Who Am I?

My mentor, Katherine Zeserson, used to say, “Keep all your balls in the air”. Managing a portfolio career can be overwhelming. Read more to find out how knowing my identity can help me develop an international career and stay focused.

Selana Kong is the daughter of an English teacher from a rural village in Hong Kong. She moved to Canada when she was 17 and then returned to Hong Kong to start her international career before working in China and the UK. Selana currently lives with her family in Llangollen, North Wales.

Who am I?

These stories below are some of the key transitions from my childhood to middle age. It is about the way my identity unfolds and how it helps me stay focused.

Author: Selana Kong

45 years ago

When I was two years old, I sang in front of the TV every night. My mom brought me to a choir as soon as I reached the age of four and by the time I was old enough to go to school, I won my first singing competition. Performing felt as natural as speaking to a neighbour next door.

I seemed to have an unlimited supply of books my parents laid around in our house hidden in a rural village of Hong Kong. When I was not climbing trees, riding my bike, or catching fish in the river nearby, I enjoyed reading countless classic children’s stories, and Chinese poetry. My favourite was a series of Chinese heroes and their melodramatic stories formed my moral compass. A sense of justice and a love of peace germinated at this time which laid my path for becoming an international mediator.

Living in the countryside did not feel like a luxury to me at the time. I hated the toilet that was outside the house and the worst part was that there were 11 people in my family and there was only 1 toilet. You could probably imagine the swear words my three siblings and I wrote furiously out the toilet wall, as warning signs to people who take too long inside! I dreamed of living in a house where I could go to the toilet without getting my feet wet on a rainy day, shivering on a cold winter day or being afraid of meeting ghosts on the way to the toilet at night.

30 years ago

My dream of living in a house with an inside toilet came true. There was a pre-handover panic in Hong Kong and my parents were amongst the many people who applied for overseas passports. I suddenly became an UK and a Canadian citizen in the same year. It was easier to migrate to Canada because a grand-uncle arranged employment for my mom and another grand-uncle let us live in his basement for 6 months. When my parents could afford to buy our home, I had my own room right next to the toilet, I felt like I was in heaven.

Studying was not a problem. What I didn’t do so well is started a relationship with my first boyfriend and not break up with him even after I found out he already had another girlfriend. I was a mess, emotionally, and I cried and cried for many months. After two years, during a fight about silly things, he kicked me on my bottom and that was IT! I stopped seeing him which was the best thing that I decided in my whole life! It turned out that he murdered one of his girl friends years later and it gives me goosebumps every time I thought of what could have happened to me if I didn’t leave him.

I studied business when I first went to the University of Western Ontario (It’s called Western University nowadays) and the economics concepts I learned led me to study music instead! It was the most sensible choice given that music was my comparative advantage at the time. I switched to music the next year and I was a fish in the water. I ended up being on the Dean’s Honour List when I graduated.

20 years ago…

My music teaching career was going well in Hong Kong, and I met the man who later became my husband. He introduced me to the adult world of wines, and social circles. I enjoyed having his attention and he made me feel sophisticated. My first child was born after a few years, and we love him to bits. I carried on working while taking a master’s degree, online, in Australia. Life was good and stable in Hong Kong and being in the international circle was interesting. I worked with people from all over the world and I can afford to travel every year to Canada, or the UK to visit family and friends.

When my child was older, I became active again in the music world. Conducting choirs and performing in operas and volunteering in Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod in North Wales are my games. Some of the highlights include hosting a Highschool Choir from Shanghai which became the Children Choir of the World in 2017, and the National University of Singapore Choir which became the Choir of the World in 2018.

By this time, I have studied in Hong Kong, Canada, and Australia. What wanted was to study in the UK but how can I afford the school fees and support my family at the same time. The answer came after a couple of years.

10 years ago…

I read about the Hong Kong Scholarship for the Clore Leadership Programme in the newspaper in and thought “this is for me!”. It was my golden ticket to study in the UK. The Clore Leadership programme changed my life, and I became aware of the importance of connection, community, communication, and collaboration. I love coaching and I decided to leave my job in Hong Kong and immerse myself in a coach training program and started building a portfolio career.

I was a performer, a leader, and a coach all at the same time in the next few years, and in 2019, supporting an organization in resolving a large-scale dispute. I discovered my passion for bringing about more peace through negotiation and creative problem-solving. Mediation has become one of my games among others.

This year…

I am involved in many musical productions including the musical, Calendar Girls, with the Llangollen Operatic Society and the opera, Madame Butterfly, with the North Wales Opera Company. I am learning Welsh and working with the Glyn Ceiriog Male Voice Choir as a guest conductor. I am running two businesses. In my coaching business, I help the Association for Coaching with Leader Coach development and build a coaching community in Greater China and Canada. In my dispute resolution and risk management business, I provide dispute resolution between businesses from all over the world and support newcomers in the UK during their transitions.

I am keeping all the balls in the air well, and the secret is to keep improving my key core skills since childhood, which are music, linguistics, and communication. These skills help me make sense of everything I am doing without losing focus. They can show up in different careers in different ways, but these are the same skills that I can focus on learning and improving so I can stay focused.

Reflection: What are the things that you have still done since childhood? These are probably qualities that can help you stay focused no matter how busy you are today. Nurturing these qualities can help you feel be grounded and effective at the same time.