Hello! I’m Joseph.
I am on a mission to help people connect deeply with their loved ones.
I’m doing this through Parents Are Human, a bilingual card game (in 15 languages) that helps you spark deep conversations with your parents & loved ones. ♥️
When I’m not working, I’m a hand balancer 🤸♂️ and writer ✍️.
In a previous life, I built an award-winning health tech company 📱 and competed for the United States in 7 world cups and earned 8 national medals in fencing 🤺.
I didn’t make it here alone—I owe everything to my dear parents and the people who have supported me throughout my life. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Let’s Talk About Family
For the last few years, the most important priority in my life has been healing the broken relationship I had with my immigrant parents. I wanted to get to know my mom and dad before it was too late.
I spent hundreds of hours documenting what I did and what I learned in 30 reflections. Let’s go on this journey together.
Intergenerational Wellness
I believe our relationship with our parents shows up in every part of our lives.
Parents Are Human
2019 – Present
CEO at Parents Are Human, a bilingual card game designed to spark meaningful conversation between you and your family.
For over a decade, I didn’t have a good relationship with my parents. They were the only people I ever took my stress and frustrations out on and there was nothing in the world that I felt more guilty about.
In August of 2018, I started on a journey to rebuild my relationship with my parents—to get to know them, love them freely, and see their humanity behind everything they did and said.
By the end of 2019, I co-created this bilingual connection card game to help other immigrant families have the kinds of conversations that transformed our relationship.
It’s been an honor of a lifetime to share this never-ending journey of rebuilding my relationship with my parents. It has and continues to be the most important work of my life.
The Parent Project
2020 – 2022
We are four humans—Tong-Tong Li, Kimberly Han, Brandon Lee, and Joseph Lam—committed to showing up for our aging parents each week in the ways we have always wanted: working through our past traumas, rewriting the beliefs that no longer serve us, and learning to love and be loved by our parents.
We come together and discuss what came up for us during our interactions with our parents each week, the lessons we’re learning, and work through the inevitable challenges we face.
Join us live each week on The Parent Project Facebook Page as we reflect on our conversations and coach each other through one of the most challenging and rewarding journeys of our lives.
Parents Are Gifts
2020
We started a collection of handpicked gift recommendations for mom & dad. 🎁
Gift-giving has always been one of the most important ways our parents have shown their love for us.
As we have gotten older and closer than ever to our parents, we recognized the importance of gift-giving in our culture to show appreciation and maintain closeness.
We hope our website will help guide and inspire you to choose meaningful and useful gifts for your parents.
Organizational Learning & Company Culture
I believe the highest purpose for an organization is to spread its culture.
PlusPlus
2019 – 2021
Marketing at PlusPlus, a peer-to-peer learning platform used by companies to manage all their learning events, workshops, webinars, and onboarding programs in one place.
I am in love with the team I work with and the culture we’ve built.
We put on the annual conference, TechKnowCon, and monthly Roundtables for industry leaders at the intersection of technical training and learning & development.
Our customers include companies like Salesforce, Airbnb, Netflix, Shopify, and LinkedIn.
LifeGyde
2018 – 2019
Head of Growth (Founding Team) at LifeGyde, an education technology startup focused on making it easier than ever for high-growth companies to establish company-wide peer-to-peer learning.
Mid-2018, I joined Kwiri Yang to start her fifth company.
We embarked on a journey that became far more than just work for me. It became a Pilgrimage of Identity. I learned what it meant to commit to inner work and servant leadership.
We are graduates of Singularity University, Stanford Venture Studio, and the Nasdaq Milestone Makers Program.
In 2019, we joined forces with PlusPlus.
Personal & Leadership Development
I believe freeing ourselves from the baggage we carry from our childhood is the most important milestone in a person’s life.
Second Time Founders
2019 – 2020
Program Director (Founding Team) at Second Time Founders, a community of seasoned founders committed to personal growth.
During the LifeGyde journey, a passion project emerged from our mutual interest and commitment to inner work. We create personal development workshops and retreats, for repeat founders.
Soon, this became our team’s primary focus after we were backed by Bo Shao and Oleg Gorelik from Evolve Ventures.
Nutrition & Health Technology
I believe we live our best lives when our nutrition, sleep, and hydration guide our schedules, not the other way around.
Brainbuild
2016 – 2018
Founder & CEO of Brainbuild. We provided an automated nutrition scheduling system that optimized the timing of meals, snacks, hydration, and sleep events based on a person’s unique daily schedule.
Brainbuild was my first company, where I took what I learned from having daily routines as an athlete and embarked on a journey to provide those insights to as many other people as possible.
I was selected as one of Inc’s Top 50 Emerging Young Entrepreneurs in the world and Brainbuild as one of Inc’s Top 30 Emerging Companies in the US. We also won the Frank Borchardt Prize.
Athletics
I believe learning how to lose and fall gracefully is far more important than winning.
Circus Arts
2018 – Present
I am obsessed with being upside down! I do handstands on chairs, benches, and canes. Follow me on Instagram (@joejlam) to watch my weekly workouts.
Since taking my first hand balancing class on February 28, 2018, I have since fallen hundreds of thousands of times, and fallen deeply in love with this pursuit of physical and mental mastery.
Occasionally, I will also dabble in juggling, rola bola, aerial, contortion, and ballet.
Fencing
2008 – 2017
For the first five years I trained 6 days a week for 49 weeks of the year—practicing, coaching, and competing around the world in countries like France, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Austria, China, and the Czech Republic.
I am most proud of the hundreds of times I went home empty handed to earn those few wins. A lifetime of lessons and an emotional journey that I will never forget.
- 8x U.S. National Medalist
- 7x World Cup Competitor
- 2x Pacific Coast Championships Gold Medalist
- U.S. National Traveling Team
- NCAA National Championships Competitor
- Duke University DI Varsity Fencing Team
- Guest Coach at the Beijing Olympic Village
Principles
An eternally unfolding summary of what I have learned and who I strive to be in work and life.
Love Courageously
I strive to live a life where love is present wherever I go—that the people around me find love for who they are, love for others, and love for what they do; that I have the same love for myself. The more love I give to others, the more of it I have to give.
Joyful Growth
To grow is to take on more ownership, leadership, challenges, and setbacks. To grow is to fall down, get up, unlearn, let go, embrace, know nothing. To be stretched beyond my existing limits is the ever-expanding journey that is far more joyful and fulfilling than any destination.
Being Over Doing
Who I am being in every moment dictates the choices that I make, and life is a series of choices. It is in taking full ownership of my existence, and the impact I have on the people and world around me, that brings about the most profound growth. What I do is a byproduct.
We Are Human
The greatest gift to give someone is the space to be fully themselves in all their humanity. I can only do this by sharing my own humanity first, the parts of me that I am still learning to embrace. In this way, I can create spaces of love, safety, and belonging for others to thrive.
Work as a Transformative Journey
What I stand for in this lifetime is for the transformation of work. That our companies can be a means to achieve mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, and financial wellbeing. We all have the power to create these work environments where we discover our sense of true belonging in the world and achieve our fullest selves.
Beyond Imagination
I want to live a life that doesn’t just exceed my expectations, but one that exceeds my imagination. I want to look back and stand in awe at who I am today, what I’m doing, as what I couldn’t have even imagined a year ago, a month ago, a week ago. I want everyone around me to live this kind of life.