Reflection
Confidence Versus Arrogance
“Confidence is believing you’re good. Arrogance is believing you’re better than anyone else. Leaders need to be confident not arrogance” - Simon Sinek
There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Someone may be taught as a child that they need to be better than other people - their classmates or their coworkers, which could feed into their arrogance.
When they feel they are not better than others, they may feel less confident.
Life isn’t about comparing with others. It is about becoming the best version of ourselves.
Find opportunities
Someone else’s challenge can be your opportunity and vice versa. Elon Musk shared on Twitter that he found it a challenge to use personal money solving global issues. Right away, an entrepreneur called him and discuss a project where he can help influence climate change. That discussion led to a $100MM sponsorship from Elon to the CO2 removal project. This is a win-win situation. Think about how you can solve other people’s challenge? And how to ask for help so that other people may solve your challenge.
Stay Inspired
While 26% of workers plan to switch jobs post pandemic, it isn’t an option or a decision for everyone. For those who decide to stay in current job positions or companies, how can you stay inspired?
Find meaning in your job
For every job position I have held, I quickly recognize the value of my job. It’s very easy for me to believe that I have one of the most important jobs (ok, I might be biased). For example, when I was working for an engineering software company, I quickly realized how much $ and time I was helping save the clients. Because they can simulate the process without manufacturing the parts, companies can save millions of dollars up front without the traditional try and error approach. I am currently leading the talent development technology. I consider my job is one of the most important jobs because the competitive advantage of any company is how well and how quickly their employees can be upskilled and reskilled. What’s the meaning of your job?
Look for innovative solutions
I am passionate about what I do. I love providing business values to customers with innovative technical solutions. I always look for ways to improve processes, efficiencies, productivities and collaboration. Are you using a 100 steps process? Simplify it! Is there any manual work? Automate it! Are there potential errors? Monitor it! Detect it before the customers discover it. Examine the work you do on a daily basis, what improvements can you help initiate?
Provide value to a bigger community
During my 20+ years in technology, I noticed that sometimes technologists cannot fully understand how the applications they developed are being used by the end customers. They may not be able to fully appreciate their own work and the product they created. How are the applications/software helping the customers’ life? When I was managing ATM technology, I joined my colleagues to bridge this gap between technologists and the end users. We started an initiative of “A Day In The Life of Customer”. We organized tours for hundreds of technologists to bank retail branches, company call centers, innovation labs and social media centers. Many of them were very appreciative of the experience that helped shape their understanding of how technology drives business delivery.
I am sure there are so many other ways to stay inspired at work. Whatever it is for you, I hope you enjoy each day with passion and high energy. You are very important and you play a pivotal role for your company.
Effective Communication
Many of us long for true love. We hope our other half can understand us completely and support us unconditionally. However, real life doesn’t alway match with our wishes and conflict can arise in our everyday life - often due to mis-communication. How can you communicate with your other half effectively?
Trust and Love
This is the foundation. Without trust and love, it’s like to build a house on the sand. However, trust and love doesn’t guarantee a loving relationship.
Active listening
Listening is the key to effective communication. Active listening means you truly understand what the other person is saying without thinking about yourself. Give them your full attention without distraction. Put your phone down, be present. Have eye contact with your loved one and listen intuitively.
“Over” communication but not nagging
George Bernard Shaw said: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”. I can’t tell you how many times that I fell into this trap. By “Over” communication, we can ensure communication did happen and the right piece of information is delivered at the right time. Even if it's just a confirmation of “Did I mention….”
The 5 love languages
Understand and talk in their language. I recommend that a couple do the test so that they each understand the other’s language and accommodate.
Add humor
Life is short, have some laughter. Laughter is the best medicine.
With Trust and Love as foundation, effective communication will help you to build a lasting loving relationship. Life is short, live, love and laugh.
(BTW, the same strategy applies to parent-child relationship, working relationship (maybe not not the 5 love languages part) and other types of relationship )
Finding a mentor
Many of us understand the importance of having mentors. They often have been there and have done that. They can offer valuable guidance and advice toward our career advancement, personal development, making new connections and expanding networks.
I was often asked - “how do you find a mentor?“. There are so many ways. I want to share a few personal experiences.
Everyone can be a mentor. Each person we meet is our teacher and student. I have learned a lot from my mentors about the company I work for, the people I interact with, the strategies I can apply to expand influence and visibility, the communities I can be involved in and much more. I also always keep in mind whether I can provide anything meaningful to my mentors. Often it’s comfortable to find a mentor who has a similar mindset as yours. You may also want to have mentors who may have different styles than you. A diverse group of mentors will surely expand your horizon and perspectives.
You can find a mentor everywhere and anytime. Once you have the mindset of “everyone can be my mentor”, finding a mentor isn’t that hard anymore. I have found my mentors from different occasions. I have mentors who were my managers. I have found mentors through the company mentoring database. I have found mentors from networking events through chatting. I have been assigned mentors through company leadership training programs. I have mentors from business stakeholders. One of my most amazing experiences was that a senior leader of a job opening that I decided not to accept became my long time valuable mentor.
Maintaining mentoring relationships is harder than finding one. Finding a mentor is a one time task. Maintaining a healthy relationship requires persistence. Mentoring relationships are two way relationships. Mentees are mainly responsible for respecting everyone’s time and preparing the agenda/topics for the meeting. Be strategic about what you want to work on and what kind of support you need. Be open and honest about your needs. Sharing with your mentor on your vision and your mentor might be able to help you speed up the realization of that vision. Always find opportunities where you can add value to your mentors.
