Looking Back
The Journey So Far
Every chapter of my life has shaped me in a different way. Some were filled with happiness and opportunity, while others brought loss, uncertainty, mistakes, and difficult lessons. From my childhood in Taiwan and moving to a new country, to losing people I loved, finding my way through difficult years, becoming an entrepreneur, and eventually becoming a father, each chapter changed how I saw myself and the world around me. Looking back, I don’t see my story as a straight path defined only by successes or failures. I see it as a collection of experiences; good and bad that shaped the person I am today and continue to influence the person I’m becoming.
1994 – Born in Taiwan
I was born in Taiwan in 1994 into a large, middle-class family. I was the youngest of four children, with three older sisters who were all more than ten years older than me. Being the youngest by such a large age gap gave me a somewhat different childhood, surrounded by family members who were already much further along in life. Growing up, I was an extremely cheerful and positive kid. I had a lot of energy, loved being around people, and generally approached things with excitement and optimism. I was also active and competitive. I became involved in speed rollerblading at school and competed seriously, winning competitions and developing an early love for challenging myself. At the same time, some of the recognition I remember most from school wasn't related to sports. I received awards for helping other students and standing up for kids who were being bullied. Even at a young age, I had a strong instinct to step in when I felt someone was being treated unfairly. I also discovered online video games very young. Looking back, they were more than entertainment for me. They introduced me to people with different personalities and backgrounds and gave me some of my earliest experiences communicating, competing, cooperating, and dealing with situations outside my immediate childhood environment. In some ways, those online interactions became an unexpectedly early lesson in understanding people and developing social skills. Life began to change when I was around six and my mother was diagnosed with cancer. She went through periods of treatment and recovery, and although I was still young, her illness became an important part of our family's life. One of her wishes was for me to eventually move to Canada, where she believed I could grow up in a better environment and have more opportunities for my future. A couple of years later, that wish would become the beginning of an entirely new chapter of my life.
2002 – Moved to Canada
In 2002, at eight years old, I moved from Taiwan to Canada with my father and one of my sisters. My mother was already very sick with cancer and spending her days in the hospital, so she wasn't able to come with us. Moving to Canada had been one of her wishes for me because she believed I would have a better environment and more opportunities for my future. At eight years old, though, I couldn't really understand the decision that way. For me, moving meant leaving behind everything that was familiar. I had friends, a school, a language I understood, and a life in Taiwan where I had been a cheerful and positive kid. Suddenly, I was in a completely unfamiliar country while my mother was sick thousands of kilometres away. I arrived without knowing how to speak English, which made adjusting to school especially difficult. Instead of feeling welcomed into my new environment, I experienced bullying and mistreatment from classmates and even some teachers. At the same time, I was dealing with the emotions of being separated from my mother and knowing that she was in the hospital. Looking back, I can see how much I changed during that period. The outgoing and optimistic child I had been in Taiwan became much quieter. I stopped expressing many of the things I was feeling and began hiding my emotions from my family rather than talking about them. At the time, I didn't understand the lasting effect those experiences would have on me. I was simply a child trying to adapt to a new country, learn a new language, fit into a new school, and deal with what was happening to my mother all at once. Only much later in life did I begin to understand how deeply that period had shaped me and how some of those experiences continued to affect the way I dealt with people, emotions, and difficult situations. Canada eventually became home, and my life here would bring opportunities and experiences that I could never have imagined at eight years old. But the beginning was difficult, and I don't want to rewrite that part of my story as something easier than it actually was.
