HealthyGamerGG - Navigating Toxic Jobs w/ ‪@chloeshih‬

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

In this episode, Dr. K talks with creator and former product manager Chloe Shih about her journey through the tech industry, from big names like Google and TikTok to startups that turned toxic. Chloe shares stories of office politics, burnout, cultural clashes, and what it’s like to feel both indispensable and invisible at the same time. They dive into: What “toxic” work cultures really look like on the inside How identity and self-worth can get tied to career success The challenges women face navigating male-dominated tech spaces Why leaving a prestigious job can be the healthiest choice Tools for rebuilding confidence and finding purpose after burnout This conversation unpacks the hidden costs of toxic jobs and what it takes to reclaim your mental health while navigating high-pressure industries. Dr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3Szt HG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 HealthyGamer.GG: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, chat, welcome to the Healthy Gamer Gigi podcast. I'm Dr. Al-Aunoja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist, gamer, and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in. Let's get started. So welcome to another Healthy Gamer Gigi stream.

My name is Dr. Al-O Kanoja. Just a reminder that although I'm a psychiatrist, nothing we discussed on stream today is intensive. to be taken as medical advice. Everything is for educational or entertainment purposes only. If you all have a medical concern or question, please go see a licensed professional. Hello, everyone. So a couple of quick announcements.

So today we have an awesome interview with Chloe Shee. And I think we're going to be talking about career stuff and like maybe bouncing back, maybe burnout. Who knows? How do these career conversations go? I'm never quite sure. But we'll see where it ends up. She's an awesome content creator.

We'll meet her. let us hop into the interview with Chloe. Hi, let me just get set. I've got all this stuff. Okay. So you are a creator of things on the internets. Yes, correct. Yeah, previously worked in tech as a product manager

and was making a lot of content about tech career. And then at the top of last year, got laid off and decided to try to go into content. I make a lot of content around tech career and navigating live transitions. A lot of reflections, a lot of deep questions, a lot of introspection. Yeah. I'm a lot on LinkedIn. Actually, I'm a big LinkedIn creator.

And then I was doing YouTube long form vlogs. And then in the last year, mostly on short form Instagram Reels type of thing. Okay. Okay. That's cool. Once upon a time, I did. Co-working on Twitch. So it just worked on Twitch.

You did what working? Co-working, like co-working streams. Oh, so you just work and you live stream on Twitch. Yeah, I'd be like Pomodora sessions, like 45 minutes of work. Super cool. Lofi beats, 10 minutes of chat, chat, yeah. Cool. And what, like, where can we find you?

So I know you mentioned the platforms, but like what are your, you know, if we want to find, yeah, your ads. My ads are Chloe Sheet. Chloe Dot Shee on Instagram. Chloe she got TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, some combination. And she is S-H-I-H, right? Yeah, S-H-I-H. It means shi-h. It means stone.

So I am stone. Okay, cool. So what do you want to talk about today? Anything in particular come to mind? Anything. Well, today we're talking about navigating job uncertainty, Dr. K. Okay, cool. So can I ask you about, like,

your history? Yes, of course. Okay, so can you tell us a little bit about like where you grew up and what that was like? Grew up in L.A. County, 66 area, what up? Very Asian. I just ate a lot of Asian food. Taiwanese family. Second Gen, they moved over when they were 27 and had to 26 had me as a baby.

and then I went to school in Claremont colleges and Columbia University studying first pre-med, then engineering. Nice, dude. And then I went to San Francisco for all of my tech career, started off at Google, not doing too much. And then I was like, what the hell? What is this? Went to a live streaming startup, Twitch competitor called Caffeine. So I have a lot of crossover with a lot of the Twitch streaming world. and did a lot of partnerships then.

And then that got became really toxic. Oof. And then went over to Facebook meta, Facebook at the time, Facebook groups. And then TikTok and then Discord. And then that came to January last year, layoff. Then I moved back down to L.A. I think four years, five years ago, four or five years ago. Yeah.

Okay. So you have moved around quite a bit. So you said like Google. Google, caffeine, Facebook, meta, TikTok, and Discord. Yes, I have. I have. And it sounds... And it sounds like you are, you were pre-med and what else?

Oh, it was pre-med and then engineering. Like, yeah. What kind of engineering? I was industrial engineering and operations research. Okay. So, so first question is, like what was what was the what was like growing up like because like you you seem to be like the Asian super child like you're like pre-med engineering and tech all really I was actually really dumb

I was a really dumb kid like I almost like had I be held back a year in elementary school like I was my consciousness was not there um I what does that mean um I was like I don't know I heard I was really dumb in elementary school and that the teachers were all really concerned. Like I wasn't paying attention. And then I just barely made it in my grade. I think that I, growing up, my parents were just really, really busy with their own small business. And it was me and my two younger brothers. And then we would be kind of home alone all the time. And we would just like have to figure out our food, get home ourselves, or stay at school. until we can find a way to get home.

And it was really simple. Like I think we did not have a lot of resources, nothing. It's just, yeah. It was like very simple. Like a not uncommon immigrant experience coming to the United States. Very typical of that. And then I went to college. I went to the Claremont colleges.

Private school actually paid a lot. lot. I got an insanely great grant and my parents really valued education. So they wanted me to go private to, they knew I was dumb. So they're like, you need private school for, because if you go to public school, you will not be able to study. And I'm like, damn, I hate that. I wanted to go to UCLA or something. Yeah. And I was really miserable because I did not fit in my first year. I went to Pitzer College, one of the Claremonts, and that was just not a good, like, culture fit. How so? I was, there were, like, five or eight Asians in my entire class, and then I went from, like,

66 majority Asians to I'm only one of eight or something, and that was, like, a crazy culture shock. People were extremely wealthy in private school, so I was, like, really shocked, too. And people did not care about school either. there are people who like went to college to find their partners to get married and like party. So I think that was confusing to me as someone who like thought I was supposed to go for academics. And then like the financial pressure was there of like if I don't take all my courses and do really well in premed and whatever, then it's wasting my parents' time and their investment, their bet on me.

So I was like not very, I cried a lot. I was like, wow, I'm so dumb. I can't really read this book. I fall asleep on page one. Yeah. I just tried really hard. And I think because I was not talented, I had to learn how to learn for someone who's not good at learning. What was that like?

Like, how did you do that? Brute force, like that. I just showed up to every office hour. I would sit in the front row of every class. I would force myself to ask at least one question to the professor every single time. I would just learn how to insert myself because I knew if I didn't I would not know how to retain anything and if I didn't, I just, I'm not a, I can't really read, like I'm not good at reading. So it doesn't retain for me and I need to interact with the person to teach me.

And then eventually after years, when I did like a three plus two engineering program where it's like three years in liberal arts school and then two years at an engineering institution. So that was three years in the Claremont colleges and the two years at Columbia University, which is their sister. or like partner program. When I finally got there, Columbia does not give a fuck about you as a student. Like you're on your own. It's a research institution. Then I like knew how to be on my own.

Hold on. What does that mean? They don't, what, help me understand that. Like private liberal arts, like small liberal arts school, you're in a classroom of 30 people.

Okay. The professor knows your name. And then they really focus on the academics. It's like, I'm here to teach you. But then in larger universities, because I think, yeah, you also went to Harvard and like, yeah, so you know that a lot of professors are there to do research. They don't care about the students and the quality of their lectures.

They just kind of find a lecture online. Someone else's put up the slides and they look like they're looking at the slides for the first time in their lives. They're like, oh. And then they teach on the spot. Yeah, I remember. I remember. And they would say shit like, yeah, you guys should know this theorem.

And I'm just like, what? I've never learned this before. And yeah. So I think they, a lot of professors do not care. Okay. They were not incentivized to care. So it's fine. I get it.

Interesting. Okay. So, so you did a couple of years of, it sounds like, like you started the process of sink or swim in like first grade. Uh, well,

I guess so, but I, I didn't know that was happening. Yeah. So like, and then like, so it sounds like college was challenging, like,

Oh, The later part, people were faceless and didn't care. And so that sounds really hard. What was that like for you? I blocked out, I think, most of university, to be honest. Yeah, I think I just, like, really laser focused on just surviving. And I didn't really pay attention to my emotional development. I think I just, like, wanted to get the grades and survive classes and then somehow get a job.

And then I did a lot of leadership too. I did a lot of, like, club activity, nonprofits that took a lot of time and did dance as well. But I would say I, people would characterize me as like that girl with a really big backpack running across campus. Really sweaty. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's so interesting because you're, you're talking about difficulties. And yet, you know, it's like you went to Columbia.

You did a lot of leadership. You did dance. And so you're like, you're like, you really are like a STEM liberal arts plus two years. of hard. I mean, it's, it's kind of weird how like, you know, hardcore Asian that is, not to be stereotypical, but. Yeah, I guess that's, I guess that's true. Yeah, I think I just was like, college is the most expensive thing ever.

If I don't try as hard as I can, what am I doing here? And that, um, that was always on the back of me. And then I felt I had to figure it out. Yeah. So is that, I mean, I imagine. So I was thinking about to use the word pressure to describe that. But I wonder if it was like also like normal. So I remember a lot of the pressure that I felt like felt like really normal.

It felt like this is just normal. This is just what's supposed to happen. I didn't realize how unusual it is. Or maybe it's not that unusual. But what was your experience of that like? I definitely think I was on the extreme end. Yeah. I think a lot of it was self-imposed, too.

How so? Like all the club activities, my parents did not want me to do that. Dance, of course. They didn't want me to do that. They just wanted me to study, so that was annoying. Yeah, but I had mediocre grades. I was like, eh, I was like fine. What pulled you towards all these extracurriculars and dance and stuff?

I think for dance, Oh my God. I remember now. I was a big fan of Naruto growing up. And I was like, if I wanted to be a ninja, the closest thing that's not martial arts is dance. Okay, cool. And when I first saw the body move, I was like, oh, can I do that? But actually, I wasn't going to do dance. When I did dance in Claremont, it was super toxic. So I was very scarred. And then I went to Columbia and it tried out. And then I got in. And then I said, I don't want to join dance. And then. And the president pulled me aside and was like, let me take you out and get you some boba and sushi and talk to me. Why do you not want to join dance? And then she convinced me and bribed me with some boba and sushi. We're best friends today.

But then she left and then a new person came in. That became really toxic. So I think there's this theme of leaders in every organization and part of rising and seeing me as a threat. And then I got bullied a lot in those positions of, like, power, I guess, in all of, almost in a lot of my nonprofit leadership groups and in dance, anything that became a recurring theme wherever I went, because I think I'm surprisingly outspoken,

and I will see this like policy or rule set or behavior, and then I would call it out, anything that's really jolting for people who perceive me as someone who's extremely like a cinnamon role. Yeah. That's so interesting. Can we, can I ask you some questions about that? Yeah. Go for it. Okay, because I noticed you used the word super, a phrase super toxic or toxic several times. Yeah. And I'm a little bit of like a boomer. Like I got kids, you know, I was talking to someone I got married like 15 years ago. And, and so like I hear this word being used a lot. But can you tell me like, so when you were, I think you said not, was it before dance, there was something else that you described as super toxic.

And then you said the first dance person was good, your BFF, and then their replacement was toxic. But you said something was... My Claremont dance was very toxic. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So can you tell me what that means and what that looked like? It was... I was working with these other co-founders of the dance group. And I think I dedicated a lot of, I really wanted this to be the best dance crew in all the Claremonts.

And I think there was moments of them just like yelling at me for random things or not wanting me to be a center for, you know how there's like dance choreo who gets to be center. There's direction on when practices are or creative choices for what commitment. we make, how do we do scheduling. So in that sense, toxic felt hostile in when we would discuss decisions and like there would be profanity and there would be putting you down and putting your opinions down. And then to a point where confrontations had to be made, I'm like trying to go back in time. Like it was so long ago. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to remember what happened.

I just remember invisible, completely invisible, even though I was a founding member. and then knowing that I would never want to be in that position again. And then I think for... Of being invisible or being a founding member. Well, I think so. I just didn't want to deal with that. Like I knew they had problems and they're projecting on me. And there was some sort of love triangle happening between them and this other girl dance team.

So it's like, it's not even my problem. So that was super weird. And then at Columbia, there was another girl who became president. I was VP. and she wasn't processing the paperwork and I started processing the paperwork because I was like the deadlines are here and then I submitted it and I tell the team

okay I submitted it and then I would get like a flurry of texts in capital in all caps saying why the fuck did you submit it you think you have power or something you think you're the president like blah blah blah like kind of like a power trip and then I think one of my classes

conflicted with dance practice time at only every other whatever and then she yelled at me in front of like the other board members and was like we have a we have policy and you can't you you're you're out you're out of the team and she kicked me out and then I was like okay that was so um and so aggressive and she wanted me to be her VP so it was just a lot of psycho behavior I'm just like oh my God that's crazy and then I think another parallel is I was a the next president of CU Inforums, which is Columbia University, the Institute of Management Sciences, like the pre-professional program for my major.

And the previous guy was also extremely threatened by me and would send me text, like paragraphs of all caps, like you're kind of like you're a piece of shit, like you think you know everything, blah, blah, blah, blah, like you don't know nothing, it's like your child, you're immature, like a lot of that stuff. when I try to be like, okay, we need to get this done. We need to build this. Yeah. So I think that happened a lot.

Hmm. Yeah. So that's weird. Like it sounds like people will like, like, I hate to use this word, but regularly send you walls of text that are in all caps. Use profanity. Think you're kind of like rising above your station sort of thing. Like who do you think you are?

Yes. I think that was a common theme that went into. to my career too. Because I think I was, if I had to analyze it, like, just be like, oh, what's happening there? I think I was perceived as someone who can make them look good, like a support character. And when I started to have my own opinions, then be like, whoa, whoa, stay in your lane. Like, you're not a, you're not a main character, like shut down. Yeah.

And what do you help me understand how you came to that conclusion? I think I'm an extremely loyal and trustworthy, competent person. Like, my word, I stick to my word. If I say I'm going to be there, I'm going to be there. I'm going to move mountains to be there. So I think I was always the group project person who will take care of everything at the end. Like, if I'm on your team, you know that you're going to get an A because I will stay up all night to make sure that's done. Everyone's prepared.

So I think that was a good trait. But I was just confused why I was getting bullied so much. And I think maybe that energy attracted people who were like, I can take advantage of that. And then I was extremely not discerning around like who deserves that type of support. And like I play support very well. Like I want to do everything good for this organization, whatever. Yeah. So that's that's the story in my head. Is it true? I don't know, but that's the story in my head. Is that something you'd like to dig into today?

