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Episode 16:What If You've Been Designing Someone Else's Good Life? A conversation with Charles Lee
24 Plays1 month ago
Charles Lee arrived in the US at five years old with very little English, moved to Koreatown in Los Angeles, watched his parents build a restaurant that became an institution and cost them their marriage, dropped out of college twice, and somehow ended up advising Toyota, Google, and Sequoia. He'll be the first to tell you he still doesn't feel like he's arrived. And that honesty is exactly what makes this conversation worth your time.
In this episode, Charles and I dig into what it actually means to design a life on purpose instead of just letting one happen to you, why the thing you're best at is usually the thing you take most for granted, how to move from a proof of concept to a proof of value, and why the most dangerous gap in most leaders' lives is the distance between how creative they are at work and how present they are at home.
Charles also shares the question a younger friend asked him over dinner in Atlanta that quietly restructured everything. It was piercing enough that I didn't want him to finish it. And I'm pretty sure it's going to do the same thing to you.
His new book, Design Your Good Life, is out now and it might be the most holistic leadership and life framework I've come across in years.
So here's what I want to leave you with. You're giving your best thinking, your most creative energy, and your sharpest attention to your clients and your company every single week. But when's the last time the people at home got that version of you?
Find Charles:
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcasting's Unique Opportunities
00:00:01
Carl Lubbe
Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of One Great Question. And today, feel like I say this quite a lot. I'm unreasonably excited. And maybe the words of Will Godara, unreasonable hospitality, I like to be unreasonably curious or excited. Because sometimes the weird world of podcasting is it brings you into rooms with people that you might not normally get to hang out with. And that has never been more true than it is today with me.
Introducing Charles Lee and His Work
00:00:43
Charles Lee
Wonderful.
00:00:44
Carl Lubbe
But what I love, Charles, and coming across your work is there's this idea of literally being an idea maker as somebody who is the founder and CEO of ideation.
00:00:54
Carl Lubbe
a place where you guys are going into companies and scaling their vision and their ideas through clarity and brand execution. And so for a lot of people, be like, oh, it's a branding company. And it feels like for you guys, there's just a much deeper mission. And so I'm just incredibly excited that you would say yes to our little podcast and spending some time with
The Art of Asking Better Questions
00:01:12
Carl Lubbe
me.
00:01:13
Charles Lee
Hey, Carl, thanks for having me. I mean, everything I've heard about you is you're a stud. And then on top of that, you have this really cool accent, at least relative to the U.S.
00:01:23
Charles Lee
And just anything you say just sounds smarter. So it's an honor to be here.
00:01:26
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:01:29
Charles Lee
And I'm really excited to be on this podcast. Thank
00:01:31
Carl Lubbe
Well, appreciate Yeah, the joke is, you know, I just use it to like I've gotten my wife, you know, so now I had an unfair advantage in college. I could both play an instrument and was a musician. And then I had a little tip of an accent like it's just enough to be, oh, that's interesting, but not so much.
00:01:41
Charles Lee
you.
00:01:45
Carl Lubbe
We like I don't understand what you're saying. And so it's this unfair middle ground that I've definitely been fortunate enough to use to my advantage. So. So, you know, on the podcast, Charles, what we love to do is think about like, what are better questions?
00:01:58
Carl Lubbe
And so I'm in the pursuit of those myself as the owner of a company called Curiosity. It's kind of part of the job description, right? And so in the podcast, we like to ask three of these.
00:02:10
Carl Lubbe
So the first one that I love to ask is actually for a very specific and weird reason as an executive coach. And so something maybe I think you would appreciate When I walk into the room with CEO or a founder or C-suite or executives or middle management or even frontline, honestly, the thought in the back of my head is I'm on a rescue mission for Charles's inner eight-year-old.
00:02:18
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:02:32
Carl Lubbe
Because the thesis that I have around this is if Charles shows up today on this Friday with me or with your spouse or your kids who, you know, your daughter playing at USC and flag football, you're showing up like what an amazing kid space like flag football is like the most fun kid thing ever because, you know, my son is doing that currently, too. And it just seems like a blast.
00:02:50
Carl Lubbe
But we oftentimes don't translate that right into the office. We don't walk in and be like, what would the eight-year-old version of me do in this boardroom on a Wednesday when we're doing an M&A or a rebrand something big and scary and super grown up?
00:02:55
Charles Lee
Sure.
00:03:03
Carl Lubbe
And so I jokingly tell executives all the time, I'm on a rescue mission for your inner eight year old. I want to know how you would show up. The eight year old version of you would show up today because your eight year old version is thinking, hold on, I can drive a car and I've got a bank account and I'm married and I've got resources and we can go wherever we want to.
00:03:19
Carl Lubbe
And You know, so my first question to you, Charles, and just so everybody has context for Charles is coming from flight from Tokyo, then home to L.A., then to New York, then back
Charles Lee's Immigrant Journey and Career Path
00:03:30
Carl Lubbe
to L.A.
00:03:30
Carl Lubbe
And on four hours sleep has kindly agreed to be on a video podcast. So like, first of all, thank you. And also you're insane. But let's ask like a child this question on your lack of sleep depravated state.
00:03:39
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:03:44
Carl Lubbe
What were the eight year old version of Charles? looking at your life today, what would they be wowed by? What would they like not believe is happening? Like, what's the thing that would just like kind of grab would grab their attention?
