Ep 04: Helen Wan

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In this episode of Charge the Wave, we welcome guest Helen Wan, author, speaker, lawyer, and diversity, equity and inclusion consultant.  Her novel THE PARTNER TRACK (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press), about a woman of color navigating an alien corporate culture, has been adapted into an original Netflix series.

Tune in to this episode as Helen shares insights into:

• How and why she came to document her Biglaw experiences into her debut novel, The Partner Track
• The advice she received when she started her writing project over 20 years ago 
• What inspired her to become an author 
• Her Netflix experience and the next projects on the horizon
• Advice for aspiring authors and attorneys

About Helen Wan  

Helen Wan is an author, lawyer, and speaker on DEI and women in the workplace. Her novel THE PARTNER TRACK (Macmillan), about a woman of color navigating an alien corporate culture, is in production as an original Netflix series. Helen has written for CNN, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and The Daily Beast. She writes and consults on achieving equity and inclusion in academic, business, and legal settings. Her book is taught in colleges and law schools.

Previously, she was in-house counsel focusing on media and IP law, most recently as VP & Associate General Counsel at Hachette Book Group. Before that, she was Associate General Counsel at Time Inc. and practiced law at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, P.C. in New York.

Helen is a graduate of Amherst College and The University of Virginia School of Law. She is honored to serve on the Amherst College Executive Committee and the boards of the New York Women’s Bar Association Foundation, Asian American Arts Alliance, and Pen Parentis.

Learn more about Helen Wan: 

Visit Helen’s website: https://www.helenwan.com/ 
Connect with Helen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-wan-a576b348/  
Follow Helen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/helenwan1 
Buy The Partner Track: https://www.helenwan.com/the-book/
How ‘Partner Track’ Made the Leap from Novel to Netflix Series: https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/partner-track-book-vs-show

Read the full transcript of this episode:

TAI ( 00:02:25): On today’s episode is my dear friend Helen Wan, Author of The Partner Track, an American dream story about a young woman of color, navigating the alien culture at a powerful global law firm. It’s about chasing ambition while attempting to live authentically at work and remaining true to ourselves and our values. It’s also available now as an original TV series on Netflix. Helen is an esteemed author, speaker, lawyer, and diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant and more importantly, one of the best people I know without further ado, here’s our next episode. Welcome to Charge The Wave, Helen.

HELEN ( 00:02:59): Hi, great to be here.

TAI ( 00:03:01): Before we jump right in, did you want to provide a brief intro and background for the audience?

HELEN ( 00:03:07): Oh, sure. No, it’s a pleasure to be here in conversation with you. And my name is Helen Wan. I am a lawyer turned author and speaker and DEI consultant and I wrote a book years ago called, a novel called The Partner Track, which has recently been turned into a new TV series on Netflix.

TAI ( 00:03:35): Wonderful book and wonderful TV series. I love them both. Congratulations on all your success with The Partner Track and which we’ll get to for sure. But let’s start with how it all began. Would love to hear a little bit about your origin story where you grew up, how you would describe it?

HELEN ( 00:03:53): Oh, sure. Well, I grew up in Central California. Well, I was born in central California. I moved at a young age, prekindergarten. My family moved to the east coast. So, so I, I guess my formative years were really spent growing up in the suburbs of Washington DC, where my family still is. And, I knew that I wanted to write from a fairly young age but also I knew that, you know, being a, being the child of first gen of immigrant parents, that kind of me moving to a Garrett in New York City to kind of like, find my voice as a poet. Probably wasn’t in the cards, you know, immediately after school, perhaps something more practical, career wise might be in the cards. And so I, I actually ended up going to of all things a magnet science, science and tech STEM, you know, high school called the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in the DC, in the general DC area. And from there, I went, went, you know, to, to college where I majored in English and when it came time to, to make some decisions about next steps after graduation, and I thought, well, what does the Liberal Arts college English major really do? Really do and what do I love? What am I passionate about? I was passionate about words and working with words. And so in sort of the, the, the Asian Asian American parent approved group of careers, I thought, well, I guess lawyers work with words, right? So I, you know, so I took the LSAT and I did well enough to get into law schools. I picked one and and there I was in law school and then, you know, not to date myself, but it was a much more, much, much more pre-professional focused time at the time that I was graduating from from law school and when I went to the OCC, the Office of Career Counseling to speak with folks about, well, what, what else can lawyers do with our JD degree? And my English major, my English degree other than big law or like being a, you know, going to a huge law firm, you know, and literally the, the, you know, the, the answer back then, I’m sure it has changed. It has evolved now, but the answer back then was, well, you know, look, you’ve got the goods, you’ve got the grades. So why not do the on campus recruiting by the big law firms? I mean, they literally come to campus and recruit people with the grades. So why, you know, that it makes life easy, right. So I did it and then I did that and I got, again, was lucky enough to get some offers and I realized that it just was going to be so much easier to wipe out my student debt if I did that. And so I took it, I took a job at a large law firm and, when I landed there, it was just such an utterly alien environment to me. So unfamiliar. I really felt like I just, wow, this corporate culture is really something else. Very interesting. So I started writing The Partner Track. Then it, it wasn’t called, then it was just my subbing sri subway scribblings to and from work and, but, but eventually it did become The Partner Track.

