At the Adobe Creative Retreat, this statement came up on screen:

“If you need to explain your design, it’s not good.”

And there I was, holding a mic, probably about to gently disagree in front of a room full of creatives.

The answer wasn't as simple as yes or no. I understand what the statement is trying to say. Good design should have clarity. It should guide people, reduce confusion, and make the experience easier to use. If someone needs to read five paragraphs before they understand how to submit a form, yes, we have a problem. Please return to the UX crime scene.

But I don't believe that needing to explain your design automatically means the design is bad. It depends on the situation.

When someone is using a product, the design should reduce friction. When someone is evaluating creative work, the story should create understanding. Presenting a design is not the same as using one.

A client reviewing a concept, a hiring manager looking through a portfolio, or a creative director evaluating an idea doesn't automatically know the brief, the audience, the constraints, the tradeoffs, your role, or why certain decisions were made. They see the output, but they don't see everything that led to it.

That's where explanation matters.

I’m not talking about dressing up weak work with clever phrasing or trying to talk something into being better than it is. We’ve all sat through presentations where the idea never lands.

The difference is simple. Defending feels like you're trying to win an argument. Guiding shows you understand the problem, the choices you made, and why they matter. You’re helping people see how it all connects.

That is storytelling, and storytelling is part of the job.

The more I mentor young creatives, the more I realize that portfolio feedback is rarely just about making the deck prettier. Of course, craft matters. Typography, pacing, sequencing, and presentation all matter. And please do not put 47 things on one slide and call it "process."

But most of the time, the bigger issue is that the person doesn't know how to frame the work yet.

They usually start by showing what they made: the campaign, website, video, packaging, app flow, or final mockup. That makes sense. We're visual people, so we naturally lead with the work. But when I’m interviewing someone, I’m not only looking at the final piece. I want to understand how they think, what problem they were trying to solve, and what they actually contributed.

Without that context, people start filling in the blanks themselves. Sometimes they give you credit for something you didn't do. Sometimes they miss the thing you did best. Either way, you've lost control of your own story.

One structure I use often with mentees is simple:

Problem → Goal → Solution → Role → Why It Matters

What was the problem? What was the work trying to accomplish? How did your idea respond? What did you personally contribute? And why did any of it matter?

It's not meant to be a script. It simply gives people enough context to follow your thinking instead of staring at the final mockup and trying to reverse-engineer the project.

A strong story won't save weak work. If the design isn't good, another fifteen minutes of explanation won't fix it. But when the work is good, the story helps people recognize what is already there.

That matters in an interview because a hiring manager is evaluating more than craft. They’re also deciding whether you can explain your thinking, communicate with other people, and be trusted to represent the work.

You don't need a perfect script. You need to understand your own work well enough to talk about it clearly and naturally. That's what makes you look ready, not only for the interview, but for the actual job.

Not long ago, I worked with a young creative who already had strong craft. His projects had smart ideas, solid visual instincts, and real potential. But when he presented them, he jumped straight to the final execution.

So we changed the conversation.

Instead of focusing on what he made, we focused on why he made it. We worked on helping the thinking behind the work come through as clearly as the work itself.

By our final session, he was offered a full-time Art Director role. Later, he told me that reworking his case studies helped him speak about his projects with much more confidence during the interview process.

A portfolio isn’t just a collection of work. It’s one of the first conversations someone will have with you. People aren’t just deciding whether the work is good. They’re deciding whether they can imagine working with you. Can you explain your thinking? Can you collaborate? Can you take feedback?

Getting the job is only the beginning.

You need those same skills when you present ideas, explain your decisions, or help other people see the thinking behind the work. The work doesn't move through an agency on its own. People move it, and people need language.

Rose, Thorn, and Bud

That's also where the conversation around AI becomes interesting to me.

At the retreat, we talked about the rose, thorn, and bud of AI in creative work.

The rose is that AI can give us our time back. It can help us organize, review, summarize, QA, prototype, storyboard, and get ideas out of our heads faster.

The bud is that it may become a real creative operations partner, helping close the gap between what we're imagining and what we can see, test, and discuss.

The thorn is that speed makes it even easier to jump into execution before we fully understand the problem.

AI can build the storyboard faster. It can help visualize a campaign direction faster. It can give us three concept sketches before lunch, which is incredible and also slightly rude to the younger version of me who spent years pushing pixels and comping everything by hand in Photoshop.

But the important questions haven't changed.

What are we trying to say? Who is this for? Why does the idea matter? What behavior are we trying to change? What should someone feel, understand, or do after experiencing the work?

Faster output doesn't automatically mean better thinking. Without the right questions, we're just decorating confusion at a much higher speed.

That's another reason the story matters. It forces us to understand the idea before we start manufacturing executions around it. It makes the decisions visible. It helps a collection of assets feel like one connected point of view instead of a folder full of things we generated simply because we could.

People sometimes talk about storytelling as if it's the wrapper we add after the work is done. I see the story as part of the work. It’s how we help people understand why our decisions mattered in the first place.

So no, I don't believe that needing to explain your design automatically means the design is bad. Most of the time explaining the work is part of the work.

Good work matters. Craft matters. Taste matters.

But even good work benefits from a good story. Sometimes the difference between being overlooked and being hired isn’t the quality of the work. It’s whether people understand what they’re looking at.

Somewhere along the way, that shifted. I don’t know exactly when. Maybe during the pandemic, maybe just slowly over time. But now I’ll be scrolling and suddenly pause and think… wait, where am I? Am I on LinkedIn, or Facebook, or someone’s personal newsletter that I didn’t subscribe to? It’s not that anything is necessarily wrong, it just feels off. Like I walked into a room expecting one kind of energy and got something completely different. And the weird part is, I can feel myself getting pulled into it. That subtle pressure to sound more polished, more impressive, more “on.” To package things in a way that feels a little more performative than I’d normally be. I caught myself doing it once and thought, oh… this is how it happens. Not all at once, just small adjustments over time until you don’t really recognize your own voice anymore.

The best way I can describe LinkedIn now is that it feels like a stage. It used to be more like a directory, now it’s a stage, but no one ever agreed on the script. So you have people announcing promotions, sharing wins, posting job openings with beautifully designed graphics that take up half your screen, writing long reflections, being vulnerable, sometimes really vulnerable. You’ll see a “humbled to announce” that is not humble at all, a “grateful for this journey” that clearly cost someone their sanity, and a “quick thought” that somehow turns into a full manifesto. And all of it sits next to each other in the same feed. It’s not that any of it is wrong, it’s just confusing. You’re constantly recalibrating as you scroll. What kind of post is this? How am I supposed to read this? What’s an ad, and what’s actually a real update from someone I know? It all starts blending together. I feel it the most when I’m trying to do something simple, like recruiting, and I have to cut through all this noise just to find the one signal I actually need. Everyone’s trying to stand out, which makes sense, but it also makes everything feel crowded.

At the same time, I still see the value. I genuinely like seeing people I’ve worked with get promoted, I want to celebrate them, and I want them to share those moments. I do it too. I’ll post the update, pick the right photo, rewrite the caption a few times so it lands somewhere between confident and not too much, hit publish, and then pretend I don’t care how it performs. That’s how we stay connected, how we keep track of each other, how we reach out when we need help or offer it when someone else does. That part still matters, and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.

But the line between professional and personal didn’t just blur, it became something else entirely. Now it’s this hybrid space where work, identity, validation, storytelling, and performance all live together. In a world that’s already competitive, it adds another layer. Not just doing the work, but showing it, framing it, positioning yourself around it, and doing it well. I have friends who opted out completely and they’re doing great, thriving even, and part of me respects that a lot. Another part of me knows I’d lose touch if I did the same, so I stay. I still use it, I still scroll, I still post. I’m just trying to catch myself when I feel that shift, when I start writing something and wonder if I’d actually say it like this, or if I’m trying to sound like the version of me that belongs on this stage. I don’t have a clean answer yet. I’m still figuring out how to show up without turning into someone I don’t fully recognize. And realistically, I’ll probably still post something “excited to share” next week. Just know I rolled my eyes a little while writing it.

And then there’s the part that doesn’t.

The constant alignment. The emotional buffering. The quiet negotiation between clarity and care. The pressure to be reasonable, available, and composed while carrying things that don’t always belong to you.

This series is about that invisible work.

Not as advice. Not as a framework. Just a set of reflections from inside it. The moments where leadership becomes heavier than expected, where effort doesn’t always resolve tension, and where clarity starts to ask something different from you.

