Sum On Sleeve Podcast

All of us know at least a dozen people who do not share all of our beliefs. With over 7 billion of us, there is bound to be conflict. I can agree to disagree on topics like the correct way of hanging toilet paper or whether pineapple is an acceptable pizza topping (it is, btw).

The bottom line is that if the point of contention isn’t something close to my heart, I’m not going to fight over it. I don’t like camping, drinking, online shopping, watching sports or doing anything in the snow. I don’t care if you do and won’t bat an eye if you try to convince me otherwise.

But I can’t stand being around a person who has beliefs that I used to hold. I’ve spent years unlearning and shedding them through painful experiences, growth and adversity. So when I interact with someone who has these old beliefs, I can’t help but feel haunted. Then I’m angry at myself for letting something that I thought I’d grown from affect me.

I’m a recovering perfectionist who is trying to accept her flaws and own her shortcomings. Perfectionism is in my blood; I get upset when I’m not good at embracing my imperfections. It’s like, “Why can’t I be good at forgiving myself? Letting go? Accepting mistakes? Treating myself with compassion?”

In my head, I know certain thoughts and beliefs don’t serve me, that I’ve evolved from my past self. But in my heart, I start questioning how far I’ve actually come. Perhaps I haven’t changed? Perhaps my transformation is back to square one? Perhaps these beliefs still hold me under, drowning me in a sea of insecurities and poor self-esteem.

So I’m writing down a list of old beliefs that I’ve learned to detach from over the past decade. Bringing these to the surface and exposing them to you and the world gives me something tangible to revisit and validate my efforts. Also, reading these out loud makes them seem ridiculous…almost to the brink of satire.

Listening is a life skill. Everyone knows that.

We’ve all seen self-help gurus, thought leaders, TED talks, psychologists and the latest news and research share how we should all be listening more than we speak…especially in a society where attention is scarce and distractions are plentiful. Everything seems to be TL;DR.

Listening skills are crucial for developing strong relationships. I mean it’s hard to make friends when you don’t know anything about them. If all you can hear is your voice throughout your interactions, you don’t have a friend…you have a sounding board.

If you told your partner your deepest darkest secret and they didn’t listen…how would you feel?

Or what if you explicitly tell them that you were deathly allergic to shellfish Then they take you to an all-you-can-eat shrimp fest for your birthday…wouldn’t you be inclined to leave them? Or perhaps watching all those true crime documentaries would have you wondering if they might be plotting your murder?

Listening skills are crucial for work. For instance, if all a teacher did was preach and lecture, how would they know their students are learning? If you didn’t listen to a client’s specifications and needs, how well would your business be?

Do you know what can ruin your day? When the waitress doesn’t listen to your order and adds a prawn chowder to your meal.

But the problem is...

So Listeners, are you a good listener? Do you ever feel burdened by your superpower?

When we accomplish a goal, reach a dream, or win a fortune…how do our past and conditions affect the way we share that type of information?

Recently, I’ve been pondering about how we decide to share the good news we have in our lives. From inflation, global warming, an ongoing war and of course, that pesky pandemic we’re still trudging through…the world seems rather quite bleak right now. Good news can uplift others, inspire and even create more kindness in the world.

But for me, when something good happens, I’m reluctant to scream it out loud at the top of my lungs.

It’s been almost six months since I left my 9–5 job to become a freelance writer. Here are a few things I’ve experienced so far:

The most common and basic rule about being a successful writer is to keep writing. But since starting my freelance writing journey, my desire to write for pay has slowly taken over my desire to write for pleasure.

Before freelancing, I would sit in front of my laptop and write and write until I ran out of time. Like my son would wake up or I would need to get dinner started. Time would fly by because my writing was merely a hobby.

I wasn’t being asked to write an article because I wanted money for it. I was writing for the sake of writing, putting thoughts and feelings down so that I had an outlet to express myself. I was pumping articles out left, right and centre. I didn’t care about how much time I was spending on writing because I wasn’t worried about the dollar amount tied to it.

Now, since I started making some money doing this, I feel like I only want to write when I’m getting paid to do it.

Everyone talks about how we need to keep dreaming, set goals, aim high and work hard. Because if you work hard enough, any dream is possible.

Bleh…I don’t think that provides the full picture. Don’t get me wrong, I love to dream, not only when I’m sleeping. I love visualizing the future of what may be.

What will a year from now look like? 5 years? 10 years? 20? 30?

Where will my new freelance endeavour take me?

Will I become rich and famous and get to meet Oprah?

Will space travel really be affordable and I’ll get to be an astronaut?

What will my kids be interested in as careers?

What will life look like when I’m an empty nester?

It keeps me hopeful and gives me something to look forward to whenever I have to wrestle with my toddler son to put his pants on as his shitty diaper flies across the living room and I’m exhausted from the sleepless night before.

But what people don’t talk about is when goals don’t work out and dreams don’t come true. Not because they didn’t try hard enough or because they gave up too soon…but because it wasn’t the right dream, to begin with.

