Patrick Armstrong
Hey everyone! Welcome to Conversation Piece with Patrick Armstrong. I am the titular Patrick and this is the show where my guests and I discuss what piece of the conversation we aren't talking about but should be. Special shout out to all my returning listeners and a high five and hello to everyone joining us for the very first time; thank you so much.
The month of May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month or APAHM, and is meant to celebrate and reflect on the history and peoples that make up our beautiful diaspora. As part of that reflection, this month, I'll be sharing nine conversations with friends and folks I greatly admire in the community as we discuss those missing pieces of the Asian American conversation: what we know, what we might not know, and what we can do about it. These are The APAHM Conversations.
My guest today is the lead career coach and founder of Workhap, a company that has helped thousands of people get hired and paid in careers that they love. He's also a LinkedIn Top Voice, and his work has been featured on The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and LinkedIn News. With over a million followers across social media, it is an honor and my pleasure to welcome Sho Dewan to the podcast. Hey Sho!
Sho Dewan
Hey, Patrick, thanks so much for having me, man.
Patrick Armstrong
Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time again, greatly appreciate it and appreciate you being part of the series. For any listeners who might not know you, I know you gave you just a little bit of an intro. But do you mind telling people a little bit more about yourself?
Sho Dewan
Yeah! And it's cool that we can connect now, Patrick, right? We met a couple of months ago when I was on another podcast and you were helping out with that. So it's cool that I can now be on your show.
A little bit about me, I started career coaching and my company Workhap in 2019. And when I started, it was just me posting on LinkedIn saying, “Hey, these are some tips for interviews. These are some tips for resumes. These are some success stories I've had with the few clients that I had back then.” And now it's been four years, we're on a lot of other social media channels. And things have been great, man.
I'd say a lot of my background, a lot of what I've used for my corporate experience. So that's recruitment, that's HR, that's management, consulting. And that's kind of what I use in my day to day to coach my clients to get their ideal careers.
Patrick Armstrong
Love it. I appreciate you sharing that. And yeah, it's really good to reconnect because when I first connected with you – when you were guesting on Dear Asian Americans – I was just getting into the short form video and I was just getting out of recruitment and so I felt like the alignment was there. And ever since then, you have been one of the biggest inspirations for me [as far as] the consistency of content and putting stuff out and also betting on myself, when it comes to approaching brands for deals or whatever it might be as we work to monetize whatever this podcast is currently. So I just want to say thank you before we get started, because having met you has been a huge inspiration to the work that I've been trying to do. So thank you.
Sho Dewan
Aww dude, thanks for those words. Yeah, excited to get excited to do this with you.
Patrick Armstrong
Absolutely, man. So as I said at the top of the show, one of the things that we're doing for this series is specifically talking about the conversation pieces that we are not talking about when it comes to Asian America. And when I sent you the form, I thought you wrote down something pretty interesting, which is trying to teach other Asians and Asian Americans how to stand up for our own worth and get paid for it. So I was wondering if you could kind of go into that a little bit. Obviously, the work that you do has a lot to do with that. But I was wondering if you could explain a little bit where your head's at with that?
Sho Dewan
Yeah, happy to. So that is probably the number one request that most of my clients reach out to me for. Yes, they want to be happy at work. Yes, they want to find a career that gets the best out of them. But almost everyone comes in saying, “Hey, I don't think I'm getting paid what I'm worth, and what can I do to get paid that market value or even higher based on my skills and experiences?”
A lot of my clients also happen to be Asian, some of them are Asian Americans, some of them are originally from or and still live in Asia – live in Hong Kong, Singapore, a lot of clients from all over the world. So that's just what I've been seeing throughout my coaching years – even when I was in HR in recruitment – is that a lot of Asian Americans don't necessarily have or weren’t taught the skills to negotiate.
