Diana Alt [00:00:04]:
Hey, Diane Alt here, and this is Work Should Feel Good, the podcast where your career growth meets your real life. Each week I share stories, strategies, and mindset shifts to help you build a work life that works for you on your terms. Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Work Should Feel Good, the show where your career growth meets your real life. I'm your host, Diana Alt, and today my guest, Ian Ng, and I are going to talk about what happens when your leadership gets tested, how to bring self-sufficient— how to— and how building self-sufficient people, not dependents on yourself, might be one of the most important things you ever do as a manager. Ian Ng has spent more than 18 years in corporate IT, mostly in the legal industry, where he's built a reputation for developing great people, creating great user experiences and leading with curiosity and purpose. He's also an artist, a foodie, and one of those people who just makes every room better because he's in it. Ian, welcome to the show.

Ian Ng [00:01:10]:
How are you? I'm great. Thank you for having me.

Diana Alt [00:01:14]:
Thanks for being here. You're on vacation right now.

Ian Ng [00:01:18]:
I totally am. Otherwise, I'd not be wearing this shirt to the workplace.

Diana Alt [00:01:22]:
Oh no, I love the shirt. So the shirt is actually going to come up. For those of you not watching, if you're just listening, Ian is wearing a black t-shirt that has a check engine light over like the left pocket area, and it just makes me giggle. Why would I be giggling at that?

Ian Ng [00:01:40]:
I don't know. I mean, there's a whole lot that comes behind a check engine light. Most people relate to it as alarm and dread, and I've come to have a new relationship to the check engine light, and that just is that there's There's something to check out and something to explore and be curious about.

Diana Alt [00:02:00]:
When you put it on a t-shirt, it gives me a little bit of a sense of whimsy, which is not something we ordinarily feel whenever the check engine light comes on in our cars, for sure.

Ian Ng [00:02:12]:
So yeah, that's definitely not the usual reaction to it.

Diana Alt [00:02:17]:
Not whimsy, more like, where's my AAA card is where that comes from. Okay. We're recording this early August. The last few weeks have been huge in the movies, and you and I both like movies. And I just got— I need you to go on record. Who is the best Spider-Man? Who is your favorite?

Ian Ng [00:02:38]:
Tom Holland's been doing it for over 10 years. I really feel like the role is Tom Holland's now.

Diana Alt [00:02:44]:
Do you? Yeah, but does that mean you like him the best?

Ian Ng [00:02:48]:
I actually do like him the best because I think we've had some far— I guess in some ways it's like we've seen the stories retold from the comics, and then I feel like the ones that Tom Holland has done has departed more from that. And because he's part of something much bigger, there's—

Diana Alt [00:03:07]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:03:08]:
There's a lot more, I guess, scope and range to what he's doing, what he's involved in. than just self-contained Spider-Man films like Garfield and Maguire did.

Diana Alt [00:03:19]:
Yeah. I feel like Garfield was the one that I kind of went, really? Andrew Garfield? Really? He wasn't bad. We haven't had a bad Spider-Man, I don't think.

Ian Ng [00:03:31]:
No, I think they've all been good. Not in our era. Yeah. I just feel like Holland has had a much better— I also feel like Holland has had more consistent co-stars, um, because we've had Ned and MJ with him, uh, throughout. And so there's like more to anchor the film than just having Spider-Man being Spider-Man.

Diana Alt [00:03:53]:
Ned Leeds is underrated as a character. I love him. Every time I watch him, I'm like, oh, we need more of him. We definitely need more of him. Uh, what format did you see Spider-Man in? Did you IMAX it or regular? What'd you do?

Ian Ng [00:04:08]:
I have, I have this aversion to doing all the weird special premium stuff. I actually just like it, watch— watching it in just normal, you know, I don't even like the 3D. I prefer watching it in regular 2D.

Diana Alt [00:04:21]:
And, you know, I get sick watching 3D. I get sick watching 3D. Um, I did try to go do IMAX 70mm film in Nashville when I was there for The Odyssey, and the film machine broke. We had to watch digital ads.

Ian Ng [00:04:36]:
That sucks.

Diana Alt [00:04:37]:
Yeah. Got up to get 11 PM meeting, 45 minutes from our friend Terry's house where I was staying. So we were up till 3 AM to see a movie that I could have seen 5 miles from my house. So anyway, yeah, I'm with you on the best Spider-Man. Um, not my favorite MCU character, but I do like a good Spider-Man anyway. Enough of that. I want to talk to you a little bit. Whenever I kick off the show, I always want to talk to people about kind of how they got where they got, which is always interesting, especially when you consider the things that people leave off of LinkedIn.

Diana Alt [00:05:15]:
In the last months, in the last month, I've talked to 2 different people that had experience on Broadway. One was a producer. The other one, maybe it was technically Off-Broadway. acting when they were young. How did you end up in IT? Because you have so many different talents, and a lot of times people will go, you know, there's so many more interesting things that you've been part of. What led you to IT?

Ian Ng [00:05:46]:
Um, well, weirdly enough, my, my path also goes through Broadway, but not in the way you think.

Diana Alt [00:05:52]:
Oh my gosh.

Ian Ng [00:05:53]:
I used to live in New York. And so I've walked through Broadway, I've seen Broadway shows, and I've definitely eaten the food on Broadway. Um, so that's about as close to it as I've gotten.

Diana Alt [00:06:03]:
Um, still, you spent money on Broadway instead of making money from Broadway.

Ian Ng [00:06:09]:
Exactly.

Diana Alt [00:06:10]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:06:11]:
Um, and just to age myself, the first show I ever saw on Broadway was Miss Saigon with Lea Salonga still in it.

Diana Alt [00:06:18]:
It's a good show. I've never seen that one live. Never in New York, but I've seen it live. I think it's St. Louis is where I saw it. But so where were you? What was your origin? You're a problem solver by nature. So maybe start there. When did you—

Ian Ng [00:06:40]:
go ahead. Sorry, go ahead. Okay. So, I mean, you said 18 years, but it actually goes a lot further than that. 18 years just at my current employer.

Diana Alt [00:06:50]:
Okay.

Ian Ng [00:06:51]:
And so I actually started, I guess, in IT when I was still in college, where I was in like, I'd say, you know, one of the better paying jobs in college at the time was the college help desk. So did a lot of phone support there. And I did like that for 2 years and then moved. I went from the college service desk to the other side, which is I was then on the ISP side of the college.

Diana Alt [00:07:18]:
Okay.

Ian Ng [00:07:20]:
So I did that for a little bit, and then I moved into a consulting firm in New York, which is where I learned a lot of my— I say a lot of what I now carry as my guiding principles in IT and customer service were developed at that particular Consulting firm.

