In episode 89 of the Speak In Flow podcast, Melinda Lee has an empowering conversation with Jeffrey Yang, the Chief Technology Officer at Rising Team. They dive deep into how you can supercharge your team by getting them all on the same page and working with a deep sense of purpose and ownership towards a goal. 

Jeffrey shares his journey of personal and professional growth, reflecting on how he evolved from a "tell me what to do" mindset to becoming a leader who champions his team. Through stories of resilience and triumph, Jeffrey reveals the transformative power of thoughtful leadership that balances accountability with compassion.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

The Vision for Empowered Teams

Rising Team focuses on creating workplace environments where everyone feels understood, supported, and empowered. Learn how consistent, team-based workshops and AI-driven leadership tools enable managers to connect with their teams on a deeper level.

Accountability Helps You Grow

Jeffrey reflects on how he transitioned from avoiding accountability to taking ownership, inspired by mentors who believed in his potential. His story underscores the importance of stepping outside your comfort zone to grow as a leader.

Standing Up for Your Team (with Respect)

Discover how Jeffrey tackled a challenging workplace scenario to secure a fair team rating. Learn how aligning goals with stakeholders and advocating thoughtfully can create impactful results without fostering defensiveness.

Balancing Work and Well-Being

Melinda and Jeffrey have some great tips on making an 8-hour workday work for you. They know how to prioritize effectively and avoid burnout, so listen in to learn how you can break away from unhealthy cultural perceptions around overwork.

Memorable Quotes:

"If every person in the workplace felt understood, supported, and empowered, imagine how incredible that environment would be." - Jeffrey Yang

“Advocating for your team doesn’t mean pushing others down. It’s about thoughtful communication that helps everyone align and grow.” - Jeffrey Yang

“Powerful leaders are human. Storytelling from a place of strength and vulnerability creates trust.” - Melinda Lee

Connect with Jeffrey Yang

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffyang/ 

About the Guest: 

Jeffrey Yang is the Chief Technology Officer at Rising Team, where he puts his heart and soul into creating solutions that empower teams to flourish and reach their full potential. Jeff uses his hard-earned expertise to empower teams to reach their full potential. From his "Happy and Successful" program to his current role at Rising Team, Jeff is a man on a mission. He is committed to transforming every workplace into a fertile ground for everyone's growth. 

Fun-facts:

• Jeff has a family of gamers! He loves playing Baldur's Gate 3 with his wife and Tears of the Kingdom with his three kids.
• Jeff has a really unique sleep habit; he sleeps with his head tucked under the covers!
• Speaking of unusual pets, Jeff used to have a chicken, but it was only his pet for a day.

About Melinda:

Melinda Lee is a Presentation Skills Expert, Speaking Coach, and nationally renowned Motivational Speaker. She holds an M.A. in Organizational Psychology, is an Insights Practitioner, and is a Certified Professional in Talent Development as well as Certified in Conflict Resolution. For over a decade, Melinda has researched and studied the state of “flow” and used it as a proven technique to help corporate leaders and business owners amplify their voices, access flow, and present their mission in a more powerful way to achieve results.

She has been the TEDx Berkeley Speaker Coach and has worked with hundreds of executives and teams from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Caltrans, Bay Area Rapid Transit System, and more. Currently, she lives in San Francisco, California, and is breaking the ancestral lineage of silence.

Website: https://speakinflow.com/

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/speakinflow

Instagram: https://instagram.com/speakinflow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpowerall

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Welcome. Dear listeners to the speak and flow podcast where we dive into unique experiences and strategies to help you and your team achieve maximum, potential and flow. I'm so glad you're here. I have an amazing, incredibly smart and also humble, genuine leader, Jeffrey Yang. He is a chief technology officer for rising team.

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Melinda Lee: Hi, Jeffrey!

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Jeffrey Yang: Hi!

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Jeffrey Yang: Thanks for having me, and really excited to be here.

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Melinda Lee: Me, too. Me, too. We're gonna dive into some really unique experiences that you've been through, and, too, so we can learn. But before we get into that. I wanted to have you tell the audience like, what makes you so passionate about rising team because they're doing some amazing things.

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah, thanks. I think so what I'd like to start with is the vision of the company, which is that every person in the workplace feels understood, supported, and empowered.

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Jeffrey Yang: And that really resonates with me. I think that

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Jeffrey Yang: if you imagine a world where everyone feels understood, supported and empowered.