If you’ve ever found yourself over-explaining a decision, holding a room together longer than you should, or questioning whether it’s supposed to feel this heavy, this series is for you.

The series:

Part 1 — When Alignment Becomes Emotional Labor

Part 2 — The Cost of Being “Reasonable”

Part 3 — You Can’t Coach Someone Out of Avoidance

Part 4 — Leading Without Losing Your Nervous System

Part 5 — Not Every Relationship Is Meant to Scale

AI is taking over… is it?

Depends on who you ask.
Depends on how you’re looking at it.

Some people are all in.
Some are side-eyeing it.
Most are somewhere in between, quietly trying to figure it out.

AI this, AI that. So… now what?

I went into it pretty casually.
Just wanted to try a few tools, stay current, see what the noise was about.

And then it kind of… snowballed… in a good way.

I started building little workflows for myself.
Shortcuts. Systems. Things to help me think faster, capture ideas, not lose threads halfway through the day. Nothing crazy. Just things that made my life easier.

And tbh, this isn’t new for me. It just feels clearer this time. Louder.

I’ve always learned tools like this.

I don’t sit down and go, “I’m going to master this software.”
I usually start with something I actually want to make.

That’s how I got into Photoshop back in the day.
I just wanted to mess with my own photos. Change my hair color. Add dramatic lighting. Give myself a full makeover for no reason.

That curiosity pulled me in. The tool followed.

Fast forward 20+ years… same approach.

I didn’t start learning AI because I felt like I had to.
I started because I wanted to solve my own problems.

Move faster.
Take better notes.
Organize my thoughts in a way that actually keeps up with me.

And once I got a taste of that, I kept going.

But I’ve been thinking…

My parents are in their 70s.
They look at AI completely differently.
To them, it’s just… another button. Another feature on their phone that might make something a little easier.

And honestly, I kind of respect that.

They’re not questioning it. Not overthinking it.
They’re also not trying to optimize their entire life around it.

You could say it’s because they’re retired.
They’re not in the workforce, they don’t feel the same pressure.

Fair.

But there’s something in that mindset that feels grounded.

They take what’s useful.
Ignore what’s not.
And keep it moving.
No identity crisis attached.

I think somewhere in between… that’s probably where most of us need to land.

Because AI is powerful, no doubt.
But it’s still just a tool.

And tools are kind of like snacks.

Nice to have. Fun, even.
But too much of it, even if it’s “good,” is still not great for you.

It’s about moderation.
What fits your life.
What actually helps, versus what just adds noise.

What works for me might not work for you.
And that’s fine.

The way I see it, it’s almost like an air fryer.

When it first came out, everyone had opinions.
Some people were obsessed. Some people didn’t get it.
I didn’t rush into it either.

But once I tried it… yah, I was hooked.

It’s not replacing a full meal.
Certainly not replacing homemade dumplings or anything that actually takes craft.

Because there are things an air fryer just cannot do.

But when I need something quick, solid, and good enough within my standard?
It’s kind of perfect.

That’s how I see AI right now.

And to be fair, I’m saying this from a designer and creative point of view.

If you’re a developer, AI might feel like a full kitchen.
Maybe even a sous chef sitting right next to you.

For me, it’s closer to the air fryer.
Helpful, efficient, great in certain moments.
But not the whole system.

And not something I need to use for everything.

This is just how it fits into my life right now.
How I’m choosing to use it, not let it use me.

But who knows, things might change.
It’s 2026, and this is where I land.

So yeah… I’m AI-ing.

Just not trying to turn it into my whole personality.
Just using it where it makes sense. Leaving it where it doesn’t.

Still figuring it out as I go.

No need to master AI. Just figure out how it works for you.

One of the harder truths in leadership is that not every relationship grows with the work.

Some relationships feel strong early on. There’s trust. Momentum. A shared sense of direction. Things move quickly because the stakes are lower, the structure is simpler, and gaps can be covered with little friction.

For a while, that’s enough.

In those early stages, there’s also more room for interpretation. More benefit of the doubt. You assume people will catch on. That with time, context, and exposure, the gaps will close. You stay open. You allow space for learning. You adjust your expectations because the system itself is still forming.

That generosity makes sense early on.

But as the work scales, expectations sharpen. Decisions carry more weight. Roles need to be held more clearly. What used to be flexible starts to require definition.

That’s when differences become visible.

Not necessarily a conflict. More like misalignment that keeps repeating. Conversations that don’t quite land. Expectations that don’t match. The same tension showing up in slightly different forms.

At first, it’s easy to believe this can still be solved.

With more context.
More patience.
More conversations.
More alignment.

So you lean in. You explain more clearly. You give examples. You make space. You try to meet people where they are, trusting that eventually, things will click into place.

Sometimes, they do.
Other times, the gap doesn’t close.

Not because the effort wasn’t there. Not because the intention was wrong. But the way each person holds the work is fundamentally different. And that difference becomes more pronounced, not less, as the system grows.

That’s when the realization shifts.

Not every gap is a communication issue.

Not every tension is fixable through effort.

Not every relationship is meant to scale.

This doesn’t mean anyone is wrong.

Some people are strong in environments where things are fluid, collaborative, and loosely defined. Others thrive when structure is clear and accountability is explicit. Neither is better. But they don’t always coexist well under the same pressure.

As leadership grows, the job shifts from maintaining harmony to holding clarity. And clarity makes the gap visible in ways that are harder to ignore.

That can feel personal, even when it isn’t.

Because time was invested. Patience was extended. Space was given. There’s a natural instinct to keep trying, to keep adjusting, to find the version of the relationship that works again.

But leadership isn’t just about what you can make work.

It’s also about recognizing what no longer does.

There’s a quiet kind of grief in that.

An acknowledgment that something that once felt easy now requires more than it should. The energy it takes to sustain the relationship is no longer proportional to what it returns.

Letting that land doesn’t mean cutting people off or making immediate decisions. It means seeing clearly.

Seeing where expectations diverge.

Where ownership doesn’t match.

Where trust doesn’t compound the way it needs to.

And deciding what to do with that information.

Because scaling isn’t just about growing the work.

It’s about understanding which relationships can grow with it, and which ones were only ever meant for an earlier version of the system.

Leadership asks for that level of discernment.

Not to judge. Not to assign blame.

But to stop carrying something that no longer fits.

Some things don’t break. They just stop fitting.

End of series.

For a long time, I thought leadership stress came from volume.

Too many meetings. Too many decisions. Too many things happening at once.

But that wasn’t it.

What wore me down wasn’t the work itself. It was the constant friction. The unresolved tension. The feeling of holding clarity that never quite landed where it needed to.

The body notices these things before the mind does.

I’d leave meetings feeling tight without knowing why. Conversations would replay long after they ended. I’d catch myself rehearsing responses, wondering if I’d been too direct or not direct enough. The day would end, but the energy didn’t.

It followed me home.

At the dinner table. With my partner. With my kids. I was physically present, but mentally still negotiating work conversations. Still carrying other people’s uncertainty. Still holding decisions that should have been shared.

This wasn’t about resilience. Or grit. Or learning to “handle stress better.”

It was nervous system load.

Leadership has a way of pulling you into a constant state of readiness. When boundaries are unclear or authority is contested, the body stays alert. Waiting. Scanning. Bracing.

You don’t always notice it right away. You just feel a little more tired. A little less patient. A little less creative. Small things start to feel heavier than they should.

The danger is how easy it is to normalize this.

To tell yourself this is just part of leadership. That being responsible means being available. That caring deeply means carrying more.

But the body keeps score.

When leaders repeatedly absorb tension that doesn’t belong to them, the nervous system never gets a break. There’s no real off switch. Just a low hum of vigilance that becomes the baseline.

And over time, that baseline starts to cost you.

Not in dramatic ways. In subtle ones.

You stop trusting your instincts as quickly. You hesitate before speaking. You feel more reactive than you want to be. You lose some of the spaciousness that made you effective in the first place.

This is where boundaries stop being a management tactic and start becoming a form of self-preservation.

Not every conversation needs your presence.

Not every decision needs your explanation.

Not every misalignment needs your nervous system to absorb it.

Leading without losing yourself requires recognizing when you’ve become the container for things that should be shared. It means noticing when your body is doing more work than your role requires.

This isn’t about disengaging. Or caring less.

It’s about caring without collapsing.

About letting clarity do its job so your body doesn’t have to keep compensating.

Because leadership isn’t sustainable when it lives entirely in your nervous system.

And no role, no matter how meaningful, is worth losing yourself over.