Diana Alt [00:07:40]:
Same. I went into consulting straight after college too, um, because I got a degree in chemistry and a master's in engineering management, and I was looking at like quality engineering, like Deming type stuff, and I looked at IT consulting, which seemed to be where things were going, and I just liked the places I interviewed better for that. And there is so much that I do today that is informed by what I learned then. The biggest one that I learned back then was, um, we need to solve problems with appropriate technology. Like, let's not technology for the sake of technology. Let's figure out what the right thing to do is. And I distinctly remember a trainer at my very first, like, baby consultant boot camp, 8 weeks of training at the very beginning, saying, If the appropriate technology is a piece of construction paper and some crayons, then that's the appropriate technology. And I've thought about that ever since then.

Ian Ng [00:08:39]:
That's actually very similar to one of the things we were trained on early on at that consultancy. And that was that sometimes the solution to the problem isn't even technology.

Diana Alt [00:08:52]:
Yes.

Ian Ng [00:08:53]:
We had this great training program where they had us working in the lab doing exercise and stuff like that. But We also had people who would kind of roleplay the customer experience. Now, that's something you don't get a lot of, really. We're going to roleplay the customer experience. So they literally gave us the entire experience, including all the stuff that you try to avoid. But we were also very specifically working in the legal industry at the time. And so there are certain problems that lawyers are trying to solve that are not typical of, say, other corporate environments.

Diana Alt [00:09:28]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:09:28]:
And so one time we had one of these, crazy moments where they said, oh my God, the head lawyer has something that they really need to— they have a problem. They can't print. Go help them. So we walk in and the guy playing the lawyer was ranting and raving, yelling, throwing things. I mean, it was very convincing.

Diana Alt [00:09:48]:
Wow.

Ian Ng [00:09:50]:
Somewhere in the middle of his rant, he said a key phrase that basically he had to get a filing to the court by 5:00 PM. And right now it's like 4:45 or something like that. And now the regular tech solution might be, let's go fix the printer so we can print something. But the real solution was this guy needed to get a filing to the court by 5 PM. So the actual solution was, let's just find a way to print your documents somewhere else. We'll come back and fix your computer later.

Diana Alt [00:10:19]:
I love that perspective so much because I think A lot of times people over-engineer solutions. A lot of times the solution that we're trying to create something new for is something that's a novel problem. And I don't think every novel problem needs a systematized, automated, like documented solution to it. So it's a really good point.

Ian Ng [00:10:44]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:10:45]:
What are some— and I've heard you talk about that kind of scenario. in later years. So when you say, this informed my thinking and my current job, it does make a big deal. Did you always have— go ahead.

Ian Ng [00:11:00]:
Yeah, that is one of the, like I say, that's, I think, one of the root learnings that I got out of that place that I really have taken to heart. And from the spirit of where that comes from, I'm always looking for simpler solutions and solutions that are— because look, personally, I love complex solutions and I love having things look really elegant and cool, but at the same time, they're not necessarily sustainable from a support standpoint, right? Once I'm no longer involved with it, it's got to be able to stand up to people who don't know what they're walking into. So the idea of keeping things really simple and transferable is something that keeps popping up for me. It's like, okay, And I have to check myself. It's like, oh, this is a really cool solution, but is this something that, like, you know, someone in a non-technical department can pick up if they have to touch it?

Diana Alt [00:11:55]:
You are a proud member of the Overthinker Club. I don't think you have a sash like I do behind me, but I know that you and I have talked about that in the past, how both of us can do that. What are some of the tips that you have for people if they're prone to overthinking to to get out of that mode and make things simpler?

Ian Ng [00:12:17]:
There are several things, and it really depends. A lot of it will depend on what the situation is. If it's just for myself, sometimes I just have to ask myself the question, is this worth the time to do this?

Diana Alt [00:12:33]:
Underrated question.

Ian Ng [00:12:34]:
Yeah, it's like if you start actually Saying, what is my time worth? And I live by the principle that the only real assets we have in life are our time and our attention. Everything else is derivative of those 2 things.

Diana Alt [00:12:52]:
I'd add energy to that, but yeah. Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:12:58]:
So yeah, all I can really do is be very careful about where do I spend my time and attention? I can spin my wheels over the same problem over and over again, and maybe that's fun. Sometimes it's actually just, I'm entertained by this and I do it. But other times, if I'm actually trying to be effective or I have to be productive or I have so much stuff that I can't afford to just sit here and indulge myself, then yes, the question has to come up. It's like, is this worth my time to do this? Or should I just take the 95% solution and move on?

Diana Alt [00:13:32]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:13:32]:
Or even the 90% solution. Or, yeah.

Diana Alt [00:13:35]:
Or the 80% solution. I think taking the 80% solution is also underrated. Did you always— so you, I mean, you went to one of the best colleges in the country. You even came from Canada to the US to do it. You went to Cornell and studied engineering. Did you always have a slant towards STEM? science and math and all of that? Because I've known you also as being very interested in art.

Ian Ng [00:14:05]:
So how did you end up landing—

Diana Alt [00:14:06]:
like, what got you into the more technical side of the world when you have this art stuff that you're interested in as well?

Ian Ng [00:14:16]:
So growing up, I was like, yeah, very much involved in art. And towards the end of high school, Even, I even got into English a little bit. Yeah. But like, yeah, I was heavily STEM for a good long while just because, you know, I was a good little Asian kid who was, you know, an overachiever in school.

Diana Alt [00:14:38]:
Doctor of Law or engineering.

Ian Ng [00:14:40]:
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, to be honest, it's like, you know, there was a part of me that wanted to draw comics for a living. And, you know, that obviously was not acceptable. So then there was architecture and like when I When I was toying around with where I was going to go for college, it was like architecture, engineering. I didn't have any interest in being a doctor, so that kind of got ruled out. But I was really good at math and sciences, and so that kind of— just being what I was good at led towards that direction. So off to engineering school I went.

Diana Alt [00:15:20]:
And then you landed your— you did the same thing I did. I mean, I wasn't into art like you were. I had no aspirations to draw comics for a living, but I actually was in music. I had— I got out of college. It was 7— or not college, high school— with 7 credits in music between band, show choir, and concert choir. Thought I was going to study music education at one point and then realized I was starting to hate music and that that was not going to work. So I got there before I even figured out the part where I'd be poor. So I also didn't— don't like the idea of being poor, uh, but I went to engineering school and I ended up in IT instead.

Diana Alt [00:16:00]:
So what, what drew you into IT as opposed to the engineering discipline that you studied? Because those are different. And sometimes I have to hang out with engineers again to realize how different they think from IT people. What made you diverge?

Ian Ng [00:16:21]:
I believe the biggest thing at the time was, quite frankly, market conditions. Yeah, because as I was graduating, it was in the middle of the dot-com boom. And so there was a ton of new opportunities in IT and computers and so forth. And the engineering field that we were looking at, that I was considering, were things like Pharmaceuticals or petroleum, oil and gas. In retrospect, could I have made a lot more money in oil and gas? Probably. But it was also not interesting to me and all that stuff. And so basically it kind of came down to the fact that the engineering options— I had gone into a major not realizing what my job options were after that major.

