Reading: From TV Star to Happiness Guru

“Life is a series of reinventions,” says Alice Inoue, founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Happiness U. In this episode, CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour sits down with Alice to explore her extraordinary journey of continuous reinvention. From her beginnings in Taiwan and Japan to becoming a television star, an astrologer, a wedding officiant, and finally the creator of Happiness U in Honolulu, Alice’s story is a testament to the power of following your heart and embracing change. Tune in to discover how Alice navigated each transition, overcame societal expectations, and found her true calling in helping others achieve mental and emotional wellness.

LJS: Hi, Alice. I am so psyched to talk to you. You are like, reinvention central.

AI: I am so happy to be here. I’ve never been asked about reinvention before, and it’s actually the thing I love to talk most about. So I’m so grateful to have this opportunity.

LJS: Awesome. So you have, like, so many reinvention stories here. I don’t know where to begin. Maybe just [starting] chronologically might be the best thing. Keep it tight, because we … have a lot of space to cover. But just tell me, you know, how you grew up. So did you grow up in Japan and [is that] where you started?  We’ll get the timeframe so everybody understands all the reinventions you’ve had, and then we’ll talk about how each one was done.

AI: Okay. So, I was born in San Francisco. I grew up in Taiwan, so Chinese was my first language. And I went to university in America, and I grew up here in California, and I never really knew what I wanted to do. And so I proceeded to just do a little bit of everything. And I lived in Japan for a couple years as well. And when I kind of, I guess, became an adult, let’s just say early twenties, I moved to Hawaii, and I really did not know what I wanted to do. I mean, I majored in biology, but I just did that because my parents said I should be a doctor. It was just really interesting because I never knew who I was. And so I spent my whole life searching, and in each search, I was able to sort of come up with an identity, a professional identity. And when that didn’t work, I would reinvent and reinvent. So the series really starts with, I just was working as an admin assistant and then moved into the world of television. After having a really successful kind of television career in Japan and Hawaii, I then sort of found astrology and became an astrologer and then started a business with that. Simultaneously, I became a wedding officiant and performed over 900 weddings. And then at one point, I decided to completely shift into opening a brick and mortar business called Happiness U, which is now, which we are celebrating our 10th anniversary this month. And this is where we teach people about… mental, emotional wellness and helping people solve problems in life. So it’s… I think we counted one time… I’ve had over 42 jobs or professions in my life.

LJS:  Holy moly. And these are not, I want people to understand, let’s not sort of run over. You were a television star. You sort of ran over that. You were actually a television star and had a lot of tv shows. Can you give us an idea of, like, you know, what that means?

AI: Oh, so I worked for a company called Japan TV News. I’m bilingual, and so I did a bilingual newscast in English and Japanese. And also because of that, companies wanted me to represent them. Nike, Polo Ralph Lauren, these big companies, Sephora. They would pay me money, give me product, and I was a spokesperson. And, I had a television show that had millions of followers in Japan. So I became sort of a well known figure over there at a period of time. So that was a real career. But I’ll just tell you, it was fulfilling until it wasn’t. And life is a series of reinventions. Honestly, it is, whether it’s active or passive. And I’ve learned that it can be both.

Why was being in the public eye unfulfilling for you?

LJS: Talk to me about the unfulfilling part, because that’s a lot of reasons why women reinvent, is they get to this point where they’ve done the thing they wanted to do. They get there, and they’re kind of shocked that it’s not what they thought and they find fulfilling is a word that comes up a lot. Why was it unfulfilling? I mean, being in the public eye and having millions of followers.

AI: Exactly right. You would think that was like, that was the dream, right? To have followers, to have money, to have, like, fame. I could go anywhere and people would buy food for me. And itwas just, it was really amazing. But I didn’t know at the time what it meant to be purposeful in what you do. I believe it was at that time that lack of fulfillment was simply because I didn’t feel like I was using my full potential, but I didn’t know what that was, if that makes any sense at all. So I really needed the universe to take everything away so that I could find what I really wanna do. So when, I mean, active and passive, this one, I didn’t have any choice, but there was a higher purpose for me. So the one thing is, if something is taken away from you, you lose your job, you lose whatever is the community, anything that is taken away from you. I know that there’s a higher purpose, and that is the absolute moment of reinvention opportunity. So, yes,  I thought it was great what I did. I would never give it up. That would be ridiculous. But it had to be taken away from me.

