October 29, 2025 • 48 mins
If you're waiting for the “right time” to pivot… you might be waiting forever.
And the cost? Your joy, your leadership, your future.
In this episode, Jessica Cumming sits down with Hope Yin, ICF-certified executive coach, former Fortune 200 tech executive, and fierce advocate for women in leadership. From immigrating to the U.S. at 25, to raising two children solo while leading global teams, Hope’s journey is a masterclass in courage, clarity, and reclaiming purpose.
🎧 Listen now
How Hope used journaling to uncover her turning point—and what happened when she asked herself, “When was the last time I laughed?”
Why stepping back in your title (on purpose) can actually propel your career forward
The role of clarity and strategy in navigating divorce, single motherhood, and executive leadership
How women can build influence and leadership credibility without selling out their values
Why networking is not optional—and how to build real relationships, not just transactions
🔹 Inside This Episode:
How Hope used journaling to uncover her turning point—and what happened when she asked herself, “When was the last time I laughed?”
Why stepping back in your title (on purpose) can actually propel your career forward
The role of clarity and strategy in navigating divorce, single motherhood, and executive leadership
How women can build influence and leadership credibility without selling out their values
Why networking is not optional—and how to build real relationships, not just transactions
How to use your identity (immigrant, woman, underrepresented voice) as power, not limitation
“I was journaling... and I asked myself: When was the last time I laughed?
I couldn’t answer that question. In the beginning, I told myself:
In 10 years my kids will be in college — I can wait.
But then I thought… Can I survive 10 years without smiling, without laughing, without love?
That was the final straw.”
— Hope Yin
Hope Yin is an award-winning ICF PCC-certified Executive Coach, former Fortune 200 tech executive, and founder of Blueprint Coaching. With 3 master’s degrees, global leadership experience, and a passion for elevating women in leadership, Hope partners with companies and individuals to build powerful brands, teams, and cultures.
📍 Connect with Hope on LinkedIn
📍 Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn
📥 Clarity in 10™ Reset — your free 10-minute clarity tool to reconnect with what matters
Download the Official Transcript Here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to We Are Women Unapologetically, the podcast
that talks about the good, bad, ugly and awesome careers, life,
transitions, confidence, and everything in between.
Because shift happens, but you don't have to do it alone.
(00:21):
Hello and welcome to We Are Women.
Unapologetically, I am Jessica Cumming and today I am honored
to be accompanied by Hope Ian. She is an award-winning
technology executive who has transitioned into
entrepreneurship. Hope has inspired over 10,000
individuals, including at several of the world's largest
conferences. As an award-winning ICFPCC
(00:45):
Certified Executive Coach, founder, and owner of Blueprint
Coaching, Hope works with tech leaders to overcome challenges,
build powerful personal brands, and achieve strategic career
success. She partners with global
companies and executives to elevate their leadership
presence, foster team cultures, and Dr. business growth.
(01:06):
Hope has a proven track record of 2 Fortune 200 companies.
She has LED enterprise cloud transformation, global talent
development, technology portfolio, ATM technology
portfolio, modern tech leadership development programs,
and other global initiatives. She has helped the companies win
multiple industry awards throughher work.
(01:29):
Hope's journey from an immigrantto an established tech executive
has given her unique insights and supporting others.
Hope also holds 3 Masters of Science degrees in Engineering.
Hope, welcome to the show. Here, Jessica Hope.
You have a very unique perspective, as we mentioned in
your introduction. Can you tell me a little bit
(01:50):
about your journey and what you have learned along the way?
Yeah. As you mentioned in my
introduction, I'm a immigrant. I immigrated here when I was 25
years old. My then identity is formed, but
coming into a country that I don't speak the language, I
(02:11):
don't know the culture, it was extremely difficult.
Looking back, I wish I was more bold in terms of learning
language, interacting with otherpeople and just be a little more
fearless. But hand side is always 2020.
But I was able to push through. I was able to make myself work
(02:36):
hard and being persistent. And eventually I was able to
graduate from The Ohio State University, got 2 master's
degree, and then pivoted from being a software engineer to
exactly leading global teams. And last year, August 2024, I
(02:58):
did another leap. This time I love to my
technology field that I have worked my whole career.
And now I'm a coach, I'm a speaker, I'm advocated for women
in tech. So our passions are.
Alarmed. Yeah, they definitely are.
You mentioned that you are from China.
(03:19):
Can you tell me a little bit about how you learned English?
And for anyone that may have English as your second language,
what advice would you give them?I did learn English in school
but more like a subject to learn.
I can read books, write simple words but I can't understand
(03:41):
when people spoke and people couldn't understand my English
in school. I remember this professor, I was
taking the class on artificial intelligence.
AI is so popular now, but almost3 decades ago all I could
understand was deep blue, because at the time the deep
blue sign computer beat chess champion.
(04:05):
So but by just reading book, by going to the professor's office
hours, all of that, I wasn't able to not only survive but
thrive academically. The true language, if you think
about what I did in the beginning, was I was doing 2
(04:26):
steps or translation. If Jessica, you and I are
talking, I will translate what you said into Chinese, then come
up with the answer in Chinese, and then translate back to you.
By that time, you already moved on.
I already lost my opportunity tochime in.
I remember particularly, it's more than a decade after I came
(04:50):
here. One night I started to dream in
English. That was my turning point.
However, in order to reach that point, it wasn't just naturally
happened. I intentionally joined
Toastmasters, practice my publicspeaking skills.
(05:11):
It's never I came, but I would do it anyways.
I was a communicate leader, forced me to communicate.
So all of that together and alsoincluding I started to write a
journal, A blog in English. So all of that combined and also
the experience with my work colleagues allowed me to one day
(05:34):
I started to think and dream andcommunicate in English without
much difficulty. I still have difficulties
sometimes trying to find the right words.
Wow, that's amazing. I know quite a few people that
have not had English as their first language did learn English
when they were in school. But then it's one of those
(05:55):
things where if you don't use it, you lose it.
Yeah. It's interesting to hear your
turning point starting to dream in English and the confidence
that it took to get to that point.
You started feeling confident after you started doing it, so
that's a very impressive story about how you continue to learn
(06:20):
English. Tell me how you ended up being a
single mother of two trying to build a career and what that
taught you about the life that you wanted for your children,
but also the resilience that came with it.
Yeah, so my ex-husband and I, wewere classmates in grad school
(06:46):
when we were in China studying aerospace engineering.
When I was young, I didn't get enough exposure or education
about what I should be looking for in a partner.
I remember the three things thatI was using as a criteria. 1 is
(07:07):
that person has to be smart to match my intelligence, that
person has to be good looking, that person had to be sporty.
All three criterias are fulfilled.
But I little did I know that living together those three
things are not enough. And what's more important is
(07:27):
actually respect each other, love each other, supporting each
other unconditionally. And for me, it took me 16 years
to get out of that marriage. For anyone who is listening, who
may be struggling about relationship and nobody can tell
(07:49):
you when is a good time to get out of that relationship.
I think as human beings, we always have this wish.
Let me just work a little more. What if it worked?
Looking back, do I regret that it took me 16 years to get out
of a relationship? I wouldn't say no.
Of course. It would be better if I realized
(08:11):
in the beginning that I shouldn't even get into that
marriage. When I made the decision that I
need to get out of the relationship.
Even then, as a mother, I wasn'tjust thinking about my own
happiness. I struggled a lot about will my
children be OK? Will they grow up as a good,
(08:35):
fine young adult without their dad in their life?