Diana Alt [00:17:06]:
That's how I am.

Ian Ng [00:17:07]:
And then once I started to find out what those job options looked like, they got less and less appealing. And meanwhile, this kind of new booming sector looked fun and interesting and more along the lines of stuff I was already doing that I was already enjoying and doing well. So that's how I ended up doing IT.

Diana Alt [00:17:28]:
And you like people too. So I've always been very interested because there's so much of a reputation of like, if you're in IT in any capacity, like you're hanging out in the basement like Milton from Office Space, wondering where your stapler is, not having enough vitamin D in your life, and that you can't talk to people. And that's really a minority. I mean, you really can't get by with it in hardly any roles these days in IT, whether it's like on this support and infrastructure type side, help desk type side that you've worked in, or the software development side that I worked in for so long.

Ian Ng [00:18:07]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:18:07]:
And I don't know very many people that like humans more than you do. You don't like all of them at the same time, but you have a genuine care for people. So you were able to marry that up, which is cool. You took on the responsibility for management a few years ago. I want to hear a little bit about that journey because there's so many people. Sometimes people are like 28 years old when they get this opportunity. Sometimes They're much older. Talk to me about what drew you to wanting to become an IT supervisor, which is your title at your current job, what you were intimidated about with it at first, like just kind of that whole story of that transition.

Ian Ng [00:18:53]:
It was an interesting transition insofar as I'd been like an analyst for, I think, 10 years at the firm at that point, and I was perfectly happy. being a low-ambition analyst and just doing my work, pulling in my overtime, and being able to go home and basically throw the iPhone into the bag and not pay attention until the next morning.

Diana Alt [00:19:17]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:19:18]:
I was perfectly content with that. Then we opened up a new office. I was originally in Southern Cal at the time. I was living in Los Angeles, and we opened an office in Texas. a new office. And so they sent me out to open the office, and then afterwards they said, you should really go out there and be the supervisor. And they kind of did a little bit of arm twisting. They dangled a decent amount of money in front of me to try to entice me to go out there.

Ian Ng [00:19:45]:
And I kind of read the writing on the wall, which is like, I've been sitting in that position for quite a while, and I was obviously underutilized and not being put to as much of my potential as I could, because at the time I was already effectively leading that group without necessarily having the title to do it.

Diana Alt [00:20:08]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:20:09]:
Certainly, you could definitely leave my group alone, and we didn't have signing authority to do anything, but we could run ourselves in that office. So in some ways you could say I kind of chanced into it. But it was also like, to me it seemed like a— at the beginning I was perhaps unaware of what I was stepping into. I think—

Diana Alt [00:20:33]:
'Cause I was thinking, okay. You know, one of the interesting things about it is people say all the time, oh, I wanna be in management, or I would never want my boss's job. No matter which side it is, you don't know what the job is until you sit in it. And which is—

Ian Ng [00:20:49]:
Absolutely not.

Diana Alt [00:20:50]:
What's the point? If you knew what it was like before you sat in it, what's the point of doing the thing that you already know So you had to move basically half cross-country in order to take this role. What were some of the first things that you remember about actually being the boss that stick out for you, good or bad?

Ian Ng [00:21:16]:
The biggest thing is all of a sudden you're responsible for other people. And I think the other big thing is your results are no longer entirely determined by your own effort.

Diana Alt [00:21:30]:
Right.

Ian Ng [00:21:31]:
Right. Those are probably the 2 biggest shifts that I had to take on immediately. Now, immediately, my transition into a supervisory role was also— it's not like I was inheriting a mature department that already had a whole bunch of people on it.

Diana Alt [00:21:46]:
Did you have to hire your team? Did you have to hire your team?

Ian Ng [00:21:51]:
For the longest time, it was just me and another tech that transferred in from another office.

Diana Alt [00:21:56]:
Okay.

Ian Ng [00:21:57]:
So we were already previously hired and we were just kind of like assembled in that new location and we had to figure out our working styles and so forth. And there was like a whole bunch of new stuff you have to learn how to do as a manager that you never had to touch as an analyst. And that was things like, hey, now I have to handle budgets, I have to handle purchasing, And a bunch of other stuff like that. So obviously new responsibilities, a lot more clerical stuff. I think that I wasn't necessarily— I should have expected it, but I didn't really think about it too much. But those things—

Diana Alt [00:22:33]:
It's really funny because that's the exact opposite most people would think. No, that shouldn't be mine. That should be somebody else's. But there is— we don't get executive assistants anymore. So you're your own executive assistant these days. Was there ever like— go ahead.

Ian Ng [00:22:50]:
I mean, if the department was big enough, I might, but like, I mean, it's not.

Diana Alt [00:22:55]:
So I'm handling it. Yeah, it's a small team.

Ian Ng [00:22:57]:
Or I have to offload it to one of my staff to do it.

Diana Alt [00:23:02]:
Was there a moment that you can remember that's like, you're, oh crap, what have I gotten myself into? I'm actually in charge of this now moment. Is there anything from your early years or your early time as a manager that sticks out? And how did you deal with it?

Ian Ng [00:23:22]:
No, I don't think that— that thought didn't really cross my mind because I think, first of all, one of the things I really appreciated was when I got the job, my manager above me impressed on me right away that, one, this is your office, make it yours.

Diana Alt [00:23:39]:
Okay.

Ian Ng [00:23:40]:
And that was huge because we were a brand new office. And so in many ways, it really was mine to shape how— obviously there were others too, but if I wanted to shape IT in a certain way in this office, it was my responsibility to do so. And that kind of dug into my creative bent because now it wasn't just— this is where the creativity and the engineering came together because While I wasn't drawing art or doing the other engineering stuff, I was, in a way, engineering the environment that I wanted to have.

Diana Alt [00:24:15]:
Oh, yeah.

Ian Ng [00:24:16]:
So I engineered a lot of cooperation between my department and the other operational departments. I engineered a lot of transparency and communication with the office manager, right? Because I'd seen it in other places where some of these people were adversarial. And it just sucked. And I knew I did not want that in my office. And so that was something I went out and started building and continued to build as people cycle in and out of positions.

Diana Alt [00:24:47]:
Is there anything— well, it was a brand new office, so you really did have a blank slate because you had— were there a lot of people that relocated from elsewhere from your company or just a few?

Ian Ng [00:24:59]:
Not really.

Diana Alt [00:24:59]:
They stood up, basically hired all the attorneys and paralegals and operational staff locally?

Ian Ng [00:25:06]:
So this particular office was built with the philosophy that we were going to try to hire as many people from outside the firm as possible.

Diana Alt [00:25:15]:
Okay.

Ian Ng [00:25:15]:
And so there was very little, like, at least initially, there were very few transfers into the office. In fact, the only 2 people that really transferred into the office were the 2 technology people, because we were basically the ones who were anchoring the technology. And that one was not something you just hire someone.

