Personal Finance and Intentional Living: Confronting Mortality for Personal Growth and Happiness | Jermaine Ee | The Zhen Podcast

Description

Have you ever considered how confronting your own mortality could transform your understanding of personal finance? In this enlightening episode of The Zhen Podcast, host Zhen engages in a profound conversation with Jermaine E, the visionary founder of the estate planning app Airlight. Together, they explore the often-avoided topic of mortality, emphasizing that writing one's eulogy can unlock essential insights into what truly matters in life and how we approach our financial futures.

Jermaine's journey began with a heartfelt conversation with his mother, who, as an immigrant, expressed her fears surrounding financial insecurity. This pivotal moment ignited his passion for creating Airlight, an innovative tool designed to demystify estate planning and empower individuals to take charge of their personal finance. Throughout this episode, listeners will discover the vital importance of engaging in financial planning, regardless of age or socioeconomic status, and reflecting on their values and intentions regarding money.

As the discussion unfolds, Jermaine sheds light on societal pressures that often dictate our relationship with wealth and success. He advocates for a more personal approach to financial management, reminding us that our financial decisions should align with our core values and contribute to our overall wellness and happiness. This episode is not just about finance; it touches on the mental health aspects of financial anxiety, the trauma that can stem from financial insecurity, and the healing that comes from understanding and managing our resources wisely.

Listeners will resonate with Jermaine’s poignant reflections on living intentionally, which emerged from his experiences with his mother before her passing. This episode serves as a powerful reminder that prioritizing what truly brings joy and meaning to our lives can lead to greater fulfillment and emotional intelligence. Whether you're grappling with anxiety, navigating relationships, or seeking self-improvement, this conversation offers valuable insights into how personal finance intersects with mental health, mindfulness, and personal growth.

Join us as we challenge the conventional narratives surrounding money, encourage boundary setting, and explore the connections between financial stability and emotional well-being. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to rewire their brain around personal finance, overcome self-sabotage, and embrace a life filled with purpose and intention. Tune in to discover how you can transform your relationship with money and cultivate a more meaningful existence through the lens of personal finance.

Connect with Jermaine Ee:

https://heirlight.com/en

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eejermaine/

https://www.eejermaine.com/

If anything in this episode brought something up for you — support is available:
📞 Mental health and crisis support — call or text 988
📞 Substance use support — 1-800-662-4357
💬 Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

