[00:00:00] Whatever we say, whatever we hear and believe on a regular basis is constantly training our brain. If you are constantly believing criticisms, like last week, you should have done this earlier, you should have figured this out. Oh, you should have known that. I told you so. Or if you're constantly apologizing, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
[00:00:18] Your brain doesn't get context. All it hears is someone apologizing all day, and it's training yourself to feel like something's wrong, that you're making mistakes. And so you're unintentionally training yourself to be less and less confident every time you say sorry.
[00:00:36] Welcome to Asians breaking ceilings. I'm Jeanny Chai, founder of Bamboomyth.Com and confidence coach for Asian American female professionals. The goal of this podcast is to ignite your confidence, to empower you to overcome imposter syndrome so you can finally. Break that career ceiling and get what you want in life.
[00:01:01] In episode eight, we are looking at the habit we have of apologizing unnecessarily and demonstrating the difference between what situations really deserve an apology and need an apology and what situations don't. Many of us have this habit since childhood, and it is one of the greatest ways that we actually lower our confidence day by day and train our brains to feel less than we are and feel like we're not enough.
[00:01:30] If you want to know your greatest roadblock success, be sure to take the quiz at Asians Breaking Ceilings. It's also listed in your show notes. And please do share this podcast with your colleagues, your friends, your relatives, so that we can all support each other. To learn how to achieve authentic success without the stress.
[00:01:50] Now let's dive into our show.
[00:01:59] Remember that this podcast is meant to be incremental. It is meant to teach you step by step how to overcome imposter syndrome. And so if you're joining us for the first time, go back and listen to episode one all the way through now, and you will slowly build up your confidence, get rid of the guilt, get rid of the criticism that keeps you from experiencing authentic success.
[00:02:23] You know, I've made this ironic, sad, but also very powerful observation that the people in the world who need to apologize, who really are hurting people, who are maybe intentionally or unintentionally hurting other people with their actions and their words are usually the people who don't ever apologize and never say sorry.
[00:02:43] And the ones who are constantly saying, I'm sorry, excuse me. Oh, I'm sorry. I couldn't help you who are very humble and overly apologetic are the exact ones who don't need to be apologizing. I'm betting most of you listening to this podcast are in the second category because the ones who need to say, sorry, you'll never find my podcast.
[00:03:02] I am pretty certain because they're not in the same headspace, right? The ones who want to learn, who want to be better, who want to be kinder, loving, and make an impact are the ones who tend to over apologize. I want to share with you some Instances in my life, certain people, I won't name names that I know should have apologized to me because they impacted me in such a negative and long lasting way that a lot of my hiccups, my PTSD feelings of being small and inadequate were caused by it.
[00:03:33] These kinds of incidences. And I still remember them. I'm 50 years old. And a lot of these happened 10, 20, 30 years ago, and they still hurt, which part partly it's my, my own, um, needing to process it. But it also says that these small one time incidences were so impactful that they have the power to decrease your confidence, take away a lot of joy and set you up for feeling like a failure.
[00:03:58] And so as I'm sharing this, there are so many of you listening, ceiling breakers that are empaths and you love other people, but I don't want you to think about me and write me emails and go, Oh, poor Jeannie. My whole goal of this podcast is to help you recognize what Similar events have happened to you.
[00:04:16] What similar situations you've been through that are keeping you living small, keeping your confidence down, keeping you from getting your self esteem back. And this is the best way I know to help remember that and then to heal you and transform you so you can be a bad ass empowered, confident woman. So here we go.
[00:04:35] I remember when I got my first job out of college. I already had my self esteem so low because some of you know, I was disowned by my mom as a junior in college when I knew that my grades were so bad there was no way I was even going to apply to med school. And this had been a, I don't know, 18 year dream in the making for my parents.
[00:04:57] And to be quite honest, now that I'm older, I understand why they wanted me to be a doctor. My dad had a really tough time in corporate America. And he said, you know, you just need to work for yourself. No matter what you do, if you have a boss, it's pretty miserable. And so on one level, I understand they wanted me to have freedom.
[00:05:12] So I frankly had no interest in biology. Some of it was fun, but I liked the animal aspect. I actually wanted to be a marine biologist. And so as I'm studying all this stuff in college, uh, the chemistry, the biology, it was so difficult. Long story short, I did not go to med school, felt like a total failure.