TAI ( 00:07:59): , well, I’m glad you, notated the experience. It was very enlightening and educational, and, and entertaining as well. Are there any unique or interesting challenges or experiences you recall from your childhood or formative years?

HELEN ( 00:08:19): Yeah, certainly. It was a very, I grew up in a very, very, kind of then, you know, not diverse. Now, actually the neighborhoods around there have become much more diverse, but back then they were very homogenous, very, very white cul de sac that I grew up in. And we were the only, we originally, we, we, we were the only Asian American family on the block. And then by the time I went to high school that had changed, there were others. But we were the original, the first, we were the first Asian American family to live on that block. And so all of my friends were very, very, all of my friends were white. I had, I had no Asian American friends or there were very few people of color who were in that particular area that, and I certainly was the only, I certainly was the only Asian-American girl in my, let me see in my, in my kindergarten and first grade class and again, that had changed by the time like sixth grade rolled around too. But, but, you know, all of them, there are all of those identity issues about. Well, I am, I am in one way, I’m, I’m happy to see more, more scenes of color in my elementary school. But at the same time, you don’t want to get too close, you know, you know what I mean? Lest you be, lest you be mixed up every single day, you know. So that was sort of my experience of, of, of elementary school and, and junior high as well.

TAI ( 00:10:06): Sounds like we had pretty similar upbringings. Any mentor or or champions role models you’d like to give a shout out to, from your early voyage, your early years?

HELEN ( 00:10:22): A lot of, I had a, I was very lucky to have a lot of great elementary school teachers, school librarians. I was the book nerd who volunteered in the library like in my spare time when I wasn’t in school. And I just found a lot of solace in reading great books, you know, and, and my, my teachers, especially my reading teachers who kind of, you know, would take the time to say, hey, have you ever read this author, had you ever read this book? Have you ever heard of? I don’t know, you know, Judy Bloom, have you read Beverly Cleary? And I, and I hadn’t until they literally put them in my hand, to place them in my hand. And, yeah, I’ve just had, I’ve, I’ve had many really kind mentors and sponsors along the way.

TAI ( 00:11:20): How did you ultimately choose Amherst College and then subsequently University of Virginia School of Law to attend?

HELEN ( 00:11:28): Oh. Actually, again, I didn’t grow up in, I didn’t grow up in the kind of Asian American family that had even heard of Amherst College or the smaller, you know, Williams Swarthmore. It’s not that they were kind of like you must go to, you know, you must do the Ivy League or nothing. But, they just simply hadn’t heard of them. So again, it was a, it was a really, really thoughtful kind and wise, high school guidance counselor who actually my, beginning of my beginning of junior year said, well, have you… ok, I see that you’ve, you know, made the list that we told everyone to make about like, hey, where do you think you would be happiest going to school? And she said, but I noticed that you don’t have any small liberal arts environments on here. Have you, have you considered a place like Amherst Williams or, you know, and I said, no, I had no, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. And she said, oh, well, I, you know, I really think that you might thrive there, you might really find a great community there and, you know, it might be up your alley, check it out. And I did so I went on the college tour that was actually actually organized by, by the school , that specifically visited a lot of the more liberal arts type colleges and not just focusing on the kind of the, the, the obvious kind of large Ivy League schools that a lot of people were focused on in my high school. And, yeah, I just fell in love. I just fell in love with the Amherst campus. It makes such a difference to who, who you meet. And I had a wonderful host and I sat in on three classes, all of which I found fascinating and I was like, oh, my gosh, I can’t wait to be in college, you know, I can’t wait to major in English here. And, so that’s how I ended up at Amherst. And, oh, and you asked about UVA Law as well? That one was more it… you know, I had applied to basically the, the handful of the, you know, the, the eight or nine schools that consider themselves top five, you know. , and, and, you know, I got into some of them and, and UVA was the one where I got in state tuition, an in state tuition package. So I realized wow, like that is a great bargain in higher education. So I did that.

