about that? What down to?

Adrian:

where we were staying. What do you mean? Well, what do you remember about that? What did it look like? What did you think about it? It looked like a broken community. Why do you say that? Because it was all like it wasn't pretty like bright, it was like dark and I saw fence broken.

Paul:

Yeah, and you noticed like the roads are maybe not as nice, right?

Adrian:

Yeah.

Paul:

And how did the buildings look?

Adrian:

They looked okay with color, but kind of broken.

Paul:

Kind of broken, right, yeah, so would you say that where we live is nicer, or is that nicer?

Adrian:

Where we live is nicer.

Paul:

Yeah.

Adrian:

Because they probably didn't have enough money.

Paul:

That's kind of the thing right In the United States. We're really lucky because this country Makes a lot of money.

Adrian:

That's kind of the thing right Is in the.

Paul:

United States. We're really lucky because this country makes a lot of money. It provides a lot for people that live here. And did you know that there's a lot of people from other countries that maybe it's kind of like Mexico, where it looks broken or they don't have maybe as many opportunities or as many jobs, and so they really want to come to the United States?

Adrian:

Yeah, so anyway.

Paul:

Let me ask you something. So, like I was just trying to tell you, so, people from other countries like India and China, mexico and a lot of different places. They don't have as many opportunities for them or their family, and so sometimes people want to come here because they think that they can make a better life for themselves. Does that make sense?

Adrian:

Yeah, because if they come here, like if they think they're making their life better, they pretty much are, because here, like just in one city, has a bunch of jobs to pick from.

Paul:

Just in one city has a lot of jobs to pick from, yeah, and a lot of countries and cities in other countries don't have that. Yeah, and so people you know, could you imagine some people have to leave their family, their abuelitos and their abuelitas and their grandma and grandpas, and they go all the way across the country to come to the United States all by themselves or maybe with like one or two family members, and they basically have to start a new life? What do you think about that?

Adrian:

But I would never do that.

Paul:

Why not?

Adrian:

I won't move to a different country, definitely.

Paul:

Why.

Adrian:

Because I already have everything I need here.

Paul:

Hi, let's Ride. Listeners, it's your friend, Paul Estrada. If you've gotten any value out of any of the episodes, I'm here to ask you to pause this episode and take a moment to subscribe to the show wherever you're listening to this podcast. If you're a real go-getter, please take a moment to subscribe to the show wherever you're listening to this podcast. If you're a real go-getter, please take a moment to leave a review of the podcast. I'd be indebted to you forever. Thank you for supporting and listening to the show and for going on this journey with us. Pause, subscribe and let's ride.

Paul:

Our guest today moved 31 times before he turned 18, worked full-time in his parents' restaurant from the age of 13, and then traded entrepreneurship for a corporate career that led to the executive ranks of a multi-billion dollar company. In today's episode, you'll hear the story of relentless perseverance, from a childhood spent navigating language barriers and financial hardship to building a restaurant from the ground up to ultimately rising to vice president in the world of supply chain and logistics. It's a journey about grit, family sacrifice and the mindset it takes to turn adversity into opportunity.

Adrian:

Our guest today is Sun Kwok, so let's ride.

Paul:

let's ride on through the rain, come on and take me anywhere that you want to be, so let's ride, son. So we find ourselves here on a Friday night. I can tell you from my side, the kids are, you know, in bed. Hopefully they stay in bed and just here having a relaxing Friday evening. How are things looking on your end?

Sun Kwok:

we just brush our teeth and they are in pajamas and I'm entrusting my older one to get her sister to bed rather soon, really, yeah, so no, they're five years apart. So I think a five-year-old and a 10-year-old. I think I can trust my 10-year-old to do a reasonably good job. She knows the routine.

Paul:

I would love to have some help like that. So I'm a couple more years away from that, but I love that there you go.

Paul:

That's fantastic. Well, hey, I've known you, for I was looking through your LinkedIn. I've known you for at least 13 years, because I think that's how long you've been at Niagara, and so we've kind of gone on this journey together, the ups and downs of everything in between, and so I just thought it'd be a really great time to connect with you. And so just really fascinated by your whole journey and I think you know you did not have a very linear career from the looks of it, it was a very windy path to get to where you're at, and I just wanted to give the listeners an opportunity to hear more about that. So, yeah, if you could just start, I would love to just hear. This is actually one thing I'd known very little or nothing about you and that is how did you grow up? Can you tell us a little bit about your upbringing? What kind of town, city did you grow in? Who was Sun Kwok as a boy?

Sun Kwok:

Let's start with a statistic, right? So I was thinking the other day this was probably a couple of years ago, I think I counted from beginning to end how many times I moved and the answer was 31 times in my life. So yeah, let's start there, right? So I was born in China. When I was two, I moved with my family to Hong Kong and then, when I was seven, with the family we moved to the US. So I was nine and then since then I lived for a few months with relatives in New York City, a few months with relatives in Springfield, massachusetts.

Sun Kwok:

Spent three years in New Jersey two different cities where my dad operated a restaurant. Moved to Ohio where I started working full-time in the restaurant when I was 13. Did that all the way through college. After I got my undergrad I worked a couple more years to save some money up and then I opened my own restaurant in Toledo, ohio, a couple hours away. And then, after two, three years of that, then I went back to. I went to corporate America, go for a few companies. I was a management trainee at Conway Freight, which is now XPO, and then I went back for my master. Then I was a consultant for lean logistics operation in Texas, houston to be exact, and I was at a forklift manufacturer. We make Mitsubishi and Caterpillar forklifts, and then Niagara, so kind of like a little zigzag across the whole US, and that's how I ended up with my 30 plus moves.