Speaker #0
Confronting your own death, writing your own eulogy, gives you a reflection back to yourself of what's important. Essentially, you can frame it as what do you want someone to say behind your back? Not settling for the routine of life, not settling for assuming that just because we have a pool, we can swim there tomorrow. Taking life with a bit more urgency to do the things that we want to do. It's not a discipline problem. Instead of asking, what should we do about money? I want to have conversations about like, how can money serve us?
Speaker #1
Well, welcome back to the show, everybody. Today, we have Jermaine E joining us. He is a multiple time founder and currently working on the startup called AirLight. So without further ado, I will have Jermaine himself give you a little introduction about. who he is and what is Airlight.
Speaker #0
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Well, Airlight is my life's project right now. Airlight started as a conversation with my mom about a year and a half ago because I realized she had this anxiety around running out of money before she dies. And I think the context behind it is that as an immigrant mom, she spent all her life just working and saving and saving up the money, not for her, but to... protect her kids really. And she never really asked the question of like, do I have enough so that I can retire now? And so this conversation that I had with her about retirement sparked this idea that a lot of people don't know what they have. And that's why they cannot really calm the anxiety in their mind about money. And once we started to figure out these anxiety and these challenges that she had, this lack of clarity that she had, we've kind of built it into an estate planning app. So Airlight in short is an estate planning app. It's a guided experience. focused on helping people have more clarity.
Speaker #1
That's really helpful. I would say we connected offline before this interview and I personally do not manage my money well just yet. And I can see how helpful an app like that. And then would you say at 33 is a little too early to start, you know, any sort of estate planning, any sort of money management, or would you say like everybody at any point in their life should be... conscious about how they manage their money and where the money is going in the future?
Speaker #0
You know, when I started this project, I thought that this was a socioeconomic thing. Rich people had estate plans, poor people did not. And then I guess you and I were somewhere in between those two. But what I realized is that there's really not like a one size fit all, right? People come into this conversation with all sorts of background, culture, religion, all sorts of beliefs about money and about death because estate planning you ultimately ends in death and what comes after. So I would say there is no right time to do it. I think the question really is, what are the benefits of doing that, right? By having this conversation, death is a, like the total address of market of death is everybody, like we're all gonna die, right? If you're listening to this and you didn't realize that, that's a big spoiler about life. But I think having this conversation early gets us to reflect and think about this topic. you And oftentimes, like journaling, when we start thinking about things and writing things down, we kind of calm those nerves a little bit. So the earlier you start, the more clarity you have.
Speaker #1
I totally agree with you. And I do want to start. And I feel like I just don't know where to start. And there's a lot of self-help books out there. I remember buying this book in the airport called... I actually have it here. Something about like money detox or whatever, right? And then like I'll go into my bank account and I'm like, I'm so overwhelmed right now. Like all the Amazon purchases, you know, I have no idea what they are, to be honest, like what I bought. But like, I feel like life is already so overwhelming. And sometimes adding the topic of money can be just too much. And I also feel like growing up, no one really talked to me about how to manage money. Like, if anything, people usually talk to me about like how to make more money rather than managing them. As if like manage... money management is such like a taboo topic. And I know a lot of people avoid the topic. Why do you think that people don't want to talk about money management?
Speaker #0
Wow, that's a huge, that's like a trillion dollar industry question, right? I think our brains aren't really built for the amount of information that we have today. Like, it's really hard for us to separate what is important and what is urgent. Things like money, estate planning. These are all very abstract to most of us in our day-to-day. And I think abstract things are by nature really difficult to... feel important and feel like control over. You know, I think our brains are better off like going in motion. For example, I think this is something, I think a lot of people do this, but I'm going to own it that I do this silly little thing where sometimes in the morning, I write my to-do list and I would start by writing some things I've already done so that I can check it off just to feel good about it. Right. You know that feeling? I think money management kind of feels like that, right? We want to do something, but we don't really know what the... end goal is what the destination is and it isn't really like a character flaw right it's like it's not a discipline problem it's more like it's so abstract for us so part of my goal with these conversations is try to like flip the script instead of asking what should we do about money i want to have conversations about like how can money serve us like all your amazon purchases how can those things bring more happiness to your life and If it doesn't, maybe it doesn't belong there. So the question has to be flipped, right? Not spending, but what does it do for you instead? And I think that makes the conversation less abstract.
Speaker #1
I think what you just said make me think about instant gratification versus long-term goal, right? And I think that when I think of money, I think money can provide me some sort of safety and security. it. I mean, we all know we are supposed to save for the retirement. We're supposed to do a lot of things in life, right? But at that moment, at certain moments, I think it's just a matter of I really need to do this like retail therapy or using money to feel temporarily good by purchasing or going out and, you know, not being responsible. And to a certain degree, I feel like that feels good at the moment and money is serving a purpose. So with all the people that you have worked with, what are some of the common trap or loop that they're looping of not managing money well? And how did you help them to think about the long-term financial health rather than the instant gratifications?
Speaker #0
I think for myself, actually, we never talked about this offline, but one of the first thing that I did that made me feel more life. was I went to USC, but before that I went to community college because I couldn't get into USC right out of high school. And one of my first jobs as a student is I went to local high schools to help them with financial aid seminars. So essentially because I speak Mandarin and I know a little bit of Spanish, like I go to these high schools that are low income and like I walk them through how to plan financially for college FAFSA, right? And in that experience was like the first time that I felt. that my story and kind of the little bit of knowledge that I know about a process can shine a light for someone who before meeting me, not that I'm so great, I'm just regurgitating this information that I was given. But before meeting me, it felt like a black box to them. Right. And that was such a powerful feeling for me. And I think what I learned from it is like no two humans come to this topic the same way. It's just we are so, so, so different. differently wired. And I think we can trace this back to psychology, to trauma, to, you know, how we were brought up. And if I'm going to give like a very, very personal example, like again, back to my mom, she only knew how to make money. She didn't know how to spend money, right? She spent all her life wired of making, of saving. And I remember this distinct experience. We went to a very nice resort in Mexico, in Mayacoba. on the East Coast. And she sat there, she's like, okay, we're here, coconut in hand. What do we do now? Like, you know, she's looking at like, why is this coconut $15? Like, that's crazy. And just like this, this unease of like, learning to spend money, that's a skill. But I think going back to your question a little bit, I think like, everybody has such a different roadmap, a different North star. And I think the key is really to like have the permission to slow down and to ask yourself these questions of like what actually matters to you. Right. And like how do you map yourself out to like spend the way that makes you happy? And like I know I'm going on. I'm going to give one little thing that just came to my mind. I think in a perfect world, like we would we would earn all the money and spend all the money exactly in the moment that we die in a perfect world. The only variable is that we don't know when we're going to die. So there's some part of our brain that's like, okay, I need to make sure I save enough money so I can keep living. But at the same time, I'm also thinking, well, what if I save too much and I didn't end up spending it, right? They're both true dilemma. So if I can wave a wand and tell you. exactly how much you need to spend every single day so you can just live to max till you die. I think I would be like a trillionaire to help people live a full life.
Speaker #1
I definitely feel if I can just spend all the money that I make, I would be so happy. But you're right. Like we're not going to be able to work. I mean, there are people who work forever until the day, you know, they're moving on from this world. But majority of us want to retire early. And I think that like when I think about money in like future management, I also think about like what type of life I want to live after working and I'm retired and how to budget for those period of time where there's no money coming in. So I think the intention of designing your life kind of come into play. And I think with everything in life, setting an intention can help us go to that. North Star and help us to have a peace of mind. And I also know that as like an Asian American person living in the U.S., I know that I personally encounter a lot of high expectations from my parents and from my community. And I think that living a wealthy life or having a stable job is often being praised. So you In your experience, how would you define success? What tools do you use in Airlight to help people guide them through the process and define their own intention, define their own success?
Speaker #0
Airlight currently is a reflection. It's the first company that I worked on that is a reflection of who I am as a person. And a lot of the principles that I use to build Airlight, I mean, it is engineering and UI, UX and design, all the stuff. But. The goal of it is to be a mirror to our users, right? So for me, I think I spent all my 20s, like many people trying to figure out how the world works. And a big part of it made me believe that as long as I'm successful, I deserve to be loved. I think that's maybe it's being Chinese, I'm Chinese American. Maybe it's being in California, like highly, highly materialistic world, right? It's like I... I spent all my 20s believing that. What kind of broke me out of this pattern is I just read somewhere, perhaps it's like a stoicism thing that, you know, confronting your own death, writing your own eulogy gives you a reflection back to yourself of what's important. And so I did that at a pretty young age. I wrote my first eulogy. Essentially, you can frame it as like, what do you want someone to say behind your back? Or what do you want someone to say about you at your funeral? And. admittedly in my 20s version, it was all about admiration. Like I so desired the admiration of not just people I care about, but just even like a random classmate that I talked to once. Like I wanted the admiration so bad. And during COVID, you know, a lot of us got into this zone of like reflecting and thinking about our lives. And I started, I wrote a eulogy again. And what I realized was that During COVID, my circle of people that I care about, opinions that I care about, shrunk a lot. It still isn't zero, but it shrunk a lot. And then once more again, after my mom passed last summer, I wrote my eulogy again, and it shrunk down even more. And what I realize now is that the only thing I really care about is that when I am gone, that the people that are close to me, the people who really, really know me, they feel like I was present with them. When I'm hanging out with them, that they felt that I was there. I wasn't distracted with everything that's going on in the world. And what this tells me about the practice, about living with intention, is like if we write down our ending, the ending that we want from whatever angle, from an outside angle, a eulogy or from our own, we can start reverse engineering how we want to live.
Speaker #1
Right. I mean, wow. Two days ago, I read on Instagram and there was like a post. I think it's actually from one of my favorite podcasts called School of Greatness. And it posed a question that if everyone write down their problems and put it into a hat and have you randomly pick someone else's problem, would you do it? And I remember reading that and thinking, I'm so stuck in my head and kind of like look my life from my perspective. that sometimes I do forget like other people have other problems too. And if given the choices, I will keep mine because at least I know I can handle it. And I cannot imagine how other people like deal with some of the difficulties and challenges. To bring that back to what you just said, I think having a third party opinion, even just from yourself, can really like help you to understand your impact in this world and how you can help with other people in the society move forward and be better. And even though like we've been talking about money quite a bit, I also feel people want to make a lot of money and manage money because they feel. They need this as a tool to make them feel a certain type of way. And I think that writing, what's it called? Eulogy. Eulogy kind of like gives people like a bigger meaning to their life, right? Like because money is just like one aspect of life. I think that when we're more in tune with who we are and what type of person that we want to be, maybe we'll see money under a different light. And maybe we wouldn't be as like obsessed with what society tell us as success and, you know, abundance. And we can create our own version of how we want to live the best way that we can. And the money kind of comes in to help us to get there.
