Ep. 9: Clever FM CEO Sean Li on Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Disrupting the Podcast Ecosystem
In this episode, Darren Reinke chats with Sean Li, CEO of Clever FM. Sean talks about disrupting the podcast ecosystem, overcoming imposter syndrome in the technology industry, the pursuit of lifelong learning, principles on building intentionality, and the lessons he learned leaving the security of investment banking for the uncertainty of entrepreneurship.
Clever FM is a podcast analytics company that’s helping redesign the podcast ecosystem through helping hosts share and monetize their content while providing analytical data on their listeners.
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SHOW NOTES
How Clever FM and Alumni FM are Changing the Podcast Space [1:05]
Sean’s Journey into Tech [3:50]
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome [7:39]
The Power of Being a Generalist [10:40]
Sean’s Advice on How to Better Connect the Dots [14:24]
The Power of being Curious [17:12]
How to Build Intentionality [18:42]
How to Encourage Life Long Learning [19:57]
Why You Can Learn Anything With Patience [24:56]
The Value of Daily Journaling [29:02]
The Importance of Authentic Leadership [30:55]
Managing Risk and Uncertainty [34:50]
SHOW LINKS
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Darren Reinke: Welcome to The Savage Leader Podcast, where I interview leaders from all walks of life so that you can walk away with tips to apply to your life and your career. But this isn't your traditional leadership podcast because I believe that leadership tips come from successful entrepreneurs and business executives, of course. Still, they also come from unexpected places, like Navy SEALs, successful professional athletes, sports coaches, musicians, entertainers, and more. So let's dive right into today's episode; my hope is you walk away with something tangible that you can apply immediately to your life in your career. Today's guest on the savage leader podcast is Sean Li. Sean is the co-founder of alumni FM and clever FM alumni FM helps universities launch podcasts to help engagement in greater gifting. Clever is focused on redesigning the podcast ecosystem to enable the next 20 million creators. Sean, thanks for coming on today.
Sean Li: Thanks for having me, Darren.
HOW CLEVER FM AND ALUMNI FM ARE CHANGING THE PODCAST SPACE
Darren Reinke: So I know you're really deeply involved in the podcast space. Can you talk a little bit about clever FM, and alumni FM what you guys are doing over there?
Sean Li: Yeah, absolutely. So, it all started because when I went to the MBA, there wasn't a podcast for the MBA. And I thought, you know, how hard could it be to start a podcast right to share people's stories, then, so that's kind of how things started. I've been an entrepreneur through and through. And I thought it's one of these things where I shoot first and ask for forgiveness later. Because when I tried to approach a school to buy it, I remember, I don't even know where to start, right? Like whom to ask for permission to do this. So, I launched the podcast, with a mission as a stance today to connect people through stories because I just think it's a wonderful platform for people to share their stories and then for people to hear. Because you know, it's an alumni base for a student base, there is a shared commonality, and that you guys are all part of the same school. And I think that would always encourage people to actually reach out and connect to each other versus hearing a podcast on NPR of some random person, right. And so, that's kind of the genesis of Alumni FM. As it grew over the years, it ended up the alumni department asking me to do an alumni podcast while I was graduating. And then, when I started doing research on how to do an alumni podcast, well, for Berkeley, I couldn't find any other alumni podcasts in the ecosystem, you know, any other schools. And it just hit me, I thought, you know, if I can do this for Berkeley, Haas, why can't I do this for every other business school to start, right, or every other graduate school and then move down to undergraduate. And that's ultimately how Alumni FM got started. And that's what we're building out today. With clever, it builds off of Alumni FM because, you know, we're putting all this content, but as a podcast host or realize, getting your content discovered, monetizing that content, and getting analytics and visibility of our listeners was near impossible because the ecosystem is very fragmented, from both kind of what was discussed, you know, the discovery side to the analytic side, everything everyone's trying to build, and, you know, band data solution together for this ecosystem. And part of the reason was, that I don't think anyone really engineered it from the get-go. And so, that's what we're doing with the Clever FM is redesigning the podcasting ecosystem.
