 Hi guys, this is Dr Nancy Lee. I help engineers and international professionals to start from nothing to their dream job, even if they have limited resources. And today I'm glad to have Jia with us to start our second episode of behind the scenes show. Jia, welcome to the podcast. Hi Nancy. Nice to have me here. Awesome, great to have you. And some little background about Jia. Jia actually started as an intern eight years ago. Now she's a partner of a 20 people media company. So I'd like to hear about her career path. Sure. So eight years ago I came here with the Carillon Luggage from Denmark. So in the past eight years I work as a consultant in digital marketing agency. I work as a design intern and also I work in R&D department for product innovation and design research. Also I spent six years in a 4,400 company, start from a design manager later become a design director. Wow. And can you tell me more about how did you make the promotion from a manager to a director or even climbing up in a big company? Because lots of people like us working for big companies, we know how hard it is to climb up in a big company. Can you tell us more about how you make it happen? Sure. So I think you want to become a director or a VP in the big company. You need to have your own field which means your own team or own department you are directing a direction for a field. What do you mean having your own department? Did you start your own or you kick out somebody you take over his position? I actually start my own department. Wow. Tell us more how did you convince others and how do you get a budget to put the money and people behind your vision? Sure. So I have to say it's a lot of negotiation, a lot of communication to get that position, get that department. So I'm Chinese, I grew up in China and when we were in school we very very focused on the paper. So you do good exams or book smarts. Just like the Gaokao, we try to get 120 out of 100 that the parents told us to do. The one important reason is to success is communication skill. So you'd be able to communicate with other people what your value is, be able to sell your design, sell your product and also sell your idea and sell yourself. Can you tell us more regarding sell yourself because it's kind of new topic for lots of us? It means other people need to understand what your value is, is to show your value to other people. You get the promotion or you get a raise your salary and then all kind of things. It's not because just what your value is, it's about what other people think what your value is. Great, actually there's a new phrase I heard. You do not get paid of what you deserve, you get paid as what you sell other people to. It's quite similar to what you described, right? Oh yeah, it's exactly the same thing. I didn't know other people would say the same thing too. Is this me? My invented? Maybe. Awesome. Alright, so can you also tell us more about the partner journey? Looks like you already made a big leap and just trying to change your career path. Now you want to join a smaller firm, so tell us more about your decision making process. Sure, so I always want to have my own business. I think it just helped me get closer to my dream. So how did you become the partner of this company? So how big they are? So this company has about 20 people at three years old. Actually I would like to join as a co-founder, but it already exists for three years. It can be a co-founder. So that's what I negotiate with the owner about what my position is, what is the salary is, and also most importantly what the shares are. And then I think the reason I want to take the partner position is because I want to take more responsibility. I'd be able to learn more for myself and also have more impact for the company as well. Very cool. I also have experienced startup too in the past. I meet my friends trying to build a startup, but it didn't work out anywhere. But I know it's the path for everybody. I know it's hard to be the next Mark Zuckerberg overnight. It happens, but you're on your path to start the next one. Dad, can you give the people in front of the audience who are like you, who are immigrants, and trying to start their own business, what kind of advice would you give to them? Actually one very successful mentor told me a few things to success. So the first is you have to have a clear goal. You can't do anything. You can figure out what is specifically you want to do and then go to that goal. And the second thing is you need to have a great skill set, including not just the skill where you work, also the skill for the collaboration, skill for the communication, negotiation, everything. And the last thing to key to success is to dream big. You need to have a big goal and a big dream and you can work towards that. Yeah, that's when we say that you have to set a goal that really align with your vision and your value or it's very easy for people to give up on that. Yeah, totally agree. Great, thank you very much for joining today's podcast. Oh, looking forward to your next startup. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Alright, see you guys. Bye. Hi, this is Dr. Nancy. If you like videos like this, please consider giving me a thumb up and leave a comment down below because I really appreciate that you give me feedback. It's going to be my encouragement to continue making more videos like this. Thank you very much. See you soon. Bye.