Analiza: Hi, I'm Analiza Qurioz Wolf, proud Asian American former CEO with over 20 years as a leader in the military, corporate and non-profit sectors. I believe in diversity, equity and inclusion, and I'm on a mission to support more women leaders of color rising and thriving at the top. In this next series of podcasts, we highlight senior women leaders of color, and focus on what has made each of them successful. For detailed show notes go to Analizawolf.com/podcasts. And be sure to subscribe, because I send out the best secrets I learned from my guests to my email subscribers. Now let's get into today's show.

I am so excited to be talking with Hanseul Kang today. Right now she's the assistant dean and executive director of the Broad center at the Yale School of Management. And I'm really proud because I was able to attend the Broad center graduate and so to have Hanseul leading this important institution really touches my heart. Before being at Broad, she was the District of Columbia State Superintendent of Education. And under her leadership, the District of Columbia made huge huge strides in achievement outcomes for all students. Before that she was the Chief of Staff for the Tennessee Department of Education, and has this long career in education even starting as a teacher. She has her BS in international politics from Georgetown and got her JD from Harvard Law. So I'm so so excited to talk with you Hanseul about your life and how you journeyed from Harvard on to being at Broad. So let's start Hansel with just your path from upbringing to journey now.

Hanseul: Sure. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm excited to join you. So I grew up in upstate New York and a small suburban town just outside of Albany. And from there, I have sort of lived all over the country. So taught in rural New Mexico, lived in San Francisco and then went to grad school in Cambridge, and then lived in DC, Tennessee, DC again, and now in New Haven, Connecticut. So I'm sort of moved all over. And the common thread is has been public education throughout my career. So I started college at a small liberal arts school called St. Lawrence University and started college there in large part because when I was in high school, I learned quite suddenly towards the end of my junior year that I was undocumented. And so that significantly shaped my I mean, shaped everything really changed everything for me, but into particular shaped the journey to college in a really different way than I had expected. And so even though I was undocumented and didn't qualify for federal financial aid, I was really lucky in that St. Lawrence offered a very generous private financial aid package. So I was actually able to start college on time by going to St. Lawrence. And then we were really lucky in that and we got connected to some pro bono attorneys through friends of friends of family friends, we ultimately gained permanent residency and I'm now a naturalized citizen. But after getting permanent residency, I'm then able to transfer to Georgetown to the School of Foreign Service. They're finished my bachelor's at Georgetown, and then joined Teach for America, became a high school social studies teacher in the Navajo Nation and taught primarily Navajo students from their joint CFA staff, went to law school have never practiced law, going back to working for TFA and then made the job to state education agencies sort of randomly and became the chief of staff in Tennessee and then became a state superintendent before jumping to Broad.

Analiza: I find it incredible that as an undocumented student that you have this path. And I'm curious, as you think about just the challenges that were that you faced, what about that experience was due to luck versus skill?

Hanseul: I'm very aware that my story and the opportunities I've had I have are not afforded to so many other undocumented individuals and in particular undocumented children in this country, which is really part of what led me to speak out and to share my story publicly, which I did in 2017. I published this op ed in The Washington Post where I shared my story publicly for the first time a lot of did that was because there were so many incredibly brave young people who are in actually precarious situations who were speaking out at that time, beginning of the Trump administration being young people just use their voices, even though they're on immigration status and that of their families was meant that they were putting themselves in potentially very real jeopardy by speaking out as somebody who's in this position of both actual authority and much more secure places now a naturalized citizen even though I felt a lot of fear coming up in me, I knew that I had to find a way to speak out I've given In a brief example of so many others, when I was putting together my list of schools, you know, I didn't really know how colleges worked. And it turns out so Georgetown was my dream school. And it turns out that Georgetown was about the worst kind of place you can want to go to as an undocumented student, or at the time anyway, because it's a private institution that has very high tuition and has a very small endowment relative to other sort of top schools. And so it was the least likely to be able to offer any kind of financial aid and St. Lawrence turns out was looking, I think, to sort of raise its academic profile, but also had a very large endowment for a school of its size. But the only reason I applied there was because this friend of mine had gone there. And I sort of needed another school to round out my list. So it was just totally by chance. This is a pretty dream act.

