Davidson Hang Reflections and Lessons from a life worth living

Episode 79: Davidson Hang Reflections: Reflecting on 3/4 of the way through the year

We discussed reflections on happiness, gratitude, what I'm excited about, travel, my honeymoon coming up, what I'm proud of, enjoying the most, and what an amazing year so far!

Episode 78: Davidson Hang Reflections:A chapter from a new book we are publishing around How to have fun in a serious world

Career Hopper

Being labeled as a career hopper certainly has messed with my confidence. I have been told by leaders that no one will ever hire a career hopper because they simply aren’t committed. I remember being told that and feeling so hopeless. I now have the perspective that I gave it my all and contributed so much to every organization I have been a part of. I even had a company I worked for that went out of business and saw that I get to be with the consequences of my decisions. 

I also realized that it's okay to be want to explore and try so many different things. I no longer have any regret for the 30+ different jobs I’ve worked at over the course of my lifetime. From waiting tables and understanding the value of a dollar. I was able to meet so many interesting people and I fall in love with humanity every single time. I’m fortunate to have a job that pays extremely well and I get to travel the world. It wasn’t always rainbows and butterflies. I’ve been told be careful hiring him he is definitely someone who might not stay here a long time. Luckily because I have been so fortunate to work for so many companies I know what perfection looks like in terms of employee experience and company culture. I have been able to find the purple squirrel the company that I have been looking for my whole life. Many people give up the pursuit of perfection in many areas some of us are still seeking that in their partner. CoachHub gives me the autonomy and ability to coach and be able to have impact in the world. Finding your northstar can be challenging with all of the noise and responsibility that comes with living in Western Society. There is a pressure to fit in to make money, buy nice things, live in a pretty house, and drive cool cars. It’s hard to believe that I have that life now where I get to impact so many people every day. If I’m truly present I can pinch myself every day because I get to wake up to a beautiful wife, live in what I perceive to be a mansion in a new construction home where I never even thought was possible at my age. 

 

I remember feeling so hopeless and that I was so behind when I was making $26k a year graduated with a Bachelors and when I interviewed at 100+ different jobs. Going through what I call a quarter-life crisis. In my 20s, I feel like I was not a good salesperson. I was always good at meeting people and making friends and in my career, I was never too motivated. I dated someone once who asked me what I wanted to make in my 30s,40s,50s I remember thinking that $100k was a pretty decent salary. I feel extremely blessed to have had so many opportunities where people took a chance on me despite having not the most stable backgrounds and job history. Giving myself a lot more credit than I did in the past, I can honestly say that I poured my heart and soul into all of my jobs. I always give effort and I wore my heart on my sleeve. 

 

Being an ENFP, I also realize that when choosing a career/job make sure it’s social and does not require doing the same task over and over again. I get to go to cool conferences where I learn something new every time. I get to travel and experience different cultures, airports and meet genuinely good people who are trying to make a difference in their company through training and development. If you were to tell me 10 years ago that I will be working with Learning and Development professionals every day I would have told you that you are crazy. I honestly didn’t have much confidence in myself. There was no proven track record of anything other than being extremely social and being a part of many different groups, organizations. 

Episode 77: holding on to resentments

Episode 76: Compassion and forgiveness

Episode 75: Davidson Hang Reflections: Update on our jointed Book Project Redefining Masculinity

Thanks, everyone!

So far on Amazon, we’ve sold 33 paperbacks and had 203 Kindle Downloads!

It’s been a team effort!

Mark Hunter, MCC, Edwin Aristor, MBA, Christopher Paige, Alex Terranova, PCC, ACCC, CHC, Elizabeth Hill, MSW, ACC, Ryan Hall, Peter McLean

Let’s help us climb up the Amazon Best Sellers List!

“Man up!”
“Be a man!”
“Are you man enough?”
Well… can you? Are you?
Are you sure of who you are as a man? Maybe you’ve given it a lot of thought and struggled. Maybe it never occurred to you to explore this topic! Either way, it is now time to think deeply of who we are and who we want to be in the world. And that includes expressions of our gender identity.
The concept of what makes a man, what really defines his masculinity, has been the topic of much debate, exploration, and controversy in recent years.
In this compilation of insightful essays, our group of thought leaders and men reflect on what shaped their own masculinity.
Dream with them of a future where masculinity is no longer a topic around the battle of self, but instead embraces a vision of healthy strength and balance, and a strong sense of who you can be as a modern man in a constantly changing and challenging world.
We explore topics such as:
Defining the word masculinity – both its negative and positive uses
-Moving beyond toxic masculinity
-Self-expression
-Vulnerability
-Intimacy
-The role of ethnicity and racism
-Relationships
-Expressions of faith
-Ego
-Relating to the same and to opposite genders

Men, if you’re ready to explore your sense of self, if you’re ready to take the next step and begin to define a healthy sense of masculinity for you, if you’re ready to cast off society’s toxic expectations … then this book is for you.

