In this week’s episode, Apollo is joined by Colleen Wong, the VP of Development at Venture for America, a nonprofit organization that is devoted to building a future of entrepreneurship. With extensive experience in neuroscience, comparative religion, and social science research, Colleen has dedicated her career to supporting entrepreneurship and enterprises that align with socially conscious values. In the conversation, she sheds light on her career and the role leadership played in shaping it.
In this week’s episode, Apollo is joined by Colleen Wong, the VP of Development at Venture for America, a nonprofit organization that is devoted to building a future of entrepreneurship. With extensive experience in neuroscience, comparative religion, and social science research, Colleen has dedicated her career to supporting entrepreneurship and enterprises that align with socially conscious values. In the conversation, she sheds light on her career and the role leadership played in shaping it.
Acknowledging her strengths in leveraging resources, Colleen agreed with her Achievement Assessment results which highlighted that she seldom executes tasks directly but rather mobilizes others to get tasks done. She stated that her strong leverage mindset enables her to tap into various knowledge bases and create robust solutions.
Colleen emphasizes the importance of practicing a collaborative approach to leadership. Using concrete examples from her professional life, she outlines her strategies for bringing stakeholders from various sectors together to achieve common goals. This approach not only ensures all stakeholder voices are heard but also addresses competing priorities efficiently and effectively. Colleen firmly believes in sharing stories and experiences as a crucial component in fostering meaningful connections and collaborations.
In spite of facing grim realities in her quest for social impact, Colleen shares her thoughts on maintaining focus and motivation. She acknowledges that achieving change isn’t easy and requires determination, resilience, and a robust support system. Though goals may not always be met and challenges abound, she advises leaders to be realistic and grounded in their approach, yet unafraid to dream big.
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Guest Bio
Born and raised in San Francisco, Colleen was initially allergic to, but not immune to the tech and startup fever that infiltrated the city. It wasn’t until she participated in a traveling hackathon as an adult that she realized the power of business as a vehicle for scaling change and social transformation.
Prior to joining VFA, Colleen led programs and partnerships at various organizations focused on supporting entrepreneurship including the Global Entrepreneurship Network, Endeavor Global, StartupBus, and the American Sustainable Business Network. She has also worn multiple hats with social enterprises, think tanks, and corporate social responsibility programs including research, communications, business development, and strategy for IBM Blockchain, JP Morgan Chase Advancing Black Pathways, ConsenSys, SAP Next-Gen, Mercy Corps, Amnesty International, New America, Ascena Retail Group, Johnson & Johnson, and ViiV Healthcare.
With a unique interdisciplinary background in neuroscience, comparative religion, and social science research, she is insatiably curious about what drives behavior, always seeking to uncover data-informed, actionable insights. She believes in harnessing the power of holistic storytelling, inclusive strategy, and stakeholder engagement to steer private and public sector organizations towards socially conscious values and practices.
During her free time, she enjoys writing, hiking, gardening, urban exploration, and bringing people from all backgrounds together through food and shared experiences. A first-generation Burmese American, she hopes to raise capital for an early-stage fund and venture studio in Southeast Asia.
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Guest PLE Score
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Guest Quote
“Staying focused in this work requires a lot of grit and perseverance. I tell my colleagues and peers in this space to not burn out, and to continue doing the best that we can. At the end of the day, we feel good that we're doing because we have tried our best, and that's what keeps me going in this space.” – Colleen Wong
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Time Stamps
*(03:25) Colleen's Achievement Index
*(05:06) Conducting the perfect amount of research
*(07:46) How to unite stakeholders reaching for opposing goals
*(13:53) Executing through others
*(15:56) Why you should focus on your North Star
*(19:24) Maintaining motivation in tough times
*(21:39) How to solve Big, Wicked Problems
*(29:25) Why don't people share their stories?
*(31:44) Apollo’s Takeaways
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Links
[00:00:00] Apollo Emeka: Improving your leadership skills will help you in every area of your life. But it's tough to know where to get started, and that's why we created the Achievement Index Assessment. You can take the assessment@theachievementindex.com. It takes about five minutes, and it's gonna generate a personalized report that breaks down how you prioritize, leverage and execute.