So that's why it's so hard to make a decision to completely
get out of a relationship. But I would say that once we
were divorced and I was taking care of my children all by
(08:55):
myself as a sole custodian, my children and I had never been so
happy. You said why didn't I do it
early? Because you don't know life is
going to be like in terms of freedom.
However, it is not all rosy because my children were young
(09:17):
at the time. One is 11, the other was 6.
So imagine a single mother with a full time job and then one
child, they need to go to one activity, maybe a piano, the
other to soccer. So you have to on a daily basis
thinking about I'm going to dropoff this child, then come back,
(09:41):
maybe drop off to another place,then I pick up the other child,
then I come home. I need to make dinner.
Every day is like that. So it was extremely difficult.
Sometimes I think about that. How did I do it?
Maybe the hope and maybe thinking about things will get
(10:02):
better. But I also had a support of
community. I have many friends, I have my
family support me, my parents helped taking care of their
children at times. And also I had a great support
at work and my colleagues and mycompanies offer great benefits.
(10:22):
So all of that together and eventually I landed into a good
place. Where your children born in
China or in the. US.
They were born here, both of them.
So I have four children, 2 biological children, 2
stepchildren. Did you move over here together?
(10:43):
Help me bridge that gap. Yeah.
So we were married while we werestill in China, as I mentioned
that we were classmates in Graduate School and we got
married and now we moved here, study in the same university,
and then we had our children. The two biological children I
(11:04):
was talking about were with him.When you first came here, you
didn't know anyone. The only one you know is the
other person. Of course, you're going to stick
together no matter how hard it is.
And then you had your first child that you think about, I
have to have a dad for my child.And then you had a second
children. It's like things got so
(11:25):
complicated. It's never a good time.
It's never a good time. I think that is something more
women and more people in generalneed to hear because if we
waited for a good time, we wouldbe waiting forever.
(11:47):
And can you tell me the clarity that you received when you
finally had that moment where you're like, this is what I'm
going to do with my life. I am going to raise my children
on my own. I know it was scary for you, but
tell me about that journey. Yeah, so it's not just one time
(12:11):
for people thinking about it, either leaving a relationship or
even leaving a job. It's not like, OK, I'm done.
That's it. It's you constantly asking
yourself, I'm not happy. Is this the life I want?
And then you got better. You're like, OK, it's fun.
And then you repeat the cycle. I remember when I really made
(12:35):
the final decision, I was journaling.
I was asking myself, when was the last time I laughed?
I couldn't answer that question in the beginning.
I was like, in 10 years my kids will be in college.
I can wait until they go to college.
(12:56):
But then I said, but it's 10 years.
I don't think I can survive 10 years without smiling, without
laughing, without love. So that was the final straw.
I know that there are a lot of people out there that are
staying in marriages because it's easy, because they want to
do it for the children, because it's the right thing to do and
(13:18):
quite frankly, because it's financially safer.
The message for all of those people that are going through
that is think about what's most important at the end of the day.
All of the materialistic things can be figured out.
All of the financial things can be figured out.
But you nailed it. You have one life to live and
(13:39):
your happiness definitely shouldn't be put on a shelf
because it's not something like a canned good where we just put
on the shelf and oh, we'll come back to it.
It's something we should have with us all the time.
Thank you so much for being personal with that because I
know that it's one of those topics that is not talked about
enough and we need to discuss it.
(14:03):
I wasn't happy, but then I remember as a mother how much I
cared about my children. I realized that because I wasn't
happy, I can't pretend all the time so I wouldn't be able to
raise high P children. So when you think about that, in
(14:24):
the end the decision was made for me to have a good life and
also for my children to have a good life, a good.
Mother yeah, so many times we dotry to have these masks that we
wear and try to be on guard all the time, and we just wear that.
I'm fine. Smile when deep down we know
(14:45):
that that's not the reality. And the fact that you were able
to realize that's what you wouldhave been potentially passing
down to your children is huge. I want to transition because
throughout this season, we are talking about both personal and
professional because we know as women that one impacts the
(15:07):
other. So as you were going through
these changes, where were you from a professional standpoint?
Yes. You're exactly right that we can
not a separate personal life anda professional life as much as
we want to, they are not separate.
(15:29):
If we are not happy and at home,we may bring that to work and
the vice versa. So at the time of my divorce, I
was leading global teams, working on technology
modernization, putting a lot of hours at work.
I remember particularly that at the time I was a leading team
(15:53):
both in the US and also offshore.
And I have to put on that, that smile in front of people.
But I also know as a certain time I'm typing on my keyboard
and all of a sudden the tears just came out.
I had to rush to the restroom, let the tears fall, clear out my
(16:14):
tears and come out, put on a smile again.
I can do this. It was extremely hard.
I was a leading team, so as a leader, everybody's problem is
your problem. If your project isn't going well
or need some escalation, it comes to you and then you go to
other stakeholders. I made a decision that this
(16:37):
isn't a good time for me to leadteams anymore, so I pivot my
leadership position to be a individual contributor by
intention. And that gave me, I would say,
less stress of leading A-Team. As long as I finish whatever on
my plate, I'm done. Other people than their manager
(17:01):
will be responsible. So I did that for a little less
than two years, but my intentionis to make impact.
My intention is to be productive.
After less than two years, I became manager again, leading
team again and never looked backbecause my kids were older and
(17:26):
less and less. They need my time and care.
Because of the decision, I am a leader, I have more to offer.
I can develop other leader, the other team members and leading
global projects. And so step by step, I was able
(17:47):
to get promoted to be a executive.
However, because I was working for a Fortune 25 company at the
time, getting promoted to be a executive in the company was
extremely hard. So you can't adjust work hard.
Work hard is the foundation. You have to be also strategic.
(18:09):
Let's jump right into that. You mentioned that you step back
and then went back into leadership.
I'm sitting here thinking, there's a lot of women out there
that are like, I can't do that. I cannot go from being a leader
to being an individual contributor.
It feels like a demotion. It feels like I've failed.
So yes, let's talk about once you make that decision to step
(18:32):
back, how do you look at having a strategy in order to go back
to leadership when you're ready?Yeah, when I decided to move
from being a manager to an individual contributor, I
stepped into a role of architect.
So previously I was application development manager, managing
(18:55):
team, create new products. And now as an architect, I need
to oversee architecture design. I need to develop reusable
components. So in a way that it actually
allowed me to gain skills for our audience and listeners.
You have to be conscious about Imy adding skills.
(19:19):
So Mackenzie partnered three of them.
They wrote a book about broken run in that they talk about
experience capital. So the experience capital
accounts for 50% of our lifetimesalary.
And what is experience capital is what you learned through
(19:41):
different experiences. If you stayed in the same role,
doing the same job, then you arenot gaining experience capital.
In my case, even though it lookslike a demotion by my own
choice, but I was gaining additional role, additional
skills. Additional connections.
(20:01):
So coming back to so how did I become executive by not only
working hard, but also working strategically.
If you think about a senior leaders at that level, it's not
just about what you can do alone, it's about the
relationships that you are leveraging.
(20:24):
It's the team you're leading. Are you uplifting your team so
that they can become high performing leaders like
yourself? You're almost like I'm
developing the people who can replace me someday.
And that's exactly my mentality.I'm developing every single team
member so that someday they can make decision just like me and
(20:47):
they can lead team just like me.And the other part is not only
you need to manage your team, manage up, manage across and who
are your managers, your managers, managers, are they
aware of what you're doing? Do they have faith in your
(21:08):
ability, in your leadership and your stakeholder?
Who are your partners and your customers?