Diana Alt [00:25:32]:
You knew the systems.

Ian Ng [00:25:32]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:25:33]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:25:33]:
You can't just— Yeah. And the both of us that were brought in were pretty high-level techs already, right? So—

Diana Alt [00:25:42]:
What do you feel like is the biggest people-type, people-related mistake that you made early on as a leader that you would not repeat if you were starting over?

Ian Ng [00:25:54]:
Perhaps being a little too trusting.

Diana Alt [00:25:57]:
Okay. Say more about that.

Ian Ng [00:26:00]:
I have an expectation that if I give an instruction or if someone has been handed something, that it'll get done. And for the most part, that's true. But sometimes there's a need to also follow up and make sure it was done. The verification process was something I had to learn and follow up on because I know how I do work. And if you give me a deadline, it'll be done on the deadline.

Diana Alt [00:26:28]:
Come hell or high water. Right.

Ian Ng [00:26:30]:
And if you don't give me a deadline, it'll probably get done sooner than that. And not everybody works the same way I do.

Diana Alt [00:26:39]:
That's very Enneagram 9 of you. Yeah, I'm gonna finish it on the deadline. I'm gonna take all the time that you give me. Very cool. So a few years ago, you Kind of got a curveball. You found out that you had 6 days-ish. Was that about how much notice you had before you had to—

Ian Ng [00:27:03]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:27:04]:
6-ish days between when you found out that you were going to have to have open heart surgery because apparently sometimes stuff gets blocked and young Ian had that happen to him, and when you actually had to start medical leave. So you had this crash course in trying to sort through both the personal and professional aspects of that. When you got told by the cardiologist or whoever the hell told you, you've got to do this, Ian, what are some of the first things that went through your mind from a personal perspective and from a work perspective? Wow.

Ian Ng [00:27:43]:
I think the first, well, first of all, the first thought that went through my mind was just, kick into overdrive on just functional and logistical stuff.

Diana Alt [00:27:55]:
Okay.

Ian Ng [00:27:57]:
I went into full engineer mode and just like, what needs to get done? What do I need to get set up? What do I need to get passed off at work and so forth so that I can take off for what was bound to be 3 to 4 months away from work? And until Perhaps my detriment, the thing I did not take care of initially was what about me, like emotionally and, and so forth. Um, and that's where actually having friends came into play because they were the ones that had me double-check myself on— because I was, as weird and as crazy as it sounds, I was fully preparing to do it on my own.

Diana Alt [00:28:37]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:28:38]:
Like I was gonna go do the surgery by myself and then Had made some arrangements for someone to come help me afterwards, but that was after the surgery for a little while until I could get back on my feet again, not fully knowing exactly what that would look like.

Diana Alt [00:28:57]:
And for reference, did you have a trip— was it 3 bypasses? Did you have a triple?

Ian Ng [00:29:03]:
Triple.

Diana Alt [00:29:04]:
The doctor people call it CABG surgery, but he had open heart. triple bypass surgery.

Ian Ng [00:29:10]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:29:10]:
And Ian and I have been friends for a long time, if you can't tell. I was actually with a mutual friend of ours when we got the news that Ian had to have this surgery. And I was one of, you know, that set of friends was some of the people that got pulled into this. So you went, your initial was, what is the logistics for work? How do I get approval for leave? How do I make sure that the place doesn't fall apart without me? We have an acting supervisor. We have all of that stuff.

Ian Ng [00:29:38]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:29:39]:
What I want to get into the personal more in a second, but when you were going through that process from the work side, what, what were some things that you realized? Did you have any like, oh shit, I have a big gap moments that you found out about during this, um, period where you were preparing? Or did you feel like people were pretty prepared? You just had to trust that they could do it. Where were you at on that?

Ian Ng [00:30:09]:
Because I am somewhat analytical, minus a bunch of extra syllables, I already had a bunch of documentation. Like, I personally had a bunch of documentation for myself. The only thing I didn't— hadn't done previously was pass any of that off to anybody.

Diana Alt [00:30:30]:
Okay.

Ian Ng [00:30:31]:
So that 6 days of preparation ended up being, okay, dude, here's my stuff that I wrote on this process.

Diana Alt [00:30:40]:
Great.

Ian Ng [00:30:41]:
Here it is. If you want, we'll go over— if it's complex enough, we went over it. Most of the time I felt like I had it so well written that all you had to do was follow the instructions and you could do the same thing. And then some of it ended up— so a lot of the local stuff that I was doing, without my staff's knowledge or in lieu of them doing it, I just started delegating off. It's like, okay, here's the phone stuff to one person, here's all the laptop stuff to another person, here's all the server room stuff to another person. And I spread the load around to who I felt was the most capable of doing that particular task. And then answered his— and that week I started just having them do it. With me as like riding shotgun so that—

Diana Alt [00:31:28]:
Oh, so you basically were like spraying it out right away and then said, okay, trial by fire, you guys get to do this while I'm still here to help you.

Ian Ng [00:31:37]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:31:37]:
That's a really great technique for it. Did you have to delegate anything up? Were there any things that went up to your manager or did everything go out to your team?

Ian Ng [00:31:47]:
I gave almost everything to my team and then anything that went to my manager or to my peers who were in other offices, were basically things that just required signing authority, or here's the status on a particular project that's in play that you need to keep an eye on. It's not something that, like, it's more like, here are the things that are happening with other engineering teams or with the real estate team and stuff like that for construction and things like that.

Diana Alt [00:32:13]:
Okay.

Ian Ng [00:32:14]:
So those things I handed off were sideways. And then anything that was— most of the stuff that happened in the office was all local anyway.

Diana Alt [00:32:22]:
Okay.

Ian Ng [00:32:23]:
There's very little that really needed to go elsewhere. Now, I found out that in my absence, they actually periodically sent one of my peers from one of the other offices in Texas up to sit in my chair for a bit. But for the most part, I also felt that I had spent the time with my team preparing them to be able to be entirely self-sufficient without management anyway, so that management was really only necessary for signing and authority things. So if someone needed to approve time, yeah, whatever. If they need to buy something and had to sign off on it, that's what we were there for.

Diana Alt [00:32:58]:
You had to go somewhere else.

Ian Ng [00:32:59]:
The actual— yeah, my philosophy has been functionally everyone on the team should be able to know how the entire department works, even if they don't do it all the time, but they should have an idea of how the whole thing works so that if you're the only one in the office, you're not just stuck.

Diana Alt [00:33:16]:
Yeah, because sometimes one person's on vacation and the other person is sick. Or something like that. So, was there anything that you wish had already been built before those 6 days happened, or did you find that you already had kind of taken care of yourself?

Ian Ng [00:33:37]:
I felt that I had already taken care of myself and taken care of the team. The most challenging part was actually handing off stuff that I'd been holding for myself.

