A Case Study By Kevin Corrigan, International Professionals Coach, UNITED STATES
Limitation vs. Expansion
My client is a creative professional from Taiwan (a VFX artist). He is in the United States to complete his MFA in VFX and then potentially to find a job at one of the big VFX companies that do the effects work for Hollywood blockbusters. However, there have been some significant obstacles in the way – mostly having to do with his mindset. His overall view of himself, his likely future, and his potential were initially characterized by limitation and negation of his skills as well as his options. He consistently negated or downplayed his own abilities and the possibility of success. Contributing to this were some of the cultural expectations he’d grown up with as well as negative reinforcement and messaging he’d internalized over the years. In his home country, he was viewed as weird, and his parents thought him unlikely to succeed at anything significant.
He had also grown up with negative input from his family regarding his creative abilities and about creative career paths overall. His parents and relatives viewed creativity as a waste of time offering no possibility of income or stability. (Little did they know that the advent of digital technology, video games, and high-end CGI effects in movies would change all that!)
Although his parents had wanted him to be a software engineer, they grudgingly supported his overseas study in design or arts, thinking at least he could get into tech at the end of it. They also felt, as a lot of international parents do, that having a prestigious degree from an American university would help their chances in any case. While there, he was mostly supported by a grandparent who criticized his choices but wanted to help him anyway.
My client is extremely talented, hard-working, and has a lot of ability in his field. He’d received accolades from his professors. However, he consistently and harshly undervalues his abilities. Through talking with him more in-depth, I sensed that he had no expectation of a real future. He wasn’t sure what to do after graduation. Most of his peers were aiming for jobs at Pixar, Disney, or Blizzard Games, but he seemed unwilling to believe that this was a possible pathway for him. He assumed he would fail and should just go back to Taiwan. (I often wondered how he squared this with his dream of being a VFX artist in the US.) Looking at his job search process confirmed his lack of serious commitment or strong belief in himself. He had a LinkedIn account but was reluctant to network because he assumed he’d been rejected. In addition, his LinkedIn profile was generic and didn’t present his value or talent in an effective way. As a result, he hadn’t been contacted by recruiters in spite of having a strong demo reel. (Moreover, he was hesitant to follow my advice on these points.) This all changed later after the coaching and he’s now working on major Hollywood productions such as Walking Dead and Star Trek, but there was little to indicate early on that he’d get there.
The Case Study of Limitation vs. Expansion
My client saw himself as less talented than his classmates and peers at art school. He graduated late as a result of not finishing his MFA Project on time. He hadn’t applied for many jobs because he assumed he wouldn’t be accepted. His job search efforts were severely lacking in commitment, consistency, or passion. He wasn’t able to articulate his skills or his value, and his online presence (or lack thereof) reflected that. He didn’t blog or post about his work as his friends did. His outreach and efforts were minimal because he felt he was so low value he shouldn’t bother. He simply believed he was doomed to fail.
Why He Sought Professional Help
The client contacted me after being referred by another client. His initial request was that he wanted to improve his English but also learn how to optimize his job search, network, and review his resume. (So deep down maybe he wasn’t as hopeless as he seemed. More on this below!) In any case, it quickly became clear that he was lacking confidence. He expressed a lot of self-doubt and was highly critical of his own abilities and efforts. He saw himself as “less than” others. He was experiencing enormous frustration and said he would probably have to give up and go back to Taiwan. In spite of this surface attitude, I learned that some of this negativity was a cultural norm and didn’t have the same devastating impact it might have had on someone from the West. This client is already successful by any standard in spite of all his self-negation, depression, and fatalism.