Next: Part 5 — Not Every Relationship Is Meant to Scale.

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from holding a title people don’t quite know how to use.

Not because the role is unclear on paper, but because the authority attached to it is quietly sidestepped. Decisions move forward without review. Final work circulates without accountability. The role exists, but its gravity doesn’t land.

At first, it’s easy to rationalize.

Maybe they’ve never worked with someone in this role before. Maybe the position was different in the past. Maybe no one ever modeled what this kind of leadership actually looks like. So you give it time. You assume learning curves. You offer patience.

You don’t want to lead through force.

Then there are moments when the mismatch becomes harder to ignore. Being pulled into meetings to fix files. Clean up design. Make small executional decisions that shouldn’t require senior leadership attention. You can do the work. You have done the work. But something feels off.

Not because it’s beneath you, but because it’s misaligned.

Still, naming that misalignment feels dangerous. Saying “this isn’t the level of work I should be doing” can sound like ego. So instead, you rationalize. You explain to yourself why it’s fine. Why it’s temporary. Why stepping in might help things move faster.

And slowly, the role gets reshaped around accommodation.

When authority isn’t respected, many leaders don’t assert it. They explain it.

They offer context. They justify decisions. They walk through rationale step by step. When they say no, they soften it. When they disagree, they support it with examples, references, alternatives. They negotiate execution details instead of shutting down bad ideas outright.

Not because they’re unsure. But because they’ve learned that clarity alone isn’t always enough.

There are leaders who can end a conversation with a sentence and be seen as decisive. Others learn to bring receipts. Context. Alternatives. A softened edge. Not because the decision is weaker, but because the room expects more proof.

Over time, authority turns into translation.

There’s history underneath that instinct.

When you’re taught early that being useful is how you earn your place, it’s easy to confuse contribution with overextension. Saying yes feels safer than saying no. Staying busy feels like staying valued. Respect becomes something you earn through effort, not something that’s assumed.

Power, as it was observed, often didn’t look neutral. It looked imposed. Decisions made without question. Authority enforced, not earned. That kind of leadership didn’t feel right. So when power finally arrives, there’s hesitation in using it.

The intention is good. Lead with trust. Lead with honesty. Don’t rely on title alone. Respect should come from how you show up, not what’s printed on a business card.

But here’s the quiet tension.

Avoiding the use of authority doesn’t make it disappear. It just shifts the burden.

When leaders refuse to fully occupy their role, others fill the space. Sometimes with good intent. Sometimes with avoidance. Decisions get delayed. Accountability diffuses. And the leader ends up doing more work, not less, to compensate.

This is where coaching gets confused with over-functioning.

You can explain a decision ten different ways and still be ignored. You can provide context, examples, alternatives, and compromises. None of it guarantees respect. None of it ensures accountability.

Over-explaining doesn’t create alignment. It just gives people more material to push against.

The realization comes slowly. Respect doesn’t arrive because you’ve made yourself easier to work with. It arrives when boundaries are clear and consistently held.

Being clear isn’t being unkind.

Authority doesn’t require narration.

Presence doesn’t mean availability to everything.

There’s a difference between leading collaboratively and absorbing responsibility that isn’t yours to carry.

You can’t coach someone into respecting a role they’re avoiding. You can’t explain your way into authority. At some point, the work isn’t to educate others about your role.

It’s to inhabit it.

That doesn’t require being harsh. Or performative. Or someone you’re not.

It requires letting clarity stand without apology.

And trusting that the right people will meet you there.

Next: Part 4 — Leading Without Losing Your Nervous System.

Being reasonable is supposed to be a strength.

It signals maturity. Emotional intelligence. The ability to see multiple sides and keep things moving without drama. In leadership, it’s often praised as composure. Professionalism. Gravitas.

But reasonableness has a cost.

It starts small. You explain instead of insist. You soften instead of sharpen. You leave space so others don’t feel pushed, rushed, or exposed. You assume good intent. You give context. You trust that clarity will land eventually.

And sometimes, it does.

Other times, reasonableness becomes an invitation.

The more measured you are, the more room others find to negotiate. The calmer you stay, the more some people test the edges. Reasonableness, instead of building trust, creates friction.

Not loud friction. Subtle friction. The kind that shows up as follow-up meetings. Reframed asks. “Just one more pass.” Conversations that circle instead of conclude.

What’s tricky is that none of it looks unreasonable on the surface.

Everyone is polite. Everyone sounds aligned. Everyone agrees in principle. But decisions never quite settle. Timelines stay soft. Ownership blurs.

Reasonableness becomes the thing people lean on to avoid committing.

For leaders who care about doing things well, this is a dangerous pattern. Because it’s easy to mistake patience for progress. To believe that if you just explain one more time, the system will catch up.

So you keep showing up calm. Thoughtful. Available.

Until you realize you’re doing more emotional work than directional work.

The irony is that reasonableness often comes from a good place. It’s rooted in respect. In lived experience. In knowing that force doesn’t scale and fear doesn’t build anything lasting.

But when reasonableness isn’t met with accountability, it turns into a quiet imbalance.

One person holds the tension so others don’t have to. One person keeps things running smoothly while decisions remain unresolved. One person absorbs the discomfort of forward motion while everyone else stays comfortable.

That’s when leadership starts to feel lonely.

There’s also a double bind hiding here. Reasonable leaders are often the ones who don’t get the benefit of being blunt. Directness that reads as confidence in some bodies reads as harshness in others. So reasonableness becomes not just a style, but a strategy for survival.

Be clear, but not too sharp. Firm, but not final. Decisive, but endlessly open to feedback.

It’s exhausting.

At some point, the question shifts. Not whether reasonableness is good or bad, but whether it’s being used as a substitute for clarity.

Because clarity ends conversations. Reasonableness can prolong them.

Clarity says: this is the decision.

Reasonableness says: let’s keep talking.

Both have their place. But only one moves things forward when the stakes are high.

The cost of being reasonable isn’t that you’re misunderstood. It’s that you become the place where uncertainty goes to live. And the longer it stays there, the heavier it gets.

Leadership doesn’t require abandoning reason. But it does require knowing when reasonableness is no longer serving the work.

When it’s time to stop smoothing edges and start drawing lines.

Not out of ego. Not out of impatience.

But out of respect for the work, the people, and yourself.

Next: Part 3 — You Can’t Coach Someone Out of Avoidance.

Part 1: When Alignment Becomes Emotional Labor

Alignment doesn’t break loudly. It gets heavy first.

Not complicated. Not dramatic. Just heavy.

It shows up quietly. Small decisions begin to land in the same place. Not because they require senior judgment, but because that approval creates safety. A signature becomes a shield. If something goes sideways, responsibility has somewhere to rest.

Alignment hasn’t failed yet. It’s just started to drift.

The conversations sound reasonable. Polite. Carefully worded to avoid friction.

“We don’t want to dictate the timeline, but it would be great to get started asap”

No one owns the ask, but everyone feels it. Urgency without authorship. Pressure without clarity. Alignment is performed instead of practiced.

Real alignment is rarely theatrical.

It’s unglamorous. It lives in knowing what you own, what others own, and where the edges are. It’s asking when you don’t know. It’s naming roles, expectations, boundaries, and limits without dressing them up.

Alignment doesn’t need a pitch. It needs truth.

When that truth stays unspoken, someone ends up carrying it. One person becomes the translator. The buffer. The place where uncertainty gets dropped off so others don’t have to hold it themselves.

That’s where the work changes shape.

Saying no in those moments isn’t difficult because the answer is unclear. It’s difficult because of what no might cost. Being seen as unhelpful. Difficult. Not collaborative enough.

So there’s a pause. A negotiation with yourself.

Maybe everyone’s overwhelmed. Maybe they don’t know what they don’t know. Maybe stepping in will help things move faster.

At first, that instinct feels like leadership. It looks like care. It sounds like experience.

Over time, it becomes a pattern. The same person keeps explaining. Clarifying. Aligning. The expectation settles in quietly: someone else will hold the discomfort.

That’s when alignment turns into emotional labor.

The cost doesn’t announce itself. It leaks.

It follows you home. It sits at the dinner table. Conversations replay. Responses get rewritten. The mind keeps scanning for the version that would have landed better.

The workday ends. The labor doesn’t.

What is often overlooked is where the directness comes from. Early clarity isn’t about control. It’s about care. It comes from seeing problems before they harden. From wanting the work to be smart. The system to function. The team to stay intact.

Indifference is quiet. Care speaks early.

But care is expensive when it’s unevenly distributed.