00:03:57
Charles Lee
Yeah, one, this is an amazing question. And yes, I'm on very little sleep. So take it with a grain of salt.
00:04:04
Carl Lubbe
Okay.
00:04:04
Charles Lee
I think my eight year old version, just to give you some context, I had come to the US as an immigrant when I was five turning six. And then around the age of eight, I came from New York to L.A.
00:04:19
Charles Lee
because my parents were pursuing as entrepreneurs a couple of different opportunities in the restaurant space. And because of that, I think I was still kind of learning the language.
00:04:24
Carl Lubbe
Okay.
00:04:27
Charles Lee
And so if my 80 year old self, you know, one was in a state of shock in a totally different country with very little at the time, we kind of gave up everything to come to.
00:04:37
Charles Lee
kind of pursue that American dream. So I think my 80 year old version would be just shocked at one. I speak English this fluently to that.
00:04:47
Charles Lee
I live in a completely different world than from really having nothing at home and really walking the streets of we moved to Koreatown in Los Angeles.
00:04:58
Charles Lee
And in the early years, it was still like, you know, a fairly like relatively impoverished type of area.
00:04:58
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:06
Charles Lee
And so I think the 80 year old would be very confused at how my life could have turned out the way it did from where where he is right now if he's back at age eight.
00:05:18
Charles Lee
So I think be one of shock, one of kind of all wondering how did how did you even get remotely to where you are? And I think it would be very unrecognizable as if it's in completely different planet, completely different universe.
00:05:33
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:05:34
Charles Lee
So that journey has been so wild and so outside of anything that 80-year-old could have imagined. And, you know, maybe if the eight year old, I don't think the eight year old knew at the time what the American dream was or what, you know, why parents fully, you know, plucked them out of different country from all his friends to a new country.
00:05:55
Charles Lee
But would be very curious as to how I got to where I am today.
00:06:01
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Well, let's follow the eight year old's question. Maybe you can tell me and everybody listening and watching, how did you get to where you are today? Like take us on a little bit of a journey through your twenties and thirties.
00:06:11
Charles Lee
Yeah. Yeah. So I think growing up, all I saw was my parents just kind of hustle. They both of them came from completely different background than the restaurant industry. My father was little bit, I think more, both of them were pretty creative. So he had done some, worked in a little bit of the architectural space, my mother and fashion and literally were thought the US would provide a better opportunity. So growing up, they both started a restaurant before and after they split up.
00:06:40
Charles Lee
I remember growing up and just seeing them work around the clock They have one opportunity with another investor to start something in LA. That became a pretty well-known restaurant, but that cost them their marriage. It cost them, I think, their relationship with me for a long period of time.
00:06:57
Charles Lee
And so coming out of high school, had parents who had kind of made a stake. Some of your viewers and listeners may know Korean barbecue. My mother was the first one to do an all-you-can-eat in LA.
00:07:11
Carl Lubbe
Wow.
00:07:11
Charles Lee
they have dishes that have now become staple in our culture. So when people find out that really consume Korean barbecue, they could care less about anything I've accomplished professionally.
00:07:21
Charles Lee
But there's lots of things that in the whole like barbecue.
00:07:24
Carl Lubbe
I might be raising my hand as one of those barbecue fans.
00:07:26
Charles Lee
Let's do it. Yeah,
00:07:28
Carl Lubbe
So when you come to Atlanta, you'll have to turn it into a better spot.
00:07:30
Charles Lee
it's.
00:07:32
Carl Lubbe
Because I love it. You'll be like, that's not the spot. This is...
00:07:35
Charles Lee
So I mean, growing up, just it wasn't taught, but I caught a lot about what it takes to build a business. I mean, their context, they didn't really speak the language. They came across so many challenges, how to develop employee staff, how to market a business in a foreign language. And so I just kind of learned and I was always a curious child asking questions about how they build something. And then as as I saw their marriage fall apart through, I think they separated when I was in middle school. They tried to get back together, but eventually divorced more officially when I was in early high school. And so when I got into college, I said, I'm going I'm not going to do anything related to restaurants or business.
00:08:20
Charles Lee
I went completely different direction. And I pursued both the undergraduate and graduate degree focused on things like philosophy. And so I said, I don't want anything because the only thing I remember from my childhood and this might be a good like pin is that our family vacations were literally closing the restaurant at close to midnight on a Saturday night. My parents may connect with some of their friends and they would drive to Vegas from here, which is about four or five hours from L.A.
00:08:49
Charles Lee
Spend Sunday just kind of hanging out and doing whatever they do. And then we would come back Sunday night so they could open the restaurant on Monday. So that was my childhood.
00:08:58
Carl Lubbe
Anyway.
00:08:58
Charles Lee
So there was no like vacationing, which has significantly altered how I vacation with our kids when they grew up. And so I realized that's not the life I want.
00:09:10
Charles Lee
And so try to go a different direction and just become very theoretical. And then philosophy can be super practical advice for people. really try to
Ideation and Entrepreneurial Insights
00:09:18
Charles Lee
pursue that. And ended up becoming a college professor, basically. And I did that for about 10 years. And while I was doing that, what I realized was that I had so many friends that were asking me to help them with their startup.
00:09:32
Charles Lee
help them with their nonprofit organization. And I realized very quickly that I was actually pretty good at helping people clarify ideas and help them practically scale it.