[00:00:20] Apollo Emeka: Go to the achievement index.com or find the link in the show notes.
[00:00:26] Colleen Wong: Staying focused in a social impact world, social innovation, social change world, it requires a lot of grit and perseverance. Being able to take a step back when things are difficult, when goals aren't being achieved, and being realistic and grounded in the things that we could do, and having the wisdom to know that limitation is really key.
[00:00:48] Colleen Wong: Being able to find others to support each other, like doing this work, because it's not easy. I feel good about the work that we're doing because we have tried our best. And that's what keeps me going in this space.
[00:01:01] Apollo Emeka: Welcome to The Achievement Index, a podcast designed to help you understand and accelerate the ways you perform.
[00:01:09] Apollo Emeka: I'm Dr. Apollo Emeka. I created The Achievement Index based on my experience in the FBI, U. S. Army Special Forces, According to the Achievement Index, vibrant success is the result of doing well in three areas, or as we like to call them, orientations. On this podcast, I'll be getting inside the minds of noteworthy leaders to explore how their unique orientations inform the successes and challenges they've navigated throughout their lives and careers.
[00:01:44] Apollo Emeka: On the show today, I'll be speaking with Colleen Wong, VP of Development at Venture for America, a non profit and two year fellowship program that aims to create an accessible and inclusive future of entrepreneurship in America. Prior to joining VFA, Colleen led programs and partnerships at various organizations focused on supporting entrepreneurship, including the Global Entrepreneurship Network, Endeavor Global, Startup Bus, and American Sustainable Business Network.
[00:02:13] Apollo Emeka: She's also worn multiple hats with social enterprises, think tanks, and corporate social responsibility programs, including research, communications, business development, and strategy. For IBM blockchain, JP Morgan Chase, Advancing Black Pathways. SAP NextGen, Amnesty International, and the list goes on and on, people.
[00:02:36] Apollo Emeka: With a unique interdisciplinary background in neuroscience, comparative religion, and social science research, she is insatiably curious about what drives behavior, always seeking to uncover data informed, actionable insights. She believes in harnessing the power of holistic storytelling, inclusive strategy, and stakeholder engagement to steer private and public sector organizations towards socially conscious values.
[00:03:05] Apollo Emeka: And practices, you know, easy stuff. Colleen, how in the world are you doing today?
[00:03:12] Colleen Wong: God, looking forward to the weekend. Almost there.
[00:03:15] Apollo Emeka: Your background is incredible. I'm just curious how you're not like, I don't know, 147 years old. It's you've done so many different things. You got the opportunity to look at your achievement index results.
[00:03:28] Apollo Emeka: You were really heavy on leverage, 64 percent leverage. 32 percent prioritize and just 4 percent execute. So you very heavily skewed towards leverage, towards kind of that base camp builder. How do you reconcile that with kind of your, your career path and the way
[00:03:45] Colleen Wong: you work? Yeah, I think, well, some of the results were surprising, some of them not so much.
[00:03:49] Colleen Wong: I'm definitely self aware that I'm a person who likes to leverage other people's strengths as well as tools that exist. One of my peeves is doing something twice, and not only doing something twice, but doing something twice in an efficient manner. So... I like to recognize everyone's talents and strengths and play to the best of their own capacity.
[00:04:09] Apollo Emeka: That doing something twice, I love that you called that out, because that's, I mean, I identify with that so hardcore. I mean, you remember, like, before cloud based stuff, if you didn't save and something happened, your laptop battery died or whatever, and then it was just, like, gone? If I lost, like, a paragraph, I'd be like, well, what's even the point?
[00:04:28] Apollo Emeka: Like, such a motivation killer. Like, how does that, how does that not wanting to do something twice? How does that show up for you these
[00:04:35] Colleen Wong: days? Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, I love working off of cloud based tools like Google Docs. I think it's more efficient to crowdsource edits and ideas together and keep track of it over time.
[00:04:45] Colleen Wong: Um, and then I also, I'm a big fan of doing research before diving into something mindfully when so many others have done work already and done a lot of that preliminary research, the best way that we can take advantage of all that. That exists is to look at that first, learn from it, and then from there, build on a solution or a plan of action for it.