When one person is expected to absorb ambiguity, translate intent, and smooth emotional edges, something starts to strain. Not all at once. Slowly.

Alignment can’t live in one body. It has to be shared.

Otherwise, it becomes weight. You feel it in your chest before meetings. Your patience is thinning. In the way small decisions start to feel heavier than they should.

That’s usually the signal.

Not that alignment is missing.

But it’s being carried alone.

Next: Part 2 — The Cost of Being “Reasonable.”

I come from a long line of women who held everything together without asking for help. Who equated enjoyment with selfishness. Who gave up hobbies, quiet time, self-care. Who believed being a good woman, a good mom, meant putting yourself last.

So I learned to lead. To overfunction. To fix problems before anyone knew they existed. To never drop the ball and I became the go-to. At work, I’d get pinged all day with questions like “What are people working on?” “Who can handle this?” “When’s that deadline?” And at home, “Where’s the AAA battery?” “Do we have extra mayo?”, “Where’s my star sweater?” It never stopped. But I always answered because being needed made me feel valuable, like I was doing something right, both as the leader at work and the anchor at home.

Work doesn’t burn me out, I’ve always loved what I do. But motherhood is where the exhaustion lives. And because work felt more manageable, more within my control, I threw myself into it. I stayed productive. I stayed useful. It was easier than relearning how to be a present, patient, “good” mom.

Fast forward to now. My partner (INFJ-T) finally took the test during one of his late-night mental health deep-dives triggered by some TikTok trauma rabbit hole. And suddenly, so many of our dynamics made sense.

He taught me empathy. Not just toward others, but toward myself. He made me question why certain things at work triggered me so deeply. And slowly, I saw my overreaction wasn’t always about them. It was about me. About old trauma responses. About a deep belief that if I weren’t holding everything together, things would fall apart.

He showed me that softness isn’t weakness. That rest isn’t selfish. That space to feel things, even the ugly, slow, uncomfortable things, is necessary.

He moves on his own terms. When he’s in pause mode, taking space to honor what his mind and body can carry, I move ahead because clearing the path helps me think. It’s how I manage stress, my version of coping: clear the clutter, build momentum, find peace through progress. I leap from vision to execution in a blink; he slows down to reflect, deciding what truly matters before he acts.

He grounds me. He reminds me to feel before I fix, to ask before I assume. That not everything needs a roadmap or an outcome. Sometimes things just need space.

It’s not perfect. I’m not a patient listener. He’s not a fast talker. I solve. He contemplates. I rally. He retreats.

What I’ve learned is that a strong relationship doesn’t mean matching energies; it means learning how your energies complement each other. It means offering the benefit of the doubt, the time to think, the grace to move differently.

That’s the tension, and the beauty of how we’re wired.

Because of our upbringings, I’ve always needed something solid, structure, facts, evidence, to feel safe. He thrives in the unseen. Where I need to see to believe, he believes in what’s still forming.

And in different moments, we trade shoes: I become the dreamer. He becomes the realist. That stretch keeps us both growing.

You don’t need a personality test to know someone.
But sometimes, it puts words to the things you’ve always felt.

The ENTJ leads. The INFJ guides.
And when the rhythm is right, it feels like walking in step, different cadences, same direction.

That knowing reshaped how I care in love, in work, and in how I lead.
I’ve started to notice the same push-pull in how I lead. Some teammates need space to pause, to reflect. Others thrive in rapid sprints. Just like in my relationship, it’s less about aligning speeds and more about honoring how each person moves. My job isn’t to make everyone match me; it’s to make space for different rhythms to contribute to a shared momentum.

I’m no longer sprinting to prove I can hold it all.
These days, I move with more clarity.
More grace.
More trust that I don’t have to be everything, all at once.

Unlearning is slow. But it’s mine.
And I bring that to the table, at home, and at work.

Because strength isn’t just about being the one who carries it.
It’s about becoming the one who builds space for others to rise.

Earlier this week, I spoke at Adobe’s “Launch Your Creative Career” event on a panel titled “Land Your Dream Design Job.”

It sounds like a simple prompt, but it’s anything but.

So I did what I always do — I prepped. Ran through talking points. Reflected on my path. Jotted down the lessons I’ve collected over the years.

And somewhere in that prep, something shifted. The more I sat with the idea of a “dream job,” the more it started to unravel.

Dream Job... for Who?

We throw that phrase around so casually. But what does it actually mean?

For some, it’s working at a big-name company. For others, it’s financial freedom. Or a four-day work week. Or no meetings. Or making an impact, saving lives, caring for the environment, teaching the next generation, even diving into politics. Whatever moves the needle for them.

For me? I used to think a dream job was a place. A logo. A title. Something to land. Something to show off.

But now, at this stage in my life, I see it differently. The idea of a “dream job” feels like an illusion, a shiny finish with no real foundation underneath.

You don’t land a dream job. You build it. Brick by brick. Choice by choice. Mistake by mistake.

And to build something meaningful, you have to start by understanding what your dream even is. That’s not a simple question. And it’s definitely not the same for everyone.

Start with the Dream, Not the Job

“Dream job” sounds like something you should already know. But most of us don’t, not until we’ve lived, messed up, burned out, or been surprised by what sticks.

Some people dream of a steady 9-to-5, peace of mind, and logging off by 5:01. Others want chaos, challenge, big problems, and even bigger stakes. Some want solitude. Some want stimulation. Some want purpose. Others just want quiet.

None of those is wrong. But they’re not the same.

So how could I or anyone give advice on landing your dream job if we’re not even dreaming the same way?

Peel the Onion

This is why I don’t like surface-level advice. I always say, "Peel the onion." Get to the core. Ask better questions.

What are you really chasing?
Is it belonging? Recognition? Freedom? Growth? A place to hide?

Without knowing the why, the what doesn’t matter.

And here’s something else: it’s okay not to know.

Maybe that’s why we call it a “dream”, because it lives in the unconscious. Because it shifts. Because it’s not always logical. Sometimes, it’s even a little delusional.

And maybe that’s the point.

Dreams aren’t destinations; they’re signals. Whispers toward something. You don’t need a map. You just need to start moving.

What Do You Want?

A few weeks ago, I had a spiritual reading with my friend Rani. (Yes, I’m into 🪄🔮. I might do a whole series on my spiritual upbringing.)

Rani (or my Ancestral spirits) looked me in the eye and asked, “Yoje, what do you want?”

And I froze.

I started to answer like a mom: “I want my kids to be healthy. I want my partner to feel supported. I want my renovation to finally…”

She stopped me. “No, no. Not them. You. What do you want?”

And I blanked.

Not because I don’t love myself; I do. I’m joyful, sarcastic, emotionally aware, the life of the dinner party.

But I had no answer.

Because I was taught to put others first. Because I watched my mom give up her hobbies, her friendships, even her time to simply be alone, all to raise us. Somewhere along the way, I absorbed the idea that being a good woman, a good mom meant putting yourself last.

But just because you bury a need doesn’t mean it disappears. It just festers underground.

My mom used to say she gave up everything for us. And now I see how that story weighs on her. She’s not fulfilled. She’s frustrated. And her self-worth is tied to what we’ve accomplished, not what she’s experienced.

She never got the chance to chase her dream, maybe never even had the space to discover what it was. And when she became a mother, we became her dream by default.

That hit me hard.

Because I don’t want to live in service of a dream I never even got to define.

I once joined a place I was convinced was my dream agency. It had the name. The people. The portfolio. I remember scrolling through their case studies, thinking, ‘If I can work here, that means I’ve made it.’

And in some ways, I did. I learned. I stretched. I met people who are still part of my life. I lost someone to cancer, whom I also met there. It was a job full of contrasts. Full of lessons.

The day-to-day wasn’t perfect. Some days were pure magic. Others were full of mess. But it taught me what I wanted, and just as importantly, what I didn’t.

That job wasn’t the dream. But it gave me what I needed at the time. It was a step. A teacher. A chapter.

So... What’s Your Dream?

If you’re just starting out, don’t copy someone else’s version. It won’t fit.

After that call with Rani, I kept asking myself what I really want. Days passed. Nothing profound happened until one ordinary afternoon, I was sitting with my daughter, shaping clay, getting messy, building little creatures from scraps of nothing. And I felt that peace. That joy. That stillness. That feeling of being so locked into the moment, everything else disappeared.

That’s when the answer came.

I want to make art. Just make things. Maybe it could turn into something one day, maybe I’ll sell a few pieces, who knows. But that’s not the point. What matters is the process itself. How much I actually enjoy it. The rhythm. The mess. The hands-on magic of creating without a finish line.

