Ep 14: Joey Law: Former Senior Inspector of Police of the Hong Kong Police Force & Mother to 15-Year-Old Founder & CEO, Hillary Yip

Ling Yah: Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 14 of the So This Is My Why podcast.

I'm your host and producer, Ling Yah, and for today's guests, we have Joey Law. Joey is the mother of 15 year old entrepreneur, Hillary Yip, who was our guest for episode 13. So, if you haven't listened to Hillary's episode, just head over to www.sothisismywhy.com/13 to hear what it's like to run a company and balance that with a homeschooling life and just being a teenager.

With Joey, we talk about very different things, including what she was like growing up, the 12 years she spent in the Hong Kong police force, including a stint in the bomb disposal unit, why she decided to quit her demanding job and what led her to opening an online children's bookstore.

Of course, we talk about what it's like being a mother to young entrepreneurs and the reason she decided to start homeschooling for her two children. Because of the very intense bullying that Hillary unfortunately faced. And also her advice to other young mothers on dealing with such issues.

While bullying isn't something we typically cover in the So This Is My Why podcast, I felt that it was so important to highlight this because these things do happen. And while there is no one size fits all solution, I hope Joey and Hillary's story might help some of you think through these issues. And I am so grateful to Joey for her willingness to just be really open and vulnerable about her experiences as a mother.

So here's episode 14 with Joey Law.

Are you ready?

Let's go.

Hi, Joey, thank you so much for joining me on this podcast.

Can you share anything that's significant that molded you to be the person that you are today?

Joey Law: We didn't have much when we were young.

My parents are busy working and have to put food on the table, so to speak. So I have to take care of myself. Unlike parents these days, we kind of structure everything, so worried about everything, and what to do, all the extra curriculums. But at my time, there wasn't anything actually. So I have to plan for my own.

I think the pivotal moment for me was when I had to decide on which secondary school I have to go to, because I was from the local system where just normally everybody at that area will all go to the same school, which is in the same area. So everybody is kind of, knowing each other.

And I was a pretty adventurous person. I remember at tender age kind of like 11? I went downstairs to a local bookstore to choose a book that said, good schools in Hong Kong.

And I went through that book and scoured which should I opt for and choose different things. I told my mom that I want to choose different schools instead of the local, default choice. And my mum didn't oppose my suggestions. So I chose three different schools, totally out of that area.

And I remembered, I got accepted for my second choice, which was very far away from my local area, which was in Stanley.

Back then it took me one and a half hours to take the subway and bus all the way to that school every morning. I needed to leave home at six o'clock in the morning where it was still dark, but I loved it.

I loved it. Every morning the posture journey was so nice. Cause it went past the beach, it was a long bus journey, but it was pretty refreshing . And it was the biggest school in Hong Kong, I think it still is the biggest school in Hong Kong. It pretty much changed my studying and my way of seeing things and my confidence of making my own choices.

Ling Yah: So how exactly did it change the way that you saw the world?

Joey Law: I think from that point on, I kind of make my own decisions and I relied on myself a lot more. Also because that school is very different from the local schools that we went to and it required a lot more language requirements.

My English I have to really work because although in Hong Kong, everybody has to learn English, but the level was pretty not up to the standards for a lot of the local schools. You couldn't even conduct proper conversations with a foreigner.

And then in the third year, I moved to another school, which was one of the best in Hong Kong. It's a girl's school.

And it was even more demanding. And I remembered it was so tough that at one point I almost helped me drop back off to the original school, because it was just very, very competitive. I remember I have to totally just drop Chinese and work so hard to even pass just to get to the basic level of the requirements of their school.

But through those hard times, I was able to get to where I am right now. So thinking back, I am grateful. For the tough time.

Ling Yah: So, what was it that led you to decide to join the Hong Kong police force? Cause I understand you were there for 12 years and you were the senior inspector of police as well.

Joey Law: I was in the UK when I was studying A Levels. When I went back to Hong Kong, before I went to uni that year, I was kind of just trying, because my dad was a policeman. It was kind of like a fun thing to do. Just try to get into the force as the inspector.

There's two ranks that you can apply for.

The most basic is police constable, where you see all the uniform officers around and then they have their seniors, like a station sergeant, but they are all like rank and files.

They are the people who do all the groundworks, And then officers level are the inspectors. They are our management level. So when you apply to the police force, you can either join as the Constable or as the first rank of the management level. The inspector.

Ling Yah: So I assumed that you were an inspector.

Joey Law: Yeah, I tried that and I got in. I was the last one to be accepted as a person, without a degree when I was 20 years old.

Ling Yah: What was it like, do you remember?

Joey Law: I was just a kid, honestly,and it was fun. It was fun. Nine months training was fun. You got paid to receive training, go to outward bound for four months and you have all those legal training, all these things. And everything's new to me. I loved it. And my interest actually was a criminal investigation.

Who doesn't like it. Right? you watched all those movies and all the excitement and you want to be a detective, that kind of thing.

I have always been a detective. The 12 years. And in between I joined as a bomb disposal officer as my secondary duty, just to challenge myself.

Ling Yah: Yeah. What was that like being a bomb disposal officer?

Joey Law: Uh, it was just so fun. You want to take up different things. And as a challenge, I applied to the bomb disposal when I was 26, 27. So I was already into force for like six, seven years. You've seen a lot and then you want to try different things.

And that came their flyer asking inspectors to try to join them, to take up the secondary duties. But then there were very few people. They are very selective, honestly, at my time, after I had been accepted, there were only 12 secondary duty officers. And I remember the year before they accepted their first female bomb disposal officer.

So I was thinking, ooh, so they took a female. Now I can try. That's why I tried.

Ling Yah: And what was life like as a bomb disposal officer? I mean, do you get called out to the field a lot? What does it look like?

Joey Law: Um you have to go through that very tough seven weeks selection process.

I remember they took in like 12, 15 offices at the beginning and they only accepted 3 at the end, me and then two more female officers. We were best buddies even now.

Ling Yah: And was it a dangerous role?

Joey Law: It can be, but I appreciate so much of the training because you have to deal with bombs, right? You have to be super cautious and you don't have much time to think too long and you can't go back.

The training we received, it's kind of like a lifelong thing. They have standard procedures, which are used till now in my decision making.

Ling Yah: Is it okay for you to share what those procedures are that we could apply in our own lives?

