š© Donut Holes and Life Goals
On not frittering away your potentiality
I love movies but Iām not one to keep up with the latest releases. This means Iām constantly behind the curve of the zeitgeist, texting friends months after theater releases with: āOMG, have you seen the Barbie movie?ā Instead, I catch them where I canāNetflix, Amazon Prime, and the occasional airplane seatback screen.
This brings me to my recent transatlantic binge ofĀ The Donut King,Ā an inspiring documentary that made me believe I, too, could succeed in business as an immigrant.
The story follows a Cambodian refugee couple, Ted and Christy Ngoy, who fled the violent Khmer Rouge dictatorship for America with their three children and dominated the Southern California donut market. Weāre talking about David and Goliath's levels of domination: in less than a decade, they built a multi-million dollar empire, created job opportunities for hundreds of Cambodian refugees, and built a customer base so loyal that Dunkinā Donuts packed up and left town.
These folks came to the U.S., traumatized and with nothingāno money, no English, and definitely no experience with donutsāand built a thriving community of entrepreneurs that has evolved and exists to this day. It was inspiring and humbling and made me hungry for an apple fritter.
When you move abroad, there are so many bureaucratic blind spots. There are relocation experts and legal teams that can make learning them easier, but vetting their trustworthiness and holding them accountable requires hypervigilance. Starting a business, navigating taxes, opening a bank accountāevery step is like solving a riddle, and not in a fun solving-the-New-York-Times-Wordle way. When I think about building a business here in Spain, my imagination gets blocked by bureaucratic blind spots.
The Donut Kingās story hit me right where I am: standing at a career crossroads with a resume laden with education, experience, and skills, growing my social connections, but receiving rejections left, right, and center. If the Ngoy family could leave behind their lives and careers, thrive, provide in the face of unimaginable odds, surely I can navigate new challenges. In 2025, I hope to push beyond my limits to create the next right thingāperhaps fueled by an occasional treat from Dunkinā Donuts or Tim Hortons in Madrid.