Are they saying, wow, I like to work with Jessica because she is
so capable. She's always collaborative.
So in the end that you work smart and you work strategically
by looking at the people around,leveraging the relationship, but
(21:32):
also working on something more impactful.
Because if you don't deliver results in the end, that's still
the criteria to say are you capable, are you qualified?
You talked about managing up, managing down and networking
across the board. That's one thing that women are
(21:54):
sometimes afraid to do, especially in a male dominated
industry, which you and I have both been in.
Do you have any advice for a woman that is like, I have tried
to network with some of these guys, I just can't do it or I
don't want to do it because I can't seem to make a connection.
Yeah. That's very true.
(22:16):
According to your identity, whatever that identity is,
right? It could be the only woman, it
could be the only immigrant, it could be the only color person,
whatever that is, it could be barrier.
To me, I think it starts with our mindset, how we're thinking
about networking. If we already think I just hate
(22:37):
networking, I just don't want tobe a social butterfly, then we
already help losing. We're not going to do any
network. My way of looking at network is
your network is your net worth. It's not only about who you
know, it's also about who knows you, who knows your ability.
(23:02):
If you don't go out to network, how would they know what you're
doing? The other thing to think about
network is a lot of people thinkif I do network that means I
need to talk to everybody, not necessarily strategically.
Networking is who in that group of people can help me and I can
(23:26):
help the other person as well. It's the mutual benefits each
other. But in terms of male dominated
field for my whole career, I think whatever your gender is
nationality, the foundation, we're human beings.
(23:46):
I feel that if we look at each other as human beings, having
that caring, loving relationship, not romantic love,
but I care about you. I had great relationship with
all my colleagues. I can't really tell you how many
people that I just dislike them,Maybe one or two throughout my
(24:09):
career, Not that many because majority of the people, when
you're working together, you're trying to solve a problem,
you're trying to deliver a project.
So if you collaborate with each other, if you network through
that network, you found another expert who can help you solve
the problem and vice versa. That's amazing.
(24:32):
It's I think maybe Aristotle said if you give me a long
enough liver, I can move and move.
Yeah. And that really is great because
a lot of times we think about networking is just one person or
one transaction. And we and I, I specifically say
the word transaction because we as a society have become so
(24:53):
transactional. It's what can I do for you, but
what can you do for me? Quickly, we forget about the
relationship building. That's a great reminder.
These relationships take time tonurture and it's kind of like
watering a plant. It takes time.
(25:13):
You water it, you may not see the results right away, but then
it starts to bloom and you get your fruits or vegetables from
it. I appreciate you sharing that
with us. Thank you.
So far we packed a lot in a veryshort amount.
But I'm curious, you have 3 master's degrees and that is
(25:37):
absolutely impressive. Right now we are seeing that
more people are calling for higher education, but then we
also on the same hand see that there's more blue collar jobs
that are needing to be filled. What made you decide to obtain 3
master's degrees? And if we have any women toying
(26:01):
with the idea of going back to school, what advice would you
give them? Yeah, that's a good question.
There is kind of people going back to school and there are
people they don't need a high education.
Actually, one of my children is taking a gap year for similar
reasons. They can find a job and they're
(26:22):
happy about it. For me personally, I think my
last master degree was in 2007, that is before YouTube.
So as a person who wanted to learn new knowledge, new skills,
it feels natural to go back to school to find another way of
(26:43):
learning. But also I think is that this
may be motivational, allowing tohave a PhD degree.
Maybe when I'm 80 years old I will have a PhD degree, but both
times I couldn't finish because of family situations, young
children, full time job, all of that.
(27:07):
But if I have a choice now, I don't know whether I will go
back to school just because not because school isn't a teaching
enough skills. School are still valid, valid
just because of those disciplines, right?
I think we need some motivation for us to keep going, keep going
(27:29):
because there is milestones in schools production need to be
deal all of that. But I also believe that the
information is available everywhere.
AI is AP to D level of intelligence everywhere.
So I think it is a personal choice of what are you trying to
(27:51):
get out of that. I think that's maybe the
intention and that need everybody to answer themselves.
Yeah, I remember in Season 1, I had a guest on and she talked
about obtaining her master's degree.
She even said it is a commitment.
It is hard work. This also goes back to the lived
(28:14):
experiences we were talking about.
Just curious from your perspective of being a leader
and managing a people from different backgrounds, different
cultures, races, countries, whenyou're looking at a candidate,
what really holds more weight toyou?
(28:34):
Is it the letters behind their name, or is it that experience
that they've lived through? Yeah, that's a good question.
I hired a lot of people I interviewed even more.
Those letters behind their name are not that important to me,
and even their experiences may not that important to me.
(28:59):
What I'm looking for is a personwho is willing to learn, who is
quick to learn, a person who is striving for a better version of
themselves. When I interview them, they have
to show me how would I trust that they are the kind of a
person? I also look at how they think
(29:22):
when I ask them a question and what's the logical thinking in
their mind because critical thinking and problem solving is
super important in technology. I also look at their leadership
skills, what kind of experiencesthey have, and I think everybody
is a leader. How well you lead and are you a
(29:44):
team player? How are you communicating when I
ask you a question? Are you able to articulate
whether you are speaking Englishas a second language or not?
I think when you articulate, you're able to say using analogy
or a metaphor to explain some complex concept in simple terms
(30:07):
or words, and those are the qualities I'm looking for.
Not necessarily. I worked for some tech companies
here and there. I care about what you did and
how you did it. You just mentioned 2 critical
things. I heard you say problem solving
(30:27):
and critical thinking. As we are moving into more of
AI, we know that soft skills will be required from the
workforce coming up. I read something not too long
ago that said that they were in the top ten skills of what in
players are looking for right now.
Yeah, and I know that we touchedon AI.
(30:50):
What are your thoughts in general on AI?
Is it something where you think it's going to end up taking
over? Oh wow.
That's a great question. As a technologist I am excited
about what AI can do, but I am equally aware of the farm it
(31:10):
could cause. You and I know the AIS are
trained using all the data available publicly.
Privately those data already have biases invited.
So if you trained by those data,then AI will output will express
(31:32):
that kind of biases. So will AI take over the world?
I think it's going to be everywhere.
Just like today, not many peoplecan live without the Internet.
And in the future, not many people will not live a life
without AI. Whether you want it or not, it's
(31:53):
just there. Personally, I believe a good
approach would be to be part of the field of AI.
I'm going to either build it, try to understand a large
language model or all the machine learning algorithms, or
(32:13):
I become a driver of the AI vehicle, which is my role.
I use tons of AI tools to help me from end to end as my speaker
workflow everywhere I go out useAI tools but I'm using AI to be
my partner not think for me. I would never outsource my
(32:38):
thinking, critical thinking, problem solving to the tool
because that's what we human about.
I think we should also think about with the AI tools or other
tools can do the repetitive or manual work or some other work
that we don't enjoy. What is it for us to be a better
(33:00):
human? This is actually what I shared
during Columbus AI Week. I think we need to hop into the
essence of being human, having our conversation like you and I,
being open about our loved experiences.
The goal is hopefully someone else that can benefit from that.
(33:21):
Being a human is I don't have tolike you, but I love you.
Being a human means I may not know who you are, but I care
about your life. That's great.
I did hear just recently, because we were talking about
the critical thinking portion ofit, that critical thinking is
becoming less and less familiar to people because they are
(33:44):
letting AI do it for them. And to your point, we have the
opportunity to be a driver when it comes to AI being in the tech
industry. It's fascinating to me how much
AI has changed and evolved by 20, thirty, 60% of workforce is
going to have to be rescaled. There are jobs coming that do
(34:08):
not even exist today because of AI.