Joey Law: Yeah. Well, yeah. First of all, it is useful for anyone to apply in any situation.

First you have to look for the whole situation and then you have to think through the options. What options you have.

We must come up with five options. No matter how difficult it is. The reason being they don't want you to jump to the conclusion. They don't want you to just find one solution and go ahead, maybe you were wrong. And then you have to take the worst one out until you come up with the, that is the way they trained you.

You have to do this every single time. We keep on doing all the exercise. They will keep asking you to drool until you have five options. That was how you do it.

After you have the options, they call it mental run through, you have to go through the whole thing in your mind on how to approach those situations.

Because we are talking about a bomb, you can't go back and forth. You only have one shot to go, then you have to go through it in your mind. You have to practice on the spot before you approach all these things that come up, it helps you when you are dealing with a problem in hand.

Ling Yah: And are there any particular moments that impacted you significantly from your time in the force?

Joey Law: There are many, but one small story came to me all the time.

It was a very small story, but it affected me on how I see things and see most things actually.

I remember when I was just a junior inspector where we had to patrol on the streets all the time, I bumped into a couple in those love hotels. A very old man and a very young girl from mainland China.

She didn't have any identity document. Some day to day thing, you will jump to a conclusion that she must be an illegal immigrant, as a prostitute in Hong Kong. So she gave me a very weird story about how she really had an identity, but she lost it and she had a family in Hong Kong, but she was not in a good relationship with them.

That's why she was that old and met this man. It doesn't even seem right to me. Didn't seem logical. The most logical thing is what we have been seeing all the time. Right? So we just arrested her, disregarded her story and sent her to court. I think the next day things came back to us and things got verified.

Everything she said was right. The thing that came to us, that was so right. That has to be the story, was not the case. And that small thing, that small story actually changed my mind of seeing things.

No matter how reasonable I think that thing may be, I always verify it. You always, always have to verify. don't take it as it is.

Ling Yah: And I understand that it was a very, very stressful job. And you were also balancing it with young kids. So how did you do that?

Joey Law: Yes. That was one of the reasons I left the police force because it was really tough. Work life balance. There's no such thing. You have to make a choice.

You have to make some kind of sacrifice.

When I was having my second kid, Alexis, I was in a very demanding job where I was the one with the lowest rank. And my head boss was one of the top, top guy on criminal investigation.

There were only eight of us on the floor and I was the one with the lowest rank. So I have a lot to handle and I was pregnant with my second child. But that was a very good post that would help you climb the corporate ladder. So I remembered one day I was like three, four months pregnant.

And I have blood and I have to rush to the doctor and there was early kind of miscarriage.

So the doctor said, you'll have to take leave for a month. I just told the doctor, no, I can only take one week maximum. I just say no to the doctor.

No, I can only take one week off. Then the doctor said, what?

Eventually I took one week off and I took all my work back home and I called him my boss constantly telling them that I'm available.

Work just consumed me. I couldn't think of anything but work and to make sure I got the thing done.

Nothing undermines me as a person working on par with my colleagues, and I remember my husband was really stressed. He was even more stressed than I was. And he was like, this is just crazy. There's just no way.

During that time, Hillary was two years old and I couldn't attend many of her school meetings, you know the cooking mum thing, I was never there. And my husband normally will be there, and I felt bad about that, but yeah, at that time I was just so into my work. It couldn't last longer. And my husband and I had back then full of all these kinds of conversations. And at the end, I decided, you know, it's just not worth keeping on doing it that way.

It is hard to describe it. It's never ending. Even you get one promotion. If you want to get the second one, you have to work that way too. You'd have to outwork other people in order to, as a female, as well in a police force where 80% of them are men.

And you have to show that nothing, undermine you as a female, as a mum or whatever. It is hard. It is tough. And I don't want to live in that kind of mode for all my life until I'm 55.

So it was at the point that I decided when I was 33 to quit a force and try something else.

Ling Yah: And was it scary to hand in your resignation letter?

Joey Law: Uh, it was a big decision, but I made it one night, I think. I just want to make sure my husband's happy about it. I was lucky to have a very good partner who always supports me. He's not the kind of person who will regret any decisions we've made and, for that, I'm grateful.

He gave me the confidence to do whatever I think is the right thing to do.

Ling Yah: So you hand the resignation and I understand you didn't go home and do nothing you want to use started with an online children's bookstore.

How did that even begin? Like what was the rationale behind that?

Joey Law: I've always been a book person since I was a little girl. So when you have kids, these things consume your mind, what should I tutor for my kids ? Books are the very first thing that came to my mind.

And I know that this is the thing that if I instill into them to have this love for books, they are pretty much set. So this is the first thing we do, even before she was born, we were reading books to her and the first day when she was on crib, we were just reading, chatting, and that was, I would say, not just for her it's for us too.

It feels like you are doing the parent's job. Try to compensate. We didn't have as a kid, kind of like the self healing process, and I really enjoyed it and we have to start looking for books all the time.

At that time in Hong Kong, I think Amazon was there, but it cost a lot for shipping. No book depository back at that time.

It was always too costly to order books from overseas. So we have to look for the local bookstores and the book collections in Hong Kong for kids was not that great either.

The books that everybody's talked about, the hip ones, the popular ones are almost always linked with Disney characters or movies affiliated. So if you want to find some classic books or some people would like to recommend to kids. It's educational, but it's not like the most, most popular ones.

You can't find it in Hong Kong. I was really upset and I was thinking, Oh, maybe I can try something online and reduce my cost and introduce myself to others. There must be some other parents who want books like I do. So that's how I started.

Ling Yah: What was it like? How did you even begin to think of opening a bookstore?

Joey Law: I was lucky cause I actually have a backup plan. I joined my family business after the force. We have a warehouse, so I don't have to worry about where I put the star. I was thinking about starting small. And we did that. We contacted some publishers where we can find your Hong Kong.

I visited them and I was lucky too. They let us place more orders at the beginning. And you just build up your connections. Once the first publishers will open an account with you, then you can contact others, even overseas ones. They are very willing to open accounts with you.

Ling Yah: What were the biggest challenges that you faced in the early days?

Joey Law: Of course, about stocks, because the ones you have accumulated stocks and you will have an issue and the pages will get yellow and it's difficult to keep if you want to sell them as new books, that's pretty frustrating sometimes.

