22. The Unconventional Journey of Irena Nakamura: Breaking Free from Traditional Expectations

Good morning. You are listening to Visible Panty Lines, AKA vpl, the pod. And if you've been listening for the several weeks, I think we're on episode 14 now. If I am 14, 15, 16, somewhere around there. We've been just blessed to be chatting with so many cool guests. And these are all transparent conversations of inspiration, encouragement, and overcoming adversity. And I am fortunate to be today to be speaking with Irene Nakamura. And she just has a really, really cool story, career, life. So we're going to talk all about that today. Hi, Irene.

Hi, Janae. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

We are so happy that you are here.

So now you were sort of pitched to me by a PR friend of mine, someone that I really trust and respect in the industry. And, you know, she sort of describes you as a power woman.

Oh, really? That's wonderful.

We love power. Talking to other power women who, you know, can really inspire us. So tell our listeners a little bit about your background, what you do, your career.

Well, I, I own a court reporting and litigation support firm. I have offices in Honolulu, Los Angeles and near Seattle. And I started out as a court reporter, a freelancer, and then I ended up working in federal court as a court reporter, an official court reporter. And then after I left there, I freelanced for a little bit and I opened up my own company during radiation treatment of having cancer. I decided to open it up, yeah, while I was, you know, lying down, being radiant during radio.

I'm sure a lot of people out there can relate to that journey, unfortunately. And so you launched your business during this cancer journey.

Yes. What led me to that is, you know, I was working for a company and I had my surgery, my cancer surgery scheduled for the Friday before December. And however, they had called me and they're like, hey, we really need you to take on this, this job. It's a six day deposition. It's all day. The client is requesting you, and he's very demanding and, you know, we really want. Yeah, yeah. And he, you know, he's an important client. Could you please do it? And I'm like, well, I have surgery on Friday. You know, if you're okay with me putting in the transcripts after the holiday, you know, after I kind of heal a little bit, you know, I'm okay with it. But they usually wanted, they wanted it right away. And, and I said, well, I think you better find another reporter. And they, and then they agreed to do it. And then I did my due diligence. I talked to the client. And I said, look, I need to finish by Thursday because Friday have surgery. I talked to, There were like 40 defense attorneys and I talked to all them and they're like, irene, there's no judge on the bench during Christmas and everything. Don't worry about it. You know, I'm like, okay. And then, you know, and then I did the, I did the six days and it was like 150 to 300 pages a day. It was long. And then. But when I got home after surgery, you know, I had like, my voicemail was full. I had I don't know how many emails of, you know, you're so unprofessional. You didn't return our calls today. You didn't.

Have cancer and are having surgery while. Right? Yeah.

And it's just, it's just really not my MO to respond to calls during surgery.

Yeah, I would say that that's a realistic request to make that people, you know, expect you not to return their call. I mean, geez. Well, I mean, I feel like everybody can relate to having been in some sort of situation where it's. People are being unreasonably demanding on you. And I feel like this will lead me to the next thing I want to talk about with you. But I feel like as a woman, especially in business, in any sort of business or industry, there are certain expectations. I mean, I just had an encounter last night with a celebrity publicist who was not only being completely unreasonable via email, refusing to make a statement, but wanted me to essentially remove his client's name from an already published story that had been researched and properly cited and all this stuff. But you know, I kind of felt like, okay, first of all, you're emailing at 7:30 at night, you're doing like all these inappropriate things. And it made me wonder like if I were a man in this position. Not to mention he's Talking to a 20 year veteran journalist, you know.

Right, right.

But I wondered, just being a woman, like oftentimes I feel like you encounter these circumstances where they are expecting more. And definitely that is a case that happened to you. Now you are obviously our listeners can't see you. You are a Japanese American woman.

Yes.

So you are someone that has faced cultural sort of, I guess, norms that you've had to kind of overcome and battle with your own family and upbringing and then also being a minority woman, you know, in a kind of high position. So how you've kind of dealt with that.