We can if it's interesting. I feel like it's so buried. Well, I mean, we can probably go on many topics and then you can decide. So let's like get through like a couple other things. Yeah. Because I think, you know, it's so interesting. Like we had an interview last week, two weeks ago. I don't know, time is such a blur for me. But like, you know, I think sometimes we go through life attracting a certain kind of person. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And oftentimes we don't realize what signals that we're sending that will attract that kind of behavior, right? So it's really

interesting how you frame like you're a really strong support and how that may attract a certain kind of person. And then when you exhibit like non-support behavior, like you, I don't know if you, do you play video games? Sometimes, yeah. Do you play any video games that involve farm allocation like mobas? Uh, no. Okay.

So there's like resources on the map. And when you take something that isn't yours or isn't yours, because sometimes supports need resources. Like sometimes like we need to get our items too so that we can help the team win. And then sometimes the other players on the team will get really upset. And so I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense. And it does sound like you're really like, I don't know if this makes sense. But when you get, you know, mammoth text messages using a lot of profanity,

oftentimes what that, there's two options. One is that you're insufferable, which is technically an option. But I think what is much more likely, I mean, because sometimes that happens, okay? I think what is much more likely is that you're tapping into a lot of dormant emotional energy. Right? So this person has been carrying around something and then it kind of like explodes out onto you. And the response is disproportionate to the situation. Right.

Yes. Explositive. Yeah. So, so. And I'm just not hearing, you know, I mean, maybe I don't know. I don't know. It just sounds really weird. Yeah.

So weird. So yeah, let's kind of go through like some of your other like just the progression. And then we'll see what sort of feels like good to talk about or explore. Does that sound good? Yeah, I'll try to go into career when I transitioned out of that. When I was at Google and at startup, I think I still had this weird relationship with authority fakers because I was like, oh my God, I'm a little tiny young person in the world and everyone knows more than me.

But we work in tech and tech evolved so fast. We're always working with new communities, new processes, new, new, everything and so actually the senior people are not always the most up to date so then i think i think i learned that pretty quickly like sometimes people fall into these patterns of life and they don't grow beyond it and then as someone with fresh eyes you see it and you're like oh my god this is so broken but there's like this weird culture of you're not allowed to if you speak up about it like you're not in the right place of power to do that and you're you don't have that level quite yet and it's very hard to make movement happen and sometimes you stick into your lane because that is the

easiest thing to do. Yeah. So at Google, I felt like I just had no power to change anything because I was so low level. I was like extraordinarily entry level. So it's like, okay, I'm not going to grow a lot. And then when I went to the startup, I poured all of my heart into everything. That was my full identity. Like, you know, tech people, our identity is our career. If we don't have our career downright, there's nothing else going for us. Like that is, well, we live and breathe Silicon Valley success headlines and career, TC, everything. What is TC? Oh, total compensation.

Okay. We just care about how much money we made. What was the startup like? The startup was amazing in year one because we were, the whole problem that we were trying to solve is like trying to make a live streaming community that's actually positive and safe for the future of the youth. It's like, oh, a live stream at the time was very not moderated. It was 2017 and it was like awful.

and so we wanted to make a live streaming platform for gaming that we would be proud that our children are on. So it started really wholesome and then evolved into something way more mainstream after we raised. We had like our series B with Andries and Horowitz and Greylock Partners at 47 mil. And then a year to a years after that, we raised another 100 mil from 21st Century Fox. And that was when it attracted a lot of like eyeballs in the media. And it brought in probably a lot of personalities that were like, oh my God, there's money now. there's like for the money and for the fame and we had celebrities and so I think that's when culture really changed that scale from 25 people to 50 to 100 and you know it's not my place to

like determine the direction of a company I'm not C-suite but I feel I felt the problem is I gave my entire day I actually like shat blood when I was there working because I was there was so many things to do as one person like um and he didn't What? Like what? I took on, I took on, I was in the business development team. So there's like marketing, there's operations, this programming, there's content, there's flying up and down from San Francisco to L.A.

To close contracts, to work with partners, to be on set, to produce shows, to get insights reports in, to tell product this, to tell execs that, there's board meetings, and I had to turn around decks overnight. And then I had very little context. So I became someone who was, I believe, extremely dependent. Like if Chloe was on your team, you knew you would get done.

And apparently that's not, that's not the norm. And so what ended up happening was, I had a lot of execs playing like these game and throne games with each other, trying to get each other dethroned or fired so that they can rise their ranks and get more reports. Like, I don't know.

It's like a weird power play. So I know this sounds kind of weird, but how do you, what, how did you come to that conclusion? That I am dependable. No, no, no, that their Game of Thrones power play is happening. It was because people were getting fired, and then there's like little mini coups happening where people would be like talking about, oh, this person's so incompetent.

Like, they shouldn't have that role. Like, there were all these closed doors conversations and you just know who's on whose team and that if you pick the right exec, you would rise the ranks. It was just so bizarre. It wasn't a secret. Like, everyone, people were out to get each other. They were not discreet about it. And I, I think I just was too naive.

And I was like, oh, everyone's just trying to build a great company. Like, we are here to build a great startup. And then the consequence of that was being approached by all these execs to make them look really good and turn things around for them. And then I started to realize, oh, These reports conflict with each other. They're going against each other, and only one of these will win. But I'm on both teams. I'm just like, I see what's kind of happening.

I had to take, it got so bad to the point where, oh, that was probably the lowest point in my career, which is I started to shake at work and I stopped talking, I think. There are a lot of things that were happening. Let me try to remember. It's been so long. I got yelled at once upon a time. I worked really hard, okay,

and then I think promotions were coming, I hadn't got promoted in two and a half, two years. So I was the one individual contributor that moved the most company metrics for one of our North Star metrics. And then this other guy who only impacted less than 1% of the company, company metrics. I know who only worked there for six months and was a white man. He got promoted because he was like, you know, tight with some executive on the

sports side and they would talk about sports and I'm like, I don't know anything about sports. And I'd been there for years. And so when I brought it up to my manager, I was like, hey, I wanted to ask if, am I going to go for a promotion? Like, am I going to, are you going to help me get promoted in this next slide? cycle. And then it was like a tough day at the company. And she yelled at me. And she was like, I can't believe you're bringing this up, like on the phone just yelling at me. Like,

can't believe you're bringing this up. You're so selfish, so immature. Like you think, you think you're going to get promoted. Like you're about to take vacation. And how can I promote someone who's going to take vacation? I was, mind you, it's my first vacation in those two years. So, uh, and I already did all of these big projects. And so it's like 20 minutes of her railing on me. And then I was like, okay, thank you. And I turned, like, I hung up. And then I was in the phone booth. And then I went to the restroom.

I cried. I walked out. HR was there. Like the person who worked HR and I told HR, like, we were friends then too. And told her what happened. And she was like, she probably had a bad day. And I'm like, okay, cool. I'm just going to go home now and cry all my way home on my one hour,

hour and a half commute home in the rain. So that happened. Yeah, I remember that for sure. And then I tried to change teens. I got yelled out for that too. Like, like, you're not a loyal person.

I see. Okay. So what, like, tried to change teams. How do you, how do you approach that? I was in BD partnerships.

And then I was like, oh, I really love products. I want to go into product management. And I've gotten all this feedback from creators and streamers. And like, no matter how hard I sold, like internally,

I didn't say it's that loud. No matter how hard I sold, I felt that we were bottlenecked by the product. I would really love to work with designers and engineers to build that, build it for our customers, our users. But then there was not a lot of headcount for that role. And I was like, okay, let's figure out what path forward. So I finally brought it up to my manager.

You know, I don't think BD is for me. This is my second job out of college. Like, I don't know what I want yet. And then she called me a coward. She was like, she was like, you're a coward, Chloe. Like you think you only want to do things that you think you will be successful in. and you're afraid. And that's why you want to change.

And I'm like, okay, that's crazy. And then I just, I think when that happened, I was not prepared. I was really young. I just stared and she was on the floor, like spaced out, like trying to hold back tears. And then she was like, look into my eyes. What do you mean she was on the floor? Oh, so my eyes were on the floor. Oh, okay, okay.

And she was looking at me. It was like she's calling you a coward from laying down. What the fuck? Yeah, yeah. So you were looking at the floor. And then she said, look at. I was looking on the floor. Yeah.

I'm looking on the floor. She's like, look into my eyes. Look into my eyes right now. And then I like slowly have to look into her eyes. And yeah, I mean, that's what happened. And then all the shaking started happening. I was quiet. I remember I didn't talk for like a whole week.

I only spoke when spoken to just went in and out. Yeah, it was, it was tough, dude. Sounds awful. Yeah, I remember that was really hard. I think that what was the word, I ended up breaking down in the CEO's office. I had a meeting with him set up to tell him I wanted to take mental health leave. And then we went in and I just completely broke down.

And he was like, supportive. in that moment. And then I took my mental health leave and I had to do, I had to rebuild my confidence again. Because remember, like my entire identity is on my career and that's shattered into pieces.

And now I have to go find who I am outside of that because I have lost this person, this like success path, this image of what I wanted. So I went to Taiwan and I tried to get like, do the 100 rejections thing to get, regain confidence. What does that mean?

like kind of get rejected a hundred times so that you feel more confident about yourself, like just ask for random things from strangers. That's actually really hard because I'm such a dormant of a person. I'm just like, damn, I'm a people pleaser. Like, what? And then it came back. Did that help? Hold on.

Did that help? What? Did that help? I think to an extent. But I honestly think that it's a, it's an exercise. Like, it's a tool that you can. go to when you don't have something better. But I think what ultimately helps in my confidence and self-worth was like more introspection

instead of trying to do crazy things and realizing the consequences aren't that crazy. Yeah. It was more about inside than out. Yeah. I think that when it came back, I heard people were getting fired left and right, by the way. So it's like if you said something, then people got fired. People are leaving, so people are like dropping like flies. The writing was on the wall.

And I interviewed a lot at the time. And I was like, when I get my offer, I'm freaking dipping. And I finally got an offer from Facebook. And then I put in my two weeks and they didn't want me to come back in, which is kind of expected for a lot of companies these days. But it's like, oh, you pour your heart and soul into this company and then you're out. You're gone. Like they don't even want you to come in. And they heard that they were going to use me as a scapego for their culture problems and why people were leaving, like, as the report for, I don't know, the board or something.

Like, that was the rumor on the street. And so thankfully, I, well, I don't know, maybe I should have been fired so I can get severance. But I already put my two weeks in at that time. Yeah. So that was really rough. And what does that mean they were going to use you as their, culture problems? Because attrition was really bad.

So people were just leaving and I guess results are not there. And then hiring was not happening. So there was something, you know, if you're from that, what's happening with attrition rates? Like how do you explain that? I think I was the scapegoat on like, oh, because Chloe's so toxic. She's the problem. She's the one who's creating such a horrible culture for everyone.

And I was like, I've been gone for the last month. wait, I didn't even take mental health leave. I took, I used my PTO. Oh my God. I totally forgot. Yeah. So that's different. I was gone for two and a half weeks.

So they were going to blame you for all the problems of the company and why people were leaving. Yeah, yeah. That's what I heard allegedly. But I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that happened.

Can I ask, before we move on, you said your identity was in your career. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Um. I think I had one dream, you know, one dream was to make it in tech in career and make money and pay for a nice high-rise apartment and have like a tech crunch headline on myself. Can I ask more about that? I'm a bit confused. So like when did you first develop the dream of whatever? Like what, like how did this dream come to be?

That's a great question. I feel like it came in waves. I don't think I knew much about tech in college. And then it wasn't until I moved over to San Francisco and you go to parties and you read headlines. And like, oh, this old classmate of mine became a founded a startup that raised 10 million, whatever, whatever. And you're like, whoa, that's cool. That's considered the cool thing to do to be a tech founder. So you would, I would, my goal.

was I'm going to be a tech founder and does not a lot of women who are founders. So I'm going to do that. And I did a lot of leadership in college. So I was like, okay, this is so cool. I read a bunch of tech books, leadership books, business books. Yeah, that was my whole being morning to night weekends, going to networking events, working extras on Sundays, and then just trying my best to make it in tech, yeah. I think it was gradually over time. And making it in tech looked like what? How would you know that you made it? I think that's totally a hard question for every person. I think at the time, it probably was making six figures because I hadn't hit that yet. And then I wanted to be a product manager because I felt that product managers had so much power

in terms of strategic direction. Whereas when I was in BD, the company, you were support, like you couldn't do much, you had to wait for a product. So I really wanted to be at, like, I don't know, position of power. And engineers were always, always on a pedestal. So that was a path of success. But I just knew I wasn't an engineer type for software engineering. Yeah. So I think success was becoming this product manager, like short term.

Let's be this product manager, make six figures, be at a lot of, a thing company so one of the big tech companies and I've made it that was a short-term goal okay so did you feel like you had made it when you ended up at Google or meta or not Google because I was in operations and I they treated you pretty poorly like when we were at Google we kind of used this term second-class citizen if you're not in product engineering uh data science like there there wasn't engineer. I don't think they treated me directly this way, but we coordinated their schedules essentially for for interviews. And I think one of my coworkers was trying to coordinate for a Google engineer and then the Google engineer was like, well, I actually have real work to do so you can't

schedule that. And then we're like, okay, our jobs are so dumb. Like we're no one. We're no one. We are treated like nothing there. So I think that was very fascinating to witness. how different functions of each department, how the role in which they play at tech companies, how people perceive us. Like even though we studied the same, we were in the same department, I didn't functionally become an engineer.

And I went into people operations because I thought I was a people person. And then to be treated so differently and to see like my classmates rise the ranks and make 120K base salary right out of college and still complain about how little they make and I'm just sitting there like at 50 or whatever. And I was like, man, that's, that's weird.

I did not know the game. I did not understand it. Yeah. Wow. So your question is, did you think I made it? When I went to TikTok, I finally became a product manager. I've been trying to transition for two, three years at that point. One of the most gate kept careers in tech ever.

It was such a struggle. And I, I prep so hard. But once I joined that, I was like, oh, I finally on paper made it. And so I'm going to try hard here. Okay. So what was, do you want to talk a little bit about meta and Facebook and what your experience was there? Or do you want to jump to TikTok? I mean, I had a good time at meta Facebook.

I just wasn't functionally a product manager. I was in product operations to support for PM product teams. And I don't have anything interesting to say. I was on Facebook groups. It's a great. Like I really liked it there. It was just I couldn't transition into the PM role easily because internal. mobility is not an easy thing to do.

Sometimes it's easier to come from an outside company in than it is to transition inside. There's all these internal policies. There's headcount. Yeah. So when TikTok reached out, I went through the interview process. It was a real sweaty process. And then I got the offer and I was like, oh, my God. Real sweaty process.

