CHAPTER 6

The Power of the Unexpected

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

—Albert Einstein

When my daughter was three or four years old, she was, like many other little girls, obsessed with princesses. I have no idea how or why it happened, as I didn’t say a word about princesses as she was growing, and in fact, I tried not to resort to typical gender associations at all.

Yet lo and behold, every night, as my husband got ready to read her a bedtime story and asked, “What would you like me to read tonight?” she would look at her bookshelf and ask, “Can we get some books about princesses?”

So my husband would say, “How about we read this book about Curious George, and then if you want, I’ll tell you a special story about princesses that I made up all by myself?”

And so every night, my clever husband would invent a princess story—but not just any princess story, and not stories about princesses getting rescued by handsome princes or princesses with long blond hair who lived in beautiful castles. His princess stories were about Princess-Engineer Ashley, for example, who helped fix a technical problem in an engine when they were on their way to visit their grandmother, or Princess-Entrepreneur Kristin, who came up with a disruptive innovation that saved her brother’s birthday party, or Princess-Chemist Amy, who used acids and bases to solve an important chemical problem, or Princess-Paleontologist Rachel, who not only learned the difference between paleontology and archaeology* but also made an important dinosaur discovery to boot.

Each princess was more than just a princess. Each princess was tied to an occupation, and each demonstrated some key character trait that was essential for success in life—be it grace under pressure, self-reliance, or patience.

My daughter fell in love with these stories—so much more so than she would have if they had just been about rescued princesses, and so much more so than if they had just been about a patient paleontologist or self-reliant chemist who shouldered responsibilities and was accountable for her actions.

Being authentic to her interests and finding a bridge to his own interests as an engineer and scientist allowed my husband to delight (and in turn enrich) in a pretty special way. It’s a simple illustration of how you delight, and how delight leads you to enrich, but my daughter fell so in love with these stories that she started delighting her friends at school with her own versions of them. And when she grew old enough to write, she started writing the stories down and drawing little sketches to accompany them.

Together, we have now written all the books, one by one, and turned them into a children’s book series, called the Princess Heroes, that encourages girls to “be a princess plus.” Many little girls love princesses. And that is completely okay. Yet rarely are princesses in stories made out to represent anything other than the stereotypical heroine, nor do their stories portray traits that will help with success in the real world. So our series was written to embrace many little girls’ affinity for princesses, while also encouraging and emphasizing the skills that are shown to enable women to gain an edge as adults in the real world.

By figuring out how to interest my daughter, my husband made his message about strength and self-reliance resonate so much more than it would have otherwise. He knew how to enrich—but the delivery made all the difference.

Going from the Head to the Heart

In part one, we talked about how to enrich. But what is often overlooked is that we sometimes don’t even have the opportunity to do so. Sometimes it is because we are written off and not given the opportunity. Sometimes it is because we aren’t in the right social circles and aren’t seen as belonging to the right groups.

Getting those opportunities comes through an ability to delight. When you know who you are and how you can enrich, you give yourself the confidence to delight the proverbial gatekeepers. By doing so you create the possibility to enrich.

Delight is the spark that allowed Elon Musk, if you recall from the introduction of this book, to let me in. I was set up to lose; I had no way to show how I could enrich. But delighting him catalyzed him to give me a chance and let me in.

My husband was already fully aware that our daughter loved princesses. What he wasn’t aware of was that he was quite effectively practicing and cultivating the principles of delight.

de·light /də’līt/

verb to give joy

noun something that affords gratification

But delight is more than gratification. At the crux of delight is a component that most people miss: surprise. Delight is in the unexpected. In many ways, it’s like humor.

Probing these similarities, I recently asked Hasan Minhaj how to be funny. Minhaj is an American stand-up comic, as well as a writer, political commentator, actor, and television host. (It may seem like an odd question, but in my defense, he had asked me an even more bizarre question first: “How do professors stay educated?” Amused, I retorted, “How do comedians stay funny?” And hence the start of a delightful alliance.)