I think they do know, “Hey, if I get an offer, I know that I should do something with it. I shouldn't just accept it and say yes and move on.” But they don't know the exact process of how to approach it. Well, what should you do with a counteroffer? How do you tread delicately with this situation? There's things that we weren't really taught in school. That's everybody, not just Asian Americans. I think, in general, school doesn't really teach us, but especially Asian Americans, I think it comes from our parents, and maybe their parents and their parents, of not trying to ruffle the feathers of the corporate world of like, take what you can get, stay there, head down, work hard. And then you'll be okay.
I think that's kind of ingrained in a lot of us. So that is a lot of the work that I do, is seeing where they're where their limiting beliefs are about getting paid and, and their worth, and giving them the tools to be able to negotiate that higher brand deal, that higher salary, higher sign on bonus, all those good things.
Patrick Armstrong
Absolutely. Was that something that you grew up in your household understanding and knowing and having conversations about with your parents? Or do you feel like your experience fell in line a little bit more with the typical Asian American: be a doctor, be a lawyer, be an engineer?
Sho Dewan
That's a great question. I definitely had some of the ladder when I was growing up and, and I don't blame my parents for this. I mean, they wanted the best for me and what the best was at the time, what they knew was: be a doctor, be a lawyer, get your MBA. So all these things are good advice, but as I've gotten older and as I've tried to do my own path, my parents were actually very supportive of me doing what I wanted to do. So the first big change that I chose for myself was being a business major. Even that alone, where all my cousins and my sister [were in] bio and public health – all these all these things that they know – but when I chose business they like, “Yeah, do it, do it.”
So as a student and as I started my corporate career, I was kind of the first in my family to do all of this: to get an internship, to work a blue collar job, to work a white collar job. It was all new. So I didn't really have them to ask questions like, “Hey, should I negotiate this? What's a typical salary for this kind of position?” And I think that's me doing the research on my own and me reiterating and trying new things and failing and succeeding in some. I think that is what has set the foundation for me being a career coach.
Now, I've been you know, I've started negotiating probably my first job offer and every single job offer, I probably negotiated it. Not always successful, but I always tried. I always attempted. I was like, “Hey, you know, is there anything that we could do about this? Can we get more vacation days? What are the hours.” I think it was a little bit of naivety. I didn't know that it was inappropriate to ask [for things] [laughs], I think it worked in my favor because I was young and they're like, “Hey, we like this kid. And he's trying to do things that I think he's read about.”
So I think that worked in my favor. So now that I have a little bit more experience under my belt, now I've realized the biggest hurdle for most people, especially Asian Americans, is just asking. It’s just making the ask.
Patrick Armstrong
I resonate with that advice so much because growing up I was totally afraid to ask. I wasn't afraid to get in the interview and I felt like I could always interview well. But when it comes to moving up that ladder or understanding what it means to grow in your career, I think, for whatever reason, I was super timid.
And I was adopted, you know, I grew up with white family who also were like, “Go get it. Go do your thing and support me in that way.” But for some reason I felt like there was always something holding me back and it was hard to ask for those things when, in hindsight, it's like, “Oh, they probably may have supported me in that from an employer perspective, from a manager perspective.
As you were cutting your teeth and going through school and then getting your first jobs out of college and doing these things, developing your career in HR and other places, did you feel like you noticed that being Asian or Asian American had you at a disadvantage in any way? Or were you really like, “I'm just trying to make it out here and survive as a post-grad kid. Like being Asian has nothing to do with it for me. Like I'm just out here trying to get that money.”
Sho Dewan
If I'm just honest with you, Patrick, I don't think I've ever thought about me being Asian in the corporate world until I got more into it. I think when I was just breaking into these companies – I worked at some really cool tech companies; I worked at Lyft, I worked at Western Digital. I worked at Sony, that was one during my school years. And then my first job out of college, I was doing management consulting at Ernst & Young in New York.
When I moved to New York, that's when I felt my “Asian-ness.” That's when I felt, “Oh, okay. I'm a minority in this big corporate conglomerate.” But when I was in my college years and my internships and my early work experience, I grew up in Southern California. I grew up in a city called Redlands, California.