Analiza: I'm imagining you as the student who works hard and is trying to go to the best school possible. And this information, whether it was St. Louis, or Georgetown who would even know how financial aid works. So I'm curious, as a fellow Asian American, the ability to speak out even with safety. Can you talk about that personal journey, where you said, now is the time and you didn't just speak out on a blog post. I mean, you went big with the national publications.

Hanseul: It's a huge part of my journey to be able to tell my own story was actually through my experience in the Broad residency. So like you, I'm an alum of Broad. And it was an enormous part of my own leadership journey long before I took on this role as executive director. So when I was a Broad resident, there's a tradition as brought on. I now have to tell your leadership story as part of the program. So this is tradition, where every person who goes through the program at some point is asked to stand up in the room in front of the room in front of their cohort, which could be 20 people, it could be 50, people could be 70, or 80 people and to talk for 10 or 15 minutes, no props, no nothing about their journey to becoming the leader they are today. And at the time, I was deathly afraid of public speaking. And certainly I had never told my story to anyone other than like, a really close friend, you know, one on one. So to show up at my first residency session, and to be asked to tell my leadership story, I think our second day, I was the second person in our cohort to go and I remember getting up there and sort of I was shaking like a leaf and a cohort mate of mine, who I'll forever be grateful to I caught she caught my eye a couple of minutes into speaking. And I just saw her motionless chimney. And now the words slow down. And I was so glad that she did that, because I realized I've been just like reefing, like the words had just been pouring out of my mouth, and I was going so fast. So when I saw her do that I took a breath and sort of did slow down. And then people could hear me a little bit more. But sharing my story in that moment was sort of the first time I'd ever shared it in that way, and was sort of a big step towards later on and being able to share it and I'm much more public. And it was really scary. In DC, I knew at least that I was in a community that really had was taking it upon itself to really speak out and welcoming terms to undocumented immigrants to immigrant families of all kinds, as well as sort of in Broader and more inclusive ways more generally. But it was still really intimidating to think about, I was staying up until like, three, four in the morning after the 2016 election, because I can feel that fear inside of me just imagining what that was like for others, I felt like I would not be able to live with myself if I didn't find some way to speak out. And so I started to write. And actually, it was one of the only times really that I've been in part of a formal writing process. So I reached out to an editor there, that someone put me in touch with and had a really good experience working with her and have shaped my story into something that could be published in that way.

Analiza: The journey from empathy to actually knowing how others feel because you yourself lived through it. And then taking the step and saying the time is now and the community is more accepting and really needs encouragement to find an editor that would help you through this journey. It's well fortuitous. I mean, it's almost like the path was needed for you gets incredibly brave and inspiring, especially as an Asian American. I really appreciate you doing that. Hello, I want to take us back just through your girlhood of how you thought about the future, what kind of tales a columnist told to you about what the big wild world had for you, or whether you even wanted to be the head of an organization or the head of the school district? I mean, did you have those dreams? What kind of myths were told to you as you look forward as a girl?

Hanseul: Literally up until a few months before I became the state superintendent, I would tell people that I had no interest in ever becoming the number one I loved being a Chief of Staff and sort of being totally behind the scenes, never in the public eye. You know, working really hard to influence things into creating a different set of outcomes for students. But yeah, I had no interest in doing it publicly. And then a chance came along and it's just sort of. It was the right opportunity at the right time. But yeah, I think it's hard to know where any of our paths are going to take us. But as a little kid, I was sort of one of those kids who was determined to not let any of those myths define me. I loved school, I loved reading and writing, I love sort of all parts of school. And so I just wanted to thrive and work really hard and thrive at everything. And even into high school, I remember, you know, taking like the hardest math and science classes that were out there and everything and just wanting to prove that I could hang with anybody. And I think it wasn't until I got older that some of those myths really tried to start to sink in. So when I transferred to Georgetown, for example, I, it was the first time that I was actually questioned academically, like the undocumented experience had led to a lot of other issues and a lot of other uncertainties and doubts, but I hadn't actually felt that around academics up until then, I think, in part because when I was in high school and learned, you know, I already was sort of a top student. And my teachers mostly didn't know, but even a couple of did like, they already knew me really deeply before they heard that news. And so but when I transferred to Georgetown, I remember my advisor, there was an assumption that students who transfer in are not as academically capable as students who get in the first place, you know, that kind of sort of language and nomenclature to it. And so I remember my adviser advising me not to try it for a senior thesis because it was very likely in his words, that I even if I was able to complete the thesis requirement that I probably wouldn't get the GPA that was needed to actually graduate with honors, it was just it was the first time I was doubted academically, and I felt just how pernicious that is, like how much that undermines and like stays in your head and sort of gnaws at you. And so yeah, I think about that a lot for the messages that are sent to so many of our students at a much earlier age, and how challenging that is. It's really hard to dismiss those thoughts when they're placed there.

