Episode 8: Love is Life~Tupua Ainu'u

Ways to connect with Tupua~
Facebook.com/SamoanActor
Facebook.com/TeamTuCosa
Instagram.com/tupuaainuu
Tictok.com@tupuaainuu

You're listening to the Love Tidbits Podcast, where you'll discover a small, tasty, delightful, bite-sized tidbit of love ~ I'm your host, LeAnn Austin

Hey y'all, welcome to Love Tidbits, episode number eight. Love is life with Tupua Ainu'u. 

I love observing and connecting with other humans, especially noting how they feel and implement love into their lives. We have the amazing Tupua Ainu'u sharing some beautiful love insights with us today. 

Alright Tupua, why don't you briefly introduce yourself. 

First LeAnn, I am so proud of you. Congratulations on your podcast. I'm so honored to one of your guests. Congratulations, thank you so much for having. Ah, thanks. Very, very welcome. This is awesome. So, yes, let me introduce myself. I just want to say Talofa LeAnn and listeners, Talofa means hello and Samoan.

My full name is Tupua Leota Alapapa Leuali'i Tumuatasi Vaipou Tony Vaea Te'o Ainu'u. Wow. That's pretty long. I am an I am an American Samoan man who loves to act, sing and dance. I am an eagle scout, an army veteran of war, specifically war with Iraq. I am a mama's boy, a doting husband to my lovely wife Jacosa, loving father to my sons TJ and Makai, a director of engagement for my sweet senior citizens at Arbor Terrace senior living. But most importantly, I am a child of God.  

I love that Tupua, so many amazing things. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing all of that with us and your name. Oh my goodness. That's so cool. Alright, so I have three questions for you today. And the first, how do you incorporate love into your business and/or your life?

Love really is the reason why I do anything. When it comes to business, I've always had a love for my culture. Performing and the arts, specifically with singing and acting. So, you know, besides being an Atlanta actor, I actually own a small business called Cousin T Entertainment where I advertise my wife and I singing.  I MC and I DJ for different events.

My wife is a jazz singer, and I'm a crooner. We love to perform for birthdays and wedding parties. We also love to throw authentic Polynesian Luaus with authentic Polynesian dancing and food, and outside of my nine to five job, these business ventures and acting gigs come naturally to me because they're an extension of what I already love to do.

I actually feel really blessed that I can still use my gifts and talents and abilities every day with acting and singing, to serve and enrich the lives of my senior citizens as a director of engagement or activities. Again, I love my culture. The greatest privilege in Samoa is to serve your elders. I really do love them so much. The baby boomer generation, they are the greatest generation that ever lived. And LeAnn, it doesn't feel like work. And the main reason why it doesn't is because I love to do it. It's a pleasure. So if you have to work, try finding something that you love to do and you'll find your life to be more pleasurable, joyful and happy.

I love that so much when you truly love your work. And I get to see Tupua sometimes on social media with his work and those senior citizens are so blessed to have him a part of their lives, and acting and everything that you do. So awesome. Thank you. Super cool. Alright, so question number two. What is something you love about you and why?

I am a happy go lucky person. I love people and I love making others happy. Whenever I see an opportunity to make someone smile or do something to make their day, I make sure to do it and, you know, LeAnn it's interesting, growing up, that it took a while for me to completely own that and to completely accept that I love that about myself, you know.

A lot of things, for example, on Facebook, when Facebook first came out, it would show you all the people that had their birthdays. And I would make sure when it, whenever I'm on there, if someone had a birthday, I would wish them happy birthday. Now that I have almost 5,000 friends, I can't do that anymore. I used to love saying happy birthday to everyone. And so I love giving genuine compliments. I love pointing out something good about others, giving positive feedback, comments to make people happy. If I see that you have a cute dress, I say that is a cute dress, or wow that's beautiful jewelry, whatever is good about you. I like to compliment and say it and hope that it makes you feel good and that you have a good day. 

I love that you really look for compliments, ways to say things to others and really, really appreciate them and show them that love through compliments. That's beautiful Tupua. Anything else?

Yeah, I also wanted to share that sometimes it's really hard to, to own that. What you love about yourself. It took me 38 years really to fully accept that. And I just wanted to share a little bit of where my story, growing up this way of being so happy go lucky, you know, always looking at thing and lovey and rose, you know, life in the colored glass. 

Throughout my teens and early childhood, my peers would think that I was being fake, or I had an agenda for being so nice all the time, but I've always been that way. And I think I get it from my father. He was a super loving, affectionate, charming, and very happy positive person. There were a few times in my life though, when I thought something was wrong with me, I saw my strengths as weaknesses because of what other said, you know, they make me think I was a suck up. I was a people pleaser and superficial with my niceness, but what saved me from negativity, depression of thinking something was wrong with me, where the reminders of who I was from people random, or those who were close to me, or even someone like you LeAnn. Positivity that you exude out there, that you put out there in the world, it attracts more positivity. It encourages people to be more positive. And so I thank you for what you do. You are a platform of happiness and positivity, so thank you for what you do. 

Ahh, thanks for your kind words. And I love that that is a big focus for you and how you're showing up genuine and truly incorporating that love into everything you do. That's beautiful. 