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Jeffrey Yang: that it's just. It's a wonderful kind of vision

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Jeffrey Yang: where everyone is happier. They enjoy their jobs.

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Jeffrey Yang: they do better at their jobs.

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Jeffrey Yang: and

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Jeffrey Yang: yeah, so so that's kind of the vision I think about. And what makes me passionate? It's something that even before I started at rising team.

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Jeffrey Yang: it was something I had focused on.

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Jeffrey Yang: And if you think about.

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Jeffrey Yang: if you think about it, not even the whole world, but like, if your whole company felt that way, that would be an amazing place to work.

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Jeffrey Yang: And if it even just your team felt that way, that's kind of the

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Jeffrey Yang: it's it's like.

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Jeffrey Yang: like, how great would it be if your whole team

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Jeffrey Yang: understood you and supported you and empowered you. And so yeah, that's kind of makes me passionate. So every company that that we on board every team that that uses our product makes me feel good.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, my gosh! That gave me chills!

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Melinda Lee: It really did. That is such a beautiful vision and mission, because a lot of what I do with helping people with finding their voice is so that they can feel I love the the flow. What you said understood, supported.

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Melinda Lee: And so it's just amazing. And I I completely agree with that. How how much better could this world be when people are actually enjoying their work? The statistic is sad about how many people are unhappy at their jobs?

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah, exactly. And I've been like when just a little bit of connection and just support it's I mean, we see, like, you know data about how much it improves things like retention and engagement. And

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Jeffrey Yang: just, it's like proof that

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Jeffrey Yang: everyone really needs that.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah. And they're doing it through. AI, correct.

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Jeffrey Yang: We? Well, yeah. So what we do is so we take the team as a unit so the team, if you think about like who is best equipped to like support you at work, and who who you want to understand you. It's your manager and your team. It's the people you work with. So the team is kind of like the built in unit that we impact. And

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Jeffrey Yang: what we do is we have team workshops that you you can do with your team. And so if you think about workshops typically, you would might do them once a year, and it might only be for leadership. And then you kind of they. They can be really amazing. And you can bond with the people that you do the workshop with. And you share. And

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Jeffrey Yang: you do activities together, and you practice together. But you, you do it with people that you don't actually work with, and so if you do it with your team, and then, instead of once a year, you do it

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Jeffrey Yang: like you do it consistently. Then that is a much better experience in, in like our opinion. And so

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Jeffrey Yang: then, what happens is

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Jeffrey Yang: you have this bonding experience where you over time learn to more. Learn more about your team, learn how to support each other and help each other, and then you do it consistently. And

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Jeffrey Yang: and so that's kind of how we work.

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Jeffrey Yang: So

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Jeffrey Yang: yeah, I think. And so we do have an AI component which is an AI leadership coach. That kind of takes the things that you've learned about your team and helps you kind of understand them better. And and for example, like, you might learn that different people appreciate things different ways, right? Or like to be appreciated differently. So, for example, somebody might care most about like the impact on the customers. So if you appreciate them like. Oh, your project did really well.

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Jeffrey Yang: and, like everyone, loved it like who uses it. That might be the way to appreciate that person. Another person might prefer to be appreciated, for, like how hard they worked, and so you might say, something like, Oh, like, Oh, this project was great, and I noticed you worked really hard on it.

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Jeffrey Yang: and it turned out really well. And so so like, that's kind of the insights from the workshops that you can use and the AI leadership coach can help you say.

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Jeffrey Yang: sort of like, Oh, I'd like to appreciate Melinda. And and how does that like, what's the best way to kind of appreciate her for this project that I'd like to appreciate her for. So

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Jeffrey Yang: that's yeah. That's kind of

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Jeffrey Yang: what? Yeah, what we do.

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Melinda Lee: That is great. I I use Chat Gpt, and I get so many wonderful ideas from there, and it's so nice to have a personalized coach to be able to have the right words or the right ideas to appreciate different. Because how am I gonna know how to appreciate somebody else? If first, st I don't know how they want to be appreciated. And 2. That's not the way I like to be appreciated.

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah, it's perfect. Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah. So it's like, almost like learning a different language in terms of valuing and appreciating others. Which I think like you said builds a more cohesive team, and people feel valued. People are motivated and they're enjoying their work.

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah, yeah.

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Melinda Lee: As the chief technology officer. It sounds incredibly busy. Do you? Do you have a lot of things going on? It's been in business for 4 close to 4 years now rising team.