[00:05:31] I, uh, went into depression. I lost probably 15 pounds. There was a lot of stress, a lot of embarrassment, a lot of shame. My parents did come to my graduation, but they were so ashamed of me that I just felt horrible the entire time. Um, and it wasn't a good experience. And so this was the environment I was in trying to get a job.
[00:05:53] So my first job, I gotta tell you this, was not. Something I'm proud of. I was an office manager for a company and my salary was 18, 000 a month. No, a year, excuse me, 18, 000 a year. So my confidence was already pretty low. And from this place, one of the team members said, Hey, you should try writing. I bet you're a good writer.
[00:06:13] So I wrote a piece of analysis for My company, because it was a biotech consulting company and I handed it over to the PhD, uh, lead who was in charge of the project. I was scared, nervous, but I was proud of myself because I, I'd known that I was a good communicator, a good writer. I gave this to her and within a few minutes, she's like, what kind of piece of bleep is this?
[00:06:39] This is garbage. This is complete bleep. And she was so loud. The entire office could hear her. And she didn't stop. She didn't care that this was my first job ever. She didn't care or know anything about my background. She just blasted me. And being the first job out of college, having never met someone as rude as her outside of my own personal family life, I was flabbergasted.
[00:07:05] I didn't know what to do. I went into my office, and I remember sitting there for maybe 15 minutes, just my face burning. My ears were hot and just feeling like I couldn't breathe. There's just no excuse ever for someone treating you like garbage. It was verbal abuse. It was emotional abuse, just not okay.
[00:07:25] But I never confronted her and she never said, sorry, those are the kinds of people that need to apologize. Many years later, I was in a job in which, uh, and I, I have a tendency to seek out very, very, uh, tough bosses because I always grew up feeling like if I did something easy, it wasn't worth it. I had to pick hard things and, and doing the hard things made you feel like a good enough person.
[00:07:50] So I would seek out difficult positions in which the bosses had a really high standard. So there's this one woman I worked for who I busted my butt for. And to be honest, looking back at it, I did amazing work for this company, amazing work, yet she was never satisfied and she'd always tell me the areas I did wrong.
[00:08:10] If you listen to my previous episode, she was the one that took me into the office and said, Why didn't you get the intern to sign an NDA? So constantly I would be feeling humiliated by her. Right. And then, you know what really hurt? I tried many times to get into an MBA program and one of the years I didn't get in, I called the school.
[00:08:28] I said, Hey. My scores are great. I interviewed, well, what's going on? And she said, yeah, I don't know how to tell you this, but you may want to get different people to write your recommendation letters for you. They weren't, uh, anything special and again, I remember feeling, Oh my goodness. This is the boss I've been slaving over doing everything for even taking notes for her during her meetings because I could type really fast and she wrote me a lack luster.
[00:08:59] Letter a recommendation for me to get an MBA. My co worker heard this and she goes, ooh, you should quit. This is personal. This is personal. If you don't want to write a good recommendation for someone just say no. And so that is the kind of person that needs to apologize and to start loving people more and being kinder.
[00:09:18] I had another boss where the company was going down. Everybody had quit and there was one woman left and she was a star. She was amazing. And I was on the phone with her one day. I said, Hey, our company's hiring. My new startup is hiring. Are you, are you looking for a position? And she came to me and said, absolutely.
[00:09:37] Yes. You know, please help me. And so I got my friend, this colleague to interview for my company and they loved her. Of course she was spectacular. And for several weeks, there was a back and forth between the old company trying to keep her and the new company saying, no, we want you come on over. And so finally she chose a new company and she became my co worker at this new company and I was thrilled.
[00:09:57] Basically, again, the old company just had a lot of issues that everybody saw, so all of us had quit. So then I got a phone call one day from the previous boss. And she goes, Jeannie, I didn't know all along it was you fighting me. You're the one that was taking away the employee. Do you know how much this company means to me?
[00:10:16] Do you know how much blood and sweat I put into this? And I didn't expect it to be you trying to steal my employee. And again, I was at an age and a stage in my life where I took all the blame. I didn't even think that maybe she could be wrong or that she was being a bit unreasonable. When I look back at that, I think, you know, my coworker approached me.
[00:10:37] She said, yes, get me out of here. The conditions under which I'm working are toxic. I'm doing all the work for everybody and this is not going to be sustainable. I got her out. That was a free, a free woman. She had free will. And yet the boss blamed me. And her question to me was, what did I do wrong to deserve this kind of treatment from you?