00:09:47
Charles Lee
And kind of resisted it, but realized, man, I grew up an environment of two crazy entrepreneurs. And they had taught me so much about what it takes to build something.
00:09:57
Charles Lee
And then social media came around. And so I'm like, I feel like I'm dating myself. I'm getting really old. I know I look like I'm 20 now.
00:10:05
Carl Lubbe
Melissa, you look 20 years younger than me, Charles. So what do you do?
00:10:10
Carl Lubbe
Keep it up.
00:10:11
Charles Lee
So like I went back and basically when social media came around, was an early adopter and I got a lot of traction online. I was doing flash mobs. I was doing, and I started getting hired by brands to guerrilla marketing.
00:10:23
Charles Lee
All these people I looked up to in marketing and brand building and business started reaching out on projects. And so when I soon realized that I was, you know, at that point making more in one day advising than in teaching one class for an entire semester, I was like, this math doesn't pan out.
00:10:44
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. I'm a philosophy guy, but I can still do math.
00:10:46
Charles Lee
So Yeah. So I ended up really building a huge network around and then started curating, you know, conferences and events around the pain of executing well.
00:11:00
Carl Lubbe
Hmm.
00:11:00
Charles Lee
And then within a couple years, like most major brands were starting to come to the events. And then that's when I really people start to ask, what do outside of conferences? And that's when we launched our company called Ideation, which is kind of part strategy consulting.
00:11:14
Charles Lee
and then part creative studio. So back then, this was over 16, 17 years ago, back then, you had big consulting firms and big creative agencies.
00:11:16
Carl Lubbe
Thank you.
00:11:25
Charles Lee
But we wanted to work with really the pain that executives were feeling early on in the ideation process. But it was too early to hire these big companies. And so that's where we came in and basically said, we'll help you kind of accelerate, clarify your concept. And often we end up helping them actually execute on those ideas. So that's been kind of like the build. So over the years, like I tried a lot of different things.
00:11:52
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:11:52
Charles Lee
And I realized I really didn't find myself, you will, until I was probably in my And I went through lots of different counseling and therapy. And then I realized there was kind of a through line of things, a thing I was really good at.
00:12:06
Charles Lee
And then that's when kind of my career took off.
00:12:10
Carl Lubbe
Man, that's so incredible, Charles, because what I'm hearing and I would love for you to tell me if you see it differently is like the superpower kind of materializes in your 30s through like trial and error and through therapy and these other spaces.
00:12:22
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:12:24
Carl Lubbe
But it's this thing. If I think of philosophy, it's fairly similar to my career choice in my 20s was as a professional musician.
00:12:31
Charles Lee
Yep. Yep. Yeah.
00:12:32
Carl Lubbe
There's a gift of philosophers and maybe songwriters as well of synthesizing. of taking a really big idea, know, and then Nietzsche goes, well, God is dead. Well, that's a really big idea said very simply. And then, OK, well, what does that mean? And you unpack it or in a song. It's like, hey, let me take love. Hey, here's two lines in the chorus that encapsulate what I think about love currently. And so For you, was that kind of the through thread that you started to see was this ability to synthesize very large, complex, difficult things into ways that other people could, whether it's a brand, hey, here's how we package it, whether it's an executive, here's how we implement this very complicated, heavy, large thing into something more palatable and simple.
00:13:10
Charles Lee
Yeah, I think you're right. I think one of the questions or the aha moments that one of my therapists asked was, what are you best in your world at? And it can often be things you take for granted.
00:13:24
Charles Lee
So that was kind of one of the kind of the life moments.
00:13:26
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm.
00:13:27
Charles Lee
And I was just kind of thinking like, man, what is it?
00:13:27
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm.
00:13:30
Charles Lee
Because when you are really good at something, you take that for granted because it's so close to you. Everybody else thinks it's magic. But you're like, no, no, that can't be true.
00:13:41
Charles Lee
And so I think for me was taking complex ideas and bringing it down. Even when I was a professor, that was kind of one of the top reviews from students is like you have this ability to take complex ideas and make it so digestible in a classroom setting.
00:13:56
Charles Lee
And so like when I work with clients, they're like, man, for me, it just feels like I'm listening.
00:13:56
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:14:02
Charles Lee
And then delivering thoughts that they made up, not me.
00:14:05
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:14:05
Charles Lee
Right.
00:14:06
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:14:06
Charles Lee
And just kind of connecting the dots. Right. And providing in a frame where it's more digestible, it makes little bit more sense. The ideas are intersected and connected in such a way that they're like, wow, this is amazing.
00:14:18
Charles Lee
But I'm like, anybody can do this. But I realized in my thirties that not anybody could do that. And I think that was like the moment where, okay, I got a, I think I can make a living doing this. And it was really at that point trying to figure out how to do that.
00:14:31
Carl Lubbe
Yeah, which is the advice my dad would give me when we immigrated, because our stories are very similar. Immigrated at eight, worked in the foundry with my dad all through my teenage years and realized I do not want to do this level of manual labor with multiple thousand degree pouring metal. And he's like, you know, call the thing you have to do is figure out what you're good at and then find somebody dumb enough to pay you to do that thing.
00:14:54
Charles Lee
I love
00:14:55
Carl Lubbe
So he had maybe a less optimistic view of the world But in that space as well, to your concept, Einstein said it this way. He said, true genius is taking complex things and making them simple. So kudos, Einstein is calling you a genius. And then the way that I frame that with my clients, because they'll have sometimes similar reactions of, oh, that was a complicated thing and you made it like this. I think it's just because I'm lazy.
