EP 118: Imposter Syndrome: Asian American Edition with Jule Kim
In this episode, I interview Jule Kim, a life coach and executive coach, about imposter syndrome, self-love, managing emotions, people-pleasing, and setting boundaries.
Jule shares her personal journey of finding her true calling and the challenges she faced as a Korean American growing up in Alabama. We discuss the importance of expressing emotions and the cultural expectations that can hinder self-worth. Jule emphasizes the need to understand oneself and what one truly wants in order to cultivate a sense of worthiness. She encourages listeners to embrace vulnerability and authenticity.
The Intersection of Cultures: Growing Up Asian American
Jule’s story is one of navigating the complexities of cultural identity. Born to Korean parents in Alabama, she faced the daunting task of reconciling her Korean heritage with her American surroundings. This cultural dichotomy presented unique challenges, from confronting societal expectations to maintaining her self-worth amidst a backdrop of conflicting values.
The Pursuit of Fulfillment: Jule’s Career Odyssey
Jule’s career path was anything but linear. She pursued a math degree, dropped out of law school, and ventured into the corporate world. Each step was a battle between her internal desires and the external pressures to succeed in a prescribed manner. Jule’s candid recounting of her struggle to find fulfillment is a testament to the internal conflict many of us face when our passions and societal expectations collide.
The Art of Setting Boundaries
One of the most enlightening parts of our conversation was the discussion on setting boundaries. Jule illuminated the purpose of boundaries and the common challenges in asserting our needs. She stressed the importance of confronting the internal barriers that hold us back from pursuing our true desires. This segment of our talk was a powerful reminder of the need to prioritize our well-being and happiness.
Cultural and Societal Influences on Asian Americans
As the conversation unfolded, I shared my observations on the cultural and societal influences that shape the experiences of Asian Americans. We delved into the difficulties of celebrating personal achievements without succumbing to guilt or shame—a sentiment often amplified by cultural norms.
A Candid Exploration of Identity and Expectations
Throughout our dialogue, Jule and I explored the intricacies of cultural identity, societal pressures, and the quest for personal fulfillment. It was a candid and thought-provoking exploration that I believe will offer valuable perspectives to anyone grappling with similar issues.
As we close this season of the podcast, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to you, our listeners, for being part of our community. Your support means the world to me, and if you've found value in our episodes, please consider leaving a review on iTunes to help others discover our content.
In the meantime, I invite you to stay connected by visiting wildheartedwards.com and signing up for my weekly newsletter, which many have told me is the highlight of their week. Until the next episode, aloha, and remember to embrace your identity and set boundaries that honor your true self.
More about Jule Kim
Jule Kim is an executive coach and certified imposter syndrome coach dedicated to helping aspiring executives become strong, trusted leaders at every level all over the world. Jule is well-known for delivering transformational imposter syndrome keynotes and workshops to companies who are actively invested in their employee growth and diversity initiatives.
As a Korean-American who grew up in Alabama, Jule brings a unique perspective to imposter syndrome, people-pleasing, and setting boundaries while being respectful of cultural ties. She has helped countless leaders learn how to cultivate trust and safety, overcome imposter syndrome, develop executive presence, navigate corporate dynamics, balance leadership and personal growth, and build resilient teams.
Jule is also the author of Self-Love Affirmations & Reflections: A Ritual for Self-Worth, Self-Compassion, and Self-Care, which you can find on Amazon.
Download a sample of my book:
How to Disappoint Your Parents in 10 Shameless Steps: A Modern Asian American Guide
Takeaways
Imposter syndrome is a common experience that can affect anyone, regardless of cultural background.
Cultivating self-love and setting boundaries are essential for personal growth and well-being.
Expressing emotions is important for mental and emotional health, and should not be suppressed or dismissed.
Understanding oneself and what one truly wants is crucial for developing a sense of worthiness and fulfillment.
Embracing vulnerability and authenticity can lead to greater self-acceptance and connection with others.
Episode Highlights
00:00 Introduction
03:02 Jule’s Journey and Cultural Identity
10:08 Finding Purpose and Setting Boundaries
26:13 The Performance of Self-Worth
31:52 Understanding and Expressing Emotions
37:04 Cultivating Worthiness and Authenticity
38:57 Conclusion
Transcript:
Judy Tsuei (00:02.606)
Welcome to the F*ck Saving Face podcast where we're empowering mental and emotional health for Asian Americans and voices of color by breaking through taboo topics. Life may not always be pretty, but it is indeed beautiful. Make your story beautiful today.
