Hi, welcome back to Eat Your Crest podcast, I'm Crystal, I'm Jisoo, and I'm Lindsay.
Today we have a very exciting guest, her name is Lindsay, and she has very, very, I would say to us much more of a unique background, and we have a fun episode planned ahead.
So Lindsey, how about you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Yes, I'm so excited to be here and honored to be unique in any capacity.
I'm Lindsey, I am Asian American, I'm 29 years old, and I guess first and foremost, I'm a writer in Hollywood.
So that's technically my vocation, but maybe what you're referring to in terms of the uniqueness is that it's led me down this road of really evaluating my ambition and my dreams and self -love and a lot of the things that I've had to make a part of my life in order to keep this dream and this occupation alive.
And we know in the Asian American experience that ambition is not a foreign experience to us, but in the arts, I think it's definitely straddling a different kind of line.
And so what I would just say is from the dawn of my consciousness, I have defined myself for better and for worse by my ambition and by my massive dreams. And it's really been a hell of a rollercoaster through the twenties finding that balance to still be ambitious, still believe in myself, but ultimately come from a more grounded, self -loving place of knowing my own worth, which is why I also created my podcast, which is called YouFounder, which I'm sure we'll talk about more as well.
But so excited to be here.
Awesome. And Lindsay, I think you alluded to a lot of what we'll be talking about in today's episode in your intro.
All three of us are currently in our late twenties and I feel like this is a very interesting stage in life where I definitely feel more self -assured and more confident than I was in my early twenties.
But at the same time, there's a lot of things that I am still unlearning, still figuring out and really working on to try to set my next few decades of life up for success.
And I think a lot of that is rooted in self -love and the antithesis of self -love, which is negative self -talk.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's start us there and talk about identifying negative self -talk.
How does this manifest for you?
When do you see this pop up the most and what does that kind of look like for you right now?
Well, I would say that first and foremost, one thing to know about me and my overachieving for better and for worse journey is that really, I think the wound that I have, that I know lot of overachieving people have is you're placing your worth on exterior validation, exterior gain.
And that can look so many different ways.
Obviously, there's the overachievers in school.
It's in your career, it can just be social media, whatever you place value in.
And I would say that my negative self -talk really came in the form of, and I felt normalized in like AP, iB culture, hustle culture, is working yourself to the bone, but really a shame -driven narrative.
So, like, you set a metric for your success, whether it's, I'm gonna get into Stanford, or I'm gonna get this certain job at this tech company.
Or in my case, it's like, I'm gonna be 25 or 26 when I become a staff writer in a TV show in Hollywood.
And by age 30, I'm gonna hit the metric of selling my own TV show.
And when we're overachievers and perfectionists, these metrics tend to be damn near impossible, really impressive, like, you're really pushing yourself to the limit.
And what I've found in my self -talk, there's just a complete lack of self -compassion when those metrics are not hit.
It can create a very shame -spiraling self -talk story that's exacerbated by social media that's exacerbated by the general sense of comparison that so many people in their 20s feel.
And just being really gnarly and judgmental about your flaws and your inadequacies, depending on what you place value on.
And for me, I've noticed that my pattern was to basically set almost impossible metrics.
Sometimes I would hit them.
And by the way, I think what's important when we talk about negative self -talk is to acknowledge that every emotion or thing we engage with, even if it is quote, unquote negative, serves us in some way, even if it's maladaptive.
So like just acknowledging that on some level, a lot of ambitious people have been served by kind of shaming themselves into overwork, anxious overdoing.
And you have achieved things as a result.
So you think that, okay, well, it's worked for me.
I got into that school, I got that job.
Gotta keep feeding this beast. But the risk that you run of course, is continuing to reach new metrics, new summits of success and never really feeling enough.
That's the pattern that I certainly encountered in my twenties of feeling like I'm on this hamster wheel of never enoughness, even though ostensibly like successes are happening in my resume, which is why I was like, okay, the issue is obviously not external.
The issue is obviously internal.
let's look at this self -talk.
And once I started doing, let's say, intensive therapy and just calling upon every podcast, every book, and making that my business from my early 20s, I realized the self -talk is not pretty.
And it's not for a lot of us.
We are so hard on ourselves.
There are definitely a few things we can talk about in terms of revamping that self -talk.
But that's what it's looked like for me.
You don't hit the metric.
And you're like, Oh my God, you're just not good enough.
You know, you could have worked harder.
You're a failure for not reaching that you overestimated or underestimated the that you had to do.
And it can get really nasty.
Yeah. Honestly, that is such a good point, especially about the shame or the fact that we drive ourselves with a lot of negativity.
It's not really supporting ourselves positively.
It's like, wow, you couldn't even do that.
That kind of talk. It's like, you're so pathetic.
You couldn't even figure out how to do that.
Look at everybody else who's figuring out how to do that.
And you tried your hardest and it's still not enough.
how embarrassing, right?
It's like, who would you talk to anyone you love that way...
not in a thousand years.
