TRANSCIPT

Ask The Coach EP01 [Feat. Melinde Chu]

* Captions taken from YouTube *

[Music]

all right melinda welcome to coaching

session right you want to introduce

yourself a little bit

uh i'm melinda and um i'm a recent fresh

grad who just entered the first

few months ago so i'm pretty new in this

but false

okay how long already how many months um

for six months so since last year so

have been trying to juggle uh transiting

from school to work

so pretty uh pretty four months to um

to transit

from a student

right okay okay and then uh this career

your first career was about

i'm doing

sorry in one of bit4

during assessment to

i.t systems

so

it's relatable to what i've been

studying in school i studied information

systems but in school

okay cool so what's your question uh so

my question to jason is actually to find

out you know like as a starter you know

as a fresh grad how do i actually juggle

transition uh have a better transition

from being a student to a working adult

right okay so um i think the main

difference between um

student and adult is the idea of

results

uh and performance rather than just

effort so a lot of times the student you

know they put in effort for you know

participant

participation points and things like

that they put in effort um

what you want to be able to do is that

at work you want to be able to focus

more on the performance part and what

does that mean that means like

the funny thing is that you never know

whether you're performing well until

your boss or your team members let you

know

you may think you're bringing in a lot

of effort you say you put in like 1 10

upon that effort but your boss and your

team members can only see 5.10

so bring in 10 upon them but they they

see only five so guess what they would

think

you're only doing five

yes

right so feedback is extremely important

and a lot of times you need to be able

to have that open

communication with your boss so people

ask

for example so i'm doing this and all

that maybe you can help me to understand

where am i at and this is going to be a

very powerful thing always use a ruler

because sometimes your boss is not

equipped

to be able to tell you how you're doing

so they will say that melinda yeah

you're doing well what the heck does

well mean well means 5.10 all the way to

10 and 10

doesn't tell me right so what you want

to do is to ask a ruler question which

is what from a scale of zero to ten in

terms of time being really at the peak

performance

zero meaning that i'm slacking all the

way really bad where am i now in this

project or where am i now currently so

every time you ask that question to your

boss your boss will help you understand

oh melinda now you're the sixth

right and that's okay oh melinda yeah i

think it's very good you're at 10.

fantastic now you have empirical data

before that you have what

you have just noise you have vagueness

that doesn't help you so when it comes

to performance at work

you always need to be able to

um almost like tell you know in chinese

because like always adjust where you are

at and the best way to understand this

is that if you are running

2.4 or 100 meters you always have a

clock

right you always have a time check and

then you know where you are at are you

very clear oh i want to hit here i'm

here now i'm at

12 seconds i want to hit 10 seconds for

example so it's always that measurement

so ask your boss

to help you or your team members to help

you from scale 0 to 10 just want to find

out how do you rate my performance

and they will throw away all the

vagueness that you have of like oh

melinda you're doing very well i see

your effort that is [ __ ]