00:15:18
Carl Lubbe
Like that, the thing you're carrying seems really heavy and big, and I would never want to carry all of that. So here it is in one line, or here is in one thought.
00:15:24
Charles Lee
and
00:15:26
Carl Lubbe
And I jokingly say I worked really hard in my teens, unreasonably hard, so much so that I'm sure defects would have been called a couple of times to be like, I don't think a 14 year old should be working in a foundry.
00:15:36
Carl Lubbe
And I think my brain during those years was going, How do we make this easier, simpler, faster? And, you know, for both you and I, we now get to apply our trades inside businesses to make their work easier, which has been super fun. And I'd be curious for you, once you discovered that superpower, the thing that felt iconic or strange or unreachable to other people that just felt natural to you, like Superman flying.
00:16:02
Carl Lubbe
Was there a moment where you go, this is so fun. Once you recognize that flight to you or like normal to you is flight to other people, because that happened to me in my 30s and 40s when that unlock switch happened, was like, and then now every room you kind of walk into, once you have that knowledge feels fun. Was that a thing that happened to you? Or was it more like, no, no, no, Carl, now it was like, it was 20 hour days in the grindstone and it's like, I got to scale this thing.
00:16:28
Carl Lubbe
Or maybe it both.
00:16:29
Charles Lee
I think eventually, like, you know, actually talk about this in my new book is like moving from like this proof of concept or an idea that you have that you feel like, hey, it's actually legit to creating a proof of value.
00:16:42
Carl Lubbe
Mm-mm.
00:16:42
Charles Lee
Moving from a concept value is ton of hard work. And so for me, I realized, okay, I think my theory is that I could do this, but I didn't fully know how to get there.
00:16:55
Charles Lee
I didn't know like what it would take, the challenge or the cost it would require to go over there. And so for me, it was a season of like, okay, I need to prove that I can create value for someone else. And the way that I think about value and creating value for others is either I need to figure out what they want to get done And either I'm either going to remove a pain point for them or create a gain for them.
00:17:18
Charles Lee
Right? That's how you create value for someone else. That's a value proposition you could provide somebody. And so I worked hard to try to better understand what my clients actually needed.
00:17:40
Charles Lee
Those three things is just universal in business. In addition to that, what do they really want to get done?
00:17:43
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:17:46
Charles Lee
And so I think that was kind of the approach. And it took a long season of a lot of pain to get there. But through it, you just kind gain confidence like, hey, I have proof.
00:17:58
Charles Lee
That what I think my super, you know, power is, is actually real. And so that's where I focus my energy and less about, oh, now it's fun. I'm going to go because, you know, like, you know, Carl, like when you're starting something, that's a luxury.
00:18:13
Charles Lee
It's enjoyable, but it's also incredibly painful because you may think it, but nobody else knows it.
00:18:17
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:18:19
Carl Lubbe
We both laugh out of trauma. Both of our drama. Yeah.
00:18:24
Charles Lee
Yeah, so it was kind of an interesting balance of both where I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I was also working hard to try to get good at it. Because at that time, I still have my day job teaching. And I knew that I needed to figure out extra hours. And, and when I was starting the company, asked my wife, give me 18 months to build this. And if I can't build it in 18 months, I'm gonna stay teaching, basically. And so I, our kids were young at the time. And so I would work from around 8, 9 p.m. when they went to bed till about 1, 2 a.m., about five, sometimes six days a week. And that gave me 20 plus extra hours a week for 18 months to build something. And that's how I kind of ended up launching the company.
00:19:05
Carl Lubbe
Amazing. So if we can then kind look at the other, you know, side of that. So you come through all that, you give all this work, you build something.
Defining Success and Work-Life Balance
00:19:16
Carl Lubbe
What was success to you? Like once it started, was there a moment where you went, oh, have prudent value. I'm getting to work with Toyota and Google and Vanguard and all these guys. Was there a thing where you go, this feels like I've crossed some sort of threshold that is the marker of success to me?
00:19:31
Charles Lee
Yeah. I mean, a, I don't know if it's just, this may be complex and, uh, I'm starting to feel like this may feel like therapy to me, but, uh, but I,
00:19:42
Carl Lubbe
I hear that a lot from people. So if you don't want to go there, you don't have to, but I'm fascinated.
00:19:45
Charles Lee
I realized like, You know, I've never really felt like I've arrived. And I think that's part because I'm an immigrant and to some extent, the way I look often makes me feel like I'm a perpetual foreigner in this country.
00:19:53
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:20:00
Charles Lee
So there a lot of like dynamics that's happening in my head. And, you know, some of that may be fabricated. Some of that is actually based on real, like being in rooms, feeling like I'm the least qualified.
00:20:11
Charles Lee
I was never really broke stereotypes like I was never really good in academics. I dropped out of college twice.
00:20:15
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:20:17
Charles Lee
It took a lot of time to get to my master's degree. Eventually, I found my stride. But, you know, sitting in rooms where like you have most graduates from like Harvard and Stanford and and yet they're looking to you to provide ideas it can be very daunting and very you could feel very insecure about the moment you're not qualified you don't have the right pedagogy you don't have the right pedigree have you don't have like all of these kinds of things and so For me, it's never felt like, oh, I've arrived.