Analiza: It's very real. I mean, as a teacher force, I believe that people's hearts are in the right place when they decide to be in education. But those words are really biting. And they do stay with us. I'm curious, what other experiences did you find the hardest?

Hanseul: One I'll share actually, that is in the other direction that was bolstering and sort of was the kind of thing that combated that, that experience with the advisor, so and it reminds me because when you talked about sort of the mindsets people bring in to becoming teachers, I thought a lot about the so my high school AP English teacher, was absolutely amazing in as a teacher as just someone who really got to know his students and was incredibly supportive of them. And I think one of the things I always really valued about him was he was the person I went to when I found out so I'd gotten into Georgetown as a senior in high school, but couldn't go because of the financial aid situation because they didn't qualify for any federal financial aid. And so I went to him on the day that I got that letter saying, I didn't qualify him. So I went to him in tears. And he was, you know, there wasn't much he could say, but he was comforting and tried to make me feel better. And then the next day, he handed me back an essay that was all marked up in red. And I was like, This is not your best work, I just want you to know that. And that is something I really appreciated about him that he was incredibly kind and sympathetic. And I knew that he was there for me, but he never backed off on the expectations he had for me, because he wanted to help me be the best writer, I couldn't be the best reader and the best thinker I could be. And I really valued and appreciated that I felt prepared in a different way, even though transferring in as a Junior was hard. And I did have a bunch of hard moments in classes and so on, I did feel more academically prepared because of teachers like him. And I also valued and appreciated a sense of normalcy and a sense that he wasn't quite just sort of lowers expectations for me out of any kind of pity, like that would have felt a lot worse, actually, I think so knowing that way of, you know, being able to show your love by pushing by sharing feedback by holding those high expectations. So that's something I always tried to emulate on hold as a teacher myself.

Analiza: I appreciate that example. Because we've heard that sometimes as people of color, when you're given feedback, bosses might hesitate, or they're really sensitive, maybe they're going to get really emotional about this feedback. So I'm not going to give it to them. And what that does over time is that it holds back this opportunity to grow to get tough, critical feedback to get better. So the tough love that your teacher shared and that you tried to bring as a teacher and lead with is really helpful, because if our intention could be I'm going to give you this tough feedback, and it's going to help everyone including herself, let's not hold back because I truly care. It comes from care. So that's beautiful.

Hanseul: Yeah. And I think finding that balance between those two things is never easy, but it's sort of the journey of journey of both just how you're showing that warmth and care and not not shying away from the growth that we all need to experience and that we continue to experience as we grow up.

Analiza: Hanseul, one of the things that's striking about your career, it's just like the big jobs really early. I mean, you went from and you've been fantastic through academic career and then and as a teacher and then moving into, even without planning it into the state world's district world and curious about looking back somatically if you were to say, Okay, other women of color or women or people of color who are watching my career, here are the things that I did that helps set me up for these fortuitous yet, you are really well prepared to take those fortuitous opportunities, could you share maybe a few that really stand out as wise words you give others?

