Min Jin Lee

So I did that.

And it was...

absolutely mind-blowing compared to having interviewed HBS graduates who are now successful people in the world.

So I interviewed all these famous HBS people who became CEOs and the like, and I just thought, they're really different.

Why are they so different?

And they said to me, well, why don't you just go and apply for that one day and you can sit in a class?

And I was like, okay.

So I did.

And just within that day, after I walked out, I thought, wow, these people just seem so deeply buoyant.

I was like, how are they so buoyant?

And it was weird.

It was weird to me how, and I don't know if they all believe it.

But they had this sort of air about them.

And I thought, oh, you know, I bet you if I went there for even a year, I would be a different person than I am now.

I don't want to go for a year, but it's that one day was really helpful for me to understand the psychology of my character, Ted Kim.

And

I needed to do those interviews plus do that actual spending the day the way Ted would have been.

And for me, those characters are very real because they are composites of interviews that I've had.

I think that, again, it goes back to confidence.

I feel a sense of authority in what I write.