[00:10:55] And I took the blame and, and since this day, I have not talked to her, but that affected me again for maybe a year, two, three years, I felt like I did something wrong. That's the kind of person that needs to apologize and go, you know what, I'm sorry for putting the blame on you. I didn't really want to admit that my company was a shit show and that people were leaving left and right and that I was mistreating that employee and she had free will to leave.
[00:11:19] That's the kind of person that needs to apologize. But again, will that ever happen? No. Let me give you another example from my personal life. There was a time when I wanted to be a singer so badly and one of the first things I did even when I was depressed and going through a difficult time as a newlywed was I wanted to sing again.
[00:11:40] And one of the first things I did was audition for a local community college quartet that was going to sing chamber music. And I hadn't had any voice lessons, very good training at that time. So Garren, you know, granted I wasn't that great, but what this man told me, and he was the head, the music department leader of this community college.
[00:12:00] He said, you know, there are maybe one out of four people in the world who are, who are born with a solo voice. And you're not one of those people. And I believed him. And so for 20 years, I did not pursue any kind of karaoke singing. I didn't pursue any kind of singing in which I would put myself in a role that was enjoyable.
[00:12:21] And my confidence was crushed. My entire dream was crushed. And guess what? Today I sing in a jazz band, which I get standing ovations and people throw tips at us. I have taken voice lessons where my opera teacher said you were phenomenal. And if you had started when you were 18 years old, you would have been a world, a world class opera singer.
[00:12:41] Cause you, you have such talent. I've had other teachers tell me, Jeannie. You know, singing is 99 percent confidence, 1 percent talent, whoever told you that completely wrong misled. Singing is a skill, just like soccer is a skill. Public speaking is a skill. You practice it, you do it. And how many of you out there believe the same thing as me, that there's something fundamentally broken or wrong with you.
[00:13:04] And there's some area in your life that no matter how hard you try or how badly you want, you're just not cut out for it. Right. And so this kind of belief, this kind of wrong thinking, especially when someone is in an authoritative position and they, um, say it to you with such force and such confidence can crush you for years and years, that man needs to apologize, right?
[00:13:30] For hurting a 20 year old, giving a completely bullshit information and, and ruining my happiness. I'm so grateful. I rediscovered at age 40. But I'm so glad I didn't believe him and so pause here for a moment and think how many. Embarrassing, humiliating beliefs. Do you have about yourself? Like I am not good in social situations.
[00:13:51] I don't know how to do small talk. I will never be able to draw. You know, I just, I'm just not smart or I have to work harder than everybody else just because that's the way I am. Or, Oh, my English isn't so good. So I have to prove myself and work twice as hard just to catch up with everybody else. All of us have something right where we feel is a, a weakness or an Achilles heel.
[00:14:18] And yet, that could be completely wrong belief, just like I showed you here. Those are the people, those are the situations where there needs to be an apology. And yet again, those people very rarely have the insight or the understanding that there needs to be an apology given. Sometimes we Want an apology from someone?
[00:14:35] And then when we get it, we realize it's too late or too little. Uh, as you might know, I've shared before that my parents fought a lot when I was a little girl. And I grew up very nervous, very anxious. And at a young age, I would come home from school and I would look at my mom's face and I would, I would quickly survey and see if maybe she was in a bad mood.
[00:14:55] I don't know why I did that. But it just became a habit and if she looked mad, I'd go, mom, are you mad today? Mom, are you mad at me? And I would use a little girl voice. I go, mom, are you, are you angry? Again, I go no contact with her now, because even if in the many, many times in the past I tried to have a dialogue with her, she would end up crying.
[00:15:14] She would end up becoming the victim. She would say things like, I tried to be the best mother. That's called gaslighting. So if it's something like that, there's, there's never going to be an apology. from that person. And through my years of therapy and counseling, one of the best ones I had, she said to me, and finally I heard it the truth.
[00:15:32] She goes, Jeannie, you're never going to have the kind of mother that she's retired. And you guys walk to the farmer's market and you walk hand in hand and you have warm conversations and she's loving and you understand and you've forgiven each other. And I didn't want to believe it, but that was the beginning of change for me.
[00:15:53] When I finally. admitted and believed her that my mom was not going to change and I gave myself permission to stop having these conversations with her over and over again to see if maybe our relationship could be healed. That was when freedom came for me and I needed to stop believing the things she said to me.