And then when I went to school, I went to UC Irvine, so there were a lot of Asians, especially in Irvine, it's like majority-Asians in the school and especially in the work setting as well. So I just felt like, “Okay, like I'm kind of like one of everybody else.” It was when I moved to New York and I saw the teams that I was in and my managers and all those things about being in corporate America that I then felt like, “Oh yeah, I am in a minority here.”
I'll be honest with you, I don't know if I ever felt like it held me back. I dunno if that ever held me back, but I did notice it. I did notice it. I will say just as a whole, though, it was my colleagues that were not Asian, that were definitely more outspoken, seemed to be more confident, more easily [able to] ask for the projects they wanted to work on or the type of work they wanted to do. They were less afraid to give feedback, receive feedback.
And then had my own corporate experience in Asia, I noticed, hey, what I noticed in New York was also similar in Asia where people in Asia are also less likely to give feedback, less likely to receive feedback, maybe a little bit more timid.
I think a lot of our culture does play a part in this.
Patrick Armstrong
That's really interesting and, like I said, you know, I never went to the levels that you have reached, but even in my own experience, even coming from communities that had, maybe not the audacity, but the brashness to, to not feel like I shouldn't ask for this, but to really go after and chase it. For whatever reason I kind of internalized, like maybe that wasn't the route for me.
So I think it's interesting that you were able to not only go in that and notice it, but not have it affect you in the way that it's like, this isn't gonna be a hindrance for me. This is just something that I see happening in the periphery as I'm moving forward in my direction. And I think what's interesting as well is, as you've grown in this career and as you've started Workhap, is that, like you said at the top, most of your clientele are Asians or Asian Americans, folks who are trying to figure this out.
And so as somebody who has kind of figured it out for yourself and then is passing that knowledge on, what's one of the things that you share with folks from our diaspora about standing up for yourself and to go after getting that extra $10k or whatever it might be in the career that they want to do.
What's that conversation look like?
Sho Dewan
You know, an earlier question you asked, Patrick, you were asking, “Hey, how did your parents help you with the salary negotiation aspect? How did they help you in your career?” So I said at that time I couldn't go to them because they didn't know some of the nuances of corporate America where you said your parents were like, “Yeah, go get paid. Go get the salary, go do that.”
But you know what my parents did do – they might have not known how to ask, they might not have known how to negotiate and bring in another offer and use it as leverage, all those things, me and you, the recruiters that know the game – but what they did always say from the very beginning, they just said, “You're the best at what you do. You're the best. Even at this. You're the best.” Even when I was starting off, they're like, “You're the best at this.”
That has always been ingrained in my head and it's kind of funny now that we're sitting and I'm back here visiting my parents. So a little funny to be reminiscing about this while they're next door. I dunno if they're listening. But that's just something that they really ingrained in my head very early on. “You're the best at this. Keep going.”
So that is what I pass down to my clients. You need to know your own worth first before you can make that ask. So before I even give the salary negotiation scripts to my clients, before I even give them, “Hey, maybe you should think about getting another offer. See what offer you can get there and then go back to company A and say, Hey, you have another offer. Is there any way you can expedite the process?” All these little things you can do, you can't execute it well enough until you know what you're worth, until you know that your skills and experiences are so unique that they need to pay you to get you.
Because if you don't accept the first offer, they're still gonna want you. They've invested all their time and energy into recruiting you. They know the value you can bring them. They're gonna go higher in their offer. And if they can't, they're gonna let you know upfront. They're gonna know while you're having that conversation, they're going to be like, “We really like you. We can't do salary, but you know what, we might be able to do a sign on bonus.” Or, “We know we can do a sign on bonus and we can also maybe have an earlier review period.”
But it starts with these candidates, our Asian Americans and everyone else knowing their value, knowing their worth, and being able to ask for certain things.
Patrick Armstrong
I really love that. I feel like that quality of worth or that idea of self-worth can be really difficult to grasp sometimes. Especially depending on, you know, cultural context or the communities that we grew up in, whatever the case might be, to really understand that like, “Oh, I am worth it to go after this is,” I think, can be really elusive for a lot of people. Especially for people from our community, from the Asian American, any Asian communities.
