The Lessons That Don’t Stay Learned
On growth, defaults, and a new chapter.
In late 2023, I read a thought-provoking essay by Dave Lu - a sharp, motivating rallying cry for young and mid-career Asian Americans, especially those navigating corporate environments shaped by scarcity, compliance, and inherited definitions of “success.” At its core, the essay challenges the workhorse mindset many Asian Americans have a hard time shaking, and makes the case for choosing agency and growth over quiet endurance. I also flagged it as important context for anyone managing second-generation Asian Americans.
That said, I didn’t think it was something I would personally re-read.
This essay articulated lessons I’d already internalized and applied. I had strong managers who pushed me out of purely executional roles and into rooms where judgment and influence mattered. I’d built a solid corporate career and had recently transitioned into an independent consulting practice.
So I shared the essay, nodded along, and went back to the business of client work, growth planning, and keeping our family calendar from imploding.
A Hit Closer to Home
What motivated me to dig this essay out, more than 2 years later? My kids are forming their own identities and perspectives, including what it means to be half-Korean. And the “what do you want to be when you grow up?” question is no longer theoretical, especially for my eighth grader, who is considering a technical high school path as an aspiring veterinarian.
So one night last week, I pulled Dave’s essay back up and handed my phone to her.
She skimmed. Handed it back.
“Yep. I’m good.”
I pushed. “What do you mean ‘you’re good?’ Did you actually read it? Don’t you get the part about the racehorse and the workhorse?”
“Yeah. You’re the workhorse. And you blame Halmoni and Halabuji for it instead of doing something about it.”
Then she walked off. Because obviously there’s no rebuttal to a thirteen-year-old girl’s perfectly aimed truth.
She wasn’t wrong. She sees my parents’ immigrant tendencies clearly: the obsession with education, the reverence for doctors, the quiet suspicion of anything that looks like risk. To her, they’re endearing quirks. To me, they’re deeply ingrained defaults. And with that comment, she called out something I hadn’t fully owned.
A Second Mirror Moment
Still processing, I shared the essay with my husband. If I’m honest, I was annoyed with my daughter’s reaction and I wanted a more sympathetic audience.
His reaction surprised me in a different way.
He’s not Asian, but he understood the essay’s core argument instinctively. Early in our marriage, he dropped a dog-eared Jack and Suzy Welch BusinessWeek article, Release Your Inner Extrovert, on my desk, which changed how I showed up mid-career.
However, what landed for him wasn’t the cultural framing, but the larger theme of scarcity mindset.
We’ve been asking each other a version of the same question for a while now: are we playing it safe?
We’ve moved often, drawn by new places and new chapters. Changed jobs. Built and rebuilt our villages again and again. And yet here we were, settled. Comfortable, but with a creeping sense that optimization had replaced ambition.
It wasn’t just about financial scarcity, but also protecting our time, energy, and attention. And yes, the realization that maximizing optionality earlier in life is different from maximizing meaning and leverage now. The stakes feel higher, now that we are further along in writing our personal and professional narratives.
Between my daughter and my husband, the message was uncomfortably consistent.
Plot Twist: So My Parents Were Racehorses
I’m the only child of two insanely accomplished Korean parents who immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1970s and settled in New Jersey. But unlike so many who arrived a decade earlier, they arrived positioned to run.
My dad attended Seoul National University, came to the U.S. for graduate school, and then built a long career as a scientist at a global industrial materials company before venturing out as an entrepreneur building a company around one of his technologies. My mom went to Ewha University, earned her doctorate at the Sorbonne, and spent her career as a professor of applied linguistics. She retired as professor emerita during the pandemic but still frequently publishes and presents - even now she is preparing a paper for a conference in Chicago later this year.
They were both intimidatingly badass.
This meant I grew up with stability, surrounded by education and intellectual rigor, with a clear formula for success. Study hard. Get good grades. Be a doctor if you’re good at math and science. Be a lawyer if you like to write. Avoid sales and business; those aren’t honorable professions. Despite their accomplishments, they still carried a sense of scarcity - with the belief that success had to continually be earned through effort and by choosing the right path.
I was an obedient daughter, but not without opinions, and forging my own path was a long, internal battle. It’s honestly a small miracle that I finished college on time. I started pre-med, transferred into engineering, transferred back out to major in English and economics, promised law school, worked at a law firm, took the LSAT, and then walked away from the lawyer track right before senior year. That phone call did not go well.
Along the way, through my experiences in producing student theater, I discovered I loved the intersection of business and creativity. I liked making things. Setting a vision to create things that people might want, then coordinating, problem-solving, pulling things together in real time to deliver.
That instinct followed me into advertising, business school, and then into marketing and brand management at P&G, Clorox, Starbucks, Amazon, and Wayfair. And because of champions and supporters along the way, I found my voice and learned how to operate as a racehorse within those systems: taking risks, claiming space, and trusting my judgment.
By any external measure, applying the racehorse lessons “worked.”
Leaving the Track
Leaving corporate to become an independent consultant is where the old wiring really surfaced.
There’s joy in independence, paired with a constant awareness that the other shoe could drop. The safety nets I’d grown used to are gone. There’s no institutional pedigree to lean on. No automatic credibility. No built-in growth engine. Every project requires selling, positioning, and putting myself out there. Every “no” is personal. Every “yes” feels fragile.
The tension is constant. Do I take work that aligns with flexibility and purpose, or work that feels safer? Do I invest in building something long-term, or optimize for near-term certainty?
And that’s when my daughter’s and husband’s reactions to Dave’s essay really landed. Some days I’m expansive and growth-oriented. But many days I slip hard into workhorse mode - for example, an imbalance toward client work at the expense of “on-the-business” work, because client work offers certainty and immediate payoff. Or shying away from promoting myself actively because visibility carries risk. And of course there’s the ever-persistent impostor system.
And yes, I do blame my parents sometimes. Or at least the micro-messages I absorbed growing up. But I also know that this chapter isn’t really about undoing my upbringing. It’s about recognizing that the playbook that worked earlier in my career is no longer sufficient. I need to rewire once again and recognize where old habits are rearing their ugly head.
What I’m Relearning
Re-reading Dave Lu’s essay through this lens has turned it into an important rallying cry for me right now.
A few lessons I’m actively practicing:
Choose growth deliberately. Growth now looks less like grinding and more like choosing where to place bets – on people, ideas, and work designed to compound over time.
Embrace the no’s. Each one is data that sharpens the next iteration.
Build with others. Find collaborators, not just clients. This work is too hard (and way too interesting!) to do alone.
Give generously. Teach. Share. Co-create. Contribution creates momentum that outlasts any single engagement.
Treat self-care as fuel, not indulgence. Energy is a strategic asset.
Where This Leaves Me
So I actually don’t entirely reject my workhorse tendencies. That mindset built skills, credibility, and resilience. But there’s definitely a danger in clinging to it, out of fear, safety, or habit.
My parents reinvented themselves multiple times when circumstances demanded it. My kids are watching how I respond to this moment. This chapter, uncomfortable as it is, is the next test of whether I’m willing to choose the racehorse mindset again.