2003 – Losing My Mother & Losing My Way
When my mother passed away in 2003, I was nine years old. I had already spent the previous year trying to adjust to a new country, a new language, and a difficult school environment while knowing that my mother was seriously ill back in Taiwan. Losing her became the beginning of what would ultimately be the hardest period of my life. I didn't know how to process what had happened. The cheerful and positive child I had once been felt increasingly distant. I became quiet, isolated myself from my family and the people around me, and learned to keep almost everything I was feeling inside. At the same time, the bullying at school continued. What made it especially difficult was feeling that some of the adults I expected to protect me either didn't understand what was happening or, at times, seemed to side with the people who were hurting me. As a child, I began to feel as though there was nobody I could trust, nobody I could talk to, and nobody who was really on my side. Over time, sadness became anger. I developed resentment toward the world around me and began thinking less about moving forward and more about getting back at the people I believed had hurt me. Eventually, that anger took me in the wrong direction. As I grew older, I found myself around people and environments that gave me a sense of belonging I had been missing. At the time, some of those people felt like family. Looking back, I understand that many of those relationships and choices were taking me further away from the person I wanted to become. I don't feel the need to share every detail of those years publicly. Some chapters of a person's life can be acknowledged without being completely exposed. What matters to me today is recognizing that for several years, I was living very differently from the person I had been as a child. I made mistakes, put myself in situations I shouldn't have been in, and spent much of that period simply trying to survive in the way I understood at the time. It would take years before I began finding my way out of that mindset. But those years became part of the foundation for how I eventually came to understand failure, resilience, relationships, and the importance of choosing what direction I wanted my life to take.
2018 – Choosing a Different Direction
After years of living in a direction that I knew wasn't sustainable, one event finally forced me to seriously reconsider where my life was going. I lost one of my best friends to an overdose. Losing someone so close to me made the consequences of the life around me impossible to ignore. I decided I needed to leave that lifestyle behind and find something else to live for. I had always wanted freedom—the ability to make my own decisions, build something for myself, and determine where my life would go rather than simply reacting to whatever happened around me. Entrepreneurship gave me something I hadn't had for a long time: a direction. At 24, I started my first business, Swyft Courier, with about $1,000. There was no large investment, established customer base, or sophisticated operation behind it. In the beginning, I went door to door looking for customers and handled the deliveries myself. I was learning how to run a business while actually trying to keep one alive. Growth didn't happen overnight. There were plenty of challenges, mistakes, and periods where I had to figure things out as I went. But for the first time in a long time, I had something constructive to chase. I could set goals, imagine what something might become, and wake up knowing there was something I wanted to build. Swyft eventually grew beyond me delivering packages myself and became a profitable six-figure business that continues operating today. But when I look back, its importance to my life goes beyond revenue or business success. Starting that first company gave me something I desperately needed at that point in my life: something to work toward, something to dream about, and the belief that I could choose a different direction for my future.
2025 – Became a Father.
When I first found out I was going to become a father, my honest reaction was fear. I wasn't ready to accept how much my life was about to change, and for a while, that feeling stayed with me. Even after my son Noah was born, it took me some time to fully understand what becoming a father meant to me. Then, over those first few months, something changed. I completely fell in love with him. Becoming responsible for another person from the very beginning of his life made me think differently about my own childhood. I began to understand just how much responsibility comes with not only providing for a child, but teaching them, understanding them, and being there for them emotionally as they grow. My father was a good person, but looking back, I don't think he always knew how to understand or respond to what I was going through emotionally as a child. Having experienced that myself, one of the things I want most for my son is for him to always know that my love is unconditional. I want to be someone he can count on, someone who listens to him and tries to understand what he's feeling, even when I may not have all the answers. My past has also made me determined to give my family a stable and comfortable life. I know I can't protect my son from every difficult experience, nor would I want to. But I want him to grow up knowing that whatever happens outside our home, he will always have a family that stands behind him. Fatherhood has also changed my definition of success. When I was younger, success could mean making money quickly or reaching the next goal as fast as possible. I've learned that things built quickly can disappear just as quickly. Today, I'm much more interested in building things that last - a family, businesses, relationships, financial security, and a life that can continue growing over decades rather than disappearing overnight. For me, success is becoming less about how quickly I can get somewhere and more about what I can build that will still matter when I get there.
Pieces of the Journey
Moments That Matter
Looking Back
More Than Milestones
A life can't really be summarized by dates and achievements. Some of the moments that mean the most to me are the ordinary ones - people I've met, places I've been, memories with family, and experiences that may not look important from the outside. These are some of the moments I want to remember along the way.