The Immigrant CEO with Li Lin

The Immigrant CEO with Li Lin

I’m excited to interview our guest, Li Lin. Li Lin is the Founder of Immigrant CEO School, an online training course helping immigrants become entrepreneurs using their hometown skills to grow a global business and have clients from all over the world. Li came to the USA in 2000 without knowing any English. She was able to serve over 200 plus immigrant, professionals and international students with their H-1B and OPT job search in the past three years and help them gain confidence and make the money that they deserve. Welcome, Li.

Thank you so much for having me. It’s a huge honor and I appreciate this.

Share with us your story, where you are from, at what age you came to the USA and who or what has shaped you to become the person you are today.

I was born in 1990 in Shanghai, China. I went from one of the biggest cities in China to be in a small town in Southern California, which is called Palm Springs. Depending on your demographic, you may know this city for Coachella or a good place to go, depending on where your audience is at. It was a huge change because overnight, I felt like my IQ points dropped by 100. I felt like I went from this kid who always felt like she was smart, come home and watch cartoons without having to even study and get good grades to all of a sudden not knowing the language and not understanding what was going on. I came from a communist country where we had to memorize the birthdays of our leaders to going to a smaller private Catholic school where literally I was the only immigrant out of 300 kids.

To make things worse, I was held back by my grades, so that whole smart kid thing went out the window. I had to grapple with, “There’s Jesus, and you go to prayer every single Friday morning.” I was very confused, shocked, feeling like I didn’t know what I was doing, and very lost. From that experience, it shaped me into the person that I am today. I was doing another interview and the other person is also an immigrant. The host was saying, “You could’ve gone different ways. You could have been somebody who says, ‘I’m an immigrant, I’m behind, so I’m just going stick with people who are in my comfort zone’ or I could decide, ‘Even though my English sucks, I don’t understand what’s going on in class and I feel dumb and I don’t know what the rules are or what’s cool, I’m just going to keep going.’”

Immigrant CEO: Discipline is doing something that you know you need to do even if you don’t feel like it.

That was my journey of going from a place that I knew pretty well, I knew the language, I knew the people, family was there to completely being in a different environment, feeling not confident, feeling stupid and having to catch up because I was ten years old when I came. I had ten years of language learning to catch up to and I gave myself a year or so. Once I started studying, sacrificing weekend, throwing away everything except English learning, I started to succeed. In about two years, I went from being held back to skipping a grade, so I was able to move forward in that sense.

Who or what has shaped you to become who you are today? 

My uncle because he was the one person in our family who became an abstract artist and a college professor. From his age group and the time that he was in, that was extremely unusual, and he literally studied electrical engineering. He became an advertising professor, which is unheard of in the history of that college, but he taught me that you can go after your dreams, you can make money and do what you love. That’s something that I teach my clients all the time. Just because you come from a particular area doesn’t mean that you’re doomed to failure. Just because you’re behind somebody ten years doesn’t mean you can’t catch up. He was very influential in seeing what was possible for me to succeed.

We are fortunate that we have somebody as our role model to teach and to lead us and to set a good example for us to follow. Your uncle was your role model growing up. Who is your role model now? 

I would say a collection of all of the coaches that I’ve hired. I have hired at least five or seven people. I don’t want to be like, “One is more influential than the other,” but they all have a common characteristic. Over the last few years, I’d say I’ve spent more than my college tuition. I spent $60,000 learning from all these millionaire coaches, millionaire mentors. I was so broke at the time, I was like, “This is not working,” but all of them are people who don’t take any excuses for an answer. They were people who were stuck in a job that they didn’t like. Some of them were single mothers and they were able to become multimillionaires. Some of them did not know business at all and they put in the effort despite family and friends saying, “You’re crazy for starting a business.”

There’re a lot of mentors over the last few years that I have hired. They have come from very different backgrounds but their mentality is the same. Their mentality is, “No matter what happens, I’m going to be successful.” Some of them were in minorities or different sexual orientations and they were all able to not use that as a reason to hold themselves back but a reason to go forward. I would say all the people that have mentored me are my inspiration and they are somebody that I’m very proud that I can look towards them and see that, “It’s possible to succeed,” and they’ve been incredible in my growth.