Throughout the 20+ years of my professional career, I have established and maintained many great mentoring relationships. They have helped my success tremendously. I encourage everyone to find some great people to be your mentors and learn from them.
Confidence
Confidence is not born. It can be trained through practice.
People who are close to me know that I love skiing. I learned how to ski at Mad River Ohio. At the beginning, I had no confidence at all. It’s a new sport to me. I knew I would fall just don't know when I would. When someone in front of me was blocking my way, I would just pray that somehow I would be able to avoid a clash. Confidence? Near zero.
Gradually, after many falls on the green trails, I became more confident and moved to blue and black trails.
Mad River has a 1,160 feet Base Elevation, 1,460 feet Peak Elevation and 300 feet Vertical Drop.I have high confidence cruising Mad River Trails.
A few years ago, I went to Breckenridge CO for a skiing trip. Breckenridge has 9,600 feet base elevation, a 12,998 feet of Peak Elevation and a 3,398 feet of vertical drop. Standing at the top of the mountain, I was scared and super nervous. The trails are miles long. The green trails looked more difficult than the black in Mad River. How could I do it? OMG! I had no confident whatever so ever.
What did I do? Started from the basics - one step at a time. Keeping an eye to the end goal, but focusing on the current skiing. Again, through practice I was able to move from the green to blue trails. In some other subsequent trips, I got used to the more difficult trails. During the most recent trip, I skied on the black trails in Breckenridge. I was telling myself “Is this truly black?! That’s not very difficult? Why did I think it was difficult last time?”.
The trails didn’t change. My skills did. Because my skills got improved, I got more confident. Skiing on blacks felt like cruising the mountain. The feeling is free and in total control.
Confidence is not born. It can be trained through practice.
Women in Leadership - Self Care
There are many unique challenges and obstacles for women in leadership. Today I will focus on one of them - Self Care.
During the pandemic, women are impacted more than men. 1 million more women lost their job compared to men. This could potentially erase the progress made for the last 5 years in women leadership. For women who didn’t lose job, things are not so much easier. They may have a full time job at work and then another full time job of ‘homeschooling’ their children. Many say they are exhausted.
As women, we are caregivers by default. Many women juggle between a career, a family, kids, elder parents, cooking, cleaning, communities and much more.
You probably have heard this again and again. On the airplane you are instructed to put on your own oxygen mask first before helping others in the case of an emergency. It’s the same principle in life. If we don’t take care of ourselves, if we run out of energy, we can’t take care of the people around us. If we are not physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually healthy, we won’t have the ability to take care of other people even if we want to. It will negatively impact how we enjoy life.
What’s your way of self-care?
How much time do you leave to yourself on a daily basis?
What do you do to recharge?
What do you do when you feel down?
Physical Health
Someone said she wanted to lose 50 lbs, because the extra weight is giving her a lot of health related issues. She feels she is a prisoner of her own body.
What are you doing to ensure your body is working for you? What exercise are you doing? For me, it’s skiing, paddle boarding, running, hiking, yoga, biking, dancing and running stairs in my own house.
Do you know that exercise can also fight depression?
Mental / Emotional Health
During the pandemic, many people are feeling depressed, stressed and anxious. Every 1 out 6 people are seeking therapy. Besides the professional help, what else can you do to boost your mental health? For me it’s deep breath, meditation, visualization and connecting with people.
We don't know when our life can go back to normal. What does that new normal even look like? When you feel your energy is drained, what do you do? Is it to take a walk? Listen to music? Have a zoom party? Whatever that is, I hope you are doing something intentionally.
It took me many years to accept that taking care of myself isn’t selfish of me. It’s essential for me to recharge so that I can continue to raise a family, excel in my career and have fun in life.
Women in Leadership - Say No
In my 20+ years of career in technology, I experienced first hand the unique challenges and obstacles of being a woman in male dominated fields. Today I want to talk about one of the challenges that I personally struggled, still struggling, but getting so much better at - Say No. It doesn't mean that men don’t have this challenge, many do. However, it’s a fact that on average it is harder for women than men to say No.
Why is it?
Ever since we were little girls, we were taught to be princesses, to be nice, and to be caring. As a result, women are more likely to become people pleasers. We feel a need to say yes to show that we are team players. We feel that we will not be liked if we say no. We then may have too much on our plates. We may end up doing things we do not enjoy doing. We may have opportunities passed by because we are busy working on other things. We say yes to coworkers and our bosses. We say yes to our families that we will cook, clean and wash laundry. We say yes to our friends who need help. We say yes to communities that need our devotion. Not willing to say no often results in overwhelm and frustration. We feel guilty if we did day No. Without setting a healthy boundary, we can slip into catabolic energy.
How can we start to say No?
First we want to ask ourselves - is it aligned with our value? If the answer is no, then say No.
If the answer is yes, then ask ourselves whether we have the bandwidth to take this on. If the answer is no, then say so! Or what can be offloaded before saying yes. And so on…
How can we say no without feeling guilty?
Say No strategically - be honest. You could also offer another person or solution.
Keep in mind that you said NO because that’s the right thing to do and let it go.
I am a regular volunteer to various communities. A few years ago, while I was volunteering, my young kids were on their own. During stage performance, my child’s costume kept falling off. It may not be that big of a deal for a young child. But that’s when I realized that I wanted to spend more time with my own kids during that time. I made the decision to be less involved in that volunteering opportunity until my children are older.
How can you be excited to say No?
When you say No, you are saying Yes to the things you want in life.
Be confident to say no to things that are not aligned with your value.