We also know there are jobs today that may not exist in five
years because of AI. You do have people that are
like, absolutely not. I do not want anything to do
with AI. But the thing about it is that
(34:29):
it surrounds us all the time andwe potentially use it more than
we know. Every time you pick up your
phone and ask it to look something up for you.
Every time you have your little box that sits there and her name
starts with an A order somethingfor you on Amazon.
(34:53):
These are all examples of where we are using AI today and may
not even realize it. You said it beautifully.
I wanted to make that statement because we're already using it,
whether you know it or not. So it's just how you use it, how
you harness it to work with you,but not necessarily for you.
(35:14):
And I love the human aspect of that because we are losing touch
with a lot of the soft skills, the human emotion, people
walking down the streets and noteven acknowledging or making eye
contact with one another. So really coming back to that
human side of it, I believe is going to be critical.
We've talked about your evolution from when you first
(35:37):
got here and all the way throughyou being a tech executive.
But I want to pivot to how did you make the decision to leave
your role in corporate? And more importantly, how did
you decide that you wanted to gointo being a coach and a speaker
once you left corporate? It wasn't one day I said I'm
(35:59):
done with corporate. It's not like that.
I love my job. I was someone who is fortunate,
passionate about what they do intechnology, leading team, all of
that. This needs to go back.
More than a decade ago, I had a conversation with a best friend.
We were saying if we had everything financially, the
(36:22):
mortgage is done, college tuition is paid, what do we want
to do? At the time, the answer was
paying back to the community, sharing our career, learning the
lessons learned and so I have always been very active in
community, whether it's at work or externally.
(36:44):
Six years ago, my best friend Joy, she enrolled into a
coaching school and she is allowed to bring a guest for
free for a three day weekend leadership training.
So I was her guest. After that first day training, I
(37:08):
just found that I found something that I have been
looking for my whole life. I don't know whether you ever
had such kind of experience. It's just profound.
It's like, Oh my God. So the next day I just decided
I'm going to enroll in this program.
(37:29):
At the time, I was still a single mother.
I have one child in college. I was paying tuition and the
other one in high school will bein college pretty soon.
So I was paying my mortgage, allof that, right, Carlom?
How am I going to pay the tuition?
Because it's not trivial. It's a substantial amount of
(37:51):
money. At the time I was engaged with
my current husband, but as a woman, I'm like, I'm going to
figure out this myself. I'm going to pay this myself.
And I was able to find ways. So that is the starting point of
my coaching school. So when I first enrolled, it's
(38:14):
more of I found it myself. I want to enroll, I want to
learn in the middle of the program.
It was 8 months along the program.
In the middle of the program, I'm like, but everyone need to
hear this message. That's when I established my
coaching school because I still had my full time executive job
(38:37):
leading teams. What I did was during the
weekend and in the evenings I was coaching people because my
kids were older. They didn't need me to babysit.
I did that for four years every time I had a conversation with
leaders. You know, like you mentioned in
(38:58):
the beginning, we all have a mask, right?
Some of the mask were thin, someother mask were really thick.
It's like there's so many barriers or obstacles,
challenges that especially for women in technology.
So whenever I was able to support a leader that is kind of
(39:26):
pay back to me, I, I got so fulfilled.
So then that message came back to the community.
It's become stronger and stronger.
And again, go back to what we said.
There would never be a good time.
(39:46):
I just had a conversation with my husband, talk about my
vision, my lonely, and my purpose.
And then I made the leap. So what I'm hearing is that this
was not something that you did in a matter of months.
You plan this out strategically like a five year plan, is that
(40:10):
right? Yes.
All right, so for the women or for anyone out there and
thinking I really would like to do something like that, but I'm
not sure where to start. In order to go from the concept
of I want to start this to when you were actually able to make
(40:31):
the full transition. What are some of the things that
you really needed to think aboutand get in order for you to be
able to plan that out and make that transition?
Yeah. So for me, what I do in the
evening, in the week, during theweekend is perfectly aligned
(40:52):
what I do at work, because at work I was a leader.
So I use coaching skills to coach my team, to coach the
communities. I'm not sure for people who may
be doing a set hustle or business that's opposite to what
they do, probably it's going to be a little harder.
(41:14):
So for me, that alignment allowed me to have a life is
just congruent. And also I think when we think
about the future, because it is so big, the change is so
dramatic, it can really give us a lot of fear and doubt.
(41:36):
But I wouldn't say that five years ago when I established the
business, I didn't even invasionthat last year I would get out
of my carpet and doing this thing called a coating speaking.
It's like you take one step and then all of a sudden you're
(41:57):
like, come on, I'm climbing thismountain and then you start to
climb a different mountain. So I wouldn't say that if anyone
has any aspiration, doing something new, maybe have their
side to the future, but also have their action in the near
(42:19):
term. What is one small thing I can do
everyday to align to that vision?
The vision is long and far, but what we do in the meantime, what
we do is adding to the full spectrum of us as a person.
Because I'm getting better and Ican help other people or
(42:43):
contributed to the community, the world, I feel that will give
us a lot more power, purpose andforce to be persistent.
And taking little actions every day definitely add up.
One of the things I always encourage my clients to do and I
do myself, is journaling. Because sometimes you can't
(43:03):
really see the progress that you're making.
But if you're documenting what you're doing, your wins, whether
they be big or small, when you go back and Add all of that up
over a year, it is amazing to see the progress that can be
made. There may be people thinking,
well, I don't know how much timeI can commit to my side hustle
(43:27):
or what I want to look at doing full time later on.
I don't know if I have the moneyto do it.
I don't know if I have the resources.
It's scary. And I know that there are
certain things that you do have to look at when you're making
that transition. But do you have any advice for
the listeners? Yes.
So when I did my transition I did calculation about my
(43:51):
finance. Can I survive without my high
paying job and because my husband is also retired, health
insurance is super expensive if you pay it yourself.
So all of that together and I think for anyone doing
transition, you kind of need to be prepared how long it might
(44:15):
take to ramp up for this new business and how much money I
have in the bank can support me.Because if you are putting
yourself into a position of, Oh my God, I have to earn money, I
feel that not only you're stressful, but also the way
you're doing business, attracting clients.
(44:38):
I feel the energy is different. And now it's like I need to have
money instead of I really care about you, I want to support
you, support your growth. That's just my personal opinion.
Now, that's key. There is something different
when someone comes to you from aplace of service and genuine
(44:59):
care versus trying to make money.
I truly understand that and I know that a lot of the listeners
out there will take away from that because sometimes when you
get wrapped up in the financial portion of it, you lose
yourself. We have talked about being
(45:19):
authentic, being human, so that's a great reminder for
anyone looking at making the transition.
Or maybe they're in that messy middle, right?
They've committed to it and thought it was going to be
phenomenal. But sometimes there's a little
bit of fog that in between spacecan really be uncomfortable from
(45:40):
when you start something to whenyou succeed.
But it's true to come from your why, your place of service and
really commit to it and don't give up.
That's the other big thing to take from this.
Your journey took five years foryou to quit and you weren't even
looking at that. As we look at wrapping up today,
(46:02):
I truly appreciate you being here.
For any listeners or watchers that would like to learn more
about you, your story, and how to connect.
How can they reach you? Yes, I share one last message
because this is important to me.I got married to my current
(46:22):
husband in 2020. This is why I said if I look
back for the 16 years of unhappymarriage, if I have the
opportunity to do it again, willI do it again?
