Episode 003
Jackie Seto
How often do you find yourself overthinking a situation before you even walk into the room? In this episode of Women’s Million Dollar Conversations, Alice Tang sits down with Jackie Seto, founder of Side People Consulting and a 35-year veteran of the semiconductor industry.
Jackie reveals why the biggest barrier to success is often “the thoughts in your own head” and shares her proven technique for “flipping the perspective” to overcome unconscious bias and anxiety. Whether you are an aspiring executive or an established entrepreneur, Jackie’s advice on mindset and the courage to make timely decisions is a masterclass in professional growth.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
– How to handle unconscious bias in male-dominated industries.
– The “Positive Narrative” tool to stop negative self-talk.
– Why the right decision made too late can be damaging.
-The importance of walking into every room like you belong there.
"Get out of your own head and change your internal narrative into a positive one."
[00:00:00] Welcome to women’s million dollar conversations with Alice Tang, where we share stories from successful business women on how they built their success and insights to help you achieve your goals. Now let’s join the conversation.
[00:00:14] Alice Tang: We are very happy to have Jackie Seto with us at Women’s Million Dollar Conversation today. To be on this show, our guest have accumulated a million dollars have made a million dollars of income and also might have, you know, strike a million dollar deal. Today we are very happy to have you Jackie. Hi, Jackie.
[00:00:38] Jackie Seto: Hi, thank you so much for having me. My name is Jackie Seto . I work for Side People Consulting, which is a consulting company I formed, and my industry is the semiconductor industry and I’ve been in that industry for over 35 years.
[00:00:54] Alice Tang: So what is the biggest bias, on the path to success? As far [00:01:00] as, getting to your million or even beyond what is your biggest bias?
[00:01:04] Jackie Seto: As woman in a tech industry, my biggest bias was that, there was always unconscious bias on things I would say. And I’ll give a great example. If a man wants to complain about something that’s happening, especially if it’s something that’s happening that someone’s cost. He is venting when a woman complaints about something that’s happening and that person she is gossiping.
So I would sit there and be told if I was venting, I should stop gossiping. Yet, the man just said all the same things, but he’s venting. So I would have that issue or I would walk into a room, especially in Asia and I’m sure you’ve experienced this too Alice, where they just assumed I was the admin for one of the men in the room.
And it was exhausting to always have to prove myself over and over again. I remember saying to my boss one time when I wanted to, when he wanted to move me to another [00:02:00] position and I was trying to leave the country. I said, I don’t want to have to go through with a fight to get the equal respect that you guys have, that I have right now, because it was going to be a site where I was unknown and he said, but you’re so good at it.
And I said to him, do you remember what it took for me to get equal respect from you. I was doing the same job. I was traveling as much as you were. I was as successful as you, but that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t until you realized that I was a mom and doing all the mom things and that I could outrun every one of you in both distance and speed.
It was all of that before you guys consider me equal. And I said, tell me I’m wrong. And he couldn’t, it was exactly what it took.
[00:02:44] Alice Tang: Oh my goodness. Do you see, that after so many years the situation for the industry that you were in change?
How do you feel?
[00:02:53] Jackie Seto: I think the industry’s getting better especially at the engineering level and engineering management level, but at the [00:03:00] executive level, it’s still a little bit harder. For me, I’m at the board level of now. So just by the nature of my position, I don’t have a problem anymore, but I still think it’s a very hard industry to be a woman in.
[00:03:13] Alice Tang: There were so many male dominated industry, I think if we go back 500 years, grandmother’s great grandmother. I think at that time, at least in China, most men worked outside of the home and a woman was born to either to produce children or to mind domestic business.
[00:03:30] Jackie Seto: Yeah, my mother was a she was a computer programmer.
She was part of the team at IBM that got sound on to the computer. And she had to stop when she had kids because there weren’t alternatives for her to have people help raise her kids so that she could keep her career going.
[00:03:47] Alice Tang: So I am going to take you a little bit further if we want to help woman who really see the importance of having a family and
[00:04:00] staying in touch with the children when they’re grown up, what are the things that you think that is the number one thing that industry should do?
[00:04:09] Jackie Seto: Industry needs to provide help in childcare.
I try to remember when I had my first child, I was the highest level woman in the company having a child. So everybody watched to see what I was going to do. And the first thing I tried to do was get childcare on site so that I could go, feed my baby and take my breaks or my lunch with my child.
