Earlier this year, I attended the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit in Phoenix after being nominated for the list.

I originally thought this piece was going to be about recognition.

But while writing it, I realized it became something much bigger:
a reflection on ambition, influence, identity, responsibility, and the kind of world I actually want to help build as things expand.

Lately, I feel like I’ve been processing a lot.

And now… I think I’m beginning to integrate some of it.

A lot happened over the past few months.

At the end of February, I flew down to Los Angeles because I was invited back to UCLA to judge and speak at the Bruin Tank Venture Competition. Around the same time, I was also invited to speak at Adobe Creative Club at UCLA.

To me, those invitations represented something I’ve been slowly stepping more into: leadership, visibility, and being recognized not just for what I create, but for my perspective and ideas.

Then in April, I participated in a creator competition and unexpectedly ended up winning a car for the month.

I wasn’t trying to make the “best” video. I just wanted to make something honest. Something emotionally truthful to where I was at during that season of life. And when I submitted it, one of the women emailed back saying they were blown away.

When the public winners were announced, I felt a quiet sting. The top placements went to bigger creators with highly produced videos. It made sense. I accepted it and moved on.

But later that night, one of the women pulled me aside and handed me a black envelope. She told me they loved my video - how real it felt, how much care they could tell I’d put into it. Then she told me to pick whichever of the four cars I wanted.

I was genuinely shocked.

What stayed with me wasn’t the car. It was the way it happened - quietly, away from the announcement, away from the lights. Like they wanted me to know they actually saw it. Not the production. The intention behind it.

I think that recognition hit harder than I expected because for the past five or six years, I’ve had to create so much of my own momentum. Cold emails. Self-made opportunities. A portfolio built from scratch. Brands I once dreamed of working with, reached out to directly.

Even with the opportunities I’d been given, so much of what I built still came from initiative, persistence, and belief before there was external recognition reflecting it back.

So being noticed, without having to ask for it, felt different.

Not because I need external validation. But because for years, I’d carried belief in myself before there was any external evidence reflecting it back. And quietly, I think part of me had been waiting for the world to catch up.

There’s a reason I’ve downplayed so much of what I’ve built.

Part of it is that I value humility. But part of it is something older than that.

I grew up with a strict Asian mom and high expectations. Straight A’s. President of multiple clubs. Captain of my tennis team. Salutatorian. UCLA. Top companies. Achievement was the baseline. You achieved, then moved to the next thing.

So I never really learned how to let it land.

Recently, I’ve been trying to change that. To stop minimizing what I’m building. To let myself be visible. It doesn’t come naturally. But I’m practicing.

Then another unexpected thing happened.

I received an email from the editor of Forbes inviting me to attend the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit in Phoenix. I had been nominated.

The email said: “You’re closer to making the Forbes list than you think.”

I read that line a few times.

Not because Forbes defines my worth. But because it represented something I’d quietly believed about myself for a long time - that I was capable of operating at a scale I hadn’t fully allowed myself to own yet. And here was the world, for the first time, reflecting that back in a language other people seemed to understand.

I noticed something uncomfortable about that.

When the Forbes invitation arrived, my dad - who for years had responded to news of my work with “where’s the money, when I see it that’s when I’ll believe it” - finally seemed proud. Different people in my life suddenly looked at what I was building with new eyes.

And while part of me appreciated it, another part sat quietly with a feeling I still don’t have the perfect word for. Not bitterness exactly. More like: I already knew this about myself. Why does it take a name like Forbes for people to finally see it?

Some of my closest friends didn’t even say congratulations.

I’m not going to dwell on that. But I noticed it.

I went to the Summit alone. I think solo is where I’m most in my element anyway.

I arrived in Phoenix in the mid-afternoon, picked up my badge early, then walked ten minutes down the street to get Thai food by myself. After, I found a nearby hotel lobby, got a coffee, charged my phone, and waited until the evening mixer started. There was something strangely cinematic about it - sitting alone in a hotel lobby in the Arizona desert, waiting to walk into a room I’d never been in before.

Like I was entering a chapter I had imagined for a long time but hadn’t emotionally caught up to yet.

The networking mixer that evening felt different from the creator events I’m used to. Those spaces feel like home now. This felt bigger, less familiar, harder to navigate. I wasn’t sure of the entry points. I didn’t know what people did or what we’d have in common. I stood in line near the Forbes sign and had a moment wash over me - equal parts surreal and certain.

I’m actually here. I belong here.

But belonging somewhere and feeling comfortable there aren’t the same thing. And I think that gap is worth sitting with.

That night there was a concert. I brought my camera and spent the evening filming, observing, feeling the energy of the room.

Over the past few years, I’ve become much more attuned to the energy of spaces and the way environments quietly shape the people inside them.

And the energy that night was a specific kind of “on top.” On top of society. On top of culture. Wealth and power made ambient, set to music. It wasn’t necessarily bad. It was just noticeable. And honestly - it unsettled me a little.

Back at my Airbnb that night, I started googling things I’m not sure how to fully articulate. Questions about what kind of success I actually wanted. Whether you could move through rooms like that without slowly becoming shaped by them. Whether ambition could stay grounded when the altitude got that high.