00:20:47
Charles Lee
I mean, it's beautiful when there moments and there's, you know, and this may be very shallow where moments you realize, oh, I have the resources to provide my kids in a way that I never dreamed of.
00:20:58
Charles Lee
So there are moments where I feel like, man, all this hard work means something practical. The opportunities my children have and they're both, you know, we're empty nesters now and They're both once graduated from college, the others in college and the like, the network I can give them, I can't work for them, but the network can give them is huge leg up They're going to graduate college without any debt.
00:21:20
Charles Lee
All these kinds of things are like, oh, I guess people could deem it as success. But I feel like in moments where if I could do all of this and yet I could honestly say you could go talk to any of my kids, either my kids or my wife, and they'll probably tell you we have a great relationship.
00:21:37
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm.
00:21:37
Charles Lee
So I feel like that feels successful. But in order to get there took so much work and sacrifice and cost. So I feel like, yeah, it wasn't like a moment where I'm like, oh, it just kind of turned on.
00:21:53
Charles Lee
I think it's just countless years of going back and forth from a sense of purpose to insecurity, to a sense of purpose and achievement, going back to failure, to going back. And so it's been like,
00:22:06
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:06
Charles Lee
couple of steps forward, couple steps back, back and forth, back and forth over the years.
00:22:06
Carl Lubbe
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:10
Charles Lee
And eventually from hindsight, and sometimes I see it more clear when other people tell me about what they saw, whether my friends or family, like I remember when you used to do this or that.
00:22:22
Charles Lee
It's really, you know, satisfying even for them to see how I live my life now. I think that's been kind of like, it's hard to see, like, you know, when you're raising kids,
00:22:33
Charles Lee
There have been plenty of times where like, man, our kids are so, they don't have it. They're always complaining. They feel like, I'm like, they're entitled, blah, blah, until you meet other parents and you're like, man, your kid is so polite.
00:22:45
Charles Lee
They're really focused whenever they engage me. And you realize, okay, maybe it's not as bad as I think it is.
00:22:47
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:22:51
Carl Lubbe
Right.
00:22:52
Charles Lee
And so I feel like that's the true of my life is when I think about myself, it's really hard because I feel like starting from a place of lacking place of like, you know, start from scarcity and ending up with surplus.
00:23:05
Charles Lee
It's hard to tell, but that's where I need other voices in my community to remind me that, man, you've been really blessed and your work has paid off.
00:23:10
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Yeah. Well, as somebody new to you and to the community that surrounds you, I would definitely say that that is the impression and the feeling that's given off as moving from one season to the other.
00:23:25
Carl Lubbe
And I would say too, just as somebody who's, again, it feels like you and I are living kind of like sliding door versions of the same life, right?
00:23:32
Charles Lee
you
00:23:33
Carl Lubbe
There's core differences, but there's so many similarities in that. You know, for me, I look like, you know, the person in the culture or whatever it has been for 200 years, you know, six foot two white male. And then at the same time, it's like there's enough accent where I'm not fully American. There's not enough accent where I'm fully South African. And so you're always this third culture kid. Right.
00:23:55
Carl Lubbe
But also it's like, but I also have to go like, no, no, no. But when you walk into the room, nobody's thinking immigrant. It's like, oh, this is the person who has been, you know, for better or worse received the immediate power nod in the room as a man, as you know, all the other things.
00:24:03
Charles Lee
Thank you.
00:24:09
Carl Lubbe
And so it has been really lovely exercise of the last 20 years to go, what does it just look like to give away power? What does it look like to give away influence? It's completely unearned, which has actually done a really interesting thing for my mental state, walking into rooms like you're talking about where you're like, oh, there's Wharton Business School, there's Stanford.
00:24:29
Carl Lubbe
Oh, they had a hundred million dollar exit. And then in my mind, I'm going, And in every one of these people, as opposed to the comic who says, imagine the room naked, all I'm doing is imagining fully clothed.
00:24:41
Carl Lubbe
So good for that. But eight year old versions of them, like all they want to do is make a friend. All they want to do is have some fun. All they want to do is connect and be seen.
00:24:48
Charles Lee
Okay.
00:24:50
Carl Lubbe
And so immediately in those rooms, you know, I'm in that space, kind of like what you're talking about, where you get enough, you know, Alex Hermozzi talks about like, you either get enough receipts where you've won enough where that voice gets quieter, or if you don't have enough receipts yet, it's going, I'm not really looking at me, I'm looking at them and what they need, kind of what you were talking about, what you got good at in your 30s is going, can I really understand their pain point? Can I really understand their purpose and help them in that space? Because that's the only thing, honestly, that I think that qualifies us is the ability to carry
00:25:21
Carl Lubbe
Or celebrate pleasure is what gives us access in the room. And you've done that, you know, beautifully for the last, you know, however long in the career that's been in your 30s. Because again, apparently you're 28 because all those decades younger than me.
00:25:30
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:25:32
Charles Lee
Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:35
Carl Lubbe
I would love to ask, because we've talked about that, you know, kind of our second question is, when you talk about the success with the work with your spouse, with your kids, like you said, that costs you middle of the nights, that costs you going, oh, do I need to have a reframe of my kid?
00:25:50
Carl Lubbe
Because as an immigrant dad, I have the same thing. I'm like, oh, how do I work through entitlement? Because I grew up, you know, my family, the first year we first couple of years we lived here, we made $8,000 a year for a family of six.