[00:05:05] Apollo Emeka: I love that. How do you know when you've kind of done enough research, you know, and maybe you can, it feels really abstract right now. Maybe you can tie it to something that you've worked on before, but like when you're, when you're out there, I mean, there's, there's just a never ending pool of. Articles and sources of information.
[00:05:24] Apollo Emeka: So how do you know where to look and then kind of when to cut it off?
[00:05:28] Colleen Wong: When I first entered this field, there's a whole practice called monitoring and evaluation, which is pretty much measuring KPI for social impact. Um, there was some work we had to study about. Goldilocks, so finding something that's not too much, not too little, and just the best fit.
[00:05:46] Colleen Wong: So finding that best fit evaluation practice. And I think it really, there's, it's more an art than a science, but being able to gather together all the key concerns from key stakeholders, being able to see like what problem is presented to us in the moment. And from there. It's a combination of experience, like checking in with your gut intuition, but also like what are the concerns of key stakeholders and balancing all of that together.
[00:06:11] Colleen Wong: And once you have that right balance, I feel like things just fall into place. And you have the least people upset and the most people like unified about what's the best action forward.
[00:06:20] Apollo Emeka: That's awesome. So it sounds like, okay, we're gonna, in order to figure out what I should be researching, I'm going to talk to the, to the key stakeholders.
[00:06:29] Apollo Emeka: I'm going to figure out what are their challenges. What do they already know about. The challenge, then I'm going to do my own research, and then... Like, once I kind of feel it in my gut, yeah, I guess what's, what's the goal of the research? Is it to not reinvent the wheel? Is it to, yeah, what's the goal? Yeah,
[00:06:46] Colleen Wong: it's to learn from past attempts to do something, um, assess any pain points or conditions that have made the results like not optimal.
[00:06:54] Colleen Wong: Um, and then being able to make small adjustments and tweaks to, to help us reach our goal better.
[00:06:59] Apollo Emeka: That's awesome. What's your favorite approach to researching what's been done before?
[00:07:06] Colleen Wong: It's a collection of, I would say. I like to chat with people first because my role is very externally focused, which means, you know, gathering together input from different stakeholders, creating partnerships that are cross cutting around different departments or industries and sectors.
[00:07:22] Colleen Wong: I like to hear what has worked and what hasn't worked. I like to go to the extreme, like, what was the best success story or project or what was the worst? And then, like, that usually highlights. What stood out for most people, the most salient point. And from there, you can kind of work backwards and, and figure out a solution that incorporates like the key components and create a solution.
[00:07:45] Apollo Emeka: That's so cool. And how does that translate into the work that you're doing now in? Supporting entrepreneurs going through this fellowship. Yeah,
[00:07:53] Colleen Wong: absolutely. So I would say my role lives in a unique place in the organization because I do have to gather the input of all our key stakeholders and be able to make the case for funding our work.
[00:08:06] Colleen Wong: We work with a combination of government funding, philanthropic funding from foundations, as well as individuals like high net worth individuals and folks from our community. So fellows are solved in a Our alumni are very committed to helping future generations of fellows become entrepreneurs. So with that said, each type of stakeholder has a very different interest.
[00:08:27] Colleen Wong: Sometimes the government might be interested in economic development and creating jobs for foundations they're interested in like... Attracting talent to their cities and getting them to stay there and then fellows themselves are also interested in creating a career purpose and meaning but also being able to achieve whatever goals they might have, whether it's personal, financial, living a purpose driven life, and giving back to the community.
[00:08:51] Apollo Emeka: This kind of stakeholder analysis and stakeholder engagement is a trait of really solid leadership. And when you're trying to do something, especially something that's really tough, it can be easy to shy away from the difficult parts in the planning process. But Colleen's not doing that. She's saying, Hey, you all have different needs and concerns, different priorities, different hopes and dreams.
[00:09:18] Apollo Emeka: I want to hear all of it so we can build a really robust solution. that meets all of your needs, or at least aspires to. I love this.
[00:09:34] Colleen Wong: So that said, like, sometimes the expectations are really different and don't line up with one another. But it's about uniting everyone over this shared mission to revitalize our cities, to create opportunities for others, and then working together to create those pipelines of problem solvers and entrepreneurs who are going to make a difference.