When you're relaying “You are the best at what you do to folks,” do you find that there is that barrier, like that cultural barrier of “Well, I'm Asian so I already am thinking of myself at a lower standard or quality or worth than what is even the baseline.”
Is that something that comes up a lot?
Sho Dewan
Dude, there's a big barrier with a lot of clients. I'm probably the first person, as their coach, to tell them, “Hey, you're really great at what you do. Your skills and experiences are so valuable. You gotta ask for that. You gotta ask, you gotta do this because you're so good.”
I'm probably one of the first people in their lives to tell them that. Which makes me feel a little empathetic. It makes me feel a little bit of sympathy. I'm like, man, ”If people have been telling you that from the get go, you'd be here and you'd be going after this career and getting paid what you're worth already.”
But everyone goes through their own journey and people need the affirmations when they need them. So I feel like that's kind of my role as a coach is when they join up for our programs, when they sign up to work with me, I'm gonna be their cheerleader.
And I actually do think maybe sometimes that is even more valuable than me giving them the specific tips on how to do their resume and interviews and negotiations. Sometimes they just need a cheerleader who knows the game. A cheerleader who has been through it.
But it's getting past the limiting beliefs that you've set for yourself of saying, “I can only get a $50,000 job, and I know other colleagues are getting $70,000, but I don't have the skills for that.” It's getting past that limiting belief or getting past the limiting belief of, “But I've been doing accounting for 10 years. I don't know how to be a senior finance manager. I don't know how to pivot into financial modeling.” Let's just say it. It's those limiting beliefs, those voices in their head that tells them, “You can't do it. It's hard for you. It's easier for everybody else.”
Those are the ones we gotta break first. We gotta chop them down and then rebuild new ones. We actually do that, for everybody who's listening, who's interested in doing some of that work, we do that with being aware of what are the limiting beliefs that you're having right now. And I can just say from my own experience, even though my parents were always encouraging and always giving me affirmation, saying I'm the best at what I do and keep going, there's still limiting beliefs that I had. That means it is natural; it's part of being human.
So some of the limiting beliefs that I had when I went into management consulting was, “Hey, I didn't go to a top 10 school. I went to a good public university, but it wasn't Harvard. It wasn’t Columbia. It wasn't these amazing schools. Will they accept a non-target university?”
That was a couple of limiting beliefs I had. When I moved over to Asia to work, I was like, “Hey, I don't speak the language,” right, “Will they promote me to management if I can't speak to my own people? I don't know if I can get through that.” But all of these are just limiting beliefs that are holding us back.
It's one, we can be aware of it, number one, that's step number one, and then two, rewrite them and do something more empowering. So I look back at my past, I'm like, ‘Wait, I've been in other companies that accepted me. Hey, I'm sure this company will accept me as well. I have been a manager in this role and I succeeded, and I got really great feedback as a manager. I'm sure in another culture they'll start to see my worth as a manager there too.”
So when you're aware and then you change those beliefs, then you just have to practice it. “I am” affirmations. Read it in your journal, write about it. You want that to be your new identity, then you can move on and go after the things that you want.
Patrick Armstrong
I absolutely love that. I think that, again, like tied to the self-worth aspects, but just being aware of those self-limiting beliefs first is so powerful and crucial. I'm sure in your work you've seen the light bulb moments where you ask somebody that question like, “What self limiting beliefs do you have right now?”
And they list them and, like you said, it's probably the first time that they've ever even thought of that. And then, as you said, that second step is really rebuilding those things. And as a coach, you come out with them with affirmations and support and knowledge, and that helps them build that.
And I feel like I see that a lot whenever you share a DM or something that somebody's left you of them saying, “Sho, I just got this job,” or, “I asked for this raise and it worked out.” And something that I've found on LinkedIn is I've found other folks who particularly work in the recruiter space, who share messages like that, who do something similar to yourself, and it makes me think about how important it is to have support like that.
Like you said, maybe somebody just needs a cheerleader. They don't necessarily need the tools, they probably already know, but they've never had anybody in their corner who's constantly giving them positive affirmation as opposed to tearing them down. And so that support system is so, so important.
