Thank you.
Hello and welcome back to Hot Pursuit, a podcast about creating conversations where nothing is off limits.
This podcast is produced by Asian Boss Girl.
I'm Emily.
I'm the older sister you've always wanted.
I'm Jen, the cheese ball in your snack drawer.
And I'm Madeline, your girl who thinks everything really is that deep.
Happy New Year, everyone.
Just kidding.
We're about to round out this new year and we wanted to talk about New Year's resolutions in December.
So guys, what do you think about New Year's resolutions as a concept?
I don't do them.
Do you guys do them?
I do them.
I do them loosely.
I'm not like, I'll make them, but then the goal is like, try, but don't kill yourself.
Do you make multiple?
Do you make one?
Yes.
I have a list of 20.
Do you look at them?
Yeah, I do.
And if I achieve one or two, then I'm happy with that.
But it's, I...
I have high ambitions for myself.
And they're also like so lofty that if I did achieve them, that would be pretty cool.
So I don't even expect to achieve them.
But it's more just like you can reach for the stars if you want.
So they're not like smart goals that are like actionable.
No, it's just like because some people set really low like achievable ones.
They're like, I can do this.
No, not like that.
It's more like by the end of this year, you will have achieved this.
Yeah.
Why are you not into news resolutions?
Do you feel, because some people are like, that's a bogus concept.
I'm not about it.
Uh, the biggest reason for me is i find a year is a long period of time and life changes so quickly.
So i don't like having, i don't like setting a thing for that's fixed for a whole year, because i'm like Something might happen in June that completely changed your world and your goals, your intentions.
What you get excited about might totally change.
Fear of commitment?
I actually set a word for the year.
It's more like an intention, a mindset shift, a heart posture.
What was it?
Orientation for the year.
Mine for this year was behold.
What does that mean?
It means to stop and gaze and admire.
And I felt like my life was moving very quickly, like all of last year, and like very frenetic and modern life is just really fast.
And so I wanted moments to stop and just like savor moments that were happening and be really present and notice and appreciate and bask in the things when they're happening in front of me.
My word for the year was behold, and there was a lot to behold this year.
How long have you been doing that, and where did you get the inspiration?
Yes, I cannot take credit for it.
One of our friends, Rochak, shout out to you, Robo.
Coop.
Coop.
He asked me this back in 2019 or 2018.
Because his whole thesis, which I loved, was basically you can remember one word for the whole year.
You can recall it throughout the year.
That word will take on new meaning.
And I loved it.
He asked me what my word was, and I gave him 15 words.
He was like, Jen, that's not how this works.
Give me one word.
And I was like, but.
He's like, nope, one word.
And I've used it with family and friends and I have a note app in my phone for like the past five, six years of everybody's words.
Wow.
Can you share them for the past five years?
Mine?
Can you pull up your phone now?
Oh, sure.
I love writing them down.
I love this exercise because it's flexible but still intentional and it still feels really meaningful.
The coolest thing is when you look back at the end of the year and you're like oh, what I thought that word meant actually evolved to mean something different.
And it took on a new form.
Okay, where is this?
The note is called year of.
Aw.
Mine in 2020 was roots, then it was nurture, then it was openhearted, then it was captivated, then it was delight and 2025 was behold.
Oh, I love those.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very positive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're like mindset shaping.
Yes.
Yeah.
And then for a few years I had like words to summarize the year, but I stopped that after 2023.
Do you want to share those?
Yeah, 2020 was peaceful, 2021 was stability, and then 2022 was blessing.
Wow.
I don't know why I didn't write any other ones down after that.
Wow, thanks for sharing.
Yeah.
What about you?
What have been your New Year's resolutions for this year, year of 2025?
Ooh.
When you set New Year's resolutions, do you set achievable goals or do you set is it like a vision board, type of thing?
And what did you set at the beginning of this year?
Well, for this year, I think I accomplished none of them. my grandmother my one living grandparent she speaks Hokkien and I speak I speak Cantonese and I speak Mandarin but I don't speak Hokkien and I can hear every time I go visit her which is every year I like can barely communicate with her and I'm like damn even though I've learned Chinese in two different ways it's still not enough um so i wanted it's also harder to find classes so i wanted to be able to communicate with her because she's 94 and i'm just like well she is an asian woman so i feel like she's just got forever to go but i'm like i want to be able to talk with her because i really mourn like my other grandparents that died at an early age but i've gone nowhere because i've been very busy this year and not mad about it though like it's still a desire in the heart but i haven't accomplished it yeah and i also feel like learning um a language at this age is so much harder and i wish i would have been taught when i was younger but You did take a class though.