Darren Reinke: I think it's interesting. I know from some of our past conversations, and all of us have careers that aren't exactly linear. And the intention we set out doesn't actually turn out the same way. I think it's interesting that I believe you said your desire to go into Berkeley Haas, for your MBA was to get into tech, but it wasn't really until you discovered podcasting that allowed you to get into technology. Can you tell me a bit about that? And how’d that play out?
GETTING INTO A CAREER IN TECHNOLOGY: SEAN’S JOURNEY
Sean Li: Yeah, yeah. So going back a little bit more in time, I keep graduating into these downturns, which not only, you know, for most people's its just bad timing because it's, you know, there's a scarcity of jobs, right. But for me, it was more. So, this is a great time to start a business because kind of the world is burning, and we're trying to build Phoenix to rise from the ashes, right. And so, I've always been an entrepreneur my entire career. And it focuses heavily on e-Commerce on online retail at a co-working space in downtown LA. So, basically physical products and physical spaces. And when the iPhone came out, back in 2007, and the following explosion of just iOS apps, you know, the app store for Google for Android and iOS, I realized this is a huge opportunity for digital products. And not in the traditional sense of, you know, writing software like Microsoft Word but you on these micro products that had huge scalability potential. And so, that's what got me interested in tech. And so, when I came to Haas, I thought, you know, that's a path I want to go down. I want to meet other potential co-founders at school to build these products. And that's actually the biggest reason why I picked Haas was, you know, it's in the Bay Area. However, once I got to Haas, I started this podcast, just to help people meet each other. But also for my second interview, I ended up interviewing these two students above me who got into investment banking. And I thought, you know, this sounds really interesting. I do have this chip on my shoulder in terms of finance and hard skills. I felt like all these years of being an entrepreneur or business owner, I've developed all these soft skills, but nothing really concrete. And so, I took the opportunity for basic support investment banking, specifically tech investment banking for the next year. After I did that, I realized I want to get back into entrepreneurship. So basically, after doing the stint in investment tech, investment banking, I realized, you know, I wanted to really fulfill my dream of going into tech and doing a tech startup. And the last thing on my mind was doing a podcast startup, honestly because in my opinion, at the time podcasting, the potential for it was more like a service business more like a cash flow business right there. I don't really quite see where the tech potential was. But it's one of those things where, as I say, you know, you don't find your passion, you kind of develop it, or you stumble into it, right? Because you keep doing something over and over until you realize, hey, I really enjoy doing this because I'm getting pretty good at doing this. And it was at that moment that I discovered that I think there's a huge future in podcasting.
Darren Reinke: Yeah, it's interesting is, you know, I found myself in a very not so linear journey. And my first foray and executive coaching were I found myself in mentorship, management advisory types of roles. And I never really knew what coaching was outside of what it meant in a sports context. And I did find myself doing things over and over again, but I didn't really know how that connected to something else that's interesting, that the podcast was almost like a Trojan horse or a backdoor for you into technology.
Sean Li: Yeah, it's interesting to say that I actually didn't think about it before this conversation that I ultimately did move into technology.
OVERCOMING IMPOSTER SYNDROME
Darren Reinke: Talk to me, I know also, and I've met a lot of people who tend to have imposter syndrome when it comes to technology. I've worked with some startups. And that was the case for some of their employees. I think you mentioned that before in terms of some potential barriers to getting to tech for you. Can you talk to me about what that was like, but also how you overcame it.