And I think one of the things for us as Asian Americans is – and just Asian people in general, well really just anybody in general – we need support outside of our own community to do so and to really help us achieve where we want to get to, you know, the pinnacle of the mountaintop, the zenith, whatever it might be.
Do you have advice for folks outside of our community and how they can best support specifically from our community, but just anybody who doesn't identify in the same ways as they do, support those folks as they move through their corporate career ladder?
Sho Dewan
Yeah that's it. It brings me back to so many memories of great managers I've had that supported me early on in my career that didn't look like me, that didn't sound like me, that didn't come from a background like I did.
I've been talking about my parents a lot, which has been obviously instrumental in me finding my worth and going after the things that I want to get go for. But just being in corporate, I've had some amazing managers that really pushed me to do things that I might have felt a little uncomfortable asking.
So one of the best, probably my favorite manager of all time, her name was Jennifer Maddox. Jen, if you're listening to this, I miss you. Thank you for everything. She was one of my first managers at EY and we worked on a really cool project together, and it was a big team. We worked on a project with Simon Sinek.
So Simon Sinek is the Start With Why, The Golden Circle guy, huge on YouTube, on Ted Talks. He’s amazing. During that project, I was one of the only Asians on the team. I think there was maybe a team of 10 to 15 people, maybe there were two or three other Asians. And one thing that Jennifer did was ask questions. She was like, “What do you guys do for lunch? Hey, is there anything new you want to try?” We were in New York, so it didn't help that we had a lot of options, but I remember very, very distinctively. We had another colleague from Korea. She was working in Chicago at the time, but she's originally from Korea. She flew into New York for the week to do some training and to do some work with us. And Jen, on one of our dinner nights, said, “Hey, Song,” her name's song, “Where do you wanna go for dinner? What do you guys usually eat in Korea?” And she's like, “You know what? I haven't had Korean barbecue in a while.”
So we took Jen – she's this white lady from Denver, never had Korean food. I think she's had Korean food maybe before. But you know, it's not, it's not an everyday thing for her, right? – we took her to KBBQ, and she tried some kimchi. We tried some soju. We had some other Korean side dishes. We flipped the meat and she tried learning how to cook the meat. Just her being open to it and asking questions and just being so curious and generally interested.
It just made me respect her so much more. And as my manager, she was my manager. would go to bat for her any time. It was even before that, but after that situation I was like, “Man, I would do anything for this lady.” If she needs me to work late, I'm gonna work late. If she needs me to work on something over the weekend, I'm gonna do it cuz it's Jen. I know she's not asking just to ask, but she really needs it. I have her back.
So, for everybody who's listening and who might not look like Patrick and I, that's okay. That's all right. I think it's about accepting the other person and really being curious about their culture and encouraging it. Because one thing that Jen could have done would be like, “Oh, it smells weird.” Or,” I'm not used to it right now. Let’s go somewhere else,” But no, she was like, “Hey, let's do it. Let's try it.”
So it's that openness that I really respect.
Patrick Armstrong
That's amazing. It always amazes me to hear stories like that. And thank you again for sharing because it's like a little bit of empathy goes such a long way and those instances, but particularly that one, really set a foundation within you.
It's like, “I'm gonna do this, do anything for this person,” but also, like you had talked about at the beginning, it's like you meet people with a little bit of empathy and working with other people, it helps you see them and see other things that you might not through the work that you do. And it goes a long way.
Again, going back to these reviews and these messages that you get from folks that you work with, you're changing lives. It's not just the fact that you're helping them along to get where they want to go, but like you change people's lives at the end of the day. And a lot of that starts with just seeing that person, not only being their cheerleader, not only giving them career advice, but being like, “I see you.”
Like, “Let's go from here. Let's figure out what the self-limiting beliefs are, and let's build from there.” So I think that's absolutely amazing
Sho Dewan
Thanks for that, Patrick. I mean, when you're talking about the impact of my work, that's sometimes hard for me to grasp about changing people's lives.