[00:09:55] Apollo Emeka: Yeah. How do you view competing priorities when you have these things that seem like. Maybe they're not directly kind of competing, but they're at least not considering each other, right? Like these different priorities and perspectives. How do you feel about that? And, and, and how do you tackle reconciling that?
[00:10:13] Colleen Wong: Absolutely. So we're going through that right now. Um, an organization, VFA has been around for about 12 years. We're a kind of a product of the market as well, because there is a strong need for entrepreneurial talent across the studies that typically don't have a lot of innovation opportunities. Like it's everywhere, but Silicon Valley, I would say.
[00:10:31] Colleen Wong: And in these markets, especially this past year, like there was a considerable number of tech layoffs, so the industry hadn't really been hiring a lot for talents. And a big part of our fellowship is being able to give our fellows full-time opportunities with employment partners. And we've struggled a lot with that this year.
[00:10:50] Colleen Wong: As a result of the market not being great, some of our funders who expect us to have like X number of fellows in their community, which relies on having like X number of jobs in the city. That's been a huge challenge, and I think everyone's been pretty well aware of. the challenging dynamics. So we have been coming together and figuring out how we can best troubleshoot, you know, like, if fellows aren't able to get jobs, how can we give them other experiences that are going to help them to become entrepreneurial, um, solvers and innovative thinkers?
[00:11:20] Colleen Wong: If our employment partners are struggling to hire fellows because they don't have enough funding, how can we better support them in tapping into our community so that they can get access to support? And for funders themselves. that are interested in attracting talent to their cities. We're still finding ways to help them increase their brand awareness among our community, which is pretty much like the future, like young people across the country.
[00:11:44] Apollo Emeka: Yeah, that's awesome. And I know Detroit is a city where you all do a lot of work, right? It's interesting. I was reading this article the other day that was talking about how the ways that cities have tried to shine and attract people in the past has been around. Cost of living and has been around access to jobs and being friendly to particular industries and things like that But that the future Bragg's that cities are going to have is climate resilience And it's interesting to think about Detroit because it's one of those places that It looks like it is going to be more resilient to climate But then also has all of these kind of economic advantages as well.
[00:12:23] Apollo Emeka: How do you think about? I mean, I guess the way that we think about when you have competing priorities, I, I actually love it when our clients have competing priorities, because part of the hardest thing about getting hard things done is deciding what to do. And when you have competing priorities, um, it really shuts a lot of options down, right?
[00:12:42] Apollo Emeka: Because you're like, well, we have to do this and we have to do this. And there are really only a couple of actions that are going to give us The result that are going to fill both of those buckets, right? But I wonder, the way that you talked about it just now, it was almost like you were, it sounds like you have like maybe four or five different buckets and you're kind of like combining and recombining to say, maybe the things that we do can't fill all five buckets at once.
[00:13:06] Apollo Emeka: But maybe we can fill, this can fill two buckets at once, and this can fill three buckets at once. Is that accurate? Yeah,
[00:13:12] Colleen Wong: I would say it's, it's really about getting to the heart of, like, what the main need for each stakeholder is, and being able to create a solution that meets all those needs. So... I guess with the, the case of like hiring, like the hiring serves many different needs, but it's like the hiring itself, that is the solution.
[00:13:31] Colleen Wong: So being able to be all on the same page about what the problem is, um, for each of the stakeholders and then designing that solution for, for them and being able to like shift the framing of the problem. Um, I think it's really about perspective and being able to like. Get down to the, of like what the concern is.
[00:13:49] Colleen Wong: I'm speaking a bit abstract right
[00:13:50] Apollo Emeka: now, so. Yeah, no, I, I, I get it. Well, uh, going back to your index results, you said some parts of it were surprising. What surprised you about your results?
[00:13:59] Colleen Wong: Yeah, I was really surprised that I'm very low on execute. Although it doesn't surprise me because I would say there's been periods of my life where that has been the case, um, when I'm not performing to my best, and I've probably developed ways to work around that because I know that's a weakness of my own.
[00:14:14] Colleen Wong: I'm very much, like, when I'm project managing, I like to set deadlines to, like, At the end of our call, I'm like, okay, so who's going to do what? When are we going to do that task by and how can we make sure that we're all on track to meet our overarching goals and deliver results? So I love it. That's something that I learned as a tool and I carry with me in everything that I do.
