Thoughts

In  my fourth quarter at Darden I gathered a small crew of "willing" classmates for weekly meetings where we would brainstorm and gut-check each other with ideas about our careers and support each other as we began our professional careers. We called ourselves the "Business Accountability Group" aka BAG.

The meetings were structured such that each week a new member would be responsible for determining the topic and format of the discussion of the day. As the weeks went on we shared about our long-term visions for our careers, analyzed our strengths and weaknesses, and traded tips and tricks about how to best manage both personal and professional relationships. I am writing this after being inspired by one of those meetings where the structure, set by a classmate named Nick, was as follows: each person was to present their five- and ten-year goals and the other members were supposed to try to poke holes in the plan in order to find weaknesses or areas for development. I watched and participated as we went around the room - impressed by the goals my friends had set for themselves and happy to try to help them figure out if they had left any blind spots that would be helpful to address.

When it was my turn I had to say, "Sorry guys, but I don't really have any set goals for the next five to ten years." The words felt strange coming out of my mouth, because if you know me at all, you know that for a long time I was obsessed with setting goals and using those as a tool to promote my personal development. As I was thinking about the prompt though, I realized that while my brain had been filled with goals for a long time -- for the first time in my life, it was fairly empty. And I was comfortable with that. 

Instead of prioritizing setting goals (which are still an important tool), my new theory is that it is more important to focus on process implementation. Every time a speaker has come into class at Darden this year, my question from the audience was the same, "What daily habits do you have that you think contributed to your success?" I firmly believe that how we spend our time and who we spend it with shapes who we are. The small habits that make up your daily routine will add up over the course of your life to build you into the person you become. And so instead of saying "I want job x" or "I want to have y thing" I think it would be interesting to think about what kind of life we want to live, and what habits we need to implement in our daily life to achieve that state of being. The fruits will follow if you plant well.

When I first developed my personal mindfulness exercise it began by having you list out your goals in ten key categories: physical health, mental health, spiritual health, intellectual curiosity, professional development, social relationships, community engagement, financial stability, creativity, and adventure. I'm sure there are more categories that would be good to include, or that some of these categories could be bundled up. But I'm also confident that if you can be growing in all ten of these categories that life is going pretty well. Obviously, in life there are seasons where some categories will take precedence over others. But I posit that a balance across these categories can leave a person with fulfillment. Now, instead of just writing down goals for each of these categories, I want to also implement some processes that allow me to sustainably improve in each of the ten areas ("Sustainable Improvement Processes" - see what I did there?) .  To provide an example, a goal is: I want to lose weight. A SIP is: I will go on a 30-minute walk five times a week. Processes dive deeper into actual implementation of behavior that achieves goals.

What really drove this home for me was sitting in that room with my classmates and sharing these thoughts when it hit me - what I'm doing right now is a SIP. By gathering a group of my friends who I respected and wanted to develop a relationship with in a room every week, I had created a process through which I could improve social relationships that were important to me, provide energy and attention to my professional development, and engage in conversations that inspired further intellectual curiosity.  And I want to be thoughtful about the processes I am building in my life - because frankly, whether you want to or not, you are building out the processes which will shape your approach to life. I personally like the idea of building out processes because that's just how my brain interacts with the world. I also want to be cautious of over-analyzing and structuring things to death. The world also needs to exist in creative, unplanned spaces. But even though I like to identify and build out frameworks for all the aspects of my life, it might not be that way for you and that's ok. 

That night, I came across an interesting video from Mark Manson (language warning), who wrote The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***, where he talks about the concept of self-help. Here are some key excerpts:

"There's nothing new in self-help... Most of the advice that we're consuming when we buy these books, whether it's on how to be more compassionate, less anxious, more humble and grounded, more productive, more honest, and vulnerable. These things have been covered for thousands of  f****** years from Buddha and Jesus, to Plato and Seneca, to Adam Smith and Benjamin f***** Franklin. Pretty much nothing you find on a self-help shelf is new. And that's fine because what does change, and what does matter is the packaging... Self help ideas are simple but difficult. I.e. they are easy to understand, but really f***** difficult to actually go do... This is where the packaging comes in. The way ideas are packaged can do a lot to alleviate the emotional difficulty of these problems in the short run."

So for me, the way I'm packaging and then internalizing (and hopefully externalizing) the wisdom and lessons that I've learned through my faith, my family, and my education, is through these Sustainable Improvement Processes. Over the course of this summer, I hope to explore each of category I identified in my first mindfulness exercise and develop SIPs in each area. And hopefully this will help me lead a good life.

5.4.2023

I've always enjoyed designing processes and systems. At the first meeting of my business school learning team, a semi-mandatory assigned study group, I forced us to sit down and talk about what our goals were. Not in a deep personal sense, but more explicitly what we hoped to get out of the learning team itself. What followed was an intense two-hour meeting where folks openly, and sometimes bluntly, shared what they hoped to get out of their MBA and this study group. For some, our team was an opportunity to make friends and deep relationships, for others they just wanted help with the homework. By level-setting and communicating up front what we hoped to achieve, we were able to establish team norms and develop reasonable expectations along with an efficient and fair work allocation process. Sitting down and creating a space where we could figure out how we could best operate as a team was both a fun and fulfilling experience for me. And the team ultimately came together and did an incredible job at achieving our agreed-upon goals.

