The Weight and Lightness of 45
At 45, my body feels incredible.
I’m not running marathons anymore. My pace is slower. My recovery takes longer. But I’ve learned how to care for myself in ways I didn’t when I was younger. That care is more patient now. Less about proving something. More about sustaining something.
We spend a lot of time working on our physical well-being. Diet. Exercise. Sleep. But lately I’ve been asking: How much time do we spend working on becoming more compassionate? More self-aware? More present for the people around us?
And just as importantly: How are we working on becoming someone who exists outside of our title? Outside of our output?
Because strength at 45 isn’t just about physical ability. It’s about what you carry and who helps you carry it.
Recently, during a business trip, I got a call that my father-in-law had suddenly gotten sick. My wife and brother-in-law were home, scared. And I was far away, at a conference, trying to stay composed.
Podcast: Seeing the Power of Privilege at Play with Savan Kong
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with the Khmer Voices podcast to talk about something deeply personal—what it means to navigate privilege when you come from a background where nothing was guaranteed.
I shared my journey from growing up in South Seattle as a Cambodian refugee to attending Lakeside School, where the contrast between my world and that of my classmates was stark. We talked about grit, luck, and the often invisible systems that shape opportunity—and what it means to hold space for others while owning your own story.
Memoir excerpt: The Strength of Her Back, the Tenderness of Her Hands
America moved fast. It assumed fluency. It demanded adaptation.
My mother became a nanny. Not because it was easy, but because caring for children was the one skill she carried across oceans and borders. She couldn’t read or write English. Not because she wasn’t intelligent but because survival had never afforded her the time.
“All I knew,” she once told me, “was how to take care of kids. So I did that. And I prayed you’d have more.”
She folded laundry, warmed bottles, braided hair that was not her own. She did not complain. But she did watch. She paid attention to everything. She protected us in ways that no curriculum could ever teach.
Her life wasn’t measured in degrees or promotions. It was measured in the strength of her back and the tenderness of her hands.
Why Term Limits Should Be the Norm for Government Innovators
I’ve seen this problem from nearly every angle.
At the Defense Digital Service (DDS), I built tools side-by-side with warfighters whose lives depended on getting it right. Later, standing up the Customer Experience Office (CXO), I helped craft enterprise strategy and policy across sprawling federal systems. Outside government, I served as a general manager at Rebellion Defense, and now as an advisor to MO Studio, supporting mission-driven design and technology teams working in complex public environments.
Through these experiences, one truth stands out:
The department suffers from a lack of motion.