Jule is a life coach and executive coach and she's the child of an immigrant, yet she was raised in Alabama. So in this episode, we talk a lot about imposter syndrome, self -love, managing emotions, people pleasing in boundaries. She's now based in Seattle and she and I are part of a book club that gives us an opportunity to meet with other minds who are curious about consciousness, about...
figuring out your inner identity and then figuring out how to translate that into the world. And one of the articles that I just read on Substack is all about that. It's all about how we're over the influencer economy, how we don't want all of our relationships to be commodities, how we actually want to become better people. We want to do better. We want to feel better. And so how do we show up in the world in that, within ourselves, online, and then in what I'm hoping to create.
during the hiatus of this podcast into the next season are these third spaces where people can actually come together in real life and really be in community and be in connection. It was one of the most remarkable parts about being in New York a few weeks ago was the community and the camaraderie that happened through the natural being around one another in a shared space about a similar goal.
And I hope that for you, you can find something that is a valuable takeaway from this interview with Jule. She will talk about how she got a math degree that she never used, went to law school, tried different careers, even photography, and then tried to climb the corporate ladder for a decade at big name companies. But none of that made her happy. And so she didn't find
Judy Tsuei (02:12.046)
this journey of what she's doing now with advice actually until she was 39 years old. So I'd love for you to dive in with someone who on TikTok has great input, especially if you're career driven, you know, an executive and you want to look for ways to grow yourself and cultivate that understanding of self.
I have Jule Kim with us here today. And if anybody hasn't been following her on TikTok, she's got a lot of great advice that you can take in and it's very digestible. Jule is an executive coach and I'll do a longer bio in the intro of this episode. But I wanted to share, you know, just how grateful I am that we're connected, how grateful I am that you're doing the work that you're doing out in the world. Because I think that so many people...
could benefit from your wisdom and expertise, especially one of the topics that you were talking about before we hopped on in regards to that sense of worthiness and how we equate it to different aspects of our lives. And I don't think that that's just a cultural thing with Asian -Americans. I think that it comes across all different channels, all different backgrounds. But before we dive into that, I wanted to turn it over to you to share a bit more about yourself and your story in your own words.
Well, thank you, Judy. It's so nice to be here. Thank you for having me. You know, my own story is very convoluted. And if you've ever seen those people talking about how growth isn't linear, life isn't a straight line, I'm like, yes, just look at my life, look at my history. It's the perfect example of this. You know, I, Korean American, I grew up in Alabama. You can imagine how fucked up that was.
Literally did not realize until maybe six or seven years ago, just how much that shaped my identity and how I saw myself and how inadequate I felt just from the sense of never feeling like I belonged and how traumatic that was. As children, we're pretty resilient. We try to go through life and we try to just roll with the punches. You know, some of us are a little bit better at it than others, but.
Judy Tsuei (04:29.806)
You know, my parents, they always said, we're here and you're going to do the best you are going to do. But there was no room for taking a breath and just saying, this sucks. This is hard. There was no room for that. That wasn't allowed. And to even express negative emotion was not allowed. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard my dad say, wipe that look off your face in Korean.
How dare you show that to others? And it wasn't until so many years later, I think I was in my 30s when I learned that culturally in Asia, displaying negative emotion is considered quite rude because you are burdening those around you. Whereas I think it's a lot more relaxed in the United States, at least in American culture. People don't like anger for sure.
People are never comfortable with anger, but my entire learning over the past 10 years has been that all these emotions, the pieces that we find really messy, they are there for a reason. They're not something to be stuffed away and to be dismissed as, you're just being irrational. You're being extra. Your emotions are signals. They are messages from you to yourself. They are a sign that something needs to be addressed.
And the longer you ignore it, the worse it becomes. That's when the body starts to trigger stronger and stronger reactions. You know, I listened to your podcast episode. I can't remember which one it was, but I think you were maybe this or what was it you were explaining or bringing up a past memory of something with your therapist. And then right after you said, I have a migraine coming and your therapist said, that's acute stress.
