Speaker 1: 00:00 Hello everybody. Welcome to our podcast today to building your legacy. It is so wonderful today to have with us Dr. Grace Lee. She has an incredible story to share with us and work that she’s doing to build a legacy and assignment to start piloting gray share a little bit about who she is. Her company is called career revisionist and she’s really looking at how do you transform the lives of professional men and women, but she started her life. I think it’s those pieces early on in your life that brought you to where you are today. So if you would just share that please.

New Speaker: 02:35 Yes, absolutely. Oh wow. Where do I begin? And I guess I could begin at the height of high drama. It was when I was nine years old and at that time, like prior to that of course my, my, my mum and I were best friends. She was my main cheerleader. She was my main caregiver and I just loved her. Like she was the world to me, my mother and on my just prior, just before my ninth birthday, we were driving as a family. So I have an older brother, my dad and myself, we were, we were driving to celebrate my birthday and also to do a bunch of other things that we would love to do and we’d drive into the city. And that night my mum was driving and we got into a car accident and the car accident was a head on collision at really high speeds. And my mum passed away from that car accident. She was in the driver’s seat. My dad was on the, was the passenger and my brother and I were in the back seat and she passed away and I learned that it was a brain trauma. She had a severe brain trauma, a driver’s seat, the the other car collided on her side head on and she didn’t survive. She was in a coma for quite some time.

Speaker 2: 03:45 I don’t know exactly how long, but she didn’t survive that. To her injuries? Yes. Yeah, and myself, I was in the hospital. I never got to see her. I never got to visit her because I was bedridden. My injuries were quite severe as well. I had broken my neck and there’s two vertebrae in my neck that were dislocated and there were some fractures as well in the, in the bones there, but fortunately I didn’t injure the spinal cord, but the findings was that I was really close to becoming a quadriplegic, really close to becoming quadriplegic and depending on a respirator for the rest of my life. So that was very traumatic. My recovery was really long. I was in the hospital on a halo brace for men for months and then after that still had to wear a halo brace with that vest on for several months after that with recovery.

Speaker 2: 04:36 And it was just really tough. So that was a real, that was a life changing moment. And in that process it was kind of like this balance between getting, cutting, getting caught up back in school and also getting to know my father because although my father, we lived under the same roof as a family unit, I never knew him. Now my mother was a primary giver. She was the one that primarily interacted with my brother and I, and I never knew him. I knew he was this figure in the house, but I never knew who he was. We never had a conversation together. As strange as that was. And I thought it was normal because I was born and raised into that type of a family dynamic. So when my mom passed away, it was for the first time I had to get to know my father and it was very awkward.

Speaker 2: 05:21 It didn’t turn out as well. And a year later when I was 10 my dad remarried, he remarried. It was quite unexpected. And he had a couple of children from that new marriage. And one day, you know, this is still right before I was 11 he came into my bedroom and he said to me something like on the lines of gray site, I, my hands are full. You know, I have two young kids to take care of. I, I can’t, I don’t have the capacity any, any. The idea was that he couldn’t care for me anymore. And so he asked me to leave. And so that was what began the next years of my life of quite of aloneness and a really awkward type of homelessness where I didn’t have a place to call home and I didn’t have a place to go. So it was a lot of wandering around, a lot of trying to figure things out and being in survival mode.

Speaker 2: 06:16 Right. And when, so that was the lowest time of my life. Just the lowest time of my life. It is. I was depressed. I couldn’t see my future. I didn’t believe I had one. But most of all, it really had a hit on my self esteem. I didn’t think I was worthwhile as a human being. I didn’t think I was valuable. I thought I was unwanted and it was just, it was just rock bottom. Emotionally, spiritually is rock bottom. Until 11 I started working in a restaurant and it was for survival really. I mean, as a minor, you know, you don’t get paid a salary, there’s no benefits and working at the restaurant, but I got to meet a lot of people, customers coming in, and I was entrepreneurial at that young age. I didn’t get paid a salary, regular salary, but I learned early on that people leave tips.