You got fired from Japan TV News in 2000 and went into wedding officiating

LJS:  Can you explain that? You say here you got fired from Japan TV News. So what happened?

AI: Interestingly, I, at that time, had a lot of – everything was going well, so to speak. And I need to kind of bring this in because it’s a part of it. Three years prior to the day I got fired, someone had given me an astrology session. Now, I wasn’t into astrology. I thought I didn’t know what that was, but the coupon or whatever, the certificate was going to expire. So I went and got this reading, and this gentleman told me all about myself, but I didn’t believe that that was relevant because he had, you know, I was in the newspapers here, and there’s bios on me all over the place. So I just didn’t really think it was, you know, he was really telling me anything. I didn’t know. But he did tell me in three years time, on April 1, the month of April, that I was going to go through a reinvention, that I was going to have a facelift of sorts when it comes to my profession. So back then we used the palm pilot. I don’t know if you remember that, the little…

LJS: Oh, my god, I remember a palm pilot. Hilarious. I forgot about that.

AI: I did not know about the palm pilot, but it was the first little electronic, little device you could carry around with your calendar. So I went into the palm pilot I had at the time and I went forward three years. And in April 1 of that year of 2000, I wrote in there, astrologer says, Pluto reinvents my life path. And I really didn’t think much about it, forgot about it. But anyway, I walked into Japan TV News on April 1 of that year 2000. And guess what the boss said? Hey, we’re an affiliate of Fuji television. We’ve sold our division. That’s the good news. The bad news is they didn’t buy your newscast so you can go and get unemployment. So I walked down to the unemployment office, it was down the street from our studio. And I had forgotten about this, what the astrologer said. And I opened up my palm pilot and on that day, it had the note I had that astrologer said, Pluto changes your life. And I’ll just tell you, it was like the heaven saying and the angels came down and all I could think about was, I need to figure out how to do this. How do people calculate, you know, life cycles? And so that dove me into that and I’ll just tell you, it was one of the hardest reinventions because at that time, now it’s kind of cool and trendy, people think, ooh, astrology, that’s cool. Back then, weirdo. And, all of the people thought I’d fallen off my rocker. Oh, she was this television star. Now she’s doing what? Astrology. So that was a tough reinvention, but it was a fulfilling one. And I knew I had found my path, my, let’s just call it this final phase of my life, that has gotten me to where I am today.

LJS: Where is that astrologer? Did you contact him again? Did you track him down as part of your..

AI: He was [an] older gentlemen. He ended up passing away. Yeah. And we did form a relationship. And it was him who kind of got me started on learning that and creating that as a profession for myself. So astrology is the first entryway into helping others, which is what Happiness U does.

LJS: Wow. Amazing. So from there, you went to be a wedding officiant in Hawaii.

AI: So then this is what happened. So, I’ll share with you at the very end, if you want, … my things to think of? Because I have helped people through reinventing after reinvention after reinvention in … the course of my profession, current profession. But what was your question again?

LJS: No, I was just saying, how did you transfer from … Japan News?

AI: Oh, yeah.

LJS: Yeah, and why did you end up doing weddings?