And so the fact that our bodies actually will continue to send us these signals and we just ignore them. And then the body escalates because the body knows, and we don't make that connection. Like all of this, this is why I'm here today. And my identity as an Asian American, you know, I'm the only person in my entire family born in the U S and again, it's something I had not realized until maybe three years ago, which is wild.
Judy Tsuei (06:50.19)
It's wild. I was almost 40 when I realized that. So my entire family, my parents, all of my siblings, they were born in Korea. And this is why I felt like I never belonged in my own family. And so you go through all of this, this entire cultural mismatch. My dad was so bent on keeping me Korean Korean. You know, I'm maybe a little bit more of an outlier in the American born Koreans where I can actually read Korean. I can write Korean. I can speak Korean.
not fluently like a native, but you know, he was so adamant that I retain ties to the culture. But in a lot of ways, those ties, they felt like chains because there was no room to be who I fully was, which was also American. And so this conflict going back and forth. Now, as you know, part of like a very strong part of the Asian identity is performance. You are good if you get good grades. You're a good child if you're obedient and you listen and you perform.
and you do what's expected of you. You get the jobs, you know, you get into the right universities, you become a lawyer, doctor, engineer, banker, and that's what makes you a good person. So then you start to think of, well, I'm good if I'm doing these things my parents are telling me to. They express approval when I do what they want me to. And therefore, if I do things I, you know, they don't want me to, then I'm bad and I'm worthless.
And so there's this intersection between our identities, our self -worth, how we see ourselves, with meeting the expectations of others. And it becomes so twisted that we get to the ages you and I are. We get to our 30s, our 40s, and the model just starts breaking down because we're so unhappy and we don't even know why. There is so much there that I want to unpack. It's interesting because I just did this talk with Misa Chen from The Authentic Asian. She has brought together all of these.
leaders, all of these Asian American women. And I was talking about, you know, masking, code switching, weathering, and how the emotional attacks that we experience as Asian Americans and so many other people experience too, but that daily emotional attacks of questioning, you know, was that racist? Should I be giving that person the benefit of the doubt? Like, is this an attack on me? Is it not? Like, just interpreting and navigating all of that, that double consciousness that we continually have to do, that it wears.
Judy Tsuei (09:14.318)
on our psyche, like, you know, that migraine that I had that there are actually studies that are done that, you know, the book that I was reading, The Color of Emotional Intelligence, the author was saying that black people are in the study shown that they are like 3 .6 years older than their chronological age or something around that versus like white people who are younger than their chronological age because of these stressors that we have to endure. And when you were talking about the...
of not being able to be fully yourself, not being able to be your authentic self, it's the, when we're in just our family situation and then we go to our work situation and we go to our school situation, we don't just view those spaces that we go to as another location, we view those as social structures. And when you're othered in those social structures, the pain actually becomes physical. You can actually feel that hurt. So what you were talking about of having to disavow who you are,
in your family of origin, but then in addition to that, being in Alabama of all places. And I lived in South Carolina for a year. So yes, I know what it's like to be an Asian in the South. You know, I'm so curious how you have moved into the career that you have now. Can you talk about what it is that you do and your approach to it? Of course. You're going to laugh. Hopefully everybody listening will also laugh. You know, so for a while I tried to do the obedient daughter thing.
I went to university. I think actually you and I have the same alma mater, if I'm not incorrect, Berkeley. Yeah, Berkeley. Yeah, crazy, right? Small world. Yeah. So I went there. I got a math degree. I went to law school. I dropped out in my second year. And you can imagine the shit storm that created with my parents. My mother said the most horrendous things. In Korean, I remember, you know, just not to traumatize anybody. Yeah.
But like a little bit of a trigger warning is the first visit I had with my parents after dropping out of law school, my mother said, what are you doing? Now you're just human garbage. And I remember crying. And in my family, crying is not accepted, right? In many of our families, it's just not done. And then that just furthered the.
Judy Tsuei (11:33.23)
abuse from my mother because she said why are you crying you're so useless stop crying right. And i couldn't answer her i didn't have the words i didn't have the skills or the vocabulary the why are you crying is such a simple question. But of course it wasn't asked in the spirit of being curious or open or you know this is not an inviting space it was more like a accusatory why are you crying how dare you cry.
