Made a Shift and Here's How

This past Spring I signed up to be part of a twelve week leadership cohort called Limitless. It was led and facilitated by my friend Linda Cha, Founder & Executive Director of Heart Foundation. I met Linda a few years back, while each of us had coinciding workshops to support young Hmong boys. I remember having a strong response and interests in her facilitation style. I remember leaving that first encounter, feeling like, “I’m so happy I’ve met an Asian woman facilitator, who is doing work that resonates with what I do AND best of all she’s a fan of what I do too!”

A few years later, after I had completed a workshop on anger as part of a Hmong boys and men retreat, thanks to MN Zej Zog, an organization creating healthier opportunities for the Hmong community; I found myself seated in and soon to be a participant to Linda’s workshop reconnecting fathers and sons. It was powerful, inspiring, and I was both impacted and moved. I wanted to be part of anything and everything Linda was going to do moving forward. I wanted to learn from her and at the same time, I wanted to do my part in supporting her movement, purpose, and mission.

Thus when it came time to decide on whether or not I would join the latest Limitless co-hort, which later would be known as Team 3, I wanted to, despite there being bit of hesitation at first. Mainly because I was also in the middle of a lot of chaos and uncertainty since getting laid off. Luckily, I had the money waiting to spend as part of a community grant I was a recipient of. I just didn’t know how committed I could be once I was enrolled into the program.

If any of you ever feel as the saying goes, “Stuck between a rock and a hard place.” I encourage you to always trust your intuition and take chances and what we might feel like a risk. Always bet on you! Trust in those subconscious thoughts that tell you this is going to be something good to you just wait and see. Even though right now things feel overwhelming and practically impossible to get through, trust your instincts. Trust that someone or something is looking out for you and just as you want better for yourself, it/they also do…and it may require some leaps of faith and GO FOR IT! Go forward with it. If there is something you know that will better you, as risky as it sounds, don’t be afraid and GET AFTER IT! You never know what could happen.

In hindsight, I’m so happy that I did.

What occurred in these twelve weeks changed me and I didn’t even know how it had happened, until I felt a shift inside. This word, “shift” is a word that I never used much before, but have since found great use for it. It was a word that Linda had tossed around and used often, and then one day I found myself feeling the word inside and knowing that I was applying it.

Limitless consisted of weekly meetups with the cohort and a check-in with Linda, and then a few in person get togethers. We were provided training, coaching, lessons, and homework to work on. even an out of state get-away together, and a final graduation final weekend as well. It’s these last two gatherings that really impacted me, and I’m guessing my fellow co-horts too.

Each of us had three specific goals areas we wanted to pursue and achieve. With help and discussion I landed on the following:

1) I was going to make $20,000.00 through my speaking and facilitating business in the next 12 weeks.

2) I was going to start to learn about financial planning, develop a healthier relationship with money, and see what steps I could take towards the future.

3) Reconnect authentically with friends who mean a lot to me.

Three goals, that’s it.

Like any pursuit in life, the first step is to have your goal, and then start working on it. However, along with this, it also guarantees you obstacles.

Goal #1:

It felt both terrifying and exciting to me. You see, I realized, like so many, I was brought up to think that I could only make so much money, and I used to have a mindset of working to survive. Work any job because you have to live. I also never knew that I deserved x amount of $. I always thought that I deserved the amount that was given to me. I think this has a lot to do with having mostly immigrant family role models. They were always ‘just trying to get by.’ It didn’t matter how much, they just wanted to have the bare essentials. I grew up always thinking, if I had those, that was good enough. I now know these are what psychologists would consider “limiting beliefs.” Limiting beliefs are self-imposed mental barriers that hold professionals back from reaching their full potential. These can keep you in a negative state of mind, hindering you from encountering new opportunities and life experiences. (https://asana.com/resources/limiting-beliefs)

But I knew inside, I wanted so much more, and in time, I felt like I deserved more. I’ve been afraid to see myself get it though. I’ve been so conditiioned to not believe that I could…that this is the current work I am unpacking, deconstructing, and making new, healthier patterns for.

In his book, Stay Sane in an Insane World, Peak Performance Coach, motivational speaker, and executive consultant Greg Harden writes, "I’ve been calling them “self-defeating attitudes and behaviors” - sometimes “SDABs” for short. Sometimes, these attitudes and behaviors are glaringly obvious. Sometimes, they’re masked and almost impossible to see, as in someone with a deeply ingrained “fear of success,” who derails his or her own life in cleverly disguised ways.”

In time, this changed, or at least, has changed. When I started to see the life that I could create for myself, my priorities and habits changed too. Given more time, I’ve seen how I can make money, the kind of money I want to, and doing it through doing something I love, something I really love, and with no excuses. When I made myself pick a number to make through my business, I had seen that I could think of a big number, a number that was big for me at least, but for the first time ever, I gave myself permission to think bigger.

I wanted to put down $10K because that felt achievable, but then the work we’ve started to do in Limitless challenged me to feel like why not try for bigger, because in my heart, that’s what I really wanted. All my previous experience had taught me to settle for 10K because in my family, this was already a big number to achieve. I could get it, but my heart and soul wanted to strive for 20K.

In the end, I did not achieve my goal of the 20K, but I achieved something else. I made more money then I ever had and in the shortest amount of time. Though it would have been really nice to have earned the 20K, especially when Emily and I really needed it, given our situation with the mortgage and other expenses. It showed me how I could achieve something if I set myself up to try and I am super proud of that and can’t wait to see what’s to come.