What Minhaj told me surprised me. He said it’s important for comedy to have a point. I had thought humor could and maybe should be pointless. But he continued by saying people should be authentic about the things they care about. When you use humor authentically, it opens the door to changing people’s minds.

Logic and evidence are persuasive, but they can only take you so far. But a great joke can open doors wider. Psychologists Brad Bitterly, Alison Wood Brooks, and Maurice Schweitzer have shown that humor can be a powerful tool that allows you to manage impressions. In negotiations and interviews, your colleagues are more likely to view you as competent and attribute higher status to you if you can land a joke. And those jokes should be authentic and real, not contrived or cheap.

Humor makes people pay attention. “I’ve never told someone I’m Muslim and they’re like, ‘Cool,’” Minhaj said. But he went on to explain how he uses humor to note some observation he has about being Muslim, in a way that he can subtly change people’s perceptions:

We’ve only allowed eleven Syrian refugees into the US. There’s more people on the playoff team for the Golden State Warriors than the number of Syrian refugees we’ve let in.

Or he’ll comment on racism and equality for him as an American citizen, even though others don’t always see him that way because of his skin color:

My dad has a totally different view of racism than I do. To him, as an immigrant, he just sees racism as a “tax”—something like an “immigration tax.” As immigrants, you endure racism, you endure discrimination—that’s your tax.

But I was born here. I’m just asking for what’s on the receipt. . . . I price match, just like I do at Best Buy.

And then he can have a conversation and begin to enrich people’s understanding of Islam in Syria, as the case may be, or his views on immigration policy.

Minhaj’s theory of comedy is backed up by academic theory about humor. Benign violation theory suggests humor occurs only when three conditions are satisfied: (1) there is some type of violation, in that there’s a disturbance, or something that deviates from or is counter to what is expected; (2) the situation is benign; and (3) both perceptions occur simultaneously. This explains why things sometimes aren’t funny: a joke is lame and perceived to have been used before to the point of being cliché (i.e. it’s so “obedient” that it’s boring), or a joke seems overly aggressive or even offensive (i.e. it’s not benign).

Delight is similar. When we delight, we violate perceptions, but in a benign way. Delight unsettles and challenges beliefs about your context, grabbing the attention of gatekeepers and making way for you to show how you enrich.

Delight isn’t about trying to be charming, entertaining, or slick. But each of these attributes can tell us something about what delight is.

First, look for the unexpected. Practice seeing the peculiarities in everyday life, as I’ve hinted at in part one.

Don’t overprepare. Go into situations in which you may face bias, failure, or disadvantage (whether real or imagined) with some prototypes and exemplars in mind that can provide you with the opportunities to delight, and that can place you in a position to enrich.

Remember that much of delighting is in situ, based on engaging with others authentically and in the moment. Use the existing context to hone your quick reflexes and help you with the delivery.

Seek out people, products, and situations that you yourself see as delightful. Try things out that you consider delightful, and consciously try to pinpoint what makes them delightful to you. Use this to help refine your own sense of delight and your own ability to delight. Use it to help you learn what is unexpected and, just as important, what feels inauthentic.

We all have the capacity to enrich. But when you are able to also delight, magic happens. That is how you encourage them to let you in to prove how you enrich.

Look How They Shine for You

Production of a movie called Crazy Rich Asians began in April 2017 in Singapore and Malaysia, helmed by director Jon M. Chu. It was a personal project for him. The story (based on Kevin Kwan’s book of the same title) and its powerful message about assimilation and finding one’s voice when stuck between two disparate cultures mirrored many of his own experiences as the son of a Chinese father and a Taiwanese mother raised in Palo Alto, California.