Paul:

Okay, so that's a lot to unpack there, so let's go back a couple steps. So then you were probably too young, I'm assuming, when your parents were kind of deciding to move to the States and things like that, or did you recall? Did they tell you anything about it beforehand? Did you kind anything? But it was really like, hey, yeah, we're doing this, we're doing this thing?

Sun Kwok:

uh, that's gonna get our family to a better spot, right? Uh, all everyone else in our family, everyone else in our village, did it right, which is they're going to the us. And uh, the the process for immigration to the us is like multi-year, and that's the reason why we were in hong kong. So they started the process while we were in China and then they knew it was going to take several years. I don't know if they knew seven years or whatever. So they say you know what, while we're waiting, let's go to Hong Kong, which is the next best place to be. And we did that because at that time we didn't have much money. So it was really all about like, hey, where can we go, where we can make a better living? It's really what drove the family right.

Sun Kwok:

I think we were fortunate, because I think, if I were to look at a lot of folks I know right now who are in China or elsewhere, I don't think they had that urgency or need to move right. It's like, hey, I'm okay, yes, things might be rosy, better, but I don't really necessarily need it or believe it maybe. And that's okay, okay, right, but at that point it's like, hey, there's nothing here, right, you get, uh, everyone is leaps and bounds, uh, beyond where you we are at and we really want to be left behind. Everyone's pretty competitive, right, and one of the best, I think, something I you probably don't know right, my dad, uh, had a cancer pretty early on. I think he had cancer when he was like 28, uh, so that was when my brother was one year old.

Sun Kwok:

I'm lucky that he kept pushing forward and moving on with life, otherwise there would be no Sunquack. Right, he really didn't have any reason for himself or my mom to come to the US. Right, it's really just for the kids, right? Hey, how do you want to set those kids up for success? And for them it was a resounding yes. So they did what they need to do and they really didn't stop to think what if? And do all the analysis around it, because I think they couldn't really afford the analysis process, right, it probably would have scared them. I honestly think, right, they just move, just move, just move and do what you think is right, don't think too much about it. It's kind of what they did. So here I am.

Paul:

What you said really resonates and because what we talk a lot on this podcast is actually exactly that which is helping to get our kids ahead, and I find myself thinking about that often, and now thinking about it in the context of your family. It's like because I was born here and because this is all I know, you sometimes lose track or, I guess, understand what you're being given just by being here. I don't have any sense for that at all. I still find myself here and saying, man, I feel like I'm behind, I feel like I can't get my family ahead and I think maybe I need to maybe shift my perspective and say, hey, I'm already ahead and this is just kind of icing on the cake.

Paul:

No, for sure I don't know, but just thinking out loud. But all right, so then I just really can appreciate that I think a lot of parents kind of have that mentality and are willing to do anything that they can for their, their kids, and so so you come over and now you're, you know, nine, ten years old. You said what state did you go to for?

Sun Kwok:

you said new york, I think we basically were like refugees, right, to be honest. So we were, we stayed with my uh brother's little sister in new york because that's where we landed. We came through, uh, there, I think it was a new jersey or new newark uh airports where we landed. We came through I think it was New Jersey or Newark Airport is where we kind of pulled off entry and then they took us in. We stayed with them for a month or so, cramped into their little apartment, their whole family of four. They only had like a one-bedroom apartment, right, it's like they already have a family of four. And then here, four of us we cramped in there and, yeah, just trying to find a footing.

Sun Kwok:

Uh, so we were there for maybe a few weeks, maybe a month or so, and then, uh, we then went to my uh mom's uh brother who is in Springfield, massachusetts. He has a house there. He has a restaurant. My dad went there to. Kind of we moved there. My dad started learning the trade right, uh, no, like scrubbing the grills, mopping the floors and just learning doing what he can to earn a living, right With my uncle learning to trade. And then after a few months I think it was probably half a year or so, my uncle basically lent us the money we need to open a super small restaurant in the worst neighborhood ever in Ohio Not Ohio, but in New Jersey. It's called Passaic, new Jersey and we now have our own little place and a place to start Off to the races. Huh, off to the races.

Paul:

Do you remember anything about things that were just very different to you, that you were having a hard time acclimating yourself to, or is there just? Do you remember the excitement if there was excitement, or fear that was associated with it? What do you remember about that time?

Sun Kwok:

I remember being in someone's house, right, it's something that I remember.

Paul:

That you didn't know right. I'm assuming you didn't Correct. They were family, but you don't know them, right they?

Sun Kwok:

were family, I don't know them, but at the end of the day, it's like you're in someone else's house, not your house, right? There's a difference when you're in your own house and in someone, I think. Growing up, I think, whether we have a small place that we rented or whatnot Hong Kong or elsewhere, it was at least our place. I would say that when I first came to the US, it was like, hey, I'm in someone else's place, I'm in my aunt's place, I'm in my uncle's place. So I think that feeling is a different feeling. We end up having that feeling later on, but then at least, when we had our own little restaurant in New Jersey, it was our place. Nothing to brag about, but it was hey, this is our place. So I think that was a particular feeling that I remember quite well.