Somewhere along the way, life got busy. Career took over. And I forgot how much I enjoyed it until I had my first daughter. We’d make art together, crafting things with whatever we had around. Sometimes we’d start a project together, and she’d move on after a few minutes, but I’d stay behind, finishing it for hours, totally lost in the zone.

I’ve always been that person, the one who loves sculpting, bookbinding, and stitching things from scratch. But in that moment, with hands covered in clay and joking with my kid, I remembered.

And maybe that’s what dreaming really is. Not some fixed thing you chase. But something you return to. Over and over again.

So define your dream. Not someone else’s. Yours.

Is it stability? Freedom? Purpose? Fun? Collaboration? Autonomy?

Knowing that is what will help you figure out what kind of work truly supports it.

This dream? You’re going to live with it for years. Maybe decades. So let it grow with you. Let it stretch and bend and surprise you.

What felt like your dream at 22 might not even skim the surface at 42.

That doesn’t mean you got it wrong; it means you’ve evolved.

Because the job? That’s just the vehicle.

You are the destination. And that changes everything.

The Longing

Right before the pandemic, I thought I’d hit the ceiling. I had just gotten the highest title I could reach in my current role. And even though it looked good on paper, I didn’t feel the growth.

I wanted something else. Something bigger. Something tech.

Because everyone around me kept saying — That’s where the money is.

I started interviewing. Take-home tests, multi-round panels, “presentation projects” that felt like free consulting. I’ve always had thick skin, so I treated it like practice. Some interviews I completely bombed.

There was one where they handed me a Sharpie for a white-boarding session, and I just stood there, thinking:

“What the heck do I draw?”

Looking back, I laugh. And honestly, I appreciate how patient they were. I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t the right job. But I still showed up — because I never say no to interviews.

Some jobs, I got close. Final rounds. Promising feedback. But it always ended the same:

“The team decided to go with an internal resource.”

“We decided to put a pause on hiring for this role.”

Now that I’ve seen the other side, I wonder if that was even true. But I’ve made peace with it. I’ve let it go.

Those rejections felt familiar. Kind of like junior high, when there were the popular kids — gorgeous, smart, all over the yearbook. You wanted to be in their orbit, to sit with them, to be part of that club.

And now, some of them stayed in that orbit — started families young, stayed close to home, built a version of life that just wasn’t mine. Nothing wrong with it. Just not my story.

So maybe the jobs I didn’t get were like that too. Maybe the universe was keeping me from something I wasn’t meant for.

The Long Way Around

Some people get into those spaces early. I had friends at big tech companies. They referred me, got me interviews, and rooted for me.

But still — no offers.

I think they knew why but didn’t want to say it:

I didn’t sound like them. I didn’t look like the script they had in mind.

If you want to get higher in those spaces, you have to become them. Use their words. Their posture. Their polish. The rooms weren’t built for people like me, so they didn’t know what to do with someone like me.

I started asking myself: Should I try to sound more like them? Should I fake it?

Honestly, I didn’t even try. It just wasn’t me. I couldn’t do it.

So I stayed in agency. Not because I had a grand plan — but because I had work. And I kept doing my best. Kept showing up. Kept turning limes into mojitos.

Then something shifted. I started leading. I started speaking up. I got more client-facing. And I realized something:

Agencies are more necessary than ever.

I’d watch client teams not talk to each other — brand, digital, compliance — all in their silos, all fighting for their own budgets, giving contradictory feedback. The drama. The disconnection. The lack of alignment.

And guess who was there to make it all make sense?

Us.

Agencies don’t just deliver work — we absorb chaos.

We provide therapy.

We help the brand team talk to the digital team, get the tech team’s buy-in, and keep the project from falling apart.

We translate design into dollars, feedback into alignment, and silence into action.

We hold the mess together so something meaningful can come out of it.

What Tech Might’ve Meant

When I was still chasing those tech jobs, I told myself:

“It’s fine. I’ll move pixels around. I’ll wait six months to launch a button. I’ll do it for the money.”

But now I know that wasn’t true.

I was trying to convince myself that the perks were enough. But deep down, I would’ve felt stuck. In those environments, innovation is incremental. You’re rearranging the same Lego pieces.

And then I remembered something…

The Beauty Exec

I was in my 20s and freelanced for a major beauty company. I’d stay late retouching images — and sometimes (if you know, you know) I’d be digging through the discarded packaging samples like it was my own personal Sephora jackpot.

There was a senior exec who stayed late too. Every night, I’d hear her on speakerphone in her office, venting to her friend. Complaining about how “busy” she was. How she hadn’t had dinner. How she had so much work.

But I’d sit there watching the clock — she was on that call for two straight hours. Every night. I remember laughing at my desk.

Now I get it.

She was coping.

She’d rather stay late, talk, and complain than go home to stress.

She wasn’t slacking — she was exhausted. Avoiding her life. Clocking hours because the system demanded it.

And I realized something terrifying:

What if I’m stuck under someone like that?

What if that’s the culture I inherit?

That would’ve been my nightmare.

The Knot I Still Carry

Even now, there’s still a small part of me that wants to taste tech — just to say I did it. Just to tell my parents,

“Hey, I work at FAANG.”

So they can brag. So I can prove something.

But prove what?

That I belong?

That I’m worth something?

And worth to who?

What I Know Now

The more I talk it out, the more I see it clearly:

Sometimes we hold onto material things — the name, the title, the logo on the lanyard — because we think that’s what defines success.

But it’s not.

Success is finding the place where you can thrive.
Where people see your value — not how well you mimic their voice.
Where you grow into who you already are — not shrink into who they expect you to be.

Why Agencies Still Matter

Here’s what I know after all these years: I still believe in the agency model.

There will always be a need for it.

Clients need a mirror. A guide. A translator.

Some moments are too high-stakes not to invest in.

Internal politics bubble up. Silos get in the way. Priorities shift without warning.

Sometimes a project’s just too rushed, too messy — that’s when they need us.

Ideas don’t stop. Neither do the needs for new spaces, new systems, and new people to guide along the way.

Design is a service.
But it’s also a relationship.

And agencies — the good ones — know how to hold both.

After everything — the missed interviews, the nos, the detours — I’ve realized I never got the touch-up I thought I needed. I never quite became one of them.

And maybe that’s the point.

My love-hate relationship with design has always been about more than the job — it’s about belonging.
About proving myself. About trying to sound right, look right, and show up right.

But I’ve learned that my version of showing up is enough.

So no, I never made it into big tech.

But I made it here — leading teams, earning trust, turning messes into meaning.

Not despite who I am, but because of it.

And that’s more than a touch-up.

That’s a full face.

I’ve gone back and forth on whether to share this one. It happened last week, but it took me days to find the words — not because I was afraid to talk about it, but because I didn’t want it to sound like I’m talking about anyone.

This isn’t a call-out. It’s a check-in. With myself.

I’ve rewritten this a dozen times, trying to land in that middle place — between saying too much and not saying enough. Because the truth is, it’s not about people who don’t care — it’s about the space between how much we each can care, and what happens when those levels don’t line up.

Today I screamed into a towel.
Not because of my kids.
Because of work.

A real, muffled, full-body scream — the kind where your lungs give out before your brain does.

I pressed my face into the fabric until my thoughts stopped spinning.

Not because the situation was impossible, but because it was so fixable, and still… nothing was changing.

It’s been one of those projects — the kind that looks steady from the outside, the kind everyone says is “running smoothly.”

But “smooth” has started to sound like a red flag to me.

For months, I kept asking to see the work — not to nitpick, but because visibility keeps standards high.

Every ask met resistance. Every “can you show me?” turned into “I’ll get back to you.”

So I joined their meetings. Not to police. Just to observe.

I wanted to understand how things actually worked day to day.

And what I saw felt less like a creative process and more like a drive-through — fast, repetitive, transactional.

Misaligned process. Misused tools. Roles stretched thin doing tasks they were never meant to do.
No documentation, no systems, no tracking.
Everything was built on instinct and muscle memory.
Everyone just… making it work.

I didn’t start out angry. In fact, they inherited a messy setup.
They were told — just keep things moving.
So they did.
And because the machine still ran, everyone assumed it worked.

But that’s the thing about dysfunction — it hides best when things look fine on the surface.

I tried everything to open the door — encouragement, workshares, even lunch-and-learns.

Silence.

I’d ask for updates, get nods of agreement, but still no action.