Hanseul: I think it's fortuitous. I feel really lucky about so many of these different steps. One is, I would never have made the jump to the Tennessee Department of Education, if not for a couple of things. One is that the person who was commissioner at the time, who had moved to Nashville to work for it, had been my manager's manager in my first role in TFA. So this was after I'd been a teacher, I tend to have a staff that's 25, I was in a really junior level role. And Kevin Hoffman was the head of the growth strategy and development team at the time. But even though he was my manager, we'd worked directly together on a couple of projects that I worked really hard on and did a good job with. And he is someone who really thinks about talent in a way that is different from a lot of other people and is able to sort of see I've seen him do this with other people to look at someone who might who others might consider very junior and experience and sort of see something in them that they are ready for a big jump. And so when he was looking for a chief of staff, we got reconnected, and he asked me to move out there and take on that role, having worked very hard and expansively in that junior level role and sort of established myself in some ways. And the messy part is you know, this role I was in where it wasn't very happy. So I had this one role at TFA that I loved in the junior level. I went to law school and graduated from law school and decided to go back into working in public education. And so I've taken a job with another teacher. And it was technically a higher level role. But it felt much more constrained and boxton than my previous role had. And I was really struggling because when I'd been graduated from law school, I looked for a role that, you know, checked all these different boxes, I wanted to learn how to manage a team, I wanted to experience learning about instructional leadership, I wanted to be in DC and you know, all these other qualities, and this job met all of those boxes, and then I got there and I was miserable. And was like, How is this not working? How is it that I left Teach for America and I'm now you know, three years older and have this degree and in a job that feels much worse. And I actually feel much less trusted and have much less responsibility. And I was really questioning sort of where I would go from here, how to look for the next role. And all the things I thought I wanted were actually in this job. But, you know, it didn't play out to be what I thought and you know, I think my path could have gone in a very different route had this sort of had Kevin not become Commissioner for Chief of Staff right at that moment. And had I not been willing to jump right at that moment, and so on. And so I think one lesson is that, you know, if you're feeling frustrated or stuck, it doesn't, you don't need to think that your path is already determined for you in that frustrated or stuck place like those opportunities may still come along. And you may not know they may come from a really unexpected place. The other thing I will say is like I do think there's something about, I saw something over time when I was in Tennessee about people who I think sometimes the things we look for in jobs are not actually things that end up mattering. I think the people matter a lot, right? Like who your direct manager is who you're working with. And that was not one of those things like factored in when I you know, look for that job out of law school. And then I think another thing that actually matters a lot is whether you are someone who really wants to step into a role that's well defined, has clear measures of success, and where you know exactly what you're aiming for. Or if you are someone who wants to actually step into a messy and ambiguous situation and figure out your own definition of success. And that is a core difference that I've seen, and one is not better than the other. But it may mean something about whether you want to come in at what point you want to come into an enterprise. So I remember saying to Kevin, you know, when we first started talking about the Chief of Staff opportunity, you know, I was feeling badly because we were towards the beginning of a school year and asked him you know, could I wait and come in the spring after the school year was over or mostly over? And he said, You know, I'm sure we will have opportunities. We'd love to have you at any point but I have to be realistic like we're building out our team right now. If you were to comment that time and your roll that will be open or probably at least one layer deeper into the work charts than what we're trying to fill right now. And I ended up making the decision to jump, you know earlier and come in at that Chief of Staff level. And that was the right move. For me. I also the team I was on was in a place where I didn't feel like my leaving at that point in time was going to be, you know, debilitating to the work here. But it was a hard call to make. And I saw people later who sort of would ask, you know, we'd be hiring for a role. And they asked me, like, you know, what will the role look like? What are the metrics for success, and I would say, like, you might want to come back to us a year from now, when we will know those things. That is not what we know, right now, what I need right now is someone who will come into this messy situation, figure out what needs to happen, and then go do it. And I think I've seen people sort of not know for themselves which of those they prefer and struggle when it's one or the other. So I think that was a sort of core learning for me too. Analiza: Such good learning. I am a messy person. I like when it's messy, I get called in when it's really, really messy, and very ambiguous. So it's good to know, because when it's too structured, and everything is already pretty good, it's not as exciting for me. So such an important clarification, I want to go back here hustle, because you had made this very, I'm sure rigorous list of things you want to do after Harvard Law. And you said, it really matters. Culture matters to people. So if you were to add to that list, maybe two more bullets or three about what you wished you had added to it must hit this list before I accept this job. What specifically have said?