[00:14:36] Apollo Emeka: Yeah. And that's, I mean, it's, it's interesting cause it's kind of a. What you're doing is a, a GY thing, right? Like, Hey, while I've got you all here, how do we make sure that we're all gonna be working together towards the same goal effectively? Right. It sounds like what you're doing, and the part of the tough thing about this assessment is that it forces you to choose between things that you might be like, oh man, I'm, you know, I'm a little bit of all of these things, but we design it that way intentionally because you kind of can't be everything all at once, right.
[00:15:06] Apollo Emeka: And so. That forcing function kind of forces you to choose, and you chose heavily on leverage. But one of the things that's interesting is the only question that you chose execute, uh, that you answered as execute, it says, People probably think of you as someone who consistently gets things done. Which is execute, um, while others are known for coming up with great ideas, which is prioritize, and still others help people perform at their best, which is leverage.
[00:15:32] Apollo Emeka: So it's interesting that the only thing that you chose the execute answer on was that people know you for getting things done, but you're getting things done not by executing, it's more so by leveraging, it sounds like.
[00:15:46] Colleen Wong: That's an interesting way to put it. It's like being flexible about the means, but achieving the result regardless of what you take,
[00:15:52] Apollo Emeka: right?
[00:15:53] Apollo Emeka: I love it. And then how do you, because it sounds like you're also very kind of prioritizing and your academic background is, you have experience in all of these kind of abstract disciplines, right? Social Sciences, Neuroscience. What was it? Comparative Religious Studies. So how do you, how do you, how does that, that kind of, that experience in, in, in the abstract play out in your work?
[00:16:19] Apollo Emeka: Yeah,
[00:16:20] Colleen Wong: I would say, even though my path has changed so many times, like at the end of the day, I'm really passionate about helping people self actualize and whatever that means to them. Like their goals can be Like, wildly different from another person's goals. Being able to help them reach the best state that they can be in, so that they are the most productive that they can be, that they are able to achieve what they put their mind to, that they're able to have willpower and act on it.
[00:16:48] Apollo Emeka: So, in the Achievement Index, Colleen was 64 percent leverage mindset, which you can see here, because she's basically like, Hey, I want to help other people achieve their priorities. And I'm willing to pull together all types of knowledge and people and systems to do it. It's such an amazing thing. And, you know, we had some technical difficulties that prevented us from recording the beginning of our conversation, but it was really showing through in her personality.
[00:17:20] Apollo Emeka: She was talking about how This weekend, she's gonna go support her friends at the New York Marathon. So, it's just really cool to see how she has basically set one big priority in her life, which is helping other people achieve their priorities, and then she uses all types of leverage. To help make that happen.
[00:17:41] Apollo Emeka: So unbelievably cool.
[00:17:47] Colleen Wong: Because life gets in the way a lot of the time. There's distractions, there's, there's challenges, there's things that we can't plan for. And all those little side distractions and, and humps that we have to get over, get in the way of people achieving what they want to achieve. So... Sorry, I forgot your question
[00:18:03] Apollo Emeka: again.
[00:18:05] Apollo Emeka: No, I mean, it's funny because the thing that's ringing in my ears is you talking about, you know, your plan this weekend is to go out and support your friends who are running, uh, running the marathon. And so it's like, oh, wow. I guess the way all of the, the looking at some of these more abstract concepts and studying some of these more abstract concepts like social sciences, neuroscience and, uh, comparative religious studies.
[00:18:30] Apollo Emeka: It has led you to the idea that, you know, everybody deserves self actualization, whatever that means to them. And this, I guess, Saturday, is it Saturday or Sunday, marathon for those people that self actualization means completing this marathon, you're going to go out and be on the sidelines cheering for them.
[00:18:46] Apollo Emeka: Yeah,
[00:18:47] Colleen Wong: absolutely. And I think it extends from an individual level of self actualization to a community self actualizing and becoming like, you know, the best it can be, or, um, expanding the scope of what you define as like the self, it can be a community, it can be. An identity, it can be, um, country even, or you want to expand out to the world or the universe.