Paul:

And how was school? I mean, did you have any? Had you already been learning English?

Sun Kwok:

or were you starting from scratch back then, or what? Yeah, so I went all the way through third grade in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong is pretty well educated. They teach English right from the get-go. So I did have some English but, honestly, coming to the US, it's not that helpful. It's like someone taking Spanish for three years here and then you bring them to Mexico or any other Latin country. That's me. You.

Sun Kwok:

Basically, you don't have much to go off of. I know what you mean. Oh, yeah, so I got here, I know what's A and I know what's B, but I can't communicate. Hey, I want to go bathroom or hey, anything else. Right, I was in ESL, right, start off in ESL and whenever the teacher want to say anything to me, go grab this other kid that's also Chinese, that's the only other Chinese in the whole school, right, and say and say, hey, come over here and help me translate this. Right, that's really my life for the first half year or year or so in school. Right, it's just, basically, you're mute. You might as well have been like I don't know. You just don't know anything.

Paul:

And did you feel like why are we doing this? Or was there a level of excitement? How did you feel about it?

Sun Kwok:

I remember having a few situations I can't remember the exact details where I was frustrated and I probably expressed my frustration to my parents. I don't remember the details of it. I just kind of the sense that I get, at least the feeling I get from those is like look, this is we don't really have anything other choices, is it like deal with it. Right, it's not something that we're choosing to do, and if it's hard for you, it's harder for us, Right? Uh, the the parents. Uh, again, my dad was not in good health. They know zero English. They are having a harder time than me, so I shut up pretty.

Paul:

Was there a point at which you did maybe felt like acclimated? You're like, okay, I see the vision here. I understand why we're doing this and if so, how long did something like that take?

Sun Kwok:

A few years down I don't know if it was like three years or however many years. I get acclimated to school. I have a few friends, I get in a place where life becomes easier in school. I think that's probably like two, three years down and I think maybe when I was three or four years down the road I remember distinctly I think I was in seventh grade. I graduated out of ESL like a year ago and I'm in the regular class and I think we were doing social studies or literature or something. I've always been decent in, being book smart, and what happened, I think, in that class was like the teacher was making a big fuss to the rest of the class and say this kid, four years ago he just landed here with zero English and he has the best grade in literature. You all should be ashamed of yourself. So I remember that distinctly.

Sun Kwok:

So I think that was a turning point, maybe a little bit before that. It was a turning point. I remember that quite a bit.

Paul:

Yeah, I could see myself being one of the kids in the classroom that was, you know, grew up speaking English and getting a C in the class where you're making me look bad, getting an A. So thanks for that. Was it just like your parents? The family made this huge sacrifice. You know you're acclimating yourself. Was there like a pressure, just like I got, to get well educated? Like, did they start establishing or did you start establishing a plan that you have to prioritize education? And you know I'm going to do step one, step two, step three, and this is kind of the end state of where I want to end up. Or like, how much did you think? Did you or your family think through that sort of stuff?

Sun Kwok:

I always felt that this was non-negotiable. In my mind, Getting a good education and doing well is non-negotiable and honestly my Because they told you that or because you were driven that way.

Sun Kwok:

No, I don't think they ever say, hey, you got to go work hard in school. Honestly, I don't think they really have any context for it. For background, my dad just graduated high school in his village. My mom, uh, did not even finish junior high. I think they were building a house in the area or something, and then she's like, oh, I gotta stay home to help uh, cook snacks for the folks who's building the house. So she's dropped out of school a few years earlier.

Sun Kwok:

So, like the education is not something, it's not the forte by any mean, they never get involved and honestly, I think part of it was're too busy and part of it is just like maybe a little ashamed of the fact that they really can't help, even if they wanted to. Right, there's not much that they can go off of and I think that was actually a plus for me, because I think the fact that I was on my own and I guess I know my parents are sacrificing for me to allow me to come here right, know that that's the reason I need to make it work. I push myself. There's no outside push, I just push myself.

Paul:

That's admirable, son, and now, knowing you, that makes perfect sense to me. I'm just kind of thinking about it in the contents of all the other people that are immigrating over, whose parents are dealing with the same hardships and challenges, but just either unlucky, or because of the way they were raised, or I'm not sure, but they don't have that self-drive and then they end up not being educated, maybe getting themselves into some trouble and kind of not ending up in a very good place. So I mean, what do you attribute that self-drive to? I mean, is there? Where did that come from? Like how did how is that possible?

Sun Kwok:

I don't know what the exact saying is, but it's like there's a saying around like something that's good may not be good, something that's bad may not be all bad. Right, and I think just by being dealt a worse hand to begin with, I appreciate what I have and was pushed a little bit more than usual. I mean the kids that you're describing, where they didn't really maybe push themselves as hard or like went down a different path. I think they didn't really have to push their parents probably went out and worked somewhere else. They were left to do what they need to do at home.

Sun Kwok:

For me, my, my dad had a little tiny restaurant that wasn't, didn't make much money and there was always something to do, right. So, and the restaurant is connected through to the apartment that we live in. In fact, oh jeez, I actually climbed through behind. The restaurant is a little alley, and the way we go to our apartment is climbing through the window to the apartment, wow. So I climb in and out the window every day to go in and out the restaurant so when I hear that I just hear you're eating really well, is what I'm assuming?