I did.
One class.
Yeah.
And I think that's a good step towards it.
Yeah, that's nice.
It was a free class and she was like, I'm going to join.
And I was like, I'll join if I have time.
And I didn't, but you did it for, it wasn't an hour or something.
I think I went to actually two or three sessions.
What did you learn?
Um, I don't even remember.
It was like early in the year.
But Taiwanese and Hokkien are basically 90% the same.
Yeah.
So I was like, Oh, maybe I can convince Emily to do it.
Yeah.
What about you Em?
I set a mix of actionable goals, like for me it was being more punctual, because I'm always late, and also like being verified on a like something out of my control.
I want to set that intention so that I can take actions to go towards that.
So I do a mix of like a few things.
So one of them was be punctual, wake up early, and then I also did habit trackers throughout the year, like don't touch your phone for like right when you get up in the morning, for 21 days, and I did those challenges for myself.
So like tiny many challenges throughout the year.
And I gave myself a reward if I accomplished it.
So just like tiny things, but after the 21 days, I did start reaching for my phone again.
So it didn't really set the habit, but I know that if I wanted to, I could do it. stuff like that.
But I don't know, man.
It just feels like this year for us has been so crazy.
None of us, could have New Year's resoluted or vision boarded any of this happening.
Like the idea of doing a podcast was in January and like now we're here at the end of the year.
It's been crazy.
So yeah, one season in.
I know.
I feel like we're different people.
I'm so exhausted.
Yes.
And we've met so many really cool people this year and have had opportunities that we could have never imagined for ourselves.
So I feel like New Year's resolutions are good, but you should also hold space for what you don't know is coming.
I also set words for the year too.
What was your word for this year?
I had two words because I lack both of these.
It was focus and accountability.
Yeah, because I found that a lot of times I would either blame something else outside of my control, like sorry I'm late traffic, when really it was.
I wasn't thinking about the time.
And so if I told myself, okay, just be accountable.
Sorry, I'm late.
I wasn't watching the time.
I'm so sorry.
Then I have to be accountable.
I'll pay for dinner.
And hopefully that would be painful enough for me to change my behavior.
Because if you blame, you won't change your behavior.
But if you take accountability, You will.
So I felt that's been a practice for me for this year that I feel like has been really flexed.
Yeah.
And I can attest you have improved greatly.
Oh, thank you.
You've noticed?
Thank you.
My unofficial New Year's resolutions.
For the New Year's resolutions, I don't do that I just said I didn't do is to be a better texter.
Oh, yes.
And I have not done that one either successfully.
I have spurts.
You have spurts.
You have spurts.
But your spurts are enough that it satisfies.
Yeah.
Because I feel for you, you're a very intentional person.
So you want to give people all the attention that they deserve and you don't have time.
So when you do have time, you're like.
Yeah.
And then you disappear for another week.
Yeah.
But that's okay.
That's okay.
Yeah.
It's good that you're not always on your phone.
There's 2026.
How did you guys surprise yourself this year?
This year's been really chaotic.
Yeah.
I feel like I've been stretched beyond what I was able to be stretched by.
Like I feel like a film of plastic that's just continually, like it's about to break.
And I haven't broken yet.
I'm close though.
So I might break before the year ends.
Like I feel like with work with this podcast, with like stress of life, moving and things like that, I feel like there's just always so much to do and I feel like I can't show up at any of those things at 100 and that really pains me and I'm sick of it and that's why I am dreaming of the state of stability.
Yeah.
Which if you listen to our other episode, you know that I'm dreaming of stability.
Yeah, pray she gets it in 2026.
Yeah, exactly.
Have you discovered that you're more resilient than you ever thought that you were?
No.
I think I've had like other periods of time that feel very familiar.
And I mean I came out.
I don't come out feeling like amazed at what I can do which, like maybe I should try to feel that way.
But I'm just like, when is this shit going to be over?
I just I just want to breathe again.
Survival.
Yeah.
OK, so but what about some words for you guys?
Maybe a little bit more positive.
How have you surprised yourself?
Can I call out a couple of things?
Yeah.
Jen's movie podcast has been really taking off and she's been getting recognized by really important people in the industry.
Would you like to share a little bit about your successes there?
Yeah, that did happen this year.
We've been doing this podcast for like six, seven years now and we just do it because we love the medium, we love watching movies, we love talking about it.
But it's sometimes it's hard because you're just in the thick of it and you're just like going, executing.
You're like, is this gonna be worth it someday?
And our dream has always been getting to elevate and talk to people that direct films and having a platform for them to share their heart and tension behind it.
And also to figure out how to like, sustain this from a business operational perspective.
