90 Years, No Excuses - The Mindset That Built a Life of Success and Happiness!

We are here with Louise, turning 90 in a month, looking great, and we're going to get some life advice and get her story out and hopefully inspire the world. Oh, you ready to go?

That'd be nice.

So let's start with this: what is something you wish people appreciated more?

Everybody is different. One person may appreciate one thing and other people, something else makes them click.

Is there anything that you have found personally that you find more happiness with appreciating certain things more?

My life, I always like to win. Whatever interesting competitions, fun, if you're playing a game, it doesn't hurt to win. But the reason I enjoy winning is I don't mind losing. If you want to compete, Don't cry if you lose. And that's how I look at it. That's why I enjoy life. I compete so I win.

What win are you most proud of?

Oh my.

You've done a lot of winning.

Winning. Well, first of all, in 1965, my partner and I are the North American ladies bridge champion. That is Canada, US, and Mexico. 3 countries. We're the top one. That's not the only one I won. I won many bridge competitions. And eventually, actually in 1964, in 1968, I represented Canada in the World Bridge Federation competition in the ladies' team. In other words, I enjoy competition.

Okay, so looking back, what advice would you give your younger self?

Maybe I should, I should have a bigger family. That's all. I have two children and they're in their 60s and I enjoy them very much, but I was just too busy to live my own life. I decided there's no more children and that was a mistake.

What lesson What lesson do you hope your kids take from you and pass to their kids?

That is kind of late to ask me for this question. They don't need any lessons from me. No, they all done well at their career and everything. I just— there's no lessons for my children. They're all doing fine.

Here's a fun one. What's something you used to think mattered a lot but realized wasn't important as you got older?

Oh, I think everybody think money is a lot important, but I came from a very well-off family, so it never really bothered me. But then as I got married and had my own family, I thought having money is important, but it's really not that important. If you do well, it comes with it. You don't have to work very hard for it.

What would you put ahead of money?

The important thing: respect for other people and honesty. To me, honesty is the most important thing. Looking back, it's still the same.

How do you teach people to be honest?

That's your own conscience. You know you're honest, you're honest. If you're not honest, you want to lie, No one can stop you.

How do people get the courage to listen to that inner voice? A lot of people struggle with the courage to actually listen to that voice.

Maybe some people lie because they don't have the courage to face the fact. But then, of course, my character is a little different. Like I said before, I enjoy a challenge. So the answer was Sometimes honesty is bad. It hurts people. But the word is, it doesn't bother me so much if I— well, of course I hurt people. I don't want to, but I'd rather not to lie.

So a lot of people struggle with that. Like, you know you're going to hurt somebody, but I'm still honest.

To me, I'm still going to be honest. I understand other people struggle with it. They don't want to hurt other people. The best I can do is no answer. But if you want me to give you an answer, it's not going to come out honest.

Are you still taking on challenges and competing now?

No. No. My challenge is keeping my husband alive.

It's—

well, he's 98 going on 99. He came from a family of 7, and all his siblings has gone. But I happen to think I fed him the good diet and made sure he live a good life, clean life, healthy life to keep him coming, getting up to this age. And you're going to get a laugh out of it. He's a medical doctor, but I'm the doctor.

You're the family doctor.

I'm the family doctor. Yeah, I did study dietetics, so I do know what What food is good for you, what's bad for you. I think that helps.

What's the secret to a long-lasting marriage?

Happiness?

Yeah.

Just be happy. Don't worry about anything else. And to me, honesty is important. So as long as I don't have to tell a lie, I'm happy.

What's the most courageous thing you've done?