TAI ( 00:14:16): You’re, you’re known as an acclaimed author nowadays, but it takes a lot of years to become an overnight success. Would love to hear. You told us a little bit how you started on your career trajectory would love to hear a little bit about your career path overall, some stops you had along the way and, and where you are today,

HELEN ( 00:14:38): You know, it’s funny. I really appreciate whenever like, people will ask me to sign a book or something or I’ll hear something or read some sort of review that says the acclaimed novelist. I, there was something, oh the trailer when, when the, the Netflix show first came on and there was a trailer said based upon the, based upon something, based upon the critically acclaimed novel. And my son who’s in elementary school was like, what’s the critically acclaimed novel? We’re like, me, your mom. He was like, oh, yeah, cool. But anyway, stops and starts along the way. Well, so I, so I had, I began my career, you know, in, in the big law firm in New York. And I was observing enough just interesting patterns about just success and just people’s complicated relationships with ambition and how all of this is influenced by their family heritage and background and, and and race and privilege and class, etc, and gender so that when I started writing these journal entries, they were, they were just kind of like observations about city life and about firm life, just group and organizational dynamics in a workplace and particularly in a corporate environment type workplace. And so I just, I literally started journaling about them, like writing down the observations when I was walking around midtown Manhattan, you know, writing down character sketches of people that I found interesting in one way or another. And when I had a critical mass of those pages, I started showing them to some trusted friends and, and who all who were not all lawyers, but many of them were my classmates who found themselves in similar work type situations and were kind of like, oh, this is not what I expected or, you know. And so I started showing these pages that I had started writing to some, to some people. And they said, I think you should try, I, you, you never see stories like this being told. I think that you should try to get some of these published. And I didn’t know the first thing about publishing because I was, you know, I was like working these 80 hour work weeks at a large law firm. So literally, I tried to educate myself about how people get a first book published. I went and got one of those books that is how to get a novel published, how to get a first book published for dummies. And I literally followed those instructions and I got offers of representation that way by pulling, you know, sending pages, literally mailing pages at the post office from the post office to these agents and querying them that way. And from that, I actually did get fairly quickly, surprisingly quickly, a couple of nibbles and offers of representation. And then but, but a lot of rejections over the way too, a lot of no’s. One thing, one thing that people had told me over 20 years ago when I started this whole crazy, you know, project was you gotta have a really thick skin. You have to have a thick skin because otherwise you will not, you have to persevere, you have to have a lot of resilience and persevere and have a lot of patience as well and have a very thick skin which I don’t have by nature. So, you know, so I had to kinda, teach myself that, hey, there’s gonna be, there will be many, many no’s for but all you need is one yes, if it’s the right one. So, but yes, yeah,

TAI ( 00:18:53): I’m a big believer.

HELEN ( 00:18:55): Yeah, it is the

TAI ( 00:18:56): power of one.

HELEN ( 00:18:58): Mhm. No. Absolutely. And I got a lot of no’s. Some were really thoughtful no’s, like, hey, I really hope to see this published and this story out there. But I know that I won’t be able to push this through because I know that I won’t get this green lit because I, you know, when they floated it, people were like, well, I don’t understand who, who, who, who is this story trying to market how, how would we market this story? Is she trying to be John Grisham, David Baldacci, you know, Scott Taro or Amy Tan? I don’t know which one, which bucket is she trying to? Are we, would we fit her into which bucket, you know, would she, would she be, be in? And I, and , I just thought, well, do I have to be in any one of those existing buckets? Can people try something new or different? Would that be ok? You know. And so, but it’s very encouraging that now decades later people are more open to newer and more buckets. Hopefully, you know, I think.

TAI ( 00:20:9): You’re an attorney, a wizard with words. Spent lots of time in the library, majored in English. Did, is there anything else in your background and experience that you believe drew you to being an author?

HELEN ( 00:20:25): Oh, yeah. Yes. So one thing that growing up I had always, every time I fell in love with a book, I was just so blown away by the power of words, right? To change minds or to, to, to show a new, shed new light on a subject or just, just, just show a different perspective to someone. There were a lot of books that did that for me. Unfortunately, a lot of them seem to be the ones that are sometimes being banned now, classic books that are sometimes now being banned. But for example, like when I read , The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and other works by Tony Morrison, actually Roald Dahl, actually Judy Bloom, all books that I loved, loved, loved and I found so just transformative in terms of their ability to sort of show you this whole different wonderful imagined world, this wonderful world or, or a different perspective. So, so different from anything lived, anything that I had lived. And it’s just so, so I, I knew I, I always believed in the power of books. And so I think that that coupled with going to law school, being trained as a lawyer and being around some people who had a this a keen sense of justice and being able to tell stories that, that tell convincing stories that hopefully make for a positive outcome, making the world a better place hopefully made me want to write on these themes.

