My mantra this year is “I am the Tiger”.
Meet Dorothy a business builder, chaos calmer, and Asian Amplifier, not necessarily in that order. Someone once told Dorothy that the best part about her was that she could spot the worst, most decrepit house on the street and still find something beautiful about it and envision its full potential.
We asked Dorothy a few questions to learn more about her approach to life & coaching.
Q: How did you decide that you wanted to become a coach?
A: I had considered it 20 years ago when I first left corporate America but it felt too “swishy” for me.
I worked with a great coach when I decided to exit the consulting firm I had founded and run for 18 years. I was really unhappy. My coach really helped me focus on what mattered. Coaching feels very natural to me. I’ve always been an active mentor to others and the culture of my consulting really centered on female empowerment through opportunity creation.
Later on, when my daughter entered her teens, I realized that there was so much more I could be doing in amplifying Asian women so that inspired my next pivot.
Q: What do you know now that you wish you would have known when you were younger?
A: I wish I had been more open to listening to my own voice versus some made up story I created about others’ expectations. I wish I had let healthy love in earlier instead of trying to be something for someone else that was never going to be me.
Q: What is an object and/or phrase that symbolizes 2022 for you?
A: I am in love with the image of the lotus. The lotus only grows in muddy, murky, wet conditions. That beauty will emerge from what is messy, dirty and cloudy is the perfect metaphor.
My mantra this year is “I am the Tiger”. After being a TIger mother in denial for so long, I realized the best way to be a tiger mother is be the tiger myself. And only that will provide the roadmap that will inspire my daughter to find her way.
Q: What are some of the most common biases of Asian female employees at the workplace and how do you coach people to deal with these?
A: Typical responses are: heads down, hard worker, passive.
It took me a long time to break that for myself, so I get it. As a coach, I am privileged to access not just their vulnerability but also the beauty of their gifts and authenticity. My wish for them is for the world to experience them the way I do. My approach is to push them into those freeing places with me supporting them and to create a new muscle memory that activates the beauty inside and lets it out for everyone to experience.
My business tagline is “free your greatness”. The choice to use the word “free” is important, more than “find”. Freeing means you already have it–it’s just trapped inside. We work to release what is already there in all its magnificence.
Connect with Dorothy Liu on LinkedIn.
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