Speaker #0
I think this entire point came to like an exclamation moment in my life. When my mom passed, I realized that I would trade everything, right? Like whatever material thing I have. I would trade every material thing for sure. I wouldn't trade my life for it because I think she also would not want me to. But I think it really puts an emphasis on like what genuinely matters at the end. It's kind of like Warren Buffett just retired, right? He did everything he wants in his life and he invested. He's the greatest investor of all time, arguably. But I wouldn't want to be Warren Buffett. I wouldn't want to have a short time left to live. No amount of money I would trade my life with him. So I think this Lewis Howes School of Greatness, this reframing of these problems is such a powerful practice. It is part of what I hope we can do with Airlight, is to understand our users so much that we can present them with some of these things. And I think like what you're doing with this podcast is precisely what is needed because you curate a group of people who agree with these values. Right. And you bring on people like me and other guests to share stories, to reflect this value. And, you know, when I first started doing podcasts, I was like, gosh, I'm so annoyed of my own voice and I'm so sick of telling the same stories over and over again. And then I realized at some point, you know what? Tony Robbins have been doing this for like 35 years. And still... He's essentially saying the same stories, but sometimes his stories hit me at a different time in a different way. And it's like such a good reminder that we have to just keep going because you never know whoever's listening to this, like what touches them in a way that something hasn't before, even though it's the same story.
Speaker #1
I love that you said that I was dating this person last year this time and we were in Barnes & Noble and this person look at the, we were in like the self-help section. back then I didn't even have this podcast, but I was telling this person that I will start one. And this person would look at like the cover of this white lady and was like, I will never take advice from this lady. And then he picked up like this one book and it was like an African-American guy. I was like, this guy has more to say. And I remember looking at him and I said, to you, yes. but maybe not to a mom from Minnesota who is white and have more, you know, relatable story to the other white lady who's on the cover. I think it is about the story, what we're trying to say, but it's also how you say it. It's how you tell the story, who's listening, and what impact are you making in that particular moment. I always say if somebody who's not ready to accept love, love can walk in front of you, you wouldn't even recognize it. And I think that we need people from different backgrounds to share their stories over and over again. I also think that like when we're telling stories, we're processing the information. That's like literally one thing I learned from AP Psych in high school. And that's like literally the only thing I remember from high school is that we tell those stories because we need it. And a lot of time, we're trying to make sense in our head. And I think that like a lot of people who might work with you in the future, this might be a necessary process because there are just so many factors to be considered. talking about it is able to help them to organize their thoughts and see things more clear.
Speaker #0
Yeah. I mean, selfishly, it helps me process grief, right? I think one of the things that came out of losing a parent is I used to try to suppress some of these things. And as the months go by and I do more of these podcasts at night, I'm basically in the industry of death. And the people that I talk to, either financial advisors, funeral home directors, you know, in this field, I've come to pick up the skill of how to deeply feel the pain, the grief and harness that energy to do something great. Right. Like sometimes when we have multiple days in a row where we don't get a user that converts on the paywall, you know, I start thinking I'm doing this for my mom. I'm doing this because this is a legacy for her. And I try to harness that energy, this inspiration. Instead of just being so self-centered where everything is about me, I want to be this founder. I want to be featured on TechCrunch. Those are all secondary. And I think, yeah, these stories, they really help.
Speaker #1
Right. Yeah. When I was like, this was like years ago, I just really wanted to be famous. And then I remember one of my mentor was like, Do you want to be famous because you understand fame? Or is it because you were never seen as a child and you wanted to be seen, right? And I think going back to this intention versus attention. By the way, I learned that from the podcast, Call Her Daddy. Great podcast. I actually never listened to Alex's podcast until like this week. I was like, wow, there's a reason why she's so famous. But one of her guests talked about attention versus intention. How would you help people to live with more intention, whether it is money-related or in other areas?
Speaker #0
If you wake up too many days in a row and you feel this anxiety or this discomfort or this lack of motivation, that means something is out of alignment, right? And I think one of the first things you can do is you look at your calendar. What do you spend your time on? Who do you spend your time with? You can actually just go down the list of the things you do and give it a thumbs up. thumbs down or neutral in terms of how it affects your energy? Maybe energy is a bit too vibey?
Speaker #1
No, no, no. I'm all about energy. Like energy me all day. But like, but do we actually have a choice? For example, I work in tech. I don't always get to choose what projects I'm on, right? And I do have to spend a lot of my time with people who I might not be vibing. So it kind a back to the question where it's one thing to think about it, but it's really hard to execute in a modern day life.
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think there's certainly things that we have to do, right? Because we live in this world and it is, but the world is social. You cannot isolate yourself completely. I mean, we can go layers into this, but in some ways, if somebody realized that, I'm going to use you hypothetical. We don't know a lot of the details. There's a lot of gray area here, but you know, You're in a job. Maybe you like the mission of the job. You like your job overall, but there's like 30% of people that you don't enjoy working with, but it's a byproduct of getting the things done, right? You believe in the overall mission. I think we do that. That's okay. But if it's, let's flip it around. If 70% of the things you do, you don't enjoy, then you ought to ask yourself, why, right? Am I in the right place? And if the ultimate question, the ultimate question typically comes down to, can I get another job? that I will enjoy more? And if not, how do I make money? Right?
Speaker #1
Right.
Speaker #0
And then if we kind of go a deeper layer, it's like, okay, if I cannot make money like this way, can I make money doing something else that I love? And maybe that amount of money doesn't afford the lifestyle that you want, then maybe you got to move somewhere else, right? Because sometimes it's very easy for us to live in this reality, this narrative that we tell ourselves that, I mean, people call me a coastal elite all the time I used to live. in LA and New York. And I kind of get this when you live in LA and New York and you go anywhere in the world, everywhere is cheap, right? So I would go to, even Switzerland is relatively cheap after you live in New York. But I would go to places and realize, wait, my reality, this narrative that I tell myself that I need X amount of money. I think I used to think I need 300K after tax cash to live a very good life. That's not true. That is simply not true. When you really break down on the things that you need to be happy, it's never that high. And it's typically inflated because we're keeping up with the Joneses. We're comparing ourselves to a lifestyle that we think we need. It gets complicated when you start having kids and there's private schools and all that stuff. But at the end of it, though, it's still the same. Like we're talking about this. I'm recording this from Albania today in Europe. Life here is very much simpler. And when people have less, they tend to be more content about what they have. The comparison is what you surround yourself with. And I think the instinct that I have to your question is like you got to challenge yourself and ask yourself, you know, what? Who am I comparing myself to? What kind of lifestyle am I comparing myself to? And is that what I want? And at the end of it, you realize, maybe I don't really care about, you know, flying business class for a two-hour flight. I care about the eight-hour flights. You know, that's some savings there. Maybe that savings translate to less stress, less stress translate to everything else, right? I'm going to tie this back to my mom again, because I convinced her to not buy a house. She's like Asian mom, her dream, her white picket fence dream, American dream. And she wanted a white picket fence, single family home in LA, in Pasadena. And that starts at $2.5 million, maybe $3 million. And if you kind of break down the mortgage, we're talking like $12,000 to $15,000 a month. And I just told her, I'm like, hey, do you know what $12,000 to $15,000 a month can mean in traveling the world? in walking to a restaurant and never having to look at the menu ever again. Right. That's the kind of luxuries that we reframe for her. And there's a version of that in everybody.
Speaker #1
Yeah. I mean, I used to live in LA. I can understand how expensive everything is. I sometimes, first of all, before I move on, I just want all the people who I work with know that I love you so much. That was a hypothetical thing. If you're listening to this podcast, no shade to anybody. But also I live in San Francisco, right? And I also experienced this like high pressure comparison. You know, I compare myself to people who have made it. I always say I used to want to be like on Forbes 30 under 30. Clearly didn't make it. So we're aiming, we're still aiming for 40 under 40. But I would say, I think I grew up thinking that success and fame will get me the love like you were talking about. In my 30s. I try to slow down and look at what I already have and be grateful towards it. But for some reason to this day, it just never enough. There's always somebody outperforming me. And I would say like even to this podcast, like I am doing exactly what I want to do in life. I look around my life to my definition. I really made it. I came to the U.S. by myself when I was 15. No English, no relatives. And to what I have accomplished today. No one's more proud of me than myself. But like, I still feel this pressure to be better. Even my parents are like, we don't give a shit. Like you just do you, but I cannot let myself go. And I, and I don't know if it's a US thing. I don't know if it's only a California thing. It seems to me, if you live in Europe, you live a simpler life. Do everybody... want a simpler life. I feel like some people don't want that. Like they want this high pressure life and they're okay with maybe sacrificing some of the things in their life just to feel validated by their success and fame, which is great. Love it. So my question to you is that what other things that you have seen with your clients or with your own life experiences that also matter? that we should take into consideration?
Speaker #0
Gosh, that's a really, really big question. I think, let's talk about what you've said in the beginning, which is your ambition. You know, I used to believe that no amount of branding works on me, like all this marketing, Nike, and all this stuff, because we think that we're exempted from the algorithms, basically, because ego and all that. I finally admit that actually branding really works on me when I started watching Formula One more, maybe part of being in Europe more often. And I started gravitating towards certain kind of brands and cars. And I was like, why do I like this so much? And I realized, oh, it's because the repeated exposure and the association to success and things. We all like different things. I think this is something that I really took me a long time to accept. Because when I talked to my little brother and my friends. I am someone who has gotten into trouble giving advice to people. and trying to force my advice into the way they do things, get disappointed because they don't listen to my advice, and then fracture the relationship. I've gone to numerous arguments with my friends and even lost friends because of this. And I think at this point, I realized that what you want and what I want is generally just affected by five to 10 voices around us. If you're living in San Francisco, chances are... If you look at your phone and the people that you text the most, what they deem as success affects what you deem as success, right? I think that's the clearest answer because we are, at the end of it, social beings. But I love competition. You know, my whole identity is being an outsider because being an outsider means that I am constantly outgrowing the place that I'm in, right? When I was at USC, I graduated. My friends, a lot of them went to big four, went to consulting. I couldn't fit into that life. I just didn't want to play that game. It wasn't for me. So my other subset of friends all started businesses, but a lot of them had a lot of money at home. So they have this flexibility to like, just take their time and try a few startups, but I didn't. So I drove for Uber for four years. I believe it was 4,700 ish rides at a 4.92 rating. I was very proud of that. I have a screenshot somewhere. And as you can tell, I'm very social. So I talk to everyone and I got tipped a lot, especially when I'm in a good mood, it correlates. But the reason why I'm in Europe right now for the summer is because my girlfriend is European. And being with her opened me up to a whole new world of, like, life isn't just about making money just to live, right? So I think I've come to slow down a little bit more. when I'm here. And then once I get back on the plane and go to New York, I start talking in terms of AUM and, you know, what is it, 401 valuation or whatever. Like, I think it's just who you surround yourself by. It really affects like what kind of things that you anchor your life to. And to audit that is the best thing that you can do for yourself. Not to say like to cut people out, but to just be aware that every time I'm with some friends, we talk about watches. And with some friends, we talk about, you know, partying and going to each DJ. That's just normal, right? And just being conscious of it is very important.