Ling Yah: And the margins are quite low as well, right for it?

Joey Law: Very low. Very low.

And my selling point was to sell books at a very reasonable price. I always sell lower than what the normal chain stores are selling because of course they have to pay overheads.

I'm selling them at a lower price and we have steady followers and we have a good business during book fairs in Hong Kong too. So we ran the business for a good few years until the trend, free books from overseas changed so we have to adapt to it.

Ling Yah: And I understand that running this children's book business has taught you about effective parenting. Am I correct?

Joey Law: Oh, well, that was another different thing. I joined the kind of core effective parenting workshops that were introduced by Hillary's kindergartens.

I think it was right after I quit the force so that I can attend those training sessions. It was pretty intensive, you know, a few full day courses. And that's how I was just thinking, Oh, it was pretty new to me, parenting course, you know, what kind of thing was that?

And I was really curious , I remember the principal was highly recommending that. It was kind of life changing for me as a parent too. About active listening. I think a lot of people have heard about that term right now. You have to go to the level of the kids when you talk to her and you know just practice empathy with your kid.

Pretty much that. And I remember one story that one analogy that they mentioned . I totally got it.

He said, okay. You parents always ask kids to share the toys, right? When your kid is holding on to her doll or her Ironman toy, and when friends come, you will always ask them to share their most precious toy.

But what if I asked you to share your most precious diamond ring to your friend? And that immediately you're like, Oh, that was a bit,

Ling Yah: I don't think so.

Joey Law: I don't think you will share your most precious ring. got it. I immediately got it. I was like, Oh, that's right.

You know, asking your kid to share their most precious toy. It is tough for them, and that brought me to my early childhood days as well. And you will immediately be able to see things differently and see things in the kids' eyes too.

Ling Yah: I think at the same time that you were running this, you also launched your own blog, Joeymum.com. So how did that come about the idea of running a blog?

Joey Law: That was in later years after the online bookstore, I changed the page to Joeymom. Because I have accumulated a lot of fan following from the bookstore as well, and new or parents, we did that naturally already with a lot of parenting talks, or sharing information.

And I think why should I just carry on doing that? We share a lot of experiences and my customers always ask me questions. So I just want to leverage that and use that channel or page to keep talking to them.

Ling Yah: And how important is it? Do you think for mothers to have these online moms communities?

Joey Law: It was very helpful. You don't have any experience at all until you have your first kid. No matter how many books you have read, how many things you've seen, nothing to compare with when you have experienced yourself and totally changed everything, your lifestyle, what time you sleep or what time you get up, it is so different.

There's so many things coming up in your mind, not the thing that you are seeing every day. But for parents, especially when you have kids and in high stress places like Hong Kong or Singapore, South Korea, you have to pre plan for so many years, and that was really stressful.

At that time, I think it would just very naturally come to you that you have to seek help , seek help and go for online forums, you know?

Ling Yah: And, one of the things that we talked about briefly before was that when Hillary was 10, that she actually had difficulty in school.

And I wonder, because it's this topic of bullying and it's something that parents are aware of. But we never know how to deal with it. So I wonder for you, how did you first discover it happening?

Joey Law: Actually, it didn't happen at 10. She experienced the first bullying when she was year four, it was like 8.

She was a different kind of person. She was very different from the girl type of kids. And then they probably will love to talk about clothes even, at eight years old, you know, she was always in with her books.

As a parent, you raised her up to love books, and that is exactly the way you want her to be, and you don't want her to change a single bit.

But at that point, do you want to persuade her to change to adapt to other people? There was some dilemma that we had to face and when she was eight, she started to experience that. And she was in an international school where those kids don't like to wear jackets or coats even during cold days.

I don't know whether you've seen that. And they would like to wear short sleeves, even at 8 degrees and Hillary , she is so afraid of the cold. She wears thick jackets all the time. And so she was always being picked on. I remember she didn't care too much because that time she was pretty young, still.

I remember going to the school camp with her that time as a mom volunteer and that girl group teased her in front of me. And I was thinking, Hey, you know, it's not too nice, but I didn't say a word. So at the end, I emailed a teacher. I laid out everything factually, what happened, what Hillary said to me and what I have witnessed to the teacher and the teacher handled well. That time when she was eight, the teacher was able to talk to both sides, and tell them how to respect each other's choice. That was a success case.

And those girls, although I could see that they were not very happy about being told off by the teacher, they still kind of control themselves and let her be.

So she carried on studying at those schools and those girls let her off. But when she moved on from primary to secondary school, that was the year where problems are really surfacing and we couldn't help.

And eventually pulled her out from school.

Ling Yah: What was the tipping point that led you to the decision that I would pull her out?

Joey Law: It lasted for a few months for us, it was like hell. It was like so long, but I know that for many kids that so many parents that I've talked to after our situation's being published.

So a lot of people came to us and know that a lot of people have experienced these for years. And I honestly couldn't imagine how could they endure so many years of torture.

For Hillary herself, it started at the first month of school in secondary school. Some vendors go, she went on a school trip that, that time I couldn't go with her two times, it was a planned activity for school so that the kids get together.

In another environment so that they can unite, know each other better in a more 24/7 situation. But that was when things happened. Again, she was with the books all the time and the girls were listening to music, chatting and she was not interested and they kind of didn't like that.

It's starting to have the teenager thing where the girls, they would want to have some power group. They want to attract you in. And if you don't want to be with them, you're out, you will be alienated. You'll be picked on. That was exactly how it happened. And she was bringing her journal with her, which she always brought the journal when she was not with us and she would write everything down.

And this is just her. She loved to show us when she's back. And this is what I do, all these things, she was always writing her journal and they hated it.

When Hillary was out swimming with her friend, that group of girls read her journal , of course she mentioned something that she is not very satisfied with. And they have an argument and they say, Oh, why do you say, so in this, and Hillary's like wow, this is my journal. Do you know what privacy is? And of course that is how it happened.

So when they came back. School things got worse because the group is the popular girl type so everybody's kind of attracted to them. They are very sporty, beautiful girls, always very chatty.

Even her old friends started to dump her. Refused to talk to her. And she had no one to turn to when she sat down for lunch, everybody just left the table.

She is the person who thrives in school. She has always been. She loves learning and the teacher loves her, but that's also causing her pain because the teacher has always asked her questions and those kids hate it.