And I honestly felt like I was reflecting a lot about, I guess, my work style in the past year or two because I was like, you know, I feel like I procrastinate a lot and I really need to fix this issue.
And I talked about it with therapists and I really took a hard look at how I was working too.
And I realized a lot of it was very similar, right?
Driven by negativity or shame, oh you need to finish this, or else you suck kind of.
If you don't finish this then maybe you'd get fired because that's the thing that needs to get done.
Instead of it being, oh you need to finish this and that can improve other projects or other things at work, it's just all mostly driven by this cycle of negativity.
And that is not encouraging, that just further drives the procrastination because then it's like, once I get to finish this, it's not a prize that I'm getting.
It's just a... at least you don't suck.
Right. What a horrible way to live, you know?
You're just at a constant deficit and a constant place of what we know is scarcity mindset.
And it's like, where is the contentment?
In this model, you don't ever get to have it.
Exactly. Who would want that for themselves?
But I do feel in a way this is like what the twenties have been for, at least for me is some things you can only learn the hard way.
And I feel like, this is the lesson that has taken me the longest to learn.
It's like five, six, seven, eight times across the twenties.
I'm like, okay, wait a second.
I've been here before.
Clearly, I'm not learning this lesson.
It's a hard one to learn.
It totally is. And I feel like sometimes for something like this, where you are so used to negative self talk, exposure therapy has been very helpful for me where sometimes I would see a friend maybe thinking or saying the same thing that I would tell myself, and would be so shocked like don't ever talk to yourself like that you know, you're so beautiful and this and that and then you start to wonder like why am I so okay with saying and thinking these things to myself but I would never want a friend or family member to do that to themselves.
Oh yeah, I had an experience recently where I was talking to another content creator and we have a similar following, similar kind of niche and we were just talking about the struggles that come with doing this and posting every day and growing or following whatever she was like what have you doing to cope.
And then I said, well, the truth is, do you ever just like go on other people's pages, you see how fast they're growing, you see are they intrinsically more talented at this, or are they intrinsically better?
And I just saw her beautiful, worthy face.
And I was like, what, why am I casting my poison upon her?
Because like, she doesn't deserve this.
And I just, I felt like this protection over her, like, why would I ever expose her to these kinds of nasty, lowly thoughts that are okay for me.
And then I paused myself and I was like, why is that okay?
For me? You know, I have like a natural reverence toward anybody else.
But yeah, when it comes to our own sick heads or whatever, it's like there's this relentless sense of you can handle it, you need to keep beating yourself down.
And if you don't, insert the fear, you confront your fear of failure, you confront your fear of worthlessness, like not being lovable, that's really what lies at the bottom of everything, but we could see ourselves with the same basic decency and love that we see, our closest people, well, that would be a different world.
It's crazy how we're always the first to jump up and be supportive for close friends and loved ones.
And then also the first to beat yourself down pretty much. Yeah.
Something else I noticed, I recently did an episode on my podcast about self criticism specifically.
I gave like a self -criticism test, and you know I failed that test. In this self -criticism diagnostic, one of the things is like when you fail, or you perceive some kind of setback, do you kind of feel like you're alone?
One, and two, that other people are doing better off than you.
It's this sense of I go down, which means other people go up, or vice versa.
They go up which means I go down.
It's like a weird psychological thing that happens.
And that's, I absolutely suffer from that.
If I'm in the midst of some kind of comparison cycle, I'm like, not only did I do poorly in this situation, but I know everyone else is doing better.
They would have handled this better.
It's like pushing myself further into this, like, abject self -pity.
What is that? I don't know.
In some sick way, I think it's the brain just trying to control, trying to find an answer, trying to do anything to, like, control the story out of this situation.
It is wild. I can totally relate to that and I feel like the twisted way that I feel it sometimes too is in my moments of really big insecurities and when I'm really not feeling good about myself I find myself being more of a hater sometimes too.
It's like a double -edged sword. I'll be a hater and also be like ah but still this person is so much better than me and it's like what am I even thinking?
It's like I'm thinking the worst of every situation and I can't catch a break.
totally I'm so quick to just if some unlikely situation like if I'm at my least healthy like let's say I hear that a friend in my 20s I have been plenty of times insecure about I'm gonna find my person am I gonna fall in love like whatever looking outside of myself for that and then I'll hear about some friend of mine who I know is not intrinsically more evolved or like more connected with their self -love but then they'll meet somebody and I will automatically assume well, they're going to fall in love.
And they're going to disappear.
And they're going to get married next year.
And I'm going to be all alone.
And this is clearly proof that it's all going to shift for me.
It's terrible. But it's just like that's what anxiety is, you know, you're trying to play out the worst case scenario.
So you can like prepare yourself for it.
But that is something now when I can feel that happening in my career or like some deadline announcement to just pause and be like, let's stop that little scurrying rodent in your head from like digging that hole deeper, challenge your narrative, ask yourself, can you really truly ascertain that what you're thinking is true?