[00:19:11] Colleen Wong: Like, it means what self actualization means is really different for every individual, but when there's a collective identity and collective values, they can be realized together. Through collaboration.
[00:19:22] Apollo Emeka: That's incredibly interesting. When you talk about universal self actualization, that's a massive thing.
[00:19:29] Apollo Emeka: I mean, we don't have to look far to see disharmony in ourselves, in our families, in our communities, I mean, in the world right now, right? So how does that, how does that play into your motivation to do the work that you do? This idea that we can define self as community or self as universe when we see all of this kind of...
[00:19:52] Apollo Emeka: When there are, there's evidence that we're a long ways from self actualization at times. How do you stay motivated with this being your mission? It's hard.
[00:20:01] Colleen Wong: Um, there's often times where I feel a bit more dismayed with everything that's going on and staying focused in this work, the social impact world, social innovation, social change world, it requires a lot of grit and perseverance.
[00:20:17] Colleen Wong: There's so many times when we get beat down, especially a lot of us working in this space are more empathetic than others or have a tendency to, to feel strongly and care deeply for, for all that's going on in the world and all the suffering. Being able to take a step back when things are difficult, when goals aren't being achieved and being realistic and grounded in the things that we could do and having the wisdom to know that limitation is really key.
[00:20:42] Colleen Wong: Being able to find others to support each other, like doing this work, because it's not easy. I think we're, we continue to, like, I, I tell my, my colleagues and peers in this space, like, to not burn out, and to continue doing the best that we can. At the end of the day, We feel good about the work that we're doing because we have tried our best, and that's what keeps me going in this space, because the work is never going to end.
[00:21:06] Colleen Wong: Um, I'm kind of a critic of movements like the SDGs, like Sustainable Development Goals, or, um, the Millennium Development Goals. These were big goals that, like, we're not going to achieve zero poverty in the world, or zero hunger, um, zero waste. I think it's really... Good to be ambitious and to be able to unify, unite people around these big, audacious goals.
[00:21:30] Colleen Wong: But in our actual implementation... Recognizing what we can when what we can't, and being able to design solutions around those challenges.
[00:21:39] Apollo Emeka: This is something that I think a lot about, especially with regards to, um, racial justice and economic justice and thinking about some of the disparities that are just baked in to economic justice.
[00:21:52] Apollo Emeka: All the way from, you know, slavery to, uh, Jim Crow to redlining to implicit bias, you know, when there are things that Yeah, I was just reading this article that was produced by the RAND Corporation that was saying something like that slavery essentially produced 14 trillion dollars of value for America.
[00:22:14] Apollo Emeka: Another stat that I saw was that an institute did a study that if there truly had been 40 acres, um, doled out at the end of slavery, that it would have created an additional 17. 5 trillion in value for the U. S. And so that didn't happen, right? And so if you look at Black folks in particular, there's this massive disparity that's baked in by decades and even centuries.
[00:22:38] Apollo Emeka: So again, how do you kind of balance this? A lot of times I feel like we almost need impractical solutions because the challenges and the deficits are so large. How do you get there?
Dealing
[00:22:51] Colleen Wong: with big wicked problems, um, you, like I'm, I'm a big, and this comes, this plays into the leverage, but I'm a big believer that nobody can do it alone.
[00:23:02] Colleen Wong: Like when you look at a problem in society, like Like, that's one example. On other examples, like, we have so many organizations and governments working together to combat climate change, and the folks who are being impacted the most are the ones who are already having least access to resources, and their lives, on an economic scale, are the least prioritized and seen as least important because they don't, they're not living at the top ladders of society.
[00:23:30] Colleen Wong: So when we come together, and this is why I really love working in partnerships, when we come together and bring the strengths and the capital and the resources provided by governments to sell solutions, the subject matter experts, the academics to inform program design or new models of delivering services and tackling challenges.
[00:23:50] Colleen Wong: And we bring together the innovators who are working on pioneering technologies that can help us tackle these challenges efficiently. We need everyone. We need the innovators. We need the people who know how to bring solutions to the mess. And then we need government to help change things on a larger scale.