The answer is yes, because if I didn't do that, I wouldn't read
(46:45):
the two independent people children on my own and I
wouldn't be able to marry my current husband who is my
soulmate. And we have been knowing each
other for seven years and we never had one single argument.
We debate, but we don't fight. OK now so if anyone want to get
(47:12):
out of a relationship there is awhole but that's what I want to
share. If you want to connect with me,
please connect with me on LinkedIn.
I'm very active on LinkedIn. You will be able to find me.
Awesome. One thing I want to leave our
listeners and watchers with today is, you know, we've talked
about all of these different things to get clarity, but the
(47:37):
one reset action I would like our listeners to think about
this week is what is one person that you haven't networked with
yet, But you know, you really need to thank you again.
I truly appreciate you being here.
To all of our listeners and watchers, thank you so much.
(47:57):
I hope you enjoyed today's conversation and until next
time, stay fierce, stay bold, but most importantly, stay
unapologetically you.
Welcome to We Are Women Unapologetically, the podcast
that talks about the good, bad, ugly and awesome careers, life,
transitions, confidence, and everything in between.
Because shift happens, but you don't have to do it alone.
(00:21):
Hello and welcome to We Are Women.
Unapologetically, I am Jessica Cumming and today I am honored
to be accompanied by Hope Ian. She is an award-winning
technology executive who has transitioned into
entrepreneurship. Hope has inspired over 10,000
individuals, including at several of the world's largest
conferences. As an award-winning ICFPCC
(00:45):
Certified Executive Coach, founder, and owner of Blueprint
Coaching, Hope works with tech leaders to overcome challenges,
build powerful personal brands, and achieve strategic career
success. She partners with global
companies and executives to elevate their leadership
presence, foster team cultures, and Dr. business growth.
(01:06):
Hope has a proven track record of 2 Fortune 200 companies.
She has LED enterprise cloud transformation, global talent
development, technology portfolio, ATM technology
portfolio, modern tech leadership development programs,
and other global initiatives. She has helped the companies win
multiple industry awards throughher work.
(01:29):
Hope's journey from an immigrantto an established tech executive
has given her unique insights and supporting others.
Hope also holds 3 Masters of Science degrees in Engineering.
Hope, welcome to the show. Here, Jessica Hope.
You have a very unique perspective, as we mentioned in
your introduction. Can you tell me a little bit
(01:50):
about your journey and what you have learned along the way?
Yeah. As you mentioned in my
introduction, I'm a immigrant. I immigrated here when I was 25
years old. My then identity is formed, but
coming into a country that I don't speak the language, I
(02:11):
don't know the culture, it was extremely difficult.
Looking back, I wish I was more bold in terms of learning
language, interacting with otherpeople and just be a little more
fearless. But hand side is always 2020.
But I was able to push through. I was able to make myself work
(02:36):
hard and being persistent. And eventually I was able to
graduate from The Ohio State University, got 2 master's
degree, and then pivoted from being a software engineer to
exactly leading global teams. And last year, August 2024, I
(02:58):
did another leap. This time I love to my
technology field that I have worked my whole career.
And now I'm a coach, I'm a speaker, I'm advocated for women
in tech. So our passions are.
Alarmed. Yeah, they definitely are.
You mentioned that you are from China.
(03:19):
Can you tell me a little bit about how you learned English?
And for anyone that may have English as your second language,
what advice would you give them?I did learn English in school
but more like a subject to learn.
I can read books, write simple words but I can't understand
(03:41):
when people spoke and people couldn't understand my English
in school. I remember this professor, I was
taking the class on artificial intelligence.
AI is so popular now, but almost3 decades ago all I could
understand was deep blue, because at the time the deep
blue sign computer beat chess champion.
(04:05):
So but by just reading book, by going to the professor's office
hours, all of that, I wasn't able to not only survive but
thrive academically. The true language, if you think
about what I did in the beginning, was I was doing 2
(04:26):
steps or translation. If Jessica, you and I are
talking, I will translate what you said into Chinese, then come
up with the answer in Chinese, and then translate back to you.
By that time, you already moved on.
I already lost my opportunity tochime in.
I remember particularly, it's more than a decade after I came
(04:50):
here. One night I started to dream in
English. That was my turning point.
However, in order to reach that point, it wasn't just naturally
happened. I intentionally joined
Toastmasters, practice my publicspeaking skills.
(05:11):
It's never I came, but I would do it anyways.
I was a communicate leader, forced me to communicate.
So all of that together and alsoincluding I started to write a
journal, A blog in English. So all of that combined and also
the experience with my work colleagues allowed me to one day
(05:34):
I started to think and dream andcommunicate in English without
much difficulty. I still have difficulties
sometimes trying to find the right words.
Wow, that's amazing. I know quite a few people that
have not had English as their first language did learn English
when they were in school. But then it's one of those
(05:55):
things where if you don't use it, you lose it.
Yeah. It's interesting to hear your
turning point starting to dream in English and the confidence
that it took to get to that point.
You started feeling confident after you started doing it, so
that's a very impressive story about how you continue to learn
(06:20):
English. Tell me how you ended up being a
single mother of two trying to build a career and what that
taught you about the life that you wanted for your children,
but also the resilience that came with it.
Yeah, so my ex-husband and I, wewere classmates in grad school
(06:46):
when we were in China studying aerospace engineering.
When I was young, I didn't get enough exposure or education
about what I should be looking for in a partner.
I remember the three things thatI was using as a criteria. 1 is
(07:07):
that person has to be smart to match my intelligence, that
person has to be good looking, that person had to be sporty.
All three criterias are fulfilled.
But I little did I know that living together those three
things are not enough. And what's more important is
(07:27):
actually respect each other, love each other, supporting each
other unconditionally. And for me, it took me 16 years
to get out of that marriage. For anyone who is listening, who
may be struggling about relationship and nobody can tell
(07:49):
you when is a good time to get out of that relationship.
I think as human beings, we always have this wish.
Let me just work a little more. What if it worked?
Looking back, do I regret that it took me 16 years to get out
of a relationship? I wouldn't say no.
Of course. It would be better if I realized
(08:11):
in the beginning that I shouldn't even get into that
marriage. When I made the decision that I
need to get out of the relationship.
Even then, as a mother, I wasn'tjust thinking about my own
happiness. I struggled a lot about will my
children be OK? Will they grow up as a good,
(08:35):
fine young adult without their dad in their life?
So that's why it's so hard to make a decision to completely
get out of a relationship. But I would say that once we
were divorced and I was taking care of my children all by
(08:55):
myself as a sole custodian, my children and I had never been so
happy. You said why didn't I do it
early? Because you don't know life is
going to be like in terms of freedom.
However, it is not all rosy because my children were young
(09:17):
at the time. One is 11, the other was 6.
So imagine a single mother with a full time job and then one
child, they need to go to one activity, maybe a piano, the
other to soccer. So you have to on a daily basis
thinking about I'm going to dropoff this child, then come back,
(09:41):
maybe drop off to another place,then I pick up the other child,
then I come home. I need to make dinner.
Every day is like that. So it was extremely difficult.
Sometimes I think about that. How did I do it?
Maybe the hope and maybe thinking about things will get
(10:02):
better. But I also had a support of
community. I have many friends, I have my
family support me, my parents helped taking care of their
children at times. And also I had a great support
at work and my colleagues and mycompanies offer great benefits.
(10:22):
So all of that together and eventually I landed into a good
place. Where your children born in
China or in the. US.