I would not be here today if I was not involved in reading self-improvement books and learn more about myself and about other things in life. Like you, I hired quite a few coaches and I’m still working with two of them now. I’m continually learning about how to become better and how to stay current. What are your disciplines that you had to learn to adapt to stay ahead in America? 

Discipline is a weird word in this country. I’m in the US but it’s interesting how people don’t talk about it that much unless you’re in business. The funny thing is even when I was in first grade, one of the first things that our Chinese teachers will literally say is, “You guys need discipline.” In our little six-year-old minds, it was sitting with our hands behind our backs for 45 minutes. That was our idea of discipline. In terms of that as a life philosophy, it truly was a make or break for me as an entrepreneur because discipline is doing something that you know you need to do even if you don’t feel like it.

When I first started in 2013 with my business, I never liked the phone. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a millennial and we’re used to texting. I hated the phone, but I knew that in order for me to get coaching clients, I have to do that. Instead of sitting back and posting on Facebook to get clients, in 2015 January, I decided, “I hated the phone since forever, but this is not working, so let’s try it.” I did about 30 different consultations over the entire month of January and I was talking to people from London, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Egypt, and in the Middle East, everywhere. My fear of talking to people was smashed. When you get into the conversation, you enjoyed it, but when I first got onto the phone with people, it was painful for me.

I hated going on the phone, but in business you have to do things that you don’t like. That was something that my first-grade strict Chinese teacher taught me that made me into the person that I am. I don’t want to learn English vocabulary when all my other friends are playing handball outside. I don’t want to stay home on weekends talking to clients who are in a totally different time zone than I was, but I had to do it to break through. After about 69 different rejections, I got my second coaching client. If I didn’t keep going, if I didn’t take that 70th call, I don’t know where I’d be today. I don’t think I would go back to a job, but that discipline to keep doing things that you don’t like, especially in the beginning.

Business is 80% failure rate in the first year, but like Steve Jobs says, he thinks half of the success is just persistence. That persistence, that discipline to do things even if you don’t feel like it, especially since we brought up coaching, listen to your coaches even if they say something that you don’t like to hear that’s something that helped me grow to the next level. Discipline, patience, and listening to people who have been through what you’ve been through and have the results that you want is critical.

You consider yourself as a millennial generation. Would you share with us how you moved from a prestigious career, you graduated at Berkeley, and you got out of that and became an entrepreneur? Who inspired you to become an entrepreneur? 

When I was eighteen or nineteen, I was obsessed with online entrepreneurs. I saw Marie Forleo. I bought her course in the second or third year that she came up with the B-School. I was always following Ramit Sethi since I was seventeen. I was always into personal development and the natural next step seems like, “I want to travel the world. I want to teach people what I want to teach them. I want to be able to start an online business.” The thing is I never started until five years after that dream because I thought, “I’ll just focus on college,” or, “I’ll just focus on getting a career first,” because my thought was I’m too young. I’m too much of the ethnic minority. I don’t know why I was thinking that, but that was what I was thinking. I’m too female, just a lot of BS excuses.

It was out of desperation because six months after I got hired as a business analyst, I was fired, and I ran out of money. I had to move back home. That was the rock bottom moment for me because everything I had built up to since that moment seemed like it didn’t matter. You go to college, you get a good job, I lost that, and I wasn’t even in a relationship back then. I was 23 years old and I felt like a failure. On top of that, I was living in the hometown that I thought I left for good. Everything did not go the way that I wanted to. When I got fired as a sushi waitress, you have to be bad to be fired as a sushi waitress, but I did get fired at my second restaurant job.

I remember going back into the parking lot and I was thinking, “Li, you never went for your business dream.” I had a heart to heart with myself and I remember I was holding $40 and one of the other waitresses was like, “You’re rich.” I was in this environment where $40 is rich. I was like, “Did I give my business 100% chunk?” The sad answer was I never gave it 100%. Despite learning English, doing well academically, I never went 100 % in my business, so that year I decided, “Li, you are 23, so you’re still young. I’m going to give you a year and if this year, you don’t survive yourself in business, at least you can look in the mirror and say, ‘At least I gave one year of my life to my dreams’ and if I fail, ‘It is one year of my life, it’s not too bad.’”

