Ami has dabbled around in different jobs and careers while trying to figure out her true calling. But her high-achieving Indian parents don’t get what, exactly, she’s looking for. And Samorn Selim, a career coach who works with BIPOC, women and first-gen professionals, speaks with Juleyka about how to get clarity around what we want professionally without feeling beholden to our families.
Ami Thakker is the host of Tuckered Out With Ami Thakkar, a podcast where she interviews South Asian trailblazers, leaders and experts around the world.
Featured Expert:
Samorn Selim is a lawyer turned career coach on a mission to help us all take our careers from dread to joy. Samorn has coached more than 1,000 BIPOC, women, and first-generation professionals who are lawyers, techies, and leaders to build their dream careers. Through her companies, Samorn Selim Coaching and now Career Unicorns she has successfully worked with individuals who want to make a positive impact in the world to land dream jobs, be promoted to leadership positions, negotiate 6 figure salaries, and develop a book of business. Samorn has been a keynote speaker at Google, Autodesk, Wilson Sonsini, Paul Hastings, UC Office of the President, the National Association for Law Placement, and other organizations on hot topics including: developing your signature personal brand, managing cultural code switching, and sponsoring women of color and first generation professionals. She is a board member of the American Bar Association Career Center, and has provided pro bono career coaching to first generation college and undocumented students for the Coca Cola Scholars Foundation and the New Leaders Scholarship. She has been published in The Recorder, The Daily Journal, American Bar Association, and The Transcript (Berkeley Law's alumni magazine). Her book, "Belonging: Self Love Lessons From A Workaholic, Depressed, Insomniac Lawyer" is available on Amazon. Learn more about her work on her website.
If you loved this episode, listen to She Loves Her Work, Her Parents Don't Get it and Her Roots Inspired a Career Change, But Her Parents Don't Get It.
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Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi everybody. Today we have Ami, on the show. Ami's Indian parents wanted her to have a stable and secure professional life. But Ami didn't know what she wanted to do for work. Her lack of clarity around her interests, skills, and talents, and on how exactly they would all come together into a career, really frustrated her well-intentioned parents. Let's get into it.
Ami: My name is Ami Thakkar. I am the Host and Producer of, Tuckered Out With Ami Thakkar. It's a podcast where we interview South Asian trailblazers, leaders and experts around the world. I am also a lawyer by trade, a writer by passion, a DJ when asked, and a mother of two beautiful girls. Growing up I called my mom and dad, mom and dad. When we do go to India, I do tend to call them mummy, daddy, just because when I'm there it's a different environment and culture.
My parents immigrated here from India in the 1960s and I was born in Charleston, West Virginia, and I moved to Houston immediately after that when I was one. I never really reflected on what I truly wanted to do and what I was passionate about. I was always following what my parents would say, what a lot of people in our community were doing. Most people were becoming doctors. My brother became a doctor.
I don't blame my parents for not being able to help me figure out my path because they grew up in such an environment where they didn't have as many choices. And for them going into the arts and going into other creative ventures didn't make sense. That's not where you make the money, that's not stability to them.
On the flip side, I didn't know what I wanted to do either. So even talking to them, I didn't even know what to say. When I started off the journey, I did go down the traditional path, went to UT Austin. I tried pre-med for a while, didn't do well. I was never a completely A student. That's a big deal in our family and in our community. I tried two or three different majors and then I ended up majoring in economics and business.
My first job actually was at Enron and I did fine. Was I getting the best progress reports? No. Was I getting up early to get to work first? No. I just didn't care about... It was really hard to talk to my parents about what I was seeking. I'm a seeker. I ended up in Bombay for a year being a backup Bollywood dancer and working at a radio station because I knew I had this creative side to me and I just didn't know what I wanted to do with it and I was too scared to follow through properly.
Of course, my parents were like, "You need to come back." And I ended up going to law school, which they were very proud of. Did I do that for myself? I don't really know. I think some of the tensions between my parents and I came from the fact that everything I did, I didn't ever give it my all. "I'm not trying enough. I'm lazy. I'm not hardworking enough." So I think for my parents who are both type A, A students and did so well in school and this and that, and it was hard for them to see me "Struggle" and they just were always fearful that I would not become anything.