Paul:

that?

Sun Kwok:

I ate really well all the way through. I mean, you have your own restaurant, this food is not a problem. Yeah, food is never a problem. Yeah, food is never a problem. That's good, but I think that was something that just made.

Sun Kwok:

I had a. I see my parents all the time and I have a place where I can put my energy and I know that I could use, they could use my help. That way they can save a few pennies to save a few dollars. That way they don't have to spend as much money paying other people to do whatever it is, whether it's cooking or cleaning or delivering food. Right, I contribute. Throughout high school I skipped school all the time to work in the restaurant. So the restaurant opens every day at 11, and every Friday I skipped school. I was in trouble with the school because I was skipping all the time, but I think they kind of figured out that hey, no one is skipping to go work in his parents' place because he can afford to hire people. They kind of let me off the hook a little bit.

Paul:

And, by the way, you're getting an A in literature, so obviously it doesn't matter that much. So right yeah.

Sun Kwok:

I did okay still, despite that, yeah.

Paul:

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, all right, I'm going to skip ahead. I love found, really, you giving that level of detail. I'm going to have a lot to get to. I'm going to skip ahead a little bit. Okay, I don't especially skip the part where you got an MBA from Ohio State University because, as we all know on here, we're Michigan fans, so we'll skip that part. But you're a very well-educated person from a certain school in Ohio, is that right.

Sun Kwok:

That's correct D school in Ohio All right, so was it.

Paul:

but actually, before I do that, you did actually run your own restaurant, or was that the same family restaurant?

Sun Kwok:

When I graduated from college, me and my brother graduated together.

Paul:

You're an undergrad right, my undergrad yeah, we graduated from undergrad together.

Sun Kwok:

He actually waited a couple of years for me to go to college because short detour, but basically we were still operating the restaurant that my dad had and we can't afford to hire people. So rather than him going to school, he waited for me to go to uh to finish high school and then we went to undergrad together. Uh, we worked together in the restaurant for another year, uh, two years, and then I went out and opened another restaurant. Basically, my brother got the restaurant, inherited the restaurant from my dad, and then I and then I they supported me to uh go out and uh open a? Uh another restaurant in Toledo, ohio, which was probably an hour and a half away up north at the Michigan border. And then, yeah, I started my own restaurant. I didn't build the building, but the building was just an empty space. So I went, scouted it out, I did all the construction, I got all the permitting to get it off the ground from basically an empty spot in a plaza. So it was a new place.

Paul:

Was that always the plan? Because obviously you'd already gotten your master's degree in restaurant management, because you were doing that from a young age. So then you decide to go really put yourself out there and extend yourself and go to school and get a formal college degree. So I'm having a hard time picturing why you would put yourself through that whole thing just to then go back into the restaurant business. Was that the plan or was that like it was actually?

Sun Kwok:

never the plan. My original plan is hey, go through school and then go, get a regular job and a closer chapter on restaurant. I went through school. The plan changed because I was going through school my degree was in operations management, so I was learning how to run more efficient operations whether it's queueing theory or linear optimization, doing things to kind of optimize operation and I was thinking to myself okay, the turning point I had was okay, if I go out to a job I'm going to start from the ground floor. Maybe four or five years down the road I'll get the steering wheel and I'll be able to apply a lot of what I learned or I can do what I already know. I have a decade plus experience in and I can apply day one.

Sun Kwok:

And I also knew that. I know the restaurant and I know that if you work hard I can make good money, probably better money than I would for at least a few years if I were to go work for someone else that's like the entry level person for a few years. So that's what changed me and honestly funny story side detour there right, like I got straight A's full school, right, my GPA was like 3.97. I got only one B and one A minus, and they were all in my last semester. Basically, I decided you know what, I'm going to go the restaurant path. I just let off the gas pedal. Before that, regardless of how hard the class is, I can always get the a. I work as hard as I need to to get the a, but then toward the end it's like, you know, it doesn't. Does it really matter if I get that a anymore? Uh, because I kind of lost that momentum a little bit.

Paul:

That's what happened yeah, so you're now. You're well educated, you. You have 10 years of restaurant experience. Why is sun quok not there, with the likes of Wolfgang Puck and Gordon Ramsay? Why don't you have a restaurant empire today? Why are you doing what you're doing?

Sun Kwok:

I did my restaurant. I operated for about two years. It wasn't necessarily anything to brag about in terms of how much money I make. I make a decent living and I could have settled. I have all my family I don't think I told you this yet, but basically my whole family tree open restaurants, like all my cousins, all my aunts, all my uncles, my cousins' cousins everybody open restaurants. So, like on the East Coast into the Midwest, there's probably 150 restaurants that's owned by somebody in my family. So everyone's in the restaurant business.

Sun Kwok:

And a restaurant is hard. It is not necessarily the most glamorous life. You can work and retire, probably pretty early, 50 or so 40-something or so if you wanted to. I just felt like I kind of like look in my head and I fast forward a little bit and say you know what? Is this the life that I want, and is that all I want, and or should I try something new? So maybe before I felt that I have a, I have a ready practice ground to practice all my things and all the things I learned and put it to practice and so forth. If I would have continued down that path, maybe I would have opened up something similar to Panda Express, maybe a little bit smaller, maybe 10 franchise, maybe five, I don't know.