right effort doesn't equate to

performance you can put in a lot of

effort but you are too

you that you are 5.10 that means you're

not putting enough

or you're putting an effort in the wrong

places

so for example give you an example

maybe your boss asks you a uh can you do

up this email and this email you take

like wow you're very concerned you're

very careful and this email you take

like 45 minutes

right and then it's a great email but

because it's 45 minutes that's really

bad performance

okay

make sense so always use a ruler to ask

your boss and your team members where

you are at and the beautiful thing about

the router if they give you 6 upon 10

yes what's your next question you want

to guess how to go beyond six

yeah so be more specific don't ask a

very wide question always ask very

specific so i'm a six now boss can i

just find out from you what it does it

take to go to a seven

so always just that

i've got so many leaders they're very

vague in terms of your performance most

of the time they're like oh you're doing

doing well you're not doing well scully

in the performance review you get a

really bad rating then you'll be like oh

come on i put so much effort you know

what the heck is happening because you

didn't

all this while you're running 2.4 you

have no timing at all you have zero clue

make sense yes so use the use the ruler

in anything that you are uncertain about

hmm

got it cool yes cool

yes so same thing your marks in uh when

you're younger and uh in school and all

that your grades you have a common

assessment you're always knowing where

you're at so that you don't suddenly

fail out of nowhere but at work that's

very possible you can put in 10 upon 10

effort all the way at the end of the day

performance review your bonus and all

that you only have a 6.10

and then you'll be like oh my goodness

mind blow why on earth where did the 4

come from every time you're so

encouraging and all that and that's one

of the things where it's very painful um

when you go into workforce and you don't

have that kind of feedback

got it

awesome okay great so we know many of

the french graduate uh like myself uh

probably they'll be thinking like you

know [ __ ] we are at the very bottom we

are starting from we are doing the most

basic stuff which is

like everything

so the question is is like how do we as

a starter right climb the corporate

ladder because we probably will see our

managers who have been there in the

company for six seven years and now

school they are six seven years in that

uh environment and they are probably the

master and as a starter you might feel

scared because

compared to a six seven years master in

that company and compared to a newbie

like myself

yeah so how do i actually

manage these you know the saikan has a

fresh fresh grade you know in the

company and how do i manage like the

master how do i gain

more knowledge from my view as a newbie

okay so last time what was your cca like

what was it drama dance what was it

um it was in sports sports and um

leadership in

university

uh leadership university okay and then

sports what sports was that

sports event now a secondary school poor

politics

i used to play volleyball more of the

more intense workouts

okay well you think your arms must be

really red

[Laughter]

okay so uh volleyball uh was that the

first time you played volleyball

oh yes in my life instagram so you

started in set one

yes right so when you're in set one and

you're insect four the amount of

knowledge you have in volleyball i would

say exponentially different

yes right super different you know so

many more things because why the schema

or the synapses in your mind has already

has grown to areas where you don't know

so the most important thing when it

comes to going in new in any industry

any organization

is being this thing called a sponge

you need to

keep asking questions

don't

look like wow very oh i've got face

value and all that all my colleagues

never ask questions i don't look stupid

that's the worst case you can do you

always ask questions all the time

because why you're trying to fill up all

the voids

it's like it's like volleyball hey why

mostly do this what can we do in when

this when they spike and all that so

you're always asking there's always a

void that you're trying to fill up

philip phillip and every time you fill

up guess what happens you get more and

more confidence

because your mind

don't need to think so much it's

straight away there already that's why

it becomes muscle memory at set for when

you're playing you don't need to figure

out anything you know what's going to

happen

so asking questions helps you to create

that idea of filling up the voids that

you have

and in one two years time if you ask

many many questions right that void that

mapping in your mind is going to look

very very different from where you

started

but don't be afraid because of face

value to say to ask a stupid question

change the mindset that you have there's

no such thing as a stupid question

there's only curious questions that's it

but be wise about it sometimes your

question can be very long and then some

people will be like hey what's military

asking that question

right so sometimes i understand when to

ask that question if everybody's damn

busy and all that and you ask one hey

can i learn something

everybody explode at you man so try to

find ways

and don't only think that

you can only ask your boss always ask

your team members was around and be very

respectful because you're taking their

time

but the best thing about it is that when

you are so sincere

and thankful

about them sharing with you to fill up

those voids

they will want to help you even more

right so don't be an ass to say that

us then never say thank you well always

be appreciative of people so that's

number one

always asking questions always asking as

much as possible

and

feedback coming back to the first one if

you ask too many questions some people

might be irritated

yes so you need to figure out after five

team members

sally and joe

are good at good at at answering my

questions and they feel okay because we

have a relationship

john and eric however

are so senior to a point where they feel

that you are they almost put you in

intern level and you're wasting my time

so also know try to try to gauge who are

those people you can actually go to who

are those people you you go to if it's

something a bit more high level or a bit

more serious or a bit more like okay

this one really must ask john because

he's really good at that make sense

yes so that's the first one asking a lot

of questions and all that the second

part asks opportunities

see at the start right

if you don't know anything in volleyball

you need to be doing everything

everything

yes everything possible so for example

cleaning the ball for example uh doing

the stores and all that when you do

everything you start to know a lot of

things you start to know that hey it's

15 minutes to do this i assume it took

it took one hour so when somebody tells

you hey it took one hour for me that's

total bs

so the more opportunities you ask for

the more you're able to

feel that learning not just here but you

actually do it so when you're doing it

so same thing i can give you textbook

and textbook about riding a bicycle

doesn't work

cool so it's really about asking

questions and asking opportunities

and when you ask opportunities imagine

this right if your plate is now 9 upon

10 you're full already

if you ask opportunities what happens

so you need to be able to

go through that and if you want to learn

the best and then you want to be the

best in your industry climb as fast as

possible you need to not be afraid of

going 15 upon 10.