They just didn't understand why I didn't care and I didn't know how to explain it to them. And I didn't know why until now and it's because I just was not passionate about what I was doing. I did not enjoy what I was doing and I was forcing myself. So I think it was just a general attitude I had when it came to my career or education that they were really like, "You need to step it up now. We don't care anymore whether you enjoy stuff or not, you have to do well in something."
My career really shifted after I got married. Once I got married, they're like, "Go ahead, go do whatever you need to do now." So my husband and I were dating while I was a lawyer in New York. He was in business school and we ended up moving seven times in the past 13 years because of his job. And because of the moves, I was able to pick up and try different careers everywhere I went. Nonprofit executive, freelance writer, DJ'ed parties for a living. I have worked at a fashion startup. I was able to really find out what I wanted to do.
Storytelling, the talking, the connecting, the interviewing, the really getting to know people. That is my strength. That is what I love doing. That is what I want to do. And explaining those soft skills to your parents is hard. "This is what I want to do with my career or my life." And I think now that they've seen me execute it and put it into action, they also now realize that this is what I was meant to do. We talk about things now, but it was definitely hard admitting that I didn't want to do the things that they wanted me to do.
Lantigua: Man, I really felt for Ami. Figuring out a career path is already hard. But for many first gens, the added pressure our families put on us sometimes can be extremely unhelpful. Ami's story made me think about what we first gens can do to find our calling or vocation, especially when it's different from what our parents envisioned. With so many options in this new economy, how do we even decide what a career looks like, what a job might look like? To help us figure it out, I called in an expert.
Samorn Selim: I'm Samorn Selim. I'm the Founder and CEO of Career Unicorns. And how I came to found the business is I grew up in a poor Lao refugee community where pretty much no one around me went to college and we were lucky to even graduate high school. But I got lucky. I got to go to Berkeley for college and then I went to Berkeley for law school and ended up working in a big law firm. And I think like many first generation college and professional students, I had a bunch of imposter syndrome.
And then when I was recruited to go back and work at Berkeley Law as it's Director of Employer Outreach and coaching students and alums, I realized, "Wow, there's so many people who came from backgrounds like myself, people who identify as women, first generation college students and professionals, Black indigenous people of color. And we were all afraid that we're going to be found out that we're a fraud." And so that really motivated me to leverage my experience to help them with their careers, to let them know, "You know what? You don't have to pay your dues. You don't have to work in a toxic work environment. You can find a culture where you feel a sense of belonging and you can be happy and you can also make a really good living."
Lantigua: Why you have to be pointing fingers at people who still have imposter syndrome though. Why? All right. I'm going to start with the same question I always start with which is, as you listened to Ami's story, what did you hear?
Selim: I listened to it from the lens of being a daughter, growing up with parents who grew up in a really different environment from me. My parents came here as refugees from Laos when the country fell after the US pulled out of Vietnam. And so while we grew up in very different circumstances, I think our parents both wanted us to have a sense of stability, a sense of security. And you can understand that.
And then I look at it from the lens of being a parent now. I have two young kids, one is about to turn one in June and one is about to turn five in May. And I can hear my parents' voice sometimes come out in me, "Do what I tell you." But it starts from something so basic like you know your kids are about to fall and you don't want them to experience the pain. But there's no way for them to grow unless they experience that pain and build some resilience.
Lantigua: I want to go back to something that you said because it comes up a lot. I don't want to position these two things as opposites, but they come up a lot as opposites. And one is our parents want security and safety for us, which is why they push us in particular ways. And then the other part of that is you don't owe your parents anything. You are entitled to make your own choices. Do you hear this tension as you work with your folks and how do they resolve this tension?
Selim: 1000%. A lot of folks, regardless of your cultural background, will feel your parents have raised you, has invested in you and wants the best for you. And naturally as children, we want to make our parents happy. We want to make sure that they feel loved and that we feel loved by them. But as we grow up, we are different people. We are going to have different interests and different values. And I think the tough conversation that people have to have is to be able to go to your parents and say, "I understand that you love me and I understand that what you want from me ultimately is security is a life where I'm stable, where I'm going to be able to make a living."