[00:24:07] Colleen Wong: Then we need intergovernmental cooperation and inter economic, um, cooperation as well, because I would say in the, in the U S and other Western societies, change seems to happen. through a ripple effect, like from a center to, um, like outwards. In other countries, change sometimes happens like top down. So from like outside to in, and the individual is like the last to change.
[00:24:30] Colleen Wong: But it's not cut and dry. It's not one way or the other. I think it's like a fluid matrix of change. It's a fluid matrix in which change happens. So as As people who are connectors and people who are working at the intersection of these different industries and in different segments of society, Um, it's our responsibility to be able to find those points where we can very strategically, like, move the needle, shift what direction we move in.
[00:24:58] Apollo Emeka: I love it. Can you think of, and I, I'm, I'm super... Heavy prioritized. Like I'm, I'm, I'm mostly prioritized with the splash of execute and a splash of splash of leverage. So I love, uh, speaking in the abstract and, and exploring these ideas. And I'd hear you in the kind of collaboration and, and translating across these different stakeholders is clutch.
[00:25:23] Apollo Emeka: Can you maybe describe something that you've been a part of that feels like kind of. The best demonstration of that kind of collaboration that you've seen, um, maybe describe, you know, if it was a single event, uh, a program or initiative and just kind of walk us through it, you know, what did it, what did it look like and how did it come together?
[00:25:44] Apollo Emeka: Yeah,
[00:25:44] Colleen Wong: absolutely. So there was, uh, a bank, I will not name it for the sake of this podcast, but there was a bank that was really interested, um, This was a time when there was a realization across the whole industry that there's a lack of diversity in tech, a lack of diversity in entrepreneurship, and venture capital funding to support that type of innovation.
[00:26:03] Colleen Wong: And because of that lack, uh, there were many points to justify the need to invest more heavily in communities that typically had access to entrepreneurship or business. Uh, this bank realized a need to, to put dollars and money into these communities. And one day I was on Twitter and I had like doing my token fundraising.
[00:26:27] Colleen Wong: Um, I was looking for organizations that were committed to advancing diversity and inclusion and entrepreneurship. And someone saw me tweet and decided they wanted to chat with me. This funder connected with me, we had a phone call, I shared my story about not knowing what the heck startups were. Even though I grew up in Silicon Valley, I did not know what venture capital was, I'd never heard it.
[00:26:48] Colleen Wong: I did not know the difference between marketing and business development. I did not know anything. And I decided at the time, like, I found this random hackathon called Startup Bus. And I, I shared how much that journey of learning how to develop like a business canvas and being able to productize, uh, something that can.
[00:27:07] Colleen Wong: You know, solve a societal challenge, and being able to have that clarity and learn how to pitch a solution to a problem was really life changing for me, and I wanted to bring that opportunity to other folks like myself who never had exposure to those concepts growing up and never knew that they were career paths that they could pursue.
[00:27:25] Colleen Wong: So this person was inspired by my vision, the work that I had done, and decided that You wanted to bring this programming to Black founders. So we co designed program very carefully in partnership with them and made sure that we recruited from Black universities, Black focused organizations, like across the country to recruit like the best and brightest Black entrepreneurs to come together and, um, Essentially participate in a hackathon where, uh, it was like a five day experience where we were traveling across the country.
[00:27:58] Colleen Wong: They were building products, pitching to judges and investors in different cities. Um, and then all culminating together with other buses that were not. Purely like black founders, um, but other buses where it's kind of like a simulation of the real world. Like, um, you have all these resources, you have the opportunity, you have the time and space to create great things.
[00:28:19] Colleen Wong: And then you have your opportunity to pitch it to folks that you typically don't have access to. This program was a huge success. In the moment, everyone had such a positive experience. Everyone, like, built lifelong connections. Um, and many of them have continued to, to work on their own companies, like, afterwards in the years following.
[00:28:36] Colleen Wong: So, that was a huge success, and I want to bring that type of programming to more communities that typically haven't
[00:28:40] Apollo Emeka: had access. That's super cool. And what do you think were the keys to bringing this to life? What were the keys to making it successful?
[00:28:46] Colleen Wong: I think just getting the word out there about sharing your story is really key because no one hears your story.