It's because of experiences like that that have led me here. So after dropping out of law school, I spent a few years just sort of spinning my wheels, not knowing what I wanted to do. That's the period where I ended up being like a 24 seven gamer. It's a weird thing. I know that was my avoidance. That was totally my coping mechanism for avoiding all the real stuff, like having to pay the bills, being in debt, being saddled with this enormous law school loan now.
where I wasn't even going to have the rewards, right? Because I wasn't graduating, I wasn't becoming a lawyer. I eventually entered the corporate world and I spent the next 10 years where it felt like I was playing a game where I didn't know the rules. And I think this is what happens when you are not connected with yourself. You don't understand who you are. Your grasp on your identity is very fuzzy. You don't really know. And yet...
You are conforming to certain rules and you don't even know it. So this is what it was like constantly making missteps, not understanding the relationships that bind us all, the social norms, the cues. It was really hard. You know, I've been lucky where I've always been a pretty good performer intellectually, but on the other side, the emotional side, the social side, I was severely lacking.
So in terms of growth, I think what people don't understand is in your career, whether it's a nine to five or you have your own business, being just intellectually smart will only get you so far. Most people do not understand this. And if you were raised like I was, and probably like how you were is you've probably heard some version of this message of our parents saying, just get a good education, you know, become so accomplished that basically no one can say anything to you.
Judy Tsuei (13:53.166)
And that's just not how it works. You know, my parents gave me so many different versions of this where you don't have to be pretty. You don't have to be liked. Just be really good at what you do. Yikes. It's just so unrealistic. So, you know, I enter corporate world. I go through some jobs. I eventually end up at Amazon. And Amazon is one of those places where if you do not know who you are, you don't know what you like. You don't know what's important to you. You don't know your values.
And therefore you don't know how to set boundaries. And so this is one of my biggest pet peeves. Boundaries is such a hot topic. It has been for the last year or so, or maybe more. You talk about people, they just spout all this nonsense about boundaries. Be a strong woman, step into your power, blah, blah, vomit. And I always ask my clients because they want to cling on to that because they're looking for something tangible to wrap their arms around. They're like, I should set boundaries. And I will ask them.
Have you ever asked yourself what are boundaries for? And it just comes to a screeching halt because they don't actually understand this. That was me. So I go to Amazon. Amazon is one of those places that will chew you up and spit you out if you don't know who you are and what you really want out of life or what you want, period. I burned out. I burned out. I rage quit.
I then say, well, I guess I'm starting my photography business because that was kind of what was going on in my mind at the time that I wanted to start a photography business. I spent the next five years doing this. And unfortunately, I learned pretty quick. I know pretty quick that I don't actually love this, but then you become mired in this thing of, well, fuck, I left the nine to five.
And now it's like this feeling of I made my bed and now I have to lie in it. Well, fuck, I guess I better do this. And it's yet more of this cultural ties to ignoring your own voice, ignoring your own intuition. It's like, you know, pretty quick whether something's not for you, but we have not learned to listen to that because we don't want to be a quitter. This is what has led me here is especially around the imposter syndrome, the cultural experience. People, people will ask me, what am I supposed to do?
Judy Tsuei (16:08.878)
It's usually quite simple. You know what you want to do. You just don't have the guts to do it because of all this other stuff. That's a mic drop moment that you know what you want to do and you just don't have the guts to do it. I think, you know, going back to the thing about boundaries. Yeah. I mean, as a personal example in my relationship with my partner, he's like really good about setting boundaries. He's a school administrator, so he has to set them like in inside his own mind and then like with the people that he works with. But.
In the beginning, he would always encourage me, like, you can speak up, you can say all these things. And I understood that intellectually as a smart person, as a person who grew up the way that I grew up, even getting to that point of speaking up, of having the courage to say them, say the things. And that's one of the reasons why I do my best to give my daughter the sentence stems that she needs to be able to speak up. Because I think unless you have those words, it's so difficult to know what to say in those environments, especially when you're flustered. But I love what you're saying about the...
boundaries, I always liken them to a door. Like it goes both ways, it keeps things out and it keeps important things in. And, you know, not understanding that, especially literally, we were not allowed to close the doors growing up in our bedrooms and stuff. So like, I couldn't do that. So when you're taught those messages from a very young age, it becomes hard. You think that there's something wrong. I asked this question with all of the Asian American women on the call yesterday of when you celebrate yourself.