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah, it is. I mean, I like to keep it manageable. So I I think, that's 1 of the things

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Jeffrey Yang: I focus on is is prioritizing. And I and like, there's always an infinite amount of work to do. So prioritizing is really important in terms of figuring out like what's the most effective thing to do right now.

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Melinda Lee: And how do you prioritize it? If the new priority comes in? And then what happens to all the old priorities? How do you balance that.

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah, I mean you. You have to evaluate it and and decide. And there's multiple ways of doing that. But I think

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Jeffrey Yang: a lot of it is just communication with stakeholders and

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Jeffrey Yang: just being upfront like, yeah, like, we can't do everything we we have to acknowledge that. And and that's the truth of of everything. At work. And

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Jeffrey Yang: you.

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Jeffrey Yang: we need to decide like what's the most important.

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Melinda Lee: Have you always had this skill set or mindset of balancing the priorities? And we even went way back when you started your career. What was that like? Did you work really hard or not? Work really hard, like? What was that like for you?

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah,

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Jeffrey Yang: I think. Well, so when I started, I did, I did kind of have this skill set of not

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Jeffrey Yang: not overworking kind of, I mean, basically, yeah.

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Melinda Lee: You just born with it?

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Melinda Lee: Or did you watch your parents work to like? Where? Where do you know what was the switch? Maybe? Was it from your.

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Melinda Lee: Be too hard, or

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Melinda Lee: I'm curious.

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Jeffrey Yang: What's this?

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Jeffrey Yang: I mean? I think it was. It was be. I was very passive, right? And I think part. I mean, there were multiple reasons. I I don't think I mean I had a pretty sheltered childhood.

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Jeffrey Yang: I had, like my parents did a lot for me

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Jeffrey Yang: which meant, in many cases, I I didn't really develop the skills necessarily to do a lot for myself,

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Jeffrey Yang: and

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Jeffrey Yang: and so what ended up happening was.

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Jeffrey Yang: I was more of a like a Tell me what to do, and I'll do it.

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Melinda Lee: Right, right.

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Jeffrey Yang: I'll do a good job of it. But that's it. I'm done right. You tell me what to do, and I'll do it, and I'm done.

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Jeffrey Yang: And I just got really efficient at just doing what other people told me to do and like part of that is like, go to college get a job, so on. And

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Jeffrey Yang: so, like my 1st job, for example, I I worked 4 h days. I was a full time software engineer, but I worked 4 h days because I I would roll in at 11 and eat lunch, and then like do some work, and I would get everything done, and then I'd be out around 4 go play sports. It was pretty. It was a pretty fun time.

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Jeffrey Yang: And I remember my manager called me in, and he was like, Oh, Jeff, you could work more hours. And I was like, well, okay, yeah, I could. Is there something like you wanted me to do that I'm not doing.

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Jeffrey Yang: And he said, No, but it might be good for your career.

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Jeffrey Yang: And I was like. I thought about it. And I I said, No, thanks like

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Jeffrey Yang: I don't. I don't know. Like I didn't really feel like

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Jeffrey Yang: career. Was this tangible thing that I should be working on, or so it's just kind of like, well, you didn't tell me to do my career like, so I'm not going to do it right. And so that's kind of where I was for a really long time, actually, until

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Jeffrey Yang: I was at Hulu and my manager there. His name was Araj, and

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Jeffrey Yang: he actually believed in me and kind of pushed me

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Jeffrey Yang: And he, he said, like, I want you to be the manager after me like you, you know a lot, and and you know what you're doing. But there's 1 thing you have to stop doing is

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Jeffrey Yang: stop asking me questions.

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Jeffrey Yang: and basically the reason for that is I I had gotten to the state where I would

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Jeffrey Yang: ask for permission for anything because I wanted it was kind of my way of not taking responsibility. Right? It's like, if you, if you give me permission to do it. That means it's on you like what whatever happens. And

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Jeffrey Yang: so and this was really hard for me to get around because actually taking accountability and responsibility was something that I wasn't used to and I even remember he was he'd be like Jeff, stop asking me questions and I would say, Okay, I'm not. I'm not asking questions anymore. I'm done with that. And then, 30 seconds later, I'd be asking him a question like, and he'd be.

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Jeffrey Yang: he'd say, Jeff, like you're doing. And so

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Jeffrey Yang: so so what happened? Was it he really empowered me, and I'll always be grateful to him for that. And I did become the manager of that team.