In 2014, I was doing everything. I was teaching English and Chinese. I was doing eBay stuff. I was helping seniors fix their computer. I did everything I knew possible to stay alive. By the end of that year, I survived. I probably should’ve used a different word in hindsight, but I was pretty surprised too that if I gave myself 100% and had a little bit of desperation, I could make it happen. Now my motivation has shifted from initial desperation and proving myself, but that was a moment where I realized I got fired so many times, seem unemployable, but if I’m going to look at myself and respect myself and give myself 100% into the direction that I want to, I had to start a business, so out of necessity at this point.

What do your parents do? 

My mom was a car dealer and my father was an electrician.

They came here with you?

It was back and forth. I was in San Francisco with them from when I was three until I was five. Because of economic issues, they were not able to raise me, so I was in Shanghai from five years old until about ten. Then my parents divorced and I lived with my mom from when I was ten until I was eighteen, and then I went off to college.

Are you still connecting or communicating with them? 

What I do is so weird and so out of their comprehension that my mom was just happy that I’m out doing my own thing.

You grow a lot. These experiences make you grow fast. You are one of the few millennials that have the guts to do the things that you do. I admire that. Why did you pick immigrants to teach them about entrepreneurship?

When I was starting in business, I was like, “I don’t know what idea could possibly work.” I realized that eighteen years ago, I didn’t know English and my family paid tutors, and I was like, “There’s definitely a demand.” The fact that I can speak English was a result, so I thought it was an easy way to start. I started off to get more clients. One of my clients was somebody who was a pharmacy owner back in Tehran, Iran and he was a very smart guy. He has a PhD, but when he came here, it seemed like all the issues that I had, he had as well.

Immigrant CEO: Immigrants don’t come here just to learn English. The ultimate goal is to get a job, make more money, start their business.

He told me he felt not confident and he felt like before he was smart, and now here, he was having trouble adjusting. I was teaching him TOEFL and I realized I was teaching him once a week, but meeting at Starbucks once a week is not going to change our language so much. I was like “Why don’t you just get a part-time job?” I helped him with his resume and interviews, and in about two weeks, he went from two years of being unemployed, supported by his wife to being able to get a job at CVS.

At that moment I had a lightbulb moment in my head. I was like, “Immigrants don’t come here just to learn English. It’s a vehicle. It’s necessary, but the ultimate goal is to get a job, make more money, start their business.” I started thinking that this is a group of people that I identify with, that I can find quite easily because after him, I was wondering “Who else needs job help?” I would go into LinkedIn groups of international students and offer coaching, and then got my coaching clients there.

I resonated with them because more than anything else in my life, making the conscious decision to come to the US switched everything for me. I felt like there was nobody else that I saw that was doing the same thing. Now, in this particular moment in time, a lot of people see immigrants almost as children who can’t do things for ourselves. I personally feel like anybody from anywhere can start their own business and can have a good career. It’s a cause I believe in that you can come from anywhere and have a good life and business is the best vehicle to do so. I’m able to work from home but connect with people from all over the country.

I see that a lot of groups that do talk about justice and do talk about helping the community, but I don’t see them transforming lives, so that’s why I’m so passionate about my business because I see people change. They start making $96,000 a year straight out of school. They’d go from like, “I fail every interview in America,” to being able to get multiple job offers. Even though it’s just one person, you can see they are changing. This is why I want to help immigrants. Even though I’ve been a US citizen for fourteen years, I still very much remember that experience and I commend anybody who has the guts to leave behind everything and start brand new because they have the motivation and if they have the right tools and the right support, they can succeed too.

Tell us about the Immigrant CEO program. What do you do for your clients? 

I teach my clients how to figure out the skill that’s going to help them start a business. Some of my clients have been matchmakers with their friends. She’s helped set up seven or eight couples and now, she’s a relationship coach. There’re other clients who used to be accountants and then they want to be able to turn their skills from their job to be able start their own business. One of my clients raise bilingual children. A lot of her friends are like, “How can I teach my child to speak Mandarin and English at the same time?” She coaches on that.

There are a lot of great skills that immigrants have from their home countries, but they feel like they have to start from the bottom when in fact, they can take the skill that they have that’s in high demand and reposition it and learn how to put videos online, how to write posts online to attract your ideal client. The Immigrant CEO School is based on the philosophy that you always have a skill that you have. Even if you think you have no skills, you can still teach English if you can understand this podcast or you can teach your native language. Being able to use the skills that you already have to create a business, that is the goal of the Immigrant CEO School.