TAI ( 00:22:27): And all the stories you could have told. And I’m sure you have a lot of written pages that the public has never seen. What specifically compelled you to The Partner Track and would love, if you wanted, to share a little bit here more about the book just for those who haven’t read it yet or seen the Netflix series.

HELEN ( 00:22:46): Sure. Just, the story that I wanted to tell with, with, with this book was just the experience of a, of a, of a person of color trying to be the first, like the one and only the first, the first, the first and get that Holy grail of a partnership in a traditionally white male dominated corporate environment. You know, I just wasn’t, you know, they always tell, they always tell aspiring writers and particularly novelists to write the book. Well, they say write what, you know, number one, but then number two, they say write the book that you wish you could see on the shelves that when you yourself a book lover walk into your local bookstore, what is the book that you, that you find missing? What are the stories you find missing from those shelves? And for me, it was a story of that, of you know, of these kinds of relatively newly minted. They were all smart, all book smart, you know, people trying to vie for the Holy grail of partnership at this very, very, very rarified workplace, you know, very rarified corporate workplace environment. So, and, and, and just how all of the behind the scenes factors influence that just who, who’s getting the good, who’s getting the special invitations to go play squash on Thursday afternoons, who isn’t. And who sits with whom in the corporate cafeteria and who sits alone and who, you know, it gets invited to certain, pitch meetings or, you know, client calls and who doesn’t and who was asked to serve on the diversity committee, who’s not, who’s asked to carry the flag and who’s not. All of those stories were not being told. And, and now they are so I’m really happy that only 20 years later, you know, more attention is being paid to these issues that I was trying to, to, to focus on back then and yeah, it’s, it’s been a great, it’s been a great journey and the happiest surprise from the whole, from the whole page to page to TV show process has been just the very enthusiastic support, really kind and positive support that I’ve been getting from so many different communities. Not just not just lawyers, not just women lawyers, not just the Asian Americans, but just everyone. A lot of people are like, oh, I hadn’t told, I hadn’t seen this story told, you know, I hadn’t really seen this story out there and thank you for putting it out there. And, and a lot of that comes from people who are not who I would have expected frankly, like senior white male partners who are chairmen of DC or Boston or New York law firms who find out how to contact me through my publisher. And send a note saying, hey, I really, really liked chapter four, the firm outing scene. That I’ve never seen that, that environment depicted so authentically and I appreciate that and as a result. Yeah, my firm doesn’t, I’m the chairman of the firm and I don’t want to do those golf outings anymore. Didn’t realize that that was making, that would make people feel like that. And I don’t want to do that. So we’re not doing that anymore. You know, so that is the kind of thing that makes you feel like. Ah so that’s why the author just kind of like, you bang your head against the wall for 20 years, you know, is to get a message out there like that.

TAI ( 00:26:57): And it was really neat to see. First of all, I know our Above the Law audience really enjoyed the column of your feature and the social and workplace commentary you had resonating with, you know, the powers that be in the industry and the fact that you are now speaking at a lot of these big law firms and white shoe law firms to talk about diversity equity inclusion, how to make the workplace more inclusive is wonderful. All stemming from this, from this novel. So, so many paths can be taken from here and it, it’s been just great to see your journey. What I thought was incredible. You always read a book and then when you see it on the TV screen, how they transform it or their kind of view perspective, how they wanted to highlight certain areas of the novel. Did you have? and, and concepts and narratives and did you have a, a favorite moment or a favorite scene of the Netflix series or a couple that you wanted to highlight?