Diana Alt [00:33:46]:
What made it challenging?

Ian Ng [00:33:50]:
Only that, like, those are the things I'd always taken care of and had previously not trusted other people to do it, in part because I'm analytical minus a few syllables that, like, you know, I wanted those things done my way. And so I held on to those things. And then once it came to the point where I couldn't hold on to them, I had to pass them off. And so I had to get over myself and pass them off.

Diana Alt [00:34:16]:
Yeah, well, I went through last year 3 months of leave for a surgery myself, and that hit different because I'm a solo business owner and I have like some VAs doing stuff. But like all of my work is client, you know, one-on-one client stuff. And in my case, my delegation ended up being to other coaches. So I went through every single one of my clients and said, where are we at with this person? What type of coaching engagement was it? And I literally had to hand off my clients to my competitors, which was—

Ian Ng [00:34:50]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:34:51]:
Fortunately, I have good competitors that treat everything as collaboration instead of competition. But that was a gut punch because I develop a pretty close relationship with my people that I'm serving. And there's that little tiny bit of worry of like, well, what are they gonna like Angie better? Are they gonna like, you know, Mary better? Are they gonna want me back whenever I come back? And I didn't have any clients that didn't return to me. I also made sure that they didn't have to pay anything for the coaches that I sent them to. Like, I had billback rates and stuff like that, which was a very interesting cost of doing business.

Ian Ng [00:35:30]:
So, um, you covered the difference in—

Diana Alt [00:35:33]:
I mean, honestly, That my people, I tried to set them up so that they would be as equipped as possible. I tried to get everybody to a really good place for where they were at in an engagement. The biggest thing was a couple of people that were like executive career development coaching people. I just let them take a break. So it's like, you don't have to pay me for the next 3 months. You don't have to pay anybody. You know, you can handle it on your own, but I gave them sort of like a bat phone signal, you know, if if the poop hit the fan, they had a coach to reach out to that I knew I trusted. And then there were 3 or 4 coaches that I had to delegate people to.

Diana Alt [00:36:13]:
And all but one of them said, I'm not going to take your money. Like, I don't, if I have to spend an hour with your client, I'm like, you would do the same thing for me. And then there was one that was pretty, a little newer in being full-time in their business. And we negotiated a rate. For if any people needed them. Yeah, it worked out pretty well. Um, and I was really glad I had that community of people around me. So you were gone for 3 months or so, um, from work because FMLA is going to FMLA.

Diana Alt [00:36:45]:
How much did you think about work while you were off? Were you able to shut it off or was it nagging at the back of your mind a lot? Um, what was that like for you?

Ian Ng [00:36:56]:
I don't know that it was nagging at my mind so much, especially at first. I think I was, frankly, I was bored. And so I would open my email and look at it.

Diana Alt [00:37:06]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:37:08]:
And there was one moment we were right in the middle of performance review season. So I did have to log on and at least deliver my performance reviews on time. So there was that, but that was pretty much the only thing I paid attention to. I may have actually popped on just to clear my email so I wouldn't be completely inundated when I came back.

Diana Alt [00:37:31]:
Some companies, if you were on FMLA, they'd be like, you're locked out, you can't come back. Your work didn't do that?

Ian Ng [00:37:37]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:37:37]:
Okay.

Ian Ng [00:37:38]:
No, it didn't. I still had access, but I was also very good about not checking. I let the iPhone that I got from work just go dead on battery and that helps.

Diana Alt [00:37:52]:
Yes.

Ian Ng [00:37:52]:
Right? Because in order to do something now, I have to plug it in just to go and even look at it. So I let it go dead. Dead laptop, dead phone.

Diana Alt [00:37:59]:
Way to go.

Ian Ng [00:38:01]:
Yeah. And I don't think, I mean, aside from the performance review thing, I don't think I ever got called once, which is actually a really great thing 'cause I think the way we cover for each other, Within, like, between my peers and even with my manager has been a great thing at this office.

Diana Alt [00:38:22]:
That's great.

Ian Ng [00:38:22]:
Because, you know, hey, if you're gone for a week, we are absolutely not trying to talk to you.

Diana Alt [00:38:27]:
Right. There's enough fire drills when you're not on PTO to deal with it.

Ian Ng [00:38:32]:
Exactly. And, you know, there's enough upstream that you could find someone else to answer the question or sign off on it anyway. So.

Diana Alt [00:38:40]:
Can I tell you a really funny—

Ian Ng [00:38:41]:
Other offices.

Diana Alt [00:38:42]:
Oh, can I tell you a funny story about when I was managing a software QA team? There were 4 other people on my team. We did all kinds of whatever the releases for PeopleSoft or like whatever all those tools were came through my team. We did a lot of projects with a very small team. And I remember distinctly there were 2 people on my team that did not like each other very much. pretty young and kind of an accidental software tester person. She actually came out of the business. And our group was focused on more like user testing, not super technical system tests. The development org did that.

Diana Alt [00:39:23]:
And then the other woman had been in tech for 1 billion years and was pretty seasoned. She was one of the most— she was the most senior by tenure, for sure, people on my team. And the older one always got called when she was on vacation. And the younger one, who was also a single mom of like a 4-year-old or something like that, her kids really little, whenever she worked for me, she never got called. And it was a very interesting performance conversation that I had to have with the senior person because she was trying to justify to me why she was the better employee that deserved the bigger raise or the promotion or whatever, because She's such a critical linchpin for the team, unlike the junior person that no one ever needed. And I was like, I don't think getting called on vacation is the flex you think it is. Because every single project always still delivered on time for my junior person. I almost never had anything other than like final QA manager sign-off if she was out of the office for a project.

Diana Alt [00:40:32]:
So I think you aced it.

Ian Ng [00:40:35]:
Yeah, that's also something I impress on, having had to do it myself in those situations. It's also something I've been impressing on my direct reports is that, hey, if you're going to be out, even if it's something as simple as vacation, right?

Diana Alt [00:40:49]:
Yeah, be out.

Ian Ng [00:40:51]:
Send the team whatever they need to know to pick up anything that you're holding while you're gone. Yeah, right. So So even just before going on vacation this week, I sent off a big email on my last day that says, here's everything that's live and active. Here's the status. Here's where you can find the things if you need them. If someone pops up and says, I need these items for blah, blah, blah, here's where they are in my office. And here's the relevant file. Here's this, that, whatever that you need to fill out and whatever before you hand off the things.

Ian Ng [00:41:27]:
So no matter where— so the idea is that the business has to continue without you.

Diana Alt [00:41:35]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:41:35]:
And kind of like talking to your flex, right? The flex isn't that people have to call me on my vacation. The flex is that I've prepared everybody prior to my departure that they can function without me so I can actually be on vacation and get the rest and relaxation that I'm supposed to get. Because I'm now using my PTO.

