Author: Seung Chan Lim

When do we feel unappreciated?

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Sometimes,
I coach professionals who aren’t
Founders or CEOs.

Guess who they complain about the most?
Their Founder or CEO.

What I often hear
is that they don’t feel appreciated
by their Founder or CEO.

This is a well-known phenomenon.

What still fascinates me, though,
is what they say the Founder or CEO could do
to give them this sense of appreciation.

Rarely do I hear things like
“Praise me for a job well done.”

More often than not I hear things like
“I wish they’d stop frowning when I’m sharing my ideas.”
“I wish they’d stop telling me to figure it out on my own, even if that’s what I end up doing.”

They were distressed about the sense of isolation they felt
when their Founder or CEO
dawned a particular facial expression
or told them to figure something out on their own
as they were in a vulnerable emotional state.

What’s perhaps ironic
is that many Founders or CEOs I coach
say the same thing
as they see the same behaviors
and feel the same emotions
in relation to their employees.

Being There

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Several years back,
I visited a private high school.

There,
I did a workshop
where the students sketched
a blueprint of the kind of relationship
they wished to have
with their teachers
such that the teachers could more effectively
help them learn, create, grow, and mature.

The keyword they used
to sum up their sketch
was “being there.”

The students wanted teachers
who were willing to “be there” for them.

I then asked the students
to raise their hand
if they already had this kind of relationship.

2 out of ~40 students raised their hand.

After this incident,
it become a priority for me
to form this kind of relationship,
with those whom I have committed
to help learn, create, grow, and mature.

I’m grateful for this lesson
I learned
from those students.

Time for Another Metaphor

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 1

One
of the most important concepts
in my first book
is metaphors.

Metaphors
connect two seemingly
unrelated
ideas.

In doing so,
it can help us discover
new
or unexpected insights
into something we were previously
unaware.

For example,
while I was on tour
with my book
I shared the psychological pain
and struggle
I experienced
in the artistic
creative
process..

To my surprise,
entrepreneurs
resonated more deeply with my experience
than others.​

It turns out
entrepreneurs experience
similar psychological/interpersonal pain
and struggle
in the process
of launching
and running
their business.

This experience helped me
create a metaphor
between the experience of artists
and the experience of entrepreneurs,
which lead me to do
what I do
now.

But until I created
that metaphor
I used to often say
that I don’t understand entrepreneurs.

If I said I do understand,
it was just so I could feel entitled
to say something negative
about them.

So now
whenever I say
I don’t understand someone
or say I do understand them
just so I can say something negative about them,
I tell myself
that it’s time
for another
metaphor.

Giving Up

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It’s ok to give up.

What may be more important
is getting to the heart of what we want.

Not the thing we say or think we want,
but the thing for which our heart yearns,
floating right on the threshold
of our conscious and sub-conscious.

Once we become aware of what this is,
we tend to realize that there are many ways to attain this.

In that moment, “giving up” becomes
but a matter of giving up one of many methods of attaining this.

If so,
“giving up” can eliminate the very thing getting in the way
of making progress:
our insistence on a particular method.
Thereby helping us make greater progress
toward attaining what we want
if even if it is merely temporary.

Becoming Aware of Our Tension

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 3

One way
to sort the behaviors
that arise from too much tension
is into 5 categories.

It can be useful
to simply notice
and to acknowledge these behaviors
as natural human reactions
to our desire to relieve ourselves
of too much tension,
instead of judging them
as good/bad
or right/wrong.

This can give us
the requisite room in our mind
to not only appreciate the tension we experience,
but also the tension experienced by others
when they behave
the same way.

Manipulation and Creation

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Manipulation
involves the desire
to move someone
or something
to a place or state
the manipulator expects.

This is not to judge manipulation
as good/bad or right/wrong.

Through mutual agreement
& rationalization,
one can differentiate between
transparent
vs. surreptitious,
well-intended
vs. ill-intended,
manipulation.

A magic show
can be thought of as
transparent manipulation.
Feeding kids hidden vegetables
can be thought of
as well-intended manipulation.

But manipulation stands
in some sense,
opposite of creation,
because creation
involves the desire
to let emerge
a place or product
the creator did not expect.

Tolerating vs Respecting

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Tolerating isn’t sustainable.
Respecting is.

There are workshops that teach listening
as a collection of techniques,
like:
Smiling.
Nodding.
Saying “mhm.”
etc.

Even if you do all of that,
if internally you’re merely tolerating the experience,
you can feel drained
You may even feel like you’re engaged in “emotional labor.”

That’s a recipe for burn-out and resentment.

Respecting
is a practice of making new value from what we perceive.

It’s not a technique,
but rather a skill that naturally emerges
from a shift in our perception.

For example,
art students,
especially those trained in the traditional crafts
learn to respect by actively perceiving value in the mundane
through drawing,
sculpting,
woodworking, etc…

Once we learn to respect,
What we perceive in the world
can energize us,
so much so that we may be so immersed in the art of respecting,
that we forget to eat.

We are Special

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There are times when we,
usually in the name of improvement,
forget that we are special.

It is not wrong to think we are special.

Special does not mean superior or exceptional in all contexts.
It simply means we are superior or exceptional in some contexts.

Cockroaches are special.
So are rocket scientists.
Just in different contexts.

Who We Think We Should Be

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I’ve coached founders
who aspire to make millions of dollars.
I’ve also coached founders
who aspire to help the less fortunate.

Some may easily judge one to be better than the other.

Perhaps.

What I find interesting is that both struggled
with the same things.
That is until they learned to let go
of the fixed image
of who they thought they should be.
Whether that was
someone who has millions of dollars or
someone who helps the less fortunate,
it made little difference.

Decision Making

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When we are involved in a process of innovation,
the kind mired in
volatility,
uncertainty,
complexity, and
ambiguity
What we often need
is someone who can
be there by our side
to help us navigate through
the difficult,
uncomfortable,
sometimes drawn out,
process
of coming to make a decision.

Not someone
who is quick to
tell us
what decision to make.
Nor someone
who leaves us
alone
to make a decision.

Yet more often than not
we are surrounded
by the latter two types of people,
While it is rare to be in the company
of the first kind of person.

To all my readers,
if you wish,
May this new year
bring more
of the first kind of person
into your lives.

To all my clients,
I’m eternally grateful
for your willingness
to let me be this kind of person.