Hanseul: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest one would have been what I just said. I didn't know this at the time, but walking into a role that was very structured, and also a role where I had two peers on the team were basically in the same role that I was. And I'd never been in that situation before. Well, I guess as a teacher, but in an office setting in that kind of situation before. And that meant that the three of us, although we had very different personalities, and working styles, felt like we should be as consistent as we could for the people who reported to us because they were in the same role. And we wanted to help them have a consistent experience. And between those factors and some other things, I just felt so constrained. It wasn't just that it wasn't as interesting to me, it's like a messy or ambiguous situation. I just remember feeling incredibly boxed in and not able to operate as myself. And then also just through a variety of factors like not feeling very trusted. And those things were really hard for me. And I remember, you know, soon after I got to Tennessee, I was at the department by myself, the lights were on this went off automatically at 9pm, which I didn't know, I was at the office by myself, no one else was around, I'd gone to the printer like around the corner, and all of a sudden the lights went out and it was pitch black. Like being on my way back to my office. I learned later that what you do is you have the security desk, your phone, and you call them and they will turn the lights back on. I think I still have that number in my phone for that reason, you know. So on the one hand, I was in this absurd situation in this office building by myself. And I remember feeling just so happy. I didn't know anybody. And I was sitting there by myself in the dark because I felt that sense of autonomy and that sense of like bringing value and being able to sort of and feeling trusted actually. And those things felt just so important to me. Analiza: Feeling trusted. It's an important yet often overlooked piece of job hunting. So I'm so glad you brought that up. I want to talk about you being the face of the organization that brewed and then at this big district in DC, and I want to talk about how you went from I really like being behind the scenes getting things all in order. And now you're the face. So I'm curious about the shift, you needed to make either a technical shift or whatever pump up you needed to do. Or maybe you didn't, but I'm curious if there were any shifts, could you share?

Hanseul: The context of the time was actually that the role did not call for being as much of an outfront leader as you would expect for the head of an organization. So I was a state superintendent for DC, DC like all the other 50 states has a state education agency. So this is the equivalent of the agency I love. It was the equivalent of the Connecticut Department of Education or the New York State Department of Education. And within DC part of why you need a state education agency is there are more than 67 different local education agencies there at the time. And so DCPS, DC public schools is obviously the one everyone thinks of that's the main traditional school district in DC and serves over half the students there. But in DC each charter network and charter organization has its own local education agency. So like its own many school districts, they each have the responsibilities and the authority over setting their own curriculum and their own hiring process for principals and teachers and so on. And so you need a state education agency that is going to distribute federal grants, set a common foundation in terms of state content standards and assessments, collect common data and provide other sorts of functions like that. And so DC was unique in that obviously it's not formally a state even though it shouldn't be one and so hopefully we'll be at some point but also in that it had only had a state No one state education agency for less than 10 years, I came in in the eighth year of the agency's existence. And there have been seven previous state superintendents in those first seven years, including in terms but just so like a constant revolving door. And it meant that the agency, one was standing up a brand new agency that was inheriting functions from all over DC government was a huge task, and then doing that, after so much leadership transition, and never having really had the chance to get stability and find its footing, were really challenging. And I was also the first person to come into that role, who had actually been at a state education agency previously, and so had a firsthand sense of what that function looks like. And so really the job as I understood it at the time, and as people were looking for it at the time, was not to be the sort of outfront big vision person, it was instead to really come in understand what the state education agency should do what its role was within this education context in DC, where there's a lot of leaders, a lot of players and different entities and try and make the state education agency play the best possible role and could within that environment, which was similar to in some ways to the work I've been doing as Chief of Staff in Tennessee, trying to make that organization as high functioning as possible and work in support of student achievement outcomes. So when I looked at the DC landscape, I saw a place that had been improving in student achievement outcomes already, but where it felt like the state education agency hadn't been playing as full of a role in that improvement as possible. And so hopefully, that by playing as full of a role as possible, that might be one of the contributing factors to looking at DC and seeing all the gains that had made some of it frankly, was just like, getting thrown in and then not having the time to worry about it as much anymore. I mean, I remember going to conferences that first year and delivering opening remarks, like two minute intro remarks and like panicking, and like trying to do all this prep and write notes where I felt and by like year three, I was like, I don't time, I'm going to scroll a couple of things on a post, like gotta index card on my way over to the event just because there's just not enough time in the day to worry about everything. So some of that just came from practice and too many other competing priorities to even have time to be scared. Some of it came from I mean, real preparation was big for me. So like one of the things in DC is there are these very long legislative hearings that you need to prepare for each year, where I mean, one year, it was just me at the witness table in front of the council, the DC council for four and a half hours by myself at this table getting fired questions about anything and everything from early childhood to student transportation to federal grants to local spending to this obscure program, you know, anything and everything. And so the only way that I knew to prepare myself for that experience was to really study and get ready. So I had a huge prep binder that my team would put together each year. But we'd also do question drills over and over again. And I would workshop answers. And yeah, and to your point like even that morning, my chief of staff and I had a routine where we would meet at the coffee shop near the Wilson building. And she would give me like one last pep talk because I always needed one last pep talk, or one more answer that I wanted to practice because I was so nervous every single time we had one of those hearings. So yeah, those were just a few of the things but the nerves never fully went away. I just had except there was work I wanted to do. And there were other things that came with being in the role where I could do the work that I wanted to do. And so I had to learn how to do those things. Analiza: I'm hearing you say, I want X and if it comes with Y, then it comes with Y. And sometimes it's nice because I don't have a lot of time to focus on the Y so I just get it done because I want the X. I'm curious because you're talking about a ton of hard work and you've done this throughout your career and including your academic career. What have you had to sacrifice to be able to get to where you are? I mean big jobs Hanseul even now so what have you had to sacrifice?