00:26:02
Charles Lee
Yeah, wow.
00:26:03
Carl Lubbe
So it's literally hand to mouth, kindness of strangers sort of stuff.
00:26:06
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:26:07
Carl Lubbe
And now I look at my kids and I'm like, I would have looked at them as like literally Richie Rich from the movie. Like that's, and we don't live like that, but in comparison, you know, because we play the comparison game, right?
00:26:13
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:26:16
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:26:18
Carl Lubbe
And I'm like, God, please just don't let me raise entitled, spoiled kids. And then you get around friends. They're like, and they'd shake my hand to make eye contact and great conversationalists and so polite. And you're like, OK, apparently, you know, and I joke, I was like, you know, my wife's doing a great job and the software installation was great. And I'm just trying to figure it out. I'm just trying to be present.
00:26:36
Charles Lee
I love Yeah.
00:26:37
Carl Lubbe
But we know that those little moments of success that we're not holding onto and claiming as our own still cost us something. So if you look at the bill of, hey, your success will, if we jump in the DeLorean and go back in time and be like, hey, 20 years ago, Charles, your success will cost you this.
00:26:44
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:26:54
Charles Lee
Yeah.
Career Sacrifices and Reflections
00:26:55
Carl Lubbe
Is there anything on that bill where you go like, I'd probably take that off the bill. I probably wouldn't pay that again.
00:27:02
Charles Lee
Yeah, I think, and I think this probably common case for any entrepreneur is, you know, it takes time to build something. And while I did my best to like, because we built our clients around the country and, you know, we still have a lot of clients in New York, East coast, the DC.
00:27:21
Charles Lee
And so there's always been a lot of back and forth. So I would do things like,
00:27:24
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm.
00:27:27
Charles Lee
be with the kids, whatever they had going at school, take off on a red eye, land in New York early morning, and then go basically to like 10 to 12 meetings that day in New York and then fly back that night.
00:27:43
Charles Lee
And that was a common place for my kind of lifestyle do whatever it takes to still, because part of me was like, I didn't want my kids to experience kind of a little bit of the brokenness of my own home.
00:27:55
Charles Lee
And so both my wife and I, we have parents that both divorced. And so we're like, we're not going to recreate that for our kids to the extent possible. And so I would do things like that. And eventually took kind of a physical toil on my body.
00:28:12
Charles Lee
I think I was in my 30s when I started taking high blood pressure medication. And, you know, it's just like I find myself doing that. So, you know, I think the challenge, Carl, is like, could I have done it differently? Maybe.
00:28:26
Charles Lee
don't know.
00:28:26
Carl Lubbe
Thank
00:28:27
Charles Lee
You know, maybe I was influenced by quite quote unquote, the hustle culture of the day during that time where all the books were written about like how much you sacrifice and do it and pursue your dreams. And so in some ways that allowed me to kind of pursue and experience some of the realization of my dreams. But I'm not fully sure. I'm sure I will pay you know, physically for some of those things. And then just the risk on the you know, was all I think relatively calculated risk. But I remember I'll just tell you this story just on cost is like I think this is about 14 years ago.
00:29:03
Charles Lee
My wife had found a great home that we're currently living in. And it was a home that came on surprisingly. Our neighborhood is, we love it. And it came short sale. And she's like, we got to go get it. We didn't have like that much at the time.
00:29:20
Charles Lee
And then she got it. And then we're going through a credit check. And leading up to that credit check, I had basically maxed out every credit line I had. because I was throwing these conferences. I had gotten advice from great people that actually panned out eventually, but they're like, hey, invest in others, convene events, don't ask for anything. So I did that for three years. I did about 15 conferences in three years and spent all my money basically without offering anything.
00:29:48
Charles Lee
So I don't know if that was smart or not. Thankfully, people started asking, so what do you do outside of these events? And that's when we launched our company. But having done that for a few years, all of this in our credit report came out.
00:30:01
Charles Lee
And I kind of refer to this in the book to like, all this came out and you can imagine the intensity and the shock of my wife's face is like, man, what are we doing here?
00:30:14
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Oh, that's amazing.
00:30:14
Charles Lee
And so that was a point of cost. And thankfully for me, all that investment, that's when it started to turn. We still got the house somehow miraculously. And we were able to start to build. And the irony is eventually a few years after that, I was able to hire, my wife was in corporate, so she floated us for a while and we were able to hire her full time into our business.
00:30:38
Charles Lee
So like we were able to do that as kind of full circle moment. But yeah, it came at a big cost. So there were like these moments where you're like, man, severe gut check. I wasn't wasting any money or trying. was still trying to be with my kids.
00:30:52
Charles Lee
You know, you could ask my kids and they probably didn't feel like I was gone. that much.
00:30:57
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:30:58
Charles Lee
But it came out of cost. So will I not do it again? I don't know, like maybe my, you know, I'm going to be 54 this year, maybe my older version would not have done that.
00:31:05
Carl Lubbe
OK.
00:31:09
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. I don't know.
00:31:09
Charles Lee
But when you don't know, you don't know. So it's just kind of a hard you asked really good questions. It's really hard question to answer. Because I don't think there's a world in which my 30 year old self would not have done it.
00:31:15
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:31:20
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:20
Charles Lee
Right?