And I was told by HR for a lot of legal reasons, they couldn’t do that. I eventually. I mentioned this to one of the lawyers and he said that was not true by that time I had already found alternative care, for a woman to be able to work at an equal level as their counterparts, either the men have to take care of the children or sacrifice equally, or the companies have to provide childcare on site and after school care.
[00:04:59] Alice Tang: Yes. [00:05:00] Yes. Yes. Obviously, this is a bigger issue between, really the industry or even the politics is going to do so we can save it for another time. And now let’s go to. Finding out. What is your number one piece of advice that you would give to another woman who’s looking to get to their million dollars, whether it’s an entrepreneurial idea or saving accumulation or just business.
[00:05:25] Jackie Seto: In what I’ve seen with the women I work with women, I mentor, I would say the number one thing that holds women back is the thoughts in your own head. And so the biggest piece of advice I would say is get out of your head. You can do it. A woman tends to go after a job or an opportunity when she’s 80% sure she can do it.
And my guess would be that the equivalent man, goes after it when he’s 30% to 50%. So women have to get out of their own head and change the narrative in their head and believe that they could do it because they can. And if they [00:06:00] believe that and go after it, they will have incredible opportunities.
[00:06:04] Alice Tang: Get out of your head. At some point of time, one of the previous guests said you got to believe in yourself.
[00:06:13] Jackie Seto: Yeah.
[00:06:14] Alice Tang: Some people of time, you can’t always have, those cheerleaders on your sides so Believe in yourself, you can! At some point of time, you must say I can.
[00:06:23] Jackie Seto: Yeah. The reason why I chose get out of your head is for exactly what you said, but there’s another thing that holds us back and getting in our head, how many times have we had something happened to us or somebody say something to us and we think it’s about us, but most of the time, it’s not. Most of the time, the situation has nothing to do with us. We’re just the unfortunate recipients of either the bad words or the bad, whatever is happening. And we will sit there and make it bigger and bigger in our own head that it’s about us. And then we might make decisions or say [00:07:00] something, reduce something because of that.
So it’s both believe in yourself, but it’s also, there’s this, the reason why I said change the narrative, it’s changed the narrative in your head because what’s happening may have nothing to do with you. And so you want to make better decisions in the situation that’s happening, that you may not like.
[00:07:21] Alice Tang: I have a followup question. Like I am getting, I cannot stop, but getting more advice from you. Okay. So we know that we need to get all of our heads because it’s not necessarily about you when people are reacting, especially in a negative way that we perceive is not about us. But I think the one thing that all of us need advice from Jackie, is how do we get aware of that and stop doing it?
Because knowing it is one thing it’s I know I need to exercise 30 minutes, but how many days am I doing it?
[00:07:56] Jackie Seto: You know, I think I would say I have two pieces of [00:08:00] advice. What I did at the time was I would try to flip the perspective. I would try to flip it to the other person or the other people and think about where are they coming from?
And by flipping the perspective, I started realizing. This has nothing to do with me. So that’s how I did it, but it took a long time. I was in my forties. When that finally, when I finally got smart enough to do that. And there’s another tool that I’m learning about because of my daughter, I have a high school senior, and she has a lot of anxiety.
She’s about to go overseas for her education. So I’m really worried about it. And this tool that I found for her I it’s basically write down the situation. And from exactly how you’re feeling, then rewrite it from a very positive way. And the idea is, if you keep doing this every time, then your natural reaction will not be to think the negative thing, your natural reaction would be to think the positive thing.
And I know I’ve used [00:09:00] techniques like that to get rid of some of my bad habits. So I think that I haven’t tried it yet, but I think that technique would work.
[00:09:07] Alice Tang: Very good. Flipping the situation if we can, but if not through reflection. I think something implying that we journal once in awhile. There are people who journal every day. Is to write that exactly how you feel, look at the story and then rewrite that using positive narratives.
[00:09:24] Jackie Seto: Exactly.
[00:09:25] Alice Tang: As I’m repeating that over and over again. I think our brain is smart enough to be trainable, we’ll be able to at least see the light from the positive side.
[00:09:37] Jackie Seto: Exactly.
[00:09:38] Alice Tang: Thank you, Jackie. You were in the semiconductor industry. You you’re not the Jackie Seto that you were, when you’re 21 year old. There are a lot of big decisions you make on your way to today. So share with us, how do you process a very huge decision,
[00:10:00] especially when the stakes are high?
