“If you want to grow, don’t focus on the risk you’re taking. If you want something more, you have to empower yourself to go get it and trust that you can handle the leap.”
– Dr. Keri Yang, Founder, Speak With Style
What would you call someone willingly giving up a glittering career, comfortable home, loving family, and a secure future to land up in a foreign country with an entirely different culture, not much of money, no contacts, and everything unknown? Meet Dr. Keri Yang, the woman who gave it all up to experience what else life has to offer. Especially on this Chinese New Year, the year of the dog, Keri demonstrates how anyone can realize fortune and prosperity by pursuing the things most uncomfortable.
Taking the Leap
Dr. Keri Yang had a thriving career as a pharmacist in Asia. Ten years ago, Keri decided to move to the land of opportunities—the US. She remembers, “Packing my years of pharmacist experiences, my Master’s degree, tears from my mom, and an island full of sunshine into two suitcases, I came to the US.”
She knew she was risking it all, but she wanted to experience the world outside her comfort zone…in fact, way outside her comfort zone. She was starting afresh, where none of her previous achievements mattered. The thrill of the possibilities in an unknown zone egged her on. “I decided if I couldn’t understand something, I would learn it,” she says.
Challenges Galore in the US
Keri landed in the US, and reality quickly dawned on her. She vividly remembers, “I realized I couldn’t understand everything that was happening around me. It was scary, uncomfortable, and extremely humbling.” She recalls how desperate she felt; “I couldn’t even understand how to ask around to get a phone!”
Working back home in Asia, Keri had been saving for her US venture. Little did she know it was hardly going to suffice. She says, “I didn’t know anyone here, and all the money I had saved was less than the minimum gross income in the US.”
Being uncomfortable is a huge understatement for the situation Keri found herself in. She had a big mountain to climb, minus any climbing gear. And climbed she did!
Striving and Succeeding
With everything stacked against her, all Keri had was her grit, determination, and perseverance. Slowly but surely, she overcame all the problems. She now trains executives and business professionals on how to speak powerfully on stage and online. She features at numerous international conferences with experts around the world as her audience.
Summing up her journey, she says, “I went from being comfortable in talking to one person that might look different from me and not fully understand me, to speaking to thousands where everyone can understand and connect with me.”
“I wouldn’t have the opportunity to be on the international stage if I didn’t take the risk of leaving what I had and started over again,” Keri concludes.