[00:16:12] I needed to stop living the way. I lived under her in a place of fear, people pleasing, extreme anxiety, it gave me clarity that this relationship had to be diminished in my life in order for me to move forward, in order for me to have any kind of reasonable, happy life. And so I let my mom go. In the sense that I didn't expect anything from her.
[00:16:38] I wasn't going to try to call her every week. And I was never ever going to expect a sorry from her. That was not going to happen and I didn't need it. And the pursuit of that sorry was going to kill me. I found out two years later I had breast cancer. So yeah, all that trauma. Wanting so much for the relationship to work and feeling resentful, angry, bitter, all that, all that shame, um, really does a number on your body.
[00:17:03] And so I'm pretty certain that's one of the reasons I developed three tumors in both sides and had stage two breast cancer. Oh, and so giving that up was good. One person did apologize to me though, and that was my dad. I think it was, uh, when I was in high school and he. At times can be a compassionate man.
[00:17:24] You know, he grew up again with a mom who I shared with you in the previous episode was the daughter of a very well known well off family in Taiwan. Who got, she got disowned literally. She was given away as a baby and sold into a family, poor family where she was a servant. She was a second wife. Her whole life was crap.
[00:17:41] And so of course she was an angry, bitter woman. And so my dad grew up with that. And so he married somebody who was a little bit better than that. Not much, but I call that it's a Stockholm syndrome, right? It's, it's the replacing a really bad kidnapper with a better kidnapper. And people like that in those situations, it's not their fault, but they can't see how bad their current situation is because their previous situation was even worse.
[00:18:03] And so they keep making excuses why the current situation is okay. And they stay and that's completely my father. Any case, he had moments where he could come out of that. And he apologized to me when I was in high school. And he said this Jeannie, you know, I'm sorry that mom and dad have fought so much and that we have made it so hard for you to study.
[00:18:34] At that moment, I was so conflicted. On one hand, I was flabbergasted that my dad had compassion for me and that he was paying attention to me after one of their fights, because usually when parents are fighting, they're in so much pain themselves that my dad would leave the house. My mom would leave the house.
[00:18:50] I'd be alone for days. I, you know, there'd be, um, Broken glass, broken everything around the house. There was a hole in the garage at one point. These were violent fights. And I was scared out of my mind. Because part of it was I was supposed to hide this from other people, right? We were very, uh, hot. What is it?
[00:19:08] Perfect on the inside. We look good on paper. We tried to look good to the public. No one knew that my parents had these issues. And no one at school knew that I had this kind of a family life. Because I was your perfect student. I looked like the perfect kid at school. I had perfect grades. He apologized, but it didn't have the effect.
[00:19:25] I thought it would. I felt this big ball of anger and resentment and helplessness and betrayal because what mattered to him was the grades. Maybe he didn't intend it that way, but that's all I felt was I'm only important to you because of the grades. What about me as a person? Do you know what this has done to me as a person?
[00:19:50] I felt at one point in my life. That I was a bad daughter, I was a bad wife, I was a bad mom, and I was a bad employee because I wasn't getting the bonuses and the respect and the praise or the salary I wanted. And because of all those internal beliefs, I said sorry almost every few minutes. I was having lunch with a good friend of mine right at my lowest point before I got cancer and I was separated from my husband and I was just talking to her about stuff.
[00:20:22] She said, do you know how many times you've said, sorry in the last half an hour? I said, no, I don't even realize it. But when I started observing myself over the next few week, few weeks, I realized I said sorry as an opener for everyday conversations. Sorry, can I ask you a question? Sorry, I won't be able to help you do that.
[00:20:44] Oh, I'm sorry. Just by bumping into someone at Safeway. What about you? Have you noticed that you use sorry almost the same way you'd use excuse me, or I have a question, or can I ask something? If that's the case, you might have some leftover unfinished business that is keeping your confidence suppressed. And I'm going to show you how to start getting rid of this.
[00:21:10] In the second half of our show, before we start the second half of this episode, if you're of Asian descent and you want to discover what your personal biggest roadblock is to success, go ahead and take the free quiz at asiansbreakingceiling. com. If you're liking this podcast, be sure to leave a review for me at Podchaser.com and then follow me on Instagram @ jeannychai so you can be notified whenever a new episode drops. Now let's get back to our show.