AI: Okay, so here in Hawaii, … it’s a beautiful place to live, and people often will come here to do a wedding. And I remembered how so many Japanese people would come here to do weddings. And I thought, wow, I’m a well known person in Japan. Wouldn’t they hire me to do their wedding? And so I’ll just tell you what I did was kind of weird because the only wedding officiants here at the time were these older gentlemen that maybe I want to just say, like, dinosaur guys. It’s just like, hi, we’re gathered here together for yourself, like, really boring kind of stuff. And I thought, you know, ceremony should be really special. So I went to the extreme in terms of creating what I thought a wedding ceremony should look like. And, funny enough, I didn’t get Japanese wedding people, but I ended up getting a lot of locals, and I ended up just reinventing the wedding industry here, that you don’t have to be an older male to do ceremony, that you can be a young female. And so I basically simultaneously studied astrology to become an astrologer while I was building a wedding practice. And so by the time I had graduated or decided to retire from weddings, I had had ten years of ceremonies, marrying over 900 couples.

LJS: Holy moly. Fabulous. That’s incredible. That’s amazing.

You started out doing weddings and then went into feng shui

LJS: Okay. And it just occurs to you to do different things. It’s not like it’s in any old thing. It just, it’s when it happens and then you move with it.

AI: Yes. And I’ll just say that along the way, every single step, people said, no, what are you doing? Go get a job. Get a profession. Be a, you know, you’re jack of all trades. You’re a master of none. But did you know the phrase for that? Jack of all trades, master of none. That’s what we know. But the real saying is. But much better than being a master of one.

LJS:  Ooh, I do not know that part of it. Where did it come from?

AI: You know, that I don’t know. But I do know that the original phrase is jack of all trades, master of none, but much better than a master of one. And so I realized that if you have a desire to be, do, have, you know, have a career, a profession, whatever it is, you can create it. I am the absolute living proof of that because people say, oh, you can’t be a wedding [officiant]. Who are you? You, you’re just a girl, you know? And I looked a little younger from my age at the time. And so in my thirties I was doing this, I looked like I was [in my] twenties, like, who would want a girl minister? But I related to females and we could create a really nice ceremony. And then I started training other women who wanted to do it and I, it’s like, you can do it, but people think you can’t and you have to fight them along the way and say, this is what I want. Like, why can’t a female do it? You know what? I didn’t see why not. and so it was I guess a bit of courage, a bit of just really saying… When people say, follow your heart, what does it mean? It means that somehow, deep inside of you, it feels so right that no matter what other people say to you, you just have to inch forward and tell yourself where you want to be.

LJS:  Right. So then after that, then you ended up doing astrology and then into happiness U. Is that correct? Yeah.

AI: So very good. So, yeah, so I was doing the weddings and I was at weekends and then during the weekdays I was doing deep studies on astrology, which is the concept that the planets, the cycle of the planets, impact your life. My other half, he was very supportive and he says, if the planets impact your life, what about your surroundings? Why don’t you add feng shui to your business? Because, then you can actually talk about people’s life cycles. You can talk about how people interact in their environment. So then I went and got certified in feng shui, and then started to practice that, going to people’s homes and helping them kind of shape the energy of their homes. And then that was what I did for a while. And then I realized, and this is really interesting, a lot of people would blame how they are on their sign, oh, I’m a Scorpio. That’s why I have resentment. Or people would say, oh, I have a bathroom in the wealth corner. That’s why I’m not wealthy. And I realized, no, it’s not the planets, it’s not your environment. They absolutely have impact on your life, but you have to choose to have better money management skills. There’s an element of you involved. So then I started getting into human consciousness and the ability that we have as individuals to absolutely sort of form our life in the way that we want it, and I worked as a life guide doing astrology. I still do it, doing feng shui. I don’t do that, but I really help people in their life, understanding the bigger picture and that they have every ability to create the life that they want. And then how I let go of weddings was I wanted to have a bigger platform for this. So I opened Happiness U. It was the first of its kind at the time. It’s a brick and mortar. It was. Now we’re online. But it was an actual space, a classroom where people learn. Yeah, we had one right in the mall. And we had classes. I had teachers that would teach on their areas of expertise of mental well-being. We had members. People would come and take classes on things like Irritating People 101, Life Purpose 101.

LJS: I like that. Irritating People.

AI: That’s good.

LJS: I like that.

