Living in G.R.A.C.E. with Dr. Anhlan Nguyen

Living in G.R.A.C.E. with Dr. Anhlan Nguyen

Before our guest joins us, I’d like to read one review from our audience, “Kimchi is about empowering Asian women,” by Wendy Kim. “Kimchi is an incredible stand for empowering and elevating Asian women. There have been very few avenues for Asian women to be heard, even though they have a very powerful message. Her interviews are thought-provoking, empathetic and authentic.” Thank you, Wendy Kim, for your acknowledgment. Please help us spread the message by reading and sharing this episode. We appreciate your support and review. Please join me to welcome our guest.

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We will bring in something different and unexpected. The stories from our guests will be richer and more colorful. I hope that these stories will get into your heart. With me is Dr. Anhlan Nguyen. Dr. Anhlan is serving on three organizations. She is the Director of Development and Marketing on the Institute of Civic Education in Vietnam, ICEVN. This is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by her husband in 2005. She is also a co-chair of the Board of Director for the Vietnamese Culture and Science Association, VCSA, which mostly serving youth in the North American regions. She is also the Founder of Lyceum, a social enterprise under the umbrella of ICEVN. In 2012, Dr. Anhlan Nguyen was appointed by President Obama to serve on the board of VEF, a national foundation established by the US government to foster the relationship between the US and Vietnam through higher education. Welcome, Dr. Anhlan Nguyen.

It’s my pleasure to be on this talk show.

Let’s give the audience some background on where you have been in the past 50-plus years of your life?

I was born in Hue, which he is a city in that central region. I belong to a royal family. In the old days, people would call me Princess Anhlan. I belong to the last Nguyen Dynasty. My grandfather has seven wives and two concubines. My grandmother was the third wife. I was born in Hue but actually grew up in Saigon. My father is a civil engineer and my mother is the mathematics teacher at a very famous school, Trung Vuong High School. I had a third peaceful childhood until, 1975. After 1975, the South lost to the North, Vietnam was united but it started the exodus of Vietnamese refugees and our family belonged to the same group. We tried a lot but that’s a lot of hardship. My dad was put in a re-education camp. He tried to plan a lot of escaping.

It took him nine times and I was a teenager back then. I was put in jail twice because of the escapes. One of the most significant experiences that I got was one time I was escaping with my brother. I was nineteen years old and it was a boat that’s fifteen meters long but with 300 people. Imagine 300 people stuck in a boat of only fifteen meters. When we arrived at the international border, the boat starts sinking. The captain decided if we continue to move on the boat will sink and everybody could die. He made the decision to drive back to the shore. About 300 meters from the shore, the boat started sinking. It was the worst tragedy that I witnessed. Luckily I was able to swim. My brother and I were able to swim into the shore.

That night, half of the people on that boat didn’t make it. After we get to the shore, then there’s a possibility to be caught by the local police. We somehow miraculously escaped all of that and come back to Saigon but I lost four pounds within that couple of evenings of that experience. After several other escapes, we ended up going to Canada according to my father’s sponsorship. My father tried the ninth attempt and he was successful. He got the sponsorship for the Canadian government and he lived in Montreal because he spoke French. He prepared a sponsorship. We ended up in Canada as an immigrant. I always consider myself as a boat person because I had those experience.

From experiencing more than half people died from your boat, what did you promise yourself to do or achieve to live up to that blessing that you got the second chance in life? 

Actually on that boat, I have a very dear teacher. My mom asked my teacher to take care of me and he died right in front of me. He was not supposed to die because he knows how to swim. He died because he tried to help other children. When he was helping them, he flipped and he fell into the water and he hit something and then became unconscious. I remember I cried, I yelled, “Somebody help.” It was very chaotic at the time. I remember before he was falling into the water, he told me, “If you live, you’ve got to do what is right.” I could have stayed here but I came back and helped this kid because we need to do that. I remembered that for the rest of my life. Seeing the people die in front of me searching for freedom, it’s so tremendous. When I arrived in America, I promised myself I’ll never take this for granted. Living in a free society like America, we are given the privilege that millions of people do not have. I promised myself I would do my best to serve. That’s the reason why I volunteered a lot. I do a lot of volunteer work to serve, to help other people, to feel that I deserve the freedom that I’m living.

I can see the passion and the purpose in your life. When and how did you get involved with a nonprofit organization?

