Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to T. Y. Steven Ip. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Y. Steven, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Challenges in my formative years shaped my resiliency. My parents immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong in the 1960’s. My father got accepted to the graduate program in engineering at Columbia University in NYC. I was about 3 years old at that time. I was raised in a family of 4 brothers and 2 sisters. My mom sacrificed a career to raise seven children. The 1960s was a tumultuous time with landmark events like the assassination of JFK and Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights movement. Coming over at that time of period, everyone assumed that we were Vietnamese refugees. Financially, my parents came over with very little money and had no income as a student. Our family budget was very tight with only allowances for basic needs. There were very few Asians in the United States at that time. I remember always being the only Asian student in my class from kindergarten to 9th grade.
After my father finished his graduate degree, he couldn’t find a job, so he decided to continue his education. He started his PHD work at MIT in Boston. This is the time that I enrolled in school. I started kindergarten and my parents decided to skip me to 2nd grade because my birthday was in December and the cut off for enrollment for each grade was for November birthdays. My first week of 2nd grade we sat in a circular formation to read the book “Tip and Jane”. When it came time for me to read, I didn’t know the alphabet much less how to read. I was so lost and embarrassed. So, for the rest of the year, they placed me in the side of the classroom with two students who were bused in from inner city Boston and one other student with behavioral problems. I later failed 2nd grade and was made to repeat it. When I finally learned the English language, I was lucky to start to excel in my schoolwork.
Due to the financial hardship of our family situation, hard work was ingrained in me early. I remember helping my older brother in his newspaper route at age 4. I saved up $13.14 cents and my parents made us open a bank account at a local bank because they were offering a free set of dining ware for all new accounts. At that age, I really preferred counting my coins in my piggy bank to looking at a bank account book.
While maturing in school, I realized that my strengths were in the arts, science, and sports. Being raised in a pragmatic family, the arts had to be placed on hold. The chances of becoming a professional NBA athlete were an impossibility, so science was the path I chose.
I was able to pay my own way through college at UCLA where I majored in Engineering along with finishing my Pre-Med studies. After finishing college at age 22, I drove by myself across the country to start medical school. I packed up my two-seater Honda CRX with all my worldly belongings which consisted of a suitcase of clothes, a bicycle, box of books, and ID. To be self-sufficient, I also brought an extra quart of oil, jumper cables, an empty gas can, and tools. After 4 years of medical school, I chose a path towards surgery. I spent 5 years in NYC at Columbia University St. Lukes/ Roosevelt trained in surgery residency and followed this up with 3 years of plastic surgery fellowship at Duke University.
With many of these types of early childhood experiences, my resiliency became more or more solidified. I grew more confident and learned to enjoy the challenges ahead of me.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Presently, I am a Plastic Surgeon and have a unique bi-coastal practice with offices in Newport Beach, Beverly Hills, and New York City. For non-invasive plastic surgical procedures, I am the Medical Director of Medi Spa. I am also the owner of Fashion Island Surgery Center. It is one of the largest plastic surgery surgical centers in Southern California and is used by over 30 plastic surgeons in the community. The surgery center also serves as one of the teaching centers for the Plastic Surgery Residents from University of California Irvine.
Outside of medicine, my wife Melissa Locke and I are passionate about charities, in particular animal rescue and medical charities. We are also involved with several creative projects in development.
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?
Compassion, Passion, and Creativity
- Be compassionate. Always put yourself in the other person’s shoes. You never know what someone is going through. If you think this way you will always make the right decision
- Be passionate. Be passionate about your relationships and about your work. Always give 110% and you will never have regrets about not trying hard enough.
- Be creative. Learn the basics and be creative to separate yourself from the mundane.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
For your professional life you should always put yourself in a position to be successful and focus on your strengths. For your personal life you should focus on your weakness to make yourself better for your relationships.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.surgery-plasticsurgeon.com
- Instagram: doctor.ip
- Facebook: TY Steven Ip
- Yelp: T. Y. Steven Ip, MD