Well, I, I was raised as my mother raised me, I guess as being Trapped by tradition in a, you know, male dominated, male importance culture, you know, so my brother was always more important than I ever was. I was important for five years until my brother came along and then he had everything was for the boy, for the son. My, My mom named her company after him. My mom.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

And she, she always grew me to become a wife and a mother, and she would select my husband, which she did. And I did end up marrying him, you know.

Oh, wow.

That was my purpose in life, you know, it was.

So you had an arranged marriage. Are you still married?

It wasn't arranged. It was more selected. You know, I think an arrange is like from when you were young, you know, but this is when I was older. She was always checking to see, you know, who would be appropriate, where the family would approve. And actually, you know, my, my grandmother had done a background check on him and everything.

Wow. So are you still married to him?

No, I'm not.

No, I'm not.

Sorry to get. I mean, it took me so much. Yeah, it took me so much to.

To.

To speak up for myself. You know, two years into the marriage, I had talked to my mother and he's a really good person, you know. He's a good person, you know, it's just that I didn't select him.

Right. It's hard if you're. I mean, you should be able to marry someone that you're in love with.

Right. You know, I do love him as a person, you know, I just was never in love with him. But with all that, after a couple years of being married, you know, I told my mom I would really like to leave this relationship, you know, and she said, we don't divorce, you know.

In a lot of cultures. I just had this conversation with somebody else, and I'm actually after you. I'm talking to a divorced expert.

I told you earlier, there's always a common yes.

Yes. And, and I said, well, but, but Mom, I'm not happy. And she said, it doesn't matter if you're happy. What matters is, is if he is happy, you go support your husband. That's what we do, you know, we support our husbands no matter what. And so I did that for the next 15 years.

Wow. Wow. And you have a double master's degree in Ivy League education. Like, you are an accomplished woman. So is this something that also wasn't sort of like culturally acceptable for you?

Actually, I don't have a double master's degree. That's my brother's degree.

Oh, I'm reading here Quickly through. Yeah.

So that's my brother's degree. I was not allowed to go to college until.

Until he graduated college and he went for, like, forever. Yeah.

So by the time he graduated, I would have been in my late 30s. I don't know if they keep SAT scores for that long. Oh, my gosh.

That's.

Yeah, that's insane.

Like, I know, definitely, I've heard with the Japanese culture that there are some really stringent kind of things, but I've never really heard sort of the ins and outs. And this is. That's pretty intense. Like, so essentially, you're putting your life and your goals on hold while someone that is. He's younger than you.

Yeah. Accomplishes his. So once he got through that, then you were able to.

Yeah, then I was allowed to do that. But, you know, when I was young, I just, you know, nothing wrong with being a wife and a mother. I just wanted to have my own career, you know, I wanted to. My own career. So what I did was when I was 18, I decided to enroll myself into a trade school for court reporting. And that's a court reporter.

Wow. Okay, so you had. Everything was good. Your cancer, thank God, cleared. So everything went well there, right?

Yes, I was very fortunate.

Yeah, exactly. So then that all happened. You go into this court reporting career and what's it like? In the beginning, you know, it was really scary.

I think even today, there are not as many women attorneys. However, when I first started, it was predominantly male attorneys, you know, so it's. It's tough being a young female, you know, in a room full of older men attorneys, basically.

Yeah. Yeah.

They don't always treat you with respect, you know. Oh, you're just, you know. Yeah. So that was always a challenge as a business person, and that's what prompted me to start my business was that whole cancer situation, you know, where after I, you know, I ended up working on Christmas Day trying to get transcript out and. And I ended up working that whole holiday trying to get everything done. And then my family was like, well, why don't you just start your own thing? You know, people had always been asking me, and then I was like, no, I don't want to be a business owner. You know, I don't know if I want to do all that. But I decided after that experience, you know what? I think I would like to do that so that, you know, my. My court reporters aren't, you know, my.

