career search

Grace Over Grind

June 25, 2018 By Kat

Grace Over Grind is a fantastic book for entrepreneurs who are looking for a solution to the unending hustle and grind every day without rest. This is a Christian book, where the author Shae Bynes offers an alternative solution: to work and rest in God’s grace where you can accomplish infinitely more than you ever could on your own strengths and abilities.

WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR

I was looking for resources from Christian business owners because I was wrestling with how can I build a business while also serve God at the same time. They seemed to be two opposites – to optimize for revenue $$ OR to optimize for serving God. And all the resources I had listened to up until now, were for the former option.

HER PODCAST

I stumbled upon her podcast called Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur. I listened to a couple of episodes and loved the stories that were shared. They explain how doing business and serving God can be aligned together. Hence, I was curious to check out her book.

HER BOOK

Grace Over Grind is a quick read, it’s only ~ 150 pages, and I finished it within a couple days. The author emphasizes how important it is to do the exercises in the book, so that’s what took me the longest because I was taking time to reflect and write out my answers. There were questions like what are you grinding away so hard at? If you were to dream with God on your business, what would that look like?

AHA! MOMENTS

I realized that being an entrepreneur isn’t about working until your eyeballs fall out. Too often, we get scared, try to seize control of the situation and try to do it all through our own efforts. We get bogged down in our own frustrations of why things aren’t happening even though we’re putting in all this effort. But things happen on God’s time and if we can trust in that, we can turn over our stresses and worries to him. The author clarifies that resting doesn’t mean sitting on the couch and doing nothing. It means continuing to take action but with guidance from God. It’s about surrendering control, being willing to ask God for help, and going where he leads you because it’s ultimately for your best and for the world’s best.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

“Too many believers in business idolize hard work. They exalt hard work over the presence of God in business.”

“Some people refuse the favor that God has granted to them because they don’t feel worthy of it. Favor isn’t all about you and has nothing to do with your worthiness; it’s about the assignment God has placed on your life.”

“You will have peace in the midst of seeming chaos, and joy, in the midst of unfamiliar levels of hardship or criticism. […] Live within the grace of one day only. That’s how we experience the sufficiency of God’s grace.”

CONCLUSION

Honestly, I also feel like the book could be applicable to people who are in the workforce, who aren’t necessarily entrepreneurs. Living in Silicon Valley, I can literally feel how stressed out people are about their jobs or where their career is headed. The book talks about working intentionally in partnership with God and taking it one day at a time. It put my heart at ease, and if you read it, I hope it does for you too.

Grace Over Grind:
How Grace Will Take Your Business Where Grinding Can’t

I actually got this book for free by signing up for a free month trial with the Kindle Unlimited plan. It gives access to tons of other Kindle books and audiobooks. Let’s see what else I can get through this month!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this book regardless.

Measuring Our Success

July 27, 2017 By Kat

As I ponder about the type of career and life I want, I wonder: At which point will I feel satisfied, like I have “made it”? Or to put it another way, what are my metrics for success in life? Honestly, I don’t know.

Too Many Numbers

I grew up having my life quantified into numbers, so I could be stack ranked against others to see if I was good enough to admitted into an elite institution or a Fortune 500 company. My high school GPA, SAT test scores, college GPA, interview scores, a salary at work, etc… Everything boiled down to numbers.

I know, I know. We need a way to standardize performance to add some organization to the chaos. As a society, we’ve decided to standardize by using numbers to approximate the real things we’re measuring – character, hard work, talent, effort, growth, impact, etc…

But the problem is when we identify so strongly with those numbers that we start to believe that those numbers define our worth.

We start to strive for higher numbers – a higher salary, a higher level on the corporate ladder, so that we can be better, be more “successful.”

When we add numbers to a goal, it can give us a great deal of motivation and hustle to try to reach those targets. But falling short of those targets can also be a constant source of inadequacy, shame, or stress. Adding numbers to deliverables can also make the process of work feel like an obligation and chore, being chained to some arbitrary target number. That mindset quickly drains away creativity and the very humanity which made us choose that work in the first place.

Do the Numbers Mean Anything?

On social media, it also seems like we are quick to judge people based on the number of Instagram followers and subscribers they have on YouTube. More numbers mean more impact on the world, which should make them successful and happy, right? Except for some of the most popular influencers, they weren’t. They were extremely miserable. Selena Gomez, Michelle Phan, and Essena O’Neill, all went on digital detoxes to take a break from social media to discover their deeper identity.

The numbers mislead us. We foolishly believe that a bigger one will deliver happiness. However, when we finally reach that target number, we feel happy for a day, and then return to feeling discontent. Then we set a new goal for an even higher number to wait for happiness. Why do we let numbers have so much power over us?

At my last job, we had performance reviews, where we had to list out our recent accomplishments. I was making videos and online courses, and I realized how hard it is to measure the impact of my work as a teacher. How do you measure if a student has truly learned? Maybe the way the concepts were presented were completely confusing to the student. Or maybe they gained skills that boosted their confidence and opened their eyes up to a new career path. I struggled with writing those self-assessments. I felt like I had to fall back on the crutch of numbers that were concrete – number of students enrolled, completion rates, video views, number of lessons I churned out, etc… But I was disappointed that those metrics could not adequately capture something as abstract as the impact of education.