go [ __ ] face crazy that means ask a lot

and you're the only person who's like

well actually everything melinda is

willing to do millennials willing to go

for it yes it looks like people are

going to take advantage of you that's

okay

why because you're learning

it is worth it if you're learning and

different opportunities oh can i take

minutes for that that meeting that

you're going for i would love to learn

yeah somebody needs to take minutes of

course sure go for it but then that

means you need to stay back later to do

your other work you're right

make sense yes so same thing same thing

if you're in volleyball you look at a

junior coming to you and says can i help

you can i help you how do you feel

i will try to be that senior that i

wanted i always wanted to have

exactly right so you're happy with it

compared to you somebody come in no

questions and don't ask for anything

don't want to help anything how do you

feel about that person

probably you come here too you didn't go

through any of the progress any process

to learn more

yeah yeah you're here for just cca

points

yes

right so that so in in work we call that

disengaged

that's called this gauge staff in cca in

in school they just want cca points at

work there are some people who just want

pay

give me more work

it is not worth it because whatever it

is i still get two cca points

at work whatever it is i do it i still

get x amount of salary per month so why

do more but that is capping your growth

so never think about that

got it so back to the question right is

there any like strategy that you know

can ask

when it comes to questioning and of your

questioning of your

when you want to ask for

questions from your bosses is there any

strategy to ask even like every john

the five of my peers for example

yeah yeah so

i think the best way when people see you

um

the

teachers are most energized sharing with

with

people with two characteristics number

one is they're extremely respectful

very respectful and very

um very clear about how people feel

almost like if you start asking asking

you see them irritated you already know

you can see really right so be

respectful means what you also need to

be sensitive

respect their time

because them spending an hour with you

is an hour not doing the work

so how do you do that if your friend

helps you out with something what do you

do

i will look at my plane to strategically

uh strategically look at what i can

squeeze one hour for him or her

yeah so so that's that but also if your

friend keeps helping you what do you

want to do you want to help them back

right you want to appreciate them right

so how do you usually appreciate your

friends

uh spend quality time with them okay

that's one what else

oh buy them a coffee

yes

so these are the things where you buy

curry puff you buy things because hey

thank you so much i appreciate it guys

there's so few people actually do that

so when you actually do that and says oh

i just want to thank you for it it's

just a small gesture don't blow it up

until it's like wow that coffee is the

biggest thing in the world right well

this one don't need to just appreciate

them so that's one right that's one in

terms of um being so respectful the

second one is the curiosity curiosity

and always have that curiosity always be

figuring out like

hey why did it happen and all that

because once you keep asking those

questions once you're curious

people know that your car that's moving

rather than the cars that stationary

moving means what that makes you always

asking is like you're not taking things

just as face value you're always trying

to figure out and when the curiosity and

you have enough synapses and schema

guess what you can start to value it

so when you're so curious and all that

it helps you to build and why do you

want to learn all these things because

in everything

it is about giving back to them

it's about helping them out so helping

your seniors out helping your boss out

helping to give what insights hey can i

just suggest this this this so when

there's no really way to ask a question

right you ask in the most sincere way

possible hey john do you have some time

i just want to ask you this is this a

good time to catch you or is it a bet is

there a better time for

you cool okay good a following question

you know like uh once we always ask for

opportunities and you know the skill

will just keep increasing till we maybe

reach like a master level after five

years you realize that your level 50 is

a game

level 50

and then how do you manage your burnout

because along the way you definitely

keep you know like a kite you're so

tight and then you definitely need to

have that let's let go of certain like

um

force to make yourself look better so

how do you manage not along the way

while we are going to level 50

yeah so but it's quite complex there are

a few other things um i think if there's

one thing i talk about burnout is this

idea that you are doing things

that drain you emotionally here so it's

in your heart not your mind

so it's emotionally a drain like

kryptonite to superman you know it's

like painful

but

people can see that you're doing a very

good job that means in results and

performance maybe you're a nine upon ten

so that's scary managing burnout is one

of the ways is to understand that if you

do things that's energizing for you

you don't feel that burnout

if you do things that is draining to you

you feel that burnout

so what is energizing that means for

