Jade Chang
(Posted on Monday, August 29, 2022)
Jade Chang was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States when she was eighteen months old. She and her family lived in the basement of a Catholic charity home for a few years, then moved to a middle-class neighborhood in Connecticut. As immigrants, her parents were wired to value traditional, secure jobs.
As Jade puts it, “I was always a little rebellious.” Her parents wanted her to learn to play piano and violin, but she ended up learning to play jazz trumpet. She was also a tremendous athlete. earning a full scholarship to the University of Texas to run track.
During college Jade realized she wasn’t going to be a professional athlete. She took a job after college in tech consulting, and then a corporate job at Dell. She was bored but kept herself busy by doing triathlons and competing in wakeboarding.
One day Jade realized she didn’t want to sit in a cubicle anymore.
In the last fifteen years, Jade has gone from being an unemployed grad school dropout sharing a rented house with her brother, to owning a successful military construction business and three homes, being an active investor in her passion of surf resorts, and being married with three children. Her mom still can’t believe Jade owns her own business.
Jade says, “I have this thing called the One Thing Rule. Which is that every day, I am just going to do one thing that gets me closer to my goal. It doesn’t matter what that thing is. It could be as small as cold calling someone and leaving a message. My philosophy is that every door is open until it’s closed.”