Speaker 2: 07:07 So then I figured out a way that, wow, if I, if I treated my customers well and I had conversations with them, I told them stories about myself, they left me tips. So then sometimes, and so then I was able to build up my salary. Sometimes I made a dollar a day, sometimes it was $2 a day on tip money I would collect on the table. And I knew that that goes to me. I could put that in my pocket and save that up. So here I was saving a dollar or $2 here and there and I had no idea what I was saving towards. Right. Cause they didn’t have a vision. I didn’t know. I didn’t think that I had any chance of a future at all because I didn’t have the support. I didn’t have financial support. I didn’t have emotional support or moral support.

Speaker 2: 07:47 But, but I, but this was my, the purpose of my life was just collecting this, these coins. But I didn’t know why. Yeah. And then one day when I was 14 this older couple came into the restaurant and they dined in the restaurant. I served them well and they were very astute. The observed that I needed to place to stay. So when they finished their meal, they settled the bill. But they basically told me, grace, if you need a place to stay, you can come and live with us. Just like that. I never met this. Yeah. I’ve never met this couple before. Never met them before. Yeah. Yeah. So that night carrying everything I own in a backpack, I followed them home. Okay. Yeah, I took, it was risky, but I was desperate. I was desperate. I just, I didn’t know everyday was a struggle.

Speaker 2: 08:37 I didn’t know where I would be sleeping. I didn’t know where I would end up. And it was like a lot of unrest and a lot of feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere. So when they took me in, I was desperate. I followed them home and I remember walking to their house. It was, they didn’t, they weren’t driving. We walk to place, it was close to there, to that restaurant, and they led me into their room. Very humble home. All yellow on the outside would yellow panels. Right. So they led me up the scale, this narrow, carpeted staircase up to the top floor. The second story. And there was a huge bedroom that was all yellow walls, big furniture with cherry wood color. They turned to me and they go, grace, welcome home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they said, grace, welcome home. You can stay here for as long as you need.

Speaker 2: 09:26 Wow. Yeah. And that began my years of staying with them. It changed my life. They gave me a second chance, but I didn’t recognize it at first. I didn’t recognize it because I didn’t trust them.

New Speaker: 09:39 Sure. You had to learn not to trust.

New Speaker: 09:42 I did. I didn’t trust them and I, and I thought to myself, okay, this is just temporary. I don’t know when they’re going to kick me out. I don’t know when they’re going to turn to me and say, okay, you have to leave now. You’ve overstayed your welcome. I didn’t trust that this was it, so I didn’t like, I kept them at arms length. I didn’t build a relationship with them. They tried to talk to me, but I didn’t, I didn’t warm up to them and I was testing, you know, I was testing their sincerity. Yeah. As a teenager, and it took me two years until I was 16 years old.

Speaker 2: 10:16 One morning I got up and in that bedroom there’s a window that faces their backyard and the walls are really thin in that house. It was an older house. And one morning I got up to the sound of the homeowner. So the, there was a husband and wife, I woke up to the sound of the husband’s voice standing in the backyard talking to one of the neighbors. And I went to the window and I looked down at them. And his voice is one of those voices that carries, you know, really far. And I heard his voice talking to her, the neighbor, and he just sounded so sincere, just so sincere, nothing to hide. Very honest individual. And it was right then in that moment that I had my epiphany. Yeah. And I realize that this couple, they’re the real deal. They meant what they said.

Speaker 2: 11:06 And they’re genuine and they’re sincere. And you know, when I say tears of gratitude, I had tears of gratitude flowing down my face. And I knew that they meant what they said. And so in that same moment, that epiphany, I realized that I don’t want to give up on life anymore. I had given up on life when I was 10 you know, I was suicidal, I was depressed. I was feeling that there’s nothing out there for me. And so in that moment I, it was like a redemption and I said, I don’t want to give up on life anymore. I want to have a better life, but I need to be independent so I’m not going to depend on anyone. I’m responsible for the rest of my life. I realized that. And also in that moment I said, I want to have successful, I can give back to this because they’ve given me a second chance.