when you share about an accomplishment, when you are speaking about something positive, do you feel a sense of guilt that you're not being humble and you're not doing the thing? Talking positively about yourself is not okay, especially if corporal punishment was used growing up to be the parenting method and whatnot. And I think that us knowing and having the balls to do something about it, I think everybody...
generally as a human being, like, yes, that's going to take risks. But for someone who comes from backgrounds like ours, exponentially more so. What do you tell people to do when you give them that mic drop truth bomb? What happens then? What typically happens, and I know you've seen this in your own clients, is they refuse to accept that. They go right back into all the noise.
Judy Tsuei (18:31.214)
But this but I need a paycheck, but no they'll get mad at me but but but and then this is the part they especially hate is I Will just sit there let them run out of steam and then I'll say some something like Isn't it funny how quickly you go back to all the reasons something isn't going to work versus why it could you are giving me every reason under the Sun? To not go go towards what you want?
You say you don't know what you want, but you really do. Like this entire conversation, the last 30 minutes, you know what you want. So that's where the real work begins is sort of digging through all the layers of all the excuses, all the expectations, the external trappings. It's almost always external stuff because there's expectations they think they have to meet. There is a certain authority or image they think they have to withhold or uphold of themselves.
They are afraid to come out of the status quo. But by the time people work with coaches like you and me, what happens? They've started to approach rock bottom. And this is something I brought up with Roger before, you know, our mutual friend Roger is unfortunately most people will wait until they hit rock bottom before they do something about it. There is a reason why so much of marketing messages focus on the loss aversion tactic, right?
This deal is going to go away in the next two hours. And so there is something that is triggered in our brain. Almost all of us, 90 % of us that fears pain and suffering. And yet if you were to present the flip side of the coin, which is look at all the things you could gain. If you only show them that part, it's somehow not enough. It's, it is so rare, only around 10 % of the population.
will actually alter their choices to go towards what they want. Most of us are motivated, unfortunately, by more of the stick instead of the carrot. It's just so strange. Now, there was something that you mentioned a second ago with the celebrating yourself. And do you, you know, do you feel guilty? I, I personally don't have so much of that. I feel a little awkward, but not guilty. And I have seen repeatedly there is this,
Judy Tsuei (20:54.094)
very twisted idea of what being humble means. And so in our cultures, I think humble has become so like it's become something to flagellate ourselves with, you know, we just it's like a burden instead of the true thing it is. And that's why I wrote the post I did on LinkedIn, which is your view of humble is twisted. So being humble, the true spirit of humility is to recognize your strengths and weaknesses.
while accomplishing the recognition that others had a part to play in that, others and yourself. So it's, it's like a big picture awareness, like a gracious recognition of all the pieces that moved all the factors that had a part to play in where you got to where you are. Now, cultures like yours and mine teach us that being humble means to turn away everything, reject the compliment, because
To just say thank you would be, so you have a big head now. Someone says you're pretty or you're so smart. You did a great job on that project to just say thank you is somehow not acceptable in our societies. And that's what's really messed up. And so this is a key tie into imposter syndrome. So subtle signs of people with imposter syndrome. If you tell them you did a good job and the automatic responses, this, this was nothing. this I got lucky.
I had help. I had connections. And you'll see this play out in so many different fields. It's crazy. But women tend to suffer from some of this a little bit more than men. It's not that men don't feel imposter syndrome, but it manifests differently, which is what's really interesting to me. I love that idea of like real humility and acknowledging.
all the different facets. I think only recently, and I realized this very tangibly when I was in Mexico with my partner, is being able to hold the whole spectrum of emotions, like deep sadness and then also deep joy, which I think is a level of growth and maturity. And so being able to acknowledge all those different facets is huge. One of the things that I wanted to ask you about is this idea of performance, because we are a very performative culture. And I think that going back to what you said earlier, I have to say it's not the...