And one of the things that we have to explain to them is in the society, there are different ways in which we can create that, but part of it is letting your parents know, "Hey, I'm still aligned with you. I want stability to, I want to be able to make a living wage. I want to be able to build generational wealth. We have the same shared goals, it's just how we approach it may be different."
And in the new economy that we're in, there's lots of different jobs. There's still traditional jobs like being a lawyer and being a doctor, being a civil servant. But there's also these new mediums where you can create wealth and build a career around being an influencer or being a content creator, being a marketer for a social media company. These are all really new roles. And with the invention of AI, I'm sure there's going to be a ton of other jobs that are coming from that as well. And so part of this is bridging the gap and bridging the conversation of, "Things are different now."
Lantigua: I'm going to interrupt you there because sometimes we don't even know what we're interested in. One, because we have access to so much, but two, because maybe we weren't the athlete or maybe we weren't the class government leader. There was no clear area of interest in junior high school, or high school, or college that drew us. Where does a person like Ami begin where we simply have no clear direction where we want to go with our talents?
Selim: I think that's such a good question. Some people are born and they think that they have this mission and they're so clear about it, and that's great for them. And there's some people like myself where we dabble. And part of this is allowing yourself to be curious and follow your curiosity.
Lantigua: Curiosity does not pay the bills. Come on. I have to basically channel our parents in here.
Selim: I appreciate it.
Lantigua: So we can have an honest conversation.
Selim: I appreciate the honest conversation. So in the case of someone like Ami, one of the things that she really loved doing was storytelling. And that comes out in her podcast, that also comes out in her writing. And what she does as a lawyer is also storytelling, especially if you're going to court, you are basically telling the story of either the plaintiff or defendant, these are the good guys or these are the bad guys.
So there's always already a through line that you have in terms of your interests, and it's about cultivating it and finding opportunities where you can showcase that particular skillset that you have. And of course, you want to balance that with paying the bills. There are some people who want to be actors or want to be artists, and those are traditionally jobs are not going to pay the bills. And those people will do things like be waiters. Maybe they're substitute teachers, maybe they're civil servants by day, and then they do these things at night.
And so it's about finding the balance of recognizing that there are things that we have passions and interest in, and there are ways in which we can make a good living doing it. And then there are certain industries where maybe it doesn't pay enough and so you are going to be doing that on the side sometimes as a side hustle until you can build it out.
Lantigua: Let's talk about the parents because how do you say to mom and dad, "Oh yeah, I have my college degree, but I really want to be an actor. I'm going to go wait tables for five years and go to auditions." How do we make a convincing case so that they buy into it and that they're not worried sick every night about, "How is our daughter going to pay the rent?"
Selim: I think here's the thing. Our job as kids is not to take care of our parents' feelings.
Lantigua: Oh, say more.
Selim: I know. It's like, "Woo." Our jobs as kids is to acknowledge their worries and concerns and say, "I understand it. And here's what I'm choosing to do. And I want you to trust me that I'm going to be able to take care of myself through this process because you've taught me well as I was growing up. And allowing me to live the life that I want and to know that I will be happy. I can take care of myself, and I will still do the responsible things of paying the bills and building a life for myself."
And so it's about letting them know that you are an adult. You still acknowledge that they love you, and they worry about you. Of course, I'm going to worry about my kids even when they're grown up. And also asking that they trust you to make decisions for yourself.
Lantigua: So then that means that then you actually have to be a functioning adult, right?
Selim: I hope.
Lantigua: You cannot be asking them for money. You cannot be borrowing the car. You cannot be dependent on them to a significant extent where it becomes burdensome for the choices that you are making in your life.
Selim: Absolutely. I think the assumption is that you're going to be a functioning independent adult. Now, if you're going to ask your parents for money or you're going to live in their roof, your parents aren't going to have their own rules. They may say, "You have to go to college." Or they may say, "You have to hold a nine to five job and pay X amount rent." So these are the conversations that you do have to have as an adult. And depending on what it is that you're taking from your parents, you may have to have that conversation with them about what their expectations are.
Lantigua: I want to ask you a question about, in your coaching, how do you help someone set realistic timelines, time bound goals, and how do you measure when you've given it enough time to decide if something is really going to work out?