Sun Kwok:

But I kind of play that out in my head and say, like it's good, still seems to be. I'm not quite extending myself to the full capability, at least in terms of, like, put myself out there and try new things. And I always, when I have a few, many times in my I would say many times in my life I reach points like those and I kind of reflect on what my parents did. Right, I think, okay, son, your parents went from, like came to this country with like a couple of suitcases and almost no cash, with a couple little kids on their backs and in bad health, into a country they had no, they don't even know the language of. Compared to that, are you really exerting yourself? Are you really trying? And at that point I felt like I was basically cruising a little bit and, um, I felt that I owe it to, if nothing else, I owe it to my parents to try to do more with what I can do. Not to say that I'm gonna be awesome in anything, but like, hey, at least I should try.

Paul:

So so that's, that's the main thing man, it sounds the clocks are a bunch of risks. You guys are some regular stunt devil. You guys are some daredevils. Man, that's what it sounds like to me. You guys are a bunch of risk takers.

Sun Kwok:

I don't know about that for everyone, but I think just your perspective change right. When you see people that's around you do things that are more risky, I think your tolerance level goes up.

Paul:

That makes sense. So now you're climbing you're at the bottom of a corporate ladder right In fields that you don't know anything about, and so now you're on your way. So again, I'm going to fast forward a little bit. But basically you pick supply chain, logistics, transportation. I think a lot of your professional experience is down that path. What led you in that direction, to pursue that industry specifically?

Sun Kwok:

Yeah, so operations management is what I studied. And then, if you think about it, operating a restaurant is general management, right. So really, operations is at the heart of everything I've done thus far, right. And then I think that gelled pretty well into a career in logistics, right? Logistics is really all about operations, making things happen. Career in logistics right, logistics is really all about operations, making things happen. I think when I interviewed for that management trainee job at Conway Freight, they, like what I bring to the table, right, this is someone that can run his own operation, he can figure things out, he's willing to work hard. So I got that job. I mean, just the job market back then that was probably what 2008, 2007? 2007. I think the job market back then was just as tough as the job market now, if not harder, right. I remember applying to everything and no one bite, no one bit, right.

Paul:

So- what do you think? So, when I think about, just again, people's career paths in general, I feel like you almost went in reverse. I feel like you started as an entrepreneur and then you made your way into the corporate world, and I feel like, for the most part, it's the opposite, right? People spend a decade or two in the corporate environment and then they become entrepreneurs. So what was that like? Because, I would imagine, as an entrepreneur, the big glitz and glamour of it is I'm my own boss, right? No one tells me what to do, I'm the boss, you're making the decisions, you're everything, right. And so now you find yourself in an environment where there's layers, I'm assuming, of organizational structure. There's SOPs, there's training. It's a very, very different environment, right? So did you get into that? And how did you acclimate yourself to that? Or did that feel like the right decision? Or were you like, oh boy, this is going to be hard.

Sun Kwok:

I think I realized pretty early on is that for everything that looks great, there's a side to it that's not that great, and for everything that looks terrible on the surface, there's a side to it that's great, right? So I mean, take entrepreneurship, for example. Right, any entrepreneur you talk to that has been through will let you know that it's 10 times harder than being an employee. You're sweating and bleeding when other people are chilling at home watching Netflix and bleeding when other people are chilling at home watching Netflix. I mean, like, through my years working in my parents' restaurant, we cleaned stuff that's so dirty that you I mean still to think about it. Right, like there's like a lot of work, right, that you do that, we do ourselves, we work the hours that people would not work. I remember telling people like hey, I work on average. Like what is it like? 80 hours a week. And people think, how can you work 80 hours a week? Well, it adds up right, like 13 hours a day, and then on the weekend you work a couple hours more because it's a weekend and six days a week you take one day off. It adds up to 80. It's pretty straightforward. And restaurant is like when you are the owner. Owner, you don't have anyone else to go back to. Right like, people can quit. People can say, hey, I don't feel well, but you can't like, uh, there were.

Sun Kwok:

I distinctly remember, uh, when I had my own restaurant, there were at least two days where I did not sleep. Zero, I just worked for the night because you have to the whole. Uh. There was a day when, uh, the whole gang quit on me so everybody quit. I was a restaurant of one. What do you do? Do you cry about it or do you make the best of it and just try to survive, right? So I did not sleep that night. I was rolling egg rolls, I was frying sweet and sour chicken, I was cooking the noodles and getting ready for next day. Did not sleep.

Paul:

So, in a way, then, what I'm hearing and I appreciate you sharing that illustrating for us what that's like for us that haven't been entrepreneurs, so then in my mind, I'm almost picturing you get into this role, w2, this paycheck, that's going to come the same. No matter how hard you work, no matter how little you work, it's going to come in the same. You can take more time off. So did it almost feel like a vacation in a way? Did you feel like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders?

Sun Kwok:

So I was still working. I can't wait for maybe like 10-hour workdays, but it was such a breeze I wouldn't lie to you right. Like going to the bar every day. I was learning all kinds of stuff. I was learning how to dance salsa, I was learning horseback riding, I was learning how to ride motorcycle. I enjoyed life for a few years working because I think it was easy. I still work harder than everyone else, but it's just easy. It's just easy, yeah.