Court reporters did the way that you were, essentially.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

Plus you're, you know, I mean, the one benefit. Sometimes I complain about being self employed and a freelancer, but there are benefits in that you can sort of make your own schedule, you can set your own parameters. You definitely learn a lot about boundary setting and that sort of thing, but you're not really relegated to someone else's terms. So if you needed to take some time off and heal yourself and get through an illness, you know, you could do that. So that's, I guess, sort of one of the benefits to it. And you, you talk about. I'm reading there was an article written about you that's pretty thorough, I would say, actually. And you referred to, you know, the industry that you kind of entered into as the old boys club, which I think a lot of people out there that are listening are in industries that are similar. The crazy thing is, even in the bra industry, I refer to it that way, and you would think bras are something that are sort of synonymous with being a woman, but really the people that run the companies are men. You know, that's why I love. I don't know if you heard that song by Jax. She performed it on New Year's Eve. She kind of became a big deal. It's called Victoria's Secret. And basically the secret is that Victoria's Secret is a made up woman by a man who lives in Ohio. You know, Columbus, Ohio, ties to Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, all the terrible, terrible things that you can think of. But, you know, he was a clothing retailer and saw a way to make money off the fact that women, you know, wanted sexier bras and wanted push up bras and that sort of thing. And he, you know, started Victoria's Secret. And it's like my experience being in, you know, as a bra expert, writing the bra book and, you know, working with bra brands is that a lot of them are largely run by men. So it's like interesting where you're like a woman that is out there advocating for bras and profit, but then you are kind of encountering the same old boys club, I guess, that you speak of.

Yeah. And those clubs are in every industry, most industries.

Yes. It's so relatable. That's why I kind of wanted to, I guess, sort of pinpoint that as part of your journey. Because I think a lot of people can relate to being, you know, a lot of women out there can really relate to having these sort of roadblocks to face throughout their career, just simply being a woman.

Exactly, exactly. And that's why it's really important to surround yourself with, you know, Power people that uplift you and, you know, help you keep going and pursuing and not quitting on your dream or your path or your road or whatever you're trying to accomplish.

Yeah, exactly. Just keep persevering. Now, we obviously just went through this global pandemic that sort of impacted kind of everybody. How did you sort of pivot through that?

Well, we were the first out of the gate, you know, to provide remote proceedings because we had already been doing them. We just sort of perfected it and we brought in, like, moderators which are like remote exhibit techs. And these exhibit texts are also. They pinpoint any connection issues. We provided training on Zoom and teams and, you know, all the different webex, all the different platforms so that, you know, attorneys and witnesses can appear for their legal proceedings. And we provided someone there with them during every proceeding. And we still do that to today where, you know, they don't have to worry so much about, oh, gosh, now how do I share screen or how do I send this exhibit, or how do I, you know, scroll or make it bigger or, you know, this document is on the side, how do I turn it? You know, just all those kinds of things. We provided all that. And so that part was okay, you know. Yeah, we were. We survived the pandemic. So that's a good thing.

Yeah, that's absolutely a wonderful thing because so many people did not. I personally was hurt by it pretty severely and then launched my own brand on qvc. So then entered into, you know, owning this business that it's like, of course, you know, it takes many years before you start actually making money off of it and that sort of thing, so.

Oh, gosh, yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of people had a tough time. I mean, we had a tough time too, because I think, you know, no one was really ready. A lot of people were afraid of Zoom and, you know, the different platforms. And so giving that the training and things like that, I think was very helpful so that they felt more comfortable doing it. Yeah. And now it's like a norm, right?

Oh, my gosh. Now it's like that, honestly, is one thing that I say it's a really good thing that came out of what we went through is that have been able to establish more kind of accommodating work situations. And I think for like, a lot of working moms, especially, you know, who had to really juggle before and try to figure out how to work like a 9 to 5 job, when your kid gets off the school bus at 3:30 or whatever, it's like, this is much more conducive for a lot of lifestyles. Or they'll schedule a soccer practice, you know, at 3:45. It's like, how do you.

Be, you.

Know, in two places at once when, you know, most of us do work? So I think that it really created, like, that showing that we can do a lot more from home and able to, like, just have more of a career that accommodates your life. Really, too, like your personal life.