Judy Tsuei (23:17.838)
Like the smarts, sure, like that's great. And it gets you through your life, being able to be resilient, being able to be resourceful. But the true thing that has led to the success that I experienced in my life has been those soft skills, the connections that you make with people, the ability to be vulnerable, how authentic you are. What's interesting too is I think being able to turn the trauma that we've experienced into strengths. And so because I always had to read the room growing up, I...
really learn how to navigate other people's emotions. But now it's just more of reading the group dynamic and understanding like, if I pull on this lover, then these are the responses. And I was on a call this morning with my team and a client realizing I jotted down all these questions. If I ask these questions of the person that we are on this meeting with, it's not really going to get us anywhere because I can already sense their defensiveness and like whatever. So instead, let's shift the focus of the conversation to make it more productive. And like, what can we do?
So when it comes to that and this sense of self -worth and what you do, I mean, we've all probably noticed one of the first questions when you go into a party scene or whatever is like, hey, nice to meet you. What do you do? That's one of the first questions. And so can you tell me this sense of self -worth and how it ties to that and what we could be looking at instead? It's such a huge question. It's like the what do you do? You face it at every, like almost in every corner of your life.
And not even as adults, because you, do you remember the first time you were asked as a child, so what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do when you grow up? I don't think I was given that option. I think it was, you're going to do this. Interesting. Okay. So when's the first time they told you that? I think it was just so ingrained so early on, like becoming the doctor or the lawyer, you know, making sure. And probably I'm, my cousins were a lot older than us, so seeing,
the engineer path that they went on and like doing things like that. Okay. So it started so early. You can't even trace back to the first time. This is probably a little bit different in the American culture because I grew up here. I cannot tell you how many times and even today I still see adults doing this to children. I honestly think this is the question we should all stop asking children. What do you want to do when you grow up? What do you want to be when you grow up? And I'm like, I'm seven. What the hell do I know? It's like,
Judy Tsuei (25:44.654)
That is the most idiotic question under the sun to ask. And so when you think about this whole, what do you do question, you go to a party, you go to a networking event. We're still doing that to each other, which is so strange. But I understand, I understand why we do it because every time something enters our field of consciousness and it's an unknown, what's the first thing we try to do? We try to start putting labels on it. We're trying to give ourselves handles.
so that we can start seeing what it is this even is, but then what can we do? How do we relate to this? And so the what do you do hits us at the identity level to start with. But then in terms of what do you do, what is your output? How much money do you make? What kind of house do you live in? The cars you drive in, the accessories you have, the jewelry, the status symbols. And if you ask yourself, the what do you do ties into all of these things.
And so then what happens when those things are taken away? What happens to your sense of self, your self worth? So the first time I really understood what was happening here is when I quit my job at a startup. And fortunately, I was lucky enough that I chose to quit. Whereas today with all the tech layoffs, imagine how many tens of thousands of people are facing this crisis right now. They're laid off. It wasn't by choice. And yet there's this huge question on the horizon of,
What's next? And if I don't get another job, then I'm worthless. On top of that, compounding the entire messes, you have to survive. And so now there's this question, like a very real question for so many people out there is how am I going to pay the bills? And yet when you're already starting from this place, like what I tell my clients, you're already starting from a minus because now you feel inadequate. You feel less than because you are laid off.
because you don't have a job anymore. And then if it takes you longer than you thought to find a job, what happens? Your confidence keeps taking a hit. You sink into depression. And this is what happened to me. Even though I wasn't laid off, I quit my job. That was probably one of the hardest periods of my life is until I found the next job. And if you think about it, it wasn't even that long. I'm talking like a period of maybe four to five months, not that long, but I...
Judy Tsuei (28:11.566)
I remember, you know, not to be like the drama queen, but I remember I would take a shower and I would cry in the shower because that's where I wouldn't be heard. I did not have the skills to cope with what I was feeling because I didn't understand what I was feeling. So when we talk about this whole performance aspect, look at how much you measure your sense of self by all of these outside things, your job title, how other people.
perceive you how they regard you, how much help you're giving. Are you that pillar in the community? Do you hold a certain position in your church? Or even like the PTA meeting? Are you the PTA president? And as women, I find so many of us are stuck in this cycle, we don't even know. We are so bent on proving our self worth, that we take on all these things. And then when these things get they go away, right?
