What are you afraid of *not* achieving?
I attended an awesome Microsoft Research Visiting Speaker session with Keith Ferrazzi last week. Keith Ferrazzi is, of course, the youngest partner in Deloitte Consulting's history, now-CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, and the author of the New York Times Bestseller, "Never Eat Alone" (
http://www.amazon.com/Never-Eat-Alone-Secrets-Relationship/dp/0385512058). The book speaks of the importance of building real relationships based on emotional connections and mutual trust, to success in business and life. I haven't read the book, but I had heard plenty about it from various sources, so I knew Ferrazzi himself would have something interesting to say, the way bestselling authors usually do, so I took a break during the middle of the day and checked it out.
The topic of the talk was called "Who's got your back?" loosely related to another book of his of the same name. Here's the summary from the book cover itself:
Disregard the myth of the lone professional "superman" and the rest of our culture's go-it alone mentality. The real path to success in your career and in your personal life is through creating an inner circle of "lifeline relationships" - deep, close relationships with a few key trusted individuals who will offer the encouragement, feedback, and generous mutual support that every one of us needs to reach our full potential. Whether your dream is to lead a company, be a top producer in your field, overcome the self-destructive habits that hold you back, lose weight or make a difference in the larger world, Who's Got Your Back will give you the roadmap you've been looking for to achieve the success you deserve
The first thing that struck me was how true the above was. It seems obvious that networking is critical to professional success, everyone needs friends, and proper people skills are often the greatest barrier to massive riches. Sure, everyone understands that, but so often, it's from the practical perspective of, "how do I use this relationship to my advantage", or "what can I get out of this relationship"; in other words, a purely business, or tactical relationship--like a game of Risk, (or Monopoly, as I recently realized), where you form a relationship so long as it is to your personal advantage. As sad as it is, it's often accepted as the stressful, impersonal reality of corporate life...
Or is it really? These views of the social cynic trying to climb the corporate America ladder haven't impressed me much--mostly because I, like Elissa, believe that all relationships, even those formed in industry are personal, and will have impact far longer than you might understand. Keith corroborated that line of thinking by asking us to think of three people that's "got our backs". These are three people, friends, coworkers, family, whom you trust to have your best interests in mind, and are committed to your personal and professional success. And these aren't just the occasional mentor, or career coach (although they certainly can be)--these are three people that understand you, your dreams, and are bold enough to push/prod and challenge you when you need it. If you didn't have three people, you'd better have a way in mind to build those critical life relationships.
Do you have three people?
When I tried to name my three in my head, a lot of names and faces bubbled up. People I'd grown up with, my parents, old mentors, pastors, friends... but *very* few actually stuck as people whom I was truly open with, and shared my dreams, hopes, fears, and ultimately people that understood me enough to help me make purpose of my life. And this isn't to say that I've false-friends; rather, that I haven't been entirely honest around the people closest to me; that even amongst my closest friends, I've structured a façade to build an image for myself which I would try to live up to. Holden might have called me a phony.
In any case, that question made me rethink of what my role was in ensuring my own success. I think the best advice I could glean from that was… "keep it real".
The second question he asked was a derivative of a common childhood question about life, also frequently used as an interview question. The original was boring, but his made me think hard:
"What are you afraid that you won't achieve in your life?"
All too often, I try to answer the reverse question: "What do I want to achieve?". It's a great question; it gets you to think with life as a blank slate, and find possibilities to get from A to B. It makes you bubble up all the idealistic things you want to accomplish. His question was different. On the surface, it's the same, but it makes you think differently, as if life was a picture all complete, and now you had to take a big bad eraser and start wiping away dreams. It makes you ask yourself, what is most important to you? At least, that's how I interpreted that question, and I really thought about what would be most important to me at the end of my life. For me, it boiled down to three things:
- Family. Self-explanatory.
- Significant contribution to society--preferably a positive technological impact in the way we live, share, and reflect on our lives.
- Been good to my friends, family, and community--being someone that I can live with.
Fortunately, for me, the answers were nearly the same--(showing that ive minimized cognitive dissonance over the past few years); yet it gave a fresh new perspective of looking at my life in terms of things I can't do without. It was good.
The final lessons I learned from Keith were his struggles with insecurity; the fear that you weren't measuring up. I laughed at this point, because that's exactly how I feel quite often; even in the face of clear success, somewhere deep down, I ask self-defeating, skeptical questions to myself, "was this a fluke?; do I really deserve this?; is this gonna be the best I'll ever be?" It's like I'm subtlety asking for someone to scream at me at tell me on a job well done, but even then, I might not have believed it.
He spoke of when his first book got to the NYT Bestsellers list… how instead of cheering, and being happy, he freaked out and asked those very same questions. Funny, isn't it--that if your personality doesn't allow you to relax, even in the face of success like this, you'll be stressed out. The key is to work hard, be humble, but to give yourself a pat on the back from time to time.