[00:28:52] Colleen Wong: No one's going to be able to, or jump along in your work to advance change. I love
[00:28:58] Apollo Emeka: that. And it's so funny because I feel like a lot of the work that we do with individual leaders is that, is like, first, do you even know your story? Right? It's like. Do you even know that you have a story? And it feels like a lot of people don't even know they have a story.
[00:29:15] Apollo Emeka: And then how does that story inform who you are as a leader or as an entrepreneur, um, as a person? And how do you share that out? It's just so clutch. Why do you think that you're saying like, Hey, Share your story. Why do you think people don't share their stories?
[00:29:31] Colleen Wong: I am the perfect example of that. I am very humble.
[00:29:34] Colleen Wong: I grew up to be very shy about talking about my accomplishments. And I'm told that I, uh, have a tendency to, to be self deprecating. I am not comfortable in front of the camera. I do not like to do well speaking because, um, I think like sometimes it's being nervous about saying things like the right way, like feeling like someone's accomplishments aren't.
[00:29:54] Colleen Wong: Really much of anything to be shared in the first place, or feeling like And I don't think this is a bad thing. I think like some folks who come from more privileged backgrounds like feeling the need to shrink themselves so that other people can be acknowledged for their accomplishments. So it's kind of a combination of all that but I do come from a culture where um, it is seen as not great to boast or to be so self focused that I'm egocentric.
[00:30:23] Apollo Emeka: Yeah that's huge. Um, I'd love to ask you this kind of final thought of Here you are, and you say you don't like public speaking, and yet you're here, um, having this wonderful conversation, which I deeply appreciate, and I'm sure the people listening are, are glad that you're here also speaking and sharing your story.
[00:30:43] Apollo Emeka: What would you say to people who are nervous to share their stories?
[00:30:47] Colleen Wong: There was a good quote, and my memory is lacking here, but it was about courage, and even if your voice quivers, even if you shake, and even if you're scared, courage is not taking an action, but acting in the face of fear. Um, and I, I take that with me everywhere because the more you do something, the less scary you get, the better you get.
[00:31:10] Colleen Wong: And sometimes it's Pretty much just exposure therapy, and you got to do your reps to be able to get better at something. So I need it on my end, but that's something that I value highly.
[00:31:20] Apollo Emeka: I love it. That's so awesome. Get those reps in. So clutch. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, and I hope that, uh, you have an amazing, wonderful weekend and your favorite season in New York, cheering on your friends who are out there working on their own self actualization, pounding those streets.
[00:31:38] Apollo Emeka: Uh, and it's just been a pleasure speaking with you today, Colin.
[00:31:44] Apollo Emeka: All right, friends, it's time for the takeaways. So, when it comes to prioritizing, Colleen says that you've got to gather the key concerns of your stakeholders. And she likes to do this by going to extremes, asking about the best, what's the best you've ever seen happen here? What's the best thing that could happen here?
[00:32:09] Apollo Emeka: What's the worst you've ever seen? Or what's the worst thing? What's the, what's the biggest thing that could go wrong? So she's gathering feedback from these key stakeholders in these extremes, and then she comes up with these competing priorities, which she can then smash together to create these really nuanced understandings of the challenges and opportunities at hand.
[00:32:31] Apollo Emeka: And then she moves into leverage. She says that, hey, you've got to leverage your previous experience and other people's. Learning from past mistakes is so important. Has this big belief that no one can do it alone, especially with the big challenges that she is working to tackle she says that you have to have a layered approach of different people's expertise different industries public and private sectors And then finally when it comes to execution, she says hey, you've got to be realistic and grounded in what you can do.
[00:33:08] Apollo Emeka: So sure, let's prioritize and dream big, but then at the end of the day, let's get things down into bite sized chunks that we know we can actually accomplish. Thank you so much again, Colleen, for joining us today, and thank you all for listening. I'll see you on the mountain. Remember, you can find out what your Achievement Index is by going to www.
[00:33:35] Apollo Emeka: theachievementindex. com. Take the assessment. Takes about 15 20 minutes. Make sure you're in a nice, calm state of mind in a quiet place. And you can find out your own Achievement Index and figure out how you match up against... our guests. I'm Dr. Apollo Omeka. If you like the podcast, please rate us on whatever platform you're listening and remember to share it with your friends.
[00:33:57] Apollo Emeka: Thanks. See you next time.