Psychological and Cultural Context
Although there were clearly familial origins of these issues, my client mentioned cultural factors as well. Verbal denigration by his parents, severe criticism and denigration from teachers, the low value of arts in his country’s culture, and the expectation that he had to become a lawyer, doctor, or engineer; all contributed to his limitation mindset. He also talked about the intense competition between families in Asia for prestigious positions and diplomas from American universities. All of these factors were clearly contributing to his lack of confidence and limiting worldview. Studies show that Asians suffer from low self-esteem and confidence more acutely than their American and European counterparts. They are also more likely to hold a negative self-concept and to believe negative criticism of themselves. This can take the form of either humility or depression. In some ways, the humility is attractive of course (although it hurts them in the US business environment); the depression and anguish they go through can be heartbreaking. Many Asian students I have worked with are easily discouraged. Asian professionals live in a continual state of frustration and ‘wanting to give up’, as one Korean client in the tech industry recently phrased it. In terms of my client, this manifested in his being easily discouraged from contacting people on LinkedIn (even when the advantage in American culture was explained to him) and from putting his best foot forward. (There were other cultural issues at play here. One was the problem of directly contacting out-group members and another lay in the cultural reluctance to “bother” people senior to oneself. To reach out to a senior in your industry is essentially pulling rank and exposing yourself to embarrassment and punishment. You also will be seen as rude and impertinent.) Again, in spite of these rather significant obstacles, my client has been able to achieve remarkable things in a short time.
Coaching Intervention Stages – Tactical – Observation – Creating Action Plans – Accountability
Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s ability to organize and execute courses of action required to manage prospective situations.
Our early conversations revolved around tactical approaches – how to reach out on LinkedIn, how to market oneself, etc. The client was initially curious about cultural differences in the job search and networking and how other international students had done it. We revamped his LinkedIn profile, and I showed him some techniques for making contacts in the VFX industry. We also worked on some of his language and pronunciation issues. During our sessions, however, I started noticing a lot of negative ideation from him around job search. He would make comments such as “I don’t think they want a junior VFX artist.” “My skills are not enough.” “How can I apply when I don’t have enough experience.” “I think they’ll never hire me.” And even “If I reach out to them, they will think I am annoying.” He also denigrated his skill level in spite of the accolades and prizes he had garnered in school. As we got further into the work together, he seemed less and less likely to do what was necessary to succeed.
Exploration of the Client’s Thoughts and Mindset
Using the descriptors or ‘symptoms of a limited or negating mindset above, I’d like to sketch the client’s inner world as was revealed through the early sessions that we had.
Uncertainty/self-doubt The Client had a strong sense of uncertainty about how well he would do in a role he desired. He didn’t believe anyone would want to hire him. He expressed a lot of skepticism about networking and other techniques. He would say again and again that that stuff only works for Americans, not for international students.
Unrealistic sense of the magnitude of negative impact – Due to some of the cultural factors already mentioned, the client believed that if he contacted hiring managers or recruiters, it would seriously harm his career. They would get angry and resent his “bothering” them. This was true for any outreach he even contemplated. They would realize he was a “rookie” and didn’t know anything, so they would not just reject him but effectively blacklist him from the industry. He should wait for them to contact him when he becomes good enough. He could not see that it was to their advantage to have talented young people in their company. He viewed himself as a nuisance and a liability more than anything else.
Anticipation of failure. In addition to the negative expectations around networking, the client also distrusted the job application process. He felt that it was deceptive and that companies did not want to hire ‘dumb’ international students who can’t speak English. Also, since he hadn’t done an internship at a large well-known company, the chances of his getting a job were effectively nil. And since he believed he would be rejected, he had bothered to try. Not only had he not applied to his dream companies, he didn’t even have a list of them. Why? Because he was sure they would ignore and pass him by for better candidates, so it wasn’t worth it.
Compromised or limited efforts – The client simply gave up easily. Early in our ‘tactical’ coaching sessions, he had sent out a few connection requests on LinkedIn but was ignored, so he stopped trying. It would never yield anything positive, so why do it? And anyway, LinkedIn was for Americans and American culture. Not for “loser” Asians like him. Overall his web presence was minimal and he hadn’t created profiles on VFX industry sites (often a necessary step in getting hired). When we started working together, he hadn’t even posted his demo reel on LinkedIn or created an industry-standard resume. He still had an “I am and always will be a failure” mindset, and his efforts reflected this.
