ReInvent your master hat

I always fascinate with the question: “Why are we here on earth?”. And I bet many of you might have asked this question from time to time in your life. Life is a beautiful journey, and part of our jobs is to find the meaning in our living and to contribute at our best possible, isn’t it?

The issue here is that that question is a meta question and if we keep asking ourselves about it and not knowing how to protect us from going so far with such thoughts, we might be sucked onto something unsolvable. That’s not good for us. Rather asking, it is better to break it into smaller questions that can help us to find our existing reasons easier. Let’s build thoughts that can move onto actions. Here is an example one: “What is my main role in life?”.

We all have many hats to wear. A hat as a son or a daughter. A hat as a husband or a wife. A hat as a mother or a father. A hat of a mentor or a boss, a coach. At different time in a day, we put on a hat that suits best. But what would be your master hat? How would you build that master hat along the way?

Here is our story.

We got married back in 2005 and no one supported that idea. As an international student who always wanted to go back to Vietnam in near future, my wife’s family did not want her to marry me. It took them so long to go to this beautiful country. Going back was not an option. I was young yet finishing my university and getting to a big relationship like this, it was also a no-no from my family. I was twenty-three years old while Vivian was twenty-two back then. However, we decided that we are getting married regardless. Until now, we have been together for seventeen years with three lovely children.

Like many couples, we had our good, bad, and ugly time. But here is the beautiful thing about our journey: we always know our main roles in this relationship. That is not about being a good and responsible father or mother, husband or wife. Our main role was to be a good supporter when the other person is in need, then be good supporters for people around us. Many people want to lead the way but if you want to take people to somewhere beautiful, you cannot do that alone. You need many people to involve in the process. Those great supporters are ones that make the magic happens.

Being a supporter teaches us many good skills. It gives us good experience and lessons, and it provides endless stories that we can share to others. We were good at what we do back then; but inside of us, we always wanted something different. I wanted to come back to Vietnam because I wanted our children to grow in Asia. I wanted them to learn our culture, to speak the language, and to understand their origins. Vivian played her supporting role to build a roadmap that makes it happen. On her side, she worked in a chemical lab, so she was alone most of the time doing experiments and research. She was happy but she always wanted to do something more challenging. She wanted to be in the front-end of the business. It was my turn to play the role as a supporter. We talked about her career aspirations, about what would be the challenges and how we could accomplish that together. Gradually, Vivian moved onto the commercial side and has been doing something she is good at and loves doing ever since.

Taking supportive role enables us to look deeper onto what people are thinking and wanting so we can find ways to make that happen. We listen better, observe better, and learn how people behave better. It helps us to build better relationship, be more authentic to what we do and making people to become more authentic. It helps us to find the sweet intersection between living and working that ticks. Leading people to positive change is good but the most effective way is helping them to see the need in changing and finding the solutions themselves. This is where the role of a supporter plays best.

Then we asked ourselves this question: “What would happen if two good supporters create something matter together?” That’s when we decided to launch the #InsightsSharing show to bring great stories from amazing people around the world to motivate and to inspire people during the pandemic. In fifteen months, we have been able to bring over four hundred and sixty experts in fifty-five countries from various background to our show. Their stories and achievements were amazing. The advice and insights they shared were practical and applicable for anyone to create positive change. We are forever grateful for their kindness and generosity to take part in our journey.

Along the way, we found a pattern in how these amazing people think and grow their thinking. While others might argue that the doing is more important than the thinking; we are convinced that thinking is the fundamental and leading part of the change management process. If we think well, we will plan well, then we will execute well. It took me four months to think and put a plan to write a book about that. I wanted Vivian to join and write this book together. She is good at thinking. She is good at articulate things and writing them down. Why not be an author? It took me two months to persuade her and support her along the way until she agreed. My role as a supporter played well in that situation.

We started to write at the beginning of November, and that has changed us completely in how we think about doing something that matters together. My journey in writing the first three books was very lonely. I kept the whole thing a secret because I was afraid to fail. I was afraid to not keeping the promise to myself. Writing was not a skill I was good at, and even now I am not. But aren’t we all a work-in-process? This time it was totally different. I got lot of supports from Vivian. We exchanged ideas and we built ideas on top of ideas to make our progress more interesting and joyful. Then, another strange thing that happened. Our original deadline was to finish the book by March 13th, 2023, so we can give it as a gift for our son on his birthday. But last night, Vivian asked me an astounding question: “What can we do to finish it before Christmas?”

Quite surprisingly, we completed one third of the progress in eight days without knowing about it. With this speed, there is a very high possibility that we could be able to complete it before Christmas. We took a long drive around Ho Chi Minh city at late night to talk, to think about what’s next, and to adjust the plan. It was a wonderful conversation and we made improvisation using “Yes, And” approach to circulate what we’d recently learned. Why not push the boundaries a little bit right? Togetherness is important. We realized that there are many other supporters we have been able to bring to this journey. Our youngest daughter, Valeria, had helped us to design the cover of the book. She asked for more that she could support; then agreed to draw more for each chapter. Our son, Sean, play his support role so he will send quotes that motivate us every day. A good way for him to learn about being discipline too. Our oldest daughter, Jackie, has agreed to fine-tune the drawings from her sister when she comes back to Vietnam this December. What’s a supporting team!

On our way home we raised this question: “In the world that many people want to be leading seats, how can we show the beauty side of being a supporter?”. That’s why I wrote this article.

Our question for you: “What is the master-role would you like to show to this world?”