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Jeffrey Yang: And that was when I started to

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Jeffrey Yang: take responsibility. But also I started to realize that I do care about things at work like before, I just thought, okay, I don't care. Just tell me what to do. I do it.

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Jeffrey Yang: But now I'm like, Oh, there's people on my team who I'm responsible for, and I care about them, and I care about their growth. I care about understanding, supporting and empowering them

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Jeffrey Yang: and

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Jeffrey Yang: and that that led me to actually start trying and like, start growing. And

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Jeffrey Yang: actually, yeah, that kind of finding my passion like.

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Jeffrey Yang: just kind of triggered an avalanche where my career started taking off.

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Jeffrey Yang: And I started focusing on.

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Jeffrey Yang: I'm just helping people on my teams and and

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Jeffrey Yang: helping them be happy and successful.

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Melinda Lee: Well, that's

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Melinda Lee: it. Worked. That strategy seemed to work because you so with the passion you're able to find the passion you started caring more is what I'm hearing caring

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Melinda Lee: about. What is that you're doing, but more so caring about the people that you're working with your team, taking responsibility for them, and that strategy helps grow your your career. And then you ended up at Facebook.

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Jeffrey Yang: Yep. Yep.

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Melinda Lee: And then did you work hard the whole time, or were you still working? I'm curious about the hours by chance.

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah, it's a good question. I I my hours did increase right over time. I I've never been somebody.

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Jeffrey Yang: I've been relatively good with ours.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Jeffrey Yang: I don't. I don't work more than 8 h.

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Melinda Lee: I love it. I love it. No, I I the reason why is as entrepreneur. I'm entrepreneur, and there's and with anybody I mean, I think we're all in this trajectory. I feel like in America we're like, there's more to do. There's more to do or we want. If we don't do. Xyz. We're not going to get the promotion, or if I don't do Xyz, I'm not going to get the right client, and

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Melinda Lee: and I think that's a the perception unhealthy perception. Because I don't, but I I think that I cap it, and I I trust that what I did as long as they're the the right strategic right actions.

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Melinda Lee: It will come back tenfold.

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Melinda Lee: It does sometimes take longer than I wish to. But then it's also I also like you. I feel like I don't. I'm I'd like to keep my mindset. I try to balance other things in my life and other priorities, too.

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Melinda Lee: And do you think that's the case for you?

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah, it's I mean, it's it's a slippery slope to just

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Jeffrey Yang: trackling problems by adding more time. Right? It's it's like you.

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Jeffrey Yang: You could always add more time. Yeah, that's that's kind of like the easy way out in in many ways.

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Jeffrey Yang: but

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Jeffrey Yang: the better way is to find out ways to be more efficient and more effective, and

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Jeffrey Yang: figure out what's actually important. There. There's so many times where

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Jeffrey Yang: I could, for an example, is I don't.

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Jeffrey Yang: I. I batch my kind of messaging and slack and email, because

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Jeffrey Yang: a lot of times it's not

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Jeffrey Yang: urgent when somebody messages you.

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Jeffrey Yang: and

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Jeffrey Yang: if you just wait a little bit. They usually figure it out themselves, or.

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Melinda Lee: Hello!

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Jeffrey Yang: Oh!

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Melinda Lee: Right.

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Jeffrey Yang: It's something where you can find ways to manage your time and

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Jeffrey Yang: and what's another hour or 2 either way? Right? So

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Jeffrey Yang: why not go? Do an hour less.

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Melinda Lee: and then it's so true batching things and holding the line of trying not to let other things that you're supposed to do I find? Right? Like, okay, 1 h less

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Melinda Lee: here or 1 h less there. But as long as I'm batching it and then committing to what I'm supposed to be doing.

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Melinda Lee: I think that's been very helpful, too.

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Melinda Lee: Sounds like.

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Jeffrey Yang: And I think, like another thing people find is that there, there's this stuck of like a binary thinking of where it's like I either spend time or

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Jeffrey Yang: I,

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Jeffrey Yang: or I can't get it done right.

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Melinda Lee: Right.

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Jeffrey Yang: It's it's there's a way to say, actually, how can I get it done and spend less time.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, I like that question, how can I get it done and spend less time?