The interviews were pretty hard. Yeah. What makes a hard interview? Well, honestly, one of them was in Chinese. Like I wrote on my resume, I was bilingual. And then like an hour before the interview, they're like, hey, are you cool at this interview being in Chinese? Because TikTok is a Chinese company, like, bite dance.

And I was like, oh. I called my dad. I'm like, dad, what is this word in Chinese? I was, I was sweating through my pits. It was, it was ridiculous. But I somehow passed and, I don't know, blocked out. So one of your interviews was in Chinese. That's wild.

Yeah. She was like, okay, she can kind of listen, like understand some English, but she'll probably speak in Chinese. So it'll be half and half. Interesting. What were the other interviews like? They were in English with mostly U.S. because I was working in trust and safety product. And a lot of them were already hired. So I like met with the senior director of trust and safety and then directors of specific verticals.

And then my potential hiring manager from China. and HR, like, yeah. Okay. So you wound up as a product manager at TikTok. And what was that like? It was crazy. I think I'm kind of known for the person who quit TikTok. I think that was like my first wave of publicity.

Like I think a lot of press article or a lot of media covered TikTok and how people were leaving. and whatever toxic culture. I think for me, the messaging I had was actually, it was a Chinese company and it was global and it had crazy hours and it just wasn't sustainable for me if I wanted a family. Like we would wake up 7 a.m. are for meetings with the UK and we had U.S. meetings throughout 10 to 6

and then when 7 p.m., 8 p.m. 9 p.m. hit. That's when meetings in China would happen. And then engineers don't start until 11 a.m. local time in China. So that's really late U.S. time. so I only have, I'd be working until midnight regularly. And then I, that was when I had started having sleep issues because I would work until I'd fall asleep. And then I wouldn't be able to fall asleep.

And then I think for me as an Asian woman, an East Asian woman, on a fully Chinese team, they didn't understand how to work with me. I had two Chinese male managers, like report, report. And like, I think there was a weird dynamic where you're very much, in your in your ranks like you don't really question authority but i am so i question authority so much and so when i'm so outspoken they get confused and they're like you can't say that i'm like i don't know why i can't say that what does that mean you question authority so much uh like they would say make this report and i'm just like why this doesn't make sense like what

this feature doesn't quite make sense like what are we doing here what are we ultimately trying to to build here. And we wouldn't have this conversation. It would be like a top down. You had to get this done, get this feature done, get spec this out. So I think that was like confusing. But I didn't process it as confusing. I was like, oh, this is, I'm just raising questions like a good old product manager

would. So I think there was like a lot of tension there. And then there are moments of there's a lot of face in, you know, Chinese culture where image is really important. Like you have to look like you know. know you're doing you know what you're talking about and so I think there was a question that when I went to a product review someone like asked me a question and I was like oh that's a really good question I don't have an answer for you but I can look into that I got feedback from one of the

male managers and he was like you can't say stuff like that you look junior and I'm just like I thought these product reviews were to help us find holes in our proposal and create conversation not to like look like we have the entire report done and review done and spec done. It's it's so it's like a it's a good system so we can catch each other and we can succeed. So I think those dynamics were like, oh, I don't fit the company culture for leadership here. This was been really fun, but I knew it wasn't long term. Mm-hmm. And that's okay.

So are so I mean it sounds. so common sense, like some of the stuff that you're saying? Like, yeah, it's so different. Like, we're, we're so westernized. It's, it's not, it's not a, it's not a Western company. Would you kind of say that, like, would you describe yourself as an idealist? Like, I'm not sure what word I'm looking for here, but I'm, I'm just sort of noticing like the, like, because I, like you said, there's, there's like a trend, right?

There's a pattern of like, there are a couple of themes that I'm sort of, picking up on. One is like junior versus senior, right? Like like power dynamics, whether we're talking about clubs, whether we're talking about entry level job at Google, there also seems to be a theme of like you are a valuable resource, but overstep. And then there's also like something about you that seems to evoke. And so this is where, I don't know how much of this is like common, right? So I've heard all kinds of mixed things about big tech in San Francisco.

So I've heard that things are incredibly toxic. I've heard things are like can be toxic. Like I've heard there's like pockets of good stuff. And so what I'm trying to understand is, you know, if I'm thinking about your journey, how much of this is like, because you kind of do present in a very, you present in a very,

huh? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, right. So there's a certain, and so I'm, and I think you've like pointed out that there's certain things that will seem to catch people off guard, right?

So you'll present in a bubbly way, but then you'll be like, hold on a second, what are we doing with this product feature? Which, by the way, I'm notorious for doing internally over here. It's like, hold on. What are we doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's interesting because the perception when I do that even here is that it's kind of

annoying for people because it's like, we've been working on this for a while and like I bring up conversation, like during a review. And so one of the most common pieces of feedback that I get is like, why are you bringing this up at the review? Why are you not bringing it up like during the process and things like? And that's just what happens here internally. But it's feedback that I think I understand. I'm like, I understand kind of what you're.

saying because I think I do that a lot too and I also get different kinds of pushback. Or it rubs people the wrong way or is somewhat inefficient or is sort of like like you're showing up at the 11th hour. Like this is the product review and I don't know if it's similar. But so I'm just trying to get a sense of like because I'm definitely detecting that there's a pattern. Yeah. Right. And so what's your understanding of or I mean we can talk a little bit about the move to Discord if you want to, but like, that's what seems to be to be the most interesting about your story.

Like, that's the theme that I'm sort of picking up on the most. Yeah. I mean, I think that is a theme that I still grapple with today. Like, I'm, I think I'll share another story. It's not like super related, but I've always been pretty bubbly, like, facing externally. I'm always been pretty expressive with my facial expressions. But then when I was more in tech in the startup period, I think I was just too, like, happy of a person. Like, I looked too happy.

And then I tried to propose and people couldn't take me seriously. And I was like, oh, okay. I wonder why. It's because I look so young. I look so, I look too naive and, like, two junior. And then I had a coworker confront me. We had a lot of, I don't know, it was like a weird dynamic where I think eventually, Eventually, he had a crush on me, but also, like, didn't want to talk to me anymore because he was, like, getting weird about it.

It was so freaking weird. Okay. It was so weird. He was like, you know, I haven't been coming to the office. And you know why, right? And I'm like, no. Like, it's like, yeah, because you've been on my mind. And I'm like, okay, the fuck.

Like, what? We don't want to go there. And then he was like, you know, I stuck up for you in front of this executive. I committed career suicide for you and I'm not doing that anymore. And I'm just like, I never asked you. You freak. So there's a lot of weird advances in the tech. I don't know.

as a girl, like, you just get some strange interactions that you don't ask for. And then he was like, maybe you don't get what you want because you're too bubbly. And you know what? In Silicon Valley, you can't be bubbly. And you're not a leader. And you need to be stone cold, like cold-hearted, whatever, to be a leader. And that's what that person is, this executive. And that's not you.

You need to change. And I'm like, fuck. And then he left, went on the cal train. Friday night at 8 p.m. and I'm crying in the phone booth. Like, I don't know. Second time we're crying in the phone booth? Yeah. What does that mean crying in the phone booth? Do you not have a cell phone? Phone booths are like meeting rooms for calls. Okay. So it's not like a phone booth on the side of the road. No, no, no. It's a meeting room. Smaller meeting room than an actual meeting room. Okay. I got you. I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, yeah. I didn't know that. I was like, wait, why is this girls in San Francisco and doesn't have a cell phone. She's having these random encounters with people in phone booths. Like, I'm so confused. Okay. So it's like the little mini meeting room. Yes, it is. It is.

It's basically like a cubicle with four walls and a door. Correct. And it has like maybe like three chairs or something. Yeah. I has one or two chairs. Okay. Usually one chair for the phone booth. Okay.

Two chairs don't get cozy. Yeah. So that was part of it. And I think it was like, grappling this identity of should I leave old Chloe and then be this like a no expression we're here for business type Chloe is is that what Silicon Valley wants me to be I just didn't know where I was I think I always struggled with that throughout my entire tech career can you tell me about other weird advances or is that like off limit um I mean yeah but I didn't feel like they're not

so one time I was working at a social club called modernist and that's like a tech founder venture capital thing where I was like doing front desk as checking in people like that's my that was my night my night shift after Facebook work and I was I went on the muni I want I finished my shift it was like 10 p.m. I go on the muni from like the sales force tower going back home to Japan town and I'm it's the end station so I'm sitting there on the muni I'm all alone I have my red hair I have red hair I had red hair then then this man comes in and out of the entire goddamn bus he sits next to me and I'm like what the fuck is happening and then he he's like oh my god you're so beautiful and I'm just like I want to

like I want to like I want to leave right now so unsafe and then I have my AirPods on and I'm like oh thank you and then I put it back on he was like um he starts talking to me he's like what what's a girl like you doing out here at 10 p.m and I'm like oh I just finished work and he was like oh where do you work at like it's so late and I'm like I didn't want to tell him so I was like I work at a restaurant, whatever. And he's like, oh, a restaurant. Like, are you a hostess? And I'm like, you what, fuck? Like, it's my side thing. I work in tech, actually. And he's like, oh, well, I work at a tech at a little company called Instagram. And I'm just like, fuck me, dude. This is so annoying. And he was like, yeah, I'm a software engineer. I make so much money.

And like, I'm just, I work on this. And I'm like, okay, cool. I work at Facebook. And then he's like, oh, what's your workplace? Let me add you. And I'm just like, no, no, please. How old is this dude? I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know how people, how old people are. Like is he like a gray beard or is he like a younger dude? No, he's older.

He was definitely older. Okay. I don't know. He was disheveled. Creeping. I don't know, dude. I would just try to like not talk to him. I was listening to my audio book.

I was on my, like, I want to learn books. And then he has me on Facebook and he sends me messages. And I'm like, and then I get, I get all. a station early because I was scared he would follow me home and then and then I like run home. I'm like I'm starting with my big ass backpack. You know, I'm just like running home. Like I hope I don't die on these streets at 11 p.m. And then the next day I got a message from him.

He's like, oh, I'm at Menlo Park. Where are you? And I'm like, I'm so scared right now. I tell my manager. And then I don't respond. He was like, ha ha, you're ghosting me now. We should go out to lunch sometime. And I'm just like on comfort.

any chat. I have screenshots. And then, um, I don't know. That was just like weird as shit. Yeah. And then we,

I eventually told my manager, I'm not coming to work. I'm too scared. How did your manager take that? Oh, he was so supportive. My manager was fantastic. I love him.

He was angry. Actually, he was like, to tell me, I'm going to go. Yeah. He was like, I'm going to protect you.

So I loved him a lot. Shout out. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I think it's like, you know, these stories are actually not that uncommon. So I know.

Unfortunately. It's interesting. I mean, I know you. I get you. And also, as as a formerly socially inept gamer who literally developed a lot of social skills by becoming a psychiatrist and formally studying the act, the, the system of human interaction. Sometimes that's what it takes. I mean, many of us are oblivious.

It's so funny because, you know, a lot of like, sometimes all, we've done work with meta and Google and YouTube and stuff. And it's, it's a lot of fun to go there and put on workshops or whatever. And it's interesting because like a lot of the, these people, unfortunately, I mean, hopefully not these people, but there are a lot of people in our broader HG community who like work at places like this, right? Or in tech, we have a bunch of like software devs like in our audience and stuff like that. And a lot of them struggle socially. And I think that there's, I've absolutely seen and we've seen kind of this track of like, I'm going to use a certain kind of making it

in tech, right? Like we all want to make it in tech. I'm going to use that as a substitute for social skills flirtation. Here's how I'm going to flirt with you. I am, I have a job at Instagram. Isn't that? Doesn't that get you all hot and bothered enough, yeah? Right? Oh. Oh.

Instagram. Yes. No, we've definitely had some friends who exhibit similar behavior and we are nervous and it takes a support system. It takes like friends calling you out. And it's scary when you're in that mindset because like, I don't know, my brothers are also a little socially in up.

So I feel like, oh, I have to help socialize them and call it out and then try to help normalize them. It's okay to be uncomfortable and awkward and yourself. Yeah. Dude, huge thank you for doing that because I think one of the challenges is that like, you know, for people like us, it's hard because we don't know how to learn, right?

Like we don't know like where do you go to practice approaching strangers and flirting with people? Like where do you like we don't know how to like, you know, so it's challenging. And not to say that it's okay that they're doing that to you, But there's also like that, like, how do we actually get that person normalized and teach them what's appropriate and not appropriate and things like that. So thank you so much for sharing that story. Yeah. Yeah, I try.

I try to call things out if I see like, whoa, dude, what the hell? That was not cool. But I try to make it a light situation because I think most people just don't know. They're like in their heads and they just don't know. And it doesn't have to be that deep. But it can be a two-way conversation. I've been surrounded. I mean, I went to engineering school.

I've been around some weird culture, but I think everyone's endearing in their own way. I'm very fascinated by my, oh my God, myself. That's such a weird thing to say, but I realize I don't have that much social anxiety when it comes to like interacting with new people. And I am just like, oh, how do I help make it, make it easier for other people to enjoy their time right now.

What's your understanding of why you don't have much social anxiety? And I think it's a super cool thing to be interested in yourself. No, because everyone tells me they have a lot of social anxiety. I think once upon a time I probably was going to an event where no one was there. But I think like what I think I enjoy every aspect of a hard social situation where like I'm not, I've always been invisible, so it's maybe that's what it was. What do you mean? Maybe I always felt invisible in events, and it can't be like any worse than that,

so we're like kind of fine there. Yeah, I just think that if I go to an event alone and don't know anyone, like I was at an event last week and I didn't know anyone, it was so refreshing to be like, wow, this cool. I get a people watch. I get to see how people, like I never have, I get this perspective of like being alone in a corner and just watching having this moment of silence. It's like kind of cool. I get to look at all the food and like actually eat it. And then I get it, I don't know, you just don't have to interact. And then when I do interact, I'm like, this is so cool. And then when I interact with people,

I don't know what to say. I find a growth area in myself. Like I met this politician over the weekend. And he was like, do you want to get into politics? I'm just like, no. And that's all this conversation. And I was like, wow, I have nothing to say. It was just like a moment of, oh, you know, I'm not, I'm not, I don't know everything. Pretty Chad move right there. Yeah, like, I don't know. I'm not mature. I said I'm not mature enough yet, but one day, one day, yeah.

What does that mean? What, you're not mature enough. I'm confused. I think the, what I was trying to highlight was, there was a topic that I don't quite understand and I can't engage with him. And it kind of just ended the conversation. And that is uncomfortable. and that shows, oh, I don't know anything about this topic.

So I'm just going to put that card out there so that we don't try to engage in something he doesn't want to engage with, like sports. I don't know anything about sports. I'm just going to end it right there and let it be. So for me, politics, I think I'm more of a consumer. I'm trying to learn. I grew up an immigrant family.