Do you know it's true?
And what would it look like to not pass judgment on that situation and accept that the story is still unfolding, you do not have all the information.
That's step one. And then step two is then coming from a place of self compassion, very challenging for those who haven't practiced it before.
But it's so worthwhile rather than scarcity, competition, jealously, you know what I mean.
Like these are some of the choices that we all have, but sometimes we just unravel and it gets away from us.
And I kind of want to make a call back to the point you brought up earlier about the self -criticism diagnostic thing, where you said if other people are improving, that makes you feel like you're de -proving I guess.
Right, You didn't reach something that makes it feel like other people rose because of that.
I gave it a thought and I'm like, yeah, that is actually so applicable.
Even to your example of someone getting into a relationship and say, you're not in a relationship that feels like, oh, am I falling behind?
This other person is about to like get married even though they just got into this relationship like one day ago.
Or even at work when it's like, other people are switching companies or like getting new rules or like getting promoted.
And it starts to feel like, oh, does that mean that I'm falling behind?
So I can totally see where this narrative inserts itself into so many different parts of life.
Yes, yes, it's really, we're all storytelling, we're creating an oftentimes fictional narrative based off of limited information.
And it's asking yourself, why are you willing to assume the absolute best case almost delusionally so scenario for everyone else.
But when it comes to you and your future, you're choosing the cruelest, most scarce scenario.
What's up with that?
What does that say about you?
And like when I've talked about this in my therapy, it's been that, you know, oftentimes when we're younger, right, in our formative years of childhood and adolescence, if you were taught or conditioned to see yourself as categorically other, that at least that's my situation, you were bullied, or at some point you internalized a story even from one person, maybe it was your best friend, maybe it was your mom or your sibling, that there was something about you that wasn't a winner, good things didn't come to you or that you had to fight for your worth, you had to fight for your attention.
And by the way, who isn't the recipient of this story at one point in time?
It's a tough culture, it's a tough world.
If you internalize that, that's what leads you to this point in time potentially where you're like, good things do not come to me, I do not often get what I want, I have to fight so hard to even be seeing just a spec compared to them.
And it's like, obviously all we can control is the story we tell ourselves about who we are, as has been proven by all these kind of manifestation and psychological trials and scenarios in the world.
We are what we think.
It changes us. It changes what we attract.
It changes the way we interface with people.
It changes our relationships.
Nothing could be more important.
Fortunately, it's being talked about more and it's something that I certainly focus on in my content, but It's a doozy.
It's so worth talking about.
I think that's interesting to me because growing up, I feel like we were raised on like a different set or like style of YouTube.
And what was really in back then was hustle culture, grind culture, wake up at 5am, take a cold shower, workout blah blah.
And a lot of what was behind that was like you create your own path, you forge your own path, be an optimist, and that will cure every single problem in your life.
And I think I spent a lot of my late teens and early twenties, trying to unlearn that in a certain sense.
Because yes, while I agree that optimism goes a long way, I don't necessarily think that waking up at 5am every day is like the sole solution to all of your life's miseries.
But for some reason in my late twenties, I'm trying to like rewarm myself back to the optimism thing which sounds stupid, but it's true.
I feel like that glass half full glass half empty thing is no longer just a cliche and I'm starting to really feel the power of that.
And I even see it leaking into like the world of K -pop.
Ooh, that's an essay that I would read, something very small.
But there's a Korean idol.
Her name is Chang Wuh -Nyang, she's considered to be like one of the top stars of the most recent idol generation and she did an interview or something on TV where she was like, yeah, I have this like mindset.
I call it lucky Vicky, whenever anything happens to me, whether it's good or bad, I'm just like, oh, I'm so lucky.
This is what totally happened to me, because I'm a lucky Vicky.
And then that just completely changes the way she perceives anything that ever happens.
And I was like, yeah, that is in a sense, like very revolutionary to me.
It's totally revolutionary.
And it's also so cool that you can and maybe we should practice that when we are rejected.
We have failed. And it's saying I'm so lucky because this is a redirection or this is a protection from what I thought I wanted and I'm actually being pulled now to what I need or what will ultimately serve me more and greater in the end.
We can say thank you truly for everything.
And I had a Reiki healer once love her so much. I was talking about how things weren't going right for me.
I had a list of this has gone wrong, this is gone to shit, it's not working and she was like okay stop.
I actually been paying attention to this conversation and you haven't mentioned these three, four, five things that are going really well for you.
And really the attitude that we should be in is, holy shit, this is so cool.
Thank you so much. Holy shit.
I get to like wake up every day and do XYZ.
And it's the same thing as like, I'm so lucky, I'm so fortunate.
And it is so small, but I don't know.
I think it sounds like the most powerful thing I've heard all day.
Yeah, I feel like this also reminds me of it's called like the Lucky Girl syndrome, those kind of going around tiktok for awhile, which is very similar.
But it's also kind of just reminding yourself, Oh, I'm a lucky girl, things will work out.