HELEN ( 00:28:05): Yeah, I mean, I genuinely enjoyed the Netflix series. I didn’t know what to expect. And I expected like, ok, I’m gonna, you know, a novel, especially your first novel is your baby, right? So you, you just wanna don’t know what to expect when someone’s adapting it for the screen. But I genuinely, I binge watched it in a weekend. I loved it. I was like, oh God, these characters are so great, you know, I love that. So, but I, my favorite episode actually was I, I believe it’s episode four, it’s called Out of Office and it is the firm outing episode and they shot it on location at an actual country club, at an actual country club. And later I, I’ve, it’s been such a pleasure to get to know this particular crew and cast. And, and so when I later when I was speaking with some of the cast members, who all are so thoughtful and really kindly have told me, hey, the reason why I, it was important to me to land this particular role and that, I really, really, really was happy when I got this role was that, you know, some, this per this aspect of that, of that character’s back story really resonates with me, you know, and I just thought it was so thoughtful of them to tell me that personally. But anyway, that, that is my favorite episode out of all of them is that firm outing scene, it was just so so well done that the, you know, the white fragility scene and this is not a spoiler. There’s a scene that is pretty discomforting to, to some people from a, from a diversity equity inclusion angle and it’s just I, I thought they, the depiction of it in that episode was done really, really well, so believable. So, yeah, I really appreciate the thoughtfulness and care that they gave that particular chapter from my book.

TAI ( 00:30:22): Any surprises from the audience reception or the media coverage of the Netflix series?

HELEN ( 00:30:32): Just that it came of the, the really positive, the really positive and supportive response coming from so many different quarters, you know, not just limited to, you know, the the audiences that perhaps might have been expected like Asian Americans or people of color or lawyers of color or women lawyers or something. No, it was just, I’ve heard from so many different, people and a great byproduct of, of seeing your work adapted for the Netflix or anywhere is just people coming out of the woodwork, people I, friends, old friends, classmates, my high school English teacher, other people I hadn’t heard from in, in a long time saying, oh, my goodness. I didn’t, you know, I read your book but I had no idea that it was going to be on my (tv), I was just gonna be flipping through like, just kind of figure out something to stream and see your story out there. That’s, that’s, that’s amazing. I heard from my, my high school prom date, you know, people I, I truly have not been able to connect with in years and that has been, that has been a really happy thing.

TAI ( 00:31:51): Anything you wish you knew when you began your career or anything you would tell your younger self?

HELEN ( 00:31:59): Oh, yeah, definitely. So many things. Where to begin, how much time do you have here? I really wish I had just trusted myself to take a lot more risk. Educated risk, you know, not crazy risk. I mean, we are still, you know, I am still trained as a lawyer so I’m pretty risk averse by nature. But, but just, just to trust yourself and it, and try to take these educated risks much sooner because honestly, in most cases, there isn’t that much to lose by asking, opening your mouth and asking for something. And in my experience, the older that I got, and the more places that I was practicing law, I realized the more that I asked for things most of the time people would actually say yes, like I would say, I think that I want to attend that particular conference because I it’s, I did some research and I, it seems like I would make some, you know, helpful, professional contacts there. Most of the time, you know, the head of your department or, or , in my case, or the GC would say, hey, ok, yeah, that seems like a good idea. Sure. You know, and I, if I had realized that sooner, I think that I would have spent less time spinning my wheels. I think that probably I could have gotten the story published, much sooner than I did, rather than 12 years after I started writing it. And, yeah, I just wish that I had trusted myself to, to let those around me when I was lawyering , know that I wanted to, I wanted to give, give a shot to this opportunity or that opportunity. The worst they could say is no, the worst that could happen is that I would get, I would hear the word no, but I already was hearing the word no, so much from the publishing from my, you know, my creative side hustle that. Yeah, I think that, I think I should have done that but, but, you know, hindsight is always 20/20. And also I think that this, that kind of lesson which most of my friends have learned in their own career paths as well are , they’re kind of like, well, you weren’t alone in that. But, that’s one of those lessons that just comes with age. I guess that kind of wisdom comes with age.

TAI ( 00:34:36): Yeah. And, and last question before the break and then we’ll close out the show after the break. What would you consider a success for yourself over the next year, over the next 12 months?

HELEN ( 00:34:49): Finishing my new book, a new book would be really exciting. My agent would think that’s really exciting. He would be overjoyed. And so finishing, finishing the, the book I am currently working on which I’m excited about. And, also I think that in challenging these challenging and, and really stressful, anxiety producing times that we’ve had recently. Many, many, many of my friends have done the whole like, hey, let’s take some deep breaths, take a step back and kind of reassess or reevaluate, what are the priorities in our lives? And are we doing the work that is the most meaningful to us, making the most of our time that we have and, you know, in a, in a practical and grounded way, how are we, how are we living meaningful lives and I mean, both professionally and personally, of course. So I would consider that my goal too.

TAI ( 00:36:07): Well, we will take a beat for a message from our sponsors and then we’ll return with the advice segment and the lightning round to close out the show

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TAI ( 00:37:03): Welcome back, Helen. We will start with the advice segment. What’s one piece of advice you have for recent graduates about to embark on their career route? Set sail into their professional voyage?