AI: One of our most popular ones, like Irritating People 101. So just kind of learning how to deal with life stuff, how to get past who we are, trust in who we are, move to where we need to be. And so, Happiness U is my full time work right now. And under that does come with my personal astrology sessions, of course, but we really do end up serving a larger faction of people. So I work with corporate companies, very large ones now.

LJS: And so is Happiness U an online thing now or what? It’s interesting. And you were in… So it started out bricks and mortar in, ah, early.

AI: Yeah, eight, nine years. We had a physical classroom of people coming in. Just think of, like a college where people would come in on the weekend to pick what classes they wanted to take. Yeah, it was really cool. But, yeah, after the pandemic, it just was… I lost all that momentum of in-person. We now have an online, we call it a hui. Hui in Hawaiian means a gathering of like-minded people. So we have an online hui. It’s like a little membership group where all these resources are available. and then my day to day is really just doing corporate training on mindset.

LJS:  Oh, interesting.

Almost everything is about mindset, and we have the ability to change perspective

LJS: So why don’t we talk a little bit about that? Because I do believe that almost everything is about mindset. I’ve come to that late. I didn’t realize how impactful that was, and I also didn’t realize, I see with other people, how it can hold them back. What have you discovered?

AI: Mindset and how you set your mind is everything. How you feel comes from how you set your mind, your perspective. So you can’t change how you feel unless you change how you think. So when people say, oh, I shouldn’t feel this way, you’re going to feel however you feel. And I think we need to honor that. But if you want to feel differently, we need to set our mind looking at different perspectives. And I think if you’re going to distill everything I just talked about, what did I learn? It’s all perspective, and we have the ability to change perspective, and that has changed my life.

LJS: So for people who are listening to somebody like you, because it sounds easy, it sounds like, oh, she just, you know, figured this out, and then she, you know, segued to this other thing.

Give us an idea in all these transitions, what were the struggles?  Give us an idea, a story or two in the transition. Yeah, what were the struggles, and how did you get over those struggles? Because that’s what a lot of people run into, is the struggle to make money or the struggle to, you know, it’s not happening soon enough. Should I abandon it? Should I stay with it? I mean, what were your struggles?

AI: My struggles were, I like to be liked by other people, and I like people to support me and cheer me on. And I think not being accepted was the hardest. The acceptance aspect, where people would say, I’m doing it the wrong way. And that, to me, was the hardest because having to just imagine, fortunately, my partner has always been supportive. But, just, the people around you – remember now, I was a public figure, so everywhere I walked, people would say, what are you doing now? What it was? And I think the hardest one and the one that really woke me up was I was so happy I had started doing astrology. I just started making a little brochure, and I was at Kinko’s and kind of cutting my own brochure. I was really proud of myself. And then this old television producer walked in. A television producer, not old, but he walked in, what are you doing? Oh, my gosh. And I’m doing astrology. And then he started singing that song that song from Twilight Zone… All this shame came over me, and it was just like, I just felt sick. And I think it was the acceptance. When you say, what is the most difficult thing and how I got through it was…I really, at that time, started to do, sort of meditation. So not maybe like, sitting there with my eyes closed, but just sitting with myself and journaling. And if you spend time with yourself, and you get to listen to yourself,it becomes harder and harder to betray yourself, to please others. And so I guess for me, my struggle was … just moving through what I think is right versus what other people think is right.

LJS: I understand that. I ran into that when I left magazines. And people would say to me, when I opened up Covey Club, they were like, oh, my goodness, you have such a great reputation. Why would you risk it all?

AI: Yes.

LJS: And I’m like, well, they’re like, what if it fails? I’m like, if it fails, it fails. Like, I can’t not take the chance. Yes, right?