Right. Work life balance.

Yeah, that. Work life balance. So I think that that's, like, one really great thing that has come out of that, that whole terrible time. What would your advice be for a woman who's looking to branch out of her industry and start on her own? What would be your best tip?

I would say, you know, define what you want to do, and don't talk to people that you know are going to criticize your idea or that's going to undermine your dream. You know, make sure that who you bounce ideas off of is somebody who is truly wanting your success, you know, who truly believes in you. Because a lot of women, I think, you know, we. We think, okay, we're gonna do this thing, and. And someone will say, gosh, you want to do that? Sounds like gonna work, you know? Yeah. And then easily you get derailed. Or maybe I shouldn't, or maybe I'll do.

It. Could be your own family. That is the one. Like, the people closest to you might not really have your best interest at heart.

Right. And they might be, you know, some, like my mom would always say, well, what would everyone think, you know, if I. If I do this or if I allow you to do that, you know, and so watch out who you talk to. Like, really think about it, you know, how do you feel after you talk with this friend, confidant, family member, you know?

So true. Yeah.

Take a look at. How do you feel after you talk with them? Do you feel good or do you feel bad? If you feel bad and you're always trying to avoid them, like at family dinners or get togethers for whatever, you know, that's not the person you confided.

Right.

Don't comply with that person when you're starting a business or that's why I say, find your power. People can go after your dream.

That's so true. Like, one of our past guests, she's really interesting, Eliza Van Cort. And she wrote a book called Claiming Space. And her whole thing is, like, women basically make themselves smaller, keep themselves small in order to sort of appease what Society expects us to do. And I just did an article with her for the online magazine that I'm.

An editor for that.

Yeah, hello, giggles.com. i'll send you the link. So basically, the article is about, like, avoiding emotional vampires. And there are. And that is essentially those people that, like, when you know that you're going to go hang out with them, you get that, like, feeling in the pit of your stomach, like, oh, I really. You might really love that person. They might be your aunt or even parent or whatever. And it doesn't necessarily have to be someone that you don't love or doesn't love you, but you just know that person is not going to make you feel good after the encounter. So it's kind of like, yes, you can't always avoid them, but to your point, you can avoid taking your business idea or growth idea to them because they're not going to give you what you need, essentially. Right.

And, you know, start analyzing before so that you know who it is that you need to speak to.

That's so true. Like, I, I definitely can think of a couple people that I, you know, would go to with certain things, but I wouldn't go to them with maybe other things. So. And then there are those people that are just generally always encouraging, you know, so it's like, I guess, having the right people around you. But then again, there is something to be said for people that are honest. So if something truly is a bad idea or might really be bad for you, it's not a bad idea for a person that will, you know, look at it critically and say, okay, these are the reasons why it might not be the best for you, but if it's something that you really know in your heart that you really want to pursue, there's no reason why you can't pursue it.

You know, the person who is your power person is there to listen to you and encourage you with your dream, but maybe help sculpt your. Your path a little bit. Like, you have this. This idea, you know, however, maybe they're like, okay, that's a great goal at the end, but how are you going to get there? And then, you know, maybe pivot a little bit here and there. How about if you go this route and do this other thing, you know, where there's still. There's still a positive factor in there, but they may redirect you in a different way, but you're still going to be, you know. Yeah, but at the end, you're. You're still going to reach whatever goal that you want, you know, but maybe it's a different way or maybe it's a different path, but at least they're not going to put down the fact that you want to start your own business.

You know, that's so true. Right. And there is a difference, even if it's just a subtle difference. And chances are you know it already, you know, off the bat. Well, thank you so much, Irene. This has been amazing. Now, where can people find you if they want to look for you or your services?

They can find me on Instagram at Irene Nakamura, author or LinkedIn at Irene Nakamura. My company is idepohawaii.com.

For the mainland.

Awesome. Thank you so much. You have been listening to Visible Panty Lines. New episodes drop every Sunday morning at 8:30.