They were born here, both of them.
So I have four children, 2 biological children, 2
stepchildren. Did you move over here together?
(10:43):
Help me bridge that gap. Yeah.
So we were married while we werestill in China, as I mentioned
that we were classmates in Graduate School and we got
married and now we moved here, study in the same university,
and then we had our children. The two biological children I
(11:04):
was talking about were with him.When you first came here, you
didn't know anyone. The only one you know is the
other person. Of course, you're going to stick
together no matter how hard it is.
And then you had your first child that you think about, I
have to have a dad for my child.And then you had a second
children. It's like things got so
(11:25):
complicated. It's never a good time.
It's never a good time. I think that is something more
women and more people in generalneed to hear because if we
waited for a good time, we wouldbe waiting forever.
(11:47):
And can you tell me the clarity that you received when you
finally had that moment where you're like, this is what I'm
going to do with my life. I am going to raise my children
on my own. I know it was scary for you, but
tell me about that journey. Yeah, so it's not just one time
(12:11):
for people thinking about it, either leaving a relationship or
even leaving a job. It's not like, OK, I'm done.
That's it. It's you constantly asking
yourself, I'm not happy. Is this the life I want?
And then you got better. You're like, OK, it's fun.
And then you repeat the cycle. I remember when I really made
(12:35):
the final decision, I was journaling.
I was asking myself, when was the last time I laughed?
I couldn't answer that question in the beginning.
I was like, in 10 years my kids will be in college.
I can wait until they go to college.
(12:56):
But then I said, but it's 10 years.
I don't think I can survive 10 years without smiling, without
laughing, without love. So that was the final straw.
I know that there are a lot of people out there that are
staying in marriages because it's easy, because they want to
do it for the children, because it's the right thing to do and
(13:18):
quite frankly, because it's financially safer.
The message for all of those people that are going through
that is think about what's most important at the end of the day.
All of the materialistic things can be figured out.
All of the financial things can be figured out.
But you nailed it. You have one life to live and
(13:39):
your happiness definitely shouldn't be put on a shelf
because it's not something like a canned good where we just put
on the shelf and oh, we'll come back to it.
It's something we should have with us all the time.
Thank you so much for being personal with that because I
know that it's one of those topics that is not talked about
enough and we need to discuss it.
(14:03):
I wasn't happy, but then I remember as a mother how much I
cared about my children. I realized that because I wasn't
happy, I can't pretend all the time so I wouldn't be able to
raise high P children. So when you think about that, in
(14:24):
the end the decision was made for me to have a good life and
also for my children to have a good life, a good.
Mother yeah, so many times we dotry to have these masks that we
wear and try to be on guard all the time, and we just wear that.
I'm fine. Smile when deep down we know
(14:45):
that that's not the reality. And the fact that you were able
to realize that's what you wouldhave been potentially passing
down to your children is huge. I want to transition because
throughout this season, we are talking about both personal and
professional because we know as women that one impacts the
(15:07):
other. So as you were going through
these changes, where were you from a professional standpoint?
Yes. You're exactly right that we can
not a separate personal life anda professional life as much as
we want to, they are not separate.
(15:29):
If we are not happy and at home,we may bring that to work and
the vice versa. So at the time of my divorce, I
was leading global teams, working on technology
modernization, putting a lot of hours at work.
I remember particularly that at the time I was a leading team
(15:53):
both in the US and also offshore.
And I have to put on that, that smile in front of people.
But I also know as a certain time I'm typing on my keyboard
and all of a sudden the tears just came out.
I had to rush to the restroom, let the tears fall, clear out my
(16:14):
tears and come out, put on a smile again.
I can do this. It was extremely hard.
I was a leading team, so as a leader, everybody's problem is
your problem. If your project isn't going well
or need some escalation, it comes to you and then you go to
other stakeholders. I made a decision that this
(16:37):
isn't a good time for me to leadteams anymore, so I pivot my
leadership position to be a individual contributor by
intention. And that gave me, I would say,
less stress of leading A-Team. As long as I finish whatever on
my plate, I'm done. Other people than their manager
(17:01):
will be responsible. So I did that for a little less
than two years, but my intentionis to make impact.
My intention is to be productive.
After less than two years, I became manager again, leading
team again and never looked backbecause my kids were older and
(17:26):
less and less. They need my time and care.
Because of the decision, I am a leader, I have more to offer.
I can develop other leader, the other team members and leading
global projects. And so step by step, I was able
(17:47):
to get promoted to be a executive.
However, because I was working for a Fortune 25 company at the
time, getting promoted to be a executive in the company was
extremely hard. So you can't adjust work hard.
Work hard is the foundation. You have to be also strategic.
(18:09):
Let's jump right into that. You mentioned that you step back
and then went back into leadership.
I'm sitting here thinking, there's a lot of women out there
that are like, I can't do that. I cannot go from being a leader
to being an individual contributor.
It feels like a demotion. It feels like I've failed.
So yes, let's talk about once you make that decision to step
(18:32):
back, how do you look at having a strategy in order to go back
to leadership when you're ready?Yeah, when I decided to move
from being a manager to an individual contributor, I
stepped into a role of architect.
So previously I was application development manager, managing
(18:55):
team, create new products. And now as an architect, I need
to oversee architecture design. I need to develop reusable
components. So in a way that it actually
allowed me to gain skills for our audience and listeners.
You have to be conscious about Imy adding skills.
(19:19):
So Mackenzie partnered three of them.
They wrote a book about broken run in that they talk about
experience capital. So the experience capital
accounts for 50% of our lifetimesalary.
And what is experience capital is what you learned through
(19:41):
different experiences. If you stayed in the same role,
doing the same job, then you arenot gaining experience capital.
In my case, even though it lookslike a demotion by my own
choice, but I was gaining additional role, additional
skills. Additional connections.
(20:01):
So coming back to so how did I become executive by not only
working hard, but also working strategically.
If you think about a senior leaders at that level, it's not
just about what you can do alone, it's about the
relationships that you are leveraging.
(20:24):
It's the team you're leading. Are you uplifting your team so
that they can become high performing leaders like
yourself? You're almost like I'm
developing the people who can replace me someday.
And that's exactly my mentality.I'm developing every single team
member so that someday they can make decision just like me and
(20:47):
they can lead team just like me.And the other part is not only
you need to manage your team, manage up, manage across and who
are your managers, your managers, managers, are they
aware of what you're doing? Do they have faith in your
(21:08):
ability, in your leadership and your stakeholder?
Who are your partners and your customers?
Are they saying, wow, I like to work with Jessica because she is
so capable. She's always collaborative.
So in the end that you work smart and you work strategically
by looking at the people around,leveraging the relationship, but
(21:32):
also working on something more impactful.
Because if you don't deliver results in the end, that's still
the criteria to say are you capable, are you qualified?
You talked about managing up, managing down and networking
across the board. That's one thing that women are
(21:54):
sometimes afraid to do, especially in a male dominated
industry, which you and I have both been in.
Do you have any advice for a woman that is like, I have tried
to network with some of these guys, I just can't do it or I
don't want to do it because I can't seem to make a connection.
Yeah. That's very true.
(22:16):
According to your identity, whatever that identity is,
right? It could be the only woman, it
could be the only immigrant, it could be the only color person,
whatever that is, it could be barrier.
To me, I think it starts with our mindset, how we're thinking
about networking. If we already think I just hate
(22:37):
networking, I just don't want tobe a social butterfly, then we
already help losing. We're not going to do any
network. My way of looking at network is
your network is your net worth. It's not only about who you
know, it's also about who knows you, who knows your ability.