If you know it's not working out right now, it will eventually reach that point.
And I guess it's almost like third person in yourself into instead of feeling like I believe in myself, it's more like I believe that things will work out and like that detachment makes it a little easier to say to yourself or believe sometimes.
Oh, I like that a lot.
Yeah, kind of going outside of your first -person probably skewed perspective is really powerful.
When it comes to finding ways out of my negative self -talk, a practice that I've really cultivated that makes a huge change.
I don't know if you guys have heard of internal family systems, IFS?
Nope. Oh, what a revelation.
It's becoming more popularized.
And it's basically this notion that within each of us, there are many parts.
So when it says internal family systems, it's not like your actual family, it's the family of parts within your own consciousness.
There is parts of you that are, I'll speak for myself, the drill sergeant who is for, I'm using that as a term that I use, you can say whatever, but the critic, right, from an early age, that was like, not enough, not enough, you're a failure.
If you don't do this, keep on going.
And it's just whipping me into shape.
And then there's other parts of me that might be more tender, more vulnerable, more childlike, whatever.
And it's this host of personalities that live in us at any given time.
And it's figuring out, let's say for example, I've had so many times in my 20s where it's always about my career, more often than anything.
Oh my God, this is such an impossible career choice.
You should have been further along by now.
I am looking... I'm only paying attention to people who are further along than me.
I feel so useless. I feel like so, so forsaken, whatever.
In IFS, it's this notion that you would speak to that part of you who is experiencing that as yourself, which is a different part.
The part of you that there's like eight Cs.
I'm not gonna remember all of them, but it's like calm, confident, all these different things that like are accessible to us at any given time.
It's really like your soul, like the most peaceful part within you and the most loving part within you.
And you speak to this part of you as if it were a child.
And it probably is.
This is probably from your childhood.
And you say to that part of you, the comfort or the validation that you so desperately seek, you can give that to yourself, right?
So for me, it would look like, and it oftentimes like using terms of endearment.
I know it sounds kind of corny, but like it helps switch on that third -person sort of interaction of like my love or like honey, sweetie, whatever.
I know these feelings are so big and they're so real, but you could never not be loved by me.
I am rooting for you.
Whatever you want to hear, you know, it's like, you could never be a failure.
Like I've seen the, the journey and the progress you've been on that no one else has seen, I'm so amazed.
I'll do these interactions, and I don't know if you guys know the author of Liz Gilbert, she wrote Eat, Pray, Love.
Obviously, like, that's pretty huge.
But she talks about this process a lot, speaking to yourself or writing a letter to yourself from the perspective of love itself.
And it is so healing because you realize that we all have a reservoir of this within us at any given time.
And if you can just be like, loose enough or imaginative enough to channel it, again, it sounds corny.
But I had it within me all along to move myself through this process.
And so often I'll speak for myself, it's reaching outside of myself who can give me this validation?
Who can tell me my career is going to be.
Okay, who can tell me I'm gonna find my life partner someday?
That's actually why my podcast is called you founder because I always joked that my future Hollywood memoir would be called you founder because people were like, we're looking for the next, you know, super talented, multi -hyphenate and we're looking for the next Asian American, whatever the hell, voice to pitch this project.
And I was like, you found her… you found her.
I'm so worthy. I'm so competent, I'm exactly what you're looking for.
Please take a chance on me.
Please see me waiting for these external eyes and gate heapers to validate me, that I was legitimate, that I deserve this chance.
And naturally, when we're ambitious, we do kind of have to do that.
We have to look outside of ourselves for support.
But really the work of my lifetime at least thus far and in my career and in my self love journey has been recognizing this very thing, you can, and maybe you must give it to yourself.
If you're going to keep waiting for other people to do it, here's the thing.
You'll get it. But if you don't actually believe it within yourself, it's in one ear out the other.
I mean, how many times have you had to seek validation from people and it's the same shit?
You're beautiful. Well trust me, like I'm attracted to you or whatever it is, you know, like hopefully none of us have been down that road, but, you know, there's plenty of others.
I feel like the way you describe it is almost like self -love is a muscle and some of us are so good at using it.
Your self -love can squat like 60 pounds or whatever.
And for many of us, it's like something that's never been stretched and used.
And I feel like you're so right.
It is something that I noticed when I'm actively practicing it and actively reminding myself to perform the self -love, even if it's just me going through the motions for that day?
It seems to get easier and easier.
And the day that I stopped doing it, the day that I let the negativity compound, it gets so much harder to kind of reactivate.
Totally. And I find that like this actually happened to me recently, where I kind of fell off the wagon in terms of my practice, it's easy to do, especially if you're distracted.
And oftentimes the distraction is work, even if it's like fulfilling work, it can be distracting or like a relationship that's exciting you at the moment.
Next thing I knew, I was not doing my shit.
I was not paying attention to my mindfulness.
I was not really just sitting in like silence with my thoughts on a regular basis and just checking in.