Speaker #1
The older I get, the more I realized a lot of the wisdoms that we hear as a kid have some truth to it. Like when I was younger, I hated when people were like, oh, you do one thing, it's how you do everything. I'm like, no, it's not. Like, I don't do everything the same, but I think it goes deeper than that. right like there's like a level of identity like discipline like how you're wired all those things and and now I'm like okay yeah I can see why that is true to some people and then so earlier you were talking about the people that you're storing yourself with and everyone's like show me your friends I will show you who you are I'm like okay that's a little dramatic but I do agree with you I think we are... looping in certain lifestyle because our environments are just continuously remind us who we are, right? And I do this like meditation thing from this guy named Dr. Joe Dispenza. His whole thing is like breaking the loop, like create your life rather than subconsciously going around and around repeating the same pattern every single day. And you wonder why you haven't changed and like nothing changed in your life. So let's talk about subconsciousness. In your experiences working with people, what are some of the common things that people are not even aware that they're thinking of that is blocking their success, in particularly managing money, living life with intention?
Speaker #0
It's inner monologue. It's everything you tell yourself, right? It's like all the things that has been passed down to you that isn't obvious to you. I love this idea of meditation, by the way, that you just say. The one question that I... always ask myself now, mostly in the context of business, but also sometimes just like life in general. And I don't know where I got this from, but if my life was a movie and I'm watching it as an audience, what would I be screaming at the screen telling myself to do? I think that's such a good thought to meditate on. As a founder, I always try to tell myself, today I wake up, I have like... 20 things that's broken and five things I got to do right now and you know all this stuff and I try to like circle what is the highest leverage thing what energizes me and try to do those things first because it gives me momentum but I think there is a version of this question of like what is yeah what is something that is so obvious to somebody watching you that you just can't see because you're living in it? And I think to meditate on that question is super important and super helpful. One thing that I picked up during COVID is the notion. So I was living next to Central Park in New York at the time, and I never go to Central Park. As soon as I moved away, I start thinking, gosh, I should have gone to Central Park more. I was living literally one avenue away from it. And one of those things is true as when When I was living in New York, I took for granted that I can just fly home to see my parents at any time I want. And what made me realize that was because during COVID, we needed to quarantine and, you know, be safe and not spread the virus to the people we love, especially. And for the first time in my life, I couldn't just hop on a plane, fly six hours from New York to LA and have dinner with my parents. I had to do this whole thing to be careful. And I started not taking for these things for granted. And when I finally sat next to my mom and dad. we're just all working remotely at home, I realized, man, this is like, actually, this is the life that I want. Like, I want to just be close to them. I want to like watch them grow old. And it really made me realize watching them go through a pandemic for the first time, it made me realize as I am turning, I think 28 at the time or 29, they're turning 55 the first time. Like they've never turned 55 in their life and they're also learning. And this thought just kind of fascinated me. As much as like I am nervous about the future, so are they, right? One of the things that came out of a conversation with my mom with Airlight was that I realized she had a lot of dreams that she wanted to do. But because she never really talked about it, she never really like considered the fact that she can actually fulfill these dreams. It's kind of the same thing as like when you live next to Central Park, you don't go take a walk there. Or when you have a pool, you don't use the pool. She had all these dreams, but she kind of knew she had the option to do it, but she didn't do it. And one of the dreams was to go to see this place where the movie The Sound of Music was filmed. So I'll take you back a little bit. She was born 1963. She went to a Catholic school in Malaysia. Very unusual combo. Because she went to a Catholic school in Malaysia, she learned English. She understood a little bit of all those things. When the movie The Sound of Music came out, she really related to the character in it called Marie. And so as a child, she thought, oh, I want to go to this place. And because I'm building Air Light, my app asked her these questions. You know, what are your bucket lists? What are some music you really like when you were a child? And I found out about this. So last summer, my girlfriend, my dad, my mom and I, we picked up our bags and went to Vienna. you We drove around, went to Budapest, went to Switzerland. We ended up in Salzburg one weekend. And we went to visit these places that my mom had been singing about and dancing about all her life. 60 years of her life. And in some moment, she stopped. And I captured this on camera. She said, I am living in my dream. This little girl who grew up in a small town in Malaysia went to a Catholic school. could not have imagined that one day I would be standing where this movie was made. And for me, like, I always think about this moment and relates to my work with Airlight. Because this moment, if Airlight turned out to be nothing, right? Odds are most startups fail. But if Airlight turned out to be nothing, it has helped me help my mom feel seen in the time that she was here. About... out. eight days after this trip to Salzburg, I got a phone call that she was hospitalized. She got a stroke and eight days followed that she passed away. When we were standing in Salzburg, I had no idea that that was going to be it. But out of this not settling for the routine of life, not settling for assuming that just because we have a pool, we can swim there tomorrow, taking life with a bit more urgency. to do the things that we want to do. Because of that, I was able to help my mom fulfill this bucket list of hers and to feel so alive just two weeks before she died. So I think like, I feel super grateful for it. You know, I was able to walk away from all this, obviously gave me a very good founder story to tell. Thanks, mom. Yeah, I think when we live life with more intention, and not putting aside some of the things that we take for granted, we're able to feel this way. And if you're listening to this, there is a version of that in your life. It isn't necessarily traveling across the world to Austria, but there is a version of that because most of the things that we truly want that makes us happy are actually not expensive, if you really think about it.
Speaker #1
First of all, thank you so much for sharing your story. I think I knew a little bit, but not to this extent. And that is a very powerful story. And I do think that a lot of listeners, myself included, can relate to that. we do all have like our own version of similar story. And I also would say like some of us, and once again, myself included, I feel I personally take a lot of things for granted. I used to fault my parents for a lot of trauma that I experienced. And earlier that you said, you know, as we're getting older, they also are getting older. And I know this is like, you know, something I also once again read off Instagram, where like This was like a while ago, actually, and really made an impact on me. It was like, be gentle on your parents because this is their first time on this earth too. And I just remember thinking, it was like, wow, like we think people who are older have all the answers, but we're all just trying our hardest, right? Like even today, we talk about like estate planning, finance management, like we're all just trying to figure it out. you know, step by step, how can we do better? Because we want to do better. And sometimes we don't necessarily have the tools to help us to get there. And we're so ashamed of not knowing. I feel like sometimes it's not about how hard or challenging a situation is, is that we are expected to have the answer. You know, like I'm 33 years old. People are like, well, you should know certain things. I'm like, shut the fuck up. I'm so stressed all the time. I don't know. how to do this in the best way possible, but I'm trying, you know? And when we were connecting offline, you also mentioned your intention with AirLite is not to, well, I guess you can correct me, is not to take people from zero to a hundred, but zero to one, because zero to a hundred can be overwhelming and zero to one is more helpful. Can you share a little more context on what you is zero to one. And if people were to sign up today, what can they expect?
Speaker #0
Yeah, the truth is that 70% of Americans don't have an estate plan. And if you think about the amount of lawyers out there, the amount of online tools out there, it's very interesting because a lot of these online tools, they will never tell you, like, they always say how many users they have, but they never say how many of their users complete their journey. Because a lot of people, when they don't start. It doesn't matter how many competition I have out there. My biggest competition is inaction, right? So we're trying to optimize our entire app for completion. You know, back to your point about like what you think you need to know. We have one user, he's in his late 50s and he used our app. He's probably listened to one of the podcasts that I went on and he definitely came from a podcast and then he just signed up and completed his will, put in all his assets and everything. And I was curious because he came through. In tech, we call this happy flow, which is like he did everything exactly how we wanted to. So I called him up and I said, hey, can we interview you for users' feedback? And he told me that he's a physician from the Bay Area. He definitely has money for a lawyer. He doesn't have that problem. He has resources. He speaks perfect English, so there's no understanding problem. But the insight that I got from him was that he thinks at his age, he needs to know about these things. And when people talk to him, he often felt that people were talking down to him. That he needed to know what an executor was, right? That he needed to understand what is probate, these court processes. And by having an app be non-judgmental, not annoyed that you're asking the same question in 10 different ways, it helps people bridge that gap from zero to one. It is also a conscious decision not to tackle like estate tax, not to tackle trust. Like if you're listening to this and you're a lawyer or you have a trust, like you know that between a will and a trust, if you have properties, get a trust, right? I'm not trying to say that we are the end all be all, but I'm trying to address the fact that 70% of people don't have a will and most of them don't want to start because it feels just too heavy to start. So we're flipping the script. We want to start with the human. We want to start with asking questions that matter in our entire company. is our mission can be summed up by a very simple phrase, which is clarity is love in practical form.
Speaker #1
Wow, that's very powerful. So if people wanna... continue to learn about AirLight and you, what's the best way for them to do so?
Speaker #0
I have a one-of-one name. I know we didn't talk about this, but my parents gave me a black name. They love Jermaine Jackson because that was the famous thing in the early 90s. I'm pretty easily found everywhere. Jermaine E, spelled with one E. AirLight is at H-E-I-R-L-I-G-H-T.com. You know, if you're curious, we are, the way we think of our app is simple. Everything that is clarity and organizing your thoughts, all free. The moment that thoughts are organized and you turn it into a legal form, that's when you see the paywall. So you basically can come in and play with the app and, you know, use it and do all the things you want to do, ask the questions you want to. It isn't until the time where you need to export and we'll give you the signing instructions and walk you through that process to make it legal. That part is the part that we will put the paywall. Still got to pay the bills. All those lawyers are super expensive.
Speaker #1
Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Jermaine. Your story is phenomenal and you truly are a great storyteller. And I really hope all the audience can take away something from this conversation. And maybe they will pay your website or your app a visit and learn more about the services.
Speaker #0
Thank you. Thank you for having me. And thank you for providing a platform to have this conversation.
Speaker #1
Thank you so much for being here with me today on the Zen Podcast. If this episode resonated with you, make sure you're subscribed and leave a comment with your biggest takeaway. That's how we grow this community and get these conversations in front of more people who need them. And if somebody came to mind while you're listening, please do make sure to send this episode to them. You can also find me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. All linked below. Until next time, stay sharp. stay intentional and be good.