Goal #2

Once again I was terrified and excited, only in a different way. Again, I didn’t grow up having healthy conversations about money or the relationship with it, and it wasn’t until recently, that I had begun to even allow myself to have conversations around it. Things like investments, 401K, retirement, etc. used to intimidate me and when I thought about it, I felt a certain amount of shame surrounding it. As I’ve chosen to be in more spaces of leadership and see myself as one too, I’ve allowed myself to be more okay with not only having these conversations, become more open to learning, but also, begin to see myself becoming more successful as a result of it. Part of that was being extremely vulnerable and real with someone about it, to those that I could trust like my financial advisor friends Brian Muller and Maikou Vu.

In the end, I was able to work with my friend Maikou Vu, a financial advisor, and business owner herself, and also a graduate of Limitless Team #2, also a big reason why I got excited about signing up. Afterwards, not only do I feel better about money, investments, and future steps, even though I still feel lost in much of the language and options available, but I also have felt safer to talk about it and remind myself, as Brian wrote in his book Momentous Decisions, in Chapter 5 Wealth Decisions for a Richer Life, on page 90 he writes: “If you are in your thirties, forties, or fifties and have not saved as much as you should have, don’t get discouraged. It’s never too late to start saving for the future.” When I read this sentence and other sections from his book, these words felt encouraging and made me feel like I didn’t have to feel like I was behind and was going to be unfortunately hate to use this word, “in-trouble” but that it was okay to have a belief that I could start anywhere, but key word was start!

Goal #3

With this goal, I thought reconnecting with friends had to look a certain and specific way. In my mind, when I first came up with this goal, I saw a nice looking room, filled with cool decorations, all the “bells and whistles”, a reunion that would feel like an event you wouldn’t want to miss. What ended up happening though, was that as the weeks went on, I felt overwhelmed trying to plan for this, or to even tackle a few tasks towards this goal, that I began to feel disappointed in myself for not doing enough.

In the end, I realized with the help of Linda and my fellow co-hort members and what each of them was experiencing, it’s okay. It’s all okay. When my mind saw the outcome having to look like one way, I had missed noticing that I was already reconnecting with old friends of mine, or if they weren’t old friends, people that needed me and I needed them just the same. I mean come on Pete, you were running an Asian Men’s group meetup once a month for 8 months! Every month you gathered with men who needed a space to share what was going on in their lives, you included! Give yourself some credit. Don’t be too hard on yourselves.

This whole time, in my mind, I thought I had to talk to certain friends, that I had created a list of, maybe meet them virtually on camera; or create an in-person event to gather friends. Sure that would all still be nice and something to work on and towards, but it’s okay that it didn’t happen. It wasn’t until I accepted that sometimes in life you don’t need to dictate things, and let things show up, unfold for you. I was already making an impact in these men’s lives and others; yet I almost missed out on seeing this, feeling this, taking this all in, because of my own endeavors!

In one of my favorite films Field of Dreams (1989) there is a great scene where the lead Ray Kinsella played my Kevin Costner listens as Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, played by Burt Lancaster shares with him about the last day he played baseball, “We just don't recognize life's most significant moments while they're happening. Back then I thought, Well, there'll be other days. I didn't realize that that was the only day.”

I know when you think about it’s a little more nuanced.

Where is the line between going after our goals, putting something down (on paper), speak it into existence, and then work towards it AND letting go, trusting in the process, and accepting things to happen as they end up happening instead? If I were to plan something, have a goal to attain, and while doing that, I don’t attain that specific goal, but then find out that maybe I had but not how I thought I wanted it look like…how do I make sure that I don’t miss out on that too in pursuit of my original goal?

Confused? Me too, well sort of.

This is something I pondered for quite sometime, for many years, and for a long time, I felt much disrest and at times discomfort from it. Then one day Linda shared this quote with us and it stuck. She said, “It’s not about accomplishing your goals, it’s about the person you become in the process of achieving your goals.” Damn. Talk about mic drop. Talk about many mic drops in one drop! I absolutely love this saying. Where she got it, I have no idea, but it was transformational and I had no idea the impact it would reverberate for me until our program was all done.

I knew it was because of this that I had begun to see things very differently. It became my anchor. A new one that I could apply and begin to put to practice more. Having goals is important and also is what happens to us in the pursuit of them.

I had a goal for each area and in the end, each one turned out to look different from what I expected, yet because I wanted to see my efforts as enough, it felt like it was. I didn’t have to accomplish the goals the way I saw them, instead I could appreciate what did happen and whom I became in the process.

Great quote. Great program.

As my current martial arts instructor Sifu Peter Kwong from MKG North says often after testing and earning a certificate, “Onwards!”

A dedication to the Limitless Team #3 experience:

The work we did in Limitless, Linda and her team setting things up for us the way they did for our success, and each co-hort member that was part of this team made the difference.

For twelve weeks we shared parts of ourselves with each other that perhaps others don’t see and might never see the same way. We challenged and encouraged each other to face our odds, to be better for ourselves for others, and to be leaders. Whatever that means, however we choose to define it, we are leaders of our own destinies. No longer dictated by other forces that don’t support us, and definitely not by our own limited beliefs and “SDABs.”

I walked away not necessarily a new person, but with a shift in my mind, body, and soul.

I believe in myself more and have a group of people who I know we can always depend on each other. People who love you for you and want better for you and your families. Who will never forget what we experienced together. The highs, lows, good, bad, the ugly, we were there for each other.

Thank you to Linda, your team, my Limitless co-hort members: Sabrina, Elliot, Shoua, Saulkdi, Kalia, Nelsie, Ange, Lucky, Valai, Txhiaj Mas, Dejntsiab, Yang, Vam Yeej, Ntshis Lo.

Thank you for showing up and giving your all. I am deeply honored, grateful, and appreciate everyone of you.

It was so much fun and worth all the effort it took. CONGRATULATIONS TO US!!!

We are TEAM #3 (GOAT STATUS!!!)