I want to acknowledge everyone’s contributions! Thank you for contributing and lets us know if you are interested in purchasing a signed copy. I just bought 100 more physical copies that are coming in the mail this month. (Donating a portion of it to the Orphans’​ Futures Alliance) My goal is to raise $10,000 to support Orphans in Southeast Asia.

#redefiningMasculinity

Episode 74: Davidson Hang Reflections on a Life Worth Living Closing Out Mental Health Awareness Month

I wanted to discuss and closeout Mental Health Awareness Month with this message. I just finished a Peloton ride about it's okay to not be okay all of the time and wanted to discuss this critical topic with you all. It's okay to show that you are struggling and that you've had a tough year. I've been guilty of only highlighting certain aspects of my life, for instance, when I get married and just purchased our first home, but the reality is that life is full of ups and downs. I've been better at showcasing some of the downs in my life, but I could do a better job sharing with you all during these down cycles.

Episode 73: Next Level Trainings Discovery

Here are my takeaways from Next Level Trainings Discovery an Emotional Intelligence 3 day experience with Christopher Hawkins.

 

1. Getting over my fear of looking bad.

2. Having a growth mindset.

3. Love is the answer to everything.

4. Being able to create a vision for my relationship with my beautiful wife.

5. Law of attraction-related lessons. https://www.nextleveltrainings.com/ Next Level emotional intelligence leadership trainings draw on theories from psychology, neurolinguistics, neuroscience, sociology, and organizational development to support participants in unlocking their full potential. These are not boring classes, they are sophisticated, intensive, experiential workshops. The experience of them is fascinating, powerful, provocative, and undeniably valuable. They are for people who are ready to create extraordinary results in their lives.

Episode 72: The Asian American Experience by David Chang Founder of Momofuku

Lessons from an Asian American perspective. These passages really stood out to me. For those of you who do not know who David Chang is. He is one of the most famous restaurateurs out there and I enjoyed his book on overcoming adversity from the lens of being an Asian American. "The downside to the term tiger parenting entering the mainstream vocabulary is that it gives a cute name to what is actually a painful and demoralizing existence. It also feeds into the perception that all Asian kids are book smart because their parents make it so. Well, guess what. It’s not true. Not all our parents are tiger parents, tiger parenting doesn’t always work, and not all Asian kids are good at school. In fact, not all Asian kids are any one thing. To be young and Asian in America often means fighting a multifront war against sameness."​ Imposter syndrome is real for many Asian Americans who don't feel like they will ever fit in white Society because of the color of their skin but stick out like a sore thumb in Asian because of their American tendencies and ways. Asian names that could be misinterpreted as swear-words in English. The EPA tried to shut us down because they were getting complaints of pork smells emanating from the restaurant, which is not an uncommon grievance leveled against Asian establishments in gentrifying neighborhoods. PETA picketed the restaurant on the few occasions that we served foie gras. When we started getting complaints about the noisiness of our HVAC unit, I swear it was the vegans trying to bleed us dry. We spent thousands changing the fan belt and proving that the noises coming from the exhaust were inaudible to human ears. I’m tempted to blame han. Throughout this book, I will argue against the validity of various cultural truths, but I believe in han. There’s no perfect English-language equivalent for this Korean emotion, but it’s some combination of strife or unease, sadness, and resentment, born from the many historical injustices and indignities endured by our people. It’s a term that came into use in the twentieth century after the Japanese occupation of Korea, and it describes this characteristic sorrow and bitterness that Koreans seem to possess wherever they are in the world. It is transmitted from generation to generation and defines much of the art, literature, and cinema that comes out of Korean culture. "I will not deny that there are benefits to being part of what is often described as a “white-adjacent” or “model” minority. I grew up trying my damnedest to integrate into white society. But among the many problems with the myth of the model minority is that it erases the nuances of the Asian American experience. It also sows division, both within our community and with others. Now, if you will forgive a little bit of self-directed racial discrimination, I am what you might call a “twinkie.” Yellow on the outside, white on the inside. There are various factions within the Asian American population, and I definitely reside in the one that looks Asian but lives like a white person. When I visited Korea as part of a program with students from multiple colleges, I found myself excluded from all of the Korean-born, Korean-speaking, and generally more Korean social groups that formed. Then, once we landed in Seoul, the locals knew immediately from my size that I was a gyopo, or foreign-born Korean, so I gravitated to the other twinkies. I didn't yet know how to embrace my Korean heritage, which, ironically, only deepened my experience of han." Check out my blog post for all of the quotes. https://davidsonhang.com/2021/04/01/david-changs-memoir/ 9. By confronting failure, you take fear out of the equation. You stop shying away from ideas just because they seem like they may not work. You start asking whether an idea is “bad” because it’s actually bad or because the common wisdom says so. You begin to thrive when you’re not supposed to. You just have to be comfortable with instability, change, and a great deal of stress. "These were the same guys who had said things like “I need to take a shower to wash the gook off” after hooking up with Asian girls in school. Now there was a class reunion coming up and they were inviting me to hang out. That sort of interaction really screwed with my head. I didn’t become famous for being handsome or athletic or musically gifted. I was just a cook."​ My takeaways from the book is he was able to take advantage of the internet and all of these rising bloggers and realizing the importance of building a community and treating them right where against did not respect them and the power they had. He discussed very vulnerable about a lot of the microaggressions and straight-out racism he has experienced in a eurocentric dominated industry with how fine dining is considered to be European and more recently he has seen that Asian restaurants are starting to be more respected but we have a long way to go in America.