I don't know anything about it. And I'm just trying to be someone who can understand how that plays and where my role is, who is who, who is who, what are the policies? How does that actually affect us? I am not someone who's well-versed, and I would not take my recommendation. I'm a learning, I'm someone in the learning phase. Yeah. Cool. So do you want to finish our professional track, or you want to talk a little bit about what you're doing now or like what life is like for you? Like what would, what do you want to talk about the pattern, the themes? What do you want to focus on? I think we can go towards

the layoff since I know that job uncertainty was a high topic. Um, because yeah, TikTok was crazy. Then I joined Discord and that was amazing. They reached out. I joined the team, worked on community engagement. Um, yeah, so if you know, like forum channels, that was me. And then I worked with your Discord server actually. So, yeah, that was cool.

Um, and I then worked on creator, yay, creator revenue at Discord shop. So that was really cool. And then at the top of last year, January, it was when they announced layoffs. I actually took mental health leave right before that. So I was like, really needed a break from the back-to-back tech sprints I've been having in my career. And that was the first time I took a leave, came back. And I just knew layoff was coming. And I knew I was not in a critical department of gaming, which I knew like the direction of the company.

And then I was just braced for impact. And it happened. And that was like so scary. this one of the scariest things that I experienced my career. How did you know that layoffs were coming? This is all speculation. So I don't have any concrete evidence. But I just knew that when the pandemic hit and Discord numbers were skyrocketing and we would have to continue that, I was hired to expand beyond gaming.

So what does like more non-gaming communities look like? How do we go more in mainstream? how do we get non-streamers? And then we built foundational things for like a year. And progress to expand beyond your core is extremely slow. Like it's foundational for a reason. You don't see immediate impact on metrics. But a year is a very long time for like investors to not see any movement.

So I think if I were the founders, I'd be like, this is not really working. This was never core to what Discord was about. And I would rather be really good at one thing than really. bad at many or like average at many. And I think that's the right approach. And I, and then in one of the, I think all hands, the founders did mention like it took them a long time to admit that this was, like they were trying to, they were kind of lying to themselves that they could go and expand, but that what they were passionate about,

what they cared about, what they knew, what they understood, what their strengths were, were in these priorities. And I was, once that happened, I was like, I'm out. Like, I'm literally not on those teams. And I think I'm also at the, I was like kind of, I just wasn't super, I didn't brand myself internally. I think a lot of people criticized me because I had this public. I started making content. And that's a tricky place to be when you're trying to be professional.

And you're creating this public persona on social media, which is in the tech world at the time, not seen as professional. Like you are kind of cringe. You are less, you're taking less seriously. You're doing a weird TikTok trend. Like that's weird. And so I think it was a subject of criticism for sure. Yeah. And so I don't think I was like, I knew how to do it for myself.

I knew no more. I'm not going to pour my heart into career into one job because it's not me fully. So if that pillar falls, I have these pillars to lean on. And pillars do fall. And so how did you, so it sounded like you braced for impact, but it sounds like you started making content. When did you start making content? Okay. So you started making content and then you already got some flack at TikTok or at Discord or both for like the content that you made.

Actually, at TikTok, no one cared because they're, I don't know. Everyone was just like their own thing. They didn't really care. Plus I wasn't that, I didn't have that big of a presence. It was just starting. And I was creating product management content. and tech career, like interview prep. So it was like fine.

But it was also quite novel. They were not very involved in my personal life at all. We were very separate. Like, you know, they're China and then I'm here and doing my own thing. And it wasn't, things didn't really pick up for me until after I left TikTok. So then at Discord, Discord found me because of my LinkedIn content and YouTube. And then they're like, okay, you know how to build communities. So you can be a product lead for community engagement.

Yeah. I think I got more flack at Discord for sure. Yeah. What did that look like? Well, they never worked with someone who had a public presence. And so a lot of the social media policies were written because of me. Yeah, well, we built them together. I was like, hey, HR, I'm doing this. Is this okay? They'd be like, let me get back to you. No, it's not okay. Let me review it. Send it to me. Okay, legal is approved. blah blah so it was very constricting and process and i was very collaborative i was like oh my god

this press this media person wanted to talk to me about my thing but they actually wanted to learn about discord i was caught off guard i'm going to report it to you as fast as i can to let you know i'm transparent yeah those like random stuff like that um i have i was told like you you shouldn't be posting so i schedule my posts like i i just like leave it and schedule it and whatever. And then I was told by HR that if I post during the work day, I will be seen as someone who doesn't really work. And I'm just like, look, I have worked so much.

Like you guys don't even understand. But I think it's this playing optics that I had to be very mindful of. Yeah. I think that makes sense. I think from, you know, as someone who's been in a position, of reviewing other people's work. One of the key things that I've learned is that if you're going to do something unorthodox, what your day-to-day responsibilities are have to be impeachable.

Yes. So from the perspective of your manager, let's say that you have a job and you're like, that job falls short in some way or is anything short of perfect? And I see that you posted an hour ago when you're supposed to be at work. the problem is not that you're it's not that you're posting at work but the problem is from the perspective of the people on the other end i don't know if that's a post that you just made or like you know so it's a question mark for me i also it may not even be appropriate for me to ask you you know like so it's it's not it's as your manager it is not my it may actually be out of bounds to ask about

the things that you do outside of work yeah right so i i i i think think that that kind of stuff like that we see that I mean we also deal with that too like it kind of internally and stuff but like um you know I've just noticed this growing trend that if you if you want to do something that is like not culturally the norm yeah what people will do is if you fall short of your day job they will associate those two things correct you're just become a target and there's an easy narrative to write up um so I had it I took a lot of night shifts like the seven to 11 still Kinging and in Discord, still posting, still writing. Just to keep that up.

And so I just like had no life. I just worked, content, work, content, work. That's it. And that was, that was, that was, that was a choice I made for sure. And I had a good time. And so it was a struggle. What was the layoff? Like you said, you braced for the layoff.

You kind of knew it was coming. Okay. And what was that like? How did you manage that? I actually went. viral for it because I recorded my reaction. And unfortunately, it was that same week that the Cloudflare girl, do you know that about that time? So this employee at Cloudflare got, I think, wrong for, it's very, I'm very confused by the whole situation. So don't quote me on it. But I believe

what it was is she was there for like three months or so. And they either laid her off or fired her. And then she recorded the entire HR conversation that's 10 minutes that included the voice of the person. and calling them out on why she got laid off or fired. I'm not sure which one it was. And that became, that was like blown up. And then my video was posted either that week or the week after. So it was back to back. So mine, even though my reaction was completely neutral, it was like, oh my God,

I just got laid off. Like I didn't say it was like the bad or good. I just said that. Like, oh my God, what the heck? That was crazy. Because it was associated with her and all the press articles would link both. of ours, I got lumped into the narrative of the whole fuck big tech, big tech bad, they just want to ruin your lives. And I had the most amount of press inquiries in my inbox, like,

trying to get me to comment. And I actually thought Discord did a good job with the layoff process as good as they can. It's not an easy thing to do. So I think, you know, I didn't comment at all. I was like just trying to figure out where I was at. I did not respond to anything. And I just, there's a lot of offboarding to do, a lot of HR work to do, a lot of paperwork, a lot of figuring out your COBRA, your health insurance, making sure you have everything, say goodbye, tell everyone, tell everyone that it's you that got impacted and they reach out to you on referrals and next steps. So there's a lot to process. I remember that night when the laid off happened. I posted about it. It went, I think it, right now it's probably like 40 million views

across maybe platforms on the layoff in general. And people memed about it too. It's like it is what it is. Oh, I got retweeted into like the Elon Musk fanboy pits of hell on Twitter X. So that was awful. I think I posted about it on X slash Twitter. I don't know what it was at the time. And then it got retweeted into oblivion.

But I don't really use Twitter. So I don't, I didn't read anything. I didn't really know. I read it like for a second. and people are bashing me really hard like so much hate like oh she deserved it whatever they hated me for having blank walls

they're like wow she's so dumb she doesn't even have books in her house it was so bizarre it was so bizarre man like I did not understand it I was like come on at least if you're going to hate at least give me something good to work with like I just can't even process

yeah that was insane it got millions of views and till this day I still don't I still haven't seen the post again but people have told me like wow, that was awful. People were fighting. Do you know what Blind is, actually?

Blind is like this anonymous forum for tech workers to share their comp and complain about their companies and their managers. And I was a target of hate on Blind, which is really annoying because Blind's SEO is so good. So whenever I, like, search up my articles to link from a media kit for content stuff, I see topics of me on Blind and I'm just like, oh, fuck me. That's awful. And I do my best to not click onto it.

So for the most part, I don't click on to it. my reddits or my blind posts i'm pretty good with that but uh the the reactions are polarizing yeah a lot of people projected and kind of wrote the story about how shitty i was uh i had people from like my facebook days that when i saw they just wanted to hate on me and they would say i did nothing at facebook and i worked with her and she did this stupid happy everything and i was like bitch that's not even my job like i was asked by the abp to help with you the happy hour for the entire Facebook groups department and you're judging me because I didn't order enough food for you like I owe you like that's not my job that is a favor that I did so it's just like

all these crazy claims of people who didn't really didn't work with me trying to like have this piece of the attention I don't know what it was to be honest yeah so you know Chloe it's interesting because I mean like like I'm trying to understand this because I think you seem to to be have a strong gravitational force of hatred right so like like yeah you mean I attract it yeah right so so like like like so if we're talking and and now like so now this is where and you use this word project like they project a lot onto you so generally speaking yeah right so and I think so like what what so if you're assuming that what are the other options what else could it be?

Oh, then the problem is me, right? Isn't that the other option? Yes, that's one of the other options. Yeah. Right? So like at this point, what I'm noticing is that there's a theme in your life throughout multiple organizations, multiple colleges,

multiple companies, where people project a lot onto you. Right? Like they tend to judge you very harshly. They don't take the work that you do seriously. And so, like, you know, and I think it makes sense. I mean, the way that you've explained all of this stuff. Like, I don't think that, how can I say this?

You know, a random tech bro following you on a subway at 10 p.m. And then, like, flexing and then hitting you up and asking you inappropriate things. Like, I don't think, like, that's like tech bro. socially inept kind of behavior, right? And the stuff that you're describing doesn't sound appropriate like it's your fault at all. So, like, the way that you describe people sending you all caps text messages, like, you know, yelling profanity at you and like all this kind of stuff. Like, I don't think that that's your fault.

But if we look at it, like, you know, I don't think that's appropriate. I don't think that unless you're actually cussing them out and you're like leaving that out or something like that, or you're talking shit about them or whatever. I mean, like, so like that, so I do think that, you know, if someone is cussing you out over text message, all caps, the only way that that is arguably appropriate is if you started it, right? Like it's like, and I don't think that's what I don't, I don't get deception from you. So, so, so, but I'm like, I'm really curious because I hear this story, right? But it sounds like you've been smeared with shit over and over and over again.

You've been on the receiving end of toxicity over and over and over. again. And to be completely honest with you, like sometimes when I work with people like that, you know, there is a common variable there. It doesn't mean that they're like bad in some way. It means that they maybe are. So I've noticed you bubbly is like a good, good example, right? Like there's certain, even the pitch of your voice can be quite high. So they're like, and I think you, you have some decent like ideas about projecting something and then like somehow the way that you respond maybe like evokes. But it's clear to me that across, multiple situations and multiple people, you seem to attract some bad apples.

What's your understanding of like what's going on there? Oh, well, I will say this is just the bad part of the career. I've also met a lot of greatness and wonderful, supportive people, sponsors, leaders, mentors. So this is a bad narrative. I meet a lot of people in life. I would say I unfortunately don't think this is an uncommon story for people in my, I don't know, archetype who are like these kind-looking, like gentle-looking people

who actually grind it out and work extraordinarily viciously. we are intense about our work and rigorous and we're corporate girlies and we get shit done and we're Asian girls who who we we meet what we do what we say and we say what we do and we don't play around and we get the job done because our our identities kind of are tied to it and I think that it is unfortunate it is and yeah like it is a pattern But I would say they're all different learning. Like, I've learned about this type of person, and now I know how to discern how I engage with this type of person moving forward.

And I meet a new type of villain in my life, whatever, who honestly, maybe in their lives, they think they're doing the right thing. And we don't see eye to eye, and that's where people are different backgrounds, way of different communicating the way of our boundaries and our place of comfort, we're just different. but I think the story in my head is that it is just tough for people like me and when I share about it I do get a slew of I thought I was alone in this I thought the problem was me I thought blah blah and I'm sure you've seen that too a lot of the stories that you share

and that people who talk to you share and so I don't want it ever to make it feel like we are the problem, we are, we can engage with the problem at hand and we have to learn to see the signs. And I think that's what I, my learnings were time and time again. And I think now I'm so, so good at it that I, once I see like a sliver of toxic behavior, I like dip. I'm like, okay, I see the, I've seen this movie play. This, this is awesome. Can I ask you some more questions about the stuff? Yes. Okay. Hey, y'all, just a reminder that in addition to these awesome videos, we have a ton of tools and resources to help you grow and overcome the challenges that you face. We've got things like Dr. Kay's Guide to Mental Health, personalized coaching programs,

and things like free community events and other sorts of tools to help you no matter where you are on your mental health journey. So check out the link in the description below and back to the video. So first thing is like I love this concept of like this archetype because that that also tracks with a lot of like my experience. I think that their your experience is far from unique. So I think that there are people who are oftentimes women, oftentimes, I don't know what the word is, but like the Venn diagram of cute and you overlap. Right. So what I mean is like, like, I don't mean that as in like, oh, I work at Instagram. You have the Venn diagram.

I mean, like literally, like, if we were to describe the features, if I were to list features of cute, so you mentioned like, you know, you're small. like you have a very bright smile, the pitch of your voice, the way that you talk, the way that you even emote and respond. So when I say something, your expression of enthusiasm is not like locked in, right?

It's like it's effulgent. Like in a good way. Like I think it's very like warm and bubbly, I think is a really good word. So there's absolutely, and I've seen that kind of pattern, you know, in psychiatry, we observe all kinds of things.

And so I mean, we even notice that like, when we're working with like, you know, my female colleagues, the way that they get treated by nurses depends on their buoyancy, right? The way that they get treated by like the other female staff depends a lot on the buoyancy. Like the way that, that, and hospitals are kind of different places where like, I mean, maybe I'm wrong for saying this, but there's a ton of like, the worst toxicity that I've seen as a dude in the hospital is like nurses against doctors or doctors against nurses.

There's a whole like dynamic there. But and so maybe it's, you know, I don't, I experience it. I see and experience a different kind of toxicity being a dude in a hospital compared to a woman. But so I'm really curious about like, you know, that archetype, you know, what is this shared experience of, of women like you? I imagine they're also like dudes who like fall into this. in some way too?