Speaker 2: 11:56 They give me a second chance. I don’t want to give back to them. And, and you know, with the society’s programming, you know, we’re taught at a very young age that in order to have the things that you want in your life to career that you want, you have to go to school, get good grades, and then you get a better job. So that program, right, that pre programming I was, it had a strong hold on me. So in that moment, I felt that the only way to get what I wanted was to go to school and do well in school to get a good job. Right? So I told myself, my education is my ticket to freedom. There’s no other way that I knew to be successful. So I chose education as my ticket to freedom as my way out of there to do well. So that was when I started applying myself, really started applying myself in school because I said, I learned that, well, there’s scholarships out there. If I did well in school, I could win a scholarship and that would pay for my tuition. So, you know, it was a do or die moment, do or die. It was literally life or death. If I don’t do this, no one’s going to support me and I won’t have a life. I want to have a future. So it was do or die. And I did. I got the scholarship and it paid for my entire degree.

Speaker 1: 13:11 What an amazing story. Amazing is grace is from the moment that I first met you. It had this incredibly positive, enthusiastic presence about yourself that you just put forward all the time. And I think of that because I think many times when we have a hardship or an obstacle or something comes in our way, you most won’t have the obstacles that you’ve had to deal with. Right? But we get stopped and shut down and then don’t move ahead. And you have taken that. And rather than letting it stop you, it’s like it’s the generator behind you that keeps you getting more positive and more enthusiastic. And so I treasure that and value that so much whenever I meet you because it’s something t hat you just absorb. So I think that’s part of what you bring to your clients and to what it is that you’re trying to do with the legacy that you’re wanting to leave behind. So tell me a little bit about how you got into the career revisionist business, what your dream was for that and how you work with people.

Speaker 2: 14:30 Sure. Absolutely. So fast forward a number of years from that high school epiphany. I later on earned my PhD

Speaker 1: 14:38 in neuroscience, which is not a small feat.

Speaker 2: 14:46 it took a lot out of me in terms of time, my energy know I had to be creative at coming up with financial support. I had to be competitive to get those scholarships all the way through all the way. Cause I didn’t have any anyone supporting. It was just, yeah, it was like every moment, every degree I did was a do or die moments. It was, it was urgency. I had a sense of urgency there. But here’s the other thing though, throughout my degree. So I have a bachelor’s degree, a master’s and a PhD and I did each each degree in a different university, you know, and I even, I even [inaudible].

New Speaker: 15:26 why did you do that?

New Speaker: 15:27 Yeah, it was purposeful. It was purposeful because, so after my bachelor’s degree and now I had the, I had the experience of living in a city and I had that first out of like the new city experience.

Speaker 2: 15:41 And so for my master’s degree, I wanted a new country experience. Yeah. So it was like the next level of challenge. Personal challenge. Right. So I went to the UK and that’s where I did my master’s degree. Yeah. And here’s the thing though, with every step of the way, every time I ascended the academic ladder, it was more of the default mode of what is logical. The next logical step after a bachelor’s degree. Well it’s a master’s degree. Finished my master’s degree. Oh, it’s a PHD. right. And I, and I didn’t, I didn’t have in earlier on in my career, I didn’t have a vision for what I truly wanted in my life. Because here’s the thing, in education, in the education system, formal education teaches you the historical knowledge, the technical knowledge of a subject matter of a certain subject matter, right. That you pick and it’s amazing. They give you that knowledge. They teach you in a classroom, they test you on that knowledge. And it’s what I call a certificate optimized education.

Speaker 2: 16:41 Yeah. It’s a certificate Optima, because the whole goal of the academic of the institution is they make money by having students successfully complete their programs and they get that certificate and it’s called the degree, right? The certificate you get is called the degree, or it’s called a diploma, is depends on the institution. So it’s optimized, it’s optimized for the curriculum, but it’s optimized to help students get through it so that they grant those certificates in ethical ways. They test you to say, okay, you have the knowledge, you have the tech, the historical knowledge, the technical knowledge, and then they give you the degree. Right. But so, I’ve identified during my graduate studies that there’s a huge gap in the education system that while they teach you that knowledge and they’re good at it, right? While they teach you that knowledge, they’re assuming that everybody who does well in that type of learning structure, those are the people that become successful.