I always volunteer. When I was starting as a student at the University of Toronto, I served as the President of the Vietnamese Student Society. Together, we did a lot of good things, good projects for students. I have also involved the Scouting Movement and in Canada, it’s called Girl Guides of Canada or Scouts of Canada. I was a Brownie Pack Guider. I was in charge of a Brownie Pack, which are aged from five years old to nine years old. They’re very cute. I was in charge of 50 girls. All of them are Vietnamese-Canadian. I was also involved in the Rovers, which is another scout group for older people, like people from 18 to 25 and I became a scout leader. I strongly believe in leadership. After I graduated, I felt that I need to have a center for young people to interact in. At the time there was none so I founded it. I founded the Vietnamese Youth Center of Toronto. That was the first organization nonprofit that I founded with a lot of friends from the scout groups and from the student group.

I became an advisor for the student society and a lot of things happened naturally. I was also actively involved in the book what is called Refugee Initiative at the York University. Knowing what the boat people were going through, I was so upset when I saw that they were forced repatriated back in the 1990s. I graduated from college, became a professional working at IBM but in my free time, I volunteered so much on those things. When I got married and moved to America, I found the Vietnamese Culture Association right in Houston. I became involved right away. Before I know it, I became the president and then after that, I became the chair of the board. I was also involved in at least three or four other nonprofits, all different causes but mostly youth leadership development is my passion. In 1998, I founded a youth leadership called the Lên Đường Camp hosted by VCSA. It became one of the most successful stories of Vietnamese-American communities in the United States and also in Canada.

That is wonderful that you do get exposed early and you notice the drive. You get involved early to serve the community and get involved with a nonprofit organization.

It’s in my blood.

Not in Vietnam, only when you came to America, right?

In Vietnam, I belonged to the Youth Movement and it was a long story but basically, I’ve always been active. I love working with the youth. As I get older, I’m still working with the youth and all of the Brownies back then when I was in Canada, they became dentists, doctors, they became professionals. The Lên Đường Camp trained 5,000 Asian-Americans that graduated from that camp. I’m so happy to see the transformation that the camp brought out from these kids. I knew that each person in our world is unique. The thing is how can you create an opportunity for each youth to experience that and to be inspired? You can imagine how much better and what kind of transformation you can help to create.

When my husband started the Institute for Civic Education Vietnam, it’s another wonderful opportunity for me to connect with the youth in Vietnam because we offer online classes for the program for Civic Education, basically teaching how to become a good citizen. Remember Aristotle said 2,500 years ago, “In order to become a good citizen, you’ve got to become a good person.” It’s all about character development. Connecting with these students and mentoring them, I saw the tremendous opportunity to serve. I feel so much alive. I have to live. One is I’m still very successful in my professional world and became an IT professional. You’ve got to be updated with technology all the time. I love mathematics, I enjoy it but then at night, I become a different person. I became so connected and all my vacation were used for nonprofit work and that’s the reason why I was able to raise nearly $5 million when I counted all the fundraising that I raised throughout my life because I worked nonstop. The drive in me becomes stronger and stronger every day.

Grace Model: Living in freedom in a free society like America, we are given the privilege that millions of people do not have.

You mentioned that you have raised $5 million and it took you a while. What do you think are the skill sets that people need to learn, to be able to raise fund for a nonprofit organization?

I’m putting together a curriculum to put fundraising for nonprofits, small nonprofit organizations. I hope to roll it pretty soon. In the nonprofit world, you have different sizes. For the Asian-American community, mostly we have small or tiny sizes. When my husband started the Institute for Civic Education in Vietnam, his salary was $1 per year. For the first ten years, he got paid $10. The budget is only $25,000, so I helped him to raise $25,000 to $30,000 every year. We didn’t apply for any foundation. We didn’t apply for the governmental agency. We raised by just public donation. When I became full-time for this institution, I was able to bring it to $100,000. That happened in 2018. For 2019, the goal is $150,000.

The key thing I think for fundraising is the cause. You’ve got to be passionate about the cause. It’s in your heart. You’ve got to connect with the donors. It’s not the need from your organization to raise this money. It is addressing the needs of the donors. The donors have some interests and of course, you have to identify those donors that actually are interested in the cause of your organization. That is the top priority. Secondly, you have to connect to the donor in such a way that your organization is only a vehicle to connect the donors with the cause that we implement. All the programs that this nonprofit does are the results of their donation.

