For the past couple of generations, my family moved all over the world in search of better. From digging out of poverty and emigrating from Asia to the US to my leaving home at nine years old to attend boarding school in England – we took whichever path gave us a better chance to survive even if it was challenging. Amidst this movement, I constantly had to navigate different cultures, hierarchies, languages, races, and beliefs to fit in.
My survival mechanism was to chase achievements to be enough. To be recognized. To be seen. But also threading the needle of being just seen enough, but not too much, so as not to call attention to being the odd one out. It forced me to win, but win small. In that environment, I also learned to be incredibly attuned to other people’s emotions, needs, and psychology – and my love for supporting underdogs, like me. This survival strategy led to a lot of success. I graduated from Brown University and got an amazing role at Morgan Stanley. I went on to get an MBA from Northwestern which led to a career in consulting, first at McKinsey and then in Google’s internal Strategy and Biz Ops function.
I found my true calling when I became a coach and then landed at Trium. Now I am mindful of leveraging my strengths while working on their shadow sides. How do I achieve great things without having my achievements be what define me, while at the same time, demanding excellence, growth, and discipline of myself? How do I be people-focused and caring, while holding a high bar for excellence on my team? Ultimately, how do I deliver on both high performance and people? This is both my personal journey and often one that I often share with my clients.
This dynamic shows up in my personal life as well. I was ranked top 1% globally in the Ironman 70.3 triathlon (Top 150 in the world, #1 in Hong Kong, Top 30 in the US). My wife of over a decade was also top 1% globally in the sport…It’s a competitive household! Now, we are both retired triathletes, but we still stay very active, and it’s a constant battle between still striving to be “good” at whatever sport we are doing, but also surrendering to just enjoying it, without needing the medal or ranking or something to show for it. And sometimes, we really just want to eat brunch with our friends.