Sean Li: Most importantly, I don't think I can ever get over imposter syndrome, I'd realize that it's one of those things, it's like self-doubt, right, you have got to have a healthy amount of it, no matter what you're doing. But I think what really helped me get over the imposter syndrome, at least moving into this tech space was finding capable and competent partners, right, and really understanding my own value in this partnership, that, you know, my value is on the business side, I always been kind of like a mini hacker of sorts, where I would dabble in some programming and coding, but never really seriously getting into it. And I think having a shallow depth of knowledge and many things is great. You want to be wide and your breadth of knowledge. But without depth. That's what mostly causes this imposter syndrome because you know that you're just not an expert in this space. And so, I think the MBA really helped me realize, you don't just own up to who you are. I know I'm good at finance. I know I'm good at strategy and business development, starting business operations, you know, basically, the nuts and bolts of running a business starting and running a business. And I really just decided to lean into it, versus saying, you know, I don't have these? I don't, I'm not a programmer. I don't know how to pm or, you know, a project or anything like that. But I think that's ultimately what helped me overcome this. Granted, this is not to say that when I start to raise money and raise capital, that I don't have this fear, you know, in my head that why am I qualified to go raise capital in Silicon Valley, right? I've started eCommerce companies, I've started a co-working space. I've done nothing in the tech space. Why am I qualified to go raise money? But what's helped me overcome that is talking to other entrepreneurs. And you'll find that there are a lot of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley Who know very little about tech. Because at the end of the day, it's not about the technology, yet it's about the people that you're creating a product or service for. It's about solving their problems. And technology is just one part of it. Right? It's a tool that solves their problem. But actually, the problem itself is very human in nature.
Darren Reinke: So that's also how I kind of reason with myself and, and give myself a lot of grace, in that, you know what, Sean, you're just, you're not going to be an expert, or you're not going to know everything, and it's okay.
CAREER BENEFITS OF BEING A GENERALIST AND JACK OF ALL TRADES
Sean Li: You mentioned something interesting in terms of whether it's an inch deep and a mile wide, or the opposite of that. And something I felt like it was a bit of a detriment during the early part of my career was that I was such a generalist across so many areas, and I saw people really accelerate in their career really quickly if they were in finance are some very narrow discipline, not to say finance is a narrow discipline, but you could accelerate really quickly in some of those vocations. But over time, I've seen that people really thrive by having those broad sets of skills. And you talked about soft skills because whether you're talking about a SaaS business today, or whatever it becomes, in 10 years, the technology is going to change, you're not always going to be that subject-matter expert. But it's really having some of those broad sets of people skills and something you mentioned earlier about having the right team with you to support you that are those subject-matter experts, let me add to that I think it's all a perception issue. You know, with life, I feel like when we're young, you know, the people who really honed on one track, right? And just went really deep on one thing, let's say like investment bankers, for example, the ones that stay around, most don't, you know, they go really deep. But you had a finding that seemed appealing in the beginning because they're just on such a certain track, then we're going to talk about this, you mentioned, it brought up earlier between the uncertainty and uncertainty. And I feel like, depending on the stage of our life, and where we are, personally with our careers, sometimes we look at other people that are more certain, right? And we're like, Man, I really wish my path was like that. And I felt that before, right? The grass is always greener. But on the flip side, they get pigeonholed in something, I think similarly with consultants, right. With consulting, you can get pigeonholed in certain tracks. And it's actually a curse, like this blessing of certainty became a curse, right. Whereas, for me, at least, for my personality type, I do like a breadth of knowledge. I do like to go an inch deep, very wide. And part of the reason is I enjoy being a polymath, I enjoy being able to hold conversations on many topics and subject areas with different people. And what I've come to appreciate, and maybe this is something with age and experience, is I've come to appreciate that I'm able to connect the dots. Right, I'm kind of like the dot connector. Because I see so many different things, I'm able to put ideas together. And to me, that's what's empowering for me in terms of entrepreneurship isn't just trying to solve like band aid a problem, like what I was describing earlier with a podcast ecosystem, but really looking at how do we think about exponential change, not incremental change, in my opinion, the people that come up with exponential change, at least baseline, not about me, but I'm talking about the, you know, the biographies that I've read, and, and then people that I follow, the people that come up with exponential change are the dot connectors, they're the ones that are able to see the bigger picture about how we should, you know, just paradigm shift. Right. And so, you know, I'm not saying going down one track is bad either. We need all kinds of people to always believe in me, ever since I was a teenager that, you know, we need doctors, like my wife, right? She loves serving people, one on one, but we also need the people, the visionaries that build the hospitals and the schools. And the world needs both kinds of people.
HOW TO BETTER CONNECT THE DOTS IN REVERSE: SEAN’S ADVICE
Darren Reinke: Yes, interesting is being a dot connector doesn't always fit a job description. And I'm sure there are people that are frustrated. Yeah, right. You're a big picture visionary type thinker. There'd be two people who are looking to be that next-level thinker. Perhaps they're more of a specific function or software engineer, finance person, like any practical tips in terms of how people can better connect the dots because that's such a big value within organizations.