I found that like once I started going in the spiral of, I could feel this almost like manic energy to push myself, to prove myself to impress, to like hit certain metrics again.
And I got lost. And I actually could feel myself not wanting help, like resisting the call to the things that I've already learned.
It's like, I suddenly forgot, I was like, well, listen, I know I could talk to my friends about this.
I know I could go work out.
I know I could stop being on social media.
But because of its toxicity, and its nature, you're kind of like, No, but this is kind, that's why we stick in.
It's like, I've got this, you know, like this, this is pushing me to really hit the marks and I like that feeling.
It's kind of like a drug and it's like like drugs.
It's like you hit kind of like, even if it's a little rock bottom where you're like, oh I'm not well anymore.
I have not left my apartment.
I have not connected with my best friend after I'm in.
I have not properly laughed.
You have to hit whatever version that is for you and to come kind of wake up again and it's that I think maybe the journey to self -love is being aware period.
You're never gonna just be self -loving, like from today till forever, right?
It's always oscillating like any human's mind is.
Yeah. And I feel like it's so true that you can get swept away by whatever distractions or whatever crazy thing is happening in life, you forget to self -regulate, and then when you think back on it, right, kind of like what you're saying, you're just thinking, well, I've lasted this long already.
I can keep going, but But no one can last that long with no rest at all in between.
Like it's okay to take breaks and mental breaks count too.
And I feel like that's something that is just so easily forgotten.
Maybe once you do slow down and rest, then you're like, Oh my god, I needed this so badly.
Totally. I'm a big fan of metaphor.
Naturally. I'm a nerdy writer, but the metaphor I often use with my friends and I've, I felt this way like you have a boat, like you have an option, you're in the ocean and you're like, And you could do that, but it's kind of thrilling to be on their like ramshackle surfboard and like feel the thrill of the wave. And I've got this, it's like some kind of heroism or rugged individuality or something like that.
It's the adrenaline and it's the rush of doing it all on your own, even if you are not handling it.
Everyone's watching you, that goofy chick, in the middle of that tidal wave and they're like, she's off her rocker.
know, but you're just not seeing it clearly.
You have resources, people want to help you, not even just people but like the Calm app wants to help you, whatever it might be.
I'll speak for myself if you're in that crazed state of like maybe you actually did hit a certain metric and that's kind of like intoxicating and you're like, I want to this is how people have become over workers and like addicted to like work holism.
You know, unfortunately, this trope, this mythology of this billionaire, or multi multi millionaire that gets it all, and then kills themselves because I'm sorry to say, it's been said by many very successful people that feeling you think is waiting for you at the end of the finish line, at the end of the rainbow is not gonna be what you think it is.
If you have innately a lot of issues around not enoughness which who doesn't or inadequacy or like looking to other people looking outside of yourself for validation, if you think that getting that jackpot is going to be the salve, you are wrong, people have been telling me I've listened to all the podcasts like all the growth mindset podcasts people have been telling me that for years and I was like sure sure but it's gonna be different for me.
It's gonna feel like really good and I think it will indeed solve all my problems so thanks for the cautionary tale but I'm an exception.
Which is how we all feel about ourselves cut to me like reaching new metrics getting new things and I'm like happy for three days and I'm like okay yeah I'm not happy anymore let's let's find the next like look at your damn self.
I think part of this could be, we're always fed stories in the media of people being the one or like why is someone suddenly so unique compared to everyone else?
I mean, like prime example could be superhero movies because they've been really popular in the past decade or so.
So then it's kind of ingrained in everyone's minds.
Like, oh, I could be that superhero.
Yes, whatever that means in our reality, we're like so obsessed with finding what makes ourselves unique and what's going to propel us to like the top of the leaderboard for whatever niche trait or whatever.
That's so true. I always think about, what's it like and well, I don't know if it's great in Japan, I think they have a pretty toxic work culture too, but other countries in the world that are not as fixated on success as the metric of everything, like, you know, it's an America, we love the superhero.
I mean, it's all we've got pretty much. and I don't know if y 'all were also raised on Disney films and obviously we had Disney princesses but to a certain degree, it's like, yeah.
We all want to believe there's something exceptional or extraordinary about us that is going to make us stand out, make us like the savior of our community, make our friends and family proud of us and suddenly it redeems all the toxic crap that happened along the way.
You know, obviously there's pros and cons to this hero of your own life story.
the pros are actually that there's some beauty in being the architect of your own story with you as the hero in the center.
And I have been empowered by that.
If I felt disempowered or if I felt like disenfranchised or certainly as an Asian American female writer in Hollywood, I don't often feel like the hero.
But to be able to say, no, I fucking am, look at these stories I'm writing, they're like so subversive and powerful and like flipping the bird to like every fictional tale about Asian woman everywhere.
So it's powerful, but then the negative price of it is if you think that something is waiting or you think that something will change fundamentally.
The gift you can give yourself is realizing you don't have to wait for that moment to feel enough.
Is that really all you think you deserve?
You have to become a millionaire and then you're going to be fine.
