Who Do You Think You Are?

Are you encouraged to be your authentic self?

When I lost my job and decided to pursue my passion for social justice, I heard, “Who do you think you are?”

When I started a podcast from scratch with no podcasting or audio experience, I heard, “Who do you think you are?”

When I declared myself a keynote speaker and JEDI coach with no public speaking experience or certifications, I heard, “Who do you think you are?”

The people saying that to me in (not those exact words but that was their meaning), were not clients, employers or competitors. They were my closest friends. They were Asian women.

They saw “who I am” as what I did. I hold professional designations as a CPA, CA and CHRL. I worked in finance, HR and operations for over 20 years.

None of that is who I am.

What I needed most after being laid off was not career counselling. It wasn’t the well-intentioned but hurtful skepticism of my community and friends.

It was a cheerleader. A coach. Someone who would be unconditionally in my corner, not puffing me up, but reassuring me that I am worthy. That I have value. And that my past doesn’t determine my future, that I can do things that I’ve never done before.

Do you have someone(s) like that in your life? How about in your workplace, or guiding your career?

In HR lingo, we often describe people managers and supervisors as coaches, mentors, and counsellors to their staff. But in my experience, my managers were not “coaches” as I now see the term. They were my evaluators. They determined my fate, based on my performance. Their first loyalty was, by corporate decree, to the organization, not to me. This is how corporate entities, both for profit and not-for-profit, are structured by regulation and by practice.

When I started my podcast and then my business, what I needed most was for people to believe in me. We’re not trained to do that in Western business culture, are we? In recruiting and performance management, we ask for “demonstrated abilities to…”, and we’re told not to evaluate on potential, only on what staff have actually done. I’m reminded of Tom Cruise’s line in the movie A Few Good Men:

That’s one reason I’ve decided to offer online coaching for racialized job seekers, and 1:1 coaching for Asian women professionals. These are under-served groups who often aren’t believed in or supported in our white supremacy culture, which makes it even harder for them to believe in themselves. And existing job search or executive coaching programs are mostly offered by white men and women, making them less culturally relevant; and/or they are expensive and hard to access for under-served groups.

Do you know someone who needs a cheerleader and coach to be in their corner right now? Are you in a position to give someone an encouraging word, a (virtual) pat on the back, or generally show them that you have faith in them?

Don’t wait. Tell them today. Especially in this disconnected COVID time, people are hungry to know they matter, that they can do it, and that there’s hope.

Friend, thanks for being part of the Changing Lenses community!

Warmly,?

Rosie

JEDI ACTIONS

(Photo from CBC News: Chloe?Dufour-Lapointe comforts sister Justine after Justine crashes in Olympic ski mogul event.)

Employers: How are you cheering people on?

If you provide executive or leadership coaching to your teams, are you providing racially and culturally relevant coaches?

Employees/job seekers: Who is cheering you on? How are you cheering yourself on?

You can overcome hard things to do great things. I believe in you! Believe in yourself too!

JEDI SUPPORT & RESOURCES

I didn’t have natural cheerleaders or coaches in my corner, but I’m blessed to have the ability to hire some pretty amazing ones when I really need them. For a long time I was afraid to admit I was getting professional coaching, because of the stigma attached to it in corporate culture. In my HR experience, coaches are typically brought in when something’s wrong, or the person needs to “develop” in some area to get promoted. And development is seen as weakness.

I was also afraid to say what I really thought about corporate diversity and inclusion and white supremacy culture, because I was told I would “turn off potential clients”.

When I finally realized how much I was being held back by these mindsets, and that I was actually being inauthentic to myself and to you – I took the leap and made it public in this podcast episode with my fantastic speaking coach, Jessica Dumas.

I hope it inspires any of you who are currently facing fear, or feeling censored about who and what you really are!

(Available wherever you listen to podcasts.)

NEXT ON THE JEDI JOURNEY

The great news is, all the tough times I went through didn’t defeat me. I learned, evolved, and grew stronger. One thing I learned is to take the word “failure” out of my work vocabulary. I’ve worked in companies that say “it’s OK to fail”, but they don’t really mean it. Most companies don’t, because it would hurt profits and performance targets that then affect executive bonuses.

If you’ve been with me since the beginning, you’ve seen my newsletter change format and content several times. At first I was embarrassed, convinced I had to get it right on day one, and if I changed it, it meant that the first one was a mistake.

Same thing with the podcast. But as I’ve grown as a podcaster and entrepreneur, I see the value in iteration. If things are going to grow and get better, whether that’s a newsletter, podcast, company culture, JEDI – it has to change. It doesn’t mean what happened before was a failure; every iteration is practice, and with practice, we improve.

So I’m super proud to announce Season 3 of the Changing Lenses Podcast is launching on Wednesday! I share more of my battle with impostor syndrome and journey to authenticity with you in Episode 301: Real Talk With Rosie. Stay tuned! And if you haven’t already, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you’ll get it straight to your device.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

During my 4-part LinkedIn Live series on Recruiting More Inclusively (and culturally relevant career advice), we got some great questions from the audience, and learned a lot from my awesome guests, Oscar Garcia, Xin Yi Yap, and Allie Knull.

The full recordings will be available on my website for a limited time, so you can catch any you may have missed! Shorter versions will also be released on the podcast in the next month.

HAVE YOUR SAY

Would you like more content like this in future lives or podcast episodes? What topics are you interested in? Send me an email or message with your requests!

SUPPORT CHANGING LENSES

And grow our JEDI Community by Sharing this Newsletter!