All Episodes - Season 3
Episode 23:
Filmmaking, Community, and the Stories that Move us Forward: Shuling Yong
This week, Lindsay’s joined by Shuling Yong – award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has screened at Sundance,Tribeca, and Netflix. Her newest documentary follows two public school teachers navigating the TEAACH Act – the first legislation in the country to require Illinois schools to teach Asian American history!
For generations, the AANHPI narrative has been constructed without us. Model minority. Perpetual foreigner. Silentachiever. Shuling reminded us that someone will tell your story with or without you.
Episode 24:
Finding Your Voice as an Asian American
Ko Im – award-winning storyteller and creative – grew up in Guam, where a place where diversity didn’t need to be announced, it was just lived. Then she stepped off a plane onto the US mainland for college and realized, for the first time, that race was political.
That early experience – of belonging without having to fight for it – quietly became the foundation of everything Ko built: her journalism career, her published writing, her work shaping narrative at a global scale. And it’s what compelled her, shortly after the 2021 Atlanta Spa shootings, to stay up and write the Newsweek essay that thousands of Asian Americans said out loud what they had been holding silently for years.
In this conversation, Ko and Lindsay explore what it actually takes to find your voice when your culture taught you to stayquiet – and what becomes possible when you do.
Episode 25:
Menopause is not the End – Dr. Somi Javaid on the Healthcare Revolution Women Deserve
What if the symptoms women are often told to “just live with” are actually signs of a healthcare system failingthem?
In this powerful episode, Lindsay sits down with Dr. Somi Javaid – board-certified OB/GYN, TEDx speaker, and founder of HerMD – to unpack the truth about perimenopause, menopause, hormones, sexual health, and why so many women feel dismissed inside traditional healthcare systems.
Dr. Somi shares how a life-changing experience with her mother’s health inspired her to build HerMD, a groundbreaking platform centered on longer appointments, evidence-based care, and truly listening to women.
Episode 26:
We All Carry Something: Healing What Was Passed Down
In this conversation, Executive Director of Yellow Chair Collective Soo Jin Lee, LMFT joins Lindsay to explore intergenerational trauma, identity, belonging, perfectionism, burnout, and healing – especially within Asian American communities.
Soo Jin is also the co-author of Where I Belong: Healing Trauma and Embracing Asian American Identity. Together, we unpack how inherited survival patterns quietly shape the way we move through the world – showing up in our anxiety, relationships, silence, pressure to achieve, and constant need to prove our worth.
This episode is about recognizing that we have the power to interrupt cycles that were never meant to be carried forever.
Episode 27:
From Survival to Authenticity: Reclaiming Your Asian American Identity
In this powerful conversation, NYU professor and researcher Dr. Dale Maglalang joins Courage Class to unpack the hidden history behind the model minority myth, how it was constructed, why it persists, and the very real consequencesit has on Asian American identity, mental health, and belonging.
Together, we explore the origins of the model minority myth, the concept of racial triangulation, and the ways systems of oppression have historically positioned Asian Americans in relation to other communities of color. Dr. Maglalang alsochallenges us to rethink assimilation, embrace cross-racial solidarity, and develop the critical consciousness needed to understand both our history and ourselves.
While the first half of this conversation offers an important historical and academic deep dive, the second half focuses on practical ways we can reconnect with ourvalues, build authentic relationships, strengthen our identities, and resist the pressures of a one-dimensional narrative.
Most importantly, this episode offers hope: that understanding the systems shaping our lives can help us stop blaming ourselves, reclaim our stories, and imagine new possibilities for who we can become.
Episode 28:
You Are More Than You Achieve: Dr. Jaki Yi on Perfectionism, Mental Health & the Model Minority Myth
In this episode of Courage Class, Lindsay sits down with Dr. Jaki Yi, psychologist, researcher, educator, and Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington Bothell, for a wide-ranging conversation about Asian American mental health.
This conversation covers a little bit of everything – in the best possible way.
Together, they explore the Model Minority Myth and its impact on identity, self-worth, and family expectations. They discuss perfectionism, burnout, anxiety, hustle culture, scarcity mindset, emotional attunment, and why so many high-achieving students silently struggle beneath the surface. The conversation also touches on parenting, mental health stigma, therapy, emotional intelligence, and the skills young people will needto thrive in an AI-driven future.