I mean, don't you want to enjoy your life before, for God's sake?
Don't you want to be content with whatever like your beauty, your career like today?
tomorrow's not guaranteed.
It's a hard question to confront, but I like it's definitely one that I've had to face more than once.
I feel like a lot of it is how do we rewrite the metric that we use to, I guess, judge or evaluate our success or happiness or like the joys of our own life.
And that's really difficult because like you both were talking about.
We're fed a lot of what is good or successful or what we should strive for through the media.
And to me, half of it is just straight up nefarious.
Like it's way easier to sell something to someone when you're telling them, oh, you're not enough because you don't have this product.
It's very much rooted just in the system.
But the other half is, you know, sometimes people like structure.
It's hard to define what is happiness for you.
It's way easier for me to just read a BuzzFeed article and be like, okay, this is the checklist to happiness," or, like, a great late twenties.
I don't know. Maybe that's what post -realization is our goal, right?
Like, how do we kind of take all of this energy?
It's some sort of energy, right?
That is driving this self -talk.
And then how do we make it something that propels us forward instead of dragging us down?
Yeah, the question of the century of our lifetimes.
And I totally, I totally agree.
I mean, my best venture to guess or to say what might have impacted me is that I did this truly life changing values exercise with my therapist earlier this year.
Basically, she presented me on a paper with 200 values.
I didn't know there were values on that level.
You know, I thought it was like patience and jealousy, whatever.
So I was really surprised one to see how many but she said to me this is the framework.
I want you to consider what your top five values are from this list Understanding that this is the world you're working with all Societal obligations have disappeared the metrics that you currently understand the world through are gone You are seeing this through the prism of what is for your joy and your fulfillment only and nobody else's it basically imagine societies wiped out were all in a jungle and like what are you living for if you've had to choose and I was like oh, hell, because what I saw so clearly when I was looking at this list is I saw my like false values.
I have this workbook that I made that people can find on my Instagram providing what this test was and what the values were and the questions you can ask yourself because it's really so like, mind changing.
I saw these false values of achievement, success, money.
I mean, I'm going to be honest and say that those were actually driving me, even though I may not have said it out loud because it sounds like disgusting.
That's what our culture tells us.
It's not my fault. It's not any of our fault if we feel motivated by those things.
So I was really, really driven by achievement and the like.
And in this new framework, I was like, I don't give a fuck about those things anymore.
That's a revelation.
What I actually care about and I'll just list some of my true values that I decided on with my therapist are significance, inspiration, spirituality, in the case for me, amusement, Which I just see as like the spirit of play and like humor in life and bravery Which in my case is not like being Mulan although I would like to draw the comp But it's really internal bravery like willingness to confront challenging situations head -on, right?
What's fascinating to me?
Is that the values are not like a world apart?
Achievement is not completely on a different planet from inspiration and significance, but they are distinctly different and once My therapist, she said to me, you're here because you're not well, and you're not happy.
And it's because you've been pursuing your values of achievement, success, and money.
How's that working out for you?
Not so good. But that's because they're not your true values, because if they were your true values, you wouldn't have to break yourself in order to live by them, but you are.
Your true values will invigorate you and give you life.
Once I did that mind shift of like, oh, when I'm not feeling myself, or I'm comparing myself, or I feel inadequate, whatever.
I'm like, okay, well, what I know is that I'm probably here because of my false values.
I'm probably here because I got kind of convinced that achievement was going to fix this.
It did not. Now let me go to the true values.
I love inspiring or feeling significance through connection, whether that's through my community with you founder, or really more often than not, it's just going to my friends, hanging out.
I have a book club that I run every month, going salsa dancing with a few different girls, like things that have nothing to do with my career.
Then I feel fulfilled.
And I'm like, Oh, actually, this is what I want out of my life.
I've just gotten it so confused by the cultural narrative that I'm supposed to want money and achievement and success.
That's wild, man. I think it also starts to become clear when you pointed out, like, you know, achievement, success, these are kind of false values.
And when you really start to dig into it, what What does that even mean?
What does achievement mean?
And what does success mean?" If you really think about it, it's such a meaningless word. It's meaningless.
Yeah. It's different for everyone when you say, I want success.
That is an empty sentence.
Maybe if you said something more specific, I wanna hit that one salsa -dancing move.
That's like success for every week.
That feels much more meaningful, of content, valuable.
And so I think once he pointed that out, I was like, you're so right.
Like, not only are they false values, they're also kind of empty values.
Totally. And I think for me it was like, well, clearly if this framework is what other people are perceiving and judging me by versus my joy, my fulfillment, clearly what success meant to me was some sense that other people would perceive me as successful.
That sucks. That means I'm living my life for everybody, but me.
No wonder I wasn't happy.
You know, have you guys heard of the Enneagram?
It helps you understand your personality through the lens of like your childhood wound.
It's deep and it's profound.
But I'm classic, and I'm sure many listeners are classic type three – the performer, the achiever – like searching for worth in the form of exterior validation and achievement.