The next day was where everything shifted.

I spent most of it listening to speakers - founders, athletes, innovators, people who had moved through the exact rooms I was now entering. And what struck me wasn’t their success. It was the weight of responsibility they described carrying with it.

One speaker talked about how he’d built a company, and as it grew, he had to start confronting a question he hadn’t thought about when he was small: If millions of people actually adopted this - would it be good for society? His platform could empower communities or amplify fear, depending on the day. He was sitting with that tension out loud, in public, in a way I found genuinely rare.

That conversation stayed with me. Because I think most of us don’t ask that question until we have to. When you’re building something small, success feels personal. But influence doesn’t stay contained. It scales outward into systems, communities, people’s lives - and the decisions you made when you were small get amplified into something much larger.

The most meaningful part of the Summit happened at lunch on the first day.

I wandered in solo, found a Mexican bowl, sat down alone, and waited to see who might join. A woman named Sophia eventually sat nearby. She’d made the Forbes list in 2021 for Art and Style - a Nigerian-born designer building ethically produced clothing while creating jobs in her hometown.

Listening to her, I could immediately feel the depth and intention she carried. She wasn’t performing purpose. She was just living it.

When she asked what I was building, I told her about Global Dream Team - the travel experiences, the intentional gatherings, the deeper mission underneath all of it.

She paused. Then she said:

“I love this. I am your target audience. I see the vision of what you are building. This doesn’t exist yet.”

She started asking real questions - how I’d package it, how I’d use media to amplify it, how I’d scale something like this without losing what made it meaningful. And for the first time in a while, I felt like someone truly understood the bigger thing I was trying to build. Not the content. Not the events. The world underneath all of it.

Before we parted, she looked at me and said:

“You’re spiritual, right? Hold this list lightly.”

Then she told me stories - families torn apart over money, people whose success still couldn’t fix what was actually broken in their lives.

She said the way people look at you once you have this can change everything. Stay in your own center when you enter these rooms. That’s the only thing you actually control.

I’ve thought about those words almost every day since.

At the closing party, someone asked me a question I wasn’t prepared for:

“If you could solve one problem in the world, what would it be?”

I answered without thinking:

“The problem of noise.”

We live in a world constantly pulling people away from themselves. Away from purpose, clarity, genuine connection. And I think most of the problems we see are rooted in that same disconnection.

That’s what Global Dream Team is really about underneath everything else. Not content. Not networking. Not even travel, really.

Travel has always been less about the places for me and more about what it unlocks - clarity, purpose, the kind of inspiration that only comes when you step far enough outside your normal life to finally hear yourself think.

I’m not just interested in exploring the world. I’m interested in creating the conditions for transformation inside of it. A space where people can reconnect with themselves and the parts of life that got buried under the noise. Where ambition and humanity aren’t in opposition.

He said:

“You have the best answer I’ve heard. I can tell you actually want to make the world a better place.”

It was a small moment. But that one stayed with me.

I came back from Phoenix not the same person who left.

Something had shifted - not in the direction of feeling more important, but in the direction of feeling more responsible. More clear about what kind of success I actually wanted. More certain that who you are doesn’t stay hidden when things get bigger. It just gets louder.

There’s a phrase I’ve never forgotten: money amplifies who you already are.

If you’re generous, grounded, oriented toward service - more success means more of that.

If you’re ego-driven, self-serving, disconnected from the people around you - that gets amplified too.

Which means the work of becoming someone worth amplifying isn’t something you do later, after the success arrives. It’s the work you do right now. In the small rooms. In the quiet seasons. Before anyone’s watching.

I think one of the hardest things about entering bigger rooms is that you’re suddenly exposed to so many different definitions of success. Different ways of moving. Different values. Some aligned with yours. Many not.

And I think that exposure - uncomfortable as it sometimes feels - is part of the point.

Because you can enter powerful spaces, learn from them, be genuinely inspired by parts of them, and still remain rooted in your own values. One room doesn’t need to define you. You’re allowed to stay yourself.

I think one thing I realized in Phoenix is that even the rooms we place on pedestals were created by people once too. Someone decided what success would look like there. Someone built the systems, institutions, and definitions we now inherit.

Which means we still get to decide what success means for ourselves.

Maybe that’s the real challenge. Not simply becoming successful. But learning how to expand - into bigger rooms, greater influence, larger impact - while remaining deeply grounded, intentional, and human along the way.

These questions aren’t just mine.

If you’re building something - anything - they belong to you too.

Because if what you’re building truly scales, it won’t just affect you anymore.

It will shape people. Relationships. Communities. Culture.

Most of us only think about the upside. The reach. The impact. The good we hope to do.

But I think part of the responsibility of building something meaningful is being willing to sit with the other side too. The blind spots. The unintended consequences. The ways even good intentions can quietly shape the world in the wrong direction if we stop asking questions.

And that’s not a burden - it’s an invitation.

To keep refining what you’re building.

To build something worth scaling. Something that moves people closer to themselves, closer to each other, closer to what actually matters.

Maybe that’s the real work after all.