Ideas for Life

Why Ideas for Life?

I founded Ideas for Life Academy to make life-changing ideas accessible to everyone—so people can live with purpose, lead with integrity, and build peaceful, meaningful lives.

Ideas for Life Academy was born from a simple, enduring truth I have come to know through lived experience: ideas can change lives—when they are accessible, practical, and lived with integrity.

I came to the United States as a child refugee in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Born to illiterate farming parents in Laos, my family fled across borders into Thailand when I was four years old. We spent eight years in refugee camps—years marked by uncertainty, waiting, and survival. When we finally arrived in America, we carried little more than a few suitcases and no clear understanding of what lay ahead.

Like many who seek stability and meaning, I followed the traditional path toward success. I worked hard, pursued education, and built a career. Over time, I earned degrees in sociology, theology, peace studies, and history, and spent nearly fifteen years in higher education teaching, writing, and speaking about war, immigration, and peace. I also became an entrepreneur and the owner of The Mekong, one of the largest Hmong-owned businesses in Dane County, Wisconsin. By many conventional measures, I had succeeded.

And yet, I sensed I was not living the life I was meant to live. Whatever success I have achieved, it has not brought me the fulfillment or joy I had hoped for. I came to understand that what has always brought me the greatest meaning was never credentials, titles, or recognition, but the sharing of ideas—ideas about purpose, responsibility, leadership, peace, and the art of living well.

I also came to recognize that the ideas most essential to a meaningful life are often the least accessible—not because people lack desire or capacity, but because these ideas are buried in complexity, hidden behind privilege, or absent from formal education altogether. From elementary school through graduate study, we rarely teach what matters most—how to live with purpose, how to lead oneself, how to navigate conflict, and how to build peace within and beyond ourselves. These ideas remain especially distant for individuals, families, and communities who lack the language skills to access them, the time to study them, or the privilege of elite institutions—yet they are precisely the ideas that shape resilient, meaningful lives.

Ideas for Life Academyemerged from these realizations and from a calling I could no longer ignore—a calling to share these life-transforming ideas with others, to live out the yearning of my soul. Ideas for Life also developed out of a deep conviction that I hold that many of the world’s most persistent problems—poverty, violence, war, despair, and division—are not inevitable. They endure, in part, because too many people have been denied access to the ideas and inner resources that allow them to live according to their highest purpose. When people are engaged in creating the life they dream of, they leave little room for creating problems in their families, communities, and society. When people are empowered with wisdom, clarity, and belief in themselves, entire families and communities change.

At Ideas for Life Academy, I gather wisdom from across disciplines and traditions and translate it into language that is clear, practical, and usable by anyone. Drawing on years of teaching and public engagement, I share ideas and principles for effective living, leadership, and peace through storytelling, education, speaking, and community learning—drawing inspiration from influential works such as Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, The Success Principles by Jack Canfield, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker, The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, Success Is a Journey by Brian Tracy, and many others. At its heart, Ideas for Life Academy is grounded in service, cultural wisdom, and action—a place where ideas are not merely taught but embodied, where wisdom leads to action, and where individuals, families, and communities grow, lead, and flourish together.