Yeah. And so, like, what's your understanding of, like, what is the, like, what is the, like, what is, you use the word archetype. So can you tell me more about that? Yeah. I, I kind of bucket into this term that I call underappreciated overachievers. Okay. Yeah.

We're these, like, super high competent people who just want to do a good job and, like, prove that they're good and trustworthy. They get overlooked a lot. And then their efforts. it's just are taking for granted or they don't get rewarded and it builds this tension, this resentment, this feeling invisible, this when I finally ask for what I want after years of committing loyalty to company manager or whatever, they don't get it because this whole time they weren't even seen as someone of that much value and importance. So I feel it's a common story.

Yeah, that's what I call it. Yeah. So I love the phrase underappreciated overachiever. I think it's very, I think it encapsulates it well. I also think it's very, what's the word? So it seems super like there's a technical term in, in psychiatry called egosyntonic or ego dysentonic. So egosentonic means something that is aligned or fits with your ego. an ego dystonic is something that does not fit with your ego.

So a really good example of this is like OCD versus OCPD, so obsessive compulsive disorder, obsessive compulsive personality disorder. So when someone has OCD, they're like super OCD, but they like it and they think it's right. So they're like, like, I'm super like OCD about this, but this is the way it should be and all you all are wrong and I'm right. And OCD is usually ego dystonic where like people know that I know I shouldn't be watching. washing my hands eight times to prevent germs. Like, I don't want to do this. I just can't help it.

So the underappreciated overachiever sounds like a fantastic book title. Like, you know, so I think a lot of people will see that and it'll resonate with their egos. Like they'll be like, yeah, like I work really hard. I do a really good job and people don't appreciate me enough. You know, like I think it's a really powerful way to encapsulate what someone experiences.

And so you mentioned, like, loyalty, right? So I'm hearing that you also have a theme of working a lot. Like, we're talking seven days a week. You have, like, a second job after Facebook or meta or whatever, right? Like, at TikTok, you're starting at 7 a.m. You work through a regular U.S. work day. And then it's meetings with China. And then it's like the devs come online and you have to answer things like that.

So I'm seeing a strong. history of just a lot of hours being dumped into whatever job you have. What do you think are the other features or the archetype? Yeah. Like what else have you noticed? I think the I think a common theme is not getting credit for it. Okay. Like you are you are asked to do this. You move mountains to do it in your crazy already crazy schedule because you're a dependable person and you someone asked you for help and you're like, I will help this person because they asked. Because like, isn't that what you do? And then when it comes to the publicity about it, whether it's an internal post, whether it's at all hands, whether when there's shoutouts, when there's someone posting on LinkedIn, your name's not

on the list. And you're like, what? And it's because you're, you're not visible enough for whatever reason. You're not a PR play for them. Yeah. So what do you think it is that reduces your visibility? I remember things like make sense. Like I worked on like a big, really big product on TikTok and then on the press release, they wouldn't put my name on it because they would put the senior director's name on it. And I was like, why? He wasn't part of it at all. And he was like, the PR was like, you are just not visible enough.

Like your title is not high enough for us to put it on the article. And I'm like, that fucking sucks. But I get it, I guess, because you want. a headline for a director level and above, not an IC. So that sucked. But I think other players, like a lot of my Asian girlfriends who work in tech confide in me that their male co-workers would tag that other people who are probably in positions of more budget, more power, more a role so that they get the visibility.

And when there's less people, it's easier to see who's, you know, there's like a whole, like you know in research your first primary name secondary name that position matters tremendously so it's kind of like that and i i think it's really an optics play of like if there's less people i've done more of the work and sorry there's only so many people i can shout out um yeah so that people feel slighted but no one brings it up because it's awkward to bring up it'd be like hey how come my name's not on here yeah that's so hard because then even if you bring it up what what do you come across as, you know? One of my friends did bring it up, like on a recent big tech,

like one of the big players last year where she worked on a huge project and her name was not listed. And then they were like, sorry, we just only could put the execs on. But the ICs were posting knowing that she was the only one left out. And I'm like, wow, that's some bullshit. What's the IC? Oh, individual contributor. Okay.

So, yeah, when you're not like a manager level and above, you're just, there's no one, apparently, apparently. So another thing that I would add to the archetype based on my experience and also your story is that I think you all frequently get blamed for extra. Right. So I think that underappreciated overachievers do a lot of extra stuff. Like so this whole story about like this whatever happy hour thing that, and the one thing that you get shit. You know, people, if you do extra and that falls short because it's not a part of. of your job, people still associate that with you and then they'll blame you for that.

So that's a pattern. One of my career learnings to my girls are always, is always don't plan the happy hour. No matter what they say, don't take the meeting notes, don't plan the happy hour. They're going to ask you. They're going to be like, well, you're so good at it. You're like just so organized. You type so fast. You know all the good places.

Like you should do it. I'm like, no, fucking no. Say no to that bullshit. And let the awkwardness sit. Let the silence sit. And it's just not going to happen. And that's okay and that's not your job. You're going to be pinned for doing that.

Well said. Pinned meaning what? I mean, I think I understood you. You're going to be pinned as a happy hour coordinator. Yeah. And you're the planner. You plan the off size.

You get the swag. You have to take hours of your day to do this thing that no one appreciates you for. Yeah. And you're going to resent it. And then you'll also be known for that because you're the person who's doing it, right? So you won't be known for other things. Yeah. Love that.

Other features of the archetytes. I think people, they aren't like dicks, I would say. They aren't extremely opinionated. Like they're not, they don't have a public or, you know, public as an internal, like, on your team persona of being really hotheaded. And like, I'm right. They're usually the facilitator types, I would say. And they're like, the information gatherers are the Democratic ones. They're like, oh, let's make sure everyone's feeling like, oh, did you have your opinion shared?

Do you have your opinion shared? I think they're more of that type of role. Yeah, the hot-headed ones are like different. The hot-headed people, you think they end up benefiting from that? I think about this. How do we talk about it? I think underappreciated obfers listen. They're very good at listening and to understand what the needs are.

And then the ones that are strongly opinionated, hot-headed going in with their opinion first and then they'll be like, what do we think? I think this. Like they'll go in with their take. And then that sets the tone for the meeting. And then the first topic at hand is their opinion. I don't think that's very apparent in this archetype. Yeah, yeah.

They ask questions. So I was kind of thinking about the over-appreciated underachiever. Right? So they're way better at talking and not listening. Yeah. Right. So if we could like, they're very visible. They're not very loyal. They have a lot to learn from too. Like I have learned a lot from those. Like you do have to speak up. You do have to learn to assert yourself in your opinion. What have you learned? Yeah. I think that what I learned was I used to be more of a facilitator type. And when I became a product manager at Discord, the leadership principles are so different. Like at, at, Facebook, you are, or at least in the, I don't want to generalize company so big, but within the

teams that I was a part of, you're really, there's so many, so many variables to be on top of, you're organizing, you're facilitating, you're sharing. But then at Discord, the teams are so much smaller. And as a PM, they look towards you for a direction. And when you're asking for other people's opinion, they're like, oh, you're the one who should have the opinion. Like, we're looking to you to guide us. So I had to learn how to assert my. opinion have a strong take and be 10 steps ahead. Whereas I thought I was here to gather everyone's and find the best one. And that's not always the best way to do it given timelines resources and how people like to build trust. Like the building trust culture is very different. Yeah. I was like,

oh, that's a fascinating thing to learn. What does building trust mean? I think it depends on, yeah, the company. Like what does it mean to build trust at a large company with lots of processes, lots of stakeholders, lots of approval stamps, versus a smaller company where you're the only lead on this and you call the shots. So how do your engineers and designers know that? Whatever they're working on for the next six months, their careers are based on what you say.

How do you build confidence in that? Is it data-driven? Is it narrative-driven? Is it as simple as I can explain it in three sentences and you get it? How do they receive that information? And how do you build that trust internally to your executives? they also receive information in a different way.

So learning the culture of how things get approved and how they understand your rationale, that's how you build your team. And as a product manager, your job is to make sure this team is well resourced, well respected, and well trusted inside the company so that we can launch and have our things approved and have the support we need to execute and know that when it reaches the users, we have put everything we can to build it the way that we believe is right for them. But there's all these like internal politics that you have to sift through to make sure it gets to that end state.

Yeah. So that's the process, what I've learned at Discord. And it was really cool. It was like a new thing for me. I was not that person and it had to learn. And that made sense. Yeah. I think it's cool how it's so interesting because I mean,

I would agree like 100%. That the kind of, I think this is such a huge mistake that people make. So this concept of underappreciation. or over appreciated, if I had to distill it down to one thing, it is communicating in the language that people are receptive to. So I've never thought about it like building trust, but recognizing that in order to build trust, different people need a different type of information. So are we focused on metrics and KPIs?

Or we focused on, like you said, a simple two to three sentences, like what are the higher ups going to respond to? Or is it going to be more of like a narrative kind of like. like, you know, like so, and depending on what you default to, it may not match with what people are looking for, which in turn means that even though you're doing a lot of work, it's not viewed that way. And on the flip side, if you're like very, very numbers focused and someone else is like two to three sentence focused, you give your 15 minute presentation on numbers and then they get to talking and then like the CEO is like, does anyone else have anything to add? And then someone

steps up and offers their two or three sentences, suddenly that's the language that the CEO understands. That's what they sort of respond to. And it's such a great insight. Like I hear that over and over and over again. And especially the career-oriented coaching that we do, like this kind of stuff comes up a lot where people aren't taught this stuff. Right. They're like, oh, I have this product. This is just the way that I think. This is the way that I'm presenting it. And that doesn't necessarily land properly or well enough. So that's so fascinating. It's like kind of your job as a person inside on the product team to know, to understand, to like get the intel on how each stakeholder receives that information and then code switch and then know when to bring down the level of detail, the elevation of detail and when to speak their language and know what ticks them and know what doesn't and know what are triggered topics. Like, don't bring that up. That's how you have to move the approvals forward.

Knowing how to play and letting your engineers know that you got that in the bag, that's how they, that's your job. Like, that's how you become someone to, they want to work with. Yeah. Like, this is a product manager I can trust who has our back so I can build in peace with support. Yeah. Yeah. That was, like, fascinating.

A lot of growth. I enjoyed it. Cool. Yeah. So we've been at this for almost two hours. Anything that you want to talk more about? Any questions you have for me? Any kind of thoughts that we haven't gotten to yet?

I think the topic of when you, I think I get a lot of, hey, Chloe, I got laid off to and I don't know what to do and it's the darkest time of my life. I think that's like right. But I feel like it's a big talk about. I don't know if we can like really tackle it. I mean, I know that's what we were supposed to talk about. I just got so interested in kind of your narrative. narrative in your story. Like, um, and I think there's a lot of nuggets in there that are like really

useful. I think it just felt really human to me about, you know, just a journey of what it's like. Um, so, so when, when you did get laid off, like, how, how did you deal with that? I, I feel my experience has been so different from everyone else. It's because I did have this content option. And I think the, the, the criticism, I guess, like the feedback I've gotten was like, you're lucky you even had a fallback option, which is, okay, fair point. But a lot of people don't, right? A lot of people, their entire family depended on this salary, and then they lose that. So for me, I was so incredibly lucky to have an option and to bow out.

But that also came with, like, working in tech for almost a decade and knowing that I've lost my identity time and time again, and then knowing that I had to build this backup plan, just in case it happened again, which it did. but also I felt a lot of shame at the beginning I was like wow fuck me I'm like publicly I'm the product manager content creator and now I got laid off how shameful is that how embarrassing is that but then I just had to like own it and be like you know what this shit just happens like I think the stat was 40% of Americans get laid off at least once in their entire career and then at that time I think last year it was like 150,000 maybe over 150,000 employees in tech

just tech got laid off So chances are, you have been laid off or your friends have been laid off. And I've talked to many people who are executives, founders, hiring managers, who had to do the layoff conversations. And the process in which they have to decide who gets laid off is not always, is not targeted. Like sometimes it's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to frame it as a layoff. And I'm actually like, I hate these people and they suck. And it is an easy way for me to out. But at larger, at higher levels and larger companies,

sometimes it kind of is random. Like they will put it in a spreadsheet, put names, randomize it, like close their eyes, and then click and then this is the layoff. And you can't discriminate based on a lot of factors. And then you just have to say, this was just the unlucky choice. So I think a lot of times it's out of your control.

And then for me, I knew I had a support network. That day, I went to go see some friends and they were congratulating me. They were supporting me. they're like, this is unlocking you to do so many things. And when you have that support network telling you, giving you the thoughts and the quotes in your head to tell that you will be okay

that they believe in you, then that's what you can tell yourself when you're alone or that when I'm alone, I'd be like, I got all these, like, how can I fail when all these people really believe in me, like friends in real life support me? So I just got to go and keep it going, keep my head up. Yeah. I think the difference was I probably love.

lost my identity a lot in the past in career. And so I promised myself that wouldn't happen again. So I would say I never really cried. I never cried about the layoff. Like it didn't hit me as hard because that happened before. But I think for a lot of people who came to me and shared DMs, they spent like weeks, if not months, lying to their roommates that they're still going to work because they couldn't add them the idea that they got laid off because

that means they suck, but it's not their fault. In fact, it's the company's fault for mismanaging, mishiring, mis-hiring, I don't know, miscalculating the projections. But it is just part of this new era of work and that it's okay. You got to just let yourself process, get your support, and move on to the next. What does that mean when you say, I lost my identity a lot and you talked about crying and then you said, I wasn't going to lose my identity again and you didn't cry. Help me understand that. I'm a bit confused. Yeah, I think in the past, when things didn't work out

with my job, I think I just blamed myself, like, oh, I'm not good enough yet. That's my self-worth, because that's all I have. All I do is my job, my work, my career, like, all I care about. And then when things don't work out, I don't get the promotion. I lose, I don't get an interview. I don't get the offer. I get rejected. I have to quit or I, like, things aren't. I don't see a path forward or I get blamed by the company, but for something, then I'm like, wow,

I am an awful person. I got nothing. I have nothing. This is, this is me. But, um, just it's not that deep and not that personal of a relationship

between corporate work and your life and your worth and your value in you as a person. You're so much more than this, the statement of work, this job description. And so I had a, learn that like how do I choose on the weekends choose me versus choose this thing that if I finished by Monday then that would unblock the team whatever um if I take on this one extra

scope then I could potentially get promoted and play this game for years I think I just learned how to choose me and then it made sense in my head make sure I'd invest in my singing classes or a time with my partner or, yeah, and doing content, having this identity, like, if that fails, and I can do this. So I had to build that for myself across years. And that's why when it happened, I was like, oh, shit, that's crazy. That's wild. And then I'm like, well, it happens.