And when she answers the questions, they will sneer at her. Glare at her. So she began to shut up. She began to just shut down and lost her confidence as well. She complained to me at the beginning. She complained to me. And I remember before Christmas, I arranged a meeting with her class teacher and told her everything like I did when she was eight.

But they didn't manage it. Well, they told off the girls and they made things worse. You know, those girls are crying and everybody says, Oh, Hillary, how could you do this? You know? And then things got worse. And her locker's being ransacked. The locks were broken and ransacked and soon she didn't even talk to me.

She didn't tell me anything about school. I didn't know. I didn't even know what happened. I still blame myself for not noticing it because I realized when I picked her up from school, she was always the last one to come up. Always the last of the whole secondary school, which I didn't notice why she didn't tell me.

I was, Oh, why are you so late? And she just shrugged . it didn't come across to me that she intentionally did that. It was only after she left school. She told me she hid in the toilet. So to let everybody leave school before she came out. Because she doesn't want to be the only person to leave school, where they're always in a group.

And when they see you, they will just stay away from you. You know, she hates that, that's why she hid in the toilet cubicle. And I didn't even know, but that's a month's past. And then one day I remember going to a clinic with her. And she was sitting next to me very closely for a long time. And then I noticed there was a bald patch on her head, a bald patch, there's no hair there.

I was wondering, what happened? And I guess just two or three days ago, I remember she went to an event and I combed her hair and her hair was intact back then, nothing like that. Just two days afterwards, I saw a patch. There's something really wrong with it. And I cornered her. I asked her over the whole afternoon, I wouldn't let her off without telling me.

And she broke down and told me that she was really experiencing a lot of all out bullying at school. And that was because of stress. She pulled her hair out when she was in class, she was always pulling her hair. And that's how the bald patch came

So I was only by then, then I realized how serious it was. And I've got everything out of her. I didn't pull it out right there and then.

I still talk to the school. I still arrange meetings. And I talked to her. I will do whatever I can to help you. You still go to school and still see whether you can manage and see how with us, the teachers and yourself could we you know, revive the situations and if you can, experience a better school life.

But as expected it wasn't doing her any good telling the teacher, she started to have nightmares. She didn't want to go to school. She is always late. It wasn't like that. She was always looking forward to school when she was young, before secondary school, she was really happy, fully.

And during that time, she was another person. She didn't want to comb her hair. She always let her hair cover away her face. And she had nightmares. I saw sweats on her body all the time. And I remember towards the very last days I have to go to school and tell her I will be there at your school facilities . I will be staying at a coffee shop.

If you need me, call me, I will be here with you within 10 minutes, but just try, go, still go and try it. So. It was how it works for one, two weeks. And then one day I picked her up from school and she told me it was a day where with the drama class assessment and asked her, Hey, how was the assessment going?

Because the assessment was the kind of performance totally arranged by a group of students, the teacher has no involvement in it. So on the planning of the script, everything, the students, we do it. So it was a totally group project. She said, they totally changed my script from everybody and had a fair turn at me saying nothing.

I was playing a role of a fool where I will just on a banana peel and die and have nothing to say. And I said, what did you do? Did you protest, did you tell the teacher? She said, no, no point doing that. And I don't want to affect other kids. I don't want to affect other students cause this is an assessment.

And she just told me that she had totally gave up. She had given up on herself. And I just couldn't take it. That night I talked to my husband and said, well, let's not just pull out from school, let her have a break. I want her intact, you know, body and soul.

So, that was how we pulled her out. Yeah.

Ling Yah: Yeah. I mean, thank you, firstly, so much for sharing all that. It's really heartbreaking to see what happened to her. she's such a wonderful, bright, happy girl, I just spoke to her. She's amazing.

Because a lot of listeners are young moms and obviously they are concerned where do I send my kids and all these warning signs, you know?

And I'm wondering for them, do you have any advice in terms of any signs that they should look out for ? Any advice for them?

Joey Law: Yeah, totally.

If kids have a change of attitudes towards what school initially from very happily looking forward to going to not wanting to go, it is a sign. And when they complain to you, I think at the beginning they will always talk to the parents.

Don't just brush it off or just keep saying you must be one of the problems here. Keep listening to them, assessing the situations, be supportive and don't make it in a way that they will stop talking to you. I think in our case it is because we told the teachers and it made things worse. That was the tipping point where she stopped talking because she didn't want a situation to be any worse.

Ling Yah: But, I mean like how can you as parents not do anything as well, right?

Joey Law: Yeah, it's very difficult. Keep talking to your kids, keep chatting with them. It is very important. The relationship between you and the kid is, of course, very important. They have total trust in you. And I think you have to give your kids some kind of confidence and trust and support to let them know that you're always there. You help them solve, whatever problem do you see?

And I think it is good to introduce other trusted adults to your kid, too, because for them, the parents are always the one who is saying these things, it's not credible. Sometimes they need to see another person that they look up to or someone they really trust not to tell them or to be a supportive adult as well.

Because at that time, it's very lucky for her to have her business mentor. He also told her that this is not your whole world.

School is of course very important to you right now that you are in here. 10 hours a day, and you're seeing this as your whole world, but there is a real world out there and you are with me right now and we love you. You will see good people out there. You will meet your like minded people. The problem now you have is short term and you can overcome this.

I'm really grateful to that mentor too.

Ling Yah: It's so amazing.

I was so amazed as I was researching, also talking to Hillary and she was saying that the startup community is so supportive, so embracing and that is so encouraging to hear that it doesn't matter how old you are. It's all about your passion and what you want to put into.

So yeah, I mean she's facing, all these things, but then she also found something that really excited her, which was the whole entrepreneurial competition.

The whole thing that started was you sending them off her and Alexis to a Chinese summer camp, and then she came back and then she saw this competition, how do you feel when she came to you and said, I want to join this thing? Does your family have some kind of entrepreneurial background as well?

Joey Law: No, actually it was an AIA initiative. Because one of my friends worked in it and she told me, Oh, there was one of these things. There was this entrepreneur initiative from all my friends department. Do you want to send her to read that? Cause she was within that age range .

The only reason was it's totally free and they send the kids to all different places, including Facebook Citibank, go in there and to see what is being run, you know. Normally it's not accessible to the public. Right. And AIA was spent a lot of time teaching the kids, all these different things.