example in the few months that you're

there already are there some things that

you look forward to

yes definitely

and there are some things that you're

okay doing but you don't look forward to

yes so some people's admin reports you

know the things that i i just have to

bobby and just have to do

right

so when you're managing your burnout

understand that you need to figure out

what gives you life

and what sucks the life out of you

if you're trying to manage that try to

figure out how you can be on projects

that give you life or while within the

day or within the week find ways that if

you are down find ways that you can pick

yourself up by doing things that give

you life that energize you

and that's how you manage yourself don't

go crazy and like while this whole week

i wanna do everything that's killing me

well i i hate that i mean so i'll do

everything that one will be well you go

down to a depth of abyss that is going

to be so painful very hard to come up

but when you think about school like

last time when you

well maybe you like geography a lot wow

when you do geography you have a lot of

energy right

yes let's say like you enjoy watch i

love the what everything country wrong

and all that

surface runoff and i love that

that will spill over to the other things

that you don't like doing

like history for me is chinese right so

there's a there's an overflow

that overflow

is something that you can you can use

and leverage so think about all the

different tasks there are some things

that plus some things that are minus

in terms of energy level

so when you're trying to focus on that

weak trying to see oh these things

energize me maybe i do this if i'm

feeling burnout i agree and go to the

things that energize me so you manage

that the larger burnout is really the

idea that maybe you're just not fit for

it

right so you are sprinter but you're a

task to do everything that's marathon

but you're built to be a sprinter that's

a larger ground where

you only need you need to try first and

you need to try one two three years then

you figure out whether he is this for me

because i can almost guarantee a lot of

your people who do your same

exact same degree

in the next five 10 15 years

maybe 50 of people will never ever touch

that

true yeah i've seen yeah been many of

the seniors yes yeah they won't do that

they do something else so the degree is

only because they open the door for you

to reach where you are now other than

that it's okay

yeah so figure out that you can so know

that there's flexibility to change

your career every now and then

yeah talking about career suit sorry

because i'm still a new uh starter in

this career that um you know many people

like among you know the great

resignation this term many people like

myself would want to quit their job for

whatever reasons it could be like the

pay they want to jump into different

companies to get their pay increase as

much as uh as much as they can yes the

most efficient way to increase their pay

instead of internally talking to their

boss here please

increase my pay so

this great resonation this situation as

a starter right how do i know that it's

time to leave

for

whatever reasons i have or should i

still continue to be leveling up to

level 50

55 years later

yeah so that's a good question um

i think along the way is

helpful

to maybe in two years into your career

to actually go and start to ask other

firms uh what is your value

you will never know so i recently

coached somebody who suddenly after 14

12 or 14 years right she asked and her

value is two three times more

imagine that

but she never never yeah so imagine that

she earned 5k now she can earn 15k

and she could have been earning that for

a

long long time

so number one is understanding the value

right number two is really

in a career

you either go just for stability and pay

like our parents and our parents parents

they don't care about joy of work they

don't care about fulfillment it's just

about just getting enough money to live

in singapore

this generation our generation is really

the idea of fulfillment if you are going

towards that fulfillment that you feel

that there's something inside you that

you can really give to the world

but you don't know what that is

then that fulfillment route is really

see every job that you feel as tasting a

new dish

you're just tasting it and you see

whether this is something that yeah i

feel that i can really talk so much

about laksa because i really enjoy it or

this one chicken rice no not really much

but wow

fun yeah definitely

so it's the idea that you need to taste

it

you can never

you can interview a million people that

are doing that new job and you still not

you must taste it so one is to ask let

me ask you a value when you ask your

value in the market the market will tell

you if you are at the currently you're

really enjoying what you do

then you have leverage that means you

talk to hr your boss

boss i really really want to carry on

however i got this offer

it's easier for them to match it than

them to suddenly you have zero nothing

and you just ask for a pay rise

then they're like for what then they'll

give you minimal

right so but so if you really enjoy what

you're doing right now and it fulfills

something inside your heart

it energizes you and then you like just

maybe the issues only pay and then you

go for it then you carry on

right if you feel that at this company i

can't do anything that i really enjoy

really feel energized then it's time to

leave

