We were lucky to catch up with Anh Lee recently and have shared our conversation below.

Anh, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

What would you change about the education system to prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?

Anh: The education system we currently have in place, including K-12, Higher Education, and workplace learning, is based on models established over a century ago—usually emphasizing rote memorization and rooted in the desire to showcase objective standards of achievement. This is reflected in the overemphasis on test scores and other “quantifiable” indicators. The unbalanced focus on achieving the right answers conflicts with how we are naturally wired to learn: through experimentation, exploration, failure, feedback, and adaptation. That’s how we learn, figure out what we enjoy, and discover who we are—ultimately leading us to pursue things that make us feel fulfilled and inspired toward meaningful careers or pursuits.

I would shift the focus of education away from an incessant need to “get the answer right,” because it is this obsession with “getting the grade” that, from the start of their education, confines students’ thinking. This limits their critical thinking skills and impacts how they determine what is fulfilling to them; they are never taught to reflect on their own thoughts, so they can move authentically toward what they feel engaged and passionate about.

I began my career as a high school teacher before transitioning into corporate learning and development. Throughout my career and across various subjects I taught, such as history, world geography, human geography, and later, workplace development, I learned that these subjects and the concepts they encompass often don’t have a “right answer.”

How do you solve for wars? How do you deal with a difficult co-worker? How do you find your purpose? Do you have only one purpose in life, or can you have multiple ones? There’s no right or wrong answer. It’s about how you think about it, how you evaluate, judge, and justify actions—it’s the meta-cognition we’re after. In the workplace or life, there is no single correct strategy; it’s about analyzing your options and choosing the most effective one for the situation. All of this revolves around our education systems creating learning environments where students feel comfortable wrestling with the many factors involved in making decisions, which is rarely 100% objective or standard.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a first-generation Vietnamese American who was born and raised in Houston, TX. Growing up, I found myself at times feeling a little lost, straddling two different cultures. Although I had a generally happy childhood, I remember a distinct feeling of not knowing exactly where I belonged. I was a typical latch-key kid growing up in the 90s, and while I was a good student, my teachers often told me that I had a lot of potential if only I applied myself. I was lucky enough to have a great teacher in high school who really took the time to get to know me, and that made all the difference. That is something that has stayed with me throughout my life – the intersection of genuine care, mentorship, potential, and achievement.

My early career was in education, and I served for eight wonderful years as a high school social studies teacher in the third-largest school district in Texas. I loved teaching and learning alongside my students every day. We had fun learning and challenged each other to think critically about the world’s pressing issues. I was now the teacher who crafted intentional lessons and created a safe space for my students to learn, while also preparing them for life.

Eventually, I transitioned into corporate learning and organizational development. At first, I felt a little out of place. Still, I soon realized that all the qualities that made me an impactful teacher translated directly into what the corporate world was struggling with: how to engage and develop their employees in a meaningful way, especially their new hires.

And that is how Durable Minds Everboarding was born. Throughout our combined 35 years of experience, my partner and I held various people-centric roles within our organization, and we witnessed firsthand the importance of helping employees transition into the organization. However, there is a clear gap between what schools teach and what the workplace expects. That is what led to the development of the Durable ME Self-leadership Deck, which supports the cultivation of those critical, durable skills that are not currently taught in the education system’s design. While the Durable Success course essentially outlines the unwritten rules of work, it finally puts them in writing so employees can avoid the often hidden pitfalls of starting in a new organization without a proactive plan or strategies for career success.

What sets DME apart is that we have genuinely created products that offer clear and direct advice and strategies for workers to understand how to navigate and successfully take control of their careers.

We are most proud of the Durable Me deck and its impact on people, as it helps them get more in touch with who they are and their core values, which is the bedrock of having a purposeful and fulfilling career.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

It’s like when Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.” Today, looking back, the seeds for DME were planted back in 2014 when Jillian and I met in our Executive Human Resource Development Master’s program at the University of Houston. At the time, Jillian worked in talent development and recruitment at Rice University, and I worked in learning and development at a prominent global medical device company. For that entire year, we spent 3 nights a week learning literally side by side – we sat right next to each other. Our conversations focused on how we were leading and facilitating learning and change strategies in our organizations.

The cohort created a community of practitioners where we shared our work experiences and collaborated to solve organizational challenges. Of course, Jillian and I learned so much during that year, but the most important thing we developed from the experience was our profound respect for each other’s expertise and the friendship that we continue to have today.

Since our UH days, Jillian and I have continued to deepen our expertise and advance our careers. We’ve worked across multiple industries and touched every facet of organizational transformation, including human resources and workforce development.

At the core lies our deep passion for reducing the needless friction that people experience at work. However, even with the oftentimes unpleasant work realities we all face, work can be a place where people can thrive and realize their full potential. While the seeds for DME were planted over 10 years ago, with anything in life, experience is the best teacher. With the knowledge we’ve gained and two decades of experience, we decided it was time to share our perspectives and contribute to the conversation about work, employee engagement, and performance.

However, instead of pursuing corporate consulting or another leadership role within our organizations, we wanted to cut the middleman out and take this knowledge directly to the people, especially the early-career professionals just starting their journey. So, we decided it was time to establish Durable Minds Everboarding.

The problem DME is trying to solve is that, within our various leadership roles, we’ve often witnessed the variability in how companies train and prepare their employees, especially new ones. Jillian and I have undertaken numerous projects aimed at supporting employee development over the past twenty years, particularly in onboarding. However, until recently, that work has always taken place within the confines of our corporate jobs, always within the context of a particular organization. Even though we were passionate, we were often driven by, or constrained by, the organizations we worked for. We were doing our part within our companies, but wanted to do it at scale and in an authentic way that aligned with who we were.

We increasingly felt the growing need to support early-career professionals entering the workforce. And that brings us to the present day. Durable Minds Everboarding was established to support early-career professionals in bridging the transition from school to work. We want to help people feel prepared and confident as they enter the workforce. DME products and services are here to help workers define their values and discover their truth, enabling them to create a path to a meaningful and fulfilling career from the start.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I read a lot, and there are many books I have read, am reading, and continue to re-read. However, the one that I remember truly shifting my thinking the most and still helps me is “Think Bigger: How to Innovate” by Sheena S. Iyengar.

The main takeaway is that creativity isn’t some magical skill available only to a select few. Creativity, in fact, is the ability to reconfigure and connect existing things.

This book completely changed the way I see product management, program management, and strategic differentiation. It’s not that innovation always means creating something entirely new, especially when there’s nothing really new under the sun, right? Instead, creativity involves making new connections, applications, or configurations of existing things. It’s about seeing patterns first.

This book almost freed me from the fear and hesitation that “someone else is already doing this or that” – this gave me the true creative freedom to create things and create things that truly leveraged my unique perspective that I’ve cultivated based on who I am and my very unique experiences.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dmeverboarding.com