00:05When I was 14, my family and I moved
over 5,000 miles from Milan to Seoul.
00:12My last night in Italy,
I remember feeling devastated because
00:16the world as I knew it had
been taken away from me.
00:20My international school in Milan
was a diverse environment that
00:23fostered individuality.
00:25I took French and journalism as electives.
00:27I played soccer after school.
00:29I went canoeing in France as
a part of a school field trip.
00:34But in my all female school in Korea, I
was stuck in school from 7:30 AM to 10 PM.
00:41Everyone took the exact same courses, and
there was no such thing as electives.
00:46I went from being the math and
00:48science wiz in Italy to flunking my
very first science assignment in Korea.
00:53We had to write the 118 elements of
the periodic table, 60 times each.
00:58Now, that's over 7,000 times.
01:01The next day,
I proudly presented my homework,
01:05the teacher glanced at it and
wrote a big x.
01:08Apparently, it had to be written
horizontally and not vertically, which
01:13meant that I flunked the assignment and
had to do it all over again, the next day.
01:18You see, it was quite a rough transition.
01:23But by the end of high school, I felt like
I had fully adjusted to life in Korea.
01:28I'd made a few good friends and
pulled many,
01:30many all nighters to
catch up to schoolwork.
01:34And I remember thinking [SOUND], the
toughest days of my life are finally over.
01:40But to my surprise,
there were significant and
01:44challenging life transitions over,
over, and over again,
01:49including coping with a big heartbreak,
moving to Japan, and
01:55then to Hong Kong, starting work,
and coming here to the GSB.
02:00And I recognize there was a pattern.
02:03When I first step into seasons of change,
02:07I often felt like I'd lost control,
like I had lost a part of myself.
02:15And I confess this is how I felt many
times during my first year of the GSB.
02:22As I started what was supposed to
be the two best years of my life,
02:27I wondered why I didn't feel as confident
and as happy as many of you seem to be.
02:33Can anyone relate to that?
02:35[LAUGH] So
I asked 107 MBA 2s of the Class of 2016,
02:40what were your most dominate feelings
as you spent your first year?
02:46The results were eye-opening.
02:52Almost 60% of you said that you were
primarily anxious in your first year.
02:5845% said that you were excited,
which is great.
03:0343% said that you felt
like you had lost control,
03:08and 38% said that you felt lonely, and
03:13only 7% felt like you were confident.
03:19Now, the feelings of anxiety or
the lack of control seemed like a common
03:24experience as we go
through seasons of change.
03:28And I've realized we have full agency
to shape and manage this transition
03:33instead of reluctantly or
reactively struggling through them.
03:37So today, I want to share
with you the art of managing
03:43life transitions, and
I've packaged them in three Rs,
03:48recalibrate, reframe, and reach out.
03:52Now, the first R is
recalibrate your expectations.
03:58I lived and worked in nine
different countries in my life, so
04:01I thought coming here to the United States
as a student would be a piece of cake.
04:06I expected to hit the ground
running on day one.
04:10But as my feelings deviated
from my expectations of how
04:15quickly I could adjust,
I felt increasingly nervous.
04:21And perhaps this is why the survey
shows that the students
04:24who have lived in the United States for
a long period were
04:27proportionally more anxious than the
students who came here for the first time.
04:32Whereas international students expected
coming to the GSB to be a big life
04:37transition and
expected to feel frustrated even.
04:40Many of the American students didn't
think that this would be a big change.
04:45But the fact that it was,
made many of us feel nervous.
04:51I realized last year that I
was penalizing myself for
04:55falling short of an unrealistic
expectation I was putting on myself.
05:01Once I started recalibrating
these expectations,
05:06I created more room for self-mercy.
05:10And with that came a newfound
sense of relief and
05:14calmness that helped me push
through this time of transition.
05:20So if you're going through a transition,
or the next time you go through one,
05:24think hard about the types of expectations
you're putting on yourself and
05:29recalibrate them, and always remember
to have more self-mercy and not less.
05:37The second R is reframe challenging times
and transitions as an opportunity to grow.
05:44When I first started work
in consulting in Korea,
05:48my manager had given me
some rough feedback.
05:51My confidence had hit rock bottom, and
I did what most first year analysts
05:56did at that time,
which was go to the bathroom and cry.
05:59>> [LAUGH]
>> And my senior analyst,
06:02Meredith, came to find me in the restroom,
and there I was crying, and
06:07she said something that
I will never forget.
06:11She said, Christine,
things are hard because you're growing.
06:16Yes, it's uncomfortable,
and yes, it's painful but
06:20only because you're taking
on bigger things in life.
06:24Stanford psychologist,
06:26Carol Dweck, calls this the growth
mindset and found that this is exactly
06:30what allows people to thrive even during
the most difficult life situations.
06:37So if you are going through
a season of change and
06:41if you have all of these
negative feelings hitting you,
06:45remember that you have the agency
to reframe your mindset.
06:51Because when you do and
06:52if you do, you will come out
of life transitions stronger.
06:57I've experienced this many times in my
life, and our classmates have done, too.
07:03The single biggest shift in
emotions from the first year and
07:07the second year, was confidence.
07:11Whereas only 7% of our classmates
felt confident in the first year,
07:1650% said that they felt
confident their second year, and
07:20this was the second most
dominant feeling after gratitude.
07:25So always remember to reframe your
mindset, and it's in your agency to do so.
07:32The third R is reach out.
07:36What amplified my feelings of anxiety and
07:39loss of control was the perception that
I was the only one feeling this way.
07:45And I didn't want to share this with
a lot of you, because I'm usually a happy
07:49person, and I didn't want to
be perceived in any other way.
07:55A breakthrough moment for me came when I
was talking to a close group of friends,
08:00and I confided my true feelings with them.
08:05even the most confident-looking
one was struggling inside.
08:10The realization that I am not alone,
gave me so much relief.
08:17And this sense of togetherness
helped me heal out of my anxieties.
08:24So if you're like me,
reach out to someone.
08:29It's okay to be vulnerable.
08:32And on the flip side,
08:33if you know someone who's going through
a significant change, reach out to them,
08:37because you never know how much of
an impact you can have in their lives.
08:45So here are the three Rs of managing
life transitions, recalibrate,
08:50reframe, and reach out.
08:52Whether you have another
year of school left, or
08:55you're going out into the real world,
take this toolkit with you.
09:00And always remember that you have full
agency to shape, manage the many,
09:05many life transitions that
are coming your way, thank you.
![Welp, Here's what the Fed *Just* Said [Fed FOMC Minutes]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fl8u23oq1E9E%2Fhqdefault.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