Hanseul: I had to look at myself at some point in DC and realize like one the job was always gonna fill as much space as I let it fill. I needed to figure out how to carve out and not that I did a good job of this but at least carve out a little bit that was just for me. So I you know, one of the things I started when I was in DC as a leading agency, there was an athlete recommendation or the executive coach once I started going to a yoga studio really tried to carve out like one to two times a week consistently going to the yoga studio. And sometimes that meant, you know, putting a hard stop and saying like, I'm gonna get out of here at a certain point in time. I'm making space to go. I don't think I've ever told this publicly before, but what the heck. There was one night when I was supposed to go to an evening event and you know, these evening events with small talk are always really exhausting for me. Like I'm an introvert, small talk. It's really hard for me and yeah, I just was not excited about being there. I walked into the ballroom, I saw this mass of people and I was like, I just can't do it. And I turned around and I left. I went home, changed and went to you. It was like the best decision for me. And I was like I can't believe I just did that but I'm really glad I did because no one missed me being there. undergrad, I really needed that for my own sanity, I tried to really carve out my weekends and keep my weekends to myself as much as possible. I would work late during the week, if needed, but I really tried to keep my weekends for myself as much as I could. And then a huge part of it was just building the team around me and really coming to deeply enjoy the people I worked with, getting a lot of satisfaction from sort of the development and building of that team culture and the organization as it and they came together. Analiza: To be an introvert. I can't imagine it's such a, I mean, even as much as you said, it was an internal job, you still have so many people and that huge committee that you got to face for four and a half hours of all hard questions.

Hanseul: Yeah. And one of the things was also like the job evolved, and the time that I was there, and it became much more external facing because DC was going through a bunch of different shifts at the time. And that was really hard for me, as it became more sort of like publicly pressured, doing more community meetings and sort of being that out from person more. But I think you put it really well that by that sort of, if I'd known that's what the job was going to become. I'm not sure I would have taken it. But at that point I was so far. And you know, there were things we were trying to get done. And so that's what came with the territory.

Analiza: Hanseul, what was the mindset that you needed to have? Or what did you need to tell yourself to say, No, I'm carving out the weekend for me? No, I'm not going to go to this event. I really need to go to yoga. Like what did you have to tell yourself? Because it's helpful, right? Because a lot of us face this, whatever the work we're doing, and you're serving thousands and thousands of kids. So what was it that you had to tell yourself so that you can make that decision for yourself to care for yourself?