I can tell that’s your mission too from the website, Immigrant CEO. What does power mean to you? 

I would say power is the ability to get what you want. That would be my definition. It could mean you doing it yourself or persuading others to do it for you or being able to network and find other people who can open doors for you or other ways to access what you want. That is what power means to me.

You mentioned about your humility experience with Americans while growing up. Tell us how did you overcome it? How did you overcome those humility experiences? 

Growing up, like children from any country, children tease. Children are very aware of hierarchies as well. I remember when I first came in, I didn’t know what’s cool to dress and I could only nod or shake my head literally for the first six months because I didn’t know English. There were people who are calling me certain names. I knew I was made fun of but I didn’t even know what that word meant. I had to go back home and read the dictionary to see what it meant. The first day of high school, people yelled SARS while I was walking. There were people who were saying, “Go back to China.” Subtle things that any immigrant experience, more or less of an extent.

I wish I would have fought back a little bit more. I wish I was a little bit more of a troublemaker, but I was a very small girl and I didn’t know how to fight, so I didn’t know what to do. I felt like I had no allies. Looking back, I wish I could’ve done more, but what I did was use those experiences to get even better at things I could control. I promised myself that if I was going to be made fun of for anything, they’re not going to make fun of my accent because my English is going to be whatever mid Atlantic accent.

I channeled that to work hard on things that I could control and I think that success is the best revenge. I didn’t actively plan on this, but I found out the person who used to bully me, I make three times as much as him now, so I feel like, in a funny way, things even out. To use that experience as a motivation instead of wallowing and saying, “All Americans are this way,” or, “This is unfair,” you can feel sad and cry, be with your emotions definitely, but ultimately, we have to choose to move forward. If we’re always thinking about that all the time, thinking about how unfair the world is or how much of a victim we are, we lose our direction.

I realized that despite the humiliation, I’m going to be better in. I was held back a grade because I was ten years behind their English, but even after two years, I skipped a grade and I was in the honors English classes, which is very funny to me because they were native speakers. They grew up with two American parents who taught and spoke English all the time and yet me, somebody who didn’t even know the language a couple years ago, could be in honors class. I felt that was a motivation that was a boost for me despite whatever they called me, I was still in honors classes. Eventually, when you become successful, you don’t even think about it and if you keep going, you’re going to be with a new circle of people and you wouldn’t even worry about it. That was my experience of overcoming that humiliation.

All immigrants, we have similar humiliation and it is up to us on how we use it as a motivation to thrive and to succeed rather than just become a victim and not doing anything about it. What will you not compromise or tolerate in life in general or business?

We all have standards. We all have boundaries. For myself, I don’t accept BS excuses. We’re all human, we tend to fall in that, but I become the person where if I want something and I have a voice saying, “You can’t do this, and you can’t do that,” instead of listening to that voice, I write it down and I ask myself, “Why can’t I have this? Is it because I’m scared? Is it because I don’t know how? Is it because I don’t think I’m worth it?” Any tolerating mediocrity is not something that I do.

Subconsciously, I need somebody to point it out for me like maybe a coach, “You’re in your comfort zone,” or, “You’re not supposed to do that,” but I don’t tolerate that because it’s just BS excuse. Now that I’m a business owner, I have a luxury of choosing who I work with, because if they’re disrespectful, I don’t work with them. I don’t have to work with people that I don’t like. In general, respect. For my clients, I do motivate them a little bit, so if they have excuses, I call them out as well. I would say any excuses, I don’t tolerate from me or my clients.

I can tell why you do not tolerate mediocrity. It shows in your personality. What other things have you done that you’re proud of? 

Writing a book was a good milestone for me because when I was twelve years old, I wanted to be a comic book artist. I was like, “In seventh grade, I’m going to publish my own comic book.” It was almost like a Japanese manga style of comic books because I watched so much anime and I wanted to do that, but when I was 24, I didn’t want to do a comic book anymore. I was thinking, “For twelve years, I wanted to start a book, but I never did anything.” By that time, there was Amazon and Lulu, so self‑publishing was the thing because I thought, “I have to get a publisher. I have to have a draft and somebody has to approve of me,” but at that time, you could self-publish. I was asking myself, “I’ve wanted to do this for twelve years, but I never did anything about it, so let’s just see what happens.”