Learning to ski. That's fun. But it's really my profession. I never had the opportunity of finishing university because I got married when I was very young. Well, you know, my husband, I mentioned, he's almost 9 years older. So he's already graduated, is waiting for a wife. But he got himself a young wife who only got 1 year university, University of Toronto. All my life, I wanted to have a career. Because my mother was a career woman. My father and mother did very well together in China. That's my origin. I came from Shanghai. So my first opportunity after I got married was to go with a good friend of mine, my bridge friend, to see a computer. Never seen a computer before. Everybody said, professors, all playing bridge players in the University of Toronto said, "The best place to see a computer is not University of Toronto. Go to Ryerson's Tech." That's those days. My friend and I, we registered and we went to Ryerson to see what a computer looks like. Where I learned computer programming, graduated well. Was already in my mid-30s. That's raising my children, having a bridge career. So by the time I applied a job in Ontario Hydro, they hired me immediately because the bosses want to play bridge with me at lunchtime. It wasn't my ability, it wasn't because I graduated on top of the class. But I went in and I did well. In other words, it didn't take me long to keep moving up. Eventually, my biggest challenge was installing Ontario Hydro's payroll system for about 28,000 folks. In a new system those days that just came out. They call them databases. These things are all large, huge computers. Databases ran the payroll system. That's what's the very— And I supervised a team of programmers. We put that system on and then pay the— folks the very first shot, or everybody paid correctly. It doesn't happen very often. They usually bounce back and forth a few times. So I was very proud of it. Having two children, I didn't know I was proud of. I know I am very proud of them now. To me, there is a lot of trouble. Well, try raising two little kids two years apart.

There's a level of ambition in you where you could have just gotten married young, been a housewife, raised a family, and that was your life. But you chose not to. You chose to compete. You chose to strive. You chose to not accept the limitations and go and create a better life for yourself.

Right.

A lot of people struggle with that, with not settling, with believing in a bigger vision for themselves than what was kind of handed to them by society. What advice do you have for somebody who's, you know, on the cusp and is just afraid to take the leap?

Well, my advice was, first of all, you have to know your own capability. Understanding yourself is the most important thing. If you cannot take a difficult challenge, then no use trying. I would say know yourself, but it's not easy to know yourself. Everyone thinks they're smarter than themselves. They're not think they're smarter, they think How do I say it? Would you like to say, "Hmm, I'm stupid"? It doesn't make sense, does it? So it doesn't matter what level your intelligence at, you always think you're the best at your level.

Did you have any role models or heroes growing up, people you respected, learned from?

No, I don't really have. I just want to be myself.

That's a great answer. Any plans for your 90th? One month away.

Oh, my 90th birthday. I'd love to have a big party, which I would normally have. Unfortunately, my daughter suffered acute leukemia about 8 years back. And after she got the bone marrow transplant, which has to be flown from Beijing, China, all the way to Los Angeles— that's where she lives, she and my son-in-law— and subsequently, she also caught pneumonia. She's retired. Her lung capacity, I think, is around 60%. So she cannot see a lot of people. And she's coming for my birthday, so I cannot have a big party. Immediate family. Oh, incidentally, I gotta mention, I never used to think family is important. My son has given me a great-grandson. So we will have 4 generations together for my birthday party.

That's awesome.

That's it. Total 9 folks. That's it. Because my daughter has no children. My son has 2 kids, but his 2 kids only have 1 kid, 1 baby. So I have 1 great-grandson. We will be all together.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

You said you didn't think family was important, and now obviously it's—

Now I think it is important by old age.

What caused the shift?

Because my inability of looking after myself and my husband. So we moved in here, and at this age now, I still drive. But I cannot take my husband. He needs help. And I can't take the car, him, and lift the walker into my car. So if I'm going somewhere myself, I take my car, which I believe 2 more years later, I'm going to give it up. Taking my last driver's license next week. After that, I'll drive 2 more years, I'll give up. And what was the question? I forgot.

I was in your story. I don't even remember what was the question I asked. I was in your story. I loved it. I think it was just talking about why did family become so important to you growing up.

Yeah. And I cannot have a big party. Oh yeah, my birthday party. And so we are going to have a small party. And after my daughter goes home to Los Angeles, I might make it up to have my sibling, my only sister living, who's 2 years younger. I have my brother-in-law's family, only family lives here in Toronto. And my sister's family, my brother-in-law's family, you put them together, It's going to be about 40 people. They have the children's children, children marry children. Anyway, maybe we will have a party if I live until then.

It's only a month away. You got lots of time. It's great.

Well, maybe.

Speaking of your husband, what's the greatest lesson you think you've learned from him over the years?

Don't agree with me. Okay, it is very important. If you hear, if you have a man that every time you say something he goes, yes, yes, yes, what is— there's no fun in life. You're married?

Yeah, yeah, I'm married.

Your wife doesn't say yes, yes, yes to you all the time.

That's true, she's, she's from China as well, so yeah, yeah, she's good.