Selim: Often people come to me when they're feeling really stuck and frustrated at work. And they think the workplace is toxic and it's impacting their mental and physical health, and they have to stop. So the conversation comes around to, "Well, what have you done in your life where you felt really proud of? What have you done in your life where you felt like you were in peak flow, where you were doing it so much that you lost track of time?"
We all have those moments. And so there are keys in which things that will allow us to identify, "Okay, these are areas that we are naturally good at, that we have interest in." And from that, we identify what's the transferrable skills they have and what's available in the market. And you need those three things in order to have a successful job search. If you're missing one of those things, usually it doesn't end well, right?
It's about drawing out those transferrable skills and reworking and rebranding your resume, your LinkedIn and other application materials to showcase that. And being very targeted in terms of networking and doing outreach, especially for cold applications, reaching out to managers and recruiters to make that happen. And what I will tell you is before the economy is the way it is now, the majority of people I worked with found jobs within six to 10 weeks.
Lantigua: Oh, wow.
Selim: And what I tell them is, "Look, this is your dream, your passion now. It may change. Your dreams can change." There was a time where I was a speaker and I was flying everywhere to Boston, DC, LA and New York to do speak engagements, but after I had kids, I don't really want to go. It's nice to go to a hotel and explore a new city, but I'm in a different phase of my life, and I'm sure when my kids get older, I'm going to want to restart some of that.
And so part of this is giving yourself compassion and grace to say, "It's okay if your dreams change." And sometimes they do. And to not let the sunk cost fallacy of, "Oh my gosh, I spent so many years going to med school or law school or working as a chef, that I can't change gears." If you've come to a point in your career where you are clear that you've tried it in different avenues and it's time to walk away, that's okay too. But the key is usually there's a way to leverage the transferrable skills so that you can switch into another career and still be able to start as a leader, as a manager, instead of going back to .0 of entry level.
Lantigua: Yeah. Oh, I love that. And that's such a hopeful message because people are definitely finding themselves stuck and unhappy. But I think it's mostly to do with if you are the kid of immigrants, they set you on a path and you think you have to stay on that path. And then in your early to mid-twenties you realize, "Oh, maybe this is not the path for me." So any last bits of advice, things to consider for folks who find themselves on a path or with no path as they listen to the episode?
Selim: I work with a lot of people who are on no path or they feel they're on no path because they've been on someone else's path. And what I encourage them to do is to really dig deep and ask themselves what makes them happy. And part of this is getting to a place of having that independence and saying, "I'm now going to be in tune with my own feelings and my own needs and embrace that and see where in my body does things feel good, where in my life have things felt good." And use that as an indicator.
And there's always a way to make a career transition. I've worked with people who didn't have a college degree and they went to a coding bootcamp and they ended up with jobs at Google or Facebook, or they went to a startup and they were making six figures. So it's never too late to start. Some of these people are 30, 40, sometimes 50. So hopefully the message that everybody hears is, "No matter where you are, no matter how young you are, and no matter how old you are, if you want to make a transition, it's never too late." You just have to be very strategic about it and very consistent about it.
Lantigua: Oh, I love that. Please, please, please come back. I love talking to you.
Selim: Thank you.
Lantigua: All right. Here's what Samorn taught us today.
Focus on three key factors. When brainstorming career paths begin by identifying your interests, your transferable skills, and what's available on the job market.
Find the through lines. To figure out what you're interested in and what you're good at, look for hidden patterns. Reflect on your most enjoyable and meaningful past experiences. Then think about what they all had in common.
And remember, don't take responsibility for your parents' feelings. Let me repeat that: do not take responsibility for your parents' feelings. You can acknowledge their worries and concerns, but it's not your job to try to make them happy all the time.
Thank you for listening and for sharing us. How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the show's producer. Tren Lightburn mixed this episode. I'm the creator and host, Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram, we're @talktomamipapi. Bye everybody. Talk to you soon.
CITATION:
Lantigua, Juleyka, host. “Feeling Pressured by Her Parents to Choose a Career Path”
How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything,
LWC Studios., June 5, 2023. TalkToMamiPapi.com.