Chapters

Introduction to Confronting Mortality
0sec
Meet Jermaine E and Airlight
40sec
The Importance of Estate Planning
2min
Cultural Perspectives on Money Management
2min
Understanding Money's Role in Our Lives
4min
Personal Stories and Lessons Learned
7min
Airlight's Mission and User Experience
11min
Living with Intention and Purpose
16min
Closing Thoughts and Reflections
39min

About The Zhen Podcast

You’re listening to The Zhen Podcast - a show focused on mental health, physical health, relationship health, and the daily practices that support real, lasting change. Each episode features thoughtful conversations with guests who share real-life experiences — from their own journeys to the work they’ve done with clients - offering practical examples of healing, learning, and growth. We explore what actually helps people move forward, whether that comes from science, health, psychology, spirituality, or simple habits that make a meaningful difference. The goal is clarity, self-awareness, and tools you can apply to your own life — now let's begin the conversation Disclaimer: "The information provided in this Podcast Channel (the "Channel") does not, and is not intended to, constitute professional advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this Channel are for general informational purposes only. This Channel contains information provided by interviewees and/or links to other third-party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser. The views expressed at, or through, this site are those of the individual interviewees in their individual capacities only – not those of the Channel. All liability with respect to actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this Channel are hereby expressly disclaimed. The content on this posting is provided "as is;" no representations are made that the content is error-free."