It wasn’t laziness. It wasn’t even defiance. It was something quieter — a kind of emotional autopilot that’s hard to shake.

And that’s when it hit me — this wasn’t about process anymore. It was about care.

What gets me — what really gets me — is the gap in care.

When my manager asked for something, I showed up — not because I had all the answers, but because I cared enough to find them.

It wasn’t about perfection; it was about respecting how we showed up together as a team.

What I expect from my teams isn’t blind obedience, and it’s definitely not hustle for hustle’s sake — it’s genuine care.

Care enough to question things.
Care enough to ask for help.
Care enough to make the work better than it was yesterday.

*Actual footage of me trying to help while watching the chaos from above.

I’ll own my part too.
I could’ve been clearer, louder, or tougher sooner.
If I can’t raise the standard or rebuild the trust that got lost, that’s on me.
That’s what leadership is — taking responsibility for the space you lead, even when the mess didn’t start with you.

But in this case, it feels like care has gone out of fashion.
Apathy moves faster.
And “smooth” is mistaken for “good.”

So I screamed into a towel.

Not out of control, but out of restraint.

Because when you care, and you can’t make people see what you see, it’s like trying to wake someone who doesn’t think they’re asleep.

You bargain with yourself. You soften your tone. You over-explain. You make it easier for everyone but yourself.

You hold it all in because you don’t want to be “that leader.”

The towel just helps you not explode in the meantime.

After I calmed down, I sat there staring at the towel on my desk — wondering why I let it get to me this much.

It’s because I still care.
And caring is expensive.

It costs energy, patience, and sometimes, your peace.
But it’s also what keeps the work human.

Leadership isn’t about knowing what to do — it’s about showing up when you feel unheard.

When you want to shout, but choose curiosity instead.

When you keep asking the questions, even if you’re the only one asking them.

Because that’s the real work no one puts in the job description — the emotional labor of still believing things can get better.

If you’re reading this and wondering, “Is this about me?” — it isn’t.
If it resonates, it’s because the pattern is common.
You’ve probably felt it too.

It started when my older one began asking questions:

“Why did your parents send you to New York when you were 12?”

“Why did you leave Hong Kong?”

“What’s the difference between Hong Kong and China?”

“If China is doing so well now, why did you leave?”

And just like that, I had no tidy answers.

Growing up in South Brooklyn in the 90s, being an immigrant kid wasn’t just about learning English, it was about surviving. I was placed in a bilingual class — a cluster of Chinese kids thrown together, finding comfort in each other because no one else would. Protecting each other, eating together, laughing off insults that stung deep. It wasn’t friendship by choice; it was survival by isolation.

By middle and high school, the bullying escalated. We were mocked for our accents. Spit on in the hallways. Gum was mashed into our hair. Once, my head was slammed against the corner of a public school metal staircase so hard that it left a dent I still carry today. These things became “normal,” the kind of normal you adapt to because there’s no other option. We looked out for each other the way soldiers watch each other’s backs.

That shame — the shame of speaking Chinese in public taught me to swallow pieces of myself just to get by. Survival looked like silence, and silence reshaped me. Those years bent me in ways I didn’t fully see until much later — in the choices I made, the risks I didn’t take, the parts of me I buried.

Becoming a mother ripped those old scars wide open. Suddenly, the shame I carried wasn’t just mine — it could pass on. And I refused. I wanted my older one, and later my toddler, to grow up proud. To see their heritage as power, not baggage. To love their mother tongue instead of hiding it. They deserved history that went deeper than the half-truths in textbooks. My toddler now speaks more Chinese than the older one did at the same age — partly because I’ve done the work to shake off my shame. It took years, and I’m not 100% there, but I’ve made progress. And I’ve been honest with my older one: thank you for sticking with us, because we’re learning as we go. We’re all growing up together.

That learning hasn’t stopped. My partner and I began digging into history we were never taught, piecing together answers. He led the way most days, but it became our project: long conversations, sharing articles, and discussions at the kitchen table.

We realized history isn’t complicated, it’s selective. The truth is all there, but you have to dig for it because systems are designed to keep it hidden. Colonialism isn’t remembered as theft — it gets repackaged as “stability.” Imagine someone breaks into your home, strips it bare, and then insists you should be grateful for their new rules and the attic they let you stay in. Over time, the family living in that attic starts to believe the intruder was a savior, not the thief. Generations grow up believing the attic is safety, even idolizing the people who kept you there — forgetting it was their ancestors who paid the price. That’s how colonization rewrites memory: by turning loss into loyalty. Today, China’s story looks different than when I left. Countries have their own timelines, and families have theirs. When those timelines don’t line up, families choose — not for history books, but for survival and opportunity in the moment they’re living.

And then there’s the present. The pressure to stay quiet. To swallow your thoughts because the wrong opinion can cost your job, your safety, or your reputation. They say we live in a free market of ideas — but how free is it if the one percent controls the algorithm, the headlines, even the words people feel safe to say out loud? That’s not an accident. That’s by design.

The more I learned, the more it felt like waking up inside the Matrix. The red pill wasn’t one single moment — it was a series of small ones: realizing how much of what I was taught was incomplete, how capitalism isn’t freedom but control, how the “free market” isn’t free at all, but carefully engineered so only a few benefit while the rest of us carry the weight.

Most people don’t see it. Or maybe they choose not to. Social pressure keeps us quiet. Survival makes us play along. And so the cycle goes. Sometimes it feels hopeless. Like seeing the code running behind the screen, but knowing you can’t just unplug.

And yet, in the middle of all that, what pulls me back from the spiral is family. They remind me that even if I can’t fix the system, I can shape the small corner of it we live in. I can give them truth, pride, and language. I can help them ask better questions than I ever did.

All this history, all this unlearning and relearning, sometimes makes me feel small. But it also makes it clear what I owe them — not a polished narrative or a false sense of pride, but the tools and confidence to navigate a world that won’t always be kind.

I can’t rewrite the past or dismantle the systems alone. But I can end the shame. I can break the silence. And I can raise two strong girls who know where they come from, who see beyond the stories they’re told, and who carry themselves with pride.

That’s the price of history. You pay with discomfort. You pay with effort. But if you do it right, your children inherit not silence, but voice. Not shame, but strength.

The same auntie who got me my first teller gig reached out. She knew someone at the new branch on Bay Parkway 86th Street, and asked if I wanted in. A 15-minute walk from home, steady paycheck, easy interview — it was a no-brainer.

From the very beginning, it was a culture shock. At HSBC, we’d had thick glass windows and old-school Chinatown habits. At Commerce, there was no glass. Customers stood right in front of you, face-to-face. Safety training was drilled in: if anything happens, don’t play hero. Do what you’re told, the bank has insurance. Even our cash drawer amounts were smaller, half the limit of HSBC.

And then there was the infamous penny arcade machine — a massive coin counter where people would dump jars and even full water-cooler barrels of coins. Along with pennies, we’d find buttons, paper clips, screws, all sorts of random junk. Cleaning that machine was its own ritual, but I didn’t mind — it broke up the rigid teller routine.

The branch sat in the heart of Bensonhurst (if you’re a real Brooklynite, you know — in between Bath Beach and Gravesend). A true melting pot: Russian, Italian, Chinese, Middle Eastern, Hispanic, Caribbean, African American — everybody walked through those doors. And the bank had this big customer-first culture called “WOW.” Phones had to be answered with, “It’s a wonderful day here at Commerce Bank, how may I help you today?” Try saying that on a rainy Monday to someone already annoyed. The disconnect was real, but we made it work.

The mix of people was wild. My Kazakhstan coworker looked more Chinese than I did — customers would walk up speaking Cantonese to her, and Russian to me. We’d crack up, swap places, and keep going. My officer friend, a Turkish sweetheart with a thick accent, once stood outside yelling “free checking” to promote new accounts. The local Chinese community heard “free chicken,” and lined up around the block. That joke never died.

And then there was my manager — a tough Russian girl just a few years older than me, already a mom, whip-smart and fast. She spoke like a machine gun, full of dry sarcasm, and I loved it. We got each other’s humor instantly. We’d riff on our cultures, poke fun at each other’s quirks, and never take offense. She was the kind of manager you actually wanted to impress — not because she demanded it, but because she inspired it. I learned so much from her: quick thinking, sharper confidence, and how humor could defuse anything.