You will see 3D models, these cool things as well. This is pretty cool. So I asked him to read whether you want to go. And she said, Oh yes, I really want to, I want to go with my friends originally. They want to go as a group, but then her two other friends drop off at the very last moment, because you have to come up with something.

An idea in order to enter the competition . You have to pitch your business idea. So I don't know whether they're friends or maybe it's too troublesome. They just dropped off at the end.

Ling Yah: What was amazing for me, is that when they dropped out, she had three hours to come up with something new and she did it.

Yes. Incredible.

Joey Law: Yeah. I was like, Oh, you've got to, you know, the deadline is coming up. You have to come up with something. I don't know why she can't join. And just think. Just think, whatever, you know. And then she said, Oh, what about, remember that the Chinese camp experience, if I could bring that online or it would help everyone.

That was where the idea came from.

Ling Yah: So she submitted it. She got in, she started pitching. Do you remember that whole experience? I'm sure you were with her the whole time, just making sure she was okay. So what was your perspective of the entire experience?

Joey Law: Yeah, I was there the whole time, but I also let her do it her own way.

So that's why I remember her first pitch with so many teams of kids, her PowerPoint full of words, it's definitely a no, no, right now,.Full of words. Very colorful lines, no colorful words, but that's how she did it. I told her, if you can't remember, maybe you write down your points on cue cards.

So she had cue cards, you have a PowerPoint for words. And she did that, but she did it with passion, you know, very excitable. We know she's always excited when she speaks and then she gets in.

Ling Yah: Wow. so she was like doing it herself. She wanted to do cue cards, she wanted to do the presentation.And were you like, teaching her how to do public speaking?

Joey Law: Not at that time, not during the first pitch, no.

But towards the very end of the competition they had, the chance to pitch their idea then to the whole Hong Kong startup community. It was a big event because there was the first Hong Kong startup event run by the government and they invited Elon Musk there.

Because of Elon Musk, of course everybody went to that event. So it was like over a thousand people in the central government office and the kids, of course, it's just like a dessert kind of thing. You know, just to fill the empty spots.

I trained her up. I want her to do it in a way that she will be proud of herself because in her school, they didn't have many of these opportunities to work very hard towards one thing.

It is always a very relaxed and easy project. They don't really have the opportunity to spend a lot of time to be really hard working on one thing. So don't even have examinations at that time. So I want her to work on something and feel proud of herself. And so that's why we did it.

We made a professional, not many words in a PowerPoint. I trained her on how to speak without any cue cards because it's just like a free four minutes presentation. So she memorized the whole thing. We practiced it well, and she made Epic work there. And then everybody was still talking about that presentation.

And that was the presentation that brought the mentor to her.

Ling Yah: Yeah. I actually found that presentation on YouTube and I was amazed. Like she was so poised, so confident, spoke so clearly, but her presentation didn't work.

And I was amazed. She didn't freak out. She was just like, Oh, I guess I can't use it, which is such a testimony to her ability to speak.

Joey Law: I was sweating, you know, and I mean you have to, give thanks to her practice too, because she really memorized her speech inside out. So even when things didn't work, she can keep going on without the slides.

I think that helps a lot.

Ling Yah: So after that, lots of people came and wanted to speak with her. She's still a child, she's only 10 years old, how did you determine who was a good person to speak with because you would probably be thinking, why do they want to speak with her, right? And who to seek out, maybe.

Joey Law: Actually a lot of people just want to speak with her there and then. Honestly, not a lot of people would like to spend a lot of their personal time too, with a kid.

For those who really want to that time we normally say, yes, we just schedule after school, times for coffee with them or visit their office.

I also want Hillary to see different things too, to meet different people, to learn from them too. So that's how we got into different people. And her mentor.

The first meeting with her mentor was so memorable. They spent hours at Starbucks where he taught her everything of a startup from how to do marketing, how to do research, to IPO and you know, he's a CEO of a big company to talk to a 10 year old kid.

It is so funny watch for me out there, I was learning too. To see him talking to her so patiently and that Hillary was really absorbing like a sponge. It's very funny to watch.

And then. I think that their relationship deepening starting from there, because I think he got the satisfaction from the kid by giving him the response of really learning from him and taking in the advice.

it's an amazing experience to watch too.

Ling Yah: And she was only 10. So was it her first time hearing all these things like IPO, marketing. And was she understanding like fully understanding what it's all about?

Joey Law: Um, she asked what, what is IPO she asks? And he explained, and then he also kind of like teaching her really deep, deep things.

The first day taught her not to be afraid to lose.

Startups 90% of them fail. You will fail. You just expect to fail. Then you won't be afraid to be failing. And that was so important, because a lot of people just think of an idea. I always have that idea. You see so many people talk about, Oh, I know that, I've thought about that, but you never did it.

You know why? Because you've afraid of losing face. You're afraid of failing publicly. But if you can go past that, then there are whole different things for you to try.

Ling Yah: So she had that conversation with the mentor and I think she went back and she was excited. She wanted to start a company for that. Were you like nervous, excited for her?

Joey Law: It was natural. Just like the next one thing to do, okay. You have a meeting with this mentor and he suggested you to find 30 parents, 30 kids to talk about your ideas. It's not a big deal, you know?

Okay, let's do this . Alright, I have my Facebook account and I can help you set up a group on how to reach out to people.

And when people really respond to you is really exciting. He's not just. People from Hong Kong. She had people from outside of Hong Kong doing these marketing tests with her.

Ling Yah: How was she reaching out to these people?

Joey Law: We set up a Facebook page and then write these things and share, asking friends to share, and then they just respond. Very soon as you have enough people to try.

And then they started with having just Skype cause testing out how kids respond to each other. She arranged different kids who don't know each other and try, how can you see how they interact with each other? That's how it started.

Ling Yah: And so she was doing all these things, so what were you doing behind the scenes to help her?

Joey Law: I was there all the time to just, you know, observe.

You know, then of course I will take down notes of what the mentor said and I will say, Oh, the mentor asked you to read this book, have you read this book?

Or I will talk to her and see how much she has taken in.

I will also check with her, but at that time, it is something very interesting and funny to her. So she didn't really need much of me to ask her to do it. She'll do it herself

She was still in primary school.

Ling Yah: And then like she transitioned into homeschooling for like three months and we didn't deal with this, but what led you to decide to keep her in that homeschool experience?