[00:21:46] Take a moment. And think about all the situations in which you apologize unnecessarily. When you're five minutes late to a meeting because your last one went long, do you automatically say, sorry, I'm here now. When you need to ask a question for clarification, do you say, sorry, could you repeat yourself?
[00:22:08] When you can't help someone finish a task because it's really not your responsibility. Do you say sorry? I won't be able to help you in all of these situations. You have not done anything wrong and in Asian culture We have this very humble self discipline Deprecating self effacing mannerism that actually works.
[00:22:29] If you ever watch Japanese businessmen working together, there's this very humble demeanor. You put an Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, not it works. If you're working in an eastern corporate environment, but in America, let me tell you, or in Canada or in a western environment, that's not going to serve you because you come across weak.
[00:22:46] You come across as if you're doing something wrong. It takes away your executive presence. It takes away your assertiveness. It takes away your ability to look like a leader. You look like a loser instead. And I've seen this over and over again. This affects women definitely much more than it ever affects men.
[00:23:07] Start watching how the VP, the CEOs around you, the top executives speak. Do you, how often do they apologize for things? Right. I'm not saying they shouldn't, but every time we do it, it gives the appearance. of some kind of weakness. And again, the people who are listening to this podcast, my dear ceiling breakers, you are not the kind of people who backstab you do not go and steal people's work.
[00:23:32] You do not try to cut corners. You do not try to take other people's work when you really didn't do anything. You're the kind of person that's actually moral, that has integrity, that does more than you need to, that is intelligent, right? That takes one for the team. You're not the one that needs to be apologizing yet.
[00:23:52] If you have this habit, what is this doing to your reputation? I have a great story for you. I love this restaurant called Din Tai Fung. I live in the Silicon Valley area and this restaurant came to Valley Fair mall many, many years ago. And because I, One of my values is efficiency and I'm not very patient.
[00:24:13] I didn't want to wait in the long lines and every year I went, every time I went there'd be lines of people, the wait was an hour, two hours. So I waited about a year and a half to finally get a seat. And I think I had to wait 40 minutes. So I was super excited because you've got people making these gorgeous little xiaolongbao, little steamed dumplings, and the skin is so thin.
[00:24:31] Anyway, really, really high reputation for seeding it. So I was excited. I went by myself. So I got to a stage of my life where I can go to movies dancing and eating by myself and don't feel shame or stupid. Like people are watching me going, Oh, loser. She doesn't have a friend or she's single. So I was excited and I sat at the bar and this cute little Asian waitress comes up to me.
[00:24:52] She goes, sorry, here's your menu. Okay. And then she brings my water out later. She goes, I'm sorry. We're a bit short staff today. Okay, no worries, no worries. And then she seats another cute little couple next to me and I hear her apologizing to them. And she says, here you go, sorry, we're a little bit short staffed.
[00:25:10] And by her third or fourth apology, I'm starting to doubt. I'm thinking, did I pick a terrible day to come? Because She keeps apologizing and I started to get nervous and I think I heard her apologize three or four more times later. So the meal itself was phenomenal. It was everything I wanted. I got chili oil wontons.
[00:25:31] They were phenomenal. The little, little xiaolongbao were the Best I ever had the soup inside. The soup dumplings were amazing. Everything was perfect. I had a beautiful experience, except this waitress had apologized a dozen times. And at one point in my experience, I thought, shit, I should have come on a different day and I was getting upset and angry at the restaurant for daring to, I don't know, have a subpar experience for me when I'd waited for so long to experience them, but it, but it was all in my head because why, because this little waitress.
[00:26:03] Had put a seed in there of doubt. And when you are a wonderful, intelligent, competent, high achieving woman, and you apologize unnecessarily, what you're doing is constantly putting the seed of doubt into your boss, your teammates, your executives, even your partner, or even your kids or anybody at the grocery store that you are effing up, that something is wrong with you.
[00:26:28] And they see you differently and you're creating an environment where in which you will not be as respected in which people might think something is your fault. And so if you are living in Western corporate America, absolutely. In your, in your workplace, in your career, start noticing when you say, sorry, instead of saying, sorry, I can't help you or sorry, I'm late.
[00:26:49] They thank you for waiting, or I won't be able to help you on this. Maybe Sue or. Leslie can help you instead. You can take away the sorry, and still speak without giving your power away. Another reason constantly apologizing is self sabotage is that whatever we say, whatever we hear and believe on a regular basis is constantly training our brain.
