From Shy Girl to Chief Operating Officer

So, I decided that one of the things that I took away, that as a leader, it’s really important to be both humble and self-confident at the right times and in the right proportions, and to still push yourself to do things that are beyond your comfort zone. Like this interview…

Public speaking is not your comfort zone?

Not at all.

Well, you seem comfortable, you seem very energetic, you don’t seem intimidated by it.

I was painfully shy as a child growing up. I do public speaking because I think it’s good for me, and it’s important, but I don’t enjoy it at all. And one of the stories I tell, when I talk about how hard it is for me is, when I emigrated from Korea to the United States. My father, we got a permanent residency, my father asked, was legalizing our names, and my name was Jan, but my sister told me Jan was a boy’s name, so I cried. And my, that just added an E to the N, to our paperwork, so, I became Jane forevermore.

Oh, my goodness.

I know. I didn’t tell anybody, I didn’t like the name Jane for such a long time, because I was so painfully shy. I think part of it was growing up in Chicago, which at that time, did not have a lot of Koreans or Asians, and just wanting to fit in, and not speaking up, and just trying to actually be a little bit invisible.
So, it took me a long time to overcome that shyness, but I’m still not comfortable with public speaking, I have to confess that.