Whether listeners are parents, educators, students, leaders, or individuals working through their own relationship with achievement, this episode offers practical insights and compassionate reframes that can help them better understand themselves and those around them.
Episode 29:
How Do We Raise Kids For a Future We Can’t Predict?
For many Asian American families, the roadmap was clear: work hard, get good grades, go to college, find a stable career, and build a secure life. But in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, rapid technological change, and evolving career pathways, that traditional formula no longer feelscertain.
In this episode of Courage Class, Lindsay sits down with Dr. Christopher Hoang, Interim Director of Technology Services at the Los Angeles County Office of Education, where he helps support more than 80 school districts and nearly 2million students across Los Angeles County.
Together, they explore one of the most pressing questions facing parents today: How do we raise children for a future we can’t predict?
Drawing from his unique perspective as an educator, technology leader, and father, Dr. Hoang shares practical insights on parenting in the age of AI, helping children develop critical thinking and creativity, navigating uncertainty, and why communication may be the most important skill families can cultivate moving forward.
This conversation goes far beyond technology. It challenges deeply held assumptions about success, achievement, authority, perfectionism, and the ways many Asian American families were raised. Dr. Hoang encourages parents to move away from control and certainty and toward curiosity, flexibility, and meaningful conversation.
Episode 30:
What 40 Asian American Women Taught Me About Burnout and Why it Left Me More Hopeful Than Ever (Part I)
A few weeks ago, Lindsay facilitated a burnout workshopfor more than 40 Asian American women through the Asian American Mental Health Project. She arrived prepared to discuss stress, recovery, boundaries, and the lessons she learned from her own experience with burnout.
Instead, she left thinking about something entirely different.
What surprised her wasn’t that the women were tired. Itwas that they were ready for change. They were questioning responsibilities they had carried for years – sometimes decades – and asking whether the roles, expectations, and obligations they had inherited were still working for them.
In this solo episode, Lindsay reflects on the threebiggest insights she took away from that workshop. Together, these women explored what it means to be the default responsible one, how many women disappear from their own decision-making, and why openly talking about these experiences can be such a powerful catalyst for change.
Episode 31:
From Assumption to Agreement: How We Build Something Different (Part II)
In Part II, Lindsay explores what comes next: How do we build something different without abandoning the people we love?
Drawing on a powerful conversation with Corie Chu about micro-boundaries, Lindsay argues that the goal isn’t to care less – it’s to create relationships where responsibilities are discussed instead of assumed. Through stories from her own marriage and reflections from the burnout workshop, she explores howhealthy families, partnerships, and workplaces evolve through conversation rather than inherited expectations.
This episode is an invitation to rethink how responsibility gets distributed, why so many women become the default responsible one, and what it looks like to reclaim authorship over your own time, energy, and life.
Episode 32:
The Money Stories We Inherit – And How to Rewrite Them
What if the financial lessons that helped our families survive are only part of the story?
Growing up, many of us learned to work hard, save ourmoney, and live within our means. These are values rooted in love, sacrifice, and responsibility – but they may not be the only lessons we need to build the lives we want today.
In this episode, Lindsay sits down with Chin Ru Foo – executive coach, entrepreneur, founder of Crew + Riot, and former global marketing executive whose career has spanned Asia, Europe, and the UK. Through her own journey, Chin Ru has thoughtfully challenged the financial beliefs she inherited, learning to balance responsibility with calculated risk, and scarcity with possibility.
Episode 33:
Raising Kids Beyond Doctor/Lawyer/Engineer
In this season finale, Lindsay sits down with John K. Liu, lawyer, engineer, and co-founder & Chief Customer Officer of Privaini, an AI-powered privacy risk management platform, for a conversation about success, parenting, and the recipe so many of us were handed growing up.
Raised in San Francisco’s Chinatown by first-generation Chinese immigrant parents, John followed the classic path – Lowell, Stanford, UC Davis School of Law – built on the belief that hard work and expertise were the way to honor his family’s sacrifice. But becoming a father changed how he understood that inheritance.
John shares the practice he calls “the extra conversation”. This is pausing to ask instead of assume, with his children and with himself and how it’s reshaping the way he thinks about ambition, failure, and what he wants for the next generation in an AI-disrupted world.