However, they needed to go through that process of setting the goal, being hopeful and ambitious and then slowly realizing that’s not exactly what they want.

When I was on maternity with my first child, the monotony of routine allowed me to rediscover my passion for writing. As a kid, I wrote stories upon stories, from true, and untrue, to never being told to. It was a way for me to express myself by making those irrational thoughts into concise words and sentences, especially during that rollercoaster journey of becoming a new mother.

This rediscovery has sparked a career shift, aspiring me to become a writer, a dream I never thought I would pursue. So I started thinking about what other dreams I had as a kid and whether any of them would be something I’d like to pursue today.

So here is a list of 8 dreams I had as a kid that I’ve given up on and why.

There are three of us: my eldest sister, my middle sister and me. The relationship I have with my eldest sister is like a snow globe; it stays dormant for most of the year but gets shaken up during the holidays.

My childhood memories of her are patchy, most of which were of her babysitting me and holding my hand while we crossed the street. By the time I started kindergarten, she was a pre-teen thinking about what career she wanted to pursue after high school. I was learning my ABCs.

In this episode, Authentic Energy founder and Body Confidence Coach Jing Fang and I have an open and honest conversation about how our culture affected how we view our bodies. We dive deep into our postpartum journeys and how challenging it was to see our bodies change after pregnancy.

We compare East Asian media with Western media and how each has a different lens of body image. 

We share stories about how our family influenced the way we want to portray ourselves and the shame and honour expectations.

Join us for a heartfelt, casual and inspiring conversation that will help you realize how much our environment affects our body confidence.

Connect with Jing:

After our wedding, I started wearing both my wedding band and the engagement ring. It felt very official like I’m a married woman now. Every morning, like clockwork, I would pop them on my finger before heading for work. I would be typing an email and then I’d look down at my hands and be in awe of my new status.

For years I wore them whenever I went out. I kept wearing them throughout both my pregnancies. But then the pandemic hit and I stopped.

As I entered relationships and became sexually active, I would keep a tally of my partner’s good and bad behaviours. For instance, if my partner did something that made me happy, I would be more inclined to have sex because I felt he deserved it. And if he did something that upset me, I would be less inclined because I felt he didn’t deserve it.

Sex became a reward and withholding it became a punishment, creating a power imbalance in the relationship. Unknowingly, I was objectifying my body by using sex as a weapon to get what I want.

This continued throughout my relationships and into my marriage.

But then something interesting happened that changed the way I viewed sex.

As I finished school and became a young adult, I noticed many non-Asian peers go on self-discovery journeys.

From travelling the world, exposing themselves to different cultures, jumping from job to job, attending personal development seminars, getting (and becoming) life coaches to reading self-improvement books, they were working on themselves to define who they are.

Their value for personal identity put them in pursuit of purpose and meaning while mine led me down a path of further education and a stable job with a healthy pension.

I couldn’t relate. I was told who I was since the day I was born. I didn’t need to find myself. What I struggled with was finding who I wanted to be.

The self-improvement work I needed to do was to create a balance between the collectivist instincts instilled through my upbringing and the individualistic urges influenced by my environment. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. But the traits of each culture conflicted with one another and pulled my identity apart.

When I became a mother, it challenged me to take a stance. Now that I’m in my parents’ position…what do I want to preserve for the next generation? What values, beliefs and priorities do I want to instill in my kids? How certain am I that who I am is who I want to be?

I turned 36 earlier this year. It was a simple celebration with my husband, our kids and a very decadent chocolate cake from Whole Foods. It was perfect.

One of the toughest and daunting parts of being a freelance writer is finding work. As an introvert with a touch of social awkwardness, asking people to hire me isn’t exactly my forte.

However, I’m 3 months into my freelance writing journey and so far, getting clients hasn’t been too much of a headache. Here’s how I landed my first clients without getting too far outside my comfort zone.

I turned 35 this year and as I reflect on all those years of adulthood, I realized how much money I frivolously spent on things I didn’t care about. Maybe if I didn’t spend that, I would be a millionaire by now?

You know, if I had taken every penny I earned from my part-time job in high school and invested it into Google in 2004 (the year I turned 18 and when it IPO’ed), I would be laughing right now.

However, it doesn’t mean I regret spending that money because my 20’s were a time of discovery and experimentation; succumbing to social pressures and trying to prove myself for external validation were parts of being a young adult.

As I grew up, my lifestyle just naturally shifted and I became more true to myself. My spending reflected that transition. Here are 5 things I’ve stopped spending a lot of money on when I hit my 30’s.

I made a decision earlier this year to start freelancing so that I could leave my 9–5 and focus my time doing what I love. So in the last two months, I’ve been side hustling like there’s no tomorrow.

As I continue this adventure, I’ve realized why freelance writing aligns more with who I am, my values, beliefs, lifestyle and priorities than being an employee. Here’s why.

In my late 20’s, I ended an 8-year long relationship. As part of my healing and recovery, I started digging deep into myself about my toxic habits and behaviours. With less time focused on trying to resuscitate a failing relationship, my mind freed up space to dedicate to myself. I realized how terribly I was treating myself.

