Terri talks to Eric Quon-Lee about he was drawn to the US from Canada because of his need to go faster. Terri and Eric talk about how globalization has shaken people’s foundations making them revisit their values which can be very uncomfortable and resisting bias takes effort.
Who is Eric Quon-Lee?
Eric Quon-Lee is a seasoned cross-border management consultant currently based in San Francisco, CA with several years of management consulting experience primarily in finance, strategy and operations.
Prior to his current role, Eric worked for several leading Canadian corporations in aerospace, telecom and financial services. In his spare time, Eric is highly involved in the startup ecosystem in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as globally as a “super-connector”. Eric has a MBA from the Rotman School of Management – University of Toronto.
Show Highlights
- If Eric could wave a magic wand, he would give more people more opportunity to do what they want to do and pursue their hopes and dreams.
- Eric talks about how innovation looks different in geographic locations outside of the Silicon Valley which is good for innovation.
- Eric thinks that other geographic areas shouldn’t simply copy and paste the Silicon Valley model but should encourage people to innovate and think differently.
- Terri talks about mentoring the Ada program in Berlin, Germany and seeing what the mindsets are for those who aren’t raised in the Silicon Valley.
- Eric’s mindset drew him to Silicon Valley from Canada where he grew up. He was always drawn to the US. He wanted to go faster.
- Eric talks about an interesting tipping point and we should start to work more collaboratively
- Eric comments on how in the US, we have more of a mindset of figuring it out as we go along versus in Canada, where society is based on peace, order and government (POG) which limits speed.
- Right now in the US, people are having their mindsets and value sets challenged and we need to get people to think less about stereotypes and appreciate people as people.
- Terri asked Eric if he heard the term ‘wanta-preneur’ which is a new term for her.
- Eric’s book is Ideate Your Career and we will share a link in the show notes (see References).
- Eric thinks the only way you get better is through practice and this leads to building your risk tolerance. We limit people’s ability to do this by expecting perfection and have scare people from taking risks.
- Eric thinks that there are a lot of things that are funded in the Silicon Valley that shouldn’t be funded and perhaps we should focus on funding the really hard things.
- Terri asks Eric if we have diluted the system by investing in non-billion dollar ideas. He said no because there are multiple layers and multiple models.
- Eric talks about how patterns make us comfortable and this is where we fall down. It takes effort to break out of the patterns and resist the bias which is hard work.
- Eric comments on how our education system doesn’t teach critical thinking which is a necessary skill especially in our society today.
- We need to make it more comfortable for people to fall down and fail and learn how to get back up.
- Terri talks about how she is encouraging her son to pursue philosophy or political science in college to learn how to think which has become a valued skillset.
- Terri shares how bored her daughter was in school and how it affected her behavior and how they decided to do independent study for the rest of her 8th grade to provide more stimulating learning.
- Eric writes in his book about everyone needs capability, experience and network to be a fully functional human being.
- Eric talks about how much of the societal unrest is because people’s foundations have been shaken or cracked within globalization.
Terri’s Key Takeaway
Globalization has led to some of the societal unrest as people have lost their individual or community foundations and need to find a different way to feel stabilized in the world.
References in the Podcast
Contact
Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.
To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.