And like, both of those desires have come true this year with getting to join this like podcast network of other film podcasters and film critics and stuff.
So that has like literally fulfilled all of our dreams.
We back in May were saying that that was our dream for the next, But we thought it was going to be like years from now.
And then six months later, we're here now.
And every time we do an interview or something, when we get to interview someone, we're like Sarah, this is crazy.
This is wild.
This is wild.
Like dreams coming true sooner than we expected.
Yeah, like you guys have merch.
You decided to go on video.
We did video.
You went to film festivals.
I went to film festivals.
You're interviewing directors of notable films.
You're seeing films early.
Yeah.
Yeah, they send her a link so she could see it before everyone else.
It's very cool.
A lot of independent filmmakers that get a platform.
It's cool because now it's an invitation to dream bigger now, because the things that we dreamed, that we thought would take probably like five, six years or if ever at all, have already come true.
So we're like, okay, what do we do with ourselves?
What's next?
Yeah.
That's been cool.
That is so cool.
How about you, Em?
I think this year I'm realizing that, Similar to what Jen said, we need to start dreaming bigger, because our dreams are actually way more achievable than we realize.
And I think this year we've all had a lot of opportunities being just like thrust upon us that we didn't even think was possible.
And like doors have been opening that I didn't even know existed.
You've grown a lot on social media.
Like your numbers have jumped.
You signed with an agent.
You've gotten bigger deals than you ever have.
Yeah, I feel very lucky because I've always wanted to do social media full time.
And I remember, just two years ago, someone telling me that she would do one video for a brand for I don't know, 3000.
And I remember thinking that's wild and I could never do that.
Now I get to sign deals that are kind of around there and it's normal to me now.
For that to be normal and not like, whoa, that's crazy, is a sign that it's working.
It's nice to know that I'm moving in a direction that I always dreamed of, and now it feels normal for me.
So yeah, I think I've surprised myself in my capability to deliver in a way that I never thought I could deliver before and provide value for people.
That is finally recognized.
And so that's been really cool.
And I'm more punctual.
So that's very good.
Like I give myself a 15 minute margin and I leave earlier and then I end up getting there like five minutes earlier.
And I realized there's less stress when you're not like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I'm late.
Oh my gosh, sorry, I'm looking for parking.
And you can just stroll into the building and wait for your friends and it feels really good.
And less stress means better skin.
That's true, less stress means better skin.
Now that we're at the end of this year, why don't we all say one word to summarize how we felt to bookend the year?
One word.
Chaos.
That was good.
I was like, LOL, chaos.
But then I was like, okay, maybe you can come up with another word.
Do we need a positive one?
No.
It's genuinely how you felt.
Yeah.
Chaos.
Chaos.
Okay.
I would say.
What about you?
Well, the next word that came to mind for me was free.
And I think when things are being let loose and free opportunities, parts of yourself, it does feel chaotic and then it starts to move in a direction but like doors falling open, things loosening,
It's almost like because you feel free and you can operate under that mindset.
You are like, you are softer ground for doors falling open.
You're like able to take those opportunities more easily than maybe you wouldn't have seen before.
And I mean, I don't think that it's not to discount like, the wealth of opportunity that that has come this year.
But when you change, the environment also changes.
Is your mindset changes?
Yeah.
What's your word, Em?
Expectation.
Ooh, in what how?
So i think this year has shown me how easily some doors fling open without me trying very hard, and i feel going forward into the next year with like open hands, expecting anything to happen makes life so much more exciting and it makes life really much more colorful because I feel like there's so many things now that are good but out of our control.
And so if we can just wait and expect to receive.
Yeah, it just seems like a It's more exciting that way, yeah.
Posture saying yes to things that might be unexpected, pulling the thread on things that you might have not pulled the thread on, and seeing where that goes.
It might be a pile of chaotic yarn, but there's something beautiful that's going to be made from all of that.
I think it can be abrasive to say, I expect good things to happen to me.
But you have to train your mind. to look for those things.
Because if you are always looking for the downside and you're looking for you to fail, you're looking for you to fall short.
That's what's going to happen.
So, in order to basically manifest or realize that the good things are going to happen, that all those opportunities are going to come to you, you have to verbalize, vocalize and believe it.
Yeah, so I think 2026 is going to be huge for you.
Oh gosh, yes.
This year was already so huge to begin with.
It's just the appetizer.
It's just the amuse-bouche.
So share your words with us for the year, whether they were your New Year's resolutions or your your word to sum up 2025.
We'd be so curious to hear what your journeys have been.
Otherwise, we will see you guys next time.
Pop Pursuit is great.