And our journey is to hopefully know that it's innate and we have it and we're born with it and it never leaves us.
But I took this test and it also read me for filth because it was telling me about my blind spots.
And that's what they were because I was not aware, but then when it was spelled out for me It said image and I was like, no no I'm not some Shallow like vapid girl that cares about my image.
I had an idea of what image meant I care about how I look or something like that no, really image is caring what people think about you and What I cared about was not how I looked or my desire ability in a romantic sense or anything What I cared about is that when people met me, colleagues, whatever, in my work life that they walked away feeling certain that I was an achiever, and that I was successful, and that I was smart.
If I did not stick the landing there, then I had failed myself.
And why would someone do something like that?
It's because they're convinced that if they're not those things, then they are worthless.
So you spend your whole life ensuring that no one will question it.
That when people meet you, you form a personality off of that.
In many ways, being a writer for me, I decided when I was really young, like 10, 11, 12, it's because I was being really relentlessly bullied.
And I was convinced by this bully that I was worthless, and I felt really disempowered and voiceless.
And I decided, I don't want to feel this way anymore.
What would it feel like to be brave, one of my top five values?
What would it feel like to be significant?
One of my top five values, right?
I wish I had a voice.
Who has a voice? writers.
You know, who can enact power and change through their own words?
Writers. It drove everything.
I completely forgot how we got here.
I'm not gonna lie to you.
I have no idea, but I was so captivated by that story.
And I'm like I do like financial forecasting stuff, and I need to create a story just as good.
Well, of course, when you're living in the store at the moment, it's not feeling all that noble.
It's only, it's only in hindsight where I'm like, no, wait a second.
Why am I here? And why are we drawn towards certain things?
And it's because it's always kind of, I think, healing or correcting whatever you perceive is true for you currently.
Whatever, again, the story is about who you are.
And so I think, I don't know about you guys, but a lot of the times, especially I have a lot of artists, friends being one myself.
And that's what drove us here.
And that is for better and for worse, because a lot of people who are drawn to Hollywood, like me, ding, ding, ding, are not for healthy reason.
It's because you're convinced that you are so unseen, like the child like version of you, so unseen, so insignificant.
And Hollywood holds this mythical promise that you will be famous.
And when you were famous, you will matter because you will matter to the masses.
My best friend is a doctor, he's becoming a doctor, he's like the top dermatology school in the country.
And I confess to him that like this is a wounded part of myself because I was bullied and because of the suffering that I had in that capacity, be like, I wanted to be famous really bad.
A lot of people do, you know, there's no shame, but I wanted to just be seen.
I said to him like, uh, this is a younger version of me.
Like I will know that I'm successful when I am celebrated by the masses.
Like I want to hear the mass is chanting my name.
And he was like, holy shit.
You've got some baggage, man.
Like you need some help.
Um, I'm also an Aries, okay.
Zodiac wise, I don't know if that has any traction here.
I'm an Aries, too. You are?
Amazing. Aries are known as the Trojan warrior.
They're the leader.
They are the initiator.
There's this sort of indomitable strength, and again, that's all good shit.
But when you apply the Aries to this narrative, it's not so good because you're a conqueror.
So I'm basically getting the thrill out of this conquest to become somebody and I'm so don't listen.
My pursuit of it and I said to my best friend, like, you know what I mean?
Like you feel this way.
And he was like, definitely not.
Like I just like, I don't want to be known by the masses.
That sounds like a fucking nightmare.
I want to help people one to one.
Like I want to have real connections and be a doctor and like save lives.
And I was like, but what if you are never known?
What if people don't?
And he's like, why do you care about that so much?
That's so funny. I had a look in the mirror.
I feel like I can relate to some of that.
There's definitely that driven, ambitious side of the Aries, but then my moon is Taurus, which just wants to like stay at home and rest all day.
So it's like a constant war.
What's your rising.
My rising is Gemini.
See, I would have guessed you were a Taurus.
So I would have thought that was your rising.
I love Taurus' so much to be clear.
Like that's awesome.
But my girls and Aries, it's a, it's like lounge around on the couch all day or I could go out and do something.
And like conquer the world.
Yeah, exactly. The world.
Yup. No big deal. Good luck.
You know, what are you, Jisoo, in terms of your signs?
I'm a Leo. I don't know what the other metrics are but, I'm a Leo.
So, I think that's...
Are we all fire signs?
All fire signs? Yeah.
We're just like fireballs over here.
But Jisoo, you don't come across to me as like a fire sign.
Like, I'm curious what your rising is?
like let's let's find out and tell the people i'll have to do some research but i'm like a closet leo you know like you wouldn't know but deep down i'm an entertainer you live for the people i love leo's too very exciting jihsus is like a shy leo i am right which is a rarity which is telling you that there's got to be some other things in your chart yeah yeah i'll get you Stay tuned.
I really like your insight about how a lot of people who felt like they weren't seen in childhood or some point of their life really chase that being known feeling.