Because life is just a series of seasons. Nothing lasts forever, really, except you with yourself. When these things go away and they're not by our choice, that's when we struggle. And so that's the question of performance. It's like, how much do you tie your sense of self, your identity around what you're doing? What can we tie it to? Like if you weren't taught, you know, I remember reading this line that,
the voice that you speak to your child becomes their inner voice. And I was like, my gosh, that's my entire life. Like those are the voices that I heard. And so I tried to be really cognizant when my daughter was young and not over inflating like, you're so great at everything, but just really making sure that her sense of worthiness and, you know, beingness just came from an internal place of like just existing, I'm worthy and I'm, you know, enough.
And how do we cultivate and foster that? So a lot of the questions that I would ask her, because she was a normal kid, like, mom, what do you think of this? Mom, what do you think of that? And I would say, well, how does it feel for you? How do you feel about it? And sometimes she gets so frustrated at me, like, no, I just want to know what you think. So what can we start looking to, if not the external things? These are two questions I give to almost all my clients, and they universally hate these questions.
Judy Tsuei (30:27.918)
Okay, so number one is who are you? And of course, that's a gigantic question. I know it is. It's hard to answer. But if you think about it, so few of us ever actually take the time to reflect on that question and try to answer it. Most people will do what I did initially when I was younger. It's like, that's a stupid question. And you just push it away. You tuck it away. You put it in the drawer. You forget about it. You very intentionally avoid that question.
So one, I'll say start from a place of trying to answer that question. What most people will start out by doing is they will look externally again, they will look for what they think is data, which it is to some degree, they will go to their friends and ask them the question. And I think that's a natural place to start, but you have to understand that they are seeing you through their own lens. It is an imperfect view.
You are the only person who can actually know who you are because you are the only person who knows what you think and feel in any given moment. So think beyond just the descriptors you've heard your whole life. You're the smart one. You're so kind. You're nice. You're pretty. It goes beyond that. What makes you tick? What drives the choices you make? What kind of things are you drawn to? So when you look at people out there that you admire,
What is it about them that you admire? And so this kind of leads into the next question that people also tend to hate is, what do you want? I don't mean just in your big life goals, your next five or 10 year plan. I mean, literally, if you practice just asking this question to yourself at least three times a day, what do I want? You will start to understand the first question a lot better.
Three times a day asking yourself, what do I want? I think that that's a beautiful practice. I've had to do an exercise that my therapist told me to do, which is to write down 25 traits about myself and look at myself in the mirror and be able to say them to myself, these positive identifiers. And I think because of that practice, I've been able to identify more of who am I and...
Judy Tsuei (32:42.254)
really connecting to that, but I'm going to start practicing the what do I want three times a day because I think that that would be such a valuable question, even in a small moment, big ones too. I would love to ask you if you had to say fuck saving face about something, what would you say fuck saving face about? 100 % it would be fuck saving face about trying to hide your emotions. Okay, so you and I talked earlier in the conversation about.
Us, especially as Asians, a lot of the Asian cultures and just globally, really people not understanding what emotions even are. Emotions aren't just mental. They're not just emotional. They're physical. This is how we end up with having all of these chronic conditions in our body. And so that's the one aspect, but then on the hiding your emotions, we're taught that that's irrational. And also somehow that's the realm of being a woman, which is stupid.
To learn to express your emotions. Don't worry about being perfect or saying it so well or respectfully or kindly. Just worry about expressing your emotions period and being vulnerable and yet courageous enough to share that with other people. To let them see that you're having emotions, whether it's joyful or negative. Maybe you're angry, maybe you're disappointed.
Practice just saying that I am disappointed. I can't deny that I'm angry right now. I need a moment. So if you want to get to that place where you feel fully comfortable in your own skin, this is where it starts. You cannot avoid, you cannot skip all the muckety muck in between and just jump to the end. You know, it's not like a book you can just flip to the last page and just be like, okay, I'm there. This is where the work is. You start identifying what it is you're feeling.