The movie boasted an all-Asian cast—the first major studio production to do so since The Joy Luck Club twenty-five years prior. But Chu didn’t stop there. He was committed to underlining the cross-pollination between Asian and Asian-American cultures in all aspects of the film—including screenwriting, for which he hired Adele Lim, a Malaysian-American; and the food team, headed by Singapore chef and food consultant John See, who was tasked with capturing the flavors and colors of all the dishes featured in the movie.

And the same could be said of Chu’s commitment to the music in his movie: he relentlessly tried to ensure that all the songs in Crazy Rich Asians captured, in his words, “that crazy blend of identities and cultures that makes up who we are.” So he set out to find music that would blend American and Asian cultures, curating a list of classic Chinese love songs and popular English songs that could be reworked with Chinese lyrics and sung by Asian performers. Near the top of his list: a song by the band Coldplay called “Yellow.”

Chu and his music supervisor, Gabe Hilfer, earmarked “Yellow” for the finale—the powerful song was perfect and hit all the emotional sentiments of the film’s final crescendo; it just fit.

But when they reached out to the band, they refused.

You see, Coldplay had reason to be hesitant. In 2012, the band released a song called “Princess of China,” accompanied by a video that featured Rihanna in traditional Chinese clothing. They were criticized for cultural appropriation and were slammed for their insensitivity toward Chinese customs. To make matters worse, they created a similar incident in 2016 when they shot the video for “Hymn for the Weekend” during the Hindu festival of Holi—with collaborator Beyoncé clothed in traditional dress. Audiences were outraged, and a prominent Hindu leader criticized the artists, saying the band treated their religion “frivolously.”

Having already faced backlash for insensitively engaging with Asian culture, Coldplay understandably refused Chu’s request to use their song in Crazy Rich Asians, citing the negative connotation the color yellow often has when applied to Asian culture, because of its demeaning attribution to Asian skin tones and color.

But Chu saw it differently. He had grown up a fan of Coldplay and loved the lyrics of the song. He wanted to use it to subvert the color’s use as a racist slur toward Asians.

“[The word] has a connotation to it, from things that I’ve been called and culturally and all these things, so for me, it was more about ownership of that term,” Chu said. “I remember hearing the song and the beauty of yellow, the color of yellow as the sun and of love. It was like, ‘f— that,’ because yellow can be beautiful, and if you’re going to call me yellow then fine, that’s what we’ll be.” Chu wanted to use the song to reclaim the word. “We’re going to own that term,” he said. “If we’re going to be called yellow, we’re going to make it beautiful.”

So Chu didn’t give up. Instead he wrote a personal letter to Coldplay members Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, and Will Champion explaining why he needed to use “Yellow” in Crazy Rich Asians.

He began by outlining his “complicated relationship” with the color yellow, noting how the word had been used to disparage him as a child. But then he heard Coldplay’s song. Chu wrote, “For the first time in my life, it described the color in the most beautiful, magical ways I had ever heard: the color of the stars, her skin, the love. It was an incredible image of attraction and aspiration that it made me rethink my own self image.” He described how the song quickly became his and his friends’ “anthem,” helping them redeem the word yellow and making it something that they could take pride in.

Chu created a violation, unsettling the perspective that “Yellow” was offensive to Asians. He explained that he saw it differently—that he loved the song, he loved the lyrics—and that he wanted to own the color yellow. He simultaneously made his request benign and safe. Though he alluded to the racism that Coldplay had gotten accused of, he emphasized that he did not perceive it that way. His goal was to reclaim the term yellow and make it beautiful for Asians, rather than a racist slur against them.

Chu then segued into describing the film, proudly writing that it’s about a woman “learning that she’s good enough and deserves the world, no matter what she’s been taught or how she’s been treated, and ultimately that she can be proud of her mixed heritage.” He explains that he envisioned “Yellow” playing as the character prepares to return home on “an empowering, emotional march”—a fitting anthem for a triumphant moment for the character, and for anyone like her or Chu himself who had ever struggled to reconcile their identity with an unwelcoming world.