Hanseul: One of the most helpful things was that my chief of staff was really going to take note of that when we were scheduling meetings, and like, we'd be looking at invites or whatever, I would say like, well, I guess I could go to that be like, do you really want. So she would help me say No, what I needed to do. So again, just like surrounding yourself, sometimes with the people you need, whether that's your friends, or your partner or your team can help. But I think some of it came down to like, I realized at some point that I was really different when I could show up in a sort of clear, grounded headspace. And I knew what it felt like when I wasn't in that headspace and how, you know, both, like how not good that felt to me, but also how ineffective I was, frankly, what I needed more than anything was to be able to find that calm, clear headspace for myself. And so the coach helped me realize, like I was the only one who was going to be able to create that. And the only way to do it was by you know, doing the things that you were laying out. So like carving out some time for myself, going to yoga, learning how to say no to certain things, and prioritizing sort of what I needed. And again, I think there are better ways to do it. But for me at the moment, it came from understanding the impact it was having on my ability to be effective in the role was what else ultimately helped me carve out the space for myself too.

Analiza: So great. All right. With that Hanseul, we're going to do lightning round questions. Ready?

Hanseul: Okay.

Analiza: Okay, chocolate, or vanilla?

Hanseul: Chocolate.

Analiza: Cooking or takeout?

Hanseul: I am a good sous chef. So I will gladly help somebody else cook. But when it's just me, take out.

Analiza: Climb a mountain or jump from a plane?

Hanseul: Oh my God and climb a mountain. Jumping from a plane sounds terrifying.

Analiza: Have you ever worn socks?

Hanseul: The sandals? I don't think so. If I did, it was probably like middle school when I was not thinking so much about these things.

Analiza: How would you rate your karaoke skills on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being Mariah Carey?

Hanseul: Like a solid 4, maybe. One of the things about living in Nashville is there's a lot of karaoke. And most of the people who go are very good. So I would say the average in Nashville is like a seven or eight and I was not that.

Analiza: What's a recent book you read?

Hanseul: I recently read a book called No Future without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu. That was really amazing. A colleague had recommended it to me years ago, and I finally picked it up. It's about his experience of sharing the truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa. It's both a beautiful glimpse into who he is, but also just a really interesting book to read from, like a systems leaders perspective about some of the really tough choices that he and the other organizers of the commission had to make to allow for a national and public conversation that the country needed and how there were individuals who might disagree with those choices, or for whom those choices were really painful, but they had to be made in order to allow for that public conversation. I think it says a lot about some of the choices that we as system leaders sometimes need to make and the ways in which other individuals can push us are not wrong. But sometimes the choices we have to make number one is to allow a more macro or more organized or structured conversation sometimes or some other kind of action.

Analiza: What's your favorite way to practice self care?

Hanseul: Yoga really is the thing for me.

Analiza: What's a good professional development you've done?

Hanseul: It's not just because of my role, I promise the bird residency really was like a life changing experience for me trying to think of something more recent. We used the management center. It was a really good, like helpful foundational training that we did with all our managers at the time.

Analiza: What is your definition of a Boss Mama?

Hanseul I'm not a mother. So I should say that first of all, but to me, I think part of it is somebody who keeps a sense of themself, even as they have this function that is so all consuming, right? So even though you're a mother and your children take up so much of your life, and your brain space, and your attention, and so on, and you want to give so much to them, someone who keeps us something themselves, because they know that that's what they need to in order to show up for their kids.

Analiza: And what advice would you give your younger self?

Hanseul: I will steal this from someone who's our commencement speaker, to not compare your insides to anyone else's outside to the to focus on being the person or the leader, or the whoever that you want to be in a moment and not worry so much about how it looks compared to what is going on for other people, especially because you don't know what's happening out there?

Analiza: Where can we find you Hanseul, like LinkedIn or any social media?

Hanseul: Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn, and the Broad center posts frequently on LinkedIn. So definitely check us out there. And then I also have a Twitter account that I use, admittedly not frequently.

Analiza: And do you have a final ask or recommendation or any parting thoughts to share?

Hanseul: Just thank you so much for having me. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I really enjoyed this conversation.

Analiza: Thank you Hanseul, you're amazing. I appreciate you.

Hanseul: Thank you.

Analiza: Thank you so much for carving out time today to hear today's podcast. Three things before you go. First, if you found it helpful, please leave a five star review. Second, please share with someone else you can share the link and posts on Facebook and say check it out. Lastly, I want to thank you for being a listener and you can go to get a free self care bonus called juice your joy at Analizawolf.com/freebonus. Thank you so much.