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Melinda Lee: That's a good question. Good question. And so it sounds like you. Then you made it to Facebook

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Melinda Lee: and as a as a manager at Facebook, what are some of the things that you learned at Facebook

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Melinda Lee: standing up for your team.

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah, I think I

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Jeffrey Yang: there was a. So I I was building several teams at Facebook.

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Jeffrey Yang: And it was, it was great. And

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Jeffrey Yang: I learned a lot in terms of 1st of all, just aligning

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Jeffrey Yang: people with the like, aligning both what I wanted, what the company wanted and what they wanted.

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Jeffrey Yang: and so like.

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Jeffrey Yang: Ha! I found that

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Jeffrey Yang: that was a very powerful motivator. If

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Jeffrey Yang: what

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Jeffrey Yang: an individual wants is what they're working on so so if they want to get promoted, and you kind of line up the cards that way. And you say, Hey, like this is how you can get promoted. And it would be helpful to me and the company. Then, if everything is aligned, then it all works well together. So we

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Jeffrey Yang: so so IA lot of my job I felt like was setting things up like that.

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Jeffrey Yang: and I. There was one particular lesson I I learned at Facebook as well. And which you mentioned? Which.

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Jeffrey Yang: historically, I never.

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Jeffrey Yang: I had a hard time standing up for myself.

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Jeffrey Yang: And it's not. It's not something I typically do

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Jeffrey Yang: and so I,

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Jeffrey Yang: yeah. So I let me tell the story from with some context, the just what we let's see, I started a team

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Jeffrey Yang: that was tasked. It was a new team. It was tasked with finding

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Jeffrey Yang: new ways to grow Facebook groups. I was, I was working on Facebook groups at the time.

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Jeffrey Yang: and

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Jeffrey Yang: the

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Jeffrey Yang: trick was so so in terms of growing. What I mean by that is, we had a top line metric, which is the number of people who find groups meaningful.

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Jeffrey Yang: And that was the metric for every team in Facebook groups. And so we were tasked with finding a new way. And so

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Jeffrey Yang: with them. And so every other team like they had their plans. And they knew, like, Okay, this is how we want to grow Facebook groups. And they executed on that.

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Jeffrey Yang: And

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Jeffrey Yang: what we had to do was basically find all the stuff they didn't want to do, and all the stuff that they felt like wasn't worth it.

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Jeffrey Yang: And so we basically took every single one of those and we tried it. We tried every single item that we could find

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Jeffrey Yang: And and it was like that was a real roller coaster, because at 1st we were like, oh, this seems impossible, like, how are we gonna find stuff that, like nobody else wants to do and make it like worthwhile and then we found some items that were that were promising

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Jeffrey Yang: but then we realized why nobody wanted to work on it, because we got all these blockers and people like other teams stopping us.

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Jeffrey Yang: So we really struggled. And it was

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Jeffrey Yang: basically we had

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Jeffrey Yang: at the the weeks were ticking down. And we had these like 3 really promising projects. I remember, that were not launched yet, but were blocked for various reasons.

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Jeffrey Yang: Like, for example, one was a team that

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Jeffrey Yang: add.

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Jeffrey Yang: they basically said, you can't launch this because it uses too much. CPU.

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Jeffrey Yang: And we.

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Jeffrey Yang: we're like, Okay, we scramble. We're like, what do we do? How do we get past this? We found another engineer who was working on reducing CPU, and we worked with them. So we actually reduced like millions of dollars in CPU, just so we could use some of that in our project.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, that's funny!

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Jeffrey Yang: So that's actually another learning that like a lot of it, was like.

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Jeffrey Yang: it's kind of like negotiating. And like.

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Jeffrey Yang: it's, it's also with the alignment thing right? How can we get the other teams on board with us right? And and we did that by helping the other teams get their goals so that they could help us get our goals

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Jeffrey Yang: and but yeah, it was really like tense, because, like we, we ended up launching them like right at the end.

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Jeffrey Yang: And and it was really big, and we celebrated. We were so happy. It was like, I mean, we felt super victorious that we had like, felt like we conquered the impossible.

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Melinda Lee: Wow!

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Jeffrey Yang: And then.

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Jeffrey Yang: yeah, and we actually got more of the metric than any of the other teams who had already had all their plans and figured everything out.

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Melinda Lee: Wow!

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah. So so I think so. So at Facebook, there's like a rating system. There's meets all expectations, which is kind of like the neutral like you met expectations. Then there's exceeds expectations, and then there's greatly exceeds expectations.