00:31:21
Carl Lubbe
I love that. I love that.
00:31:22
Charles Lee
But in my 50 year old version, now I'm like getting risk averse, calculating, I still got to pay off tuition for my kids, whatever the case may be.
00:31:22
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:31
Charles Lee
So I probably would be less likely to do that now, but I'm glad don't regret it at all that I did it when I was young.
00:31:39
Carl Lubbe
Well, and that's the beauty, right, of like living long enough and doing these things long enough where you can have a warrior season where you just all this energy and you want to go thing. And then you've got a builder season of, OK, let's calm that down, but let's build on something.
00:31:52
Charles Lee
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:52
Carl Lubbe
then finally, we get to sage season where it's like we can have wisdom and oversight for this.
00:31:56
Carl Lubbe
Speaking of which, the one of the other my favorite. cocktail questions, give you this one that bookends the eight-year-old is, what would your 88-year-old looking at your life today, what would they miss that you're going to do today?
00:32:22
Carl Lubbe
So I would love to now ask, talking about the book, the word that pops up to me with you and one of the superpowers that you clearly have in synthesizing, and you and I see this, I'm sure, lot with executives, is a lot of what we're getting paid for is that we just like to give some attention to something.
00:32:39
Carl Lubbe
They're pretty scattered like, hey, how do we hone in? And in our work, we talk about this is kind of the magic trinity or the holy trinity of attention, intention and commitment. And so in your new book, you know, design your good life, there feels like a lot of those elements.
00:32:53
Charles Lee
yeah. Yeah.
00:32:56
Carl Lubbe
And so if you could, like, tell me when you went to write because you've already written a different book. Good idea. Now what? Which is all about execution. Now, when you come in to design your good life, what was the problem in the world that you're like, I think there needs to be more attention towards this problem. So I'm going write towards that end.
00:33:12
Charles Lee
Yeah, this book came out because realized like life often just happens to us. It just happens. And it's not necessarily the fault of anybody. Life just happens. And before you know it, you're like, man, this is not the life that I actually have planned for.
00:33:26
Charles Lee
So I'm definitely not trying to be a guru be try to be a hyper inspirational type of person. But I'm like in those moments where you feel like, man, something's kind of gone off drift, even if it's like one percent.
00:33:32
Carl Lubbe
Okay.
00:33:40
Charles Lee
over time, that 1% becomes a huge distance from where you want it to go. Or others, they may not know exactly which direction to go. They just kind know the general zip code they want to go towards, but it's a long journey there. And so the book was designed really least for three different things.
00:33:58
Charles Lee
Types of seasons or phases in one's life. The first is called spark. And so these are for people who feel like there's something on the horizon, but they don't know exactly what and they want to achieve some level of purpose.
00:34:07
Carl Lubbe
Thank
00:34:09
Charles Lee
And this is where, you know, I resonated with your work because the mindset in that phase has all to do with curiosity. You know, so there's a lot of research around the brain and curiosity, the benefits of it, the real, how curiosity kind of dies as people get older or into their new positions at work. So there's some really interesting work around the work of curiosity.
New Book and Personal Growth
00:34:31
Charles Lee
So if you get to a place where you feel like there's a general sense of purpose and direction, that goes to kind of second phase of the book, which is called Actualize. And it's all about what I said earlier is like, how do you go from some type of passion or sense of direction
00:34:44
Charles Lee
to proving your concept and moving it to a proof of value so that when you walk into the room, maybe you're, because everyone's still insecure, but you have a little bit more confidence, not because you hope to have confidence, but because you did the work.
00:34:57
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:34:58
Charles Lee
that you have proof of value when you enter the room and you know what the engagement is going to be like. You know what you're bringing to the table. And third phase is really I'm super excited about is those who have maybe tasted some success, have some level of confidence, they're creating impact in the world.
00:35:12
Charles Lee
And it's called influence. And it has to do with how do you steward your relationships, your resources, your finances, and create this type of impact that ultimately builds towards a meaningful legacy in one's life.
00:35:25
Charles Lee
And so in that phase, it's really about it's not it's less about how to become the best in the world and something is how do you become the best for the world and some, you know, and so that idea is what really drives.
00:35:35
Carl Lubbe
Oh, I love that. Mm-hmm.
00:35:39
Charles Lee
And so I wrote it because, yeah, there are parts where you will definitely benefit professionally and you may pursue that. But you could be a parent trying to build better relationship with your teenager. Well, it still starts with curiosity about your kid.
00:35:51
Charles Lee
And so the framework works both in professional and personal settings. And so that was kind of spirit behind it because the first book was really about execution, getting to market, those kinds of things.
00:36:01
Charles Lee
And I feel like I wanted to write a book that was far more holistic, but it could impact your professional careers as well as your personal ones. I think it will impact raise morale on teams and really help people see try to align their sense of value and purpose to their work as well as life choices so that's kind of like the spirit of it and that's how the book came to be like there wasn't enough i saw anyway and books that were written that touch upon those areas together so that's the reason for the book
00:36:33
Carl Lubbe
I love that. And one of the people that I would love to, you know, connect you with as well as my brother, he's a kind of high end functional neurologist. And when I say high end, I mean, just like in much demand.
00:36:46
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:36:46
Carl Lubbe
And one of the things that he talks about is most of the work these days just isn't holistic enough. And so he is a physician is a holistic, thinker as a neurologist, but he's also board certified in chiropractic. So he can put his hands on you and then also think about your brain.
