When I was 14, my family and I moved
over 5,000 miles from Milan to Seoul.
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My last night in Italy,
I remember feeling devastated because
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the world as I knew it had
been taken away from me.
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My international school in Milan
was a diverse environment that
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fostered individuality.
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I took French and journalism as electives.
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I played soccer after school.
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I went canoeing in France as
a part of a school field trip.
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But in my all female school in Korea, I
was stuck in school from 7:30 AM to 10 PM.
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Everyone took the exact same courses, and
there was no such thing as electives.
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I went from being the math and
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science wiz in Italy to flunking my
very first science assignment in Korea.
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We had to write the 118 elements of
the periodic table, 60 times each.
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Now, that's over 7,000 times.
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The next day,
I proudly presented my homework,
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the teacher glanced at it and
wrote a big x.
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Apparently, it had to be written
horizontally and not vertically, which
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meant that I flunked the assignment and
had to do it all over again, the next day.
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You see, it was quite a rough transition.
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But by the end of high school, I felt like
I had fully adjusted to life in Korea.
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I'd made a few good friends and
pulled many,
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many all nighters to
catch up to schoolwork.
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And I remember thinking [SOUND], the
toughest days of my life are finally over.
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But to my surprise,
there were significant and
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challenging life transitions over,
over, and over again,
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including coping with a big heartbreak,
moving to Japan, and
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then to Hong Kong, starting work,
and coming here to the GSB.
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And I recognize there was a pattern.
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When I first step into seasons of change,
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I often felt like I'd lost control,
like I had lost a part of myself.
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And I confess this is how I felt many
times during my first year of the GSB.
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As I started what was supposed to
be the two best years of my life,
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I wondered why I didn't feel as confident
and as happy as many of you seem to be.
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Can anyone relate to that?
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[LAUGH] So
I asked 107 MBA 2s of the Class of 2016,
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what were your most dominate feelings
as you spent your first year?
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The results were eye-opening.
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Almost 60% of you said that you were
primarily anxious in your first year.
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45% said that you were excited,
which is great.
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43% said that you felt
like you had lost control,
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and 38% said that you felt lonely, and
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only 7% felt like you were confident.
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Now, the feelings of anxiety or
the lack of control seemed like a common
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experience as we go
through seasons of change.
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And I've realized we have full agency
to shape and manage this transition
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instead of reluctantly or
reactively struggling through them.
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So today, I want to share
with you the art of managing
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life transitions, and
I've packaged them in three Rs,
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recalibrate, reframe, and reach out.
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Now, the first R is
recalibrate your expectations.
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I lived and worked in nine
different countries in my life, so
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I thought coming here to the United States
as a student would be a piece of cake.
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I expected to hit the ground
running on day one.
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But as my feelings deviated
from my expectations of how
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quickly I could adjust,
I felt increasingly nervous.
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And perhaps this is why the survey
shows that the students
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who have lived in the United States for
a long period were
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proportionally more anxious than the
students who came here for the first time.
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Whereas international students expected
coming to the GSB to be a big life
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transition and
expected to feel frustrated even.
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Many of the American students didn't
think that this would be a big change.
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But the fact that it was,
made many of us feel nervous.
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I realized last year that I
was penalizing myself for
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falling short of an unrealistic
expectation I was putting on myself.
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Once I started recalibrating
these expectations,
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I created more room for self-mercy.
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And with that came a newfound
sense of relief and
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calmness that helped me push
through this time of transition.
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So if you're going through a transition,
or the next time you go through one,
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think hard about the types of expectations
you're putting on yourself and
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recalibrate them, and always remember
to have more self-mercy and not less.
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The second R is reframe challenging times
and transitions as an opportunity to grow.
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When I first started work
in consulting in Korea,
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my manager had given me
some rough feedback.
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My confidence had hit rock bottom, and
I did what most first year analysts
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did at that time,
which was go to the bathroom and cry.
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>> [LAUGH]
>> And my senior analyst,
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Meredith, came to find me in the restroom,
and there I was crying, and
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she said something that
I will never forget.
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She said, Christine,
things are hard because you're growing.
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Yes, it's uncomfortable,
and yes, it's painful but
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only because you're taking
on bigger things in life.
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Stanford psychologist,
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Carol Dweck, calls this the growth
mindset and found that this is exactly
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what allows people to thrive even during
the most difficult life situations.
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So if you are going through
a season of change and
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if you have all of these
negative feelings hitting you,
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remember that you have the agency
to reframe your mindset.
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Because when you do and
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if you do, you will come out
of life transitions stronger.
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I've experienced this many times in my
life, and our classmates have done, too.
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The single biggest shift in
emotions from the first year and
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the second year, was confidence.
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Whereas only 7% of our classmates
felt confident in the first year,
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50% said that they felt
confident their second year, and
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this was the second most
dominant feeling after gratitude.
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So always remember to reframe your
mindset, and it's in your agency to do so.
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The third R is reach out.
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What amplified my feelings of anxiety and
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loss of control was the perception that
I was the only one feeling this way.
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And I didn't want to share this with
a lot of you, because I'm usually a happy
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person, and I didn't want to
be perceived in any other way.
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A breakthrough moment for me came when I
was talking to a close group of friends,
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and I confided my true feelings with them.
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And to my surprise,
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even the most confident-looking
one was struggling inside.
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The realization that I am not alone,
gave me so much relief.
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And this sense of togetherness
helped me heal out of my anxieties.
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So if you're like me,
reach out to someone.
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It's okay to be vulnerable.
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And on the flip side,
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if you know someone who's going through
a significant change, reach out to them,
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because you never know how much of
an impact you can have in their lives.
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So here are the three Rs of managing
life transitions, recalibrate,
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reframe, and reach out.
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Whether you have another
year of school left, or
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you're going out into the real world,
take this toolkit with you.
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And always remember that you have full
agency to shape, manage the many,
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many life transitions that
are coming your way, thank you.
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