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Jeffrey Yang: So everyone on our team was like, Oh, we definitely greatly exceeded expectations like this was like an amazing victory.

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Jeffrey Yang: And then my manager or I had. We had a new manager, and he

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Jeffrey Yang: he talked to me, and he said, Hey, Jeff, like I talked to everyone on your team and

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Jeffrey Yang: you know, it's they were all like super proud of what you did last half, and

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Jeffrey Yang: they felt like you did an amazing job.

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Jeffrey Yang: And

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Jeffrey Yang: but then I I got the rating for your team.

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Jeffrey Yang: and it's actually meets all expectations, plus

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Jeffrey Yang: which is kind of their way of saying like, Oh, it's these expectations it's not exceeds.

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Jeffrey Yang: But we'll give you like a bonus. It's like a plus right. It's pretty much equivalent to it meets all expectations.

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Jeffrey Yang: and I remember telling my team.

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Jeffrey Yang: and I remember the expressions on their faces.

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Jeffrey Yang: and it was what they were stunned@firstst

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Melinda Lee: Right.

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Jeffrey Yang: And then there was this feeling of like total betrayal.

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Melinda Lee: Right.

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Jeffrey Yang: And disillusionment.

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Melinda Lee: Right.

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Jeffrey Yang: And like people wanted to leave

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Jeffrey Yang: And so it was. It was really terrible. And I got angry. I felt really angry, and

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Jeffrey Yang: I said, this isn't right, and I I asked all the leads of groups, and I asked for the head of groups Jen to be there as well.

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Jeffrey Yang: and I wanted to hear. I want to hear what they had to say, and I wanted them to hear what I had to say.

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Jeffrey Yang: And even that was a little. It was tricky, because, people

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Jeffrey Yang: the first, st you know, one person had removed the head of groups because they're they're like, Oh, well, they're not involved in this decision, so it doesn't matter. And I was like, No, she has to be there.

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Jeffrey Yang: and another like some other people were like, Jeff, are you sure you want to do this? You're you know you're doing well? Why risk your career? And over over this one thing right?

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Jeffrey Yang: And I I was so angry I feel like I had to do it. So I think that that was an instance where anger actually helped me.

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Jeffrey Yang: and I,

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Jeffrey Yang: basically, I forced the meeting to get together. And

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Jeffrey Yang: we they kind of told me what

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Jeffrey Yang: what was, what was the reason we got the rating.

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Jeffrey Yang: and then I stood up and I started talking.

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Jeffrey Yang: And the 1st thing I said is, I am pissed about this rating.

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Jeffrey Yang: and I and it's wrong.

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Jeffrey Yang: and I then I kind of explained everything I had said before, and and I was really I did it in a way like I practiced ahead of time, and I did it in a way that was really respectful.

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Melinda Lee: A month.

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Jeffrey Yang: And I was. I said.

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Jeffrey Yang: I know, yeah, I know, like it's not easy to determine the rating, and like you did the best you could, and this is raising rating you came up with, and

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Jeffrey Yang: at the same time. It's wrong, and

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Jeffrey Yang: I, you know, and part of that is my fault right? I admitted. It's like I could have explained how difficult our path was. I could have done a better job of helping that and because kind of the

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Jeffrey Yang: and the kind of what happened was, people felt like, oh, we were lucky, and we found something that was worked really well, and it was really easy for us.

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Jeffrey Yang: and it just happened, you know, we just happened to like. Instead, we like look through every single thing, and we had to, you know. Hit go over so many obstacles.

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Jeffrey Yang: but they didn't know any of that.

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Melinda Lee: You didn't know.

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Jeffrey Yang: So yeah, I kind of did this really long speech.

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Jeffrey Yang: And I actually ended up crying at the end because I I felt like I had failed my team

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Jeffrey Yang: and and and to be honest, like my team, helped me a lot in doing this, because

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Jeffrey Yang: if it was just me who was affected, I probably would never have spoken.

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Jeffrey Yang: but just seeing everyone on my team be affected by it. I had to do it.

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Melinda Lee: Right.

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Jeffrey Yang: And then yeah. And then Jen, she

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Jeffrey Yang: she did like she was really great at facilitating this, she she said, like she asked everyone to

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Jeffrey Yang: pause and reflect back what they heard from me.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, good!

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Melinda Lee: Good, good! That's powerful.

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Jeffrey Yang: And yeah, yeah.