And maybe it's just more me feeling, “Oh, well, you can't let it get to your head.” You gotta stay level headed because the work that I do, I help people get new jobs, be happier at work, get paid way more than they were getting paid before. All of this is so rewarding and it does impact their lives. It does change their lives, and they have told me, and everyone's so, so great and I have the best clients in the world. But it's kind of funny, Patrick, even though I'm their cheerleader, it's sometimes hard for me to hear from them.
Patrick Armstrong
Sure.
Sho Dewan
It's interesting that I'm like, “You're the best and you're great at this,” but when they give it to me, I feel, oh, I don't know what to do with this feeling sometimes, and I don't know how to accept it all the time.
So I think I could also be better at accepting it and embracing it and just letting the feelings sit in. I don't know where this came from. I think maybe also from our upbringing to stay humble and give thanks, give gratitude. But in terms of receiving it, we're not really taught that, I can say from my own personal experience. So thank you for acknowledging that, man. I appreciate your kind words. And it's a sign for me to get better at receiving these compliments too.
Patrick Armstrong
Absolutely. Well, you're very welcome. It's well deserved. And I do apologize if I made you uncomfortable by being very hyped about the amazing things that you do.
That's one of the best things I like about being a podcast host is, I am the cheerleader, usually, of everybody who I have on the show, because I know them or know of them, and I've been a fan of them for a while. And so it's really easy for me to sink in and be like, “I'm gonna just affirm you so hard right now.”
And people are like, ‘All right, that's a little bit too much.” [laughs] But I do stand by that, the fact that, like you said, you had people say it to you, but you do change people's lives, especially when you help them, I think the two things you listed – being happy at work, I think it's life changing because I know a lot of people who have felt their life change because they found a job they're actually happy at and they want to do.
And then two, not to lean on the money aspect of it, but like, that's life changing. $10,000 could be life changing, but like $50,000? That's a life changing amount of money from a salary standpoint. Or from a bonus standpoint or whatever it is.
And you've been in this industry for a while. So it's like you see these things happen a lot and in that, I think that can probably play into it too. It's like you see it happen a lot. It's like, that's great and you're onto the next person. But also, you know, sometimes you have to sit in, be like, “Okay, well, I did just help 30 people, like make a collective $800,000 more.”
Sho Dewan
Yeah.
Patrick Armstrong
And all of them are happy now, they are exuding or showing happiness in their career path with the choice that they made, even if it was hard, even if it was difficult, you know? And that's life changing stuff.
Sho Dewan
It's the best job in the world, man. It's the best job in the world.
I love what I do.
Patrick Armstrong
I absolutely love what you do as well, and I appreciate you sharing about your manager, which is a great segue into, as we get ready to wrap up here, who are you learning from right now? Who's inspiring you in the community? Who are people that or one person that you're looking up to and learning a lot from at the moment?
Sho Dewan
Dude, I don't mean to say this just because I'm on your podcast; meeting you, you are one of the first people I've met from your situation. You're adopted and you learned later in your life about your heritage, and you're going all in about learning all you can.
Dude, I love the stuff that you're doing, man. I found you through Jerry, right, through Jerry Won – who's an awesome proponent of all the things that we do. So big shout out to him being the ultimate connector –
Patrick Armstrong
He is absolutely.
Sho Dewan
– through chance. But if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have known your story. I wouldn't have known, if I'm just being honest, people like you who have been in your shoes. Recently I also met with another creator named Dan aka Dan, who if you know him as well, has a very similar background. He was adopted and he found his roots later on, and just an incredible story.
A couple other creators that come to mind; I have been a big fan of Vanessa Lao for a really, really long time. But one thing she did recently, which is kind of completely against any business practice, she just took a really long sabbatical and she's currently still on the sabbatical. And she posted about it, how she was saying, “Hey, I'm burnt out. I'm gonna take a break and I want to reevaluate the kind of business I want to grow.”