AI: Yes. Let me tell you this one story that I think will sum it all up. I wanted to open Happiness U. I had never been a business owner. Like, to be a business owner with a brick and mortar and leases and commercials. It’s a whole different story than just working out of your, you know, out of a little office… I tried to write a lot of books. I like to write books. And so one day I was trying to write a book, and I just couldn’t get started. And I did what I would do to my clients. I asked myself, what do you really want? And this thought came, I want to teach people how to be happy, because I’ve been doing hundreds, if not thousands, of these sessions. And all people want is to be fulfilled, to live purposefully. Like, I want to help people do that. And so I had the idea, let me open a brick and mortar school. And then I started writing out a business plan. And I was so excited and told people. Everyone thought it was a great idea. I wanted to call it the school of life. But, anyway, I went to the bank, with a business plan, and they looked at me and said, why would you want to do this? Like, just coach online? Like, this is ridiculous. Why would you want to spend all this money? No, we’re not going to give you a loan. So then I went and reworked it all again, all the numbers, membership numbers, and all my vision, dreams, hopes. And I went back to them and they said, okay, because I kind of knew the bank people. And they said, okay, we see you have this amount of money in your bank and your savings. We will give you half the amount of money you need, and we need you to have skin in the game. And that money that I had in the bank was hard earned money. It was like every minute I did something – that wasn’t like I got it in the stock market. It was like hard-earned money. And so I felt so disheartened. And I remember just feeling so, so sad that my dream of Happiness U I thought it was a great idea – it’s not going to happen. Well, interestingly enough, a day or so later I was driving to do a wedding, actually. And it was a little bit rainy on the road, and all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this car sort of like slide in, like awkwardly. And I thought, oh, no, something’s happening. And I hit my brake. And I’ll tell you, my car started spinning. and when people say, oh, I left my body, I left my body, I remember. All I could remember was this voice, my own voice said, oh, my God, is this it? Does life end just like that? Oh, my God. And the next thing I knew, I was in my car. Cars were honking. No crash. I was an inch away from the guy that was sliding over, and I was very shook up. But the next day, or maybe later that day, I thought to myself, I can either die with money in the bank or I can die in debt, but I cannot die with this dream. And so I went and I spent all my savings, plus more. And I will say, honestly, it did not go the way I wanted in the first few years. By year three, I was $90,000 in credit card debt.

So it’s not easy when you follow that path. But I really believed that people needed whatever it is that I was or we were offering at our place. And, you know, sure enough, here we are in ten years, and I can actually look back and say it’s been a, ah, hard journey, but we are a profitable business now, and we found who we are and how to show up in the world.

LJS:  Unbelievable. Did you. I hope you made your investment back.

AI: Oh, absolutely.

LJS: Fantastic.

AI: :That plus more. And I really believe that I needed to go through these lessons that I had never been through before, of really that whole lack mentality that we seem to have, you know, of feeling safe. And so I think it’s really just that we…  it’s a very hard thing because money is a real thing. We need money to live. It’s real. It’s not just, oh, go follow your dream and just throw up all your money. So a strategy. And I did have a strategy. It didn’t work, initially, but along the way, the amazing synchronicities that came to keep me moving forward is what actually saved me. So I do want to say that I have worked with thousands of people through this. And, you really can’t go wrong if you look at the big picture of what you’re getting throughout the whole reinvention process.

It was just trusting yourself more than anything, and spending time with myself

LJS:  So what other struggles did you run into? Were there any others and lessons learned, specific ones that you can offer to people who think, I’d like to do what she did? Are there any very specific things, kind of tactical?

AI: : Yeah. Looking back, I think what it is, is we get really confused with the voices outside of ourselves, and then we start doubting ourselves. And so the tactic and the strategy at that time, I don’t do this anymore, but at the time, I did a lot of journaling and asking myself questions of what was important to me, because I really believe that we are the center of our own universe and we have the power to do and create, but if we are not clear about what we want and we’re partly following other people, and people give advice in the name of love, but it really is through a filter of what they think is best for you, and no one really knows what’s right for you. So I would say it was just spending time with myself more than anything, and trusting myself. and again, I will go to say I don’t have an education in terms of, you know, any kind of thing, anything I’m doing now, I don’t. I don’t have any official education. So it was, it was just, I guess it’s been a journey of trusting more than anything. And the only way you can trust yourself is to get to know yourself, just like you would get to know someone else and then trust them.