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About The Zhen Podcast

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Description

Connect with Jermaine Ee:

https://heirlight.com/en

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eejermaine/

https://www.eejermaine.com/

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Transcription

Speaker #0
Confronting your own death, writing your own eulogy, gives you a reflection back to yourself of what's important. Essentially, you can frame it as what do you want someone to say behind your back? Not settling for the routine of life, not settling for assuming that just because we have a pool, we can swim there tomorrow. Taking life with a bit more urgency to do the things that we want to do. It's not a discipline problem. Instead of asking, what should we do about money? I want to have conversations about like, how can money serve us?
Speaker #1
Well, welcome back to the show, everybody. Today, we have Jermaine E joining us. He is a multiple time founder and currently working on the startup called AirLight. So without further ado, I will have Jermaine himself give you a little introduction about. who he is and what is Airlight.
Speaker #0
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Well, Airlight is my life's project right now. Airlight started as a conversation with my mom about a year and a half ago because I realized she had this anxiety around running out of money before she dies. And I think the context behind it is that as an immigrant mom, she spent all her life just working and saving and saving up the money, not for her, but to... protect her kids really. And she never really asked the question of like, do I have enough so that I can retire now? And so this conversation that I had with her about retirement sparked this idea that a lot of people don't know what they have. And that's why they cannot really calm the anxiety in their mind about money. And once we started to figure out these anxiety and these challenges that she had, this lack of clarity that she had, we've kind of built it into an estate planning app. So Airlight in short is an estate planning app. It's a guided experience. focused on helping people have more clarity.
Speaker #1
That's really helpful. I would say we connected offline before this interview and I personally do not manage my money well just yet. And I can see how helpful an app like that. And then would you say at 33 is a little too early to start, you know, any sort of estate planning, any sort of money management, or would you say like everybody at any point in their life should be... conscious about how they manage their money and where the money is going in the future?
Speaker #0
You know, when I started this project, I thought that this was a socioeconomic thing. Rich people had estate plans, poor people did not. And then I guess you and I were somewhere in between those two. But what I realized is that there's really not like a one size fit all, right? People come into this conversation with all sorts of background, culture, religion, all sorts of beliefs about money and about death because estate planning you ultimately ends in death and what comes after. So I would say there is no right time to do it. I think the question really is, what are the benefits of doing that, right? By having this conversation, death is a, like the total address of market of death is everybody, like we're all gonna die, right? If you're listening to this and you didn't realize that, that's a big spoiler about life. But I think having this conversation early gets us to reflect and think about this topic. you And oftentimes, like journaling, when we start thinking about things and writing things down, we kind of calm those nerves a little bit. So the earlier you start, the more clarity you have.
Speaker #1
I totally agree with you. And I do want to start. And I feel like I just don't know where to start. And there's a lot of self-help books out there. I remember buying this book in the airport called... I actually have it here. Something about like money detox or whatever, right? And then like I'll go into my bank account and I'm like, I'm so overwhelmed right now. Like all the Amazon purchases, you know, I have no idea what they are, to be honest, like what I bought. But like, I feel like life is already so overwhelming. And sometimes adding the topic of money can be just too much. And I also feel like growing up, no one really talked to me about how to manage money. Like, if anything, people usually talk to me about like how to make more money rather than managing them. As if like manage... money management is such like a taboo topic. And I know a lot of people avoid the topic. Why do you think that people don't want to talk about money management?
Speaker #0
Wow, that's a huge, that's like a trillion dollar industry question, right? I think our brains aren't really built for the amount of information that we have today. Like, it's really hard for us to separate what is important and what is urgent. Things like money, estate planning. These are all very abstract to most of us in our day-to-day. And I think abstract things are by nature really difficult to... feel important and feel like control over. You know, I think our brains are better off like going in motion. For example, I think this is something, I think a lot of people do this, but I'm going to own it that I do this silly little thing where sometimes in the morning, I write my to-do list and I would start by writing some things I've already done so that I can check it off just to feel good about it. Right. You know that feeling? I think money management kind of feels like that, right? We want to do something, but we don't really know what the... end goal is what the destination is and it isn't really like a character flaw right it's like it's not a discipline problem it's more like it's so abstract for us so part of my goal with these conversations is try to like flip the script instead of asking what should we do about money i want to have conversations about like how can money serve us like all your amazon purchases how can those things bring more happiness to your life and If it doesn't, maybe it doesn't belong there. So the question has to be flipped, right? Not spending, but what does it do for you instead? And I think that makes the conversation less abstract.
Speaker #1
I think what you just said make me think about instant gratification versus long-term goal, right? And I think that when I think of money, I think money can provide me some sort of safety and security. it. I mean, we all know we are supposed to save for the retirement. We're supposed to do a lot of things in life, right? But at that moment, at certain moments, I think it's just a matter of I really need to do this like retail therapy or using money to feel temporarily good by purchasing or going out and, you know, not being responsible. And to a certain degree, I feel like that feels good at the moment and money is serving a purpose. So with all the people that you have worked with, what are some of the common trap or loop that they're looping of not managing money well? And how did you help them to think about the long-term financial health rather than the instant gratifications?
Speaker #0
I think for myself, actually, we never talked about this offline, but one of the first thing that I did that made me feel more life. was I went to USC, but before that I went to community college because I couldn't get into USC right out of high school. And one of my first jobs as a student is I went to local high schools to help them with financial aid seminars. So essentially because I speak Mandarin and I know a little bit of Spanish, like I go to these high schools that are low income and like I walk them through how to plan financially for college FAFSA, right? And in that experience was like the first time that I felt. that my story and kind of the little bit of knowledge that I know about a process can shine a light for someone who before meeting me, not that I'm so great, I'm just regurgitating this information that I was given. But before meeting me, it felt like a black box to them. Right. And that was such a powerful feeling for me. And I think what I learned from it is like no two humans come to this topic the same way. It's just we are so, so, so different. differently wired. And I think we can trace this back to psychology, to trauma, to, you know, how we were brought up. And if I'm going to give like a very, very personal example, like again, back to my mom, she only knew how to make money. She didn't know how to spend money, right? She spent all her life wired of making, of saving. And I remember this distinct experience. We went to a very nice resort in Mexico, in Mayacoba. on the East Coast. And she sat there, she's like, okay, we're here, coconut in hand. What do we do now? Like, you know, she's looking at like, why is this coconut $15? Like, that's crazy. And just like this, this unease of like, learning to spend money, that's a skill. But I think going back to your question a little bit, I think like, everybody has such a different roadmap, a different North star. And I think the key is really to like have the permission to slow down and to ask yourself these questions of like what actually matters to you. Right. And like how do you map yourself out to like spend the way that makes you happy? And like I know I'm going on. I'm going to give one little thing that just came to my mind. I think in a perfect world, like we would we would earn all the money and spend all the money exactly in the moment that we die in a perfect world. The only variable is that we don't know when we're going to die. So there's some part of our brain that's like, okay, I need to make sure I save enough money so I can keep living. But at the same time, I'm also thinking, well, what if I save too much and I didn't end up spending it, right? They're both true dilemma. So if I can wave a wand and tell you. exactly how much you need to spend every single day so you can just live to max till you die. I think I would be like a trillionaire to help people live a full life.
Speaker #1
I definitely feel if I can just spend all the money that I make, I would be so happy. But you're right. Like we're not going to be able to work. I mean, there are people who work forever until the day, you know, they're moving on from this world. But majority of us want to retire early. And I think that like when I think about money in like future management, I also think about like what type of life I want to live after working and I'm retired and how to budget for those period of time where there's no money coming in. So I think the intention of designing your life kind of come into play. And I think with everything in life, setting an intention can help us go to that. North Star and help us to have a peace of mind. And I also know that as like an Asian American person living in the U.S., I know that I personally encounter a lot of high expectations from my parents and from my community. And I think that living a wealthy life or having a stable job is often being praised. So you In your experience, how would you define success? What tools do you use in Airlight to help people guide them through the process and define their own intention, define their own success?
Speaker #0
Airlight currently is a reflection. It's the first company that I worked on that is a reflection of who I am as a person. And a lot of the principles that I use to build Airlight, I mean, it is engineering and UI, UX and design, all the stuff. But. The goal of it is to be a mirror to our users, right? So for me, I think I spent all my 20s, like many people trying to figure out how the world works. And a big part of it made me believe that as long as I'm successful, I deserve to be loved. I think that's maybe it's being Chinese, I'm Chinese American. Maybe it's being in California, like highly, highly materialistic world, right? It's like I... I spent all my 20s believing that. What kind of broke me out of this pattern is I just read somewhere, perhaps it's like a stoicism thing that, you know, confronting your own death, writing your own eulogy gives you a reflection back to yourself of what's important. And so I did that at a pretty young age. I wrote my first eulogy. Essentially, you can frame it as like, what do you want someone to say behind your back? Or what do you want someone to say about you at your funeral? And. admittedly in my 20s version, it was all about admiration. Like I so desired the admiration of not just people I care about, but just even like a random classmate that I talked to once. Like I wanted the admiration so bad. And during COVID, you know, a lot of us got into this zone of like reflecting and thinking about our lives. And I started, I wrote a eulogy again. And what I realized was that During COVID, my circle of people that I care about, opinions that I care about, shrunk a lot. It still isn't zero, but it shrunk a lot. And then once more again, after my mom passed last summer, I wrote my eulogy again, and it shrunk down even more. And what I realize now is that the only thing I really care about is that when I am gone, that the people that are close to me, the people who really, really know me, they feel like I was present with them. When I'm hanging out with them, that they felt that I was there. I wasn't distracted with everything that's going on in the world. And what this tells me about the practice, about living with intention, is like if we write down our ending, the ending that we want from whatever angle, from an outside angle, a eulogy or from our own, we can start reverse engineering how we want to live.
Speaker #1
Right. I mean, wow. Two days ago, I read on Instagram and there was like a post. I think it's actually from one of my favorite podcasts called School of Greatness. And it posed a question that if everyone write down their problems and put it into a hat and have you randomly pick someone else's problem, would you do it? And I remember reading that and thinking, I'm so stuck in my head and kind of like look my life from my perspective. that sometimes I do forget like other people have other problems too. And if given the choices, I will keep mine because at least I know I can handle it. And I cannot imagine how other people like deal with some of the difficulties and challenges. To bring that back to what you just said, I think having a third party opinion, even just from yourself, can really like help you to understand your impact in this world and how you can help with other people in the society move forward and be better. And even though like we've been talking about money quite a bit, I also feel people want to make a lot of money and manage money because they feel. They need this as a tool to make them feel a certain type of way. And I think that writing, what's it called? Eulogy. Eulogy kind of like gives people like a bigger meaning to their life, right? Like because money is just like one aspect of life. I think that when we're more in tune with who we are and what type of person that we want to be, maybe we'll see money under a different light. And maybe we wouldn't be as like obsessed with what society tell us as success and, you know, abundance. And we can create our own version of how we want to live the best way that we can. And the money kind of comes in to help us to get there.