So I respect that. I so admire tha, and that's something that I'm trying to learn to do as well. It's our fourth year, we have a growing team, amazing people who I work with who want to do this and I wanna start a YouTube and I wanna do a podcast. And there's this project that I haven't done that I want to do. There's so many things I want to do and I will do, but I think I could also learn to kind of step back and be like, “Well, what is the life that I wanna live?”
And if I'm honest with you right now, Patrick, the life that I live right now is the life that I've always wanted. So sometimes I wonder, “Well then do I want to change it? Do I want to go for more? If it means changing my life?” I think the ideal situation for me is to stay at my optimal state of happiness while obviously bringing in revenue and helping as many people with my team and other people of course.
But I don't know if I want to grind just for the sake of grinding. And that's a conversation I've been having with myself a lot and my therapist and my life coach and all these great people. But that's something I've been thinking, “What is the meaning of the grind if I'm not happy in my day-to-day?”
So maybe I should take some advice that I tell my own clients about, “Hey, sometimes the grass is not always green on the other side.” There's just a couple of people in my head, you, Jerry, Dan aka Dan, Vanessa Lao, just amazing people in our space who are just lifting each other up.
Man. I just love how the community really just shares so freely and “Hey, you're down there. I'm gonna pull you up. These are all things that I know.” I love that about our community. I love that about our friends. And I feel like us creators, we're friends. If we see each other, we're gonna have a meal, we're gonna have a beer.
So I just love that about our community.
Patrick Armstrong
Well, Thank you for sharing. Again, I really appreciate those words about me. I'm gonna take a page outta your book and be uncomfortable with the compliment. [laughs] Cause that was not what I was expecting, but thank you very much. That means a lot.
Love Dan Matthews. Have learned a lot from him. Been very lucky to be able to hang out a few different times. Love Dan. Glad that we connected through Jerry. Obviously everyone here knows how much that he's meant to me. We would not know each other had I not even been out there to help with the podcast at that time. So, that's amazin. Jerry, the ultimate connector, as you called him.
And Vanessa, I don't know Vanessa personally, but have followed her on LinkedIn and when she dropped that announcement, I do feel like it was like people were like, “What?” It's so out of the norm. So completely opposite of what we would expect someone in that position to do. It's one of the best things that could possibly happen because it shows there's another avenue that you can take and it's got you thinking about stuff like that. So, absolutely amazing. Thank you for not only sharing those folks, but for sharing those words about myself. Again, very humbling, very honoring to hear that from you.
Last question before we close it out. How do we best support you?
Sho Dewan
Thanks, man. Thank you. I would say just if I can help you, that's supporting me, right? But I post daily career videos on Instagram and TikTok at Workhap. But you know what?
There is something that the listeners can really do. I have just launched a YouTube where we're now doing full length videos. We're dropping our first video this week. Depending on when the podcast is out, maybe there'll be a couple of episodes, a couple of videos on YouTube, but you can follow my YouTube at Workhapand just give some comments, subscribe, do all those fun things, that'd mean the world to me. That’s it.
Patrick Armstrong
Congratulations! That's really exciting. I feel like I've seen you've been doing a little bit more of the long form, so that's really exciting to have that long show.
Sho Dewan
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
Patrick Armstrong
People who are listening to this. I believe it'll be in the second week of May. So hopefully you have a few videos out. But yes, we will definitely do that. So thank you again so much for not only sharing parts of your story and parts of your career journey with us and the work that you do, but for just giving me the time to sit down and be part of this, this series, the APAHM Conversations, it really means a lot to me.
Sho Dewan
Thank you. Thank you, brother. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely man.
Patrick Armstrong
For everybody out there listening, you can find links to everything that Sho is working on, including the YouTube stuff, down here in the show notes. You can also find me or us at Conversation Pod Piece on Instagram and if you do feel inclined, you can leave us a rating or review on any of the podcasting sites, that would be greatly appreciated and we very much thank you for that. And if you're interested in supporting the show in the future, feel free to hop in my Dms or visit my website, Patrick in the world dot me.
Until next time, I am Patrick Armstrong and this has been Conversation Peace. Thank you Sho.
Sho Dewan
Thank you my friend.