Meet Siri Hull

We recently connected with Siri Hull and have shared our conversation below.

Siri, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I learned the meaning of resilience from my dad. He was first diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkins lymphoma when I was 11 years old, living in Germany. We believe it was caused in large part by excessive stress he was experiencing.
He tried different methods to knock the cancer out of his system. Countless intensive chemo and radiation sessions, 2 bone marrow transplants, stem cell treatment.. The cancer was stubborn and kept coming back. When my dad talked about his cancer, I couldn’t help but pick up on an undeniable sense of respect he had toward its persistence and will to survive.

This year, it showed up in a debilitating way as a large brain tumor that impacted many systems in his body. In May, he tried T-cell therapy where scientists bio-engineer his immune cells in a lab to be cancer-defeating. We are hopeful that this therapy might work for good.

My whole life, I watched my dad fight a foe with nearly as much will to win as he.. I still watch to this day. I asked him about the source of his resilience to keep fighting. He simply said, “it’s because I enjoy living”. He mentioned some simple things in life: a refreshing walk in nature, a savory dinner, the thrill of travel, a meaningful conversation with loved ones, a captivating movie, sitting in the sun listening to the birds chirp..

He kept fighting because he wanted to keep living and doing those things. He wasn’t just fighting cancer; he was fighting for these moments and the feelings they bring. He taught me that resilience isn’t just about enduring hardships. It’s about finding and holding the pleasures of life, no matter how small. I believe there is something real to be gleaned from his perspective.

My dad is the greatest warrior I know, and his battle has shaped the way I approach life—viewing challenges with a sense of respect and a keen eye out for what brings us peace and joy.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I was born in Austria to a US diplomat father and a Taiwanese mother. We moved to a new country every two years, living in countries like Singapore, Thailand, Germany, and the Philippines. This globetrotting lifestyle was normal to me– I knew nothing else.
I didn’t know what it was like to have a permanent address, a structured academic curriculum that flowed longterm, or a consistent community around me for more than a couple years. I do know what it is like to stroll through Christmas markets in Germany after school and taste the chocolate bananas they sell there, or roam the markets in Chatuchak and bargain like no other. Or to swim a foot above whale sharks the size of school buses in Donsol or play soccer with kids that had suffered from abuse at Stairway Foundation.

Perhaps partly because I was exposed to so many places, people, and things as a child, I find myself drawn to a diverse, seemingly random array of topics and activities. I developed an interest in interesting ideas, phenomena, psychology, and connection with people regardless of culture, mindsets, or existing differences. Later in college, I would wind up giving a TEDx talk on challenging social norms. After I gave the talk, I appreciated when people came up to me and said their minds were blown. And I was happy I didn’t trip on camera.

From an Exploratory major, I decided to go practical with Business and Chinese, while acting in student films as a creative outlet. I received a full-ride fellowship to obtain a master’s degree in China, where I also worked as project manager for large German auto companies in connected car and autonomous vehicle development projects. I was the only American there– most of my colleagues were either German or Chinese. In a high-stress job like that, I learned what kind of measures would bring optimal results. I learned to be as effective and efficient as possible to produce high value with limited resources. I had taken rationality for granted before and now it was proving to be a valuable asset, as was my ability to speak and read Mandarin and German. I learned that everyone had questions and uncertainties, no matter their experience or status on the totem pole. Audi offered me an attractive, high position role and I had to make a decision on how I wanted my future to go. I could see myself staying in Beijing doing that work for many more years, climbing the ladder, being comfortable, successful, and doing impactful work in the tech space. But after five years living and working in China, I was ready to return to my home country. I was yearning for something and I didn’t quite yet know how to define it. Then, at the outset of 2020, China went on lockdown due to Covid, extending my stay and work there.

When I returned to the states, my mission was to live a life that I felt free and open to pursue the things that draw me.
Still with a foot in the tech and auto industry, I dove into the creative pursuits of acting, martial arts, dance, art, film. I discovered that there are synergies between interests I once thought were random and all over the place. I learned that transferring my skills, knowledge, and experience across different verticals yields benefits and opportunities I did not realize before.

With acting, I am drawn to unique characters and stories that intrigue and provoke some kind of feeling. I love being able to experience the mindset of a character with completely different drives, situation, background. In July 2024, I appeared as the cybernetic villain, Lady Deathstrike, in the short film Triggered 2.0, which premiered at the TCL Chinese Theater in Los Angeles.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Movement:
I value the ability to move with fluidity, adaptability, and reason— whether it is movement of the mind or body.
If there is a beneficial place for my mind or perspective to be, I work on the ability to move there. If there is someone in my life that I’d like to better understand and empathize with, I move my mind there. When I have a goal I wish to accomplish, I move my thoughts there in a way that will yield the necessary actions to achieve it.
Physically, there are countless ways that we can move our bodies and reap benefits, whether it’s sports, dance, martial arts, play, yoga, running, hiking in nature.. The best part is we can see what we like and go from there.

Simplification:
At times, it can be easy to get overwhelmed or lost in webs of complexity, endless details, and noise. If I grew to appreciate one quality throughout my journey, it would be the ability to take something complex and make it simple— refining ideas and processes to their most accessible and engaging form. By simple, I don’t mean entailing the loss of important information. I mean simple in a way that can be understood and effective.
When I was managing tech projects budgeted at millions of euros, I was often faced with multifaceted challenges involving the development of new technology, large multinational teams, language disparities, multiple stakeholders, office politics, insufficiencies, and high stakes. What yielded effectiveness was the ability to distill the complexity into manageable parts, making things shareable and understandable for the people involved, from software programmers to architectural engineers to top executives. I like to apply this same concept to creative fields as well, focusing on what works best, the core elements or driving factors, and allowing the rest to flow more naturally.

Holistic Thinking:
It’s impossible to read the label outside when we are inside the jar. When I find myself stuck, I consciously make an effort to step outside of a limited perspective and see from different angles.
There’s a Chinese idiom that goes: “The blind men and the elephant” / 盲人摸象 (máng rén mō xiàng).” The story is that a group of blind men each touch a different part of an elephant and think it is something different than it actually is. This idiom describes the situation that people only have partial knowledge or understanding of something, leading them to incorrect or incomplete conclusions.
Holistic thinking is about stepping back, connecting dots, leaving space for unknowns, and seeing the larger context and what is most important. This type of thinking helps me weave together seemingly disparate elements in my life more into a cohesive and meaningful whole.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

I am no stranger to the feeling of overwhelm. Whether it is taking on and interacting with too much or too many, too much happening, too much to do, a family member being sick.
Sometimes, just one thing swamps the mind, unwelcome. Or I feel pulled from so many different directions and wish I could clone myself so that I could fully engage in everything that I want to. Decision paralysis is real! Too many options, too much freedom can make us freeze and not make effective decisions. Ironically, being unlimited can hold us back, while limits can guide and free us.

When I feel the overwhelm coming on, I remind myself that I have survived periods of overwhelm in the past and things wound up better than okay. Sometimes experiencing overwhelm is just a part of growth, productivity, and reaching a next stage or level. Instead of letting myself be consumed by overwhelm and spiral downwards, I push myself to pause, make a decision or take an action that may yield forward movement. Often, just making a decision I’ve been procrastinating can get rid of the feeling. A decision involves cutting off all other alternatives, lessening resistance and allowing focus.

Being able to focus on something that pulls me the most at that moment allows me to approach it with openness, presence, curiosity, and a contributive mind. I aim to maintain this state wherever I am and whatever I do.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siri.hull/

Image Credits

Matt Ishizuka, Araya Doheny