It was also the first time I wasn’t working only within the Chinese community. That shift forced me to speak more English, expand my world, and connect with people I never would’ve met otherwise. A sweet Italian coworker who dragged me to tanning salons. A rich girl with her Mercedes and fragile ego, tearing up if anyone raised their voice. A hustler who ordered extra food to box up “for her boyfriend” at a go-Dutch dinner. They were all smart in their own ways, with their own stories and struggles. Some were exhausting, some inspiring — all unforgettable.

I was nominated and invited to the bank’s WOW award ceremony — complete with free swag, motivational speeches, and stock options I didn’t understand (I kept the letter, no idea why, no idea what it meant). It was funny, but also the first time I felt seen at a company beyond just being a fast counter of bills.

In between all of this, I started moonlighting as the “creative one.” Designing business cards for friends and coworkers. Helping one of them with a logo and signage design for her new accessories boutique in Chinatown. For the first time, design work began to creep into my “day job.” It felt small then, but now I see it as a crack in the door toward the career I was chasing.

I left Commerce before graduating from SVA. Time to finally pursue design-related work. But this job gave me something rare: the confidence that no matter the mix of people, I could walk in, adapt, and hold my own. Working across cultures, I saw the same thing again and again — rich or poor, immigrant or local, we all carried pride, struggle, humor, and hustle. Commerce taught me that behind the accents, behind the attitudes, we weren’t so different after all.

And with that, the series of jobs that never made my résumé comes to a close. Bank teller, bookkeeper, one-night karaoke misstep, and my Commerce Bank comeback. None of them were glamorous, but all of them taught me something I couldn’t have learned in a classroom. They were my real education — the true foundation beneath every role I’ve had since.

Karaoke was my second home back then — singing my heart out, drinking games with friends, neon lights bleeding into 3 a.m. So when someone said a bar in Sunset Park needed an extra server for the July 4th weekend rush, I hesitated but eventually jumped. I just quit my bookkeeping job, still in art school, and wanted quick cash for supplies and spending money. Easy enough, I thought.

The bar was called Prince Karaoke (太子城). Sunset Park wasn’t trendy yet — it was sketchy, dim, and smoky, tucked into Brooklyn’s Chinatown. My “training” lasted five minutes: follow the others, deliver beers and food to the private rooms, collect tips, and split cash at the end. No rules, no system, no one really watching my back. I felt uneasy — nervous about friends spotting me, embarrassed that I’d gone from bank teller to this smoky side hustle. But I told myself: it’s just one night. Cash in hand, then gone.

A few hours in, the cops rushed in. According to the others, it was routine holiday weekend checks. But when the officers started checking IDs, panic rippled through the place. Most of the customers were underage. Suddenly, the two employees shoved me forward, hiding behind me because I spoke English. My stomach flipped. I explained, I translated, I tried to hold it together. And then the officer asked for ID. Mine.

The second I handed it over, a thunderclap hit my chest. My name was now on the ticket for selling alcohol to minors. Court date in August. And my mom had no idea I was even working at a karaoke bar. She thought I was out with friends. How was I going to explain this? I stumbled outside to a payphone, sobbing, calling my partner, asking him to pick me up. Fear, regret, anger — it all came crashing at once.

The rest of the night was a blur. The rooms emptied, the bar went quiet, and I stood outside replaying the mistake in my head, staring at my name on the paper. Later, the owner reassured me it was nothing. Just routine. He’d cover the fine. And he did — he even drove me to court at Chambers Street, stood in line with me, and drove me home. The case was dismissed in minutes. Done.

But the month of waiting? That stayed with me. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t shake the shame of hiding it from my family. Karaoke was supposed to be fun, familiar — instead, it cracked open the darker side: smoke, hustle, and how quickly people push the consequences onto someone else when things go wrong.

The lesson was sharp: trust your gut. Don’t be the shield for someone else’s mess. Easy money isn’t always worth the price.

That night I made $200. Never again.

I scanned the tiny boxed job listings in Sing Tao Daily until one caught my eye: Cantonese speaker, bookkeeper needed, Upper East Side upscale hair salon. They even added “Hong Kong preferred.” Odd, but it felt like me.

And just like that, I went from teller windows in Chinatown to a salon basement on 89th and 3rd Ave.

The salon was run by two middle-aged women — sisters-in-law — one with a hairstylist license, the other focused on operations. I worked with the latter. She tracked everything, from hair color to toilet paper. And my job was to keep her books in order. That meant tallying daily receipts, separating cash from credit, logging it all by hand, chasing down disputes, sometimes even pulling security footage to fight chargebacks. I also ordered supplies, checked deliveries, and carried baskets of color and product upstairs to restock the shelves.

It was tedious but comforting. The basement felt like my control room. Numbers made sense. Systems made sense. People… not always. Occasionally, they’d pull me up front as a receptionist, and that’s when I froze. The hardest part wasn’t phones — it was spelling walk-in customers’ names. I’d panic when someone rattled off a name I couldn’t catch. Eventually, I just learned to ask them to spell it out, but every time I felt exposed, a knot in my stomach, like I didn’t belong at the front, guessing at names I couldn’t pronounce. I wanted to be back in the basement where no one was looking, where I was in full control.

The culture upstairs had its quirks. The owner had a habit of giving everyone nicknames. Angie became Santa. Keigo became Bingo. Only Alma kept her real name. And the owner herself? Her given English name was Butterfly, but she proudly called herself Butter. Somehow, everyone went along with it. It was quirky, borderline odd, but also just part of the salon’s identity.

Then there was the blackout of 2003. I was in the basement doing inventory when the lights snapped off. I thought I broke something. Then I realized the whole city went dark. We all walked outside, confused, traffic lights dead, car horns blaring. For me, it wasn’t terrifying — it was surreal. No machines humming, no blow dryers whirring, just silence. Slowly, people accepted it was a blackout, and there was nothing to do but go home. I was lucky, a coworker lived near me and drove me back to Brooklyn, while my partner had to walk from Pearl Paint on Canal Street (where he worked at the time) all the way up to Inwood 200th Street. It took him nearly three hours. That night, he camped on the roof with a few neighborhood friends, while I dragged my pillow to the balcony in the hot air. We talked on our nearly dead phones until the batteries gave out. The city was quiet, eerie but also strangely alive in a different way, like we had all time-traveled back to another era.

I stayed at the salon for a little over a year. I liked the work, but the commute wore me down, and the constant pressure to take on receptionist duties made me anxious. Eventually, I quit — badly. I didn’t sit down with the owners. I quit over the phone. I didn’t explain. I just stopped showing up. I let my mom answer the calls, and I even sent my sister to pick up my last paycheck. At the time, I thought I had gotten away with it.

Now I see it differently. That’s the way my family handled conflict: step in, take over, make the uncomfortable part go away. It came from love, but it also meant I never learned how to face those moments myself. As a parent now, I think about it all the time — how easy it is to jump in and “handle it” for my kids. How much harder, but healthier, it is to let them stumble, to feel the discomfort, and to find their own way through.

This job may not be on my résumé, but it left a mark. It taught me systems, organization, and people's quirks, while also showing me the patterns I’d eventually have to break.

Before agencies, before design school, before any of it — I was 18 and working as a bank teller in Chinatown. Every job I’ve had has felt like unlocking a new world, and this one was my first big unlock: the world of money.

I was supposed to go into finance. I’d been accepted to Pace University, the “safe” Asian-parent-approved track. But two months in, I knew I couldn’t do it. My boyfriend at the time (now my partner and kids’ dad) saw it too — he knew I’d be miserable. I loved drawing, painting, making things with my hands. He convinced me to have the talk with my mom. It was dramatic. She paused, called my grandfather in China for advice, and came back with a deal: I could quit Pace and work on a portfolio for art school, but only if I got a “real” job. In her dictionary, that meant something steady, something corporate. She reached out to a family friend — an “auntie” — who pulled strings and got me a part-time job at HSBC on Bowery and Canal. One week later, I was in heels and a blazer, standing behind a glass window, touching stacks of money I couldn’t believe were real.

They paired me with an auntie in her 30s, though back then she felt ancient and all-knowing. She taught me the teller survival kit: count cash twice in front of the customers, triple-check what you type, memorize the feel of counterfeit bills. Chinese New Year was chaos, crisp new bills glued together, but the trick was to follow the serial numbers. After a week of shadowing, I got my own cashbox. Terrifying, but also thrilling. I could count faster than the machine, type numbers without looking, do mental math on the fly.

Of course, there were mistakes. I once handed out an extra bill and realized it midday. Nothing to do but swallow the pit in my stomach and wait for closing to confirm the shortage. The bank had insurance, but your record kept track. I hated that feeling, the feeling of being imperfect. From then on, I counted everything twice, three times, even with the customer staring at me impatiently.