so there are two main things that one is

pay and the other one is that

fulfillment and all that

it's a balancer some people really

because of family needs is the most

important i just need a stability my

parents are sick and all that oh i'm

supporting them i just need that now

then after then oh some people it's like

yup everything's settled that's quite

okay i need to find fulfillment

got it

yeah

but long time ago don't worry man

but but the issue is that you keep

trying to figure out

um whenever you ask for more

opportunities you're opening more doors

opening more doors means that you're

tasting different food

hey what somebody asked you to join uh

this team who's doing this it's like

what's so interesting i never never knew

that there was this industry or got such

job like that

right so when you go into that you start

tasting it's like hey i could see myself

doing that that's why opportunities

opening all the doors help you to taste

as much food as possible so that one day

in your life you'll be like

those things i've tried i don't like it

these are the things i feel that i can

really value at

but you must taste it you don't taste

you'll never know

i see

so talking about opportunities right um

i know that you know you can stretch

yourself as much as you can and you will

need to but not eventually if you don't

but i know the difference between you

have the spark or not to have a spark

for few months

but there will still be times where you

feel down even though your work is

something that it sparks you or it

defeats you

a lot of opportunities a lot of

abundance of opportunities given to you

but how do you know that it's time to

rest like how do you remind yourself

it's time to rest

even though you have the spark but

you're so tired but eventually you'll go

to a burnout even though there's a spark

yeah

so that one is pure self-awareness

the best way best analogy i give is that

if i really love running marathons

right even after i finish a marathon i

will look i will feel what i feel

physically very tired

but emotionally very high i want to run

the mixed marathon i want to run the

next one

if i'm really legit crazy sell order to

marathons

so there is definitely an emotional

energy but it's also a physical energy

that physical energy different marathon

runners will be different so you need to

actually see yourself sometimes it's

like well really my burnout is like that

i can see certain patterns in the past

when i'm in volleyball while i'm in

council on leadership positions i see

those same patterns coming up then be

careful because maybe that pattern falls

off a cliff and you don't recover for a

very long time

some people

don't really need that they will say

their stress stress stress but then

they're okay

yes right some people they're stressed

they're really stressed they go down

they don't come back for three months

so you need to be self aware about your

kind of burnout is what kind that

physical burnout how much can you take

you're really not sure until you see

your past

and

you see whether or not these patterns

are

these patterns are coming up again

because human beings very interestingly

as human beings are very much

very much created by patterns the

patterns in life and when you look back

in the past you will see a lot of

patterns that help you to understand why

you do what you do now

so the only way i can help you with that

is gauge your own level of

burnout

and the only way is that self-awareness

and reflection

back in your life

are you the kind of that when you burn

out you really go down and then for a

while or you kind of like

i try to have what life integration so

for for me um i might not have

self-awareness in terms of that because

i already have integrated my work and my

my normal life so maybe i need to work

on my self-awareness because my burnout

is

something that i might not be aware

just eventually one day i woke up i feel

like redemption

like even the work that i'm doing is

really easily that i'm interested in you

have my fulfillment but just that one

fine day that i suddenly felt that um i

cannot i cannot do this

yeah

yeah so that's quite normal just to

share uh when it comes to discount

things and some people just take a date

some people take a month some people

take a year

right and it's different for different

people so

yeah you just have to be self-aware i

can't really help you on that one you

just have to take note of how you feel

about certain things and when you're

going down there and all that try to see

what triggers you based on that

right and different people have

different triggers so some people for

example

i know people that uh

when they

work

and they're okay with going through all

the [ __ ] and when they work because they

always think about

the people my team members

right yes so it could be the team is the

one that energizes you that's the source

of energy another person is not about

the team

it's about the cause

am i doing this for the right course and

that's why because of the course it

energizes me it excites me on my journey

so you figure out what it is some people

are people person some people are yeah

cause some people are different

right right so talking about self

awareness you know i know i know that

one of the way is to find uh to actually

speak to like industry other companies

when you apply for other jobs to know

yourself

but while you are happy in your company

is there other ways to find self-worth

besides

so-called interviewing a new job