We have a task we call donors cultivation, which is the relationship you build between the organization and the donor. You’ve got to be strategic about that. You have to engage the whole board and actually forming a special task force focusing on building this relationship, keep communication to these donors or sponsors and making sure they understand what their money is being used for. Also showing them because of their donation, these are the impacts that the organization was able to create. It is through communication, cultivation that leads, so when it’s time to fundraise, they’re ready. They just bring out the check and write.

Thank you for explaining it so clearly.

I learned that from the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Believe it or not, I also got a diploma. After I stopped working in a corporation, I told myself, “I want to be able to become a professional fundraiser.” I took the nine-month program or the Diploma for Principles of Fundraising that was offered by the Association of Fundraising Professionals based in DC. It’s amazing. It helped me so much. The mindset of the fundraiser should be donor-focused, donor-centric. We never thought about that in that way. It transformed the way that I fundraise. That’s the reason why I was able to triple the goal. My plan is ten times. I want to raise $1 million for this institution in the next couple of years. Let’s see how it works.

I know that you will achieve that because I can see through your passion and your purpose. Best of luck on that. I know you will get it. You had worked for 25 years in the professional realm. You mentioned that you’re always involved with the nonprofit organization nonstop. In 2017, you retired from a professional full-time job. I’m talking about the traditional career. In 2017, you quit that and you started Lyceum, which is another social enterprise under ICEVN. What motivated you to start this enterprise?

I saw so much need. I had been an educator all my life. Even when I worked in the institution at the MD Anderson Cancer Center as the IT Portfolio Manager, through my four years of work under the appointment of President Obama, I was connected with the Vietnam Education Foundation. I came back to Vietnam twice, with a trip with the VEF. I was able to connect with 600 Vietnamese national students who came to America to get Ph.D. or Master’s degree in STEM areas. Through this engagement of four years, it changed my life. I really saw the dire need for education in Vietnam. Also because of the connection with 100 universities in the United States, I also have the chance to interact with a lot of educators. I saw that there’s a strong need here too.

If you look into the landscape of America, what is the proportion of the people on workforce engagement? Only 30%. Less than 30% of people are going to work every day and are not engaged in their work. That is a waste of potential. If you look into the landscape of the whole of America, 70% of people are not happy. There’s a lot of stress. Because I work in healthcare, there are some diseases like cancer. Cancer is very widespread and also some stress-related health problems like high blood pressure, diabetes. All of that are stress-related. Because of the way that we live, there’s so much pressure on a person. The emotional resilience of that person is not enough.

Looking at the kids, our kids are drowning. I don’t have any children by the way, but I have a thousand kids under my supervision in all of my twenty years of involvement with youth. I saw that our children, regardless of what kind of race, they’re all bombarded by the pressure from school, from family. Especially for Vietnamese-American families, there’s a lot of pressure, “You have to become a doctor, you have to become a dentist, you have to become this and that.” They’re drowning. If you look into the teen suicidal rate, it is getting unbelievable. This is from the Centers for Disease Control, the national organization, specializing that. They had a statistic that’s startling that said that for the White Caucasians, the rate of teen suicidal increased by 70% compared from 2006 to 2016, within ten years. The ratio is unbelievable. They didn’t do a statistics on Asians but they did for white and black. For black kids, it was increased by 77%. It shows the pressure. It shows that is something not right within the society that we need to fix.

I’m all passionate about emotional intelligence. If you are emotional intelligent, you are aware of your emotions and you know how to manage your emotion and relate to others and working with others in harmony, in a collaborative effort. Your life would be much better. I’m very passionate about this. When I worked on my dissertation by the way and I did that dissertation when I worked full-time and served on three other nonprofits, that also served on the VEF Board. It’s crazy. I’ve got a hundred hours work with. The passion took me a long way. Through that dissertation, I learned about the power of emotional intelligence. I realized, “What if I can spread this work? What if I can send this message in helping other people to anchor on the best version of themselves?”

Grace Model: Only less than 30% of people are willing to work every day.

Knowing that stress is not stress, it is stressful thoughts. Your thoughts can be controlled by yourself. If you know that, that is the key to success. I started thinking and then I encountered a model called GRACE. It’s a system of five values for character education that we promote in the youth leadership camp. It was created by the New Moon Foundation, which is based in Hawaii. They changed the name now. I was one of the grantees.