Paul:

I mean, yeah, like you said, you established a different baseline, right, and so that makes sense. So you've been on this journey now for collectively, probably 16, 17 years, right, kind of being in that corporate environment and most of the time being spent with us being coworkers together for a long time. I've watched you over the years just rise through the ranks. Some things that I could say is, having not known anything. I knew you owned a restaurant. I knew certain things about you, but a lot of the detail. This is the first time that I'm hearing it.

Paul:

It starts to make a lot more sense to me how and why you approach your position and the way that you operate within our environment the way you do. I should have asked you this years ago, because it makes a lot more sense. But how do you look at it now? Of just Because now it seems to me getting to a vice president level in any multi-billion dollar organization is not an easy thing to do. You've done it, but now, in the context of everything you've shared with me, it almost seemed like that was going to be a slam dunk anywhere you went, no matter what organization you went to. That being said, you had to put in the work to do it right, and so I do want to talk a little bit about some of the things that you did to position yourself, to get to this position that you're in today. How did you approach it so that you could sure?

Sun Kwok:

so, I think uh, working hard is a giving. I don't know if it may be lost on some of the newer uh folks joining the workforce right now, but I think uh, to me it was always uh, and most people in my generation, I think everyone knew that being willing to work hard is definitely a part of the secret sauce uh, for every anyone to be successful. I also make it a point to always learn new things. I think that was important. I think, whether it is through my interaction, I genuinely wanted to learn new things, and along the way not all at once, but every day, bit by bit I'm learning a little bit about how procurement works. I'm learning a little bit about how folks in finance are doing things and how the planners are thinking. I think that definitely helps, because it brought on your perspective a little bit For my current position.

Sun Kwok:

I think I have always had a knack for being one of the more analytical people in the room, so I think I was able to leverage that to get results. That was appreciated. So I think being able to connect their work itself to results is something that probably was one of the big part. Now that I'm talking, I never really talk about it, think about it too much. But if I were to say, like, what is one of the biggest thing I think is really taking connecting what you do with results and I think, because of my background, I have a great sense of urgency and I do not, and it frustrates me to no end when things I do don't connect to results. If I'm doing work day in and day out or week in and week out and I cannot connect that directly to something and say, hey, that's my contribution, that's happening because of what I do, I get super frustrated.

Paul:

Well, I haven't thought about this in a long time, but since we're having this conversation, I think there's this period in time maybe I don't even remember, maybe seven, eight years ago where there's this big shakeup in terms of the organizational structure within supply chain and now people are situated differently. Who's leading, who is differently? The metrics that we're looking at, everything you could think of, is changing. We're working for a very demanding leadership. That is fantastic, right? We're sitting in these rooms, I think at the beginning, every day for a couple hours, just kind of talking through everything, all the transitions that we were going through and making sure that we're getting it right, because we're basically trying to shift the Titanic. This organization was already in several billions of dollars, but now we're saying let's flip the processes and the org everything, let's flip it on its head and let's almost start from scratch in a way. And so we did that and we're sitting in these rooms and, yeah, having to kind of put these things together.

Paul:

And one thing I do remember about that time is there's a lot of work on everybody's plates and there would be certain things that would come up that I think you'd look around the, you know, would be asked of us and you know, say, okay, we need to do this.

Paul:

And there'd be kind of these looks around the room of just like I don't want to do that, like that one's I don't know, and then who's? Like you know, you look over and and who's sun clocks more times than I can count, right, where it's just like you kind of knew there were certain things that people were really interested in that. And I fall into this trap where if there's a project or something going on that I'm really interested in, I'm going to go, I'm going to dive in headfirst and I'm going to, I'm going to deliver you the results that you want. And every once in a while there's these projects that come around and just like, ah, this one really doesn't, this one, right, and so I maybe say, hey, look, I want to keep focusing here, and so I think you're not that person, right, it's just like hey, you're kind of the ultimate company man where it's like, hey, whatever the org is asking of me, then that's what I'm going to do. It's like a very selfless act, and so I don't know if that was delivered on your part.

Paul:

No-transcript.

Sun Kwok:

Yeah, I think I don't know why per se, but I think maybe it was just the fact that it needed to be done. If I see something that needs to be done and it has value, I'll do it. As simple as that. So.

Paul:

Simple as that. Guys like guys. Do you hear that? Just do it, just do it, just do it. Just like Nike says, just do it.

Paul:

One of the things that I've been fascinated about lately is kind of this concept of the American dream, and again, I was born here, so I have a certain idea of what I think it is, or what it's supposed to be, or how I'm defining it. And I've been more and more curious lately about for those that haven't been born in the US, that come here seeking a better life or better opportunities, at least for me. I watch the news, I read articles and I just get this sense that it's becoming increasingly more difficult. And maybe I'm getting this wrong, but just there was this moment in time where people felt, if I could just get to the US, then all these amazing, all my dreams are going to come true, I'm going to be a homeowner and I'm going to get to retirement, I'm going to enjoy a long and fruitful retirement, I'm going to live a healthy life, and this and that, and just at least what's happening in the media.

Paul:

It just seems like that dream is, even for those of us that were born here, that that is becoming more and more out of reach for us, and so I'm just curious if you feel that way as well, if you feel like, for those that are now coming over, like today, or have come in the last couple years, do you feel like that's the case? Or do you feel like, hey, if you just come with the right attitude, like you can still, you can still have the american dream. How do you feel about that?