[00:27:16] And so if you're constantly saying wonderful things to yourself, praise, pride, compliments, You're training your brain to like yourself. If you are constantly believing criticisms, like last week, you should have done this earlier. You should have figured this out. Oh, you should have known that I told you so.
[00:27:35] Or if you're constantly apologizing, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Your brain doesn't get context. All it hears is someone apologizing all day and it's training yourself to feel like something's wrong, that you're making mistakes. And so you're unintentionally. Training yourself to be less and less confident every time you say, sorry, this must stop.
[00:28:00] Do you know who really needs an apology? It's yourself. Those of us who are apologetic, overly apologetic, unnecessarily. The reality is. We have lived in anxiety. We have lived in fear of our own capabilities. We are such people pleasers that we're always watching out for other people, aren't we? We're more concerned about the opinions of others, whether we're letting them down, whether we made them happy or not.
[00:28:28] And we're not very good at tuning into ourselves and what we need. I learned this painfully. It was only after. I was going through chemotherapy and I was living by myself in an apartment that I started to have this understanding that all the time I'd spent trying to please my mom, my ex husband, all the teachers that my kids had, and, and all the volunteering I did, all my friends, all that was unnecessary.
[00:28:57] I was trying to make the world happy when in reality, I could have spent that time looking at myself, loving myself. and taking care of me and making myself happy. And so I'm guessing my dear ceiling breaker, that you are similar. If you're listening to this podcast, that you've disconnected from your dreams, your wants, what really matters to you, what's really important to you and you have forgotten how to make yourself happy.
[00:29:28] And so the person that needs the apology, is yourself. You're the one that needs to be apologized to. And so I have, I have an exercise, an affirmation for you.
[00:29:42] Dear Ceiling Breaker, I'm sorry that when you were a little girl, you didn't get to sit on someone's lap. And know every day that you were special, that you were a gift, and that you liked in life, whether you had Intelligence in math or not, whether you were going to be a doctor or not, you were unconditionally loved.
[00:30:12] Any parent would have loved you because you were perfectly and wonderfully made. And I'm sorry that at a young age, you lost your confidence. Because you were too loud or too noisy or too busy or too active, or you did something to bother an adult and they made you feel like you were a burden. I'm sorry that you weren't perfect and that you spilled milk or you ate slow.
[00:30:37] Or you, you, you had a moment of disobedience and the punishment was so great that you took all the blame. I'm sorry that you had so much pressure. Responsibility as a kid, that maybe some of you were helping your parents to translate their insurance papers, and you knew it was an adult's job, but no one else could speak English, and so you were doing it as a young girl.
[00:31:03] And you had an overwhelming sense of responsibility and the need to not make a mistake. And that anxiety and that level of pressure has stayed with you all these years and you can never relax and never shut down. I'm sorry that all these things made you feel like you are not enough. And even to this day, you're constantly trying to prove yourself and to demonstrate that you are enough.
[00:31:30] I'm sorry that it feels like there's no finish line for you, that no matter how much you accomplish and how much you do, you still feel like there's the next activity now that's waiting for you. I am sorry that you've had a tendency to keep proving yourself and work for very difficult people in companies with very high standards, and that you have felt your self worth comes from grades and promotions and performance reviews, never realizing that you were a And you have felt pressure year after year, month after month of running a race that has no finish line.
[00:32:08] It's almost like a nightmare. And I'm sorry that you haven't had a chance, an opportunity, an outlet for your creativity. The side of you that likes to paint and draw and dance and sing and be with people and create beautiful things. She hasn't had a chance to live. And you've almost forgotten that part of yourself.
[00:32:31] And I'm sorry that you haven't been promoted. And that you've been overworked and undervalued and you still work hard thinking that something's going to change. And now you're realizing that if I want to see change. I need to do something about it. And finally, this is the year that you've realized I get to take ownership and that I no longer need to live by default.
[00:32:53] I'm sorry that no one taught you about agency and how to empower you and it has caused a lot of years of unfulfillment. A lot of years of stress, anxiety, insomnia, even resentment. Wasting time. I'm sorry that as you've moved up the corporate ladder. You never get the sense that you've made it, that you feel proud of yourself, that you feel like, yeah, I, it's time for me to celebrate.