Episode 71: Davidson Hang Reflections and Lessons: Thoughts on Anti Asian hate crimes

I woke up at 6am this morning feeling confused and had the urge to share my thoughts on Anti-Asian Hate crimes. I am just speaking for myself and do not represent all Asian Americans but I am just sharing some of my experiences as an Asian American Male who despite being born in America will never viewed as an American even though I've never been to Asia just because of the color of my skin. Reading Michelle Kim’s article inspired me to want to share openly in hopes of educating a few what many people don’t know about Asian American hate crimes. "They show a 91-year-old Chinese man being shoved to the ground in Oakland’s Chinatown on Sunday, January 31st, just two days before an 84-year-old Thai man, Vicha Ratanapakdee, was pushed and killed in San Francisco, and multiple accounts of robberies targeting Asian-owned businesses in Chinatowns. In New York, a 61-year-old Filipino man was slashed across the face from ear to ear on Feb 3rd, and on the same day, a 70-year-old Asian woman was assaulted and robbed in Oakland." I would like to share with you all some stories from my past that I know have made me who I am.

1. Working at a previous company where I called racist comments as my nickname.

2. At a team outing that traumatized with the Men's Cross Country and Track at Cherry Hill West.

3. With one of my best friends back in High School

4. A hurtful comment with a formal manager of mine

5. Random moments walking around Queens/Brooklyn/New Brunswick being called Jackie Chan.

6. A story about my wife’s younger sister sharing that she was walking to Target and had a bus of kids say go back to China…

7. My mom was afraid of going to Costco because of the racial comments fearing for her life. In the US, there were 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents, mostly against women, in past year. Asian women report hate incidents 2.3 times more than men.

The founder and director of demographic data and policy research nonprofit AAPI Data have said that a confluence of factors, including the effects of poverty and financial struggle exacerbated by the pandemic, as well as opportunity, could have played into the heightened anti-Asian sentiment.

How can you be an ally and take action?

Educate yourself. These articles and learning more about these incidents will give you some more awareness of how we have been feeling but Asians typically don’t have a voice in mainstream media.

These 5 articles are a good place to start.

1. Vincent Chin-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Vincent_Chin

2. Chinese Massacre of 1871-https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/chinese-mssacre-1871

3. Read this article by Michelle Kim- https://medium.com/awaken-blog/on-anti-asian-hate-crimes-who-is-our-real-enemy-207ee7354926

4. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/17/us/shooting-atlanta-acworth

5. Learn more about the Model Minority Myth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txbtTCckp_k

It wasn't easy creating this video to share openly about how I feel about the Anti-Asian Sentiment but Thanks for listening.

Episode 70: Davidson Hang Reflections and Lessons Learned on Alicia Key's Biography

These are some of the passages that really stood out to me.