Diana Alt [00:41:54]:
Well, and that's, that's the thing I had to explain to my employee. I had to be like, look, granted, you're on vacation, you're staycationing in town, so you don't care that they're calling you. But like, I care. What if you got hit by a bus? Like, I care about that. I care about being able to continue. Let's talk about the transition back to the office since we're on this professional—

Ian Ng [00:42:20]:
If you don't mind, I'd like to go real quick into PTO since we dove in there for a brief moment.

Diana Alt [00:42:24]:
Oh yes, please.

Ian Ng [00:42:25]:
Let's talk about it. That was one of the things that I never had to deal with prior to becoming a manager was dealing with PTO or how time is kept. Because I was responsible for my own time. Say more about that. Well, I was only responsible for my own time, right?

Diana Alt [00:42:42]:
You just had to work according to— were you hourly before you got promoted to management or salary?

Ian Ng [00:42:49]:
Yes. Yeah. And then once I became salaried, well, it wasn't the salary part, it was the fact that I now had direct reports that were also non-exempt, and so they were hourly.

Diana Alt [00:42:57]:
Right.

Ian Ng [00:42:58]:
And so now all of a sudden I had to pay attention to, are you actually logging all of your time? Are you answering emails off the clock and not logging your time? Are you staying late and not logging your time? Are you using your vacation? Or have you been somehow self-sacrificing yourself Because now all of a sudden I had to pay attention to other people's wellbeing and whether or not they were using their time or getting appropriately compensated. Or did you have to travel for work and not submit for the mileage? There are so many people who will just kind of poo-poo whether or not they're going to put in an expense report. And I'm like, don't lose money to the firm, guys.

Diana Alt [00:43:39]:
Right. They're doing fine. The firm is fine. If you log your $28 in mileage, they're still going to be fine. They need to know that that costs $28 to do.

Ian Ng [00:43:50]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:43:51]:
I love that. Did you find that you were more likely to— like every example that you just gave was about people underreporting their time or underreporting their expenses. Did you find that that was the primary problem? If there were any issues, or did you see anywhere people were overreporting?

Ian Ng [00:44:15]:
I didn't see people overreporting. I think part of it also might have been that I happened to hire for people that were probably in the background, maybe not necessarily— I don't think I was necessarily looking for this, but I probably would have been attracted to it. People who are just generous to begin with.

Diana Alt [00:44:36]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:44:36]:
People, when I was hiring, because of the kind of position I was hiring for, I was hiring for people who were as personable and as social as I was. Now, that's kind of hard too, but at the same time, I was looking for people who are more social. It's a challenge. Because I was hiring for a front-facing position. I was hiring for a position that had to be able to walk into situations where people were already upset, And to be able to competently and quickly fix their problems and get out. Because it is the legal industry, everything is basically billed by the 0.1 of an hour. So every 6 minutes is a tick, and that's a tick of their hourly rate, which is like the production line of where—

Diana Alt [00:45:22]:
Of where you're working.

Ian Ng [00:45:23]:
Our work is, right? Yeah. We're not making a product. The product is the time we spent. Doing all these things, whether it's research or whether it's writing documents. Now, we weren't as much involved in the actual courtroom side of it, but we were preparing them for that.

Diana Alt [00:45:41]:
Yeah, I got you.

Ian Ng [00:45:43]:
Yeah. So it's like, hey, guess what? If you've just used up 6 minutes of their time at that person's rate, that could be $100 or more. Depending on the situation. Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:45:56]:
Depending on the situation. Let's talk a little bit about returning back. So when you finally were like, okay, I'm at the end of this leave and I need to go back to the office, what did you find that surprised you when you got back? And how has this experience, like, did the whole experience change the way you lead at all?

Ian Ng [00:46:24]:
Well, first of all, I let the people keep as much of the stuff I gave away initially.

Diana Alt [00:46:29]:
Clearly, I don't need to do this.

Ian Ng [00:46:32]:
And you guys are great at it, so here, you keep doing it. And then I think the only things they handed back were the things that required signatures. And then, yeah, I think the biggest change was doing more of the You know, handing off of things.

Diana Alt [00:46:52]:
It was easier for you to hand off after that?

Ian Ng [00:46:55]:
Yeah. I mean, having come from tech, I wanted to, like, I want to do a lot of the work myself just so I feel like I'm so relevant, you know, because like I knew how to do this stuff. And then like you get to that point where it's like, I don't remember how to do this task anymore. And it just feels like, it feels weird because like I'm the leader of this group and yet I don't know how to do this. thing that I used to do, like I could do it in my sleep and not have any mistakes. And now all of a sudden I have to look up the documentation again just to figure out how to do it today.

Diana Alt [00:47:29]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:47:29]:
So there was still a shift of having to step away from doing as much of the grunt work, but at the same time, it's like coming back I think the thing that surprised me most was how quickly everything came back after having been on basically paid vacation for 3 to 4 months.

Diana Alt [00:47:53]:
Recovery from heart surgery is not vacation either. It's not vacation when a woman has a baby either. That's also not vacation.

Ian Ng [00:48:04]:
But it was so enjoyable.

Diana Alt [00:48:06]:
Yeah. That was really good. What, before I go to the more personal side, what kind of feedback did you get from your manager? Because I'm sure that he saw your strengths and weaknesses and your team differently after you were gone for 3 months. What kind of feedback did you get from him that you've carried forward? Him or her? I think it was, I think your boss was a man.

Ian Ng [00:48:33]:
It's a him. Yeah, I'm trying to remember which one I had because I've changed managers since. I think at the time, what I got back was that things went really smoothly.

Diana Alt [00:48:51]:
Good.

Ian Ng [00:48:53]:
The impression I got was the team worked really well. There was very little additional that the rest of the team had to to put in there to keep things moving. So I was very happy about that. And then coming back, a lot of it was I was still in the middle of rehab at the time. So there was a lot of like, I need to leave at 1:00 PM this afternoon twice a week so I can go to rehab and then I'll finish the day at home, which is very different than— it's one thing to be in the office because my job typically requires me to be in the office. 5 days a week. It's a non-hybrid position. However, a lot of the stuff that I do could be done remotely.

Ian Ng [00:49:40]:
So I think probably the biggest changes coming back was just being far more conscious of how much overtime I was putting in inadvertently at the office.

Diana Alt [00:49:54]:
I could have told you that.

Ian Ng [00:49:56]:
I know. It's like when you have to set an alarm that says, go home at 5:55 each night, just to remind yourself that maybe you shouldn't be staying here any longer. It's like, okay. I mean, that was one thing to help with that. It definitely made me more conscious of where my time was being spent.

Diana Alt [00:50:14]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:50:16]:
And I definitely make much greater effort to make the most of my time so that I can actually Leave on time.

Diana Alt [00:50:23]:
Do you remember that you also— one of the things you wanted to work towards is making sure that you're— you had a couple of team members, I think, that you put up for promotion after this whole experience, in part because of the role that they took while you were out. Or did I— did I make that up? Am I getting that right?