Sean Li: Yeah, I think this is something that's commonly quoted in that, you know, entrepreneurship intrapreneurship. You know, it's really the same thing, whether you're doing it for yourself or within an organization, but I think leaning into your skills of curiosity, or just insatiable curiosity That's what I started to lean into is, before I thought, you know, I'd love to network and meet people. And my parents always say, you know, you got to focus Sean, right, you got to, like, really focus on, you know, who you want to meet. So, that, you know, you can really get that job or get that go down this, you know, stable track. But as I got older, I realized, and this actually, this, was the catalyst for this realization was a case study from Power and Politics at Haas, as a case study on this very, very well-known venture capitalist named Heidi Roizen. I think Heidi Roizen, I'm not sure. But in the case study, she's described herself as a nucleus of her network. And her job is to meet other nuclei, right. And I'm telling the story about networking because that's really what you need to lean into. You need to lean into connecting with people, hearing ideas, talking to people about different ideas in different spaces. Because through these conversations, that's ultimately where you are able to synthesize and connect the dots, right? Because very rarely do I just kind of sit in my room, even in COVID, just come up with ideas now that it's like, a never happens, it's always because I'm having a conversation with someone, and just engaging in people. So, that's, I think, kind of the dot connectors are also the Networkers, the people, people.
Darren Reinke: I love that in terms of just leading with curiosity, just having that inherent curiosity and then applying that even in a networking context. And I think we so often find ourselves in our own echo chamber, and I'm not even gonna go into politics, that's a dangerous topic. But I think the same thing goes career-wise, where we only hang out with other technologists or other people in life sciences, or manufacturing, whatever it may be, and there's so much to be gained from people outside of our own space. And that those are typically what sparks the best ideas, I mean, for me, oftentimes, it is reading something totally random, that doesn't pertain to my day job that sparks some of the greatest ideas
THE BENEFITS OF BEING CURIOUS
Sean Li: And sometimes, you know, there are elements where, you know, there's a lot of uncertainty because it feels like you don't have a focus. But that's where I would say, you know, make sure that you're goal-oriented, but also curious, right. So, for example, I am goal-oriented in terms of solving this problem for podcasting. But in terms of how I approach and get to that solution, I'm going to be very wide and curious, about the people that I meet. And sometimes it is frustrating because you're like, Am I moving in the right direction? Am I even talking to the right people by wasting my time talking to some of these people? But I think if you have a goal in mind, you don't have to worry that you're going down this, you know, random rabbit hole and just wasting time. Oh, one thing I actually did learn from a productivity class at Haas was around intentionality. It's okay to go down rabbit holes, it's okay to go off on these tangents with intentionality. As long as you're intentional about it. The intentionality piece is huge because otherwise, and I feel like you know, I do have ADHD, do I need to go take some Ritalin or something because I can't focus. And I find that that's rarely ever the case with people, actually. It's just that they didn't set an intention that they're going to go down a rabbit hole. It's natural for people to be curious, there's nothing wrong with that. That's something I remember I struggled with before taking this class because it's this dichotomy of like, am I just being really curious and exploratory? Do I actually have ADHD? Right? Because depending on how you look at it, it's actually the same thing.
Darren Reinke: So how do you not get stuck in the rabbit hole? So, I love the idea of intentionality, and perhaps even applying some goal setting to that. But how do you not do that? I mean, I just think about searching for something on the internet, and you're an hour later, and you're like, wait, it was my original search? How do you do that? How do you stay on task and benefit from those rabbit holes, that sense of curiosity?
Sean Li: Well, it's just to ask yourself, what was the intention of this? Just to check in with yourself, it's okay to get lost. I mean, that's how great ideas and new ideas come about. And also just being kind to yourself and saying, Sure, I didn't intend to do this at the beginning. But let's make the most of it. What did I get out of it? Because I think it's much better to do that, to be curious and be exploratory than to be scrubbing through Instagram and watching Netflix, unless, you know, that's true research.