HELEN ( 00:37:19): Oh, I think the best piece of advice I I could give folks who are just sending out would be to take the, take the time to do the research and meet the people that you meet, the people that you need to meet, to get a real authentic sense of the corporate culture or not necessarily corporate of the culture of whatever workplace you’re entering into. And that means not just the people at the more junior levels, but, but really trying to introduce yourself in an organic and real way to people at the more the mid-level and senior level, you know, roles at your workplace and just get a sense of their career trajectory, how long it took people to get to a certain place. And also importantly, whether the place where those folks are is someplace that looks actually good to you. So in other words, just because you can collect a whole bunch of gold stars, it doesn’t mean you have to, just make sure that the gold stars are the right ones.

TAI ( 00:38:34): Yeah. What advice do you have for others wanting to write a book? You have a little blurb on this, on your web page in the about section of wanting to write a book versus writing a book. What advice do you have for others wanting to write a book to get them going to actually writing the next great American novel?

HELEN ( 00:38:57): I think every writer wishes they knew that. But what I would say, but what I would say to current aspiring writers is just to start, to start treating it like a real thing in your own mind. Start thinking of it like a real thing and not just, oh, something, a pipe dream, a hobby that if I had more time, if I weren’t doing this, if I weren’t too busy doing this, then, then I would sit down and write it. I had to start imposing actual deadlines on myself, kind of artificial deadlines on myself by doing things like signing myself up for evening writing classes, you know, like how to, how to begin your novel type classes. And those external deadlines actually kind of worked because what they were was I was signing up and registering for, you know, a deadline like, hey, you know, next Tuesday, all these strangers in New York City are expecting 20 pages from me. So I better get those done because it’s my, it’s gonna be my round to, to, to be read, to be heard. And that’s when I started really having more of the edits, accumulate. And then pretty soon I had a pile of enough pages to really show an agent. So, to start treating it like a real thing, like a, like a client meeting or like a, a doctor’s appointment, not, you know, not an appointment that you, not a weekend appointment that you break with yourself for no reason. And just to treat that, that time as real time as a real appointment, a real date with yourself to go writing.

TAI ( 00:40:59): I’ve heard this quote about entrepreneurship and startups and the founders often just staring into the abyss chewing glass, getting donkey kicked in the stomach every day. And I would equate that to writing. It can be a very lonesome journey and it’s a long trek to be sure. How do you manage your mental health and energy runway throughout this whole process of working and writing and family and everything.

HELEN ( 00:41:27): Yeah, it writing is definitely for me, at least I find it to be a very isolating experience and then later on kind of COVID times and things like that, you know, where people were truly almost every writer that I know novelists, journalists, everyone during these past challenging years have been like, oh my goodness, writing was already so lonely enough. And so, and what to write about, you know, who knows what is, what feels timely, topical, relevant and meaningful a subject to, to write about. So, I guess a key to at least the writer, my writer friends maintaining our sanity is just to regularly try to interact and whether that can only be via zoom or whatnot as face tiles on a screen or better yet, whenever if possible in, you know, in person on a regular basis, I find that really, really helpful just to hear perspectives here from other people interact with other human beings, see their actual human faces. And not just as face tiles. Yeah, and just interact and see how others see and hear from other different perspectives that has always been, I think key to keeping anyone’s mental health together on, you know, on top of normal adulting duties, et cetera.

TAI ( 00:43:10): Sure, sure. Thank you for sharing that. Then last question before lightning round, I usually ask, you know, what wave will you charge next? What’s next on the horizon? You did mention a little bit earlier about your new book. Are you able to share any details or you know, pull the string on that a little bit more?

HELEN ( 00:43:30): Sure. On the project I’m working on now. And also there’s another, so I’m hoping to, to finish to, you know, stick to finishing the ending on this, on this current one, which is, which is another novel that it’s not a direct sequel to The Partner Track. But it certainly is a, is a, is another, is a spin on very similar themes that I write about about the ways about a group of, a group of talented people from very different diverse disparate backgrounds who have, who are not forced but find themselves having to, to interact very, very, very closely. And all of all of the assumptions that people make about each other, most of which are wrong. So, and just all of the ways that group dynamics, organizational hierarchies and dynamics and yeah, just race, gender, socioeconomic class and privilege, your family, family, baggage and history, how all of these things influence people’s decision making process.

TAI ( 00:45:00): Did you mention another as well?