Sun Kwok:

I'm more of the camp that the opportunities are still there. I will not go as far as to say they're easier now than it was before. Oh, you know what? Like uh, before so much harder you had to work, so much harder to get to the same place, and now, like, you can just go and do Instacart and just go do Uber and just go do whatever it is, and it's so much easier to find a job. Right, I wouldn't say that, but I would say, like it's definitely, in my mind, no harder than it was before to be successful and go after your American dream.

Sun Kwok:

I think the programs in place for whether social programs are just as robust, if not more robust than before, one would argue are they too robust. But you can come to this country and do nothing and you'll be in a great spot. Do nothing and you'll survive. You can watch TV all day and I think everyone can have a good life if that's what you call good life, I don't really think it's harder. I think it's always been hard and, if anything, I think the past was maybe a little harder than it is now.

Paul:

So maybe it's not like the work that's changed. I think more what I'm talking about is like the cost of living, right? So, for example, owning a home, like if I got to a management level and I'm making, let's say, even if it's low six figures, that could lead to a very successful life and that's becoming more and more of a struggle. So, like I said, I've talked to people from different countries. So, for example, somebody, let's say, coming from India, where obviously the cost of lowing is much lower. But they're telling me when I go home, I've got somebody that does my laundry, somebody cooks my food, somebody comes and walks my dog Again, in my mind, because I've never been there, right. So it's just like man.

Paul:

Well, that sounds like a pretty good life. So why the heck would you come here, to come live in a condo in Irvine and really struggle to try to make it here, when it seems like there's just as many opportunities where you're from? Again, ignorance on my part, probably, because I don't know anything about it, but I don't know. Does that make sense to you? It?

Sun Kwok:

does and it's a little bit. It's not as clear because I think some of it. When we think through it it's somewhat contradictory and I honestly don't know why. I think it's just part of life, it's one of the mysteries of life.

Sun Kwok:

But for one I would say cost of living in the US, at least based on the perspective I have looking at elsewhere, I feel like cost of living is pretty low. So I'm of the opinion that cost of living is low. And here's why, if I were to look, I know people from China, so I look at people from China the ratio is like one to six, one to seven for the US dollar to the Chinese yuan. But then if you were to look at the price of things in China, they're basically, if you adjust for the difference in the exchange rates, they double the cost of the US. So the way I always tell people is like hey, imagine you go to grocery store overnight, everything, all the price double. But that's life for everyone. In China, everything is more expensive. I mean, a jug of milk is not $3, $4, it's like $12.

Paul:

That's normal, right? If you want to buy a loaf, loaf of bread, it's going to be 15 bucks. This is the way it is. So I think part of it for me again list what, what from the media is you know you're hearing about china. It's like, hey, this is an up-and-coming uh country. There they've got a lot of construction, they're investing in other countries, like they're just they're on the left side of that bell curve, right. So do you feel like and I know, obviously I know you don't live there anymore, but I don't know if you hear from family members or anything like that Are the opportunities improving for them there to where coming to the US is making less and less sense? Or is it like oh no, if you have the chance to come, you should definitely come?

Sun Kwok:

I would definitely say it's the former, right. I do feel that things have improved enough that the urgency, the push for people to come to the US US is lower than it has been in the past. It's a place where a lot of people are flocking to right. It's one of the places where there's a lot of opportunity, a lot of growth, and I do think that people are less inclined now to move than it was before, whether it is to go to school here in the US or to go to school in Australia or London. People aren't, as it's not as appealing as it was.

Sun Kwok:

If anything else, what I've seen uh, at least from what I see and hear, right, it's like, hey, it's the rich people, rich families, kids where they go out to kind of have fun overseas in a, in a uh, in an offshore school in a first world country, to just kind of get that fancy degree and come back and inherit their uh, family empire. As opposed to the stories of like, hey, someone who's from the village and scraping together the money necessary from all the relatives and friends so that they can come over here and eat peanut butter every day in order to survive. Right, it's not that that that anymore, it's actually the the other. So I I do think that, um, because of the country becoming better off, the push need, urgent need for people to come over, has subsided substantially.

Paul:

Okay, that makes sense. And when you just kind of tie in a bow on the family piece. So, as I'm thinking about your journey and your family, it's like your parents gave that first big push and I'm just picturing them. They put sunquack on their shoulders. They said here, son, I'm going to give you the next jumpstart to get to the next level. You've clearly been successful in doing that. Now you've got two daughters of your own. You've set the bar that much higher, right. So how do you now approach that with your kids and what do you tell them about, if anything, about where their family came from and kind of this whole journey to get to this.

Sun Kwok:

Yeah, it's definitely been a journey. So I think none of us is born knowing how to parent. I'm no exception to that and I think I have taken a different approach and I have reflected on it and changed my approach a couple of times, right In terms of what I tell them about the family. I try to tell them what happened and who we are and how we got here. They't have the same perspective I, while I can give tell them the story, it's not the same as living through it.