I don't have much else to say beyond what I"ve already said, except… I'll definitely be attending more MSR Visiting Speaker seminars from now on. 
Blogs everywhere, and nowhere
This is terrible. I've spent the last hour trying to figure out which blog of mine to continue writing in, and couldn't come up with a good enough reason to pick and stick with one. I've got a whole gamut of sites, from Xanga, LJ, Vox, skyrien.com, Live Spaces, my own MSFT blog, Facebook notes... each with entirely different audiences. *Sigh*--what a ridiculous dilemma. You know what? I'm gonna post IN THEM ALL! And then see what happens. Take that indecision!
Not like I'd even how to write even if I had picked one. I can't seem to form coherent paragraphs anymore... or think past the first few words of a sentence... maybe it has to do with the constant high-on-caffeine feeling that I've been putting myself into these days.
Not like I'd know what to write about even if I could. Sure there's been a lot going on, I've had crazy insights about life and all that over the past few years that I've been relatively absent from the bloggosphere... Of course, my thoughts still want to get out but, for some reason, the motivation to put thought to strings of words just isn't there.
I think that's why I've been so prolific on Facebook PSUs and Twitter these days--it's ridiculously easy to just do a little mind dump; a fleeting thought--which basically used to be how most of my blog entries started out anyway. Like a recent Wired post suggested, maybe that's exactly why Twitter is catching on--140 characters is just enough space to drop a well crafted thought. No filler, no literary sugar, just the raw thought that you've been meaning to share. Simple right?
Twitter definitely has a place in the realm of social communication, but the fact that it's replacing more sophisticated methods of social discourse is disturbing. Whatever happened to those long sweeping ridiculously unnecessary blog post from our teenage angst days? Sure there were plenty of whiny, pseudo-artsy, pointlessly drivel-y, wordy, useless entries out there but even those were very satisfying to write and entertaining to read. I remember posting about five years back on Xanga (2004) that I hoped blogging wasn't just a fad. Well, since then, it's definitely caught on with the political pundits and social media producers of the world, but it seems to have vanished from our day-to-day social lives.
A damn shame. Anyway, I guess I do have plenty I want to write about--and can on occasion form thoughts that are longer than 140 characters. That's good to know.
Biannual thoughts on life
Do you think it's possible to live for years, living somewhere else, doing something else, being someone else, than who you were meant to be. What does it mean when you surround yourself in a reality as real as any, yet completely different from all the other choices in your life? As I've gone along the various branches of my life, I've occasionally wondered how different things would have been had I made some different choices in life; in some other parallel timeline, I might not be in my little Seattle apartment (which is becoming to feel more and more like home every day/week/month that goes by), and instead... instead what?
Is there a point to think of any of these alternate paths? There are so many tiny choices I make every day that have the potential to make far-reaching changes in my life: I could've gone a little slower that night, and maybe avoided that nasty indestructible pole; I could've been in a different mood the moment I made the decision to come out West; and things would've been a world away from what they are.
Meh, I think I'm just in a thinking mode again. I do this every couple years; fall into a metacognitive frenzy, and completely rethink my life and why I'm living and thinking the way I am. In doing so, I'll wonder if the world I'm in now is the one I want to be in the next couple years. Haha, if this was college, it might be when I'd consider changing my major 
. I'm not a freshman in college, I'm a freshman in the working world; the "MSFT Starting Class of 9/2/2008", and I've just started my second semester (or should I do quarters?). Whatever the past 4 months have been, it's a beautiful time to start again, and, that is a great time to reaffirm what I've been doing so far.
In the end, I can't answer the question I started this entry with, but in another "semester" I think I will be able to. Knowing me, after a phase like this, I know I'll reaffirm what's important to me, and realize and remember for the next 2 years that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. And that reason may be to ultimately be here, or maybe just to learn from the experience and to go home ... wherever "home" may be.
Life is beautiful, and like Frost told me on a pillow once, if there's anything I've learned, is that "It goes on..."
Oh, happy 2009! This is the year of the Ox! Fellow Oxen (1985 people!), this is our year! It's time to show this world what we're all about!
RIP Xela (8/16/2008 – 12/20/2008)
So... with barely 4 months of life in her, Xela is no more. While driving down 148th Ave NE in Redmond, late Saturday evening, I suddenly lost control, slipped about 90 degrees, and the driver-side door of my car met the broadside of an indestructable pole at about 30 MPH . Needless to say, the damage was crippling: one second I'm driving down the road (straight line, flat), the next, I'm seeing this metal thing come at me really really fast, and the next, I hear a boom(!), a flash of light, and get the wind blown out of my lungs. The window and sunroof, shattered instantly, and the airbag exploded blocking the pole and probably saving my life (or at least, my brain).
It reminded me of the time I fell off the monkey bars in kindergarten; I couldn't breathe for about 10 seconds, but had the presence of mind to check to see if I had broken any bones. I don't know how long I was there, but I remember knocking outside my door, and some kind strangers were saying that they called 911, and asked if I was okay.