Joey Law: Oh, we pulled her out from school in February.

I remember that was the month, it was kind of an embarrassing time. Cause it is like halfway of the academic year. It is difficult for school to take in kids at that time.

Once we put her out, it was just natural for us to ask for her to transfer it to other schools, right. Homeschooling was not in my mind at all.

It's not an option because Hong Kong is really not popular. And a lot of people have the perception that that is illegal because in the law, kids should go to school except for exceptional situations. This is actually in law. So for us, you know, we were just thinking it is by law.

You need to go to a school. So we arranged for her to transfer to other schools, but it was not the time that they will take in new students.

You have to wait until September. You can come for the interviews, you can come for the exams. But if they want to take you in, it will be the next school term.

So during those gap months, I have to arrange something for her. And then it came a teacher, she had a start up where we met her before at those startup events.

She had just started running an alternative schooling start up, where she wants to run project based learning and real life situations where she will bring kids out to learn, to see a world instead of having just classroom classes.

And I think we have nothing to lose and I want her. To be out there instead of sulking at home feeling that because I'm outcast I have to stay home.

And I think it was actually the best choice. So we sent her to that teacher and within days I saw the original Hillary. She was so happy, talking about all the things you see, she started to research, get all the books she wants.

And I think we didn't know back afterwards.

Ling Yah: I think at the same time, that was a difficult decision. Because I think your family was objecting to that as well. But you knew this was best for her.

Joey Law: Yeah. Yeah. I just don't care. I don't care. You know, our parents should be totally surprised because Hillary was so good in school. She was always top of the class, they expected her to keep on doing that and don't go the traditional path to be out of school is something our parents won't understand. And they even cried, in front of me and saying that you're ruining her, you know. You're ruining her!

But I know what I'm doing, what we are doing. So it doesn't bother me.

Ling Yah: And just to give people a context. I read that Hong Kong schooling is very competitive. Like people with unborn children are filling out application forms as well. It's very hard just to even get to school at all let alone you taking deliberately a child out of the schooling system?

Joey Law: Yes. Yeah, we're talking about those top schools. Yes. Some of them, you have to fill out the form before the child is born.

Ling Yah: So moving back, in any event, the old Hillary resurfaced. This was her thing. And she was also running this company that was going to be MinorMynas.

So in that six or seven months, I understand that's the period you took to do testing before you got a programmer to come on board to launch this. What was it like? Do you remember those days?

Joey Law: Yes, we spent a good few months testing and, coming up with ideas, what does books suggest to do?

And I just want her to learn as a parent. I just want her to get out there and meet different people and learn. And because she is a kid. She really followed the textbook case, just like a textbook case. I'm just watching her like a textbook case. She just does everything that they recommended.

Just follow the books and then she doesn't have a second thought. For us, kind of like you have a lot of thinking, bothering you. That's why you procrastinate right. For her it's just like, okay, I do, 1 2 3 today. And I do four, five, six the other day, you know, .

And that progress here is very well. So at one point we have to come and say, okay, we have done everything. We have this drafted out and we need money to do this app. And can you invest money you know, fund and develop her to do this? I think for me, it's not a difficult decision because it's not like a lot of money because I don't know.

Maybe people knowing Hong Kong situations, you spend a lot of money sending them to international school and all those extra curricula anyway.

Ling Yah: So I understand like the schooling itself a year. It's like $150,000 just to send a child, right?

Joey Law: Oh, no more than that. For her that year is already $200,000 a year.

200,000 a year and also other after school curriculums. So if extra school classes probably can make up for the app development. So for us, it's not a difficult decision. I want her to carry on learning to have this experience. I know that it will be priceless for her.

And she told me earlier that she was also going and just pitching and pitching and pitching.

Ling Yah: So you were with her the whole time. Were you ever worried that she was overworking herself, that she needed a break and be a child?

Joey Law: Oh no, don't worry. She'll let me know. Cause I don't want to do it. And then we would say, no, we don't say yes to everything. No, she won't do it if she doesn't want to.

Ling Yah: Are there any particular moments that stuck with you that really impacted you?

Joey Law: Yes. Yes.

That's how the dynamic between us shifted. I think as a parent. Sometimes it is a happy and sad situation. You want to bring them up to be independent people, but then when they say, okay, mom, I don't need you.

I can do it myself. It's kind of sad. Yeah. I see all this time, and at the beginning I have to train her for all the public speaking, like the first one I told you she had to memorize every single word. So even if there are any situations, she can handle it because she would memorize things inside out, backwards and forwards.

If you want to be a real good public speaker, this is not the way, right. You need to memorize the points instead of. Verbatim and you'll have to adapt a different kind of speech . Sometimes you have panels speaking. She had a lot of invitations to be panel speakers where it's kind of like impromptu talks, you know, you can't prepare for it.

But to my surprise, she was.At her best when she spoke as a panel speaker, she just spoke her mind, it was free, she didn't need to think too much and she was at her best. And those are the things that I don't need to help her at all, but she started to have keynote speaking invitations from five to 10 to 15. To 30 minutes.

It was tough. And I want to train her up. So she never uses cue cards anymore. She always memorized the speech, but then you have to adapt and change. You have to learn, read a lot of books on how public speakers do it.

You know, how real good public speakers do it. And they memorize by points. They memorize the flow. So you will be natural. You can speak out your mind. You can even change it a little bit to adapt to the situations , adapt to the audience so you can be yourself and be a good speaker.

So I helped her and that was a long process. I remember at the very beginning, at one point I told her, this time, I'm not going to help you. You draft your speech and you do it. She was kind of like, okay, I can do it. And she didn't spend much time on it. But when she spoke on stage, she stumbled and I remember she kind of like stopped a little. She kind of forgot her line for over the next point for a bit.

And then she knew it. That time was the only time that she felt she could have prepared better. And after that presentation, she never told me not to, prep with her or to. At least after that little incident, she would always prepare very well.

And she will do her preparation job and she will come to me and then, she will do in front of me and I will give her feedback. This is always good to have someone telling you how to do it.

And then she will change her speech and then perfect her speech. I remember the last time when she went to Dubai and gave a 25 minute speech, he was brilliant.

That was brilliant. I was so touched. She didn't miss a single bit and she did a really good job. And I was really proud .