Speaker 2: 17:37 Those are the people that have all the academic opportunities, right? But not everybody succeeds with that type of system. With that type of learning, with the academic environment as well. Not everyone succeeds. And it doesn’t mean that they’re not intelligent, right? It doesn’t mean that they’re not capable of learning. Right. So I had noticed that there was a gap there. And the other gap, the, the bigger one that I’m trying to adjust in my movement is that the education system, while it teaches you the knowledge, historical and technical knowledge, it doesn’t teach you how to answer the more important questions in life. Like who am I and what’s important to me. You know, and it doesn’t teach you how to take the knowledge that you’ve gained, the data, the data that you’ve collected in the four year degree. It doesn’t teach you how to organize it, how to package that knowledge and how to turn it into invaluable wisdom that you can put out there in the world.

Speaker 2: 18:32 The system doesn’t teach you that. They just concerned over you gotof your degree and now off you go make something your life. Right? Right. Yeah. And so a lot of students as, as high as educated as they are, and a PhD as you know, is the highest degree that a university can offer. Right. And so the expectation of a PhD, it was created in the 1950’s as an apprenticeship and the apprenticeship with the expectation that you, when you do a PhD that you will follow the footsteps of your mentors, right. That you will stay in academic thought and the academic track and become a faculty member. And in modern day, a tenured professor, right assumption, right. That was how it was created. The PhD program was created for that apprenticeship for people who wanted to follow in the mentors footsteps and become in the academic track.

Speaker 2: 19:24 And the assumption back then was that this was the definition of a very satisfying career. Right. And back then it would made sense because you work in that career for 20, 30, 40 years, right? Right. And you and you work hard and you earn more money and you and you retire and but now so much has changed back then in the fifties that was like the pre-industrial age, right? That was way pre information age now where the post information age, right. And so that model of the graduate size, of PhD, of the institution hasn’t changed a lot since the 50’s it’s still an apprenticeship. There’s still that expectation. So a lot of students have that stronghold on them that if they don’t use their degree, quote un quote, the way it was intended, that they feel like they have failed or wasted their time in their studies or that they aren’t applying their knowledge in some way and they only know one way of applying it. Right? So I identified these gaps in the education system and I set out to close that gap to empower professionals to be more of who they are to poke and to be equipped to answer those important questions so that they can design their future and not have success defined for them.

Speaker 1: 20:47 So, so are the people that you work with primarily PhD’s?

New Speaker: 20:53 They’re not.

New Speaker: 20:53 Ok so it’s professional people at various levels. How do people find you and how do they work with you?

New Speaker: 21:00 Yeah, they are not. I started the career revisionist. I started that mentorship during my PhD.

New Speaker: 21:06 Digitally. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Yeah,

New Speaker: 21:12 it was like peer to peer. Right? Cause I was period and I and I, and I get it because I was going through the same challenges, but I found a way, right? So it was perfect in that sense. But when I left the academic pillars, I figured that this problem is much bigger than PhD students. Yes. And PhD is a degree, but so was high school. That’s also certificate, optimize education. So was a bachelor’s degree. It’s all certificate optimized. So then I could expand that into helping professionals, men and women who want more in their careers. Right. And the way that I help them is I have, I teach them, I teach men and women how to have strong business acumen, how to have true, how to unlock their true vocational confidence.

Speaker 1: 21:56 When you say business acumen, what do you mean by that? Because there’s so many different ideas of what that is. So when you talk about business acumen, what is that for you?