00:37:01
Carl Lubbe
And so in these spaces, it's going, where are the books? Where conversations that feel nuanced and whole as opposed to let me just talk to you as an executive, but let me forget about you as a parent. And it's like, no, no, you're that same person is walking into the boardroom and into the living room.
00:37:14
Carl Lubbe
So how are you asking these questions in both spaces? And so I'd love to close with our, know, last question, which is,
00:37:21
Charles Lee
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:37:24
Carl Lubbe
when I say what's the best question maybe somebody has asked you or maybe the most influential one, and it could be at any season of life, it could be in this one. And for example, I recently put on our first curiosity retreat for our work and invite people out. And in the middle of it, I asked somebody this question, like, what's the best question? He's like, well, I'll give you the one that's changed me most recently because they're also in a season of life. I've got a 10 and a 12 year old and they were in a similar season. And they said, when's the last time you got obsessed about the stupid thing your kid cares about?
00:37:55
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:37:56
Carl Lubbe
And right now, my son, I didn't grow up with video games. And so right now he's like deep into like Fortnite. And when I go watch it, it might as well be in a different language. I don't understand the controller. I don't understand the format. And honestly, it feels to me in my immigrant brain like this because play wasn't a huge part of my childhood. It wasn't like hyper integrated. And so to do play feels like a muscle have to develop. And so I'm like, oh, I I probably to get like really interested in the thing I think is dumb that he's all in on because then all of a sudden it gives us an intersection.
00:38:27
Carl Lubbe
And it's so simple, you know, when you get to the conclusion.
00:38:29
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:38:30
Carl Lubbe
But I feel like the most profound questions typically have this the quickest, first, simplest next step. And it has been profound for us where just two days ago I went in. to our game room where he was playing and I was just like sat next to him and he's like, do you want to play? I was like, only if you want to die very quickly. I'm terrible at this. And so I just sat next to him for 45 minutes. And when he finished up, you know, playing and his game time was over and hit his timer, he was just basically like, I love that.
00:38:57
Carl Lubbe
And I was like, I didn't do anything. He's like, yeah, I just I love that you were here. was like, OK, that's the win.
00:39:01
Charles Lee
It's amazing that he articulates that to you.
00:39:03
Carl Lubbe
Well, you know, very fortunate again, both of our kids came out with the software pre-installed and the hardware is pretty good.
00:39:10
Charles Lee
Yeah.
00:39:10
Carl Lubbe
They're those kids. His name is also Charles. And so, yeah, we've got lovely little humans. But to, you know, pose that question in your direction, what's a question that maybe has recently shifted you?
00:39:18
Charles Lee
Wow.
00:39:23
Carl Lubbe
Or if you're like, oh, is this one big question? You know, I've asked my wife to marry me. What's the thing that you feel has meant that brings you to
00:39:30
Charles Lee
Yeah, it actually goes back to question a friend of mine asked me while was in Atlanta, actually, out of all three years ago.
00:39:37
Carl Lubbe
Oh, OK.
00:39:39
Charles Lee
And were talking about like, you know, what ultimately matters most to us. And At the time I had talked about family and was in the midst of all of the crazy travel, trying to invest in our kids, doing all those kinds of things. And he asked a question that was pretty piercing and a younger friend. And so it's always, you're reminded of how much more wiser other people are than you are at your age. And he asked, Hey, are you as creative or engaged with your kids as you are your clients?
00:40:13
Charles Lee
I was like, man, I hate you.
00:40:15
Carl Lubbe
so much i hate you sharing that with me right now actually i podcast over like i don't want anybody asking good questions anymore because what am i supposed to do with that
00:40:18
Charles Lee
And he's like, can you prove that to yourself?
00:40:29
Charles Lee
And I think that was really a time where I was like, okay, I really need to step up. Not just like telling people I love my family and of course, you know, trying my best to, uh,
00:40:36
Carl Lubbe
Hmm.
00:40:41
Charles Lee
implicitly do things that benefit them. But it took upon me a challenge to just say, hey, I need to intentionally do things where my kids are crystal clear that it's really focused on them.
00:41:11
Charles Lee
And so like, it forced me, like, how can I be creative as a parent and just thinking about those types of ideas.
00:41:14
Carl Lubbe
Man.
00:41:17
Charles Lee
And so forced me to think like, hey, if I'm gonna really say I care and it matters, how create, once again, proof of value around that versus just like that concept I tell people that love family?
00:41:33
Carl Lubbe
Well, what a beautifully piercing, to use your word, question to wrap up this podcast with. Well, Charles, I would love, you know, if anybody now like me is enamored with all things Charles, how do people connect? You know, where do they grab a copy of the book? When's that out?
00:41:52
Charles Lee
Yeah, they can just go to designyourgoodlife.com and that URL will redirect them to the page.
00:41:55
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:41:57
Charles Lee
And then, you know, that's also a connection to my website. And so you should be able to find me online on any channel. So that would be kind of the invitation. And I'd love to connect with some of your, you know, listeners and viewers.
00:42:13
Carl Lubbe
That's amazing. Well, Mr. Charles Lee, I deeply appreciate the conversation and the time and the questions. And so thanks so much for joining. All right, so cheers.
00:42:21
Charles Lee
Thanks for having me, Carl. It's been a real honor.