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Q 1. Tell us about your background – your story of self-discovery and your amazing achievements
I used to be the blamer. I used to be that person. We all have that person in our life where they blame everything. We all have that negative Nancy in our lives. Right?
Now, my family is your typical Asian migrant family. I didn't grow up in any sort of abundance. We didn't have any money growing up. My father married four times. I have five brothers from three different mothers. They split up when I was young. They came here and I grew up in a culture where they said, "Study hard, get a good job, go to Uni, get a professional job and earn as much money as you could." Become a doctor, dentist, lawyer, solicitor, optometrist or failure, and that was my blueprint. That was my model of the world that was handed down to me, and so that's what I did.
I studied hard. I went to uni. I became an optometrist. I was an optometrist for 10 years. I was an optometrist for 10 years, and I was in a job that I did not love because I was doing it to please my parents. In fact, for the majority of my life, I was living so other people's expectations of how I should be. In fact, if you have had that period in your life before where you were living to someone else's expectations or someone else's rules?
It's not a good feeling. You feel trapped, you feel controlled. And so, for 10 years I was this optometrist, and yet on the outside people were like, "Oh, Richmond's successful. He's got a professional job."