616: Discover And Learn With Ling Ling Tai

Ling Ling Tai is a Cultural Consultant and Educator for Spark Learning Solutions. Her mission is to support leaders, teams and organizations to collaborate effectively across cultures through education, coaching and consulting. Throughout her life, she has lived and worked in 6 different countries. Her superpower is the ability to reach out, connect and engage with audiences of varying cultures. She also has a podcast host for South East Asia’s leading education podcast show called Leaders of Learning. The podcast has been downloaded in over 28 countries globally. On the iTunes Podcast Chart, the show has reached no. 1 in Vietnam and Cambodia, top 5 in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore and top 10 in The Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Ling Ling shares how she was able to discover her true self and learn how to be more confident in herself and her capabilities along the way. Check out her episode to listen to her story.

Bio

Ling Ling Tai is a Cultural Consultant and Educator for Spark Learning Solutions.

Cultural Background

Ling Ling is of Chinese descent.

Favorite Self Confidence Quote

How do you make a difficult decision? There is no such thing, maam. Throw a coin in the air and we always know what side we want it to land on.

Definition of Self Confidence

Self confidence is having the belief within yourself to achieve your dreams or goals and the courage to strive towards it. Listening to your heart and trusting that it will take you to where you’re suppose to be.

Her Life Before the Discovery of Self Confidence

Ling Ling relied on the opinions of others to form her opinion. Her needs were secondary compared to the needs of others. She followed what was deemed to be the “successful” path in life because everyone says its the right way and it was expected of her. There was a disconnect between what she wanted and what is expected of her. The problem was that what she wanted was not clear because she didn’t have a sense of who she was.

The “AHA” Moment

There was no one defining moment where Ling Ling discovered her self-confidence. She believes that each and everyone of us have self-confidence from when we were born. With our socializing and the media constantly bombarding us with what is right and what is not right, our self-confidence gets buried under the expectations of others and we forget about ourselves. Rather it was an accumulation of moments, before one decides to take a leap of faith and listen to themselves.

She quit a well-paying job to pursue an masters in psychology in 2008. She has come to realize that no matter how many Starbucks coffee she had, or shoes she bought, the material life was meaningless. Ling Ling broke up with her first boyfriend then, they dated for 7 years and she lost her sense of identity, self and didn’t know her place in the world. Getting a masters was a way to discover herself again and be educated.

The second time happened last year when her late mother passed away suddenly. Being so close to mortality made her realize that life is too short to spend it doing work with little impact and with people who don’t care about her. Then it was her second leap of faith when she started her own learning and cultural consultation and education company. It’s been a year. It’s been tough and slow. Though her friends tell her that she sounds happy when they hear her in her podcasts.