What was the biggest surprise in your reinventions? That it always worked out

LJS:  What was the biggest surprise in your reinventions?

AI:  That it always worked out. That once I stepped, even if there was seemingly no foundation to step upon, it’s almost like the people, the situation, the circumstances came to greet me. So if I was waiting for things to happen, it might not have happened. But if I stepped out with some sort of courageous boldness, trusting the people, and the synchronicities would show up. And I think the most important thing is whenever you see a synchronicity, to me, that is the universe’s way of telling you you’re on the right path.

LJS:  Yeah, you have to be aware, too, of the synchronicities. You have to be aware that it’s happening.

AI:  Yes, yes. And it’s the language, I feel, that is always ever present for us, to support us through that. But a lot of noise comes up whenever we’re unsure. It’s all this noise. So it’s becoming certain of what you want to do. And then when you step, if it is right for you, the situation and circumstances will come, and not always in the way that you wanted. Like, look at my story with Happiness U, year three, horrible. But there was so much other than money. I got people and support and creativity, and it was just… it was a learning journey all along. So if we approach a reinvention as a journey of growth and learning, and one that is actually true to ourselves, then you can’t really go wrong. It’s much better than being stuck. And that’s why people have coaches and they have people support, and they have people that can kind of help usher them, help them find that voice that’s right for them. And sometimes there’s things that other people can show you as steps to take that you couldn’t have thought of yourself.

LJS:  Right. Definitely. There’s always something to learn from someone who’s done it.

LJS: Just as we close, one of the things you said about not waiting for it to happen but stepping out, I hear that a lot from reinventors who are frustrated that they’re doing all this stuff. They’re making all these changes, and they’re waiting for something to happen. And I keep telling them it’s not like the fairy godmother is going to come down and say, look at you. You made all these changes here, the great things that are going to happen to you. What is that fulcrum there between I’ve done my part, now where’s the world? And making it happen, because I know people. I think about making everything happen. I know that I believe no one’s going to help me, so I’ve got to do it all myself. But there seems to be, and I don’t know if it’s just women, because I haven’t talked to a lot of men, but there definitely seems to be, oh, if I do it all right, fairy godmother’s coming down.

AI: Yeah. And I think there’s just so many definitions of right. And so you keep tweaking, and you keep tweaking, and you keep tweaking. I think that if you know it’s right within your heart, you will keep going. And you can ask for signs, too, because maybe it isn’t right, but it’s like as long as you feel in your heart of hearts that it’s right, it really is right. And you’re getting everything you need along the way, just not the results that you’re looking for.

LJS:  Where can everybody find you?

AI: Oh, you can find us at our website, yourhappinessu.com, and u, as in university. So it’s yourhappinessu.com. Yeah, and we have a hui. We have a nice group of lots of resources. This kind of talk is sort of what we do quite often. One of the things I do have, if I can say, is I have a psychometric system, a personality assessment.

LJS: Yeah, talk about that. I didn’t know what that is. Okay.

AI: It’s at masteryoursuperpowers.com, and you take this ten minute assessment, and it gives you your archetype, and it really tells you, like, I’ll use the word your superpowers, but the things that you’re really great at, the things that you have to watch out for, your purpose, it gives all sorts of insights just from a few questions. And it’s all based on the ancient Chinese five element system. And I created this assessment, and it’s being used by McDonald’s now for teachers. I use it in hundreds of company trainings. But most importantly, individuals find it to be really inspiring because it seems to kind of… It’s a mixture of words that describe you in a way that maybe no one else has described you, and that gives a lot of people inspiration to see the upsides of who they are.

LJS:  Fantastic. Alice, it has been wonderful getting to know you. And just like all the Covey members out there, you’re an incredible overachiever, and we love you for that, because that is the mission of all the Covey Club women out there. So thank you so much for your time.

AI: Thank you, Lesley.