[00:00:00] Welcome to Asians breaking ceilings. I'm Jeanny Chai, founder of BambooMyth.Com and confidence coach for multicultural 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.
[00:00:22] We're going to teach you how to decide, create, and ask for what you want in your career without apology or guilt. I'll be sharing all the secrets I learned about how to transform from an overwhelmed people pleasing young girl who lost her confidence when she moved to America from Taiwan. Was shamed by her family by not going to med school and finally becoming the confident, happy, successful mom and entrepreneur that I am today.
[00:00:49] New solo episodes are released every week on Sunday evenings at 5 p. m. Pacific. There will be an occasional guest as well as audience coaching opportunities. You can find Asians Breaking Ceilings anywhere podcasts are hosted on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and Google Podcasts. Subscribe, go to AsiansBreakingCeilings.Com to be notified of new episodes. So let's start today's show so you can break free and start experiencing authentic success without the stress.
[00:01:25] I can't believe that my podcast has launched because again, this has been at least 10 years in the making. I remember way back when I was still in corporate America thinking, I have a side hustle dream. And just like so many others of you, this is an encouragement for you to go and do what it is that you have on your mind to do, because the energy that I feel, the fulfillment, the impact in my life is so great.
[00:01:53] It is better than anything else. And I believe that we are all created with a purpose, with a mission. And when we discover that, if we keep delaying it, we are losing energy. We are losing confidence. So I encourage every one of you who has a dream to go try it. Let's overcome that fear of failure or fear of success that's so prominent in Asian circles. And I'm happy to support you in that.
[00:02:17] But this is a thank you episode for the groups, the people who have been so crucial in helping to launch this podcast. And first I want to thank Ascend, the API organization that is working to make it known and to bring communities together and to train.
[00:02:37] AAPIs for success. Thank you to Anna Mock, who I got to meet, who's this wonderful, amazing woman, uh, leading Ascend. Thank you to Buck Gee and Denise Peck, who have done so many articles and research on what the truth is exactly. Without their thought leadership. We would all be thinking there is no problem, or we'd each probably be blaming ourselves, thinking that we're not enough, or it's our communication, or our English, or my gap in my skills.
[00:03:09] And not realizing that this is a cultural problem in terms of lack of representation at the executive level. So thank you so much for your work.
[00:03:19] Denise, especially, I appreciate your kindness in supporting me in giving me opportunities to grow. I love your heart. I love you so much.
[00:03:28] And I thank you for the bravery that you've had in being inspirational to me and setting out in my own work.
[00:03:36] And Win Chang, I remember you were one of the first women I talked to, and I was so inspired by just how one person can make a huge difference. And we shared stories about how at your ERG at Oracle, people being involved in that felt the sense of belonging and a sense of community that many of them who were thinking about leaving the company decided that they were going to stay because they now felt a sense of belonging.
[00:04:00] of community. And that is what I want to create. And that's the inspiration for me to be a beacon out here for people who do feel like they're alone and feel like they are not living up to their potential and having a place to go where we can support each other instead of competing with each other for positions.
[00:04:20] I also want to thank Jane Hyun, who, bravely and iconically wrote a book called Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling, Career Strategies for Asians in 2005, and giving all of us, finally, words and a story to understand our own experiences in corporate America. Um, Every Asian I know has heard of the term bamboo ceiling, and thanks to Jane, we have this ability to communicate and to grow and to change, and we're not stagnant. So grateful so much for your leadership there, Jane.
[00:04:59] And I want to thank also Renessa Lane, who was one of my first coaches. She went through so much because I had imposter syndrome. Obviously I had imposter syndrome when I first started working in this area, wanting to be my own coach and, and doing talks and workshops.
[00:05:16] And I kept saying, why me? I don't know anything. And she tirelessly coached me day after day, week after week. I think I quit every single week and she just somehow patiently. Uh, encouraged me to keep going and I am forever grateful, Renessa. I don't know that I have the patience to coach somebody else with my level of imposter syndrome, but I am so grateful to you.
[00:05:38] Big hugs. I know that was a divine. Matchmaking. That was a divine appointment for me to meet you, and I'm so grateful to you. I wanna thank some people who don't know me yet. , Brene Brown. I love your work. You're talk about vulnerability and not being ashamed anymore. Help me to come outta my shell and to get braver and braver so that as someone who grew up who was supposed to be a boy and didn't have confidence at all, instilled in her was so scared to even speak.
[00:06:09] Uh, when I was five or six years old has, has completely turned the corner and is now able to express herself in a bad ass way. I, I've read a lot of your books and of course, watched your TED talk multiple times. And thank you so much for leading the way for women to be vulnerable and, for all of us to get in the arena.
[00:06:27] And I want to thank a couple of. Actors and actresses who, I am so happy, I'm in my 50s now, and when I grew up in Illinois in the 1980s, all I knew was Connie Chung, there were a handful of Asian actors and actresses, but they were all in kung fu movies, or they played the Really stereotypical foreign exchange student that didn't build our confidence as teenagers and only got us laughed at in school.
[00:06:56] Um, I am so grateful for Michelle Yeoh and for Ke Huy Quan, who have demonstrated their quality, demonstrated their integrity, their persistence as amazing human beings, doing what they're good at, what they're talented at, and in winning the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor awards this year, that I believe was a huge catalyst in me finally getting my courage up to say, screw it, forget it.
[00:07:23] The imposter syndrome. Stop worrying about what people think. Go and do what you love to do. , finally, the push to, to get my podcast launched, though I've been taking notes and writing little segments for the last seven years, I finally got it done and I have you to thank. Although you're in Hollywood and I'm in corporate America, a different industry, what you do has inspired us and I hope that, as you said, Michelle, All the little girls who look like you can, can go out there and finally be themselves.
[00:07:54] I'm so emotional because, uh, this is, this has been a long, a long time in the making for, I talked to thousands of Asian American women and a lot of us are stuck in our, in our places of, uh, Imposter syndrome. And if we were all freed up, we could do so much. We would be so proud of ourselves and there'd be so much community.
[00:08:16] So that is my hope. That is my prayer as we all move forward in this endeavor together that each of us would have the bravery, the courage, the conviction to finally go ahead and be who we are. Not pretend to be someone less than we are because of our cultural norms. And what a great generation this is going to be.
[00:08:39] Thanks for joining me today on Asians Breaking Ceilings. If you've enjoyed this episode, please do leave me a written review at Podchaser.com and don't forget to follow me on Instagram @JeannyChai so that you can be empowered and inspired to discover your own authentic success without the stress.