Right now, all I know is that I’m tired of measuring myself with numbers.

As I brainstorm future career goals, I don’t want to add numeric metrics to them. For example, does it matter if I reach a certain number of views or subscribers on this blog? I’m growing accustomed to the idea that the greatest satisfaction from having a blog is having an outlet to express, refine, and share my ideas. And to rant as well. 😉

Things That Can’t Be Measured

The other day, I attended a hip hop dance class and saw this sign on the door.

It made me smile because it showed true appreciation for the intangible things that bring value to our lives.

Love is undoubtedly one of those things that is hard to measure. But it can be captured and shared through anecdotes, as seen on this Instagram account Love What Matters (see this cute example). Even reading these stories can uplift our spirit in profound ways.

Similarly, kindness is invisible. The impact that it has on someone can stay with them throughout their day. It can affect their interaction with the next person they meet, which can in turn impact the next person, and so on. Kindness can just ripple out across the world.

Perhaps we should give up trying to assign a number to these concepts.

Perhaps the only way to “measure” them is to use an internal barometer – how our minds and bodies feel. And to keep returning back to the people, places, and activities that fill up those barometers until they’re overflowing. That can be vague though. And sometimes messy. But it feels more real.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller

Asking for Permission

June 5, 2017 By Kat

I realized that I try to ask for permission too often in life.

There are the little things that I do without thinking. I ask, “Can I go to the bathroom?” when I’m at a friend’s house for the first time. Sometimes they’ll playfully respond, “No, you can’t!” with a big grin.

When I got a new manager at work, I asked, “Could I have a particular day off?” He was perfectly fine with it and added, “This is not a prison. You don’t need to ask for permission!”

Sometimes I’ll ask my boyfriend if it’s okay that I hang out with a friend on the weekend. He responds with, “You don’t need to ask me, love. Go have fun.”

THE PAST

This begs the question, why do I ask for permission from people who don’t think I need to be asking them? I believe it’s a bad habit from being in environments for many years where there were structured rules on what I could or could not do – i.e. living at home, living in a dorm, going to school, working at companies.

Don’t get me wrong, boundaries and rules are great. They create order out of chaos. They teach us good judgement when we are young fledglings in this world. They help us stay in between the lines – safe from things outside the lines which are dangerous, unethical, or involve monsters that will eat you alive.

When I was a Developer Advocate at Google, we wrote social media and blog posts for developers in the public. I ran the content for these posts by a bunch of people before releasing. They would proofread and give me feedback on what to add, nix, or re-word. For any type of product launch, there was an even beefier process. We needed approval from a lengthy list of people including PR and management. Having a protocol is understandable, but nevertheless, the process could take an unpredictable amount of time and gave me anxiety.

THE PRESENT

When I started writing posts on my personal blog, I asked people to proofread it for me. Unknowingly, I was creating my own “launch process” for my blog and recruiting people to give me the OK on whether it was good enough to launch or not. However, my proofreaders have busy lives, and they couldn’t always read it right away. So there I was, anxiously waiting to post something but blocked on waiting for my proofreader to review it. In this new world without any rules on my work, I asked myself, “Why am I creating these artificial roadblocks on releasing my posts?” I realized I don’t need anyone’s sign-off. I could trust my gut on whether something was good enough to share.

Another perk of a personal blog is that I’m no longer representing another organization or entity. I don’t need to be consistent with someone else’s voice or brand, no matter how awesome that brand is.

I can speak in MY voice.

I can use expletives @!@#%!@#*$ to complain and rant about things. I can type this blog post as a text message – wutcha doin? I can hold down the SHIFT and 1 key as long as I want!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (My favorite punctuation mark.) I can use asterisks to cry *tears of joy!* And I can make it rain emojis. 🙂 😀 😯 😛 😐 😉 🙁 😡 😕 😯 🙂 😉 😮 😡 😐 😀 🙂 😀 😯 😛 😐 😉 🙁 😡 😕 😯 🙂 😉 😮 😡 😐 😀 🙁 😡 😕 😯 🙂 😉 😮 😐 😯 😮 😀 😯 😛 😐 😉 🙁 😀 🙂

But more than grammatical freedom, is the freedom to express my ideas in an unapologetic way. I can talk about whatever topic weighs on my mind or makes me super giddy regardless of how random it is (see Monopoly post). I can share my faith journey too! There’s no need to be politically correct here.

REFLECTION

There can be a very thin line between being considerate of other people’s boundaries and caring too much about what they think. Unfortunately, it’s very easy for me to cross into that latter territory. I ask for permission too much because I want approval from the other person on the course of action I’m about to take.

For example, earlier this year, I felt the need to ask everyone around me for permission to leave my job. While I didn’t exactly ask for permission from my family, I ask the loaded question: “Hypothetically, what do you think about me leaving Google?” I also felt like I needed to get permission from my team to leave. I wasn’t sure what to say, how to say it, or if they’d dislike me for leaving. It turned out that I was overly worried and was able to leave the team on a friendly note – at least I think so. 😛

Now the path to my future can literally take any direction. I can go this way or that, or even head backwards if I wanted! Regardless of what I choose, I know that I can use my inner compass to guide me.

I no longer need to ask for permission from anyone to live my fullest life.

As the James Bay “Let it Go” song goes, “Why don’t you be you, and I’ll be me.”