When I took it, I implement it. I learned and I practiced to myself and my life transformed. I saw the power of GRACE. I decided, “Why not make it into a curriculum?” We developed a curriculum and we taught it online through Vietnamese in Vietnam and I saw tremendous transformation just within seven weeks. I told myself I need to get this message out to the world. This is my purpose, this is why I’m here. That’s the reason why I started Lyceum. Lyceum is a life skill and professional development for success. We use the emotional intelligence model combined with GRACE framework to encourage coaching, training and enabling people to empower themselves to be the best version they can. I’ll give you an example, practice gratitude. If you look into someone, we have the tendency to look at the thing that we don’t have and feel bad about it or something we just lost. We never focus on what we have. If you change your focus, is that a focus on what you don’t have? Then you feel bad.

You focus on what you have and look at what you have a lot. If we leave it to nature, we always look out for the thing that we don’t have and we feel bad about. It gave you some incentives to continue to get what you don’t have so that you can be successful, but there’s a limit. There’s a balance in it. If you focus so much on that, you would feel so sad that you don’t have as many as others. That is just an illusion. You have so much. The fact that you exist on this Earth is a miracle already. You are one out of 400 trillion to exist here. It’s more than winning the lottery. People forget. You focus on what you can control or you focus on what you cannot control. If you focus on what you cannot control, you feel so powerless. You will say, “I’m just a victim of this illusion. Anything outside of me, they control. I just cannot do much about it.” That is one option. You have a choice.

The other option is you look, “What can I control in this situation if something happened?” The one that focused on what you can control, focus on what you have. You’re always abundant, you never lacked. Focus on the future instead of focusing on the past. All of us, including me, everybody always has some bad experiences in the past. Maybe we were hurt and even loss. I lost my parents and that was the toughest situation I went through. I practiced this focus. I focus on what I have, I focus on what I can and I focus on the future. I ask myself the right questions. I go through that. I didn’t kill myself. The sadness is just so much. You had the choice to pick between what you can control or what you cannot control. Those are powerful lessons that we can share with anybody. We can make this world a much better place to live, so why not? That’s the reason why I started Lyceum.

I appreciate you sharing that. You mentioned about the GRACE model. I’m totally aligned with what you do. Although, my focus is to serve the Asian-American women because I feel that it starts with a woman, a mom, a wife. It starts from there. If the mom or the wife or the daughter is transformed, if she feels positive, she feels energized, she believes in herself, she’s happy. Everybody around her will be happy. She’s like the Queen. When the mom is happy, when she conceived a child in her body, that triggers happiness, peaceful thoughts, and wellbeing to the baby. That’s why I said I’m focusing on the woman first; the mom, the wife, and the daughter. Your focus is admirable. You have to start somewhere.

I’m also involved in a women network here. One of the podcasts, for sure you will be one of the candidates to be interviewed, we’re doing a women empowerment speaker series to engaged women. My interest is about a woman entrepreneur, a woman that wears so many hats. I have so many friends in this category and they are invincible. My mother-in-law is one of them. She’s this woman, she has ten kids and she came to America with $20, no husband. We’re thinking, by having a kid and we already feel so stressed, how can we support and teach? She had ten and my husband is her oldest son. How could she survive? She became one of the most well-known, well-established businesswoman in Houston before she retired. I never see her stop working, it’s amazing.

I’m also serving those women as well because sometimes we as women in business, we focus to serve, to serve others and we don’t look into serving ourselves. We don’t take care of ourselves, depleted and get sick. You’re working simultaneously in three organizations. Is your role very similar across all these three organizations?

It’s very different. With the Vietnamese Culture and Science Association, I’m in an advisory role and I actually co-chair with a mentee. She graduated from Harvard. I have so many stories from this organization. She was honored as the Valedictorian in our organization because we honor high school students who are Vietnamese-American and graduated Valedictorian. She’s one of the honorees and she got a full scholarship to Harvard. Every year in Harvard, she comes back and serves in the local community in Houston in to somewhere. I took her in as my mentee, she graduated, she became a consultant and she came back MBA for another University in New York. She’s willing to serve as the co-chair with me.

