We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Yuki French. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Yuki below.
Yuki, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
Probably from the many years it took me to overcome the sadness from the loss of my mother who died at 38 from cancer when I was 13. When she died, I felt like the solid ground behind me just fell away. My mother had been the center of gravity for my older sister, younger brother, and me. My father’s focus, like for many Japanese men, especially then, had been on his career until my mom died. After she died, he and our relatives did their best to take care of us, but no one was up to the task of being able to help us process our grief. My father just wanted us to focus on school. He was good at keeping us physically well and fed, but he was unable to be there for me in the emotional way I needed at the time. For years after that I feel like I was going through the motions of life without feeling any solid sense of meaning. But I kept going. Along the way, I started to think about how many things my mom wanted to do that she never ended up getting to do. I began to see one purpose of my life was to carry my mom’s memory with me and become her eyes to the world she had dreamed of seeing some day. She wanted to travel abroad after she got well. (She did not know that she had a terminal disease.) That is why I started to learn English. Now, I am much older now than my mom was when she passed away. The pain is much more manageable, and I have become my own person. I think she would be proud of me for owning my own business and never giving up on myself.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
When I was growing up in Japan, from an early age I became interested in architecture. After high school, I completed 2 associate degrees, first in American English studies and then in interior design. After graduating from the second program, I worked in Japan as an interior designer until my husband and I got married and moved to Lexington, Kentucky where he had been accepted to medical school. While adapting to living in Lexington wasn’t easy, I was determined to continue studying design, so I decided to apply to the University of Kentucky School of Architecture and was accepted. It was an intense and creative learning experience for me. I stayed in a studio working on projects with classmates late into the night and was pushed intellectually by my professors to do my best work. I received a design award for the first year studio, and it was the beginning of a path that I had long dreamed of making…And then I got pregnant. I had wanted to have a child for some time, but now I had to make a choice. Was I going to try to have it all—a family and become an architect or would trying to have it all mean that my newborn would have to adapt to his mother having to split her attention between 2 different pursuits. When I started to catch myself thinking what is the quickest way to finish this project in order for me to get home to be with my baby, I decided I couldn’t continue architecture school. I chose to be fully present for my first child, and eventually my second, especially while they were infants. Looking back, I don’t regret that I chose my kids over being an architect. Raising kids and being a full time mom was not easy especially since all my family was in Japan. I did my best for my children when they needed me the most. When my first child was 7 years old and my second child 5 years old, I began looking for ways to reignite my passion. This is how I became the owner of furniture shop, MidCentury55 (www.midcentury55.etsy.com). It all started with a purchase of a beautiful dresser at Goodwill, which once I gave it a little TLC, turned into my first sale! Afterwards, I felt so excited about how fun the whole process was. I don’t think I could ever have predicted this is how my childhood love of design would become the reality of who I am and how I can contribute to society. I feel blessed to have been given the opportunity to realize my dream of creating beautiful things, even it has come about in such an unexpected way.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
That’s a hard question, but I think growing up in a culture that places a priority on putting others’ needs before your own, having a strong commitment to a sense of beauty in design, and being able to accomplish something I set out to do have made a bit impact on my success with my business. Probably a lot of your readers have heard about Japanese customer service but doing something as simple as walking into a Japanese 7-Eleven can show you how valued customer service is in Japanese culture. The store will be clean, staff will be attentive to you (not their phones), and you will be thanked with a bow as you leave. I don’t know how to describe this well, but it is really important to me to make my customers feel I care about their happiness and satisfaction in our interactions, and one way for them to feel this is to show it with my actions and thoughtfulness to their needs. I think my commitment to beauty in design also has it roots in Japanese culture. I just don’t like messy or imperfect things. If a piece of furniture I’m refinishing doesn’t quite have the look I am hoping for, I’m not just going to say, “Good enough.” I might try, but it’s going to nag at me, and I’m not going to feel good listing it for sale until I would be happy to own it myself. So, my advice here is to not compromise your own standards of excellence. Finally, I couldn’t be the sole proprietor of an online furniture business in a foreign country without having to learn a lot of new skills, ranging from sanding and refinishing, upholstery replacement, caning seat bottoms, staging and photographing furniture, arranging shipping, etc. People who know me sometimes are amazed with my ability to do all these things, but once I decide I am going to learn how, I take the time and put in the practice (often by watching YouTube videos over and over!) until I become confident in the task. What I think is important for others to learn from this is don’t underestimate your abilities to take on something new, especially if it can help you achieve you overall goal, which for me is to have a profitable business, which I can independently run the way I want to without having to rely too much on outside supports.
Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?
When I first met my husband, I was still living in Japan. Though my mom had been gone already for a number of years, I was still struggling finding a way forward. While it was hard to communicate well with each other due to the language barrier, over time, he got to know my story and feel my pain. The closer we became, the more a new chapter in my life started to form. From helping me learn English to organizing our entire wedding in San Diego to studying hard to get into medical school, he was committed to creating a life worth living for both of us, and on my part, I became committed to supporting him when he was in medical school by working in America, though my English wasn’t great, and learning to survive in a new culture without my family. In some ways, I think he also has been very hopeful that by me developing my own strengths and overcoming challenges, I would be able to create a counterbalance to my feelings of loss. My success in my business probably makes him worry less about my happiness because he can see that I don’t need training wheels anymore. While it is good to have him there, I’ve learned to ride on my own.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.midcentury55.etsy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midcentury55/
Image Credits
I, Yuki French credit Bold Journey to use my photos I submitted.
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
