Discussing his passions, fears and measuring up to expectations, Shang-Chi star Simu Liu opened up to Jay Shetty about overcoming his own internal culture battle during another podcast episode of ON PURPOSE.
LISTEN NOW: Jay Shetty talks with Simu Liu about letting go of parental expectations and how to find the courage to fail until you succeed
Ahead of becoming a household name, one thing that heavily weighed on Simu was fear. Fear of people not supporting his journey of pursuing his passion, particularly his immigrant parents. Fear of being not good enough, fear of not being able to become the person that he wanted to. But what he realized is that at some point you have to just stop being afraid and find the courage to fail until you succeed.
Discussing an excerpt from his book, We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story, Simu, who these days calls his parents his best friends, shared the struggles they had to overcome to get to that point.
“I think I was developing an internalized sense of hatred for my own identity. Every day at home was this constant battle of culture and values and language, cause you know we were speaking in different languages to each other. How could we possibly fully understand where the other came from?”
He continued, “So I grew up under the assumptions that I’ve got the worst parents in the world, they’re embarrassing to be around, they’re embarrassing to take in public and they don’t understand,” especially when compared to the parents of his friends and peers.
With his parents “fixated on this idea of academic success being the only way out, or being the only way to maintain the level of stability and keep a roof over our heads,” it made pursuing his passions a constant struggle between them.
These days, he understands where their anxieties stemmed from, and realizes that unlike him, they didn’t have the luxury to pause and pick their passions. Listen to the full episode with Simu Liu above.
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His name is Jay Shetty, and his purpose is to make wisdom go viral. Doing so by having fascinating conversations with the most insightful people in the world, and sharing those conversation with you with his podcast, ON PURPOSE. Listen for new episodes Mondays and Fridays.
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