Invent Your Ideal Role - Core Principle in the WLC

There are 5 core principles in the Women Leaders Community. The second is "Invent Your Ideal Role".

We are trained to choose from given options. I spent my teenage years studying for the college entrance exam. I still remember my elementary school teacher saying, "It's only 10 years left until your college entrance exam. You think it's a long time (well, we were 10 years old, so yes, it felt like a lifetime away), but 10 years is very short. You have to start preparing now."

The Problem with Given Options

All the questions in my college entrance exam involved choosing one answer out of four given choices. Sometimes it was about picking the correct answer; other times, it was about identifying the wrong one. It didn’t always make sense, but I practiced for years and got good at it. Then we had a handful of options for which college to attend and which major to choose. In the private sector, we pick our next job from all the open job postings, choose the ones that seem most correct for us, apply, and hope to be selected.

Since childhood, we have been trained to choose from given options, so most people don’t think about what other options might exist.

Mentoring Experiences

While I was in the industry, I mentored over 200 graduate students and early career professionals. When I asked them about their career goals, 99% mentioned a company or a title. They said things like, "My dream is to work for companies like Google," or "I want to be promoted," or "I want to be a manager." Then I asked, "What’s something you can’t do now but could do at that company or in that title?"

That's when they started to get frustrated. They wanted tips and advice from me, but I was asking difficult questions. They didn't like it. I understand their frustration.

Only two people out of over 200 had an answer. Their answers were vague, and even they weren't fully satisfied with their explanations. But when we discussed choices, they could tell if those choices were closer to or further from their dreams. That’s how dreams usually manifest in people. It's like an inner compass that tells us "hot" or "cold," helping us correct our paths without giving us turn-by-turn instructions.

The Importance of Vision

As a hiring manager, I always asked candidates why they wanted to leave their current company. About 98% said they felt there was no growth opportunity. I would ask what kind of growth opportunities they were looking for and what they had done about it. About 90% couldn’t answer, but 10% said they had tried various things and decided they didn’t have those opportunities at their current company. These 10% were clear about the opportunities they wanted as part of their career journey. They might not have been able to describe their dreams precisely, but they had dreams. Because of that, they showed more genuine passion when their work aligned with their dreams.

Everyone knows why it's important to have a goal. There’s a story about an old man and a young man who bet on who could walk the straightest path towards a tree in the distance. It was the day after a snowfall, so they could measure their paths by the footsteps in the snow. The young man took one step at a time, trying to keep each step straight. The old man looked at the tree and walked straight towards it without looking at the ground. Whose footsteps do you think was more straight?

I'm sure you got this: the answer is the old man. He may not have taken the most straight steps between steps, but he always walked towards the tree. Sometimes he was a little off, but he corrected his path quickly. The young man, focusing on each step, ended up far from the tree.

All companies have a vision, like the tree, acting as an inner compass. As long as we focus on that, we know what the best decision is. Similarly, we can tell if it's right decision or not only when we know our own vision, like the tree.

Setting Steps

However, a vision is not always clear. It can be vague, more like a feeling of getting closer or further away. To know if you are on the right track, you need to keep moving. These movements are like steps, little goals or targets. It's important to have many steps, many little goals, to check your direction and adjust your course.

Not only do people often lack a clear vision, but they also don't set steps. They want to jump to the tree without walking.

When I say "invent your ideal role," I’m talking about these steps. It may be a usual step, a bit off, a step backward, or even a misstep. But be creative; invent something that didn’t exist before. If it’s not right, that’s okay; you have the next step.

Personal Experience

After working in a job for a few years, people say they are bored and need a change. They look for something more exciting externally, like changing projects, teams or companies. That might be what you need eventually, but I suggest thinking about the changes you want and applying them where you are as much as possible. Set little goals, experiment, and learn from them. It's hard to get bored that way.

I once worked under a workaholic leader and struggled with work-life balance. I wanted to leave for a better job with less workload and a more understanding leader. However, the thought of encountering a similar leader again and running away again stopped me. I had a few ideas and decided to try them out. If they didn't work, then I would leave. After trying them, things seemed to improve for a few weeks but then reverted. I had another idea, and I tried that too. This cycle continued, and three years later, I was no longer afraid of workaholic leaders or high demands. Not only that, but I was also protecting my team from unrealistic demands.

I invented my ideal role where I could maintain a reasonable workload, no matter how much was expected of me. It may still have been too much for some people, but it was reasonable for me.