Ian Ng [00:50:48]:
I mean, I felt like the entire team— I mean, my team is not huge, but I felt like the whole team stepped up. And so I tried to put them all up for promotion.

Diana Alt [00:50:59]:
They're like, you can't have all this.

Ian Ng [00:51:01]:
Not all at one time. I was told I couldn't have everybody. Yeah, I was told I could not promote the entire department at the same time, but I tried. Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:51:10]:
And you were able to get— you were able for some of— You had at least one of them that managed to get promoted.

Ian Ng [00:51:16]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:51:16]:
So that's a really great thing that you did there, 'cause I think a lot of times people treat, especially lower-level individual contributors, they'll just act like, yeah, I know your whole job changed in 6 days. And also, by the way, you should just suck it up. Like, the job is, the job is the job. And then when I change the job, it's still the job and they don't acknowledge Um, the shift that the person went through. Let's go a little more personal for a little bit before we close. Um, you talked a little bit about the asking for help kind of thing, asking your friends for help. Um, you had this thing at the beginning when you were planning for your surgery that you were going to do all of it by yourself. You had in your head, I'll just have my sister— shout out Cherie— I'll have my sister come down afterwards.

Diana Alt [00:52:11]:
What led you to think that was the right way to go about the personal side of your recovery and going through surgery? And what changed your mind?

Ian Ng [00:52:26]:
If you've known me long enough, you'll know that I think my general thinking is I can take care of everything by myself. There's a huge independent streak. Everything's like, I can take it. care of this. I can figure it out on my own. And so I figured I'll tackle this new problem the same way I tackled all the other problems. I'll do my own research. I'll take care of this by myself, and it'll be fine.

Ian Ng [00:52:50]:
Everything will work out.

Diana Alt [00:52:51]:
Everything is fine.

Ian Ng [00:52:51]:
There's a little bit of naivete there that just says everything will work out just fine. And I think subconsciously, I've also created great friendships, and I've developed connections to people who will look out for me when I'm not looking out for myself. And I think the biggest turn—

Diana Alt [00:53:17]:
Everyone needs those people.

Ian Ng [00:53:20]:
Oh, for sure. And I think the biggest turn was once I started telling people, hey, I'm going to be having heart surgery, blah, blah, blah, this, that, whatever. There are certain people who I'm very, very close to. These are your ride-or-die types. And even though we didn't have a lot of— we drifted apart just because of distance and time, but the connection was still there. So when I saw my friend Francesca—

Diana Alt [00:53:53]:
Shout out Francesca. We love you, Francesca. Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:53:57]:
Francesca totally came out and said, you are absolutely not doing this alone. And just like I would, basically, if she told me to go right into war, I would go right into war with her. And then I was about to go right into war without somebody, and she said, you are absolutely not going alone. So she made sure that there was someone with me. And she had initially come out for my surgery, except that my surgery got delayed a week and she couldn't stay for that. And so then she made sure that someone else would come and take her place. And that's how— I was the someone else.

Diana Alt [00:54:34]:
We don't have to hide that. We don't have to hide that. It's my show. We can talk about that. Yeah. So, yeah, Francesca came out for about a week. Your surgery got delayed a week because if you're 0.2 too high, if one lab test is off, everything goes to hell. And she had to go back to California.

Diana Alt [00:54:52]:
So I came down.

Ian Ng [00:54:55]:
She actually sat down and said, who else would— if I can't be here for you, who else would you want to be here for you? And that's how Diana was chosen. And I was asked. Voluntold?

Diana Alt [00:55:10]:
What? That looks old. It's all good. I got to vote on my auntie's birthday. Remember that?

Ian Ng [00:55:17]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:55:17]:
Yeah, I got to go to my aunt. My aunt lives in Allen, Texas, close to— well, no, she lives in Richland Hills, but the party was in Allen, Texas at my cousin's house. So I got to do a little detour through for my aunt's birthday, which was awesome.

Ian Ng [00:55:35]:
Yeah, also pro tip, if you want to grease the wheels with your ICU nurses, give them healthy snacks. We gave them peaches. Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:55:46]:
Did I tell you I'm getting Peach Truck peaches? I heard.

Ian Ng [00:55:50]:
In Kansas City. I heard you were getting some.

Diana Alt [00:55:52]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:55:52]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:55:53]:
Yeah. The spoiler alert for this whole peaches thing is that the Peach Truck, everyone should check out. They basically set up stands where you can go literally buy like 20 pounds of the best peaches you've ever had in your life. And they have that in Dallas. So I went and bought a giant box of peaches, um, part for the party I went to and part for the ICU nurses who usually get junk food. And Ian was their favorite patient forever and ever. Amen. Um, but yeah, Kansas City is— they're test marketing the peach truck.

Diana Alt [00:56:28]:
So next Wednesday between 9:30 and 11 o'clock, I get to go to Lowe's near my house and pick up my peaches. Which will be great. Going through heart surgery, one thing you hear a lot about is that it has a way of changing perspective for people. Sometimes it shakes up the mental health about that a little bit as well. What are you finding? What was your experience with that? And what are you finding matters more now than it did before your surgery? And what matters less now than it did before your surgery?

Ian Ng [00:57:02]:
Wow. Um, I think the things that matter more now are, um, I'm much more aware of things that make me feel good.

Diana Alt [00:57:14]:
Ooh.

Ian Ng [00:57:15]:
Um, and so I'm actively searching for those things or experimenting and trying out new things. And I'm also far more aware of the things that I'm just Doing by motion. Like, what are the— what are these things that I'm doing just out of habit? Do I really enjoy it? It's a little bit like doing like the Marie Kondo thing, but on your personal calendar.

Diana Alt [00:57:39]:
Yeah, like on your calendar and your friends and stuff like that. So yeah, what's something that you think is most—

Ian Ng [00:57:47]:
what was the other half? The second half to your question.

Diana Alt [00:57:50]:
You got it. You covered it. It was a long question, but you covered it. What's something that you ended up experimenting with and liking as a part of this? Some new stuff for your life. Has anything popped for you yet?

Ian Ng [00:58:09]:
Back when I was still on leave, I experimented with just different sleep schedules because I had all the time in the world to try out different sleep schedules because I didn't have to be anywhere at any time.

Diana Alt [00:58:24]:
Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:58:25]:
And I kind of figured out there's a certain, like, you know, a little bit like kind of like the midnight to 8 or 2 to 10 was kind of like my ideal range.

Diana Alt [00:58:34]:
Yeah. Don't you wish you could go to work at 11:30?

Ian Ng [00:58:37]:
I wish. Yeah, I wish I could do that for work. I also really enjoyed that. Like, the first thing I did after waking up was go to the gym.

Diana Alt [00:58:45]:
Oh yeah. I remember you talking about that. Yeah.