Negative self-talk and global distrust of others – He often repeated to himself a set of negative mantras, but he’d also share them with me during the sessions. Some examples: his skills are not good, companies won’t want to hire him, his English also isn’t good enough, and he didn’t have any internship experience so he wouldn’t get a job. In a good limited mindset fashion, he had heard some stories of bad experiences with HR at one company, so he believed all HR departments were hostile to young international students.
Procrastination – fear of negative outcomes, reactions, and results caused him to avoid working on projects, so he would put things off until the last minute. In fact, he had failed to complete his MFA on time due to procrastination. The final results were not top to standard as a consequence, and the project had been rejected by the grad committee the first time around.
Satisfaction with reduced or compromised outcomes. His goals were not commensurate with his skills (lack of goals to be accurate.) The few applications he had sent out were to companies he didn’t care about, or in fact hadn’t even looked into much. Some were not even in the VFX industry.
Nagging depression – He mentioned he had experienced depression as a high school and then as a college student. He dropped out of school as an undergrad for a semester due to depression.
My reflections:
1. What is the core problem or challenge to you in applying your coaching skills?
Moving the client from a limited ideation and negating mindset to an expansive and committed mindset with the possibility of moving forward and articulating goals.
2. What specific coaching skills or approach did you use in this case?
Established coaching agreements for each session. And once we shifted to a more ICF-informed approach, I clarified the differences to the client and how the approach would change.
While using ICF methods, I also kept in mind some of my intercultural training and what I had learned from my many years working with international students. I accepted some of the client’s self-deprecation as a cultural expression of humility. It’s also been shown that an apparent lack of self-esteem in Asian students does not always predict a lack of motivation towards goals, as it typically does with their American counterparts. This was definitely the case with him. As I have said, his inner negativity and cynicism haven’t stymied him at all. On the contrary, he has thrived in spite of them. (We still work together on his professional career development – he’s just as negative and depressing as ever. I often come away from our sessions feeling a sense of complete pointlessness of all activity. However, he continues to move forward overcome his obstacles and win accolades.)
I used active listening and reflected back the client’s understanding of his situation and experience. I responded to non-verbal cues, body language as well as modulations in vocal tone and some sense of the cultural background (Asian cultures tend to be in-group focused so it’s uncomfortable to reach out to people not within your immediate circle or who are not referred directly by someone in the group.)
I tried asking questions that would help the client express his desires and motivations as well as move beyond his entrenched negative mindset and self-imposed limitations.
Through the sessions, we were able to identify some of the factors contributing to his limited viewpoint and establish a new, more expansive viewpoint towards his abilities and his future.
3. What were the results of your process? Was your coaching/program effective?
Over the course of two months, my client’s mindset appeared to remain the same but his actions began to shift. The first step was to help him focus on small, manageable steps that would distract him from his big-picture doom-and-gloom perspective. Once he started seeing concrete progress being made, he started to become more proactive. He has remained as doom and gloom as ever, but coaching has helped him improve his implementation and his time management. As I was still working within a hybrid format, I suggested the SMART goals approach, which he appreciated and started to integrate into his daily planning. Towards the end of our engagement, the client even began expressing some optimism and positive ideation around job search. It was very grudging and now he is back to his old self, but I saw him adopt some practical strategies for his development and goals. We managed to revamp his LinkedIn profile and get him networking through LinkedIn. I’m happy to say he’s now working at a well-known VFX studio in Burbank, California. He “knows” he has no future and is the lowest of the low but he doesn’t act like it. That to me is success!
4. What are the top 3 things you learned from this experience?
ICF techniques work across cultures.
Silence and giving the client space are powerful techniques.
Client mindset can interfere initially with the adoption of effective tactical approaches. However, staying the course can bring positive results.
Lack of confidence in international studentshttps://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1054787.pdf
Low self-esteem in Asian students: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3263756/
Lower self-confidence in Asian students:/high suicide rate https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:635116/fulltext01.pdf