Two Mountains to Climb

Over the course of your career, have you set goals for growing as the leader? And how did this help you become the leader you are today?

I heard this a long time ago: you have two mountains to climb as you enter your career. The first mountain is yourself. It’s setting a goal for yourself, I want to be a CMO at the youngest age possible, being Asian American, like it will signal something much greater. And so therefore, I’m going to do whatever it takes for me to get there. And then you learn confidence, you learn success, you learn how to do these things, so that you can get to the top of that mountain, get to the top of that hill, and then you go on to your second hill.

And the second hill is us, the community, the people. And the goals from there are how do you not just create bigger foundations from your own success, but now how do you leverage that to speak for your community, to advocate for people that look like you, to open more doors, to hold doors open for other people. And those goals are the ones that are more long- term. You may never achieve those. But I think the goals that I’ve set out, again, take a step back.

The goals that I’ve set out on the first part of my career, always dedicated to me in probably a very selfish way. But I do think that is always the first hill climb for many people, is how do you become comfortable with yourself, become comfortable with your voice, become confident in who you are and your own success and where you’ve achieved your goals, to then leverage that on to the second hill, which is for your people. And so, I do think making goals for yourself, I think is really helpful. But looking at it in the grand scheme of things, on that two-hill standpoint, allows you to see what it’s actually for.