I locked myself in my room for two weekends and I finished the script for How to Sell Out to the Chinese. That book was a very proud moment for me because I realized something that if I wanted to publish a book, it doesn’t have to go to the New York Times, I just wanted to have a book and say I’m an author. The process of doing it was not that hard. When I read it right now, I’m like, “It’s so embarrassing,” I’m still very proud of the fact that I did it because it was a momentous change from, “I hope,” “I wish,” like starting a business like, “I wish I could start a business.” You think it’s this huge, gigantic thing to cross, but when you do it and you finish it, you’re proud of yourself, other people are proud of you, and you set yourself up for the next level of success because you said, “I wanted to do this,” you made it happen, so you’re able to trust yourself and go for bigger goals. Since then, I’ve gone on to bigger goals as well, but that is something that I’m proud of because it was something that I thought that was a huge thing and when you do it, you realize you can do it. It gave me a lot of confidence that helped me keep going in my business as well.

I still have that dream too. I want to write a book. Not a book to teach people do something, but I’d like to write a life story about my family, and hopefully somebody will pick it up and make a movie out of it. What makes you feel at peace?

In general, writing makes me feel at peace and that’s why I write every morning and every evening because it makes me be centered. I calm down. Whatever is happening around me goes on the page. I feel like I can see everything that I’m doing and I’m a huge planner. I love high quality stationary and I do all that stuff. When I’m alone and I’m writing, I must be an introvert/only child thing, but it calms me down. It makes me see what is possible. I’m able to see what worked, what didn’t, what plans do I have in the future, and celebrating and congratulating myself. When I’m writing, I feel at peace.

When you’re talking about writing that helps you feel at peace, are you talking about journaling?

Yes.

What makes you feel happy? 

Whenever I travel, I’m happy. I went to Berlin for my 27th birthday. That was amazing, being in this country that I’ve fantasized about for such a long time and being able to go across Europe, see the cities that I’ve pretty much only read about and watched videos of. That was momentous. Whenever I’m traveling, I’m happy because I’m seeing all these different places and making my dreams come true. Hopefully I’m going to go on a few more Asian countries later on, but traveling is something that makes me happy because I’m in a completely different environment. I can meet new friends. I get to be confused by the lack of English a little bit, and it’s a good place to relax and be at peace and be happy. Traveling is something that I enjoy.

See different things, experience different culture, eat different kind of food is wonderful. It is something that I love too. It makes me feel happy too. What is your life about? 

I’m in the process of unfolding as well, but hopefully, my life is something that inspires other people to see what is possible for them because even my mentors, just the fact that they exist is an inspiration to me. A lot of people say, “There’re not a lot of Chinese females who are on YouTube who are talking about the things that you’re talking about,” so I appreciate that you inspire me. That was interesting to me because it was not something that I even shared like, “You gave me a tip and I used it to do something.” Even though I do get that, but people just say, “The fact that you’re there inspires me.” That is something that I hope I’ll be known for, being able to be somebody whose life inspires others.

Immigrant CEO: If you learn how to use everything that you see as a weakness, your life is going to take off and be amazing.

You say it is unfolding, so what’s next for you? 

I am in the process of doing a bit more of rebranding to the Immigrant CEO Business. Hopefully, my business is going to grow a little bit more. The company is going to go beyond the US and we’re hopefully going to be hiring more people who specialize in different languages because I’ve tried to learn Spanish for eighteen years and have failed miserably. I’ve never been able to learn that language and I may have put too much effort into English, but I hope that Immigrant CEO becomes like a movement of not just people who victimize themselves based on a group that they belong to, but seeing it as a source of pride, seeing it as a place where they can make more difference in the world and hopefully inspire more people to start their own businesses and live their own lives and being able to inspire themselves and everybody around them.

I would want to be in that movement as well. What are your top three advices for Asian women? 

I do have one good piece of advice that might be a little bit sensitive, but it’s very important. I don’t know if this is true for every Asian female, but growing up I felt very much unwanted. For a very long time, I thought, “I’m not enough. I’m a woman, so somehow, I’m inferior.” That followed me for a long time, even though logically I knew that was not true. One of the things that my mentor told me that helped me was she said, “I may not be wanted but I will not be wasted.” That was phenomenal because when she spoke that from the stage, I was like, “I’m stealing this,” because I need it. If you’re from a family that thinks that you are less than the male members of your family, remember that no matter what other people think of you, your life can be an inspiration. That is something that I would advise a lot of Asian female audience because I’ve been through that. It took me a long time, but knowing that truth will help a lot of people.