(23:02):
If you don't go out to network, how would they know what you're
doing? The other thing to think about
network is a lot of people thinkif I do network that means I
need to talk to everybody, not necessarily strategically.
Networking is who in that group of people can help me and I can
(23:26):
help the other person as well. It's the mutual benefits each
other. But in terms of male dominated
field for my whole career, I think whatever your gender is
nationality, the foundation, we're human beings.
(23:46):
I feel that if we look at each other as human beings, having
that caring, loving relationship, not romantic love,
but I care about you. I had great relationship with
all my colleagues. I can't really tell you how many
people that I just dislike them,Maybe one or two throughout my
(24:09):
career, Not that many because majority of the people, when
you're working together, you're trying to solve a problem,
you're trying to deliver a project.
So if you collaborate with each other, if you network through
that network, you found another expert who can help you solve
the problem and vice versa. That's amazing.
(24:32):
It's I think maybe Aristotle said if you give me a long
enough liver, I can move and move.
Yeah. And that really is great because
a lot of times we think about networking is just one person or
one transaction. And we and I, I specifically say
the word transaction because we as a society have become so
(24:53):
transactional. It's what can I do for you, but
what can you do for me? Quickly, we forget about the
relationship building. That's a great reminder.
These relationships take time tonurture and it's kind of like
watering a plant. It takes time.
(25:13):
You water it, you may not see the results right away, but then
it starts to bloom and you get your fruits or vegetables from
it. I appreciate you sharing that
with us. Thank you.
So far we packed a lot in a veryshort amount.
But I'm curious, you have 3 master's degrees and that is
(25:37):
absolutely impressive. Right now we are seeing that
more people are calling for higher education, but then we
also on the same hand see that there's more blue collar jobs
that are needing to be filled. What made you decide to obtain 3
master's degrees? And if we have any women toying
(26:01):
with the idea of going back to school, what advice would you
give them? Yeah, that's a good question.
There is kind of people going back to school and there are
people they don't need a high education.
Actually, one of my children is taking a gap year for similar
reasons. They can find a job and they're
(26:22):
happy about it. For me personally, I think my
last master degree was in 2007, that is before YouTube.
So as a person who wanted to learn new knowledge, new skills,
it feels natural to go back to school to find another way of
(26:43):
learning. But also I think is that this
may be motivational, allowing tohave a PhD degree.
Maybe when I'm 80 years old I will have a PhD degree, but both
times I couldn't finish because of family situations, young
children, full time job, all of that.
(27:07):
But if I have a choice now, I don't know whether I will go
back to school just because not because school isn't a teaching
enough skills. School are still valid, valid
just because of those disciplines, right?
I think we need some motivation for us to keep going, keep going
(27:29):
because there is milestones in schools production need to be
deal all of that. But I also believe that the
information is available everywhere.
AI is AP to D level of intelligence everywhere.
So I think it is a personal choice of what are you trying to
(27:51):
get out of that. I think that's maybe the
intention and that need everybody to answer themselves.
Yeah, I remember in Season 1, I had a guest on and she talked
about obtaining her master's degree.
She even said it is a commitment.
It is hard work. This also goes back to the lived
(28:14):
experiences we were talking about.
Just curious from your perspective of being a leader
and managing a people from different backgrounds, different
cultures, races, countries, whenyou're looking at a candidate,
what really holds more weight toyou?
(28:34):
Is it the letters behind their name, or is it that experience
that they've lived through? Yeah, that's a good question.
I hired a lot of people I interviewed even more.
Those letters behind their name are not that important to me,
and even their experiences may not that important to me.
(28:59):
What I'm looking for is a personwho is willing to learn, who is
quick to learn, a person who is striving for a better version of
themselves. When I interview them, they have
to show me how would I trust that they are the kind of a
person? I also look at how they think
(29:22):
when I ask them a question and what's the logical thinking in
their mind because critical thinking and problem solving is
super important in technology. I also look at their leadership
skills, what kind of experiencesthey have, and I think everybody
is a leader. How well you lead and are you a
(29:44):
team player? How are you communicating when I
ask you a question? Are you able to articulate
whether you are speaking Englishas a second language or not?
I think when you articulate, you're able to say using analogy
or a metaphor to explain some complex concept in simple terms
(30:07):
or words, and those are the qualities I'm looking for.
Not necessarily. I worked for some tech companies
here and there. I care about what you did and
how you did it. You just mentioned 2 critical
things. I heard you say problem solving
(30:27):
and critical thinking. As we are moving into more of
AI, we know that soft skills will be required from the
workforce coming up. I read something not too long
ago that said that they were in the top ten skills of what in
players are looking for right now.
Yeah, and I know that we touchedon AI.
(30:50):
What are your thoughts in general on AI?
Is it something where you think it's going to end up taking
over? Oh wow.
That's a great question. As a technologist I am excited
about what AI can do, but I am equally aware of the farm it
(31:10):
could cause. You and I know the AIS are
trained using all the data available publicly.
Privately those data already have biases invited.
So if you trained by those data,then AI will output will express
(31:32):
that kind of biases. So will AI take over the world?
I think it's going to be everywhere.
Just like today, not many peoplecan live without the Internet.
And in the future, not many people will not live a life
without AI. Whether you want it or not, it's
(31:53):
just there. Personally, I believe a good
approach would be to be part of the field of AI.
I'm going to either build it, try to understand a large
language model or all the machine learning algorithms, or
(32:13):
I become a driver of the AI vehicle, which is my role.
I use tons of AI tools to help me from end to end as my speaker
workflow everywhere I go out useAI tools but I'm using AI to be
my partner not think for me. I would never outsource my
(32:38):
thinking, critical thinking, problem solving to the tool
because that's what we human about.
I think we should also think about with the AI tools or other
tools can do the repetitive or manual work or some other work
that we don't enjoy. What is it for us to be a better
(33:00):
human? This is actually what I shared
during Columbus AI Week. I think we need to hop into the
essence of being human, having our conversation like you and I,
being open about our loved experiences.
The goal is hopefully someone else that can benefit from that.
(33:21):
Being a human is I don't have tolike you, but I love you.
Being a human means I may not know who you are, but I care
about your life. That's great.
I did hear just recently, because we were talking about
the critical thinking portion ofit, that critical thinking is
becoming less and less familiar to people because they are
(33:44):
letting AI do it for them. And to your point, we have the
opportunity to be a driver when it comes to AI being in the tech
industry. It's fascinating to me how much
AI has changed and evolved by 20, thirty, 60% of workforce is
going to have to be rescaled. There are jobs coming that do
(34:08):
not even exist today because of AI.
We also know there are jobs today that may not exist in five
years because of AI. You do have people that are
like, absolutely not. I do not want anything to do
with AI. But the thing about it is that
(34:29):
it surrounds us all the time andwe potentially use it more than
we know. Every time you pick up your
phone and ask it to look something up for you.
Every time you have your little box that sits there and her name
starts with an A order somethingfor you on Amazon.
(34:53):
These are all examples of where we are using AI today and may
not even realize it. You said it beautifully.
I wanted to make that statement because we're already using it,
whether you know it or not. So it's just how you use it, how
you harness it to work with you,but not necessarily for you.
(35:14):
And I love the human aspect of that because we are losing touch
with a lot of the soft skills, the human emotion, people
walking down the streets and noteven acknowledging or making eye
contact with one another. So really coming back to that
human side of it, I believe is going to be critical.