My role is transitioning and developing this young lady so that she can take over the organization so I can retire and focus on other things. One of my proudest moment is seeing all of the youth that I mentored a long time ago, they all became successful. That is the best feeling. I mentored at least about a few hundred youths in all my life. I’m currently coaching for free. I’m a coach. I do coaching for high clients but I also coach some of the youth in Vietnam for free because they cannot afford this. I saw the potentials, I pick them up and help them.

How do they reach out to you from Vietnam?

Sign up for the online classes in Institute for Civic Education Vietnam.

Do they have to pay for that class?

Grace Model: You can choose to focus on what you can control or on what you cannot control. If you focus on what you cannot control, you feel so powerless.

No, it’s all free. That’s why it’s called non-profit but my plan in the future is we will have some fee-based curriculum so that it leaves the institution into a US accredited College of Liberal Arts. The main purpose is spreading the message, spreading the concept of what to become a good citizen, how to become a good person. The core element of any society is the person themselves can empower, can be very powerful, impactful and willing to serve, that is when you can create community. That is when civil society can be successful. We focus on that through education, through ICEVN to help. I met tremendous students from this program. I took in a few and I work with them. The best gift is seeing them transform. One of the students that I helped became a staff helping with ICEVN. He came from the place where he didn’t know English. He couldn’t even speak one word. He has a young daughter, five years old back then. He came from that place. He went through our program.

I coached him and I gave him the GRACE mindset. He totally absorbed into it and he studied by himself. His motivation is that he wants his daughter to speak English and speak with the excellent accent. Using the internet, YouTube and all the tools from Facebook, social media, he came up with a program and he learned English. After three years, he created a program to teach his daughter and his daughter’s speaking excellent English. His English was at the level that he was able to help me translate the YouTube video clip. For some YouTube video clip in English that I want to translate, I asked him and he could do that 80%. How could a person come from that, which has no English at all, to himself? It’s mostly because he has the determination after he went through our training and our coaching. He became so sure of himself and we showed him the tour too. Go out and here are some of the strategies you can approach to find a good program to teach yourself English and he actually makes it happen.

He lived in Vietnam, right? 

Yeah, he lives in a very small village, rural areas of the whole town. Nobody can speak English like his daughter. He’s starting his dream. He’s a teacher but he started his dream to build a school for kids. Because his daughter is in the school at that age, his wife opened a second school which is already very successful. The method that he used to teach his daughter is unique. I can see so much potential in this gentleman. How many people I can touch like this? How many people I can impact? It’s incredible when people are empowered and when people know that they can do this and anchor in that best version of themselves, they become invincible and that’s my dream. That’s my passion to help others, to anchor in their best selves so that they can overcome whatever challenges are coming their way.

You are so inspiring. Do you currently receive any salary, compensation to serve on these three organization?

For the VCSA, I serve as the board member, volunteer. I’ve been a volunteer for all of these years at twenty-plus years with this organization. ICEVN, I have no salary in the first two years but I told the board if I raised $100,000 then I want 10%, which is $10,000. You can say my salary would be $10,000. Lyceum because it’s a fee-based training and coaching services, the coaching services, I got compensated for those clients that I coach or for the workshop I deliver. It all goes to the organization. I only took out some portion so that I can pay my bills. I gave myself three years because I did save some money so that when I start all of this, I can go on without a lot of compensation. My goal is when I built Lyceum and I provide enough values to people, then abundance will come.

I live a very simple life so I don’t need a lot of money. I’m coming from an organization. I work at MGNS and with the six-figure income and coming to this nonprofit with this less than $10,000. I never looked back. I have never felt so much alive. Every day I get up, I can’t wait to start the day and go on about doing things and I work so hard. In 2018, the first six months, I didn’t have any vacation. I go seven days and fifteen, twelve, sixteen hours. I took my first vacation in August and I didn’t notice that because working is fun for me. It’s like playing. It’s so powerful seeing that and some people said, “Anhlan, look at your salary. How can you live on that?” I told them again I gave myself three years, this is the first year and I make $10,000, which is not much but then the coaching business picked up. I could have done coaching one way to get the benefit from that. My main driver is not the money at my main driver is how can I serve? How can I impact so many people and help people to transform their lives?