Darren Reinke: So you mentioned something as you're talking about curiosity, and I can't help but reflect on the books that are behind you cuz it's such an array of different topics, if you've done so many different things, and you describe yourself as a mini hacker.
CAREER BENEFITS OF LIFELONG LEARNING
Sean Li: I call myself a tinker once in a while. I like doing things by getting my hands dirty on some real technical topics.
Darren Reinke: So Talk to me about how you've been able to, to go from starting a successful e-commerce business, into finance, technology now into a podcast business, both from the business perspective, but also as a host, like, what's your mindset in terms of that process of lifelong learning? And what are some of the specific things that you do?
Sean Li: I can give you a very poignant example, that I think reflects my No. A buddy challenged me to start a vlog, a video blog. This is right before I started, Haas, and it was a 30-day challenge. He said, you know, shoot a vlog every single day for 30 days, right. And this is coming from a person, where sometimes, you know, again, before I went through Haas and productivity, I thought, I just lacked focus, I not only shot this vlog for 30 days straight and went for, I think, 45 days straight. And the consistency that I was able to achieve netted in incredible learnings, you know, day one was just trying to talk in front of the camera, very terrible quality, everything. By day 20, I was flying a drone, and learning drone videography, trying to up the game by day, you know, 35, I bought this gimbal to stabilize my videos, I was trying to learn color grading, you know, color correction. And I just learned so much from those 45 days. And that's a lot of time, probably five hours a day, the recording was simple as just, you know, half an hour and most and then the other four hours was editing, and learning how to edit. But I got incredible learnings from it. And so, I think throughout my life, I've done a lot of random things. It feels like and it looks like disparate things. But it ultimately comes down to are you able to assess yourself, right? And say, Sure, all these things didn't seem to make sense at the time. But life is long. This journey called life is a long journey. Are you able to be kind and accepting of yourself to say, these things happen for a reason? I just don't know it yet. But they do happen for a reason. And then the day that it all comes together. Like with this podcasting thing, I literally had an epiphany moment a year ago that was like, holy shit. All these skill sets are coming into play. Now. You know, you never know when that day is gonna come when you realize these things all tie together because everything does tie together. You know, nothing exists in isolation, right? Everything has precedent, as much as people want to accept or deny that. And I'll just give you more examples like around the podcasting stuff, love music, I DJ for a little bit for fun. And then when I was producing a podcast, we needed to insert music, and I would catch myself counting the music, you know, before I start the audio for, you know, for the conversation, and I realized like these skills come from DJing because that's where the count music, musical bars, just little things like this, where I would have never thought in a million years when I was learning how to DJ that I'd be able to use these skills, right elsewhere, is really powerful to me because I think far too quickly. We let self-doubt, and we let the imposter syndrome, negate our experiences, that, you know, we're a mess, or all the things that I did before it doesn't matter, or it's not going to add up to anything. And I felt those emotions before, for sure. But it just means you haven't gotten there yet. Or you haven't connected the dots yet to see that. These things, ultimately, they build to something.
Darren Reinke: But I love what you're saying because it really starts with that mindset of curiosity. And just following things like getting into DJing and just reading books, it opens your minds to new things. But also applying you a word you said earlier on intentionality. It's like you are applying that intentionality to learning and 45 straight days of shooting videos. It's like the compounding effect of interest applied to learning 45 days every day. Same thing with writing every day. Something I've tried to do is write every single day as you get better, but you start just churning out ideas and whatever it is to become better at filming vlogs or becoming a better writer becoming a better software engineer, whatever it may be. It's just that compounding effect but really leads with it from this place of curiosity.