which is one of the ways

self-worth like what do you mean by

self-worth

uh self-worth like uh you know i know

that's more of the self-worth can also

be could uh can also be like performance

review from your bosses peer review to

know that your value is in certain level

uh

so

while you are having like performance

review from your coach from your peers

and then maybe um job interviews to find

out your your worth in the industry

so what what sort of um

how how are those

what other self-worth can we actually

find out uh while we are happy in the

company

so you talk about self-worth why is that

important

um

it's important to me because like it's

something that fulfills me right when i

wake up when i fee when i do a job that

makes me feel fulfilled i know where i

stand you know myself off i know that my

um

my

my presence in the team can actually uh

value at to be available added to the

project

so this is my understanding of

self-worth like when i wake up i love

the job i do for a few months and then i

know that i'm ready to

be value-adding to the team and not a

burden

okay

so i think um

it's a very deep question

uh yeah a bit um

so

okay so when it comes to this kind of

thing about

self-worth it's

it yeah it's a bit complex because some

people will be like i know where i stand

and that's okay i don't need external

internal as long as my compass is there

i'm set my true north is there it

doesn't matter what people feel about me

right so those are the people who are

who get their self-worth from am i doing

what i am supposed to be doing

right there's another group of people

who

just need the idea of

understanding how the external parties

feel about me

right and that's the idea of like

affirmation

that's the idea of recognition

that's the idea of people sharing with

you

so which one do you think you are a

little bit more external

or internal

on actually it depends on certain days i

feel internal i i will work with the

internal but some days i feel external

because the job that i'm doing the

nature of it is

um

customer facing

so

my kpi is actually um is optional that

client actually gave you appraiser and

the appraiser actually stand some kpi

percentage

so some on some days um external

validation is important yeah sometimes

when i'm doing like paperwork just

myself and the people

i wouldn't be possibly be thinking about

other people dating about me so just

myself yeah so it's really dependent

like certain internet sundays

yeah okay

so

so i can address the external one

so when it comes to external if you

if the people actually

give you feedback and you say it is

optional

are you able to ask them to give you

feedback

yes

you are able to have you asked before

uh to my coach to my peers yes but to

client is optional

okay so if have you ever

would it be bad or would it be okay if

you ask the client to give you feedback

uh

most of the time i don't do that

because a point of contact will probably

be by my mentor

the project lead

so the project lead will probably be the

point of contact so anything like

complaints or

good things about that person is

probably through the point of contact of

that

my team lead

yes okay so your team is a female yeah

okay so then your senior has the way

has the kia to whether or not you get

feedback or not he can she can very

simply ask hey can you just give us some

feedback

right okay okay so

so we talk about external right so one

one way is to

really understand the impact that you

have

right so self-worth can come from the

idea of people validating you so which

could be your clients could be your team

members and all that we just talk about

clients if you can actually try to

convince your team lead that

and you can say in such a way that a

feedback is extremely important to me i

want to grow as fast as possible

and one way is to get empirical feedback

and one way i learn

the best is be able to actually hear

from the clients hey jim can you help me

to be able to just ask them how did

melinda do in this project

so you will get empirical data

from your clients

right it can be bad and good

so

and they can then basically feedback is

good for you because then you can grow

more right but if you're not getting any

feedback you're in the dark

yes you're closing your eyes you're

hitting everything hoping that you hit

10 different lights but actually you hit

only three you're not sure you will

never know

right so ask

but position in such a way that it's for

your learning

not because while you like i want to be

proud and all that because you want to

grow every senior and every boss wants

somebody in their team to be so fired up

with growth

because that means you are growing

faster than the rest that means in the

long run i don't need to hand hold you

so much

so position anything that you want

when it comes to discounting as growth

okay so that's for your

clients for your team members and for

your your leaders or your seniors

also ask them this question so this is

the question to ask right

this is this is about pull feedback

right rather than they have to give you

feedback

right so you say something like this hey

john i know i'm not perfect

is there anything that i'm doing that

okay let me let me rephrase that now

i drawn are not perfect

what is one thing i can do more of

or less off

to make it easier to work with me

what is one thing i can do more off or

less off to make it easier to work with

me

right and you start off with it i know