Conclusion

What is your ideal role? What is your next step to experiment with?

Realize Your Power - Core Principle in the WLC

There are 5 core principles in the Women Leaders Community. The first is "Realize Your Power"

Confidence Is a Result of Courage

In coaching sessions, many people express a desire for confidence. They have something they want to do, but they lack the confidence to do it. I tell them, what they need is courage not confidence, because confidence is a result of doing the scary things.

Many women shares the self-confidence issue. Often we face double standards. Of course we should be strong leaders and professionals, but at the same time, we should be feminine, kind and caring. Of course we should be strong performers at work, but at the same time we should be good mothers, wives and daughters by the standards from a time when women weren't allowed careers.

These conflicting expectations not only make women exhausted and burned out, but also lead to self-doubt. "I'm successful in my career, but I'm not a perfect mother, so, I'm a failure." "I am a good mother, but I didn't advance enough in my career, so I'm a failure." "I am a good performer, but I am too bossy, so I'm a failure." Sounds familiar?

Many women I know moved to a foreign country for a better life. Many women I know worked hard and earned advanced degrees. Many women I know pursued careers in a foreign language or switched industries. Many women I know are often the only women in the room. Plus most of them raised a family at the same time.

Despite all these achievements, I often hear, "Well, everybody does it". First of all, it's not true. Second, think about marathon finishers. Not everybody can finish a marathon, but many do finish the marathon. Do we call finishers failures because they were not the first to finish? I don't know about you, but I do respect all the marathon finisher and even the people who tried even if they didn't finish. Why do we respect marathoners in running, but not showing the same respect and cheer for the marathoners in life?

When these amazing women say they can't do it, I remind them of their moments in the past: the moment they took action in the face of fear, the moment they took a risk without knowing what the result would be, the moment they went through huge challenges and endured them for a bigger goal. Then they start to remember how powerful they are and regain their confidence.

Courage Stems from Purpose

Many people share stories about how they were so scared to do something, like saying no to others or asking a question to a stranger, but now they find it easier. The reason they found it easier is because they had courage to actually do those things and learned that it didn't kill them.😉

There is a famous story about a man who had a fear of rejection and planned to be rejected 100 times. He documented his 100 rejection experiments and became famous for it. He mentioned many insights he learned and tips. But my biggest surprise was, even though his requests were very unusual, well he wanted to be rejected, he got surprisingly many yeses.

But still, there is one thing missing. Behind the courage to face fear is the purpose. Some people said it was probably easier for him because he planned and expected his rejections. There's some truth to that. But the bigger reason he did all this is because he had a purpose: to overcome his fear of rejection.

Have you ever suddenly found the courage to do challenging things when you have a purpose? I came to the US alone, knowing no one, and my English was so poor I couldn't order a sandwich at Subway. I studied PhD level physics in English, with people who don't even know where Korea was. Now that I think back, that was a scary journey. But at that time, I was so focused on getting a PhD in Physics in the US, the challenges were just part of the journey.

An Asian women developed a fear of sharing her opinions after experiencing Asian hate and sexism a few times. She was furious about her experience, but was too scared to speak up and fight against it. Then she realized that if she didn't do anything, her daughters will experience the same thing. That realization gave her instance courage. She was no longer afraid to share her voice and fight.

Realize Your Power & Purpose

Knowing your power gives you confidence. Knowing your purpose gives you courage. They are the important first steps to sculpt your own success.

Next time, we'll talk about inventing your ideal role.

Sculpting Your Own Success

Exploring the Women Leaders Community program

The flagship program of Kim Coaching Group is the Women Leaders Community. It was designed since last spring, and so far, there have been 3 units and 15 sessions with handful of participants. Based on all the learnings, I have redesigned the program and am launching it this September. I’m excited about these changes and want to share more with you.

The goal of Women Leaders Community is to help competent women to sculpt their own success. 

Sculpting their own success has two key steps: design your own success and then sculpting it to make it real. Many people focus on the latter, but the first is actually harder.

Know What You Really Want

In my interviews, coaching sessions, and mentoring, I've found that very few people have career dreams that extend beyond titles or ranks. Most people say, "I want to be promoted", or "I want to be a people manager", and when I ask why, they often reply because it's the next step. Others express a desire to "learn more and grow", but can seldom specify what they want to learn or what growth means to them.

Only about 2% of people know what they want. Their dreams often involve initiating projects that no one else is addressing but they believe is important for the company or mastering new skills that are emerging in their industry but are not yet being utilized at their companies.