The branch itself was its own ecosystem. Seniors lined up around the block because they didn’t trust ATMs. Some came in two or three times a day just to update passbooks. They’d chat endlessly about their kids or the weather. Commercial clients brought us snacks — buns, noodles, fruit, egg tarts — and we’d stash them behind the counters next to the money counters. It was part bank, part dim sum house.

My coworkers were half aunties, half college kids. My best friend at the time was notorious for her “bad attitude.” She counted slow on purpose so she wouldn’t take as many customers. Her drawer was always short by 50 cents, a dollar, never more. She didn’t care. Meanwhile, I was the opposite: fast, anxious, determined to clear the line. I’d knock out ten clients while she was still on her second. We laughed constantly, sometimes so hard I lost track of my count. Once I had to start over five times while the customer just shook their head at us.

And then there was the nightlife contrast. We’d finish our shift at 5pm, head straight to karaoke before they even opened, drink and sing until 2–3am, crash at a friend’s apartment, and then roll back to open the bank at 7am. No sleep, a little hungover, still somehow counting cash with a smile and exchanging stories with customers. It was chaotic, exhausting, and honestly fun. We were young, and it felt like a weird badge of honor.

Then came 9/11. Our branch was only blocks away from Ground Zero. While the towers fell in chaos, the aftermath stretched on for weeks. Power came back quickly, but internet didn’t. That meant no digital records, no online verification, no printed receipts. Every transaction became manual. We’d call other branches outside Lower Manhattan (the ones still online) to confirm balances, verify accounts, approve withdrawals. Customers were panicked but understanding, lining up in waves, anxious to know their money was safe, or simply just continuing their routines. Every day, I hoped no special requests like wire transfers or large withdrawals would come up, because without internet we’d have to turn them away. The job that had been fun and laughter suddenly became something much more serious.

This experience gave me more than what my mom was expecting. She thought I’d earn a paycheck and keep busy, but I walked away with a crash course in discipline, patience, and financial literacy most people don’t get until much later. I learned how to read people — the impatient ones, the lonely ones, the ones who showed up with grocery bags full of cash. I learned systems thinking, how every little protocol is stacked into something bigger. And I learned the quiet pride of knowing I could handle responsibility at 18, whether that meant clearing a line of customers or surviving a blackout city with nothing but a landline phone and a calculator.

Funny twist: that same HSBC landmark building on Bowery and Canal, where I counted cash and ate egg tarts behind the counter, is now owned by Alexander Wang (yes, the fashion designer). Who would’ve thought? Back then, it was just a “bank building” to me, with that creepy 18th-century elevator I’ll never forget.

This was Job #1. The first unlock. More to come in this little series of how I got here.

I was in my twenties, a few jobs into my career but still shaky after my first layoff. My confidence was fragile, imposter syndrome was loud, and I was still figuring out how to switch from print to digital. CMYK to RGB, inches to pixels — nothing about it was smooth. But I was hungry to learn. I’d landed at a corporate-feeling agency, cubicles and all. Not my dream shop, but a college friend got me in the door, and at that point I was just grateful for the experience and paycheck.

But there were signs. She wasn’t my direct manager, but she hovered close. One time she invited me out for coffee and leaned in mid-sip: “I am your boss.” My gut clenched. It felt wrong. I couldn’t quite name it, but my instincts told me it was off. My humble background told me to let it slide. Don’t overthink. Don’t make trouble.

From there, the pressure only grew. Less guidance, more accusations. Every time I proved her wrong, the trust gap widened. I kept my head down and tried to push through. Morning coffee, a checklist of to-dos, and friendly banter with my cubicle neighbors. I came in ready to learn and grow — but her behavior stopped me cold. It felt like crashing into a wall I didn’t see coming.

One morning I worked from home, hoping for a breather. Then came the email. Or really, the email chain. I braced myself and clicked open, a wall of text with no line breaks. I scanned word by word. She was arguing with the team, listing out her hours and painting me as the weak link. Then I saw it — my name. Spelled out: Yoje. My stomach dropped. My hands went cold. Line after line, she questioned my portfolio, called out my lack of digital background, labeled me “unfit” for the account, and pinned the project’s slow pace on me. Publicly. To everyone.

I froze. Reread it. Tried to convince myself it wasn’t that bad, that maybe it was feedback. It wasn’t. It was shaming. It was meant to make me smaller. I sat at my desk, tears spilling faster than I could wipe them away. My eyes blurred, my chest burned, and all I could think was: What’s gonna happen next? How do I redeem myself after this? I remember reaching out to the other manager, unsure of what to say. But she already knew — she’d been CC’d.

The sting went deeper because I had admired her at first. I thought I could learn from her. That disappointment cut sharper than the email itself. I internalized the worst lesson: Maybe I’m not cut out for this. Maybe she was right. The self-doubt was louder than logic.

Now, years later, I see it clearly. She wasn’t leading, she was spiraling. Looking back, I can see the insecurity, the overwhelm, the lack of empathy. That email wasn’t about me — it was about her fear, her burnout, and the way she coped with both. And it cemented something I carry into every leadership role: being a superstar individual contributor or the hardest-working creative doesn’t automatically make you a leader. If the language is always “I” instead of “we,” that’s the sign. When it’s only about their shine, everyone else fades into background noise. You’re either invisible, disposable, or pushed to copy their playbook to survive.

The irony is, when I look back at my own email reply in that thread, I laugh. I sounded so green, so anxious, so naive, exactly like some junior designers I mentor now. And I have nothing but patience for them. Because I know what it feels like to sit at your desk, blindsided by words that don’t build you, only break you.

That email taught me more about leadership than any inspirational quote ever could. It showed me the leader I never want to be, and it reminds me to be the one my younger self needed.

At work, I find the most challenging part of group projects is the diplomacy. I’ve never been good at the poker face — my honesty lives right on my face — so keeping things neutral takes real effort. Especially at project kickoffs, when there’s a new brief, a fresh mix of people, and different working styles to adjust to. My fast-paced nature makes me want to jump in, finish sentences, and get to the point quickly, but collaboration doesn’t always move at that speed. It often requires a slower warm-up, more patience, and more listening than my instincts want to give. It’s something I’m still working on, both professionally and personally, and it can be just as exhausting as the work itself.

But there’s a flip side I love. When a project clicks, the collaboration feels like magic. People find their rhythm, strengths surface, and suddenly the energy shifts from fixing problems to uncovering new ideas. Of course, I love the big wins too — rebranding a client, or working on a high-profile launch, but those are the obvious stories, the ones you expect to hear about. What stays with me just as much are the quiet wins: like designing a sign-up flow that doesn’t make users rage-quit, or building an endless data table that actually works on mobile. They’re not the kind of projects anyone brags about at happy hour, but millions of people interact with them every single day. Those are the ones I secretly geek out over.

Then I close my laptop and the next group project starts immediately. The collaborators are family. Every day brings a new assignment: making homemade gummies, trying out new recipes, and planning costumes. Lately, dumplings have become the most consistent project. Folding dumplings used to make me twitch when the shapes weren’t perfect. That was my childhood speaking, the part of me wired to equate neatness with worth. But motherhood has been my crash course in letting go. My 9-year-old experiments with creative folds, the toddler smashes wrappers just to feel the dough, and I remind myself that it’s okay. The dumplings will still taste good. The project is the process.

My toddler in particular thinks she can do it all. She wants to cut apples with a real knife, pour her own hot water, climb counters. It’s a whole CEO trapped in a two-year-old body. Half my job is distraction — “No, you can’t use the knife, but here’s a grape.” Six out of ten times it works. The other four, I lose my patience, snap, or snatch something out of her hands, knowing it’ll come back to bite me later. I’m trying to do better, not to crush her confidence just because it overwhelms me.

And then there’s the project with my partner. It’s not just raising kids, it’s raising them with positive mental capacity. It’s navigating the responsible adult stuff: taxes, insurance, home renovations. It’s also making sure we still connect, recalibrate, and notice when the other one needs a long walk or a quiet salt bath. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the longest-running group project we’ll ever manage.

What I’ve learned is that group projects never end, they shift forms. At work, I’m leading teams through briefs, clients, and deadlines. At home, I’m reffing, improvising, adjusting, and sometimes just trying to get through a meal prep in a messy kitchen one day at a time. The players are different, but the dynamics are familiar. Some days you’re aligned, some days you’re exhausted, and some days the win is just getting the kids a quick dumpling lunch when they’re starving from 0 to 60.