And thank goodness I have this. And I can now choose, do I want to go back to that? Do I want to do this? what a what a what a what a what a cool place in life to choose your own adventure what a privilege what a privilege is it to choose your own adventure now yeah so so that that's what i'm kind of like because i i think that you know like you're kind of saying you're in a very different situation for most people who get laid off yeah right so like for people who are not content creators you know how do you think they should deal with this like like if you

if you didn't have this, you know, what, how would you have managed? Like, and it's a kind of a silly question to even ask you because it's sort of a hypothetical, right? I think it's kind of a, yeah. And at the same time, it sounds like you've learned a lot about surviving in the corporate world and and you've worked at a lot of different places, seen a lot of different corporate cultures, been through some very interesting interview processes. Yeah. I mean, you typically, you should get severance.

I mean, you should get money and that gives you a timeline. I think the first thing is like the finances, like that freaks people out. So just make sure you crunch your numbers and know how much, how much time you actually have. And then I think the next thing is just knowing that it's not your fault. Even if you do get fired, like sometimes it doesn't work out and that you are not a fit. that company was not a fit for you and that's okay and you will find your people elsewhere. You don't need to be a fit everywhere. That'd be kind of crazy if the world worked that way too.

And there will always be another job, another company, another opportunity, but you have to go out and open that door. But, you know, I think the first is the emotional mental impact. There are, you do need a support system to surround yourself. Like, you do need to tell people. I think you have to tell people because if you're lying to people and they're like, every day they're like, oh, how's work? What's up with the work?

And you're like, oh, good today. Like, you know, just working on work. Presentation. Don't get me started. Yeah, you can't. People didn't even tell their fiance for years that they, and they like, you know, the stories of, they would just leave the house every day

for eight hours, nine hours, 10 hours, just go to a public library. and then would come back home. That's insane to me. And then their parents would deposit money into their bank account like a salary for years. Yeah. That's insane. Because I think that we need to normalize that that is not your identity.

And when you couple it that way, then you start to behave in lies and to see. And I think people do it to protect themselves and to protect their loved ones. But in the end, it only hurts everyone. like you lied to someone. In what world, if not for a surprise birthday party or a surprise, that lying is good for your relationship with someone, including yourself, and that when you say, hey, this shit happened, I'm feeling awful,

you allow the friendships, the relationships to come and help you. And that is a friendship. Not when things are going well, but when things are going poorly and they reach out and they're like, no matter what, I'm here, and whatever you need, I'm here, you need a resume review, I'm here, you need a referral, you want this introduction. I posted on LinkedIn, and when I, I was like, you know what, I just going to own my narrative.

Before people tell me I'm a failure, I'm just going to own the narrative myself. And I want to write it in the way that I want to be perceived and want to remember this. I got laid off. It sucks. That sucks. I had a great time. There was no negative feelings. And I don't know what's next.

And I would really appreciate some help. And after making that post, of course, I'm going to take that. I'm going to acknowledge I did have like tens and thousands of followers. I got so many inquiries and referrals and like, yo, if you want to work in my company, let me know. And when you ask, sometimes people will respond positively. Not everyone, but people will. And that's when you can make progress. And so like, it's okay to ask for help.

I think that's a big one. Yeah, don't do this alone. We don't have to do this alone. you know like we're inherently social creatures and yes yeah go go ahead sorry oh and as a friend to people it's a privilege to help it's a privilege for you to it's an honor too for you to be truthful with me and to let me take care of your the thing that's hurting your heart yeah that's really well said i i think i i love the so i think there's some things that you know like we said your situation is a little bit different but i think there are some things that i think are

absolutely like translatable, right? So there's some things that are specific to your situation and some things that aren't, I think telling people, it's so interesting, it's such a simple thing, but it's huge, right? So you open yourself up to receiving help, which I know is hard for a lot of people, but there's even a lot of studies that show that, so the best way to form a bond with someone is not to help them. So if you help them, they usually feel indebted. And that creates like a negative emotional valence between the do people, right? Because like the person that you helped, like they feel grateful, but they also like feel bad. So now it's like, now like one person in the relationship feels bad, which is not actually how you create a friendship. What actually works way better is receiving help. So when someone

helps you, they feel good. They're like, I did something good today. So they actually have a lot of like positive emotion associated with you. Now when you chronically ask for help when you're like someone who never reciprocates and things like that, that's a problem. But in the opening chess move, like offering help to someone or receiving help from someone is one of the best ways to form a relationship. Yeah, I agree. I also like this idea of like narrative and sort of like owning your narrative. I detect a fair amount of cognitive reframing that you've learned how to do over the years. Right. So like when we have our identity wrapped up in something, the narrative, the The reflexive cognition is I got laid off.

That means I am less worthy, right? It's not the company's fault. It's my fault because I'm not as bad. I'm not as good as the people who got to stay or whatever. And so really like sort of owning and even if they're like shortcomings or weaknesses or things like that, right? Like I don't, and owning up really where you are and admitting to yourself, I don't know what comes next.

And I think those kinds of things I think are like basically universal. helpful. Like they work on the level of cognition and the brain and stuff like that. And it doesn't surprise me that you figured that stuff out. But just to kind of say that just because your circumstances are different doesn't mean that some of the lessons that you've learned are not translatable. And I imagine that part of the reason that you're a successful content creator is because the lessons that you share are presumably helpful for people. Otherwise, I don't think they'd be watching you. And I think the really challenging one out of the way. And I think the really challenging one out of everything that you're saying is it sounds like you're very good at making

friendship. So you kind of mentioned this person back in the dance group who is like, y'all are still BFFs, right? The lady, the girl who took you out for Boba and sushi. And y'all are still. She was my bridesmaid at my wedding. Yeah. So like, like it sounds like you're really good at forming connections.

And I think one of the biggest challenges, what I would even argue is like harder to duplicate in terms of your situation is so many people are struggling. to form social connections nowadays. So content creator, like becoming a content creator may not actually be as hard as making a friend in today's world. Like, as crazy as that sounds, right? Like, you can just create an account and start streaming on your platform of choice or upload something.

But to get another human being to respond to your texts when you text them actually seems to be like a pretty big challenge. But I know that there are people like you who like figure out how to socialize, right? So there's a lot of people. It's like the world is getting split into two. And like people who like know how to form connections, instinctively form connections, and like people who are struggling. And that divide is increasing.

Yeah. So it's, you know, so, so I, I think it's, that's the one thing that I imagine people are like, because it's not just that they lost their job. I think a lot of people will lose their job and they're kind of alone. Yes. Being alone. Yes. It's true.

It's very lonely. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the one thing that I think we got to figure out maybe in the future. But yeah. I will say I think a part of it is probably because I moved so many schools and moved so many companies that I had to restart my social group over and over again. I moved L.A. and New York and then San Francisco. And San Francisco is in different pockets of the Bay Area.

Like I've always moved every year, every single year, new roommates, whatever. And I think that it's, there was like new nonprofit groups, new community service groups that I did. So I think like learning how to be in a new situation, I had to really adapt too quickly. But I would say like a lot of my life was alone. And I really enjoyed that. Yeah, deeply. I don't know. I really like being alone.

So when I went with someone else, when they leave me, I don't feel, I think I just perceive everything really like, yay. Like I'm just so blessed to have this 10 minutes with you, even if you don't talk to me later. And so every interaction is quite positive for me. Yeah. I don't feel like people owe me their time, their love, their energy. Yeah. So that's interesting. I wonder if there's like kind of an answer in there because it sounds like you have, you know, historically you've struggled with being awesome.

ostracized, bullied, things like that. But I wonder if the answer is just that, you know, you've had a lot of reps. So you've moved, like, you know, recreating. And one of the things that I notice about people who are very alone is that their circumstances are usually pretty stagnant. Now that I just sort of connected these two dots where I've rarely heard, I'm sure there are people out there because this is the internet. But generally speaking, people who are very alone are like in the same space.

for an extended period of time. I've not heard of people who are moving companies every one to two years, moving locations every couple of years, different set of roommates. So just the number of like social, the number of times you form social connections has been so astronomical. And then it also sounds like you are very active in community and nonprofit groups. Yeah, yeah.

I grew up doing a lot of community service. Yeah. So like, I mean, I think that's another huge kind of like difference, right? So what, what explains why in a world where people are, more self-absorbed ghosting more often, how are you able to maintain such healthy social

connections? And it sounds like you've been pretty socially active, even, well, I don't know if socially active, but like you've been out there, right? Like with nonprofits, community groups, different jobs, different locations, different roommates. That's interesting. Yeah, I think my, the way I network or talk to people when I go to an event is like really different. I'm I talked to very little people for a very long time. And I'd rather just do one person or two, three people and like really get to know them versus like say hi to everyone and not talk about that. And then I'm always like really curious about the other person. I'm like, I want to know more about your life.

So I think that helps with forming my understanding of this person. Yeah. So that's probably the social connection part. Yeah. And then I, but I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm very nice. I'm very kind. But I do, um, I don't tolerate gross behavior in this, in the like the superficial networky like, yo, if you're trying to get something out of me, I'm not going to, I'm not

going to like play your game. Like we're, this is not what's happening. I think I'm also extremely, this person has done something bad. and I'm going to let my peers know, my friends know my network know, that behavior is not okay. I don't stand for bad behavior, and I'm going to make that extremely clear. I'm a very kind, welcoming person,

but I have my principles and my values, and I'm going to make that abundantly clear, and I don't associate with people who do bullshit like that and who treat other people poorly. Like, we don't tolerate that here. And maybe in your world you do, I don't care. So I try to keep that stance, because I know that, I don't know,

I live in L.A. It's a very social place. Can you give me an example of what I need to do to get on your shit list? Like what are we talking about? Okay. Some people have done awful things. I think if you are. What are we talking about here? I have, there's like this really big creator or whatever who employed a friend and like textbook gaslight manager of that person, of my friend.

or actually it's not my friend like it's my friend's my friend's partner so i kind of didn't really know her and she reached out she explained to me the situation and how horribly she was treated and how like she was also yelled at and she was told she was um weak or whatever and she was just trying to leave and then they'd be like you think anyone's going to take you you think you think um we are literally the best place ever like we did you a service like you no one's ever going to take you. And I think that kind of thing does something to you when you're 23. Like you're, when you're so young and these are the first people you trust with your career. And they're supposedly friends and they supposedly have your bag. And there are many times when they say, I trust you,

trust me, we're in this together. And then all of a sudden they won 80 and they power. There's this weird power play. And that's how you're treated. That to me was there enough to be like your shit listed because you do not talk to people who work that hard for you with you and you don't step on them like that. And I'm going to let people know that that's awful. And I've had friends who work with this group and associate with them because they make a lot of money or whatever. But I call them up and I'm just like, if you're ever going to invite both of us, I'm not attending because this is what they did to our circle. And that is not, that's not appropriate. And I don't, if we allow that to happen, if we witness it, we observe it and we say, hey, this person's socially okay, then we stand for

that. You know, do you understand what you're doing here? You're letting the invisible people, can feel more invisible and I don't want to be a part of that. Do what you got to do. I don't really care, but I'm not going to judge you, but this is where my judgment is. Yeah. And I think even opening that conversation, I'm like actually really confrontational, like surprisingly confrontational as a person. So I think that's the only way to like start conversations to let people be like,

huh, well, okay, that this is where we start. This is where we talk. So that's one example. And then it became clear that they've done other. bad things that are like, I think more in the, I don't know, in territories that I can't really comment on, but people were like, damn, you were right, blah, blah, blah. So I think speaking about that is really important. I will tell you another time that I don't know if it's like, I shared this on my podcast a while back where I was in this like influencer dinner. No, actually, it was a birthday

dinner and there are lots of influences there and I was with a this is when I wasn't really big at all and they treated me horribly at that table they were just like oh why are you sitting here like we we have her own thing and I'm like this is a birthday dinner like what I I know people here I was invited by the birthday boy and then I would try to engage with them and be like hey so um hey what like what's your name my name is this oh you moved to L.A like oh where'd you move from do you like LA, well, blah. And then their entire persona was like, yeah. Oh, I'm this.

Yeah, I've been here for like two years. Yeah. No. Like, that's the entire fucking table of seven girls. I fucking love that. I love your impression. It's so good. And I was shocked.

And these are like famous people in the, you know them. You know them. I was so shocked. I never seen this mean girl behavior in my life. And I was like, you are not. who you portray to be online. I cannot believe this. I'm staring at everyone's foreheads.

Then I go through every person and they're like that. And then the only conversation they have with each other is, oh my God, do you see what they say in the group chat? Ha ha, ha, so funny. Did you take the Harry Potter quiz? What did you get? And then one of the girls, they were talking about like going to like a club later.

And then I was just trying to make any conversation. I feel such intense disgust right now. Yeah, I know. I was just like making any fucking conference. It was a two-hour sit-down, fancy-ass restaurant, $70. Like I'm eating multiple, multi-course meal at this nice-ass restaurant in downtown L.A. And then they're talking about going to the club. And I'm like, oh, you guys are going out.

This girl turned and is like, yeah, we're going to. Oh, never mind. Oh, my God. There's only seven girls at the table. I'm just like, why do people treat each other like this? This is so confusing. we are too old for this type of bullshit. On the way home, another guy, one of the guys drove me home.

And he was like, how was your dinner? And I was like, you want me to say the truth? Because I was new to the friend group. And then he was like, yeah, this is a safe space, I guess. And I was like, this is the shit that went down. And he was like, yeah, they do that. And I'm like, why are you friends with them? And he's like, you know, they're my party friends.

And I'm like, you don't need party friends. You don't need these people who treat you like dog shit. every single weekend. Like there is an abundance of people who will treat you well. Why do you do this? And like, yeah, but they have clout or whatever. Like, I don't know what it was. It's like something about this fear of being out of the group,

this fear of being alone and being ostracized and not being invited. I'm just like, you cannot live like that. That will affect your mental when you go to bed and you're alone at night and you wake up the next morning with no plans. like you cannot let yourself be a dormant of these people who will use you to be a body in this group, this picture. Like what are we doing here? Why don't we call this out?

I wasn't sure how I was going to call it out because I was new. And, you know, I just like never associated with that group again. And whenever people bring it up, I'm just like, these bitches said this and whatever, let it be known. Let it be known because there are consequences to being bad. Yeah. So anyways, that was just weird. This episode is brought to you by CarMax.

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Want to drive? CarMax. What it was weird about it. I loved it. Oh, I mean, that whole interaction was weird. I was like, that was the weirdest thing ever, whatever. No, man, I think like this is the shit people deal with nowadays. Like, the world has changed. And I don't think they thought it was weird. I think they think it's normal.