Title Is Not Your Dream

Do you see the difference? These 2% of people don't mention title or rank, they focus on what they want to create. It's easier to sculpt it out if you see what you want clearly. For the people who want promotions, I challenge them with this question: What do you want to do after the promotion that you can't do right now? This often proves to be a difficult question, leaving many unable to answer and some even getting frustrated.

We spend our childhood in school, where we learn to follow directions and choose from given options. As adults, many people still live like that. People still wait for promotions like they're automatic grade advancements. It doesn't work that way.

Choose Your Role in the Play 

The roles people play at companies are more like a play. Someone plays a king, someone plays a servant. If the play is about a young king with a wise old servant, a more experienced actor will play the servant, and a new less experienced actor will play the king. King, servant, these are just the roles. We don't evaluate actors based on which role they play, but how well they play the roles.

Choose Your Game

Sometimes, I feel like we are all thrown to play one game. Some are good at the game and enjoy the game. But many others like to play other games. But they are afraid to leave this game to play a different game because they don't see others do it. It seems too scary. It's not like they have confidence they would be good at the other game either, because they have never done that.

Craft Your Unique Role

I don't believe everybody needs to dream big and be ambitious. I believe we can all find the right game for us which we can enjoy, the right role that will shine us and fun for us. However, some people are just afraid to play the game they really want to. That's what I want to help.

I encourage people to invent their ideal roles, instead of trying to choose one out of the given options. All the options, the roles, job descriptions, org structures were written by someone. It's not something you have to follow like a law. Invent your ideal role. Invent your ideal org structure. That's the part sculpt artist see the object they want to sculpt inside the piece of wood or other materials.

Think Bigger

Even if you see the object inside the material, it's hard to sculpt it out. We often feel too many constraints. I can't do this, I can't do that. I know that's all true, in the scope of vision they see.

Have you experienced that it's easier to solve a 10x problem than a 2x problem? For example, when we think about improving performance by 2x, often we try to make small adjustments. But when we think about 10x, we often think a whole new thing from scratch. And sometimes, we realize it's actually easier than the small adjustments.

I challenge people to think outside of the box, 10x point of view, to increase the scope of vision. Not to make problems bigger, but to increase options. The more options you have, the higher chance of a better solution.

Unlearn Limiting Rules

But these can be scary to actually try. There are a lot of rules we imposed to ourselves. Some are from our parents and teachers when we were young, some are from ourselves to protect ourselves as a child. Many of them are still good, protect you, and help you succeed. So keep them. But some of them may not work for you anymore. Because you are grown up, you are in a different situation now. The re-evaluations on the rules that you may not even know you have is important. Because they usually work in your subconscious, and could hold you back.

The Role of Fear

And we have many fears. Fear is not a bad thing; it actually protects us often. When a baby starts to walk, they get strong attachment to their caregiver and become afraid of other people they are not familiar with. That's to prevent the babies from walking away too far from their caregivers. It protects them.

Most humans instinctively react with fear when we encountering a long, slender object coiled into spirals. Most likely it's a hose, but there is a slight chance that it's a snake which can kill us. So it's safer to assume it's a snake, even if the chance is low, until we confirm that it's a hose.

Other People's Opinion

We are afraid of others' opinions. A long time ago, when people lived together in small tribes, being disliked by the group could lead to being expelled. This meant having to survive alone in the wild, which most likely resulted in death. The fear of other's opinion evolved as a survival mechanism to keep us safe and accepted within our tribe.

The good news is that we live in a much safer time, but we sill have those fear as our instinct. We don't have to be fearless in everything, some of them still protect us, but removing some fears that really hold you back can help you be happier and more fulfilled.

Competent Women to Sculpt Their Success

Sculpting our success is something many people share as their desire and sometimes struggle. However, the Women Leaders Community is only for competent women.

The main reason is that although these are very common challenges many people share, the details of the challenges vary depending on their gender, ethnicity, age and more. I noticed mid career women share very similar challenges, regardless of ethnicity. While others do show slightly different challenges. What's why I focus on competent women, who have worked hard and achieved things in their lives, but want to make another pivot.

Check Out the Women Leaders Community Program

This is what I've been doing in the Women Leaders Community. We offer ways to continue this journey, because it's a journey not a one time thing. My hope is more people live the life they want, and don't regret at the end of their lives. If it resonate, check the website out for more information.

Interview with Asian Women Coaching Collective

I am honored to be featured in the Asian Women Coaching Collective.