And then you have the courage to share that with other people to express that. This is how you get to that sense of being really comfortable in yourself. One of the things that you're saying right now, it makes me realize, you know,
Judy Tsuei (34:46.862)
I have encouraged with my daughter from a very young age to express her feelings and she does. But I noticed that if I hear her continually saying something about how she's bummed out about something or frustrated about something, it starts to grate on me. And I think part of it is that you weren't allowed to have negative emotions growing up. You weren't allowed to fight back or speak back or any of those things. So I definitely catch myself and I'm aware of it. And then I have to take a deep breath and remember like,
wow, how amazing is it that she can identify how she feels, that she feels safety to express it with me and that, you know, she's not bottling it up, she's not hiding it, and then hopefully this will bode well for her as she continues to age and like has more life experience and has more vocabulary of like, okay. So being able to, you know, it's a never ending journey essentially to be able to continue to grow and then.
watch how other people adapt these skills and to continue to learn. I would love to know how people can follow up with you if they want to continue to learn more from you. Can I ask you a follow up question about your daughter? How old is she? She's nine. Okay. Wow. Okay. That's the perfect age. That's amazing. You know, I see other parents today where their children are able to express themselves like that. And I think, my gosh, they're light years ahead of where I was. And that...
That's incredible. I love that story. And I think what people don't understand too is there are roles here, right? One of my clients recently told me that his friend got mad at him because he kept going on and on about certain problems in his life. And he had sort of entered that like broken record syndrome. And to understand that some of the people in your life may not be the right person to share this with.
That doesn't mean that there aren't other people who would like to support you during this period. So it's a question. You start here being able to just say what you're feeling and why, and then eventually you get to this place of, what do I want to do about this? Most people today just want to go straight to, what do I want to do about this? They haven't even taken the time to process what this really means for them. So I love that. I love what you're doing with your daughter. That's amazing.
Judy Tsuei (37:04.27)
Thank you and all you know give this follow up thing she was just talking about that she had left this little toy that she really likes to go to school and she's like I can't believe I lost it like I found it and I was being responsible but then I lost it again and so she had to process through all of her frustration her sadness her realization that she's probably not gonna find it again and her disappointment in herself before she could get to a place of saying okay mom if I did lose it.
If we don't find it in the next two weeks, would it be okay if we go to the store and try to go get another one? And she didn't jump from this to let's go find a solution. And even though she knew she now had a backup plan for it, and she's like learning about being more responsible and like feeling all those feelings, even knowing that she still allowed herself and gave herself the space to go back to, and I'm still bummed about it, and I'm still frustrated at myself and like da, da, da, da, da, and not getting caught in it, but just.
you know, going through her process. And it was so amazing to watch, to be like, well, remember, I'm, you know, and I would say like, well, now you have a plan B, you know, we're going to do, she's like, I know that. And I'm still going to go back and like feel these feelings. So what you're saying right now is like, yes, she's not skipping out on the muckety muck. She's going through it. And then we'll be more peaceful by the time she gets to that other place. She'll be like, okay, like now we're here. Yeah. And that and piece is so crucial because I think that
highlights what you said earlier is to realize you can hold multiple feelings all at the same time. You can regret that this happened. You can feel disappointment or sadness or blame towards yourself and you can still look towards the future. And even when you are in that future state at some point, you can look back and realize, yeah, I really didn't like, I did that, really didn't enjoy that and that's okay. And so having all of this like,
What I would say is like the full spectrum, the full palette. You're painting with all the colors instead of just three. I love that. my gosh. It reminds me of when I was in therapy and she gave me a list, my one of my early therapists of like, here are all the feelings you could feel. And I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? There's all these feelings. I only knew like one. So that was funny. But yes, how do people follow up with you if they want to learn more from you? Easy place to go is LinkedIn, Jule Kim.
Judy Tsuei (39:25.006)
You can find me on Instagram and TikTok. My handle is at ITS, it's Jule Kim. You can always go to my website at viceactually .com. Thank you so much. Thank you, Judy. All righty. Thank you so much for tuning in. We are getting ready to wrap up this season. And I appreciate you being here as part of this community.
Judy Tsuei (39:48.43)
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you'd like to support me and this show, please go to iTunes and leave your review. It means so much to me and it'll help others find this podcast. I'll catch you in the next episode. And if you'd like to stay in touch between now and then, please visit wildheartedwords .com and sign up for my weekly newsletter. I've had people share with me that it's the best thing to arrive in their inbox all week. Aloha.
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Keywords: F*ck Saving Face podcast, Judy Tsuei, Jule Kim, Asian American, executive coach, life coach, personal story, career path, imposter syndrome, self-worth, setting boundaries, imposter syndrome, self-love, managing emotions, people-pleasing, boundaries, self-worth, cultural expectations, vulnerability, authenticity