But you know, she'd been spending a lot of time preparingtoo, even in Dubai all the time, but she was out there, even at the bus stop, even when we were touring , she was practicing.

Ling Yah: So, what was your role as you were doing this? Clearly she is driven. She is the face. She has no fear talking to all these grownups to, how were you supporting her. And what was your role in all this?

Joey Law: I don't take the credit. Honestly, it was her. I did all I can. If she wants some support, I think emotional support is the best thing I could do for her. When she feels tired. When she feels exhausted, we'd just always chill out, just drop everything.

She likes to go fishing with her grandpa and we took her during weekends to do fishing, and these things, although it seems like taking a lot of time, but if you structure your time well, you can still have a lot of me time. She's still read a lot of books.

So for her it's easy. It's very easy to manage . just whenever she said, I want that book. You just buy that book for her. It's the best thing for her.

Ling Yah: And I understand that Alexis also joined the company. Was Her first employee. So how did they, Oh, how did it all come about?

Joey Law: You know, the brother naturally, he became part of us.

And it is very funny to see that dynamic between them. And the brother always actually issues. He brought up a lot of good ideas, even some of our vision mission statements, some of the points that are brought up by the brother, because he was there all the time. He knew he knew our stuff inside out too.

And sometimes when Hillary's preparing for a speech. He will give feedback. And because the brother is a very different person. He's really outgoing. He's totally different from Hillary. So he will be on a lot of our video,

Ling Yah: I've noticed he's very, very happy to just speak in front of the video by himself.

And I wonder as a parent, so you are concerned like they are kids, they are appearing all over social media. Is privacy something that you're concerned about?

Joey Law: Um, this is something that we always have discussions about and, because of the MinorMynas, of the app, we are concerned about privacy and safety of kids.

This is already in our conversations all the time. So for them, we know that they may be the face of the app of the business, but you never see her personal information or form, all these things.

Even for all the social media accounts, I co-manage with them and they knew it.

They knew it, they totally knew it. And actually something happened before.

Her previous school, some kids came to try to bully her at the MinorMynas account saying really humiliating things. And I remember I messaged that person personally and saying that, actually, I'm your mom.

And I don't think this is the way to go and if you don't stop doing this, I'm going to call you out. And the boy just apologized and deleted everything.

Ling Yah: This is just terrible to hear that.

Joey Law: but I want to add one more thing too. It's not only negative stuff that comes out from all this negative comments or haters, I think is what was also important for me as a parent, too, in my role, to teach them how to see how to respond to all these haters. Because unless you are hiding behind it all the time, Whether it's now, or when you become an adult, there are always some negative comments, right?

Or people discouraging you . It will just happen sooner or later. So I think this is a good time for me to be there with her, to face it and see things and see and discuss how to handle it. And I can be there right now. When you see these negative comments, then we can discuss it and how you feel about it.

And I think she's pretty strong. She's really strong and positive about all these hater things. It doesn't bother her at all. And I think I am happy to be with her at this moment to deal with all these things right now, instead of when she was, you know, all alone later.

Ling Yah: That's so encouraging to hear. I wonder if you're looking back, right. Is there anything you would have done differently to help her with this journey?

Joey Law: I think for her personally, of course we celebrate individuality. We celebrate uniqueness of you and you shouldn't change a single bit of yourself, but when you see. People who have different views with you, you don't need to have a judgment on whether you're right or whether they are right, right.

It's okay for everyone to feel differently. At that point, I think Hillary naturally for her, she probably will make people think that she's looking down and being condescending, but this is very tough for a 11, 12 year old.

And if I can do it differently, I hope I can break it down into more understandable terms to talk to her , to teach her how to deal with these social situations. sometimes even if you don't like what they're doing, if you don't agree with other people, you can still accept it and just be friendly to everyone.

listen to them without agreeing. It is not easy even for us as adults. But if I can teach her that, I don't know whether the bullying things will go away. I don't know.

Ling Yah: And what about the kind of learnings and lessons, like since you're not in an official school system, how do you plan on what she needs to learn or do you just let her follow what she's interested in?

Joey Law: I think we let it go to waste.

After pulling out from school, we have a lot of thinking about what education is, what school is and what do you need to learn . And what we resettled with is learning is different from schooling. Right? You can learn whatever. Go for whatever you like to read.

But the education system is whether you want to go through that system to follow suit to take an undergraduate degree, and get the certificate to get that accreditation .

Then you need to follow the rule and the game. You need to study the exams. You can't tell me that you think it is a waste of time because that is how you play the game.

That's why she's taking the GCSE exams because she has a certain goal in her mind, what subjects she wants to study in universities that she is really interested in. She had already read a lot of books about it. She couldn't stop talking about it. So she's happy with her schooling, education, and also her own learning.

Ling Yah: And so what is your advice for any parent who's seeking to take their kid out of the official school system and create their own for their kids?

Joey Law: There are a few things they must think it through before making the decision.

First is actually it takes you, the parents, the adult, a way lot more time and energy and planning then sending a kid to a school. Because the school has a system to take care of that .

If you want to decentralize that and then take the responsibility yourself, then you need to, you know, plan so many things. Not just the academic part, don't forget the physical activity, parts, the leisure part and how to balance everything. And what kind of subjects or general knowledge you want to keep to keep up with.

I think that for many homeschooling families, They may be interested in one particular thing but they totally neglected any other stuff. So sometimes when you talk to them, maybe for some, they don't have any math sense at all.

And that can be dangerous if you want your kids to pursue whatever accreditation later on in life, it caused some resentment in them. That's why you need to reverse engineer your way of thinking for homeschooling.

You need to first know the goal.

where your kids are, where they want to be, and then work your way back, and see what kind of path you should follow through. Although you don't go to school, what kind of exams they need to take in order to go to whatever school or what kind of design school, whatever it is that your kids may want to do, but the earlier you take them out.

It is even more difficult because they were still so young. They don't know where they want to be. And you need a lot of work in progress and keep on being flexible and keep on doing your research and don't miss all the deadlines, that kind of stuff. So it's a lot of work for the parents.

And if you want to do that and you think you can do that. Totally.

Ling Yah: There is one thing that I suppose people are most concerned about which is the social aspect. I mean, school naturally you have all your classmates, but coming out, you have to be more deliberate about it. So how do you go about thinking and making sure they have interaction with their peers?

