E142: Everything Changes When You Learn to Observe | Valerie Won Lee

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Perception Paradox. My name is Jivelya and I'm your host. And today I have an incredible guest, Valerie Wong Lee, and most of us spend our lives trying to fit into a singular identity, a country, a culture, a language, a community. Even myself, I find always wondering, so where do I belong? Is it the place where I grew up? Is it the place where I'm building my life now? It's always the question. I think it's happening to many of us in the modern days. But what happens when you never fully belong to just one? And today's guest, Valerie, she was born in South Korea, then raised in France and later became a British citizen and now living once again in Korea. Her life has been shaped by crossing borders, cultures and perspectives. Long before she became an entrepreneur, author and expert in collective intelligence, Valerie was a child trying to understand why she felt different. The curiosity led her to psychology books at age 11, to living with remote Pacific Island communities and eventually to helping organizations around the world make better decisions together. In this conversation, we explore identity, belonging, cultural intelligence, leadership, the future of collective decision-making, and why understanding people may become one of the most valuable skills in an AI-driven world. So this is a conversation about what happens when you stop asking where you belong and start building bridges between worlds. So please welcome Valerie to the podcast. Real stories and real challenges that break the status quo. I'm your host, Jivila, and welcome to Perception and Paradox. Hi Valerie, welcome to Perception Paradox.

Hi, nice to be here. Thank you very much for hosting me.

Thank you for joining and we've just discussed that I think two weeks ago we were in Madrid in South Summit and now it feels like it's been ages ago in a way. So it's really great to reconnect on this space with you. And before jumping on our call, I was wondering, okay, so which angle and direction we should take with you and Because you're a very multifaceted entrepreneur, a woman, had so many different things during life. And what caught my attention that you lived between worlds your entire life, born in Korea, raised in France, later becoming a British citizen, working across continents and culture. And you've spent your career helping people navigate the complexity, the differences and collective intelligence. I wonder when people ask you, where are you from? Which answer do you give them right now?

Well, it depends. If it's a French person, usually I say I'm French. If it's a British person, I will say I'm British, although my accent tends to be more French. And in Korea, I say I'm born in Korea. Yes. It really depends, but very often I say the free or the quick answer is I am a global citizen. That makes it usually easier.

I love it. Do you remember the first moment you realized that you're surrounded by many different cultures and it's always going to be a bit of a card game when it comes to the identity and cultural belonging? Probably when I was eight

months old, but I can't remember because I was adopted to France. So I was raised in a