i'm not perfect the reason why is

because you help them to you give them

the open door

to give you positive feedback and

negative feedback

and that's that validation also melinda

and you will see and the beautiful thing

about this is that they will tell you

things that you never thought is a

strength

it's easy for you

maybe it's the way that you see numbers

fast maybe it's the way that you make

the client feel feel respected these are

all things that you will never know

and it helps you to

it's almost adjust your effort

so always ask this pull feedback what is

one thing i can do more of or less off

to make it easier to work with me

right the thing about it just be pre and

people will only give you good feedback

they will never give you bad feedback

so you already pre-amp that military no

lie you're very good

and then you what so what you do you

wait there you stop there no you don't

you push more hey

you prompt them because why the fee that

they have is like what if i tell melinda

how bad she is she sucks big time for

this part right she might what blackface

me for the next two weeks

yeah

right sour

relationship so what do you do

even before you say that you preempt

that so you say that hey jim um

for me growth is so important and the

people i'm closest to are the ones that

p that really tell me as is he tell me

straight up

right shoot from the hip and tell me

straight and directly where are the

areas and i always find that those

people who are direct to me

i build a stronger relationship

does it make sense

yes

so you preempt that fear of souring the

relationship

by telling them that if you give me

feedback our relationship is even

stronger

so never stop at no it's okay like

melinda nothing like you're very good

you're very pleasant to work with like

what bs right

ask them and but give them the

confidence that it's not going to solve

the relationship at all

got it

cool so that's where you get feedback

from from both your team members and

your

your boss or your leaders and then also

your clients the more you get feedback

the more you just know where you are and

the beautiful thing about it it helps

you with your self-worth self-worth but

it also helps you to understand how to

adjust as much as possible

feedback is your coach

and i share this it's very interesting

okay feedback

is vitamins to the humble

but poison to the problem

wow so if you're proud

you don't like feedback it feels weird

it feels like ah why are you telling me

this you're you're

you are like well

then like you know very like a shameful

you know that's all the proud talking

but if you're super humble on this side

and you'll be like yeah feedback is

vitamins to the humble which means it

helps you even better imagine this any

sports coach will never see you let's

say you do volleyball the coach will

never be like okay six months later i'll

tell you what's wrong with you on the

first game

you can't yes die already immediate

feedback is the most important

right so that helps you also with the

self-worth because it helps you to

understand where am i

performing better where are the things

that people see as my strength it helps

you it helps you to adjust also the

whole idea of your career

where are the things that come naturally

to me i feel so natural but then while

that person feels that hey melinda put

in so much effort actually no you do

only one upon 10 effort

but for the performance is so great so

that's external external ask from

clients ask from team members and ask

from your boss

internally

internally it's a bit more challenging

and it comes back to a very simple thing

right the idea of what makes you

fulfilled in life

what makes you happy

right and if it's friends and if it's

relationships and you see yourself in

the

always giving so much for your

relationship then relationship is the

key for you to

find that level of like

if i die tomorrow it's the relationship

that i've built

some people if i die tomorrow is the

impact i have how many lives are changed

some people if i die tomorrow i want to

be known as the principal person that

speaks as is

different things so you need to figure

out what on earth is your

is your inner compass

and one way to look at it is to look at

the past what are some of the things

that

when you look at your past it helps you

to understand

and the exercise i do for some of my

coaches uh coaches is this thing if you

were to really die tomorrow

really yeah

yeah but that's how i feel that's how i

think also that's why i'm doing all

these tech talk because why if i die

tomorrow i want to impact as many people

as possible and that's me impact is big

thing for me

so if you die tomorrow and you write

your own

eulogy

and you write

what it is it's never about money

it's about something else that will rise

up that's more important than money

and that will give you a clue

to your inner self-worth if you can say

that well melinda is a person who is

always there for me a true trusted

friend let's say it is that

then your self-worth comes from that

right the internal one

and the funny thing about it is when

you're dying or when you did or when

you're gonna die it's never about

material things it's never about money

it's always about people and it's

something about people

and that helps you center yourself

make sense

yes

so i guess we

don't have time anymore

yeah but can i have one final question

sure thing sure thing go for it

so how do you uh make a balance between

um

self validation and other people's