LEADERSHIP BENEFITS OF PATIENCE AND BEING PATIENT
Sean Li: I do have to add, as you're saying that I realize there is this tenacity and I don't know of something that I've developed over the years or definitely no I don't believe in, you know, nature. I definitely believe in nurture. There's definitely elements of nature obviously but much more of a nurture camp guy, in that I believe you can develop anything, you can learn anything, can you just put your mind to it, the biggest hurdle obviously, is that you're gonna feel like you're learning nothing, right? It's that whole hockey stick growth, image, everything from the beginning, like the first 15 days of shooting of law, they're terrible. They're all hidden. Now, no one's gonna forget to see them again, unless you want to see it, I'll share it with your listeners, but everything's gonna be terrible, it's gonna suck, and you just kind of have to be okay with it. Again, I can't stress it enough. Because this is something I have to remind myself constantly, even though I know this message, to be kind to yourself is to give yourself grace is to be patient. Right? It's like growing a tree in the beginning is throwing a seed here, right? You got some seed stuff, he has some soil you got, make sure there's not too much sun or too little sun, and for the first couple of years might look like nothing. And then boom, it's a tree. It really made me think and made me realize that we should really look to nature for inspiration on how we should live and that things take time. You know, you plant a bamboo shoot. Now you throw in some seeds, some grass, and water. And literally, I think for the first year or something or a couple of months, there's nothing, just a little, little sprout. And then it's like, all of a sudden, overnight, it's the whole shoot. And I just can't stress enough to be patient with yourself as a leader, as an individual, that the more patient you are with yourself, the more grace you give yourself, the less stressed you'll be. And the more space that you'll have to think and synthesize your skill sets. How to change the world, whatever it is that you're trying to solve, even with conversation, difficult conversations with employees and colleagues. You know, people always say like, you just create some space and think about these things. This is why you know, meditation or exercise, you know, running, cycling, surfing is what we do is so important to is just creating space for yourself. I think in this on-demand digital world, people forget that we're just not giving ourselves enough room for anything.
Darren Reinke: Yeah, you mentioned the word patience, something I think a lot about I used to say, patience is a virtue for other people. And for a long time, I would say that what I realized is there are two types of patients: there's a patient or an impatience for action, and impatience or patients for results. And for me, it served me well for a long time in terms of being impatient for action. So, what you're talking about is basically putting in the effort or when you're trying to build relationships or trying to learn something else. But sometimes the results, the outcomes take time, and that you do have to have patience, you do have to give yourself grace because especially if you're learning something new, I think about my kids, and when they start playing a new sport or doing something different, they're super frustrated, especially with all this because he's had competence and confidence. In some other sports, baseball, soccer, you try something new, and he is frustrated superfast. Oh, horrible. And if it's like YouTubers talking about how horrible they are on, you know, in their heads, but I think so much of that is patience, especially if someone's doing something new for the first time they're learning a new task. And just having that patience and committing to the process, the intentionality whether it's 45 days or 10 days, and just commit to grow and get better over time.
Sean Li: It's interesting, you bring this up with all the whole impatience and patience. You're absolutely right. I mean, there's a place for both. I do find these days, at least with leaders. It's less so that, you know, we need more impatience to be actionable. That, you know, we're kind of just charging on all fronts on all cylinders all the time, and not giving ourselves enough space.
Darren Reinke: Absolutely. Yeah, I think just patients can also just help from a stress perspective to just having patients for, especially things you can't control because literally, almost everything is out of our control, unfortunately, or fortunately. Absolutely. That's where, like, the practice I have is just daily journaling, like you are naming the emotion. It's literally so helpful. I think I shared this with you before, but it's sometimes waking up and feeling crippled. Like, you know what, there's so many things I have to do today, I just don't feel like doing any of them. And then I'll just write that down. I'll literally just write verbatim what I just said. And then it's, like, completely off my chest. And I just go about with my day as if I didn't have that feeling. Because it is just all in our heads. How we feel, you know what we want to do? How much energy we have or don't have. I think I remember learning this from Tony Robbins' events, just going to his UPW Unleash the Power Within and being there for 12 14 to 16 hours straight, with no coffee, barely need food, just drinking a lot of water, and you have so much energy. And just proving to you that you know, energy isn't something that you have or don't have, is something that you create.
LEADERSHIP BENEFITS OF JOURNALING EVERY DAY
Darren Reinke: And if you get in the mindset to talk about journaling, and just clearing out that Tim Ferriss talks about journaling, to get rid of that mental trash and just unlock your brain because I think so much of our success or roadblocks is just our own head. And just getting out of our own way, so to speak, and I found the journaling to be helpful. At first, I talked about journaling, and it was about writing down the tasks, tasks for the day, just different things like that. But I love what you're talking about in terms of writing down a feeling, it's just like, put it out there and then put it aside, and then you can move forward.