When I do that, the abundance will come to me. I cannot explain to you why but all of my friends who are doubtful and ask me, I told them, “I know in my heart, I follow that with the faith.” It is coming because all the tremendous response that I got so far, I started Lyceum. I’ve got five speaking engagements lined up. By the way, I can come and speak to any organization, for nonprofits I can work with them with a low budget but I want to spread out the message of emotional intelligence and GRACE. Contact me if you want but it is my passion that drives me and I don’t have any concerns. I don’t have any worries about income. It will come.

That’s the abundant mindset and as a coach, we always encourage people to look into that. Once you have that mindset, you vibrate the energy, the abundant energy that will attract the right opportunity, right people and the right clients to you. What is GRACE model? Can you explain each word in detail?

Grace is a good word because anybody knows it’s something beautiful. The acronym of the five values, the G stands for Gratitude. Gratitude is the most powerful value that we can live by that helps us to live a happy life. To practice gratitude is appreciate yourself, you start with yourself. You have to be grateful to become a human being on this Earth. Consider that the chance to become a human being is only one out of 400 trillion. Being grateful for all the simple blessings in your life and then grateful for the environment. In the morning, practice three minutes or even one minute of gratitude, by putting your hands on your heart and realize that it’s beating for you.

Grace Model: When people are in power and anchor in the best version of themselves, they become invincible.

Have you ever thought about that? What force runs the beating? You don’t tell it to beat. It beats itself but what force is that? It is the subconscious mind in your body that’s doing it. The heart has been working so hard for us since the day we’re born. If it stopped beating you die. You never take time. We appreciate that heart. Do that in the morning, put your hand on your heart, imagine and tune in with your body to feel that the heart’s beating and appreciate it. You imagine some of the experiences that you love in the past and relive it. You gain tremendous energy when you anchor yourself in those best moments of your life. With that, you start your day with so much energy.

R is Respect. Respect yourself, which means you don’t do anything harmful to your body because your body is something sacred. By respecting yourself, you control your thoughts. You don’t want to have negative thoughts because believe it or not, and these are neuroscientists that said, not me. Negative thoughts are toxins in your body. That’s why you harm your body if you have negative thoughts. Manage your thoughts, manage your emotion, the same way as the negative thoughts. Negative emotions also create a lot of tremendous energy drain in your body so you feel helpless, you feel very tired. A is Accountability, ownership of your health and of the action. Things can happen to you, but you have the choice to pay. The choice is yours.

In order to stay accountable, it’s very hard, you need the fourth letter which is C, stands for Courage. It’s not easy to be accountable for your actions, for things that happened to you that you have no control. It takes courage. Courage is not like you don’t have fear, you do have fears. Everybody has fear but you go through with it. You go through the fear with courage. The last one is the most important one because if you have all the four but you don’t have the E, then you don’t have any actions, it is Engagement. Engagement is all about connecting but the first step is connecting to yourself. Remember, connecting to yourself is the most important. Respect yourself is the most important thing because if you’re not connected to yourself, you will not anchor on your best self. Connect to yourself, connect to others and after all, we are all in it together.

There’s a lot of leadership that’s based on hatred, that’s based on he and me and them. The thing is that all of us here on this planet together, the climate change doesn’t distinguish between me and them. It’s everybody, we are in this together. The eight billion people would not become humanity without you. Without you, there is no humanity but without humanity, there is no you. That interconnectedness is so important and people tend to forget. We tend to walk down into the little details and focus on the differences instead of focusing on the connectedness. People look different, the race is different and the culture is different but we are all in this together. How can we stretch it out to see that this whole world, our humanity we have to build the consciousness of a human being up to another up to another level and with GRACE, we can do that.

I have very similar practice and absolutely gratitude is number one. Gratitude is the place where we need to be grounded, to feel grounded and to be peaceful. Without it, nothing else matters. Who do you serve?

I serve everybody who wants my service. Based on my background, I work very well with young adults.

What age? 

Eighteen to 25, I have a client that’s seventeen years old. He’s a little bit younger but I can also work with their parents. My intention is that one of my passions is how can I help Asian-American families that have teenagers? Did you know that most parents had issues with teenagers? We are putting together parenting for teens workshop, coaching both parents and children so that they can have the best relationship they could have. That is my passion too, but I have not implemented that. We’re still working on the curriculum. I’m thinking about even bringing back some module to serve different communities where Vietnamese-Americans or Asian-American communities, that’s a population to serve. I can find some funder.