Thank you so much. Could I share with you just a few people that reminded me about, you know, accepting who I am and to be loving and just be who I am, can I share just a few examples? Yes. Alright. So one person in the army, in my early twenties, reminded me when I was in Iraq and feeling down on myself.  I told him I felt like I didn't have any purpose at that time. He said, you have a great purpose.  You make people happy. I thought to myself, that's weird, this person is an acquaintance. I barely knew him. And the fact that he said that, he observed that whenever I was around. That's what he observed is that I make people happy and I was like, okay. So thank you for that reminder.

My wife is a great reminder of who I am and why I should really love myself. She always reminds me it's okay to not be ashamed of being my happy, goofy, cheesy, cornball self, and she posted a few Facebook posts about my birthday. I just wanted to share what she said. 

She said, today's my guy's birthday. So I want to tell you a little bit why I love this picture of him and why I love him so much. First the picture I love this genuine cheesy smile. In fact, I like making him laugh as much as I can because I love seeing it so much. Now him first, he's the kind of guy who has empathy for everyone, even including characters on a show or movie. Often while we're watching something, he'll say, oh, that's horrible or poor thing, that's so terrible. He's particularly protective of women and hates to see men be disrespectful of them. I think I can thank his mama for that. Yes, my mama raised me to be a gentleman. He really loves people and really cares about their feelings and what happens to them. Second, he loves adventure. He's always up for whatever life brings and always has the best attitude about the bad things. Third, he has big dreams and isn't afraid to go after them and work hard at them. He works really hard between school and work and always strives for excellence. I noticed and admire that more than he knows.

And the second post she shared. It was a picture of me when I was four or five years old. And I was smiling really big and really cheesy. And my cousin, Dahni, who was blowing out her candles for her 18 birthday party, my wife says, it's my honey's birthday, so I get to spoil him and brag about him. Thanks Dahni for the collage that I stole. I love all these pics, but my favorite is what of him has a little one at his cousin's birthday because that face that huge, big smile while he watches someone else enjoy their birthday. It speaks volumes about his nature. He's the kind of guy who gets so excited for good things happening to other people. He's the kind of guy who loves life, who is happy just to be anywhere. He's the kind of guy who sees good in everyone and everything, and he's the kind of guy who's so full of love, it's bursting out of him. 

So I'm really, really grateful for my wife and, you know, reminding me about that because, I need that, I need to be reminded that it's okay to be me and it's okay to just be loving and just, and just accept that and just be who I am. 

Alright, and the last reminder that's really important to me is my patriarchal blessing. It was given to me when I was 18 years young. So in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we were given a special blessing that is tailor made for each person to help guide them in their lives, by a special person called a patriarch.

Now this patriarch didn't know me, but through his divine inspiration from God, he said these words about my divine character and personality that came from before this earth. It was about my spirit, the person I truly am. And if you don't mind LeAnn, I'd like to share that a little bit with you because you know, I talked about being a child of God. Is that okay? Absolutely. 

Alright, so he said, and I'm 18, I've never met this guy, and this is the first time. And he said these words after he prayed, he said you are a stalwart spirit. You are to lift up the sick, afflicted, down trodden, and the weak, and those who are struggling with the trials of life.  You have been blessed with a warm, friendly spirit and personality that can relate well with everyone. You have the ability to communicate effectively and make friends very easily use these attributes in giving yourself in service to others. 

So LeAnn, I'm so sorry. I feel like I'm talking way too much about myself. I hope I'm not coming off too much of a bragger, but I guess the short answer to the question that you had is I love that I'm a happy-go-lucky cheesy, loving, affectionate, goofball who loves to make others happy, especially my elders. I love that about myself. 

Hmm. I love that about you too, and that you radiate love, and I'm so glad you shared that with us. So beautiful. Awesome. Alright, before I ask you, the last question, tell us where the audience can reach you, how can they follow you or whatever. And I'll also put this information in the show notes, but if you just want to highlight a couple of things.  

Sure, not a problem. So you can find me primarily on Facebook. I have my actress page on there. If you just look up Tupua Ainu'u actor. I also have my Cousin T Entertainment,  my business on there as well. If you put Cousin T Entertainment on Facebook search, you'll see right away.  It has a feather and it'll show my wife and I on the cover page.

You can also find my wife and I at Team TuCosa. We're a singing duo.  You can hear us sing some of our songs on there. And as far as acting, you can go to my IMDV page to see what I've done so far. I'm also on Tiktok and I'm also on Instagram. So I think that's plenty of forums where you can find me.

Exactly, we can find you just about everywhere. I love it. That's awesome. Alright, so the last question, what is your favorite question or quote about love? 

Yes. My favorite quote is, "Where there is love, there is life." And it's by Mahatma Gandhi. And I really love that because when you love something, you breathe so much life into it and whatever you do, you know, and excellence will follow, you know, perfection, meaning your absolute best effort will happen and you will be successful. But most importantly, you will be happy. 

Hmm, something to think about. Thank you Tupua, for sharing your tidbits of love with us. Have a good one y'all ~ and here's to love! Aloha. You're very welcome.

 If you would like to become an expert at loving yourself, check out my Lovin Me Program at leannaustin.com