[00:33:22] It's time for me to feel good, but that day hasn't come because you just keep raising the bar and now the stakes are even higher. The pressure is greater, the visibility is even higher and now you have to perform even more. I'm sorry for you that the pressure never lets up and I'm sorry that because of the way you grew up you have a tendency to stay and work with people who don't respect you and don't treat you well and instead of leaving those relationships you have a habit of making excuses for that person.
[00:33:59] And you try so hard to make their lives better. You try through your actions, through your words, through sacrificing your own time, through self abandonment of your own activities to make these other people happy. It's never enough. They don't really praise you or thank you. They don't appreciate you feel so alone I'm sorry that you've tried so many ways besides work to find validation to find that you finally matter and realize that you're finally enough because you've been looking in the wrong places and You've been trying to find value and meaning through men, through relationships, through work, through volunteering, through beauty, even through shopping and none of those have been enough and you're tired and still you are humble and you over apologize and you don't have to do that anymore.
[00:35:04] I'm here to tell you, you are approved already. There is a natural beauty and a value about you that can never be taken away, that no one else can steal or diminish. And what you want to do is give yourself a hug, apologize to yourself for all the ways that you have bullied yourself in saying, I'm not smart.
[00:35:28] I'm not enough. I don't have the degrees and the certifications yet. You need to apologize to yourself and accept that it wasn't your fault when you didn't get promoted. It wasn't your fault when you got yelled at or took the blame over and over again for things at work that weren't even your fault.
[00:35:53] You are actually an amazing human being and you are given permission right now to give yourself a hug and to take your power back. And to realize all those apologies were unnecessary and you're cleared, your name, your reputation is cleared. You are a badass in the making and we've got to brush off that dust so that the confidence can come back.
[00:36:22] The joy can come back and the real you gets to live again and you start this by stop apologizing Monday morning. You stop apologizing to your partner, you stop apologizing to your kids, everybody. Just by existing, you don't have to be apologetic for your existence anymore because you know what, every child is born proud of themselves.
[00:36:43] They go, look, mommy, look what I did. And if you are not confident, it's because your environment and people in your life took that away intentionally or not doesn't matter, but it's not your fault. And it is your birthright to come back and to be strong, to feel confident, to feel excited, to feel hopeful, to feel proud of yourself every day.
[00:37:05] Cause I just started living like this seven years ago and I know in my being, this is how we were meant to live because the other way where we feel like a piece of crap, just waking up. We were never meant to live like that. And you get a choice today to believe the truth. And to finally unravel your wings, come out of that cocoon of suffering and pain, and be the real butterfly badass woman that you truly are.
[00:37:33] Because I'm telling you the truth. And I have done this for over 300 women. I've done this for myself. I'm doing this for my own children. And helping them realize all the shame. Any embarrassment, any feelings of I wasn't good enough or people didn't care has nothing to do with you. You are a miracle. You are beautiful.
[00:37:53] You are a light. Let's dust off all the cobwebs and let's get you to start living. Yeah? Apologize to yourself for all the ways that you have waited and waited and waited for this moment. And rise up my dear ceiling breaker. This is your day. This is your day to rise up because I'm telling you the truth that you no longer have to live like this.
[00:38:15] You were meant to live with confidence and excitement and motivation. And you were allowed to wake up every morning and feel the joy of fulfillment. Feel the joy that you're going to have a successful day because you finally know how to direct your life and you are confident. And you're not apologetic anymore for anything in your life because all that matters is the light that you have within you, the talents, the skills that are waiting to shine, that are waiting to create and make a huge impact on the world.
[00:38:47] And that can be unleashed if you stop saying sorry and feeling any sort of apology for things that Never were your fault.
[00:39:04] Week nine is going to be about guilt. And finally, how to overcome things that we still feel guilty for, whether it's been two years, a few months or years and years in the past, we must let go of things that still make us feel shame, make us feel like we're not good enough. And we made big unrecoverable mistakes.
[00:39:22] When you learn the secret of how to handle guilt, both for things in the past and things in the present, you will definitely see your confidence rise to the surface and. Open new opportunities for you. I'm excited for this next episode. So I'll see you next week. And so ladies, if you've enjoyed this episode, please follow me on Instagram at Jeannie Chai.
[00:39:45] If you've liked this episode, please leave a review for me at podchaser. com. And please more importantly, tell your friends, your colleagues. And people you love about this podcast so that we can reach as many Asian American women and their allies so that we can really experience authentic success without the stress.