Speaker #0
I think this entire point came to like an exclamation moment in my life. When my mom passed, I realized that I would trade everything, right? Like whatever material thing I have. I would trade every material thing for sure. I wouldn't trade my life for it because I think she also would not want me to. But I think it really puts an emphasis on like what genuinely matters at the end. It's kind of like Warren Buffett just retired, right? He did everything he wants in his life and he invested. He's the greatest investor of all time, arguably. But I wouldn't want to be Warren Buffett. I wouldn't want to have a short time left to live. No amount of money I would trade my life with him. So I think this Lewis Howes School of Greatness, this reframing of these problems is such a powerful practice. It is part of what I hope we can do with Airlight, is to understand our users so much that we can present them with some of these things. And I think like what you're doing with this podcast is precisely what is needed because you curate a group of people who agree with these values. Right. And you bring on people like me and other guests to share stories, to reflect this value. And, you know, when I first started doing podcasts, I was like, gosh, I'm so annoyed of my own voice and I'm so sick of telling the same stories over and over again. And then I realized at some point, you know what? Tony Robbins have been doing this for like 35 years. And still... He's essentially saying the same stories, but sometimes his stories hit me at a different time in a different way. And it's like such a good reminder that we have to just keep going because you never know whoever's listening to this, like what touches them in a way that something hasn't before, even though it's the same story.
Speaker #1
I love that you said that I was dating this person last year this time and we were in Barnes & Noble and this person look at the, we were in like the self-help section. back then I didn't even have this podcast, but I was telling this person that I will start one. And this person would look at like the cover of this white lady and was like, I will never take advice from this lady. And then he picked up like this one book and it was like an African-American guy. I was like, this guy has more to say. And I remember looking at him and I said, to you, yes. but maybe not to a mom from Minnesota who is white and have more, you know, relatable story to the other white lady who's on the cover. I think it is about the story, what we're trying to say, but it's also how you say it. It's how you tell the story, who's listening, and what impact are you making in that particular moment. I always say if somebody who's not ready to accept love, love can walk in front of you, you wouldn't even recognize it. And I think that we need people from different backgrounds to share their stories over and over again. I also think that like when we're telling stories, we're processing the information. That's like literally one thing I learned from AP Psych in high school. And that's like literally the only thing I remember from high school is that we tell those stories because we need it. And a lot of time, we're trying to make sense in our head. And I think that like a lot of people who might work with you in the future, this might be a necessary process because there are just so many factors to be considered. talking about it is able to help them to organize their thoughts and see things more clear.
Speaker #0
Yeah. I mean, selfishly, it helps me process grief, right? I think one of the things that came out of losing a parent is I used to try to suppress some of these things. And as the months go by and I do more of these podcasts at night, I'm basically in the industry of death. And the people that I talk to, either financial advisors, funeral home directors, you know, in this field, I've come to pick up the skill of how to deeply feel the pain, the grief and harness that energy to do something great. Right. Like sometimes when we have multiple days in a row where we don't get a user that converts on the paywall, you know, I start thinking I'm doing this for my mom. I'm doing this because this is a legacy for her. And I try to harness that energy, this inspiration. Instead of just being so self-centered where everything is about me, I want to be this founder. I want to be featured on TechCrunch. Those are all secondary. And I think, yeah, these stories, they really help.
Speaker #1
Right. Yeah. When I was like, this was like years ago, I just really wanted to be famous. And then I remember one of my mentor was like, Do you want to be famous because you understand fame? Or is it because you were never seen as a child and you wanted to be seen, right? And I think going back to this intention versus attention. By the way, I learned that from the podcast, Call Her Daddy. Great podcast. I actually never listened to Alex's podcast until like this week. I was like, wow, there's a reason why she's so famous. But one of her guests talked about attention versus intention. How would you help people to live with more intention, whether it is money-related or in other areas?
Speaker #0
If you wake up too many days in a row and you feel this anxiety or this discomfort or this lack of motivation, that means something is out of alignment, right? And I think one of the first things you can do is you look at your calendar. What do you spend your time on? Who do you spend your time with? You can actually just go down the list of the things you do and give it a thumbs up. thumbs down or neutral in terms of how it affects your energy? Maybe energy is a bit too vibey?
Speaker #1
No, no, no. I'm all about energy. Like energy me all day. But like, but do we actually have a choice? For example, I work in tech. I don't always get to choose what projects I'm on, right? And I do have to spend a lot of my time with people who I might not be vibing. So it kind a back to the question where it's one thing to think about it, but it's really hard to execute in a modern day life.
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think there's certainly things that we have to do, right? Because we live in this world and it is, but the world is social. You cannot isolate yourself completely. I mean, we can go layers into this, but in some ways, if somebody realized that, I'm going to use you hypothetical. We don't know a lot of the details. There's a lot of gray area here, but you know, You're in a job. Maybe you like the mission of the job. You like your job overall, but there's like 30% of people that you don't enjoy working with, but it's a byproduct of getting the things done, right? You believe in the overall mission. I think we do that. That's okay. But if it's, let's flip it around. If 70% of the things you do, you don't enjoy, then you ought to ask yourself, why, right? Am I in the right place? And if the ultimate question, the ultimate question typically comes down to, can I get another job? that I will enjoy more? And if not, how do I make money? Right?
Speaker #1
Right.
Speaker #0
And then if we kind of go a deeper layer, it's like, okay, if I cannot make money like this way, can I make money doing something else that I love? And maybe that amount of money doesn't afford the lifestyle that you want, then maybe you got to move somewhere else, right? Because sometimes it's very easy for us to live in this reality, this narrative that we tell ourselves that, I mean, people call me a coastal elite all the time I used to live. in LA and New York. And I kind of get this when you live in LA and New York and you go anywhere in the world, everywhere is cheap, right? So I would go to, even Switzerland is relatively cheap after you live in New York. But I would go to places and realize, wait, my reality, this narrative that I tell myself that I need X amount of money. I think I used to think I need 300K after tax cash to live a very good life. That's not true. That is simply not true. When you really break down on the things that you need to be happy, it's never that high. And it's typically inflated because we're keeping up with the Joneses. We're comparing ourselves to a lifestyle that we think we need. It gets complicated when you start having kids and there's private schools and all that stuff. But at the end of it, though, it's still the same. Like we're talking about this. I'm recording this from Albania today in Europe. Life here is very much simpler. And when people have less, they tend to be more content about what they have. The comparison is what you surround yourself with. And I think the instinct that I have to your question is like you got to challenge yourself and ask yourself, you know, what? Who am I comparing myself to? What kind of lifestyle am I comparing myself to? And is that what I want? And at the end of it, you realize, maybe I don't really care about, you know, flying business class for a two-hour flight. I care about the eight-hour flights. You know, that's some savings there. Maybe that savings translate to less stress, less stress translate to everything else, right? I'm going to tie this back to my mom again, because I convinced her to not buy a house. She's like Asian mom, her dream, her white picket fence dream, American dream. And she wanted a white picket fence, single family home in LA, in Pasadena. And that starts at $2.5 million, maybe $3 million. And if you kind of break down the mortgage, we're talking like $12,000 to $15,000 a month. And I just told her, I'm like, hey, do you know what $12,000 to $15,000 a month can mean in traveling the world? in walking to a restaurant and never having to look at the menu ever again. Right. That's the kind of luxuries that we reframe for her. And there's a version of that in everybody.
Speaker #1
Yeah. I mean, I used to live in LA. I can understand how expensive everything is. I sometimes, first of all, before I move on, I just want all the people who I work with know that I love you so much. That was a hypothetical thing. If you're listening to this podcast, no shade to anybody. But also I live in San Francisco, right? And I also experienced this like high pressure comparison. You know, I compare myself to people who have made it. I always say I used to want to be like on Forbes 30 under 30. Clearly didn't make it. So we're aiming, we're still aiming for 40 under 40. But I would say, I think I grew up thinking that success and fame will get me the love like you were talking about. In my 30s. I try to slow down and look at what I already have and be grateful towards it. But for some reason to this day, it just never enough. There's always somebody outperforming me. And I would say like even to this podcast, like I am doing exactly what I want to do in life. I look around my life to my definition. I really made it. I came to the U.S. by myself when I was 15. No English, no relatives. And to what I have accomplished today. No one's more proud of me than myself. But like, I still feel this pressure to be better. Even my parents are like, we don't give a shit. Like you just do you, but I cannot let myself go. And I, and I don't know if it's a US thing. I don't know if it's only a California thing. It seems to me, if you live in Europe, you live a simpler life. Do everybody... want a simpler life. I feel like some people don't want that. Like they want this high pressure life and they're okay with maybe sacrificing some of the things in their life just to feel validated by their success and fame, which is great. Love it. So my question to you is that what other things that you have seen with your clients or with your own life experiences that also matter? that we should take into consideration?
Speaker #0
Gosh, that's a really, really big question. I think, let's talk about what you've said in the beginning, which is your ambition. You know, I used to believe that no amount of branding works on me, like all this marketing, Nike, and all this stuff, because we think that we're exempted from the algorithms, basically, because ego and all that. I finally admit that actually branding really works on me when I started watching Formula One more, maybe part of being in Europe more often. And I started gravitating towards certain kind of brands and cars. And I was like, why do I like this so much? And I realized, oh, it's because the repeated exposure and the association to success and things. We all like different things. I think this is something that I really took me a long time to accept. Because when I talked to my little brother and my friends. I am someone who has gotten into trouble giving advice to people. and trying to force my advice into the way they do things, get disappointed because they don't listen to my advice, and then fracture the relationship. I've gone to numerous arguments with my friends and even lost friends because of this. And I think at this point, I realized that what you want and what I want is generally just affected by five to 10 voices around us. If you're living in San Francisco, chances are... If you look at your phone and the people that you text the most, what they deem as success affects what you deem as success, right? I think that's the clearest answer because we are, at the end of it, social beings. But I love competition. You know, my whole identity is being an outsider because being an outsider means that I am constantly outgrowing the place that I'm in, right? When I was at USC, I graduated. My friends, a lot of them went to big four, went to consulting. I couldn't fit into that life. I just didn't want to play that game. It wasn't for me. So my other subset of friends all started businesses, but a lot of them had a lot of money at home. So they have this flexibility to like, just take their time and try a few startups, but I didn't. So I drove for Uber for four years. I believe it was 4,700 ish rides at a 4.92 rating. I was very proud of that. I have a screenshot somewhere. And as you can tell, I'm very social. So I talk to everyone and I got tipped a lot, especially when I'm in a good mood, it correlates. But the reason why I'm in Europe right now for the summer is because my girlfriend is European. And being with her opened me up to a whole new world of, like, life isn't just about making money just to live, right? So I think I've come to slow down a little bit more. when I'm here. And then once I get back on the plane and go to New York, I start talking in terms of AUM and, you know, what is it, 401 valuation or whatever. Like, I think it's just who you surround yourself by. It really affects like what kind of things that you anchor your life to. And to audit that is the best thing that you can do for yourself. Not to say like to cut people out, but to just be aware that every time I'm with some friends, we talk about watches. And with some friends, we talk about, you know, partying and going to each DJ. That's just normal, right? And just being conscious of it is very important.