So that's what you need to call it out. Well, no, so, I mean, I think like, I can't believe I'm about to say this in their defense. So not that they think it's normal. It is normal for them. Mm-hmm. Right. So like that's the world that they live in. That's the world they live in. It's true. It's true. So and and and I, I, I know a little bit about this because I too sometimes make the content from time to time. And sometimes I get here. I see. I witness. Invited to places where there are other people who also make the content.

Yeah, the content. You know, and I think it's like what I've come to understand having worked with a lot of these people is like like honestly their world is just different. It's like, you know, there's, you know, there's. so much, like, that's just where they have to exist. Like, these people are constantly checking stuff 24 hours a day because that's what, that's what it takes, you know, like, and, and I, like, I'm, I'm with you. I'm not saying that it's good. I think this is just the trend that we're seeing. I mean, you're talking about this as like content creators. I don't think this is just content creators.

So I think that people will regularly have birthday parties where I loved how you said, looking at people's foreheads, right? Like, it's like... Yeah, forehead's everywhere. And that's... I mean, I'll go to, like, dinner somewhere and I'll see, like, a group of youngsters. You know, the youths. And the youths will be, like, just everyone's on there.

Like, literally, I was driving by a restaurant yesterday, and I saw four dudes, like, sitting at a table. And, like, literally all four of them were, like, looking at their phones. And, and, you know, so I think I'm with you. And also, it's like, that's just what things are becoming. So I don't know, it just, you know, but I loved hearing the authenticity of it. Like the emotional energy of these stories I'm loving. Like out of everything that we've talked about.

And I know it's like, oh, yeah, people are fucking dealing with uncertainty with layoffs or whatever. And yeah, it's like, like I know it's hard. But I think it's almost like this is the stuff that I think is kind of the straw that breaks the camel's back. Right. So it's like dealing with layoffs is one thing. it's an industry-wide thing it's a shit show you know like i i kind of get that i don't have i mean i've helped a lot of people get back into work and things like that we have a career coaching program which is like super solid um but i i think that what really like what is so hard

is that the people are dealing with this shit too yeah yeah right i'm sorry oh yeah and and it's kind of like it's like something's got to give here like we can't have every dimension of life be fucking us. You know, like, I agree. And I don't know what we're going to do about that, but. Yeah, I think, I think I try to, I think I grew a lot from the trauma. I think I used to be like a, I'm the victim. I have a dark story.

I have trauma and I trauma bondage. I project. I write this negative narrative. And I think in the last years, too, I've really rewritten, rewired my brain in a way where I don't see myself anymore as that victim, but as like the hero of my own life. So then how would I hero Chloe keep living so I can not, my story isn't about loss, but my story is about adventure. Like how do I switch that? There's a lot of chip on my shoulder. I worked socially and with my career professionally with a chip on my shoulder to prove something.

And that can be good for the short term. But then you get to a point where does that keep fueling you in the long term? And is that kind of healthy for your dynamic with your relationship with yourself? And it doesn't go that far. And it should become more sincere, more positive, more raw, like more pure. So that shift has happened in the line. last year and I'm so lucky to go through that growth and that journey and that excitement. And then I do recognize a lot of people are still locked into their own.

I can't succeed because of this. Like, I didn't grow with this. And I don't have these resources. I don't know the people. And that's real. That's so freaking real. So what can I do? And that's why I make a lot of career content.

What can I do to what is my role to help people in that way, the best I can and the way I know I can, the language I can, and how to do it online and in my personal life too, with my family, with my friends, with my community, how do I volunteer that time and create, just make the world a kinder place. And I can only do that in the reach I have. So I try to emulate the way I present myself publicly and privately, like as similarly as possible to treat everyone the way I wanted to be treated when I was. in tech, in content, when I'm a sister, I'm a friend and a nobody, like, where are they today?

And do I have that energy to give? And usually I do. I have a lot to get. My well is really deep. My well is so deep and I can give a lot and it's a really good time through me. Yeah. So I try. And I think you're doing amazing too. Like these streams, you've been doing this for so many years. You've broken barriers and you allow for all of these people to go on and share their thoughts in a safe space and to know that they're not alone. Like, that's hard as hell, especially for people who don't have access to that every day. Like, that's hard.

And you're still alive after all these years. Like that. That shit's hard. Maybe famous last words. But no, yeah, I appreciate the appreciation. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's interesting to hear you sort of talk about your narrative journey because I sort of sniffed that.

So the way that you talked about the early. things, right, were like very, like, victim. Like, I was bullied a lot. These people were projecting. I got these text messages. And then there's the sort of hero arc, which I think I also sort of detect. And I think that that also rubs people the wrong way, by the way. I think, like, something about you.

So the thing that that I think is, I think both of them are not 100% authentic, right? You have to make an effort to move to those cognitive spaces. Yes. You do. And so something about both of those feels, I'm not trying to be like critical and let me know if I'm about to step onto your shit list. But like I think when we do that, which is a necessary thing. So it's so interesting because the journey that you're talking is describing is almost like always what I see. So you start off with a negative conception of yourself.

And almost to come out of that, you need a you need to develop a hyper positive conception of self. I'm the victim. I'm the hero. And then the truth of the matter is like you're neither of those things. The truth of the matter is you're just you. And I got that energy from you the most when I actually heard this like story about the birthday party and like some of these other stories like where that, you know, you're not, you're not being like heroic.

You're just like, this is just me. Like this is not right. Like right. It feels like it's not like the conception of like, oh, look at me. I'm standing up for justice and down with the. arrogant creators like, oh, I was so great. I actually didn't get that at all. But there are absolutely people who will talk about that, like those experiences in those ways.

And so I think there's something. And I would encourage you to like really kind of look at that because there's something about you that people like absolutely react to. It's part of what makes us successful content creators. And it's part of what gets us repeated text messages. And also like I wonder if some of the learning. that you have are that's what was missing, right? So somewhere along the way you learned how to code switch appropriately, you learned how to communicate with people appropriately. And it's very possible that in your college years, you didn't, you hadn't, you didn't know that stuff, right? So you're

like some like naive, bright eye, bushy tail, like, oh, like we're all here, like we're doing a dance. Like, we want to win at dance. Like that's the North Star. And there's like all kinds of other people that have different kinds of things. But I don't know. I think it's like it's for anyone who has a repeated pattern of victimization. I'm not saying that you're like playing the victim. I mean, like, really people have been treating you like shit. And this is what's so hard when I work with people who have been in like abusive relationship after abusive relationship is helping them understand that this isn't your fault. And there are some signals that you're transmitting that attract abusers to you. Yes. I, I, it's like that whole, um, uh, like, you know how people

are like, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to date a cheater. I don't want to date a a cheater and they ended up dating a cheater. It's like that. Like when you really focus on that color, then that color comes to you somehow. That color becomes a possibility in your world. And I think that was a big switch for me. Like, oh, shit, I play victim. And I knew it.

I realized that. I was like, oh, I just, all I do is trauma. I talk about trauma. And there's a certain level of processing that you should do for sure. But then that energy does attract people who realize, okay, this is part of the equation now. It's part of our conversation. It's something we're going to bring up and tap into.

Yeah. So after that, then I went the whole, okay, what is the other, what is the complete opposite? How do I move towards that direction and help let me make progress? And that was a cool story to be on. Actually, actually, one of my mentors put me on the hero's journey type arc of maybe, maybe this is how you should see your next future. Like, you are not the victim here. what does it look like to be a hero?

And, yeah, people will be annoyed. But, you know, I think I am the priority right now. Like, they're not going to be responsible for my feelings. Like, I have to be responsible for my space. And that's how I've enjoyed the journey thus far. Look at me. I am the priority now. Look into my eyes.

I'm the priority. Yes. You got to, you got to. You got to help yourself. I love it. Yeah. Chloe, thank you so much for coming today. If you have last thoughts, you're welcome to share them.

But, you know, we can find you at Chloe. Yeah. Sh-I-H-H. Yeah. Yeah, S-H-I-H. Sorry, my camera's so bright right now. I don't know what is happening. The sun is happening.

Don't worry about it. We're wrapping. You're good. Oh, look at that. Oh, my God. Saved. Saved. It's fine.

It's almost as bad as my audio. problems we figured it out yeah thank you so much for having me especially you know mental health awareness month the api heritage month to talk about this topic um and go through my career and ask thoughtful questions i know that people are quite unwell these days like it's not an easy like sociopolitical climate um financial economical climate um but i i think we all do our best every day enough and actually just waking up is enough. I have really, I think I'm so now positive because I've also been around a lot of deeper mental health, like an alive type topics in my family and in my communities and my friends. And for someone to be like that in the, in the trenches,

in someone that I know, it hurts me. And I know that I, I, It doesn't take that much to, like, show up, at least for me. Like, for me, if I can just show up and then help them one more day and realize I can be one reason for them to keep going, then, oh, my God, we have a huge victory. Yeah. So I think that motivates me to keep being as expressive as I am. I chose to continue my facial expressions in life instead of being like, I think it, I like it a lot. Yeah. And I hope that it connects to someone.

And I hope that they know that. I'm seeing them. I hope that in my work, I can continue to help people at scale, like with content. But I want to find deeper ways for that impact and help people find the things that they want to adventure towards instead of feeling caged by. That is a beautiful thing to witness. Yeah, I'm really hoping for it. Yeah, I really like the way that you juxtapose not compromising who you are.

with skill acquisition, right? So there's learning to play the game. And then there's also like not compromising. Because sometimes like if you morph into someone else, like if you change that core identity, then like the skills will come with it. I need to be more ruthless. I need to be less more of a fighter and less of a lover. You know, like like.

And that's just. And so it's really interesting how you kind of talk about not compromising who you are. And at the same time still learning how to like. code switch when necessary. So that's super cool. It's always in flux. I get feedback all the time. People still like don't really know how to work with me

because I'm really confusing character in their lives. But I just try to be as up front and possible and listen and ask questions and be like, this is me, this is Lurie and Matt. And it might come off differently. How do you receive and make that a two-way street? So I think that's just how it'll always be. Thank you so much for going.

Yeah, take care. Yeah, thank you for watching everyone. and do I just exit? Yeah, I'm going to just, I'm going to fucking hang up on you in like six seconds. I'm going to change my scene and then gone, finished, defeated. All right. I'm so curious kind of what y'all thought, right? So I got like so many interesting, you know, I can see why people don't like her.

Not to say that she's a bad person by any means, but I think I got a touch. And it's so interesting because it was like more at the beginning. But like I think that there's something about, you know, so like some people are just like magnets for assholery. And and I think that there's some people that evoke within us, like especially places like the internet, right? We see someone and then we're like, oh my God, this is such a terrible person. Like we do that so much on the internet where we're like just just fuck this person. You know what I mean? Like we just see something and there's some visceral reaction sometimes.

I'm not saying that she's like that. But if that's happening to her, I get a touch of that. And I think that, I mean, there's a lot of like all really awesome stuff. Now I feel like an idiot because I just finished this interview with a person who I think is like decent and trying to make the world a better place and who has great stories and, you know, has an amazing journey to share and helps people out. And my first thought is, I can see why people don't like her. So please, I apologize for jumping straight there.

But that was my first reaction, right? Is like, there's something weird about this story. And I see this a lot. Like, so I know it sounds weird. But even when I sit with patience, so there's this concept of like transference and countertransference. Okay. So transference is, I'm going to be a little bit particular. about my definitions of these things.

So transference is when you're sitting with your therapist in therapy. You sometimes have certain feelings that come up that are directed towards the therapist. So you feel like your therapist is AFK. You feel like they're letting you down. You feel like you're not getting anywhere. Like you feel sometimes we'll get erotic transference is incredibly common. Like 30 to 40% of patients will experience erotic transference which is just to have romantic or sexual feelings towards your therapist.

And then countertransference is the therapist's reaction to the transference. So oftentimes in common definitions, what we'll say is countertransference is the way that the therapist feels about the patient and the patient. And the transference is the way that the patient feels about the therapist. Technically, the definition is different. It's the response to the transference. So I sort of felt some of that where, like, I can see that there's something about her constellation of things, which evobeyed. some of my projections. And I think her

description of underappreciated overachievers really, if she wants to write a book, that should be the title right there. And it'll do great. And I think that there are certain qualities like there are types of us. Right? That like we evoke,

we routinely evoke certain reactions from other people. You know, just because we're evoking a reaction doesn't mean that we're bad. It just, there's something consistently happening there. And I think that's what she ran across. The reason that I tried to bring it up is because I think if you're someone who routinely gets the short end of the stick, you really, it's, it can be helpful and can be good

to think about yourself as a victim. Right? But she sort of says, like, I used to view myself that way. Now I view myself as the hero. As you all know, if you watch our content, we think both of those, that's a, that's a journey. I'm the victim. I'm a loser. I'm a beta. I'm an alpha. I'm a sigma. Right? That's like, that's the journey. And so, but there, there is something where, like, if you were going to multiple colleges, interacting with multiple people, multiple jobs, and you routinely get shat upon, to say that you have no influence in this

is one of the most dangerous mistakes you can make. Because the moment that you say there's nothing I can do about this, this is not my fault, is the moment that if you have some power you can exercise, you give up your power in that moment. And this is where I think we have a big problem in the English language. Because if we say this is your fault,

the connotations of the word fault imply like a moral deficit or a choice or something like that. Right. So this is where the way I would describe it is there is a karma that you are sewing. There are some behaviors that you're engaging in some actions that you're taking that are getting a unusual response. You are tapping into something that evokes something in someone else. And whether that is right, wrong, fair, or just, don't ask me. That is not my place.

If you guys want to say it's unjust, unfair, whatever, you can do that. I'm not a judge. I'm not divine. I don't know what is just or unjust. I mean, on some level, I'm sure I do. But whatever. What we focus on here is understanding, right? You should understand what's happening, not what's fair or unfair.

Because I don't know what to do about fair or unfair. The problem with fair or unfair is it requires power outside of me to fix. unless I can fix it. And so if we look at the size of your solution space, it's in your actions, the way that you talk, the way that you walk, the way that you speak up, the way that you don't speak up, right? And the challenge here is that you can say, okay, I'm doing, I'm being kind and supportive and I am being punished for it. I am an underappreciated overachiever and I am being punished for it. Things are not fair. And what do we have on the other side of the equation? In order to have underappreciated overachievers, we have to balance that with overappreciated underachievers.