validation

uh what do you mean by self-validation

that means like you

is it coming back to self-confidence

self-worth yes

correct correct so yeah often like

getting so many feedbacks you know you

have to learn how to filter yourself to

uh certain comments that is not relevant

to you so how do you manage or balance

the internal

um cell validation and external

validation because you need both to

excel

so how do you make a balance between

both

self validation and external validation

okay so when it comes to feedback one

very important thing is that treat every

feedback as data

it's just data to you

so imagine melinda incorporate your

business

right

so imagine your business and every

feedback is data points so when it comes

to data point you you

let's say you do ice cream and waffles

for you you need to be able to know that

okay this feedback exactly how come the

why uh why you why the light sprite i

know oh some people was like hey why you

have this kind of flavor whatever it is

as a business you get as much vape

feedback as possible it's just data

points

right it helps you to make a better

decision of what you want to be and if

you're an ice cream waffles

organization or company

you need to know of all the things the

feedback

what is the one thing that you really

want to do

what is that one thing so

take feedback as data

not as directives that you should change

because not all feedback is something

that you should take fully

yes

yes

so

be wise about the feedback

still be extremely appreciative when

people give you feedback

make sure that when people give you

feedback they don't have a bitter

aftertaste when giving you feedback but

it doesn't mean that you have to stray

act on it

it is data points for you

then look back in yourself and look back

in terms of what you feel that you have

the greatest value at

how do you feel that you are

working

so coming back this idea of work right

i'm going to leave you with this the two

main principles one is results

you must always

push for world-class excellence

and the other one is relationships

people want to be able to work with you

sometimes the feedback is about the

results

and then you listen to it and then you

can grow sometimes it's about

relationships

right so relationships if you say for

example

um oh i'm actually very direct i'm

always right you don't like it too bad

right that will affect relationships and

then you need to change so relationship

is about what the team before i

when you figure out the team before i

what are some of the things that that

you cause other people to be negative

about

so coming back results and relationships

try to figure out this

um look at it in such a way that these

two are the most important pillars at

work

all the feedback comes in yes you might

be a very quiet person relational

right and people say you need to talk

more yes it could be for your visibility

and all that

but it doesn't mean that you need to be

the life of a party like john like maybe

john coming straight away tell a joke

everybody's there every laugh you might

not be that kind

and you're okay with that

so be clear about who you really are

and

look back in the past

what kind of what kind of different

ways have you shown up

and when you've shown up for example if

you're not the life of the party then

it's okay then what kind of person are

you

i know that this is you if this is very

much you and you you don't really uh

move very far from who you really are

so feedback is important to understand

but yet that internally you need to

understand who you are and reflection is

always a good way reflecting on the past

scenarios how do you show up and why is

it hey how come i feel so drained when

i'm talking to

new people oh then that's okay then

write it down somewhere

okay

got it cool i think i'll bring back

self-awareness i need to keep a journal

in order to have more self-awareness

yes yes so that's very helpful to be

able to write down as much as possible

about self-awareness

especially

one good way is to write down incidents

that happen so what are some of the

incidents that's happened and then how

do you react to it and then figure out

why you read it in a certain way

yes thank you so much jason

awesome all right okay thank you so much

for your all your questions melinda i

hope it helps

like uh it helps me definitely

but i also hope that you will help more

people of my

situation which is a fresh group

hasn't been like one full year and i

think going to the workforce is

is for the first time for the first

full-time job is actually very very

yeah it's very scary to me and um i've

been asking a lot of my seniors along

the way like what are the tips for the

strategy

they can't really tell me much

yeah i have to really figure out on our

own

yeah yeah so i hope that so i really

thank you for being so open that other

people can learn from you because the

whole idea is that

the more you can do these kind of things

shows that you are more on the humble

side rather than the ego and the proud

side

because so what if people see me as

negative or a little bit off that's okay

as long as i'm learning throughout i am

okay with asking silly questions at work

right so it's the idea that humility

will spur your growth rather than being

proud and like no i don't want to talk

about this do i talk about that so i

thank you for the opportunity that

everybody else can learn

from

your situation

all right

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