THE BENEFITS OF AUTHENTICITY AND LEADERSHIP VALUES
Sean Li: I used to have this fear that someone would find my journal, right? When I started out, like, Man, this guy's a mess. Like, now I just own it. I don't know, I'm just real authentic. You know, you know, you talk a lot about authentic leadership and confidence. I realize it's just something you got to own, like, no one's perfect. No one is emotionless, everyone's going through something. And the more that we're honest with ourselves, and with each other, the happier we'll be, right? Because I'm not trying to hide anything from others or myself. Yes, authenticity is a great tool, both to inspire and to connect with other people. But also, as you mentioned, for yourself, just being you it's Sean being Sean. This is Darren being Darren, just feels better to live in your own skin that way. Many days, I don't like myself. Not a big fan, but it's okay. But I just, I just write it down and then continue to push forward. Overall, I will say all these things that I've learned over the years, I started with meditation back in 2016 2017. I took a class on it initially from this organization, a schoolboy organization called The Art of Living with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. And then another entrepreneur buddy introduced me to Sadhguru. He has a class called Inner Engineering and a Book Two, should I have it back there. And I just, both are amazing gurus. But Sadhguru just really resonated with me because his English is impeccable. And he communicates very clearly his ideas. But basically, all these things, you know, that ultimately led me to discover that there's nothing wrong with me. It's all about the lens that I put on every morning or throughout the day, and being able to take that lens off. And really recognizing that you have a lens on, they have blinders on. Not just for the things that you do, but for your inner self. That's causing these roadblocks. Yeah, and just taking off judgment as I will say like, all this leads to a more fulfilled me. There's this book I read recently called the courage to be disliked. Amazing book, highly recommends anyone listening to get this book, audible or Amazon. And the title sounds odd, right? The courage to be disliked. My first impression of it was, am I supposed to go out there and be disliked? Right? Is that? Is it to, like, go out of my way to be disliked? It's like, no, it has nothing to do with that. It's more so about just separating? Well, they call it separation of tasks, right? It's like, it's not your task to make everybody like you. Nor is it your task to make everyone dislike you. Your task is to just be you. And, you know, one of the huge premises of the book and Adlerian psychology as a whole, which is what it's about, is that all problems are interpersonal problems. And it took me a while to realize that's true. Because if other people don't exist to judge me, or for me to want to be judged, or you know, desire to be judged, either good or bad, I wouldn't really have any problems. And so, it's a really fascinating book, but it's again, separate from just understanding your boundaries and compartmentalizing your life. And this is actually something that goes back to one of my favorite books of all time, which is Dale Carnegie's How to Stop Worrying and Start living. My wife bought me the first edition. It's wrapped up, it should be in the classic case, actually, for protection, but she bought me the first edition of it because it is one of my favorite books. And it's and these are things that again, it's not like you learn it once you just get it. It takes constant practice, and it takes a lot of upkeep.
HOW TO MANAGE RISK & UNCERTAINTY
Darren Reinke: Switching gears a little bit. I know we talked about this a bit earlier, but I just noticed in your background, you've done a lot of bouncing to and from finance, and particularly I don't know if it's like going back to a toxic ex terms or returning to finance but just talk to me about how you just navigated it Your journey of doing very different things. I think you talked about risk and uncertainty and just how you manage that.