Sun Kwok:

It's completely diluted right from a fat standpoint, but I still do, uh, where it makes sense. I think it's really in the moment, right, when you're like, hey, when you have a bunch of food that you're throwing away, or you are like buying clothes that you don't need, or you have a whole closet full of toys, those are the moments when I kind of tell them hey, just so you know, I always wear all my cousin's clothes. I never bought my own clothes from the store. That was the way it did. And oh, by the way, I bunk bed with my brother all the way from college, from I never had my own room, uh, and that's okay, right.

Paul:

So I think, uh, there's still value do you get the the like the eye roll, okay, dad, or is it like? Do you feel like it's like resonating with them at all?

Sun Kwok:

I try not to say it too often, because I do think if you say too often they will roll their eyes at you. I think sometimes less is more. So I try, I think, uh, I have deliberately uh, kept it the repetition level down a little bit so that it does not become that, because I don't want I the whole, the whole point I'm saying is to I'm not saying it to make myself feel better, right? So that's what I tell myself. If you want to make yourself feel better, son, then go ahead and say it all day long, right. But if your whole point is to impact them and make them think and make them change the way of thinking, then guess what Less is more? So I think I try, paul. I can't promise I did it real well, but I do think that there have definitely been instances, multiple instances, where I tell myself you know what, you said enough, you don't need to say all the time and I don't do that, yeah.

Paul:

Can you think of a moment in time with either of your daughters where you felt where they either did something or said something, where you felt like, okay, they get it.

Sun Kwok:

So sometimes so like my wife, is in the financial consulting business. Now she's changed her own business and last four years she's been an entrepreneur right, and as a part of that, I think we have been exposing our kids to a wider range of people from different socioeconomic status. In the house there's folks who are much more affluent than us in the house. There's also folks who are much less affluent than us in the house. There's also folks who are much less affluent than us in the house. So I would say that, for example, one time one such family was in our house. They were visiting, we were hosting a party for a group of new folks that my wife was helping call them members, call them clients, and I was and my daughter was interacting with their daughter, who's exactly the same age, and then I think she was a little confused as to like, hey, there are things that I have that this person doesn't have. I think I could tell her that, hey, there's folks who have less than you, but I think she saw with her own eyes that they have less than her. Right Like that family.

Sun Kwok:

Dad was an illegal immigrant who paint houses for a living. Sometimes he has jobs, sometimes he doesn't. And then the wife was like an analyst level one and they have like six kids like uh two from the each of the prior uh marriage and then two together. And then they were like, I think, uh, the one that was in our house she was one of the older ones, she takes care of her five other siblings and like feeding them and clothing them, and like they all share the clothes and like they don't really have that many toys.

Sun Kwok:

I think when that daughter, uh, that little girl, was in our house and she saw everything Gemma have, I think she was also in shock like of like just how different this world could be and maybe unfair, right. Like, uh, the whole six of them don't have like a fraction of what Gemma has, let alone alone Gemma and Skyler, right. So I do think like those are moments when I think they get it and I think it really needed to become more tangible, right, and I think that in that moment it became more tangible for my daughter. So I think when we talk about, hey, we have too much toys, we got to donate some of them to Goodwill, or like Vietnam Veterans of America, my older daughter get it now.

Paul:

Yeah, that's where I my oldest son's birthday this week actually, and you know getting him the video game. You know seven years old, so getting into video games and things like that, and as I'm buying them, just in the back of my mind. I'm just like I want to get you this thing and you could, absolutely. Yeah, and I can. But at the same time it's just like I really don't want to get to a place where you become ungrateful or don't understand.

Paul:

And he's too maybe, too young, too right, and maybe I'm putting too much on him to understand that I'm constantly in fear of that exact thing, right, and so I think what you're opening my eyes to is, if I can verbalize things, great, but really we need to give our kids experiences like they need to be immersed in something for the message to really resonate.

Paul:

And that's not something that I've thought about at all, but it's now something I think we need to think about because I really don't want them to lose sight of that. I can recall sometimes being a kid and being that brat that was not grateful for things that were given to me, and I am very grateful now knowing how much work went into acquiring those things. But that's just something that I just am constantly. There's great upside to having built a, and then, like you said, everything there's a downside, and to me that's one. It's just like how do we balance making sure that our kids remain grounded in a place where they can be? You know great people that aren't, you know, materialistic and focused on those sorts of things, right? Yeah?

Sun Kwok:

Easier said than done. It's really. I don't think any of us have it figured out. I think we can do the best we can, we flat on it and see how we can do better and just keep trying right, keep improving. That's really all we can. And then like talk to each other, like this podcast, right share, share the network. Like let's share our collective knowledge and learn from each other I love it, son.

Paul:

Well, hey, it's unfortunate. I've known you for so long and I've probably 70 of 80 of what we discussed today I've never known, so I think I'm a bad friend. So I apologize for that. Thank you, I I didn't?

Sun Kwok:

I never asked for the same level of detail from you either. I think it just sometimes awkward right at the workplace like how far do you want to pry right, and I think it's just different.

Paul:

As far as you want son, you pry as much as you want. But no, I really appreciate it, son, and thank you for sharing your story and I'll see you Monday in the office. Sounds great.

Sun Kwok:

You have a good weekend, the.

Paul:

Rockies ain't too far from here if we drive all night.

Sun Kwok:

The cold that will do you well in the mountain morning light. So let's ride. Let's ride on through the rain.

Adrian:

Come on and take me anywhere that you wanna be. Let's ride and let's ride. Let's follow the skyline, We'll be right back.