I already brought some funders for me, “Anhlan, if you bring that conference with parents out, I want to sponsor for ten cities. Bring it, I’ll pay.” Ten cities like Orange County, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, you name it. I was originally from Canada, Toronto and Vancouver. Vancouver has also a large community there, the Asian community and so on and so forth. The thing is you want to replicate it. Once have a message you want to share and my goal is not to keep it to myself. I want to spread the message and I want to empower the people to become a tribe. When I did a visualization of the future, I envision a community of coaches and I call them GRACE coaches that share my same passion. I cannot do it alone. I need more people to join the band, go out and make the difference. It is very rewarding and I can’t wait to see that unfold. I follow God’s will.

We all follow God’s plan.

Grace Model: We are in this together. The 8 billion people would not become humanity without you.

The issue is that you don’t know what God’s plan for you. When things don’t work out, when things don’t go the way that you expected, then you might want to reflect and ask yourself, “Maybe this is not what you wanted to do.” Keep your mind open then, it’s okay to fail. We need to fail fast so we can be successful.

How do you want others to get in touch with you, to learn more about all of the organization that you are currently serving?

Of course, you can go to my personal blog. I have this blog and given my busy time traveling a lot to do different speaking engagements and workshop, my time is a little bit limited but I try to keep track, keep up with that. You can come to AnhlanTheCoach.blog. That is my blog. One of my resolutions is at least I have to log one or two articles. I love to write by the way. Writing to the public is another thing. I have to be careful and do it well before I publish. Come and visit me, AnhlanTheCoach.blog and also on Facebook, @AnhlanTheCoach. I have a personal profile there. For the organization, you can go out to LyceumGlobal.net.

Thank you very much for being with us, Dr. Anhlan Nguyen. I admire your passion, drive and the impact that you and your husband are making to the Vietnamese communities, as well as the Asian-American and Asian-Canadian. Best wishes to you. 

Thank you so much.

To our audience, if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, review, rank and share the Asian Women of Power Podcast with others. We would appreciate your support. Until next time, live life loud. 

Links Mentioned:

• Dr. Anhlan Nguyen
• Institute of Civic Education in Vietnam
• Vietnamese Culture and Science Association
• Lyceum
• Lên Đường Camp
• New Moon Foundation
• AnhlanTheCoach.blog
• @AnhlanTheCoach – Facebook
• LyceumGlobal.net
• https://www.ICEVN.org
• https://VCSA.org
• https://www.Facebook.com/AnhlanTheCoach/
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/Anhlan-NguyenPhuc/
• https://www.Facebook.com/Lyceum-Life-Skills-And-Professional-Development-For-Success-900285057028391/
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/Pulse/Grace-Powerful-Mindset-Live-Happy-Fulfilled-Life-Anhlan-Nguyen/

Episode Quotes:

"In order to become a good citizen, first become a good person."

"Negative thoughts are toxins in the body."

"The key thing for fundraising is the cause. You've got to be passionate about the cause."

"Gratitude is one of the most powerful values that we can live by that helps us to live a happy life."

About Dr. Anhlan Nguyen

Dr. Nguyen graduated Summa-Cum-Laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science in 1989 and received a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, Canada, in 1993. She attained her Doctoral Degree in Business Administration specialized in Project Management from Northcentral University in 2015. 

Her doctoral thesis title was “Relationship between IT Project Managers’ Emotional Intelligence and their Project Success”. She is a life-long learner and continues to follow her passion in education through ICEVN and VCSA work. 

Beside her life-long non-profit work, Dr. Nguyen is also a seasoned IT Portfolio Management professional with a PMP Certification and 25 years of IT project, program and portfolio management experience. She served as the IT Portfolio Manager at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas for 15 years before transitioning full-time to non-profit sector with ICEVN work and Lyceum business.

In 2018, she founded Lyceum – Life Skills and Professional Development for Success, a social enterprise specialized in providing life transforming training and coaching services. She currently serves as the Board Chair of Vietnamese Culture and Science Association (www.vcsa.org), and works full-time as the Director of Development and Marketing for Institute for Civic Education in Vietnam (www.icevn.org) and the Executive Director of Lyceum (www.lyceumglobal.net). 

In 2018, Anhlan attained the ICF (International Coaching Federation) certified professional ACC (Associate Certified Coach) credential and continues to serve as a professional life coach for clients in United States, Canada, and Vietnam.