She's from China, she must be telling you what to do. No, my father listened to my mother also, only in this simple living way. Career-wise, no. Career-wise, they're together, so they're compatible. I didn't say that, but he, my father, was the top person in sericulture in China before the communists took over. Now you probably will ask me, what is sericulture? You probably never heard of this word before. It's to do with silk. That means raise your silkworms, grow your mulberry trees well so that silkworms will benefit from the good mulberry leaves, and then the worms will produce very good silk which you can sell around the world or leave in China. To process into silk materials or such material called brocade. You probably heard brocade before, shiny with floral things, and it's made out of silk, pure silk. And that's where I came from.

And how was that transition coming to Canada?

Because this is the country you cannot grow silk, it was too cold. Too cold for growing of mulberry trees. So this culture would never come to China, to Canada. But we're coming, we came to Canada. You know why we came to Canada? It's kind of fun. When we're of university age, we ran, not university age, well, when I was 13 years old, the communists took over China. So my father, had worked for the previous government, we were well off enough to leave the country. So we moved down to Hong Kong, learned the language, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then when we finished high school, in between, my father worked for United Nations. So I lived in Afghanistan before. Salaam alaikum. Anyway, When I finished Form 5, those days, this is grade 12, 1950s, that if you go to the US, I was too lively. My parents didn't want me to go into Hollywood and get lost. And so we couldn't come go to Hollywood. United States, then they want to send us to England because my father was in Afghanistan. Of course, no school. So England, they're starving. They couldn't even feed their own people. You know, the best place, Canada. So we came to Canada. Well, when I first took him, when I first arrived in Canada, I almost died. Wow, what a boring city. Sunday, they close the doors of the theater. No movie theaters even. Yeah, you don't know that because you weren't there in the '50s. Imagine no movie theaters. I mean, the only entertainment when we arrive in a new country, what can you do? Well, anyway. They let you have in. They have theaters now. Yep, that's how we came to Canada.

How was that transition culture-wise for you?

It has really not much culture change because life in Hong Kong is very British. You know, Canadians are very British those days. And also, I went to American convent school. So I also was very American and I spoke English. There's really not much difference. Yeah. Only surprise you come here, you find out you cannot go to University of Toronto. You have to go to grade 13. So I attended grade 13 in Jarvis Collegiate for a whole year. Then I moved on to University of Toronto. Yeah.

What do you define as success and have you lived a successful life?

I found I live a successful life. I feel I've done very well career-wise. I worked for 26 years. I'm living on a very good pension and benefits from Ontario Hydro. You can't compare. Hydro is not the same anymore. They don't call them Ontario Hydro. They call them OPG, whatever, divided into 4 different companies. The people that's retired is Ontario Hydro. We still enjoy the benefit. And career-wise, the longest career I have was 26 years in Ontario Hydro. I done well playing bridge, but I can't play bridge, make a living. Not in Canada. You can do that in the US. Professional bridge players gets paid a lot of money to play with rich players who pay them a lot of money to play in competitions, in tournaments. But in Canada, we don't do that. They don't pay you. They gave you a good present just for fun. One time I played with someone. We drove down to Buffalo to play. We came back, let's put it this way, he gave me a great mink stole. It's how well you get paid, but we cannot accept money. That was before I started working as a— in the computer, with the computers.

So what would your definition of success be?

I have to say it two ways: a happy family life and a good career, challenging career that you can manage. That is my life, and I'm happy with my life.

As we wrap up, is there a final message that you want to share or story you want to share with the world?

A message I like to share with the world, it's not my ambition, it's my family. I feel at my old age, if I didn't have my children, I'd be very, very lonely. So of course you need to have children and children, children and happy family together. And whatever you do, you can do, to me, you can have a happy family and a life, a challenging life if you like. But without a family, you're really going to— I feel old age is very sad. Very, really. It is not fun when you are— when I'm at 90 taking care of a man almost 99. Well, we're here, so it's not bad.

Amazing. Thank you for sharing your story. We appreciate you.

Thank you. I enjoyed it.

And if you want to watch another amazing episode from Wisdom from the Elders, check it out right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there. All right, we've got Betty Ray with us here, 88 years old, with some awesome life advice and wisdom that we're gonna, we're gonna pull out. And you said you used to do this as a career, so—

I used to help people manage stress.