dsrptq ideas // thoughts on the road to leadership & finding my roots

If we learned anything in 2020, is that life is unpredictable. Every aspect of life was thrown into chaos by the COVID-19 pandemic. It's incredible to reflect back on a year of such disruption.

I began 2020 in a job that was without doubt among the most challenging experiences of my life. I had never faced such difficult circumstances in any job at any period of my life. When the pandemic hit and I was laid off along with my team in March 2020, I actually first experienced a sense of relief at knowing that I didn’t have to struggle like I had been. But then, a whole new world of uncertainty opened before us.

It took me a few weeks to recover from the trauma of the whole experience; those months of challenges that preceded the layoff. But, when I started to see through the haze, I gained a new sense of purpose. A new energy. A new vision. Ideas that I had floating in my mind started taking shapes. The things I had been holding to myself because I was afraid I wasn’t ready to launch them - I felt free to begin indulging myself in developing them.

In the second half of 2020, I never hit my stride.

Instead, I took detours and hopped down rabbit holes. I launched my consulting practice. I began working with both nonprofits and small businesses on their strategies to navigate the impact of the pandemic. I started inventing a product with my mom, The Smartmasq, which is now patent-pending and launched in December 2020.

No, I never hit a stride. I never achieved “order” or the kind of stability that my insatiable hunger for control so intensely craves. I found myself in the middle of a storm with winds blowing in every direction. I wasn’t ready for any of it. Yet, amidst that chaos, I started to love it. I realized that I love to solve big problems. I love translating complexity into actionable plans. I live for the thrill of tackling challenges. I love how disruption can be both negative, but also incredibly and powerfully positive. It’s probably why I’ve managed to entangle myself in some extremely difficult job situations throughout my career.

If there is one thing I learned from the eon that we lived known as 2020, it’s that there is no scenario where you can prepare for everything that life throws at you. Like one of the best lessons I learned in an internship I had in internal auditing: you can never get the risk to zero.

Thus, the only thing you can do is simply to be ready for anything. This isn’t the same as being prepared for everything. Being mentally ready for anything is a state of mind, whereas being prepared is a state of being. It is way to build a mindset where we are able to adapt, respond, and persist through whatever unpredictable clusterfucks come our way. It’s not about knowing how to respond to every crisis before they arise; it’s being able to accept what situations arise from crisis and know how to adapt and persist amidst and in spite of them.

I didn’t feel prepared to take on the challenges of the job I was eventually laid off from. However, I am proud of what I was able to accomplish while I was there. I also didn’t feel prepared for the vast uncertainties of the months that proceeded being laid off. But, throughout my career, I have always held a deep commitment to learning to sharpen myself as a leader. I began to lean on that passion for learning to help me realign myself. I returned to reading and reflecting on the things I was learning.

I remember as I was preparing to take on my first executive director role, I began a search for resources, books, and blogs on leadership to help guide me.

What I found were hundreds of books by very successful people - none of whom I felt I could relate to. There were so many titles by the world's most notable business and thought leaders. Yet, I found very few writings by women and people of color among them. Furthermore, they were all writing from a very different place in their careers. Not to say that I couldn’t learn some important principles from well-known leaders who are lauded as the most successful among us. I have and I continue to do so. However, I just didn’t feel that I could relate to their experiences.

For starters, I am a woman. A woman of color. A woman of color, daughter of immigrants who was, at the time, trying to break the “mid-to-executive level” career sound barrier in a non-diverse industry where people like me represented less than 5% of executive level leaders.

As I searched Google for books, podcasts, articles, and blogs on leadership, I wanted to hear from people like me. I wanted to know their paths, their struggles, their mistakes, and all the things that don’t end up in a polished, buttoned-up New York Times bestseller written by people who had already reached the pinnacle of success - folks who had already “made it”. I wanted to know how they pushed through the bad and the ugly to get to the good. I wanted perspective from the road to leadership and growth, from someone who was walking it, not someone who had already made it to whatever final destination. I just wanted some to be real with me.

I will be the first to admit that I am not the best or consummate leader. I have many more lessons to learn than the ones I have gathered thus far. I am not the most polished or the most experienced. In fact, I feel quite inadequate launching a blog on leadership. Perhaps no one will find it helpful but me to simply document the experiences and lessons I’ve learned at this stage of my professional life.

However, in the spirit of the first quote I’m posting as my very first offering to the world through this new venture, I don’t believe I’ll ever be fully prepared for everything, so I want to take this opportunity to be real. To share lessons from the road, not at the end of it. And who knows? Perhaps some of the thoughts I write about will be obsolete in a decade from now when I look back as an older, wiser person and realize that I was young, stupid, and didn’t know shit. If that happens, I look forward to what wisdom I will encounter in the years ahead.

But for now, I give to you dsrptq (dis-rupt-ik). A blog of thoughts on leadership and growth from the perspective of a non-traditional Korean-American woman, daughter of immigrants, who is navigating her climb as a disruptor, a new small business owner, and a career social impact professional, who hopes to leave some insights about the trail she’s facing for others who may find themselves on a similar path. Follow along at https://www.dsrptq.com/dsrtpq-ideas, LinkedIn, and Instagram (@dsrptq).