And we all know who they are, right? Maybe we are guilty of being one. And so they are also doing asshole moves, but they are getting rewarded for it, right? And so if we're, if we want to be slick and successful in life, we have to acknowledge this, that there's, you know, you can be good or you be successful, not both. I don't, I mean, that's a bit of a caricature, but, you know, like, because like, we know that people who are assholes sometimes rise and get promoted or whatever. Like she's saying, like, some guy shows up, has been working there for six months, talk sports with their superior and gets promoted while she's been slaving away for two years and doesn't do anything. This is exactly my point is, like, there is a system that people are playing by that no one

teaches us the rules towards. And so what we try to do here. here is to try to understand that process. And I think that like, especially the way that she's sort of navigated her identity of being victim, hero. And then I don't think she was trying to be a hero when she's calling people out on their behavior privately, right? I don't think she's like, oh my God, like, I need to be a hero. Therefore, I'm going to do good.

No, it just feels so aligned and authentic. She's like, this is BS. The world should not be this way. I'm going to do something about it. Right. And this is where like, so what we sort of found, You know, it's kind of funny. I was like, you know, when she was telling that story about the guy on the, oh, so a couple of other random thoughts.

Okay, Dr. Kay's random thoughts. Number one, she's like, yeah, I love to get to know people. I'm so curious about them. I like to ask them all kinds of questions. So this is something that is way easier to do as a, what I am imagining is, uh, I'm not trying to be offensive here, but she, comes across as a bubbly, small woman with a high-pitched voice. And when someone like that comes and asks you a lot of questions about your personal life, that tends to be received in a better way than if you are a lumbering, o'fish, hairy, dark-haired, dark-skinned, big-boned man.

So when a man comes up to you and is like, tell me more about your life. Tell me more. Tell me more. Tell me more. Right. So on the one hand, she suffers in promotions. On the other hand, maybe she has, like, if we're talking about like oblivion buffs and minuses to speechcraft,

there are going to be certain checks that she does well in and certain checks that she does poorly in. And then we're on, like, there are advantages that we have and disadvantages that we have, too. I'm not saying that everything is even or fair, by the way. So I'm not trying to draw some false equivalency. It's just as I was listening to her experiences of. being a woman, I was thinking to myself, wow, I've never had to deal with that, or wow, I could never get away with that. And at the top of the list is pinning someone down for two hours at a

social event and having a deep conversation and expressing a lot of curiosity that may feel invasive if you're a dude. Right? But then I've also never had someone be like, oh, sitting next to me on the subway and be like, oh my God, I like, where do you work? Where do you live? Right? Maybe he was just trying to have an authentic conversation Was really curious about her. Oh my God. Wait, hold on a second.

Is that actually what happened? Do we frame him as the creep When he's actually doing the same shit she's doing? I don't think so, right? But like, that's different Because then he's like, he's asking, no, no, it's not the same. Because then he's like messaging her on work And wants to take her to lunch and things like that.

So that, no, that's creepy. That's creepy. And she's doing it at a party where at a party someone has the option to leave. So that's not the same. You all understand? For a second, it seems like it's the same, but it's not. So exit opportunities are huge. Other human beings aren't around.

It's like apples and oranges. Okay. Anyway. So the last thing that I just want to say is like, so this is what, like, so here's the thing. When I was hearing that story, I was like, oh, man, this is some version of me and some version of some people in our community, right? We're like not great at this stuff.

And then also, like, what's really cool is that we have a lot of people in our community, about 30% of our community is women and people like Chloe. And so, like, the cool thing is, like, we developed this career coaching program. And the reason is exactly, like, we built it for everything we talked about today. So here's the general observation that I made. So Chloe is someone who spent 10 years in tech learning all of these lessons and learning them the hard way. And what we sort of figured out is like there's a lot of lessons about how to communicate, how you feel. Am I going to work all weekend to remove the bottleneck on Monday morning? We have literally heard, I don't know if you all remember, we had an interview with a developer who's always burning out, and we literally heard the other side of the story.

And so the problem with life is that there's a lot of stuff that we need to know, but no one is going to teach us. And if we are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed like Chloe is and just thinks, stupid me, if I show up at work and try to help everyone succeed and try to build a good product, then people will reward me, right? But that's not how things work. So we built this career coaching program. It's a really interesting experience from our end because when we first launched it, it very few people signed up. And so we were like, oh, maybe like people in our community are not interested in career coaching. It has been the one thing that we do at Healthy Gamer that has steadily grown since we launched it about three years ago. We started the program and got a lot of help from Ethan Evans, if you all know who he is.

He was like a senior VP in Amazon and was responsible for Amazon Prime Video. Also has a huge LinkedIn following now. He's been a guest on stream a couple of times, super fascinating interviews if you all want to go back. and watch him. He's a super cool dude. Super solid dude. And so he's like, he knows how to grind at Amazon. So we like tried to join forces and sort of figure out like, okay, what do you all need to succeed in the corporate world, in the career world, and things like that? And our program's a little bit different because it's the intersection of like common corporate success strategies with like understanding your individual vulnerabilities, your patterns, some of the stuff that we sort of alluded to

with Chloe about like, hold on a second, what are you doing to attract, to have this strong gravitational pull towards negativity? Why do you always get underappreciated and overworked? Like, what's going on there? And our belief for professional success is that you have to understand yourself and understand the environment and how those two things fit together. The problem is that most people go through careers focusing on the work, not the environment that they work in and not themselves. So we had a video that, that did really well where we talked about creator, I mean, sorry,

developer burnout. And like, it's wild. Like, y'all should go watch it if you want. It's on YouTube. You can check it out for free. And so it's so interesting if you, like, literally look at the research on developers, why they burn out.

Like, they burn out because they ignore the signals of stress. They have this strategy that the way to get rid of, stress is to complete the task that is causing me the stress. Make sense. This thing is stressing me out. Let me finish it. And then it's gone. And then I will be stress free.

Is that actually what happens? No. Because if you were a developer and you pull it all nighter and you finish some feature and you remove the bottleneck, remove the bottleneck. What happens? There is more flow. And when there is more flow, is there less work? No, there is more work.

And then the worst thing that I've ever seen is developers who become victims of their own excessive work. Because now that you're the guy, now this becomes standardized for you. It becomes the expectation. You have raised the bar on yourself. And then it becomes hard to live up to that bar constantly. Right? And maybe the devs far. our own devs that we work with will, we'll weigh in here and be like, Dr. Kay, you're such a hypocrite.

I don't think so. I got positive feedback from them when I made the video. We try really hard to do right by them. But who knows? Right. You have to ask them and they can speak their truth if they want to. So, yeah, I mean, if you all like, so I think that here's the key thing. If you all, so what do we do here?

Oh, yeah, and this is what I wanted to talk to you all about. So I want to talk to you all about what we do here for a second, because I'm curious. So here's kind of what we do here. So y'all have problems, right? The world isn't perfect. You have certain challenges. You have certain struggles. So we do a couple of things here.

So we started out and we're like, all right, I'm just going to teach. So I started streaming, started doing lectures on the internet. And then I was like, let's have conversations with people. So I started having conversations with people. So we have both of those things, right? So today we talked with Chloe a little bit about corporate girlies or call it whatever you want, being an underappreciated overachiever. And then we also have things like lectures,

where we go through a lot of peer-reviewed research on developer burnout. That's also available on YouTube. And then what we sort of notice is that this is insufficient, right? Watching this interview and watching a lecture does not mean that your problems at work are going to necessarily quickly or easily go away.

that there is a individual replay analysis level of work. And this is the value that I saw by being a psychiatrist because I work with patients. They come into my office. There are all these principles, but then we translate those principles to their individual personality, their individual situation. And that's where instead of taking two years of random experimentation, there is a homing missile kind of approach, a targeted approach. That's coaching. So career coaching is awesome. If you all struggle with problems like with what Chloe is talking about, or the flip

side of it is if there are people, if you had some negative projection towards Chloe or she evoked something in you and there are people like that at work that you have difficulty dealing with, it's all fair game. So coaching is designed to, in a time limited fashion, help you achieve particular goals. because prior to my job at Healthy Gamer and even at Healthy Gamer, we're really outcomes-oriented. So it's like, you can say whatever you want

about how awesome something is. Oh, Dr. Kay, we love your content. And like, that's like fine. I'm glad you enjoy it. The question is, does it work? Does it actually move the needle on your life in a noticeable and measurable way? It's really hard to measure that

when it comes to watching things on the internet. Way easier to measure it when it comes to actually helping human beings, we take measurements at the beginning, measurements at the end, we have all kinds of internal data that we collect. So it's great. So there's coaching,

which all should absolutely check out if you've got careers, things. Regularly hear that it's like a really good investment. And then we've got content. So here's our big challenge now. There's a lot of people for whom content doesn't work. And what do I mean by doesn't work? I mean that you watch the content for a while.

We hear these success stories, wins, pogchamp, whatever, all the time on Discord, subreddits, whatever. We're like, Dr. Kay, like, this video really helped me or has changed my life or whatever. Great. That's why we're here. Most people get some benefit. But some benefit isn't good enough. Like, I could make content for the next 40 years.

I don't know how much. What percentage of mental health improves? will happen. Like, if I make content for the next 40 years. Like, I don't know. I don't know. On the flip side, we have the coaching program. High intensity, good outcomes,

way more expensive than watching free things on the internet. Right. Very reasonably priced. I just sent a friend of mine to a therapist that I recommend paying $3.50 an hour. Right? That's like, right? So, like, our stuff is high quality and works really well. Peer support model is excellent.

Has a lot of research to support it. Good outcomes for health and wellness coaches and all this kind of stuff. So it's like it's a system that's getting better. Now here's the question that I've got for y'all. Coaching works great for some people. People who usually try it are usually really happy with it. It improves their lives. Content works great for some people.

Has a small effect for a very large number of people. Coaching is a high as a resource intensive proposition. So both of them are good on value. That's usually what we look at. But value is benefit divided by cost. So on the content creation side, benefit is low, cost is low. Coaching side, benefit is high. Cost is low.

I mean, cost is high. So now the question becomes what's in the middle? So for all the people who are like in the Philippines or in India or whatever who can't afford coaching, or they don't want to try it or they tried it and they got what they cut out of it. For all the people for whom content hasn't transformed their lives, what do we do? This is the next big problem we're trying to solve. Right? So what's between this?

So this is where like if you all have thoughts, right? So someone's saying memberships, that's what we started with. And so far that's been great, by the way, y'all. Like memberships is really working. well. So I think memberships we see, and those of y'all that are like, you know, in memberships, like you guys can feel free to chime in, you know, with how you all feel about it. But like, there's a, there's a great, I want to show you also.

It's my favorite. I wonder if I could find it. This is like, there are very few memes that I'm proud of, like that make me feel like pride. So, like, this, like, you know, when I say memberships works, like, we sort of succeeded, this is the measure or metric that I'm using. Right. So for those of y'all that don't know, these are two incarnations of Shiva, which is incredibly flattering. Nowhere near that guy. But it's like, that's what we set out to do.

Right. So on the internet, we have to be a certain way. And then, so there's like, stuff goes deeper over there. So like there are a couple things on memberships that are really good that way, where I just liked that meme. It was the one that made me feel, strokeed my ego the most. Doesn't mean that it's accurate or fair or whatever. But I think memberships is like really good because we have these things like quests

and like we have like a lot more hands-on stuff. For ADHD, should I meditate with my eyes open? Half-litted gaze is a good place to start. open or close depending on what works better. Okay. Okay, this is helpful. So look, this is good. Okay, so, okay, I'm going to think about this.

We're going to work on some of this stuff. Because I'm honestly, y'all, like, I'm also concerned about, so the last thing that I'll share with y'all is I have huge concerns that in the next couple of years, like things on the planet are going to get harder. And I think people's disposable income is going to go down. their need for higher quality resources to fix their lives is going to skyrocket. There's a quickly growing amount of trash information about how to help your life, how to improve your life.

People are going to need more resources. So things like career coaching are going to become more important than ever because the economy is going to go through all kinds of fluctuations. The real challenge, the real challenge that we're trying to solve, if I'm completely honest, over the next couple of years, I don't even know if we're going to be around for the next couple of years is that over the next couple of years, the amount of help that you all are going to need is going to go up. And the amount of resources that you have to get help is going to go down.

It's going to be bad. I'm not blaming anyone or anything like that. I think there's just a global trend of like uncertainty, fluctuations, disruptions by AI and like all this kind of stuff. I know everyone jumps to like, oh, like you're blaming this person. No, I'm not. I think there's just a lot of stuff that's shifting. Right?

So I'll give you all a classic example of before everyone jumps to a certain conclusion. So the need to form human connections is at its peak because we have a loneliness epidemic. The ability to form human connections is at its pit. And this is just the first thing. This is just the first thing. Once you stop forming human connections, birth rates in South Korea and things like that are going to, like, escalate into economic problems.

Right? So, like, the world is going to get harder and we're going to have fewer resources to deal with it. So, like, we're going to figure, we're going to try to figure something out. Chances are we'll fail catastrophically because there's no such thing as a free lunch. But we're committed to trying. And for those of y'all that have given us anything from a gifted sub that is anonymous to a Twitch Prime sub to a super chat on YouTube, to signing up for memberships. That helps a lot. Trying out coaching. The one thing that we're like pretty also like I feel good about is that

if we're asking y'all for money for something, so I don't know if you'll notice, but we stopped doing fundraisers for the most part. We may do it again. But a few years ago, we raised a lot of money over the course of May. And then it's like, hold on a second. One thing that we feel pretty good about is that if we're going to ask y'all for money, we're going to usually deliver something that we believe is valuable. That's why we don't have a Patreon. We have membership.

We waited years to create a membership because we wanted to give y'all something of value as opposed to just give us money every month. I'm not saying that we'll never do that. We may need y'all to fundraise or something at some point. I don't know.

Maybe we'll do a Kickstarter or GoFundMe for Dr. K's gotcha game, wifu, extravagance or something like that. Like if I start playing games with tectone, then I'm going to need, you know, I'm going to need to get the top tier wifus to be able to compete. So, but yeah, we're like, we're going to work on this. And if you all have thoughts or things like that, like let us know.

So I think the answers that we have in chat, I know mods are paying attention and things like that. So I think we've got like a lot of good direction here. So thank you all very much. But if you all have like concrete ideas of what you believe. this community needs, what would help you make more change in your life, actually improve your life. If you all have ideas about what we should build, please let us know. So she came like awesome stories today and then y'all take care. We'll see y'all. Next week we've got interviews with Scotty K Fitness. I'm doing a deep dive into resilience and we're going to

do, oh, tomorrow we're doing voicemails. I'm reacting to voicemails or answering voicemails. And then next week we're going to do bad relationship advice. Or maybe I react to bad relationship advice or I give bad. You'll tell me what you want. Do you want me to give bad relationship advice or do you want me to react to bad relationship advice? You guys let me know. I'm sure that the content team has made one of those things and I will pull a classic Dr.

K and piss everyone off and do something entirely different. All right, y'all. Thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life. If you enjoy the conversation, be sure to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.