Jose Prendes left Cuba as a teenager with his mother and sister, to Ecuador. They did not know if his father could join them. After 5 years with the help of a Cuban-American organization, his family moved to Miami. He studied English, attended college for a few years, and started working.

Jose described his first impression of America, that everything was clean and organized. As an organized person himself, he loved that. As he started his family, he began an online pet retailer. It was growing until Hurricane Wilma hit Miami and destroyed his building. The wind actually pulled the … More

Anthony Tran’s parents left Vietnam four years after the war. His family was adopted by an American family, and soon joined a large Vietnamese community in Garden Grove, California

Mentors have always been key in Anthony’s life, beginning with his father and community.  The most important mentor was his dad, from whom Anthony learned dedication, patience, loyalty, and to treat others the way he wanted to be treated. From his community he learned to respect elders, respect others, respect yourself, and to respect the environment.  A simple tradition like removing one’s shoes before entering a house, carried meaning. It’s not … More

People who want to make things better, understand things better, who are predisposed to take action and speak up so that others can take action, may make good entrepreneurs. They may change the world. They may be able to look longer into the mirror. But they do not have easier lives.

That Nikola Danaylov cannot stop himself from wanting systems, society, science, and ethics to reach their zenith, is one thing.

Growing up behind the iron curtain, not being able to stop himself from trying to improve his Bulgarian Army Regiment was another.

He lived to tell the tale (on … More

At the age of 16, Reham Fagiri came from Sudan to Maryland and entered the University of Maryland, to study engineering.  That’s right, 16 years old.  Reham worked at Goldman Sachs for 5 years, and attended the Wharton School of Business for her MBA. But she gave up the corporate life and high income, in order to follow the footsteps of her family, going back generations, by starting her own company.  Her start-up, AptDeco.com, is today a very successful peer-to-peer online marketplace for buying and selling used furniture.  It focuses on the New York and Washington DC markets.

Reham … More

American music owes a lot to immigrant musicians: Joni Mitchell (Big Yellow Taxi), Gloria Estefan (Hold Me Thrill Me) , Irving Berlin, They didn’t have capital, credit, or connections, but that didn’t stop them. One of my favorites is Irving Berlin, who escaped Siberia, to become what many call, America’s greatest songwriter. He wrote 1600 songs, including the standbys for Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Fred Astaire.

In this episode 5, my guest, Pablo Osinaga, brings people from around the world collaborate to play whatever song they choose. I watched and heard the song Bring me to Life, played my … More

There are incredible gems here. Dating coach, Thomas Edwards, the Professional Wingman, shares in exquisite detail the process of coming to recognize who he is, and what he can offer to people. How he lets go of failures while building on his successes. How when he didn’t know where to turn, he turned to books. He shares about the value of his parents’ 40 year marriage, how that gave him stability and confidence.

There is great content here. I asked about the gifts he had from Jamaica and he talked about the Jamaican ability to empathize, which helps his … More

I met Vivek, of Tiwary Entertainment Group at a Wharton event in New York City, where he and his wife raise their children. He spoke about his career as Broadway producer, financier, and comic book writer,  not your typical professions for an Indian immigrant. In this interview Vivek talks about finding his historical mentor in books, writing a NY Times bestselling graphic novel about The Fifth Beatle, and he delivers an eloquent soliloquy on passion and persistence, to make your dream a reality.

Vivek also co-founded Musicians on Call, as a young man 25 years ago, which has become a … More

Kunal Sarda’s company, Verbalizeit.com turned down two Shark Tank offers of $250,000 in funding.  Kunal came from India to attend grad school, and started the translation company with his classmate Ryan Frankel, and they are growing off of a strong foundation. Their translators must have not only impeccable language skills, but proud of their culture and represent their country appropriately. He talks about their challenge to educate their clients on the benefits of going international, and how he surrounds himself with smart people, and the struggles of dealing with the US Visa program as an entrepreneur.

TRANSCRIPT

Kent Trabing(… More

Melissa Shin Mash, of Dagne Dover, is a Korean American, whose favorite saying is: If something is broken in the world, go fix it. And the motto her company lives by is: Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself. That’s the motto they live by as a company. Melissa ran the Coach store in London, and returned to America to create the ultimate handbag. She did so by returning to school, researching a top designer, surveying her ideal customer (which were attending grad school with her), and setting up a pre-sell. As success came, so did … More

“Part of me wanted to prove that you can be a refugee from a war torn country, you can grow up in poverty, you can be surrounded by violence and suffer PTSD, but you can still beat it. You can change your brain, take control of your life, and change the trajectory. You don’t need anyone to hold your hand to do it.”

Due tells her story of surviving refugee camps, growing up in inner city Philadelphia, her brother getting his arm broken in his first day in the first grade. She couldn’t speak until she was seven years old … More