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Jeffrey Yang: and and they did that. And it, it worked out well. You know, we ended up. The the team stayed together. We ended up actually growing into a hundred plus person, or because of the impact we had

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Jeffrey Yang: and she and Jen she actually like reversed our ratings. And it was it was like, I'm I'm really grateful for her to that for that, because

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Jeffrey Yang: they they they told her. You get one of these in your Facebook career, right? And if you want to use it on this team, go ahead. And she's like, I do. So yeah, and that really spoke volumes about her.

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Jeffrey Yang: and I. Yeah. So it it really

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Jeffrey Yang: gave me that message that I I can be angry which is not usually acceptable at work.

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Jeffrey Yang: I can be. I can speak up.

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Jeffrey Yang: And I can do it in a way that doesn't

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Jeffrey Yang: make things worse.

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Jeffrey Yang: So and that's always been like a fear of mine, right of like, if you speak up like, what what's gonna happen like? Are you gonna damage your career? Or and in fact, it it helped my career right. It helped my career at Facebook.

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Jeffrey Yang: It also helped my career afterwards, because I haven't mentioned this. But Jen is actually the founder of rising team.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, nice!

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Jeffrey Yang: So I it. Yeah. And and I've always admired her. And I'm so glad to be working with her. At rising team. So, yeah, that's kind of my story about standing up for.

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Melinda Lee: Wow! What a powerful story! And what a full circle in terms of yes, your your growth development everywhere from where you are now, with rising teams to how you were before in terms of

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Melinda Lee: committing to your passion and helping people, and how that how you then use it to develop. Develop your voice, to stand up for your team and to do something incredibly difficult, which is again like you said, challenging somebody.

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Melinda Lee: putting your emotions out there, but in a way that is

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Melinda Lee: helpful, respectful, and just acknowledges what's happening in a very truthful way. But in a way that again, yeah, helps. People. People want to hear it. So you didn't do it in a way where it caused defensiveness or so. That's amazing that you you did that. And it sounds like you did practice, and you sort of put thought into it versus speaking out of anger without the thought. So you

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Melinda Lee: yeah, they're your yeah. You knew what you're going to say, but you allowed yourself to be angry. And that's your fuel. And I think that's okay, too, because I think powerful leaders are not emotionless.

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Melinda Lee: Powerful leaders are human, and that's where storytelling with the emotion. As long as you can gauge if you're telling the the story from a place of strength, even though it's vulnerable. Or are you getting angry at somebody so? Or are you venting like? There's a lot of different reasons. But you. Your reasoning was to stand up for your team.

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Melinda Lee: and you were. You knew that. That's what they deserved. And so that is an amazing story that I learned. It's just so inspirational.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah. And so I wanted to leave off with with, what would you like the audience to take away? What is the one golden takeaway?

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Melinda Lee: If you could share one or 2 statements.

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah, I think that

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Jeffrey Yang: I think I would like them. The what I would say is.

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Jeffrey Yang: at least in my experience.

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Jeffrey Yang: finding

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Jeffrey Yang: the points of passion

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Jeffrey Yang: in your work

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Jeffrey Yang: and in your life.

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Jeffrey Yang: And it's doesn't have to be this like one driving passion that you have.

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Jeffrey Yang: But it. It can be just finding those can just like boost you so like for me. Finding that I I cared about my my building my team, and

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Jeffrey Yang: maybe not so much about the work itself, or what's getting done. But like, what about the about the development of the people on my team, or that the passion about stick sticking up for my team and

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Jeffrey Yang: feeling like I needed to fix something.

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Jeffrey Yang: yeah.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, finding those things a little burst of passion within your day to day.

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Melinda Lee: your day, our day to day can be so routine sometimes or so overwork. So where are we gonna find that boost of passion to fulfill our hearts?

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Melinda Lee: And I I think that with you being at rising team with the your amazing leader, Jen. They're lovely to have you. So, and especially with you and your passion in helping people. This is a perfect alignment of the company's vision, and your skill set so, and your leadership.

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Jeffrey Yang: Yeah, it really is perfect.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, that's amazing. Well, thank you so much, Jeffrey, for your time and sharing your your unique experience. I trust that our audience and I know myself. I learned a lot, and I also trust that the audience got your golden takeaway to propel your leadership and build your teams until next time. Thank you so much for joining. I'll see you later.

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Jeffrey Yang: Thank you.

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Melinda Lee: Jeffrey.