Building Your Own Bridge | with Keoni Lee
Some people wait for opportunities to find them.
Keoni Lee decided to build his own.
Growing up in Mililani, Keoni wasn’t deeply rooted in his culture. He knew he wanted something more. But, for a long time, he didn’t know what that was.
“I didn’t grow up super strong culturally or know my identity very well. I was lost because I didn’t know who I was.”
School didn’t offer much clarity either. Despite being labeled “smart,” he struggled to focus, to follow through, to meet the expectations that others had for him or that he had for himself.
“Everybody used to tell me, ‘Oh, you smart, but you lazy.’” What he didn’t know then was that he had ADHD—something he wouldn’t be diagnosed with until age 40.
“It really had a negative impact on me growing up…when people tell you you’re lazy and not good enough, that starts to wear you down.”
By high school, Keoni poured his energy into the social scene. “The thing that I cared about the most was being in the social scene,” he says. “That was how I would see my worth.”
But he kept going. He went to college. Then grad school, where he met his friend Nāʻālehu Anthony. And that’s where things started to shift.
A single conversation with Nāʻālehu changed the trajectory of Keoni’s life.
“He was really pivotal for me,” Keoni says. “He was one of those people that came into my life at the right time and helped me see something about myself and nudge me in a direction I didn’t see for myself at the time.”
That direction eventually became ʻŌiwi TV.
It didn’t start with a studio or a big investment. It started with a conversation. An idea. A realization that Native Hawaiians weren’t owning their narrative in the media. The pair realized that someone needed to change that.
Nāʻālehu approached Keoni one day with a filming opportunity for the Hawaiian community. Too often, when Native Hawaiians appeared in the news, it was tied to something negative: poor health statistics, criminalization, or protests that painted us as combative rather than protective of our land and rights.
That wasn’t the full story. And Keoni knew it.
“The reality of the Hawaiian community is that there’s a lot of amazing, beautiful, great work that’s happening in the community, but it’s not being told in mainstream media.”
So, the pair started telling it.
ʻŌiwi TV: a Native Hawaiian-owned media outlet dedicated to telling stories from the inside out.
This media organization would become a home for community voices, cultural education, and authentic storytelling—created by Hawaiians, for Hawaiians.
With one camera, a computer, and no budget, Keoni and Nāʻālehu built ʻŌiwi TV from the ground up, curating content, borrowing what they could, and writing a business plan. They knocked on doors, pitched the idea, and looked for anyone who believed in their vision.
“ʻŌiwi TV wasn’t about making money,” Keoni says. “It was about service. It was about purpose.”
That purpose didn’t come easy.
Keoni’s journey was full of stops and starts—a lack of cultural connection, ADHD he didn’t understand until age 40, years of underperformance despite potential, moments of doubt and disconnection.
But he didn’t let that stop him. He kept showing up. Kept learning. Kept creating.
And eventually, it all clicked.
“You have to actively seek that out,” he says. “Find your community. Find a place where you belong… when you find those two things, a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging, that’s all you really need in life.”
Keoni didn’t have all the answers in his teens or twenties. But, he stayed open. And slowly, he found his way, not by knowing exactly who he was, but by allowing himself to become.
So if you’re feeling uncertain, disconnected, or like you haven’t figured it out yet, don’t worry. You’re not behind. You’re just in the part before it makes sense.
All you need to do is:
Bring what you’ve got. Keep going. And trust that clarity will come, exactly when it’s meant to.
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