Joey Law: We were very cautious for Hillary's case at the beginning because she had the social issue before.

So we plan to have a lot of meet ups with other social homeschool kids, homeschool families, and they are so loving. They are very careful about this and because they're used to mixing up with kids of different ages. Cause you can't plan for all 10 years old together, right.

They're already a family of different ages of kids, you know, whoever that has time we'll come together.

And then you don't know who you're going to see. And they are very accepting. They're all very friendly. So we were very lucky to be able to connect with them to this community.

I remember that time when they were hiking together and the girls were already holding hands, wrapping their arms around her shoulders. And I was so glad I kept on taking photos behind them.

There are many groups that the kids can join light Hillary joined girl Guides before, and yeah, we kept looking for opportunities and activities like this.

Ling Yah: And how does Alexis take to this whole staying at home and learning from home as well?

Joey Law: Yeah, for my son is a little different because he is a very social person. He couldn't stop talking and he's enjoyed his friends so much. So after he left school, I still connected with his old schoolmates' parents all the time. I still text him all the time. They caught him to the parties still, even now after he left school for so many years, they have play days.

They have sleepovers all the time. Alexis makes new friends easily, and I'm glad that he doesn't lose that.

Ling Yah: Is there any common misconception about homeschooling that you'd like to clear for people?

Joey Law: Yeah. I mean the most misconception is about losing the social element.

That homeschool kids because of the name they are trapped at home. I mean, this is all up to you.

For us at the very first year. I took them out all the time. We joined up with other homeschool families.

We went to all the museums or the things and times where there were no people at all. And we enjoyed all the private tours. And it was great. It was great. We went to all different places to where I haven't been in Hong Kong.

I remember a bakery where the Baker spent a whole morning teaching these groups of homeschool kids on the science behind fermented bread, all this stuff.

And they got hands on things on baking, that morning was so good. I haven't seen any science class so interesting before.

Ling Yah: And I think that you video these kinds of field trips on the MinorMynas YouTube as well. So people can go and just see what it's like for all these kids that have their own futures.

I mean, obviously now we are recording this during COVID and I'm wondering how has that impacted your life and your family, and also MinorMynas the running of it.

Joey Law: For MinorMynas, it has affected us quite a bit because the developers were in Canada. And one of the key team members and his family has got COVID.

So we have to totally look at the whole project stalled for a while because we are developing a version two. But, you just have to face it. You just have to delay the launch of the second version.

The family wise, I think it's just, they have to do with boredom. They can't go out to the center to have lessons. And Hillary really loves meeting the teachers, but luckily they still have online classes and lacking their physical activities is major. So we ask her to walk the dog, at least go downstairs to walk the dog.

I keep on telling them this is something that many years later, when you look back, it will be a great experience. No one has ever had this for a hundred years, to think of the positive side that we have so much time together .

Ling Yah: And then, I'm wondering just before we close if there is any important truth for you, that few people are agreeing with you.

Joey Law: For a lot of people they think follow your dream is a cheesy word to say

Oh, it's fancy, you know, it's good to say, you know. Oh, you have to face your reality, whatever is practical. But in my experience, 40 years of life actually following your dream is the most practical thing to do. It's real. I mean, this is the thing that you are really passionate about, that you are capable of, that you will die to do. That naturally you should do well in.

And for me it is the case.

It's always at the back of my mind that I like kids. Even when I was young, I remember playing with my cousins. all the kids love me. They don't want to go home. They would cry like hell when they leave my place. And I enjoy it so much.

When I have my own kids, I remember that one should really look inside and find out what is the thing that you are really good at. That you never want to let it go. That is something you really want to pursue.

Ling Yah: Where do you see your future, if you will? Do you have any plans for the future for yourself?

Joey Law: Myself. I want to keep my blog alive. I want to do more about Joeymom.

it's not to brag about, Oh, how great my experience was. I just want to keep telling, keep sharing, keep exchanging experiences, cause at this moment, if I'm afraid of failing cause I don't know. I don't know where she go.

I don't know where MinorMynas will be. For a lot of people, they will write a book or they will say something once their kids graduated from Harvard, you know, whatever. Right. I mean, for me, at this moment I'm still raising the kids. I want to go through this journey with so many more other parents.

Ling Yah: Thank you so much Joey for this time, I normally close with these questions, which is, firstly, do you feel that you have found your why?

Joey Law: I think I have. I think I have. Yeah.

Ling Yah: And how will you define that why?

Joey Law: I am glad that in these recent years I found stoicism and it speaks to me so well, I read the book. It's my Bible. Every morning. I've read the motivation every morning. I copy one piece every morning and that's how I live my life. It is just to make things simple. You live the day. make fullest of it and make it simple.

And that's how you live it.

Ling Yah: And what kind of legacy, what you want to leave behind?

Joey Law: I just want people who know me to feel that I am exerting positive

Ling Yah: What'd you think are the most important qualities for someone to be successful in life?

Joey Law: Oh, as I mentioned before, all the successful people that I have come into my life, or I've read, it's just two of things that I have mentioned before.

They don't complain.

They look at what they have in hand. Deal with what they can control and make it simple.

Ling Yah: Where can people go to connect with you and find out more about you and what MinorMynas is doing?

Joey Law: They can find us on Facebook and Instagram at our handles @MinorMynas, and Joey Mum. J O E Y M U M.

Ling Yah: And that was the end of episode 14.

The show notes can be found at www.sothisismywhy.com/14, and it includes the transcript and links to everything we just talked about. Let me know what you've learned by going to Apple podcast to leave a review and subscribe.

And also take a screenshot of today's episode on Instagram and tag me at @sothisismywhy and Joey at @joeymum with the hashtag #sothisismywhy.

If you want to hang out, we also have a private Facebook group to keep the conversation going. And some of our podcast guests will also be showing up for a limited time to answer any of your burning questions.

To join, just head over to Facebook and look for so this is my why.

And stay tuned for episode 15 with drops next Sunday, because we will be meeting a Malaysian, Cambridge-educated engineer turned food blogger, podcaster and writer about what it's like pursuing this rather unconventional career straight out of university.

We had a lot of fun recording that episode and he will properly tickle your foodie urge to head to the kitchen and whip up a meal or two.

A little hint, his miso mushroom pasta is a huge hit.

So stay tuned, stay blessed and see you next Sunday.