HELEN ( 00:45:05): Oh, yeah, just, I, I have, I have two ideas for the, the, the book project after this, that, that I’m really looking forward to jumping into too, but I’ve, I’ve never been the kind of writer that can be involved in like 2, 3, 4 different projects. At the same time, some of my writer friends can do that very, very successfully. But I like to, I tend to focus on one manuscript at a time.

TAI ( 00:45:31): Well, let’s jump into the thunder and lightning round. My favorite morning pick me up and I’m biased is Outrigger Cold Brew Coffee from the island of Hawaii. Do you have a go to morning pick me up that you prefer?

HELEN ( 00:45:47): Also, you know, also coffee. But lately I have been trying to, lately I have been trying to switch over to decaf actually, just to be, you know, to be perfectly honest. just because I was downing, I was having so I was just downing coffee trying to, you know, trying to finish a bunch of projects and it was really affecting my sleep. So to be honest, decaf coffee is what I now write with basically.

TAI ( 00:46:28): A favorite local restaurant?

HELEN ( 00:46:31): Oh, my, there’s a wonderful pizza place called Fiamma that everyone in the family can agree on and the red sauce is terrific. Everyone there is really, really friendly and nice and it’s just fun. That’s our go to. I mean, when you, when you have a small kid. Yeah, just when you have a small kid at home then most of the restaurants that you go to, do feature a kiddie menu. And so, yeah.

TAI ( 00:47:03): I will have to try that out. It sounds excellent. Favorite hobby besides reading, writing, work?

HELEN ( 00:47:15): Yeah. When I’m not working, well, especially now that the weather is nicer. I do like to, I do like to, read in the… we have a part of the reservation which is very close by here. And also I’ve been trying to, I have been trying to meditate more because that also helps with, I really, really do find that that has helped with, with just sleep and, and writing actually. So I have been trying to do that every morning at the same time.

TAI ( 00:47:56): Favorite sports team, musical or show?

HELEN ( 00:48:01): Oh, actually, the sports team, musical or show. , we follow a lot of premier league, football here in this house and, Arsenal is the team that my kid loves and, and we follow, but in, in terms of musical and show, I recently took our son to go see Hercules which happened to star Tyler Robinson, Bradley Gibson, the, the, the actor who, who portrays Tyler in The Partner Track was starring in Hercules. So my son and I went and that was an amazing production and I was so, I was so proud of him. It was a great show.

TAI ( 00:48:49): Favorite vacation spot?

HELEN ( 00:48:53): Oh This, let me, let me search my memory for the last real day, favorite vacation spot. I would say Argentina actually. We, my husband and I, were lucky enough to travel all around Argentina and it was just such, amazingly, the settings were so diverse. You could do, I mean the city of, you know, Bea or the, the wine region. Patagonia. It really was a wonderful trip and I would love to go back sometime.

TAI ( 00:49:38): A dream concert if you could see any musician in concert. Who would it be?

HELEN ( 00:49:45): Oh, we are going to see the Boss. We’re gonna go see Springsteen for my first time around later this year. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve never, somehow I’ve and I live near this venue in Jersey and I’ve never gone somehow. So, finally we are.

TAI ( 00:50:08): Dog or cat.

HELEN ( 00:50:12): Oh I like them both. We have neither but I like them both but probably a lab, probably a dog. Yeah.

TAI ( 00:50:23): I’m borrowing this question. I have a Labrador, a yellow lab. , that I adore. I borrowed this question from Tim Ferris. If you could put any, anything on a billboard outside a college or law school, what would it be, any piece of advice? Yeah.

HELEN ( 00:50:44): , I guess, try not to take it all so seriously is what I would put on a billboard because that would be the billboard that I wish someone had put outside, like, any school that I had just graduated from and just realize that not every, not every decision that we make along the way has to feel like, has to work out perfectly. In fact, it won’t, it won’t, it won’t. And so to expect every single thing you do to work out perfectly is kind of self sabotage. So I wish someone had told me that when I was graduating.

TAI ( 00:51:24): Any other life mottos or slogans or anything you put a tattoo of on your body.

HELEN ( 00:51:33): It’s just, you know, just, I don’t know, it’s kind of long for a tattoo, but it’s, it’s, it’s ok to kind of stray off the, the well trod path once in a while. You can get back on, you can get back on the path if you wish or you might even discover that, oh, I should have done it now. I should have tried something, a different track a long time ago.

TAI ( 00:52:9): Yeah, like the obstacle is the way. Last question, what do you want to conquer next on your bucket list?