He concluded by reassuring the band that the scene “will give a whole generation of Asian-Americans, and others, the same sense of pride I got when I heard your song . . . I want all of them to have an anthem that makes them feel as beautiful as your words and melody made me feel when I needed it most.”

Within an hour of him writing to the band, they responded and agreed. They later watched the scene and were enthusiastically on board, allowing Chinese-American singer Katherine Ho to record a Mandarin version of the song. The song plays over the film’s finale and climax—at the most poignant part of the film, just where Chu intended—when the protagonist realizes her own strength and owns her multiple cultures and identities.

Chu’s letter delighted Coldplay, and showed how he could enrich. The inclusion of “Yellow” in the film gave Coldplay the chance to redirect their narrative: that they are a band sensitive to race, identity, and the nuance that exists in art and music and culture. The value this provided the band was enormous, given the negative associations they’d had to contend with. But they never would have recognized the value being presented to them had Chu not first delighted them, in turn disarming and making them accessible.

When you face critics, the ability to delight can create the opportunity to start afresh and provide you with the critical opening to show how you add value and how you can enrich. It can help you dislodge critics and subvert biases that others have against you. It can even help you make those biases work in your favor.

It’s a lesson that I was taught early on by my parents, hammered in by a story I heard all through my childhood about my mother immigrating to the United States with twenty-two dollars in her pocket.

She had received an academic scholarship to study in the States, but while the scholarship covered her tuition, it did not cover a number of other things, such as books, room and board, and other living expenses. And like many immigrant stories go, my mother arrived with only some clothing, a few pictures, and the twenty-two dollars. Upon landing, the first thing she did was look for a job, one that she could work part time between classes. It must have taken her a lot of effort, as someone who barely spoke English. But when my mother recounts this story, even today, she doesn’t focus on how difficult it was. Instead, she quickly moves on to describing how she finally found the perfect job as a salesperson at a jewelry store. It was perfect in her eyes not because of the work she’d be doing, but because in addition to providing her with money, it came with an apartment to live in—if she was able to sell a certain amount of jewelry each month. That kind of incentive is exactly what my mother thrives on.

The owner of the jewelry store owned a number of apartments directly above the store. One of those apartments, a one-bedroom, was the one my mother lived in and shared with three other women—who became her best friends, and whom she still keeps in touch with to this day. They all worked incredibly hard selling jewelry, especially my mother. Every minute that she was not in class, she was trying to sell jewelry. She would keep the store open late into the night, hoping she would be able to get a customer.

But my mother quickly discovered that she did not have what it takes to meet her monthly quotas. Despite all her hard work, all her best efforts to learn about the jewelry business, she was not selling. Hard work alone was not going to help her meet that month’s quota. No one was buying jewelry from a woman who spoke broken English.

So not knowing what to do, she decided to try doing the opposite of everything that she had done up until that point—as is her personality—just as a test to see what would happen. Whereas she used to eagerly approach customers as they came in the door, she now gave a nonchalant greeting. Whereas she used to assert her knowledge of gems, she joked with customers that she wasn’t an expert in judging quality or rarity, but she was the best at knowing what was pretty and what was ugly.

A few weeks later, my mother became the top-selling jewelry salesperson in the store. She started to earn repeat customers, who would even bring their friends in to meet the “sassy, sarcastic jeweler.”

My mother never mentions (and in fact refuses to address even when directly asked) the bias that she faced. But of course, she faced lots and lots of bias—as an immigrant, as an Asian woman, as someone who couldn’t speak English perfectly.

She overcame this bias by using it in her favor. She violated the norms of what people expected from her as an Asian woman and a young employee. She replaced submissive and deferential with sassy and sarcastic. She did so in a benign fashion, becoming their partner and ally in purchasing decisions. All the while living rent-free in New York City for four years. The next chapters will explain how you can do the same (well, maybe not the rent-free part).