The second thing I would say is your obstacles are your opportunities. I thought that I would be at a disadvantage because I didn’t look like all the female entrepreneurs out there. I had some insecurities because I had a snaggletooth that I took care of, but I felt like I wasn’t a classic model. I don’t know why I even felt that, but I somehow felt like what I had to say was less than because of appearance. A couple of years down the line of starting my business, people hired me. They told me, “I’m hiring you because you’re Chinese.” The thing that I thought was an obstacle was an opportunity. Somebody told me, “I’m going hire you as a speech coach because you didn’t know English eighteen years ago.” That was a shock to me because everything that I thought was horrible about myself was something that somebody else appreciated in me. I would suggest to all Asian female audience to realize that it’s not a liability to be an Asian female. It is a huge advantage. If you learn how to use everything that you see as a weakness, your life is going to take off and be amazing.

The last piece of advice is going to touch on filial piety because this is something that a lot of your audience would relate to. It’s being a good son or a good daughter. I noticed that within a lot of my clients and even my own family, I would notice that people would use filial piety incorrectly because there’re three types of filial piety. People use one of the tenets to say, “You have to be a good daughter, so you have to listen to your parents.” One of the tenets was literally saying, “If you let your parents do wrong, that’s not filial piety.” That was very interesting because all throughout my life, people interpret it as just listening to your parents, but the hilarious thing is that the first tenet is like, “Don’t let your parents do wrong.” That means that you know certain things that your parents don’t.

I would encourage all your audience that if you’re struggling with family saying, “You should be a certain way or you should be happy with a career and not start your business, or you should be happy this way,” to think about what you ultimately want out of life. Your parents do want the best for you, but they’re not going to be there forever. If you do something that you know you’re going to regret, you’re going to have to live with it. Your parents might be sad, they threaten to disown you, all that stuff that a lot of Asian families do. Ultimately, you have to realize that you have to be selfish in order to preserve yourself first because if you don’t help yourself, you can’t help anybody. If you’re homeless, you can’t start a homeless shelter because you can’t even help yourself. Understanding what filial piety means, which means is first, get yourself together and then help others, and then help your family, that would be something that I would suggest to your Asian female audience.

I’m so aligned with that. That’s what I’m also trying to share, to teach the Asian women because majority of Asian women tend to serve others first. We put others first, but then when we come here, we learn from the American culture to take care of yourself first, so that you can take care of others. That is something I’m passionate about and want to share to other Asian women and let them know that those things that you do for yourself, if you take care of yourself, is not selfish. I call it as self-care or self-love. It’s not selfish. How can people contact you or learn more about what you do?

They can either go to my website, ImmigrantCEO.com or they can contact me, email me at Li@Li‑Lin.net if they have any questions.

Please check Li’s website out and contact Li. She’s an amazing entrepreneur, the go-getter, the role model for all millennial women out there. Thank you again for being here, Li.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

What have you learned about this episode? What is the number one thing you will no longer tolerate or compromise? What are the three things you will implement in your life so that you can have the life you want? I’d like to hear your thoughts and commitments on what you are going to do to stay ahead in this country. Please provide feedback or comment on the AsianWomenofPower.com. Until next time, live life loud.

Links Mentioned:

• Immigrant CEO School
• Marie Forleo
• B-School
• Ramit Sethi
• How to Sell Out to the Chinese
• ImmigrantCEO.com
• Li@Li‑Lin.net

Episode Quotes

"Success is the best revenge.”

"A strong mind will never quit and a quitter is never strong."

"Your parents do want the best for you, but they’re not going to be there forever."

About Li Lin

Li Lin is the founder of Immigrant CEO School, and online training course helping immigrants become entrepreneurs using their hometown skills to grow a global business and have clients from all over the world.
Li came to the USA in 2000 without knowing any English and she was able to serve over 200+ immigrant professionals and international students with their H-1B and OPT job search in the past 3 years and help them gain confidence and make the money that they deserve. You can learn more about Li Lin at www.immigrantceo.com.