HELEN ( 00:52:18): Oh, that’s a great question. I would love to travel again. I think travel is so important for everyone, and especially including writers, both nonfiction and fiction. And I, I think that a lot of, I know a lot of lawyers who, who secretly have a, like a, a half finished manuscript collecting dust in a drawer and I wish that people would somehow find, try to carve out the time to, to take those out and dust them off and, and see where those manuscripts lead them. And I think that I, I think that just seeing different perspectives and, and whether that’s through travel or just getting out there and reconnecting with, with people or meeting new people is it is really helpful to getting yourself in the right mindset to shake out those half, half written manuscripts and see where they can go.

TAI ( 00:53:20): Any parting or final words for our audience, Helen.

HELEN ( 00:53:26): Just, just thank you for, for everyone who is supporting these kinds of stories and, and supporting by voting with your feet, you know, and, and, and that means actually going to the movies to support a new, you know, store,, going to the bookstore and actually checking out those the, the, the books that interest you and, you know, buying a theater ticket and, and actually going to, to support these stories because that is really the only way that more of them are gonna get told.

TAI ( 00:54:07): I think we always try to do a gold house open or yeah, a gold open for any AAPI type cinema and movies. And we really try to support that and just love what you’re doing, Helen Wan. Thank you so much for sharing your stories with our audience. We look forward to following your successes. Until next time everyone charge the way. Thank you.

VOICEOVER ( 00:54:32): Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Charge the Wave focused on entrepreneurs, executives and icons who are assiduously building companies, cultures and communities. Til next time, Charge the Wave. Charge The Wave is brought to you by Footnote 4. Footnote 4 has had a front row seat to many recent successes in the last several years, both advising and consulting for incredible individuals and teams who have risen above their stations by building high performance crews and cultures and carving their own paths throughout various industries along the way. Footnote 4 dedicates Charge the Wave to the late Duke Kahanamoku from 1890 to 1968. The greatest waterman pioneer and American icon of our time. The Diversity Movement. The Diversity Movement’s DEI navigator is everything you need, all in one place. You get access to a host of resources with DEI Navigator and all at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full service DEI consultancy visit www.thediversitymovement.com/footnote to learn more. Candle Cares. Candle Cares is an online tool that helps caretakers take care. Nowadays, caregiving has become a full time job for one’s parents, children, fur babies and ohana. Candle Cares helps you manage your caregiver crew, loved ones who need care and everyday tasks. A single candle can light many other candles without losing its own light. Candle Cares helps you be the light for others every night and helps your caregiving team organize their tasks on a daily basis. Coming soon to Apple and Android. Outrigger Cold Brew Coffee Co. Outrigger Cold Brew Coffee Co is cold brewing the Aloha spirit from soil to sip, waking up the wayfarers with its signature Hawaiian blends of coffee beans and roasting styles, including 100% kona coffee. As Mark Twain famously proclaimed in his letter from Hawaii, kona coffee has a richer flavor than any other, be it grown where it may and call it by what name you please. Be wherever you may and whatever your next challenge we’re cold brewing our next batch of aloha spirit from soil to sip to help you charge the wave.

About the Charge the Wave Podcast

Footnote 4 presents its Charge the Wave podcast – focused on entrepreneurs, executives, and icons who are assiduously building companies, cultures, and communities.

Charge the Wave aims to uncover the personal stories and anecdotes from inspiring builders and trailblazers in their respective professions and dig into the formative moments, hard-fought lessons, and circuitous voyages that are woven into the fabric of the everyday, interesting journeys of our fellow wayfarers.

Charge the Wave is focused on the industrious pioneers who are navigating the choppy waters of the unknown, rising and grinding everyday to face the endless uphill climb.

Charge the Wave is singularly focused on:

Inspiring entrepreneurs — who are building startups, battling the unstable seas to discover product-market fit, and aiming to launch innovative products and services to successfully cross the chasm into successful commercialization.

Influential executives — who’ve had winding career paths, weathered the storms and wreckages, and built resilient and high-performing crews and organizations.

Iconic individuals — who are becoming authors of their destinies and master navigators by wayfinding, sidewinding, wandering, and perfecting their craft, charting new courses to make an indelible mark in the world.

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Footnote 4 has had a front-row seat to many recent successes in the last several years, both advising and consulting for incredible individuals and teams who have risen above their stations, by building high-performance crews and cultures — and carving their own paths throughout various industries along the way. Footnote 4 dedicates Charge the Wave to the late Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968), the greatest waterman, pioneer, and American icon of our time.

Website: https://footnote4.com/