It’s an ongoing journey but one of the most important insights I discovered about myself is that in order to be happy, I needed to focus my attention on how I was feeling. Eating well and exercising regularly is not about looking good; it’s about feeling good.

What I look like is the least of my concerns if I’m not happy. Putting my mindset on the right path allowed me to truly appreciate my body where weight loss isn’t the goal but a by-product of the journey.

Here are 5 reasons I exercise and eat well that aren’t related to how I look:

Growing up, I struggled to love myself. From social pressures, the media to overly critical family members who constantly compared me to my skinnier peers, I never felt like my body was good enough.

I went on my first diet when I was 8 years old. My plan was to skip breakfast, eat half my lunch and only vegetables for dinner. I failed miserably.

Then as I entered my teen years, I developed an eating disorder that consisted of dangerously restrictive diets, bingeing and purging and extreme workouts. In my young adult years, it became chasing the latest fad diet and buying anything to lose weight. I hated my body and I didn’t know how to love myself from the inside out.

It wasn’t until my late 20’s when I started my recovery journey, completely shifting my mindset and changing how I viewed myself. I stopped yo-yo dieting, emotionally eating, using exercise as punishment whenever I ate a donut and no longer cared about other peoples’ opinions.

Looking back, the part that was driving my desperate desire to lose weight was based on a lack of understanding and awareness about body positivity. This concept didn’t exist during my vulnerable years of adolescence. Without being properly informed, I filled in the gaps with toxic beliefs to feel good in my skin. Here are 3 myths about body positivity that I used to believe in.

When I first started blogging in 2017, I had no idea where it was going to lead me. I was a new mom who was working her 9–5 and trying to find some balance at home. Writing became my source of reason and means of therapy.

Jump forward 3 years later and I’m at home on my second maternity leave, changing my son’s poopy diapers. I knew I was going back to my 9–5 but I also knew I didn’t want to do that forever. I wanted to figure out how to turn this hobby into a dream career.

After having a fight with my husband in front of our kids, I wasn’t able to do what my daughter wanted me to. I felt like I was repeating my parents’ behaviour but this incident inspires me to keep trying to be a better person.

Experiencing new cultures and immersing myself in the day-to-day life of people who grew up in a different environment than me is one of my favourite ways to learn and grow. Travelling helps boost my creativity, practice empathy and broadens my horizons.

And when I return home, finishing the adventure allows me to truly appreciate where I live and practice gratitude for the simplest things I have.

But would I do it as a way of life? Like the growing number of digital nomads who work and live remotely in faraway lands?

Nope. Why?

This article is not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. I’m only sharing what worked for me and my opinions. I highly recommended you seek professional advice from someone who is authorized to provide investment advice.

I started with $5000 as an experiment to make $100. How I made $3500 trading stocks with no finance background.

When I first started blogging, I had no idea who was going to read my stuff. It was a space for me to express myself, put feelings into words and make sense of what was going on for me as a mom.

4 years later, I’ve had distant family members, anonymous strangers, friends of friends, folks I used to go to school with, and old coworkers reach out to me, praising me for what I’ve written. It’s amazing how the power of the Internet and my affinity for words can connect folks across the world from all walks of life.

As part of this writing journey, I’ve noticed that most of the folks who have reached out are higher up on the six degrees of separation. Those who are close to me don’t say much and I actually prefer to keep it that way.

I’ve discovered something about myself when I procrastinate. I delay things because I’m not scared of the consequences. The immediate gratification of looking at one more cat meme seems like a higher priority than typing up this article. I have rose-coloured glasses that make me feel invincible to the looming chaos.

After giving birth, a mother's body doesn't just magically go back to the way it was. How did I manage to lose the baby weight after 2 kids? Here are 4 habits I adopted.

Can you make money with self-published books?

I've written on Medium for years and I never thought my partner earnings would increase to the 3 digits. Here are the 3 things I did to reach this.

I’ve been writing on Medium for over 3 years. At first, it started as just another avenue to get folks to read my stuff. I published here and there, not thinking much would happen. I rarely logged in and when I did, I would basically dump a bunch of old blog posts, schedule them out throughout the month and didn’t bother to check who’s read what. I’m a mom of 2 who works full-time so this was merely a place to express myself with zero expectations to make money from this.

What motivates us to want to write? It's about asking ourselves tough questions. What does motivation mean to me? Why do I want to write?

A writer’s block, burnout, and a lack of creativity are just some of the common struggles a writer experiences during the week. Pile on some rejection (from clients, publications, a mean troll), no one reading our stuff and a fear of putting ourselves out there again, it’s no wonder writers find it tough to keep going.

However, we pick ourselves up again and again, trudging along that writer’s path, discovering moments of creativity, bursts of inspiration, stories of greatness and at times, lulls of mediocrity.

From kindergarten to university, I spent over half my life in school. Do I regret my decision? Was it a waste of time or time well wasted? It's about seeing the life skills I acquired from years of study.