Speaker 2: 22:08 Right. It, for me, it is understanding how to start and grow a business to become wildly successful. The reason why I teach that those principles is because building a career is so very much like building a business. Yes. Yeah. Very good. So if you can understand true business principles and you understand the strategies for scaling the strategies for business development and all that goes into it, because nothing in business, nothing happens before a sale is made, right? So you’re filling all the time in your career, you’re selling all the time. So that’s what I mean. I teach them these business. This is an acumen, which is all that umbrella on building and scaling a business because you apply that to building a skill in your career. It’s about teaching, it’s about treating your career as a business. Got it. And you’re growing and scaling that, right? So I teach them strong business acumen. I teach them, I teach them how to unlock their true vocational confidence and how to become a Masters of their own professional destiny. Wow. And that’s, yeah. So I work with them through these teaching and coaching programs. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:18 So to be, have a career of revisionist as you developed that, what does that really mean to you? A revisionist and mean to me when I see that it means that somehow a person’s career is being transformed into something. I’m probably very different. Am I right? Or how do you envision it?

New Speaker: 23:45 So yes, that’s part of it. It transformed into something very different. But it doesn’t mean that you change industries or you changed companies or you changed job functions. It’s just different because now you have more of the things that you want, that you have the income you want, the fulfillment you want. You’re leaving the legacy you want. So that is different. Right? But the piece that comes before that, when you, when I think about re visioning, becoming a revisionist, the piece that comes before that, and that’s the key, is that first you must realize that the status quo is a very dangerous place to be. Got it. And that’s when you become, you assume that identity of being a revisionist is when you realize that things cannot stay the same anymore. It’s dangerous place to be. And I must make the change.

Speaker 1: 24:33 So part, part of what that means to me is in today’s world, things are changing so fast. There’s so much disruption, right? That you’re in that constant, re visioning process. So in a sense, once people begin this journey, it’s a non ending journey, isn’t it?

Speaker 2: 24:56 It is a non-ending journey. But what’s really not ending is the individual investing in their personal development, right? No, you’re pivoting. It doesn’t mean that you always have to be pivoting careers, pivoting industries. So that’s a misunderstanding that I get quite often. Like I get the question though, does that mean that I had to change jobs every three years or every five years? Cause it’s such a hassle and I love my company. No, it doesn’t mean that. But the pivoting and the change and the transformation, because this whole thing, this whole journey is not an event. It’s a whole journey that would the most, it’s actually more of an inner game, an inner game than it is an outer game.

Speaker 1: 25:34 Sure.

Speaker 2: 25:34 Right? So most of the pivots and transformations happen to you as a professional, as you’re evolving and adopting. And pivoting.

Speaker 1: 25:43 So Grace, one of the goals that you have, the legacy that you want to leave is to have, is that a million transformed revisionist professionals. What does that mean and what are your biggest obstacles that you’ve had in terms of approaching that?

New Speaker: 26:03 Right, to me that goal means that there are a million people out there who are inspired by what they do, right? They have created inspired and fulfilling lives and they are masters of their destinies. They are masters of their professional destiny, of their financial destiny, of their family destiny of their social destiny. They are just, they’ve masterfully crafted the professional future that they want, right? And that, and that’s the fulfillment part of it because there’s so, there’s like, there’s satisfaction on a very deep level right? And there and there’s right, and there’s happiness and there’s joy, what they do. So a lot of, and, and also what that means. The other side of that is that you’ve heard that, you’ve heard the saying that, Oh, I want to keep work and life separate, right? No, people say that. I just want to keep, I just want to come home, leave, work at work and keep working life separate.

Speaker 2: 26:58 Right? I strongly believe that there’s no such a thing as a separate work and personal life. Everything that happens at work in your career affects your life. Whether you know it or not, it affects it. So I want to end that separation between work and life because it’s work and life. Nobody has, nobody has career problems, right? Nobody has, you know, career issues, group homes. What’s happening is these personal issues in your life or inside the inner game that are reflecting in your business and in your career. Right? Right. And so that’s what I mean is that you can, instead of separating, instead of seeing it and trying to treat it as separate entities and trying to keep them separate and spending so much time and trying to keep them separate, I want to end that separation. And so that’s also the other side of what that, what that movement, what that goal means to me. You know, inspired empowerment that you can integrate work in life rather than fight to keep them separate and hopefully the two of them don’t meet, you know, rather than have it that way, you know, integrate the two.