Speaker #1
The older I get, the more I realized a lot of the wisdoms that we hear as a kid have some truth to it. Like when I was younger, I hated when people were like, oh, you do one thing, it's how you do everything. I'm like, no, it's not. Like, I don't do everything the same, but I think it goes deeper than that. right like there's like a level of identity like discipline like how you're wired all those things and and now I'm like okay yeah I can see why that is true to some people and then so earlier you were talking about the people that you're storing yourself with and everyone's like show me your friends I will show you who you are I'm like okay that's a little dramatic but I do agree with you I think we are... looping in certain lifestyle because our environments are just continuously remind us who we are, right? And I do this like meditation thing from this guy named Dr. Joe Dispenza. His whole thing is like breaking the loop, like create your life rather than subconsciously going around and around repeating the same pattern every single day. And you wonder why you haven't changed and like nothing changed in your life. So let's talk about subconsciousness. In your experiences working with people, what are some of the common things that people are not even aware that they're thinking of that is blocking their success, in particularly managing money, living life with intention?
Speaker #0
It's inner monologue. It's everything you tell yourself, right? It's like all the things that has been passed down to you that isn't obvious to you. I love this idea of meditation, by the way, that you just say. The one question that I... always ask myself now, mostly in the context of business, but also sometimes just like life in general. And I don't know where I got this from, but if my life was a movie and I'm watching it as an audience, what would I be screaming at the screen telling myself to do? I think that's such a good thought to meditate on. As a founder, I always try to tell myself, today I wake up, I have like... 20 things that's broken and five things I got to do right now and you know all this stuff and I try to like circle what is the highest leverage thing what energizes me and try to do those things first because it gives me momentum but I think there is a version of this question of like what is yeah what is something that is so obvious to somebody watching you that you just can't see because you're living in it? And I think to meditate on that question is super important and super helpful. One thing that I picked up during COVID is the notion. So I was living next to Central Park in New York at the time, and I never go to Central Park. As soon as I moved away, I start thinking, gosh, I should have gone to Central Park more. I was living literally one avenue away from it. And one of those things is true as when When I was living in New York, I took for granted that I can just fly home to see my parents at any time I want. And what made me realize that was because during COVID, we needed to quarantine and, you know, be safe and not spread the virus to the people we love, especially. And for the first time in my life, I couldn't just hop on a plane, fly six hours from New York to LA and have dinner with my parents. I had to do this whole thing to be careful. And I started not taking for these things for granted. And when I finally sat next to my mom and dad. we're just all working remotely at home, I realized, man, this is like, actually, this is the life that I want. Like, I want to just be close to them. I want to like watch them grow old. And it really made me realize watching them go through a pandemic for the first time, it made me realize as I am turning, I think 28 at the time or 29, they're turning 55 the first time. Like they've never turned 55 in their life and they're also learning. And this thought just kind of fascinated me. As much as like I am nervous about the future, so are they, right? One of the things that came out of a conversation with my mom with Airlight was that I realized she had a lot of dreams that she wanted to do. But because she never really talked about it, she never really like considered the fact that she can actually fulfill these dreams. It's kind of the same thing as like when you live next to Central Park, you don't go take a walk there. Or when you have a pool, you don't use the pool. She had all these dreams, but she kind of knew she had the option to do it, but she didn't do it. And one of the dreams was to go to see this place where the movie The Sound of Music was filmed. So I'll take you back a little bit. She was born 1963. She went to a Catholic school in Malaysia. Very unusual combo. Because she went to a Catholic school in Malaysia, she learned English. She understood a little bit of all those things. When the movie The Sound of Music came out, she really related to the character in it called Marie. And so as a child, she thought, oh, I want to go to this place. And because I'm building Air Light, my app asked her these questions. You know, what are your bucket lists? What are some music you really like when you were a child? And I found out about this. So last summer, my girlfriend, my dad, my mom and I, we picked up our bags and went to Vienna. you We drove around, went to Budapest, went to Switzerland. We ended up in Salzburg one weekend. And we went to visit these places that my mom had been singing about and dancing about all her life. 60 years of her life. And in some moment, she stopped. And I captured this on camera. She said, I am living in my dream. This little girl who grew up in a small town in Malaysia went to a Catholic school. could not have imagined that one day I would be standing where this movie was made. And for me, like, I always think about this moment and relates to my work with Airlight. Because this moment, if Airlight turned out to be nothing, right? Odds are most startups fail. But if Airlight turned out to be nothing, it has helped me help my mom feel seen in the time that she was here. About... out. eight days after this trip to Salzburg, I got a phone call that she was hospitalized. She got a stroke and eight days followed that she passed away. When we were standing in Salzburg, I had no idea that that was going to be it. But out of this not settling for the routine of life, not settling for assuming that just because we have a pool, we can swim there tomorrow, taking life with a bit more urgency. to do the things that we want to do. Because of that, I was able to help my mom fulfill this bucket list of hers and to feel so alive just two weeks before she died. So I think like, I feel super grateful for it. You know, I was able to walk away from all this, obviously gave me a very good founder story to tell. Thanks, mom. Yeah, I think when we live life with more intention, and not putting aside some of the things that we take for granted, we're able to feel this way. And if you're listening to this, there is a version of that in your life. It isn't necessarily traveling across the world to Austria, but there is a version of that because most of the things that we truly want that makes us happy are actually not expensive, if you really think about it.
Speaker #1
First of all, thank you so much for sharing your story. I think I knew a little bit, but not to this extent. And that is a very powerful story. And I do think that a lot of listeners, myself included, can relate to that. we do all have like our own version of similar story. And I also would say like some of us, and once again, myself included, I feel I personally take a lot of things for granted. I used to fault my parents for a lot of trauma that I experienced. And earlier that you said, you know, as we're getting older, they also are getting older. And I know this is like, you know, something I also once again read off Instagram, where like This was like a while ago, actually, and really made an impact on me. It was like, be gentle on your parents because this is their first time on this earth too. And I just remember thinking, it was like, wow, like we think people who are older have all the answers, but we're all just trying our hardest, right? Like even today, we talk about like estate planning, finance management, like we're all just trying to figure it out. you know, step by step, how can we do better? Because we want to do better. And sometimes we don't necessarily have the tools to help us to get there. And we're so ashamed of not knowing. I feel like sometimes it's not about how hard or challenging a situation is, is that we are expected to have the answer. You know, like I'm 33 years old. People are like, well, you should know certain things. I'm like, shut the fuck up. I'm so stressed all the time. I don't know. how to do this in the best way possible, but I'm trying, you know? And when we were connecting offline, you also mentioned your intention with AirLite is not to, well, I guess you can correct me, is not to take people from zero to a hundred, but zero to one, because zero to a hundred can be overwhelming and zero to one is more helpful. Can you share a little more context on what you is zero to one. And if people were to sign up today, what can they expect?
Speaker #0
Yeah, the truth is that 70% of Americans don't have an estate plan. And if you think about the amount of lawyers out there, the amount of online tools out there, it's very interesting because a lot of these online tools, they will never tell you, like, they always say how many users they have, but they never say how many of their users complete their journey. Because a lot of people, when they don't start. It doesn't matter how many competition I have out there. My biggest competition is inaction, right? So we're trying to optimize our entire app for completion. You know, back to your point about like what you think you need to know. We have one user, he's in his late 50s and he used our app. He's probably listened to one of the podcasts that I went on and he definitely came from a podcast and then he just signed up and completed his will, put in all his assets and everything. And I was curious because he came through. In tech, we call this happy flow, which is like he did everything exactly how we wanted to. So I called him up and I said, hey, can we interview you for users' feedback? And he told me that he's a physician from the Bay Area. He definitely has money for a lawyer. He doesn't have that problem. He has resources. He speaks perfect English, so there's no understanding problem. But the insight that I got from him was that he thinks at his age, he needs to know about these things. And when people talk to him, he often felt that people were talking down to him. That he needed to know what an executor was, right? That he needed to understand what is probate, these court processes. And by having an app be non-judgmental, not annoyed that you're asking the same question in 10 different ways, it helps people bridge that gap from zero to one. It is also a conscious decision not to tackle like estate tax, not to tackle trust. Like if you're listening to this and you're a lawyer or you have a trust, like you know that between a will and a trust, if you have properties, get a trust, right? I'm not trying to say that we are the end all be all, but I'm trying to address the fact that 70% of people don't have a will and most of them don't want to start because it feels just too heavy to start. So we're flipping the script. We want to start with the human. We want to start with asking questions that matter in our entire company. is our mission can be summed up by a very simple phrase, which is clarity is love in practical form.
Speaker #1
Wow, that's very powerful. So if people wanna... continue to learn about AirLight and you, what's the best way for them to do so?
Speaker #0
I have a one-of-one name. I know we didn't talk about this, but my parents gave me a black name. They love Jermaine Jackson because that was the famous thing in the early 90s. I'm pretty easily found everywhere. Jermaine E, spelled with one E. AirLight is at H-E-I-R-L-I-G-H-T.com. You know, if you're curious, we are, the way we think of our app is simple. Everything that is clarity and organizing your thoughts, all free. The moment that thoughts are organized and you turn it into a legal form, that's when you see the paywall. So you basically can come in and play with the app and, you know, use it and do all the things you want to do, ask the questions you want to. It isn't until the time where you need to export and we'll give you the signing instructions and walk you through that process to make it legal. That part is the part that we will put the paywall. Still got to pay the bills. All those lawyers are super expensive.
Speaker #1
Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Jermaine. Your story is phenomenal and you truly are a great storyteller. And I really hope all the audience can take away something from this conversation. And maybe they will pay your website or your app a visit and learn more about the services.
Speaker #0
Thank you. Thank you for having me. And thank you for providing a platform to have this conversation.
Speaker #1
Thank you so much for being here with me today on the Zen Podcast. If this episode resonated with you, make sure you're subscribed and leave a comment with your biggest takeaway. That's how we grow this community and get these conversations in front of more people who need them. And if somebody came to mind while you're listening, please do make sure to send this episode to them. You can also find me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. All linked below. Until next time, stay sharp. stay intentional and be good.

Chapters

Introduction to Confronting Mortality
0sec
Meet Jermaine E and Airlight
40sec
The Importance of Estate Planning
2min
Cultural Perspectives on Money Management
2min
Understanding Money's Role in Our Lives
4min
Personal Stories and Lessons Learned
7min
Airlight's Mission and User Experience
11min
Living with Intention and Purpose
16min
Closing Thoughts and Reflections
39min

About The Zhen Podcast

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About The Zhen Podcast

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Embed

Introduction to Confronting Mortality

0sec

Meet Jermaine E and Airlight

40sec

The Importance of Estate Planning

2min

Cultural Perspectives on Money Management

2min

Understanding Money's Role in Our Lives

4min

Personal Stories and Lessons Learned

7min

Airlight's Mission and User Experience

11min

Living with Intention and Purpose

16min

Closing Thoughts and Reflections

39min

Chapters

Introduction to Confronting Mortality

0sec

Meet Jermaine E and Airlight

40sec

The Importance of Estate Planning

2min

Cultural Perspectives on Money Management

2min

Understanding Money's Role in Our Lives

4min

Personal Stories and Lessons Learned

7min

Airlight's Mission and User Experience

11min

Living with Intention and Purpose

16min

Closing Thoughts and Reflections

39min