[00:10:03] Jackie Seto: That is a hard question to answer. I would say that what I do is understand first when the decision has to be made because the right decision too late is typically very damaging. So the number one thing is to know when the decision has to be made and then go through a process of getting as much information as much data as you can at that time.
And then having the courage to just make the decision. So I set up, things like program reviews or certain types of business reviews to have the information we needed to get the experts within my own organizations or outside of my organizations to talk about where they think they need to go.
And discuss it as a group and that on the day we just make a decision and go with it because sometimes even if your decision is wrong, because you’ve started, you get more information and maybe [00:11:00] whoever you’re doing this for will be understanding if you realize you’re wrong because you have data to prove you’re wrong and then you can pivot.
But that, that timing is the most important thing. And then having the courage to make the decision and getting as much information as you can to make that decision. I’m not sure I exactly answered your question, but that was the process.
[00:11:19] Alice Tang: You did. You did. You did. I’m really appreciative. I I think the first thing that hit me from your answer was understanding that a decision need to be made, because if a decision needed to be made it, should be made in a timely manner.
Just like what you said. If the decision is made too late, it’s useless.
[00:11:36] Jackie Seto: Yes.
[00:11:36] Alice Tang: It’s gone. We need to deal with maybe an even bigger difficulty, a problem or challenge. So thank you for stating that.
Then next question. I’m sure there are times when you thought there’s so much on me. I want to quit, but what makes you keep going?
[00:11:53] Jackie Seto: The people.
I, I think the thing that I love the most about [00:12:00] running an organization was watching the people change and grow and become who they wanted to be. That would keep me going, the people. The hardest thing about leaving a full-time job in a corporation and going out on my own was giving up the people.
[00:12:20] Alice Tang: Obviously, you’re a very people person. That’s how we connected because you watch me at a presentation at technology association of Oregon. And then you’re connected with me when there is opportunity, you think is the right fit for me. We didn’t even know each other at that time, but you were generous enough, passionate enough to connect me with that opportunity, for that I’m very grateful.
[00:12:45] Jackie Seto: It’s the same with you though. I get the same back. It’s a wonderful, it’s been wonderful to get to know you.
[00:12:50] Alice Tang: Absolutely. So last question. What is one piece of very good or very bad advice that has made the biggest impact in your life? [00:13:00]
[00:13:01] Jackie Seto: I would have to say, you get so many different pieces of advice, but I think as a woman in a man’s world, my biggest thing holding me back was my feeling of belonging, because I was always walking into a room with a bunch of men.
And oftentimes I would feel that the moment I walked into the room, I was being judged differently because I was a woman. And a coach that I worked with for a number of years said to me, You belong in that room. You wouldn’t be walking into that room if you didn’t belong there. So walk into that room as if you belong.
And I went into a room where everybody else that was in there had far more experience than I did. And I did what he said, walked into the room feeling like I belonged. And I noticed a difference in how I felt on what was coming back. And it may be that they were reflecting something different because they saw my confidence, but it may [00:14:00] just be because I walked in with the attitude that I think I belong, that I realized that maybe some of the things that were happening that I thought were happening, kind of go back to get out of your own head, weren’t actually happening.
And because I had a different mindset walking in, it worked.
[00:14:15] Alice Tang: Change your lens and change your perspective.
[00:14:18] Jackie Seto: Yes.
[00:14:19] Alice Tang: But before that changed your mind first. Change your mindset, get out of your head, using your word. Well Today, Jackie, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. I’m sure that our audience would love to hear every single thing you say.
Thank you so much.
[00:14:33] Jackie Seto: Thank you so much for having me. It was very fun.
Jackie Seto is a distinguished executive and board member with a proven record of building profitable organizations, driving stalled growth, and developing rising talent. Her expertise includes organizational turnaround, new product development, M&A integration, and high-growth strategy. Previously, she spent over 20 years at Lam Research ($10+B semiconductor capital equipment company) where she served as VP/GM for several divisions, driving $300M in post-merger revenue and leading product development that resulted in a 3x increase in divisional revenue and 80% profit growth. Ms. Seto is currently an Executive-in-Residence for the Technology Association of Oregon, advises SaaS start-ups, and serves on several public and non-profit boards, including UltraClean Technology. She is a graduate of McGill University and has deep international experience across Europe, Asia, and the US.