1. "I’m often asked where my melodies and lyrics come from. I may never fully comprehend how a song sprouts from nothingness into existence, and truthfully, I’m not tempted to decode the mystery. I hope to be constantly surprised, in amazement of how the tiny seed of a possible chord or lyric miraculously springs to life. That unexplainable process, that alchemy, is part of what separates art from logic and reason. I don’t create from a set of rules or formulas. I tap into my true feelings and experiences and allow them to guide me."
2. "Life’s current was so obviously carrying me in the direction of music, and rather than trying to swim back upstream, I simply let the tide carry me forward. At the time, I wouldn’t have described it that way, nor did I truly understand that there was a flow with my name on it. But from this side of life, I can see how every moment, every experience, every pivot, even my supposed missteps have been life’s way of getting me where I have always been meant to go. Rather than resisting the current, I’ve learned to surrender." 
3. "a mother whose very presence gave me a deep sense of stability, the solid grounding I felt each time I walked through our apartment door. In essence, I longed for two mutually exclusive realities: inextricable connection and full-fledged self-reliance." 
4. “It saddens me that most of my heart is bitter towards you,” I wrote. “It’s only that little part that feels sad that’s not bitter … all I want is for you to mind your own business. I don’t want the phone calls. I don’t want the letters. I don’t want the fake acts you pull to try and make me think you care. I don’t want anything.” By the time those words rolled from the tip of my pen and onto my notebook paper, my longing for my father had hardened into resentment. My mother still recalls the many times when Craig said he’d fly in to see me but, for reasons unknown to me then, he did not show up. I’d sit beside the window in our living room, looking down over the terrace to see if I could glimpse him arriving. An hour or so after the appointed time, the phone would ring and I would overhear my mother, in hushed tones in her bedroom, saying, “Okay, I understand.” Moments later she’d emerge into the living room with disappointment etched on her forehead as she announced, “He can’t make it.” That was it. Conversation over. Expectations once again dashed." 
5. "became my people. And yet through every age and stage, I kept my mask in position. The less others really knew about me, I reasoned, the less ammunition they’d have to make me look foolish. Only if I revealed my tender spots could they wound me. My true self, the one I kept so deeply concealed, only emerged in my diaries. There, I could unveil. If Mom got heated and I got tongue-tied, I could escape to sort out my thoughts and gather my words before the two of us spoke again. And alongside my musings and misgivings lived my poetry, my unfinished lyrics, my schoolgirl crushes, my feelings about Craig. On cotton pages scrawled with purple ink, I didn’t have to be tough or brave or capable or strong. I could just be me." 
6. "My ballet teacher, thin and lanky, ordered me to “tuck in” my thick behind after I’d already tried to do so. With her second request, I became acutely aware that my butt was never going to “tuck in” as tightly as those of my classmates with smaller backsides. I suddenly felt self-conscious about a curvaceous figure that I’d been mostly happy with up till then."
7. "My mother had to be strict as a matter of my survival. I grew up near Times Square before it became Disneyland, during a time when Hell’s Kitchen lived up to its name. The kitchen, in most homes, is the place where the action goes down, where everyone passes through or congregates. It’s hot. It attracts dirt. It’s often loud and odorous—all accurate descriptions of my old stomping grounds."  
8. "Chopin was my homie. His compositions were poetry for the piano: layered, measure by measure, with the dark passion and poignancy that still speak to me. Ms. Pine believed, as I do, that great music is not confined to one style. As she guided me in studying the greats in every genre, she also encouraged me to add my own flair, to play from my heart. If I heard a song I loved on the radio, like Brian McKnight’s “Never Felt This Way,” she’d have me create and perform my own composition. Her approach wasn’t traditional, but it was genius because it kept me tuned in." 
9. "In my mother’s gaze, I see grace. I see her profound love for her only child, a baby she once bravely chose to keep. I see a woman whose father was gone too soon and a mother determined to protect her own little girl from life’s sharpest edges. I see someone who, on a prayer and a paralegal’s meager paycheck, called on heaven to help her firmly ground me." 
10. "Craig never knew his own biological father. His birth certificate listed only his dad’s name and occupation: policeman. “Do you want to meet him?” his mother had asked a few times when he was a boy. Craig had no interest. Between his mom and his stepfather, Michael, he had all the love and nurturing he needed, he’d tell me years later. Yet I’ve often thought about how the absence of Craig’s father must have impacted his relationship with me, perhaps in ways he was not conscious of. I can only imagine how Craig, fatherless himself, must have felt on that summer afternoon when my mother sat across from him and said she was expecting me, and that, yes, he was the father. He was just twenty-seven then and, as he recalls it, still trying to find himself. As far as he was concerned, things had turned out well enough for him even without his dad around. The child my mother was carrying was undoubtedly his, but as he told her on that day, he wasn’t prepared to put on the heavy mantle of fatherhood. Only now, as a parent myself, can I understand what may have been true: Craig was living out of the template he’d inherited. In the empty space left by Craig, my nana and fafa stepped in..."

Overall I found her writing to be quite deep and a lot of what she is saying resonates with the pain of not having a father and growing up and how much that impacts your motivation and gives her the depth to make such powerful music.