I slowly came to my senses, and stumbed out of the car:
What scared me most was how the pole's impact was exactly where my head would have been, hadn't it been for the airbag. With it, I survived, with only a few bruises and glass related cuts. In any case, I'm happy to be perfectly fine, 2 days after the crash. Xela, my beloved Scion tC however, is no more...
age is for the weak!
[Ah, so I'm giving myself ten minutes to write this out...]
Social Planes!
Thanks Vicky!
| You are a Social Liberal (65% permissive) and an... Economic Moderate (55% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist |
Just a little break…
Life is interesting so far--just finished my third week of work... and life goes on. Always remember that people, and let's kick ass at whatever we're doing for this new year!
(to l.li, I'm in Seattle now!)
Such a catchy song... grabbed from the iPod nano commercials...
I tried to do handstands for you
I tried to do headstands for you
Every time I fell you on yeah every time I fell
I tried to do handstands for you
But every time I fell for you
I'm permanently black and blue, permanently blue for
you...
Xander’s College Life – Epilogue
Xander's College Life - Epilogue
All good things...
Class of 2008. Those were the words I read over and over again in 2004 as a freshman entering Assembly Hall, along with the eight thousand or so others in our bright orange "Freshmen" shirts, excited/apprehensive. The year seemed more of a concept than an actual time, really, they might have well said Class of the 22nd Century. Yet now, here we are,in September of 2008, all graduated and well into the next step of our lives. What does this all mean? Unlike the last pivotal transition (from high school to college) which I brutally documented so often, I've been very nelgigent to reflect on this one at all. Quite a shame, given how significant and unique each story is.
But it wasn't sheer laziness that kept me from writting, oh dear readership--but I think... I needed to make sense of the whole college story before I could move onto reflecting about my present, and quite honestly, I still haven't made all that much sense of it--especially the last... 3 years or so. School, friendships, relationships, etc... all of it was a blur that got blurrier the longer I gave. The greatest message I got though, as Frost said about life, was that "it goes on". Whether or not I"m ready to understand the significance of what I went through during those days/months/years, more will come. And the key lesson here is, without looking back, without reflecting on the moments that our lives are made of as we experience them (or soon after), they will be forgotten, and before we know it, more days/months/and years will have gone by as well.
Well. Can't let that happen, can I?
But if there's another thing that I've learned in the last four years it's that there is so much in life, that you lose more in the present than you could ever gain by holding onto the past. This is a very important period in my life, here in the Fall of 2008, and while I reflect on occasion to four years ago, I will continue to blog about the here and now.
So, here's a brief cheer to everything that college was--in terms of friendships, relationships, classes, and life lessons--may we all take what we need, and move onto the next steps more learned and more prepared than we could have been without it. I'll reflect more on the past in the days to come.
New beginnings.
Every now and then, you need to sit down, free your mind of your current mood, and get ready for a new age. For me, now is one of those times. One month before the biggest most exciting change of my life, transitioning from a child still dependent on my parents' allowance, to completely taking care of myself--in a new city, new position, with new surroudnings.
Yes, I'm excited. Yes, I'm a little anxious. But hell yes, I'm ready for a new beginning.
College was great, I met awesome people, learned an amazing amount of stuff that I was barely aware of beforehand, but also to never confuse my career with my life. Moderation is everything; that's one of the wise wods that Beckman left behind, and something that I still have yet to fully learn. The great balancing act continues...
New beginnings are a great moment to renew yourself, but I'm still not perfect, going into this next step. A lot of interviews ask about my greatest weaknesses--I've given a different answers every now an then, but they've something like follows:
- Sometimes, I'm impatient..
- Often, until I remind myself not to be, I'll be strongly devoted to one point of view...
- When things aren't going smoothly with people, I often spend an inordinate amount of mind and effort to reconcile things...
- And lastly, often, I don't know when to give up...
I'm aware of these weaknesses because I see them in my day to day routine, and of course, they're not always weaknesses; when the time is right, these can all be amazing strengths. In the next step to come, my goal is to get a better grasp of myself, my situations, and how to handle them in an ideal manner.
I go into this next step with a partially undefined future--but like my weaknesses, this also has a strength: Anything is possible.
New blog, new beginnings.
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jan | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |||
Xander’s Endeavors
- “Fuck you and crowdSPRING too.” – Who’s hatin’ on crowdsourcing now?
- NYC
- “(c) 2010″ is already on the web for massively scalable services? How?
- American citizenship from my own perspective
- Thoughts on black-asian race relations coming from A Good Day to be Black and Sexy (2008)
- Who needs names when you have memes?
- Social Mores of the 21st Century
- Entry 2 – 7/7/2009 – Korea, Korean, and Koreans
- Entry 1 – Asiana 271 — 7/4/2009 – 8:33 PM (PST)
- Xander’s (Post-College) Life – Year 1