My name is Manny. I was shaped by two worlds — the Chinese and Vietnamese aunties who raised me, and the ultra-high-net-worth individuals I worked alongside in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Here you’ll find traditional recipes passed down from the aunties and the habits I extracted from highly successful people.
This blog is built on the three pillars of a good life: health, wealth, and caring for your village. My hope is that you walk away with intuitive cooking skills, tools to start improving your life, and the audacity to go after your wildest dreams.
IF YOU’RE STILL CURIOUS …
I was born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and moved to San Francisco at the age of 7. As a latchkey kid, I spent a lot of time cooking in the kitchen. Every summer, my parents brought my brother and me back to Vietnam because paying for roundtrip tickets is cheaper than paying for summer camp.
During college, I spent a year studying abroad in Japan and Hong Kong. The experience fueled my thirst for travel and refined my taste buds, making me a better home cook. While studying abroad in Kyoto at 19, I wanted to start a blog. In the back of my head, I heard my mom saying “stop wasting time on your hobbies and go make some money instead.” So I pushed the idea aside and went to get a “real job.”
I landed in real estate because I wanted to make money quickly so I could pursue my dreams of being a blogger. The money didn’t come quickly. In fact, it was REALLY hard. I can’t tell you how much I cried — before work, in the bathroom during lunch break, and if I’m getting cursed out on the phone, I just wipe away my tears and apologize to de-escalate the situation. Meanwhile, blogging and content creation actually became a lucrative career path. Go figure.
The best part about working in real estate was meeting my husband. He believed in me before anyone else did. He also taught me how to save but more importantly, how to be content with who I am. We recently welcomed a baby girl. It’s impossible to put into words how much I love her. Let’s just say, before her arrival, I loved myself like Kanye loves Kanye. And now I love her more than I love myself. The thought of putting her in daycare while I spent my days working on something I didn’t care about made me sick. Luckily, my husband and I planned for this day years ago, saving and investing aggressively. So I decided to walk away, care for my baby, and bet on myself for a change.
I don’t have anything figured out and most days I’m filled with fear and self-doubt, but I do it anyway. The shift is that I no longer fear failure as the end of the world. I’d rather have my daughter watch her mom try and fail and pick herself back up than one who lives a smaller life out of fear.
manny.blog 