We've talked about your evolution from when you first
(35:37):
got here and all the way throughyou being a tech executive.
But I want to pivot to how did you make the decision to leave
your role in corporate? And more importantly, how did
you decide that you wanted to gointo being a coach and a speaker
once you left corporate? It wasn't one day I said I'm
(35:59):
done with corporate. It's not like that.
I love my job. I was someone who is fortunate,
passionate about what they do intechnology, leading team, all of
that. This needs to go back.
More than a decade ago, I had a conversation with a best friend.
We were saying if we had everything financially, the
(36:22):
mortgage is done, college tuition is paid, what do we want
to do? At the time, the answer was
paying back to the community, sharing our career, learning the
lessons learned and so I have always been very active in
community, whether it's at work or externally.
(36:44):
Six years ago, my best friend Joy, she enrolled into a
coaching school and she is allowed to bring a guest for
free for a three day weekend leadership training.
So I was her guest. After that first day training, I
(37:08):
just found that I found something that I have been
looking for my whole life. I don't know whether you ever
had such kind of experience. It's just profound.
It's like, Oh my God. So the next day I just decided
I'm going to enroll in this program.
(37:29):
At the time, I was still a single mother.
I have one child in college. I was paying tuition and the
other one in high school will bein college pretty soon.
So I was paying my mortgage, allof that, right, Carlom?
How am I going to pay the tuition?
Because it's not trivial. It's a substantial amount of
(37:51):
money. At the time I was engaged with
my current husband, but as a woman, I'm like, I'm going to
figure out this myself. I'm going to pay this myself.
And I was able to find ways. So that is the starting point of
my coaching school. So when I first enrolled, it's
(38:14):
more of I found it myself. I want to enroll, I want to
learn in the middle of the program.
It was 8 months along the program.
In the middle of the program, I'm like, but everyone need to
hear this message. That's when I established my
coaching school because I still had my full time executive job
(38:37):
leading teams. What I did was during the
weekend and in the evenings I was coaching people because my
kids were older. They didn't need me to babysit.
I did that for four years every time I had a conversation with
leaders. You know, like you mentioned in
(38:58):
the beginning, we all have a mask, right?
Some of the mask were thin, someother mask were really thick.
It's like there's so many barriers or obstacles,
challenges that especially for women in technology.
So whenever I was able to support a leader that is kind of
(39:26):
pay back to me, I, I got so fulfilled.
So then that message came back to the community.
It's become stronger and stronger.
And again, go back to what we said.
There would never be a good time.
(39:46):
I just had a conversation with my husband, talk about my
vision, my lonely, and my purpose.
And then I made the leap. So what I'm hearing is that this
was not something that you did in a matter of months.
You plan this out strategically like a five year plan, is that
(40:10):
right? Yes.
All right, so for the women or for anyone out there and
thinking I really would like to do something like that, but I'm
not sure where to start. In order to go from the concept
of I want to start this to when you were actually able to make
(40:31):
the full transition. What are some of the things that
you really needed to think aboutand get in order for you to be
able to plan that out and make that transition?
Yeah. So for me, what I do in the
evening, in the week, during theweekend is perfectly aligned
(40:52):
what I do at work, because at work I was a leader.
So I use coaching skills to coach my team, to coach the
communities. I'm not sure for people who may
be doing a set hustle or business that's opposite to what
they do, probably it's going to be a little harder.
(41:14):
So for me, that alignment allowed me to have a life is
just congruent. And also I think when we think
about the future, because it is so big, the change is so
dramatic, it can really give us a lot of fear and doubt.
(41:36):
But I wouldn't say that five years ago when I established the
business, I didn't even invasionthat last year I would get out
of my carpet and doing this thing called a coating speaking.
It's like you take one step and then all of a sudden you're
(41:57):
like, come on, I'm climbing thismountain and then you start to
climb a different mountain. So I wouldn't say that if anyone
has any aspiration, doing something new, maybe have their
side to the future, but also have their action in the near
(42:19):
term. What is one small thing I can do
everyday to align to that vision?
The vision is long and far, but what we do in the meantime, what
we do is adding to the full spectrum of us as a person.
Because I'm getting better and Ican help other people or
(42:43):
contributed to the community, the world, I feel that will give
us a lot more power, purpose andforce to be persistent.
And taking little actions every day definitely add up.
One of the things I always encourage my clients to do and I
do myself, is journaling. Because sometimes you can't
(43:03):
really see the progress that you're making.
But if you're documenting what you're doing, your wins, whether
they be big or small, when you go back and Add all of that up
over a year, it is amazing to see the progress that can be
made. There may be people thinking,
well, I don't know how much timeI can commit to my side hustle
(43:27):
or what I want to look at doing full time later on.
I don't know if I have the moneyto do it.
I don't know if I have the resources.
It's scary. And I know that there are
certain things that you do have to look at when you're making
that transition. But do you have any advice for
the listeners? Yes.
So when I did my transition I did calculation about my
(43:51):
finance. Can I survive without my high
paying job and because my husband is also retired, health
insurance is super expensive if you pay it yourself.
So all of that together and I think for anyone doing
transition, you kind of need to be prepared how long it might
(44:15):
take to ramp up for this new business and how much money I
have in the bank can support me.Because if you are putting
yourself into a position of, Oh my God, I have to earn money, I
feel that not only you're stressful, but also the way
you're doing business, attracting clients.
(44:38):
I feel the energy is different. And now it's like I need to have
money instead of I really care about you, I want to support
you, support your growth. That's just my personal opinion.
Now, that's key. There is something different
when someone comes to you from aplace of service and genuine
(44:59):
care versus trying to make money.
I truly understand that and I know that a lot of the listeners
out there will take away from that because sometimes when you
get wrapped up in the financial portion of it, you lose
yourself. We have talked about being
(45:19):
authentic, being human, so that's a great reminder for
anyone looking at making the transition.
Or maybe they're in that messy middle, right?
They've committed to it and thought it was going to be
phenomenal. But sometimes there's a little
bit of fog that in between spacecan really be uncomfortable from
(45:40):
when you start something to whenyou succeed.
But it's true to come from your why, your place of service and
really commit to it and don't give up.
That's the other big thing to take from this.
Your journey took five years foryou to quit and you weren't even
looking at that. As we look at wrapping up today,
(46:02):
I truly appreciate you being here.
For any listeners or watchers that would like to learn more
about you, your story, and how to connect.
How can they reach you? Yes, I share one last message
because this is important to me.I got married to my current
(46:22):
husband in 2020. This is why I said if I look
back for the 16 years of unhappymarriage, if I have the
opportunity to do it again, willI do it again?
The answer is yes, because if I didn't do that, I wouldn't read
(46:45):
the two independent people children on my own and I
wouldn't be able to marry my current husband who is my
soulmate. And we have been knowing each
other for seven years and we never had one single argument.
We debate, but we don't fight. OK now so if anyone want to get
(47:12):
out of a relationship there is awhole but that's what I want to
share. If you want to connect with me,
please connect with me on LinkedIn.
I'm very active on LinkedIn. You will be able to find me.
Awesome. One thing I want to leave our
listeners and watchers with today is, you know, we've talked
about all of these different things to get clarity, but the
(47:37):
one reset action I would like our listeners to think about
this week is what is one person that you haven't networked with
yet, But you know, you really need to thank you again.
I truly appreciate you being here.
To all of our listeners and watchers, thank you so much.
(47:57):
I hope you enjoyed today's conversation and until next
time, stay fierce, stay bold, but most importantly, stay
unapologetically you.
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