Speaker 1: 28:01 You know, it’s interesting you say that because it is so true. We do talk, you know, you talk about , many of the entrepreneurs go into an entrepreneur, you’re a life thinking that they’re going to be able to have their work life and then have their good life, their family life, their personal life. And in a sense it’s separate and because it’s separate, it’s a better quality of life. And I would agree with you that I think as human beings it’s very hard for us to carpet compartmentalize. And when we do, we tend to lose a part of what it is that makes us more powerful in either the professional arena or in our personal arena of life. So I think that is a really hugely valuable and I think for, corporations that is also something, a gift that you bring because I think there’s a fear as people get developed that the corporation life so to speak may be truncated in that life balance. The personal life will have a greater balance right then the , but I know from a personal standpoint I do best when I am passionate in my work then I’m passionate at home and when I’m passionate at home I have more energy at work. Right.

Speaker 2: 29:28 That’s so true. Yeah, that is so true. And you know, I’ve, I’ve worked with a lot of folks who were going through the process and in the end of it, you know, it’s, I understand that you want to have a good family life and that is separate from work life. But the thing is, if you have children at home, if you have a spouse, you know they are going to be seeing and observing what you’re doing. And if you are on fire, if you are inspired by your career, if you are a leader in your career, and if you are on purpose with purpose and you have a vision for yourself, your friends going to see that your kids are going to see that. And then you become a living example of what’s possible, right? You become right and it transforms the whole family dynamic. It does, there’s collateral effects to it. So that’s why it’s so, it’s so impossible to keep the two separate.

Speaker 1: 30:23 You know what’s interesting about that is we think of legacy as doing this right? Creating something. So for you it’s creating changing, having transformed lives a million of them. And in the process we also transform what happens at home. And I don’t think we think enough about that. It’s not an either or. One won’t probably happen without the other. And I was, I interviewed not too long ago, Marshall Goldsmith, who’s been deemed the number one leadership thinker in the world. He’s received that award three years in a row in the UK. And one of the things that he talks about is you can’t think about legacy until you have, unless you have health. So you’ve got to have taken care of yourself and you have good family relationships. Now comes legacy, what it is that you’re building and creating. And I think many times we get that order mixed up. So I appreciate that about you because you, you have them, you are respecting both. So yeah. How wonderful.

Speaker 2: 31:38 Thank you for that. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:40 Grace, you are just such an incredible contribution for all of us in terms of your story and also what it is that you’re trying to create for individuals, but also for changing the workplace. And so I thank you for that and I just thank you for your time today. You, one last question I want to ask you. What is it that you’re most grateful for in all of what you’ve done? And that has made you who you are.

Speaker 2: 32:10 I’m grateful for the opportunity to form partnerships. Okay. To me this is like a partnership economy. And although in my past, you know, the people I was related to, I didn’t have a relationship with them and things were cut off like that. And the, I mean that’s, you know, in all intensive word, we call those, you know, people you’re related to are supposed to be your family. Right. But I learned in life that family is a relationship. It doesn’t necessarily be mean there’s a blood relationship, right? Because there’s gotta be an intent when you build a relationship and it’s a meaningful relationship. Is that, and it’s a mutual relationship that is an intent and it voluntary intent. Yes. So I’ve been able to build family around me, you know, as, as my, as my life progressed, as my career progressed, I was able to build family around me. And so these individuals in my life who really challenged me, who have really supported me, although in the beginning I didn’t, I didn’t have that, those skills, and forming relationships and meaningful relationships with people I did later on. And when I built these relationships, those relationships turned out to be the most meaningful in my life, you know? And that is truly what I’m grateful for.

Speaker 1: 33:24 Thank you so much, Grace. Our time is up. I could just go on and on. We’ll have to have another podcast down the road, I think. Thank you everybody so much for listening to us today. And if you have questions or would like to get in contact with Dr. Grace Lee, please get in contact with me. Send us an email. We will be glad to connect you with Dr. Grace Lee. She has some incredible insight, so I know that you will enjoy talking with her and learning more from her as you go through building your legacy and leaving change lives behind. So thank you so much today. Grace.

Speaker 2: 34:04 Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you.