Ian Ng [00:58:49]:
And it also made a huge difference that someone was at the gym waiting for me when I got there. Oh, it's a very different experience. Just try— what I recognize is it's a very different experience trying to do something just for myself versus doing something where someone was expecting you to show up.

Diana Alt [00:59:08]:
Yeah, I paid for a trainer for years because I had a lot of trouble exercising for myself. I still do. And then I also went through a CrossFit phase. I think a lot of people went through a CrossFit phase. You had signed up for class, of course.

Ian Ng [00:59:25]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:59:25]:
That was another aspect. Um, you listed, uh, one of the things like in the little intake questionnaire that I sent, you listed the value of your time and attention, which you talked about being really your only resources. How has what you put your attention on evolved in the last few years?

Ian Ng [00:59:48]:
I've been putting it a lot more into creative things. And, you know, to borrow the phrase from our friend Mike, it was more the artistic stuff. I was already doing a lot of creative stuff, but it was more—

Diana Alt [01:00:02]:
Engineering is creative.

Ian Ng [01:00:06]:
So— Absolutely.

Diana Alt [01:00:08]:
So inherently. So you started exploring kind of like the art side of you a little bit more?

Ian Ng [01:00:14]:
Yeah. Nice.

Diana Alt [01:00:15]:
What you been making? Have you been painting or what have you been making?

Ian Ng [01:00:18]:
No, mostly illustration, uh, is, is my main thing, and then writing is the other thing. So creative writing. Um, so I got, I got back into a lot more, uh, of the, the various, uh, writing exercises and writing games that I play. Um, and, you know, I started talking more to One of my friends who's like a screenwriter and, you know, started picking that up again.

Diana Alt [01:00:45]:
Oh my gosh. I forgot about the screenwriting side. Okay. So Mike that he was referring to is Mike Brennan. He was on episode 59 of the show. So go check him out. He talked about creativity practice to fuel innovation, which I think, you know, Mike's a visual artist, but I think a lot of people that are in these corporate fields, especially technology, could very much benefit from listening to that. So screenplay, hmm, I don't even know how that would work, writing a screenplay.

Diana Alt [01:01:16]:
So it feels like a total pshh to me.

Ian Ng [01:01:21]:
I did it back when I was in LA, and obviously because back in LA everyone was working on something, you know. So, but it was also something that I kind of started and then gave up after a while. That was prior to moving out. And then once I moved out, I kind of like fell into a very kind of, I'd say, a small bucket. And then the surgery really kind of opened my eyes to how much I had kind of shrunken in terms of my scope when I moved here.

Diana Alt [01:01:52]:
And I feel like that was needed.

Ian Ng [01:01:54]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:01:55]:
It was a big thing for me because I had autoimmune stuff on top of the nonsense pituitary tumor. That was what my surgery was for. And the way I just describe it to people is I feel like my world got really small. It was either— it was like within 2 miles of my house, I had energy to like work and collapse. That felt like a lot of days.

Ian Ng [01:02:17]:
Right.

Diana Alt [01:02:18]:
But I have been wanting— I went to an improv show while I was on vacation in Nashville last week, and it made me think, I got to figure out how to go to improv classes again. It's so fun. Um, I'm never going to be like a Second City comedian or anything like that, but I just think it's fun to learn how to think in different ways.

Ian Ng [01:02:40]:
Um, it's a lot of fun.

Diana Alt [01:02:43]:
Uh, what, what are some other things? Are there any other things like with relationships or in your personal life that you feel like are different now or that you've made a point to shift other than some of the hobbies and things that we've been talking about?

Ian Ng [01:02:58]:
I mean, a couple of things is like, one, I went in a lot harder on working with coaches, various things.

Diana Alt [01:03:08]:
Thank you.

Ian Ng [01:03:09]:
There's the typical stuff. There's like, oh, here's my therapist, here's my business coach. But then I also dug into— I really dug into a coach who's working with me on just unlocking emotions because I know I stuff my emotions. And like, so that is Aria.

Diana Alt [01:03:27]:
All right, cool.

Ian Ng [01:03:29]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:03:30]:
She's a trip.

Ian Ng [01:03:32]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:03:32]:
I should have her on my show.

Ian Ng [01:03:33]:
I don't think she's been on your— has she been on your show?

Diana Alt [01:03:35]:
She has not. I might need to write her down on my long list of potential guests because we're Gen Xers and we're mostly dead inside, except for we're not. They're just blocked. So yeah. Has that been valuable for you?

Ian Ng [01:03:51]:
Absolutely. It's— I've had so many great conversations with Ari of just like digging into things and pulling them out. And, you know, I— my initial like request for her was that I wanted to be able to start dealing with my emotions in real time as opposed to like dealing with the jerky version of it much later.

Diana Alt [01:04:11]:
Right.

Ian Ng [01:04:12]:
So, yeah, that's been— it's been really, really great. And like, I think it does open me up to Uh, being able to experience things more in real time, right? You know, this might be the 9 slash whatever other Enneagram stuff you want to say. It's like, you know, a lot of that stuff gets bottled up and then dealt with later. And I really wanted to be able to start doing it like right now as opposed to having to—

Diana Alt [01:04:36]:
I'm just a nicer person. I'm just a nicer person since I learned more about how to do that. So, yeah, um, this has been so fun. I have my banger of a question for the end. But before that, if people want to get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to find you? If they're like, hey, I'm about to have this surgery, Ian, would you be willing to talk to me or email with me? What's the best way for people to get a hold of you?

Ian Ng [01:05:03]:
Yeah, I think the best way would probably just be Instagram at this point. I don't post a lot there, but I definitely pay attention to the DMs on there. So that's probably the best way to go.

Diana Alt [01:05:12]:
All right, we'll make sure your Instagram is in the show notes then. And then the last question I got before we close is, Ian, what is the worst career advice you've ever received?

Ian Ng [01:05:24]:
I think the worst career advice I ever received is that work hard and you'll be rewarded.

Diana Alt [01:05:31]:
Oh, you know what? I think that is probably the number— I need to go back and analyze it. I think that's probably the number one answer. I like to work hard, but I don't like to assume that somebody else is just gonna pick up on that and do better than me. So, all right, well, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on the show. And great, thank you. And I'm glad that you're my friend.

Ian Ng [01:05:56]:
I'm glad you are my friend too.

Diana Alt [01:05:58]:
All right, we'll see you guys next time.

Ian Ng [01:06:00]:
Bye.

Diana Alt [01:06:01]:
Want some more career goodness between episodes? Head on over to dianaalt.com and smash the big green Let's Connect button to Sign up for my newsletter. Let's make work feel good together. And that's it for this episode of Work Should Feel Good. If something made you laugh, think, cry, or just want to yell yes at your phone, send it to a friend, hit follow, hit subscribe, do all the things. And even better, leave a review if you've got a sec. I'm not going to tell you to give it 5 stars. You get to decide if I earned them. Work should feel good.

Diana Alt [01:06:36]:
Let's make that your reality.