Looking back on this experience in working with my learning team, I was reminded of my first serious internship. I was working directly under the CEO of a non-profit that operated very much like a startup. Over the course of the summer, I had observed as the CEO had managed difficult personalities and leveraged members of his teams to effectively move the ball forward on achieving key objectives. As I sat back and tried to make sense of the decisions he had made, I began imagining myself in his position and wrote in my notebook what I thought were the three most important characteristics a person had to have when considering adding them to a team: care, competence, and comparative advantages.

• Care: Does this person care about their job, the work they do, and the people around them?

• Competence: Is this person qualified to do the job they have been assigned? Do they possess the proper skills needed to succeed (or to learn how to succeed)?

• Comparative Advantages: Does this person bring unique skills and perspectives to the team?

Since that initial list I've added two additional characteristics: curiosity, and compatibility. The first was inspired by a lecture from Doug Lebda, a Darden alum and the founder of LendingTree (whose team criteria were: will, skill, and deliver). The second came from my Leading Teams class taught by Gabe Adams. 

• Curiosity: Is this person a life-long learner? Are they interested in developing themselves and exploring new and interesting concepts and skills?

• Compatibility: Does this person get along well with the existing team? Can they "play well with others" and collaboratively support the team in achieving its overarching objectives?

Most people will not meet all five categories. And certain categories are easier to develop than others. For example, a young student or employee might care a lot, have curiosity, and be compatible with a team, but due to their inexperience they may lack task-specific competence or comparative advantages. This can be overcome with training and development support. Noting the difficulty of finding superstar team-members, another guest speaker at Darden had this to say: "Most of the time, you will not be working with a team of A players. The best managers learn how to get the best they can out of their B and C players."

The issue with lists like these is that they always tend to grow (or you forget to include something because it didn't start with the right letter). However, I'm confident that if you find someone that matches all five C's that they would be a great addition to a team. Ultimately, being caring, competent, recognizing one's comparative advantages, having compatibility with one's teammates, and being curious can help foster a positive team dynamic and improve the chances of achieving the team's objectives. 

4.10.2023

"You should write a book." It's not something a lot of 20-year-olds hear - and probably for good reason. Most 20-somethings don't really know enough about anything to be able to create a compelling multi-hundred page piece of writing. But that didn't dissuade my college professor in my sophomore year from standing in front of the class and telling us exactly that. His thesis was pretty simple: even though we weren't exactly experts, we could interview several of them and compile their wisdom in one convenient source. Our value add to the readers was  effective synthesis and analysis of experts' knowledge following our interviews with them. It capitalized on the one resource that we had in spades as students - free time. That and the unique access that students can have to very "important" people - when you email someone and say: "I'm a college kid writing a book, and would like to interview you as an expert in the field," it opens a surprising number of doors. People like to feel like they're helping students, but they also like the idea that the networking call that they're taking is more than just throwing advice at a kid and hoping that they actually find it useful. 

The value to us as writers was two-fold: at the end of the project, you're left with an actual product that you created and a new network of experts that you (hopefully) admire, learned from, and built a connection with.

I've taken that idea and applied it to many different projects in my life. When I knew I wanted to learn more about Asian American political organizing,  I started a weekly discussion group and used it as a tool to invite speakers who were established professionals in the space. That grew into Young Asian Pacific American Leaders and led to me moderating a conversation with two of my heroes - Representatives Young Kim and Michelle Steel. This was also part of the impetus behind the Korean American Student Internships Database which I worked on in the Spring of 2019. I had created this resource originally to help with my own internship hunt, but realized that once I had a job - why not share it? When I sought to expand it, I was able to speak with a ton of great business leaders and mentors who helped me collect more resources to add and ultimately share with Korean college students. This was the seed that then grew into the National Korean Student Alliance - which is a project I'm still working on to this day!

The beauty of project based networking is that you not only get the chance to engage with leaders and experts you might not have had access to otherwise, you're also left with something you created that hopefully brings value into the world. Whether that's a book, a discussion group, a blog, a podcast, or anything else, it feels good to go out and create. In a time where we are obsessed with consumption, including of our mentors' time - to create sets you apart, and provides fulfillment. Additionally, the creation can continue to live on and have value long after you first finished it. I know of friends who still make some money from their books off of Amazon sales, or who used it to gain entry into an industry that became an important part of their career. Folks I met through YAPAL have gone on to become close personal friends. The NKSA is still working to help Korean college students (and giving me more writing fodder as we struggle to build an effective and meaningfully impactful organization).

I never ended up publishing my manuscript - it wasn't of a quality that I felt comfortable publicly releasing and attaching my name to, especially because it was political in nature (and probably a little immature to be honest). My college friends to this day like to jokingly ask "Has your book come out yet?" I'm happy to grin and bear it, because while I didn't end that class with a book, I did leave with a tool that I still use to create and to learn from and engage with important people in my life.

5.1.2022

• Growing through Pivots

• Social / Civic Entrepreneurship

• The Theory of the Conscious Guess

• Wanting to be Heard

• Consumer Surplus Pricing

under construction...

• Growing through Pivots

• Social / Civic Entrepreneurship

• The Theory of the Conscious Guess

• Wanting to be Heard

• Consumer Surplus Pricing

under construction...