Sean Li: Yeah. So again, from an outsider's perspective, or even sometimes from my own perspective, I did feel like I was bouncing around. However, and maybe this is with hindsight bias. And when I say hindsight bias, meaning like I intentionally went out of my way to make sure that these dots connected, but at the time, you know, I did have this plan, I had this, I thought I had this master plan where I would get back into finance to learn financial modeling, evaluations, things that I didn't feel very comfortable with things that I thought that I would need for fundraising, you know, for if I were to start a tech startup, I probably would need to fundraise. And I need to be very confident in talking to investors about, you know, the financials, especially because I love undergraduate degrees in finance, even though I never practiced it. But I think that ultimately attributed to the chip on my shoulder, just having the finance degree, but not knowing finance. But I did have this intention that again, I would do this, to be able to fundraise. And then once I got enough of it, I thought I can walk the talk now, let me just bounce back into entrepreneurship. And throughout this journey, I actually experienced this whole variety versus certainty aspect, internally, in that going to an investment banking job, and the MBA is very secure, you're pretty much guaranteed a six-figure, not just six-figure, but you know, three to $4,000 salary, including bonus. And there's nothing uncertain about it. I mean, it's just as long as you're willing to put in the hours and do the work, you know, they'll pay you. But just making that decision to not go into banking, ultimately, to go back into entrepreneurship was this huge leap of faith into uncertainty. Even though I've been doing entrepreneurship pretty much all my life, there was still this huge leap of faith required to go back into it. And I can't really pinpoint why. If I were to think about it, it's because it's amazing how quickly we adapt as human beings. And I say that meaning, you know, I was very okay with uncertainty prior to doing investment banking. It was just a part of my life, my daily life as it is now. It's just, you know, what, I don't know if I'll make a billion dollars tomorrow, just everything will just burn to the ground in the next six months. And I'm okay with that. Because I know I'm working towards the goal. And I am very well aware that statistically, this is probably going to fail. But I'm okay with it. Because I also know, at this stage of my career, that it's going to build to something, right, I'm doing these interviews with amazing people, meeting and networking with amazing people through the podcast. I'm learning so much about tech entrepreneurship, there's no way that I can't leverage these skills that I'm learning right now because I'm putting so many hours in, just like I do with investment banking. Yet. Like I said, humans are so adaptable. And so, when I had the job in banking, he was like, this is great. I get a paycheck every two weeks, I get paid 30 grand every month, 15 grand every two weeks, it's not bad. I just have to do just this, you know, do whatever they tell me to do. I like to think of our plan of what I have to do, I've just told what to do. This is great. This type of certainty feels coming from entrepreneurship, where you have to not only execute, but you have to research, you have to figure out what to do to plan what to do, they actually have to do it, right. Versus, in corporate, sometimes, especially if you're not at the top. You know, it's just there are a lot of other people to crush on in terms of planning and figuring out what to do next. And so, I did enjoy that. I relished it, you have no idea. I always tell people that the beauty of entrepreneurship and the curse is that I never have to clock in, but I never get to clock out. And then even though banking, I never really got to clock out either. I did get to clock out, you know, on Saturdays on the weekends, sometimes, but you know, the responsibility and just the weight wasn't all on your shoulders. And it's nice. It's a nice feeling to know that you know what, if everything goes to shit, it's not your fault. Versus being your own boss. It's a different world. But again, I have overcome that fear because I just realized this is all building to something as it has been, as it always will be. It's all building towards something, whether you like it or not,
Darren Reinke: but I love that because most times yeah, it's easy to say connect those dots in reverse. Steve Jobs talked about Steve Jobs, but you're talking about just going into things with a mindset of like, this is going to pay me back one way or the other. And so, I'm going in, I'm gonna learn, I'm gonna learn through successes and learn through failures and learn through mistakes. And I think just having that mindset, I think you're more apt to actually be able to utilize those lessons down the line, versus just waiting 20 years down the line to go, Oh, I see how that experience helped me get to where I am today. Yeah, absolutely. Well, great, Sean, I appreciate it. This is a lot more philosophy than I probably thought we're gonna talk about got off the rails a little bit, but I love it. I love, this is kind of what I love to talk about and think about. And your insight was really thoughtful. And I think people will gain a lot from your tips and advice and just your own journey. So look forward to seeing a lot of success with your businesses and what comes beyond that. But thanks for being on the show today.
Sean Li: Same to you, and thank you so much for having me, Darren.
Darren Reinke: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Savage Leader Podcast. My hope is you walk away with tactics that you can apply to become a better leader in your life and in your career. If you're looking for additional insight in tactics, be sure to check out my book titled The Savage Leader 13 Principles to Become a Better Leader From The Inside Out. Also, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and I would truly appreciate it if you would leave a review and also rate the podcast. Thanks and see you in the next episode.