I think I can definitely relate to that because I grew up in a much less diverse environment for a period of time.
and I felt like that did affect me in the sense where it's like, things are good, but it's also a little weird that I don't see people like myself around me, and I don't really know what that means.
We're like five -year -olds and then eventually that turns into like, oh, there's just not a lot of Asian Americans around I guess.
What does that mean?
How do we become more seen?
I think later though, once I moved to California where there are a lot of Asian Americans, I started to feel a little more comfortable in my difference.
I guess at that point, it's like similarities with everyone.
But yeah, I think that really did drive some certain behavior.
Compensation or something, yeah, right?
And so when you said that, I was like, Oh my God, that is such a good point.
I never even thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense.
Oh yeah, I have the same background.
I grew up in a really white part of Orange County and felt like an aberration, like I felt really ashamed.
I felt so ashamed of being Asian.
I think that plus the bullying plus whatever else, but really I think the racial narrative of my life did in fact make me feel so other and so unwanted or not belonging, definitely played a major factor in like I want to correct this.
Like what does it feel like to be the popular kid in school?
I've never known. Would be nice to know by being famous or whatever.
You decide by being a CEO of your own company, by being the most popping off girl in your mom's book club, whatever it is.
We are social primates, we are status -driven creatures, and we're looking to figure that out and where we lie in that context.
And it's only natural.
Don't feel bad if you are inclined to think that way.
But we can also call upon the more sophisticated, wholehearted versions of ourselves to be like, and not going to engage in that today.
I am exquisite, I am enough, I am all the things regardless of these like ever changing hierarchies.
And I think it kind of drives that feeling of, I'll show them, look at me now I've accomplished just as much if not more even though I was different.
Well said. I feel like the school districts that we grew up in, in the Bay Area, we're very competitive.
Yeah. So it's kind of like, you know, in the moment you're like, okay, I'm just competing against you don't have time to think, you're just like, okay, let me just try to get the best grades I can.
But then later, you're like, you know, maybe I'm not so much of a STEM person, or maybe I'm not meant for all these AP classes and stuff.
And then it's like, well, how can I show everyone else from that area that I am just as successful or just as accomplished as that.
That is so real. it's how many of us are driven low -key by our haters.
However you wanted to ...
Yeah, like the people who doubted you, and I'll say, I certainly have been.
You bet. That is also the fuel of hero movies, is like the person who like fucked with you as a kid, or the person who bullied you, the person who tormented your self -concept.
It's the gratification of, I will show them.
And I've had a few opportunities where that I could have showed them or I did show them.
And guess what? Did not heal me forever.
Did not make me feel suddenly a winner in every facet of my life.
The thing is, they didn't care then, and I'm sorry, they still don't care now.
You've been living for them, again, for someone other than yourself.
And it's a losing game, but attempting one.
Damn I'm trying to think now, is there a world where you have these ambitions and like these things that you're striving for, and you are maybe using some of that negative energy to drive you, but at the same time, you're not telling yourself you're doing this because you're worthless, you're not like whipping yourself in the back, how do you balance your ambitions and what you want for yourself in life but with self love as well?
Yeah, I don't know.
The reason why I laughed inappropriately at that was because I don't know if you guys I've seen the Da Vinci code, but there's this like gnarly albino dude who like flatulates himself with this, I think, a chain or something and something horrific.
And I just the way the language we use.
I just thought that's what I'm doing every day to achieve.
I'm not Yeah, I think my response to that is obviously I am still figuring it out.
Just like the rest of us.
Obviously, because I think like the paradox that I try to explore in my podcast and content is its ambitious mind seeking peace and self -love on the path to fulfilling their dreams. And actually those are like sometimes diametrically opposed things to be ambitious is to be future gazing, but to be self -loving and peaceful is to be in the now.
And to be ambitious is to like care about external validation and external markers of success or maybe it is for you, but peace and self -love is no no all that matters is what I think and what I feel.
And so for me, I'm always going to default live in the unhealthy, ambitious part of this, whatever, Venn diagram, if you will, I'm always living there.
And the fear is that if I completely, you know, lose myself in self love and peace, and I just become Eckhart Tolle.
I don't know if you know who that is, but he's like the paragon of ego list existence in the overall circles.
And like, to me, I'm like, I don't want to be Eckhart Tolle.
Because to me that's God bless him.
It's like living like a rock, like I'm having no response.
I'm not having any highs.
I'm also not having any lows.
To me, that's like a muted, this is again, just my opinion, a muted existence.
I have dreams. I want to accomplish them.
Don't I deserve that feeling.
To me, it's because I'm always going to over -index on the side of like more ambitious, more toxically driven by these like negative self -talk things.
Cultivating balance in my life is always going to be going in the further direction of when I've fallen off the wagon, when I've lost control of my narrative, how can I call in more of this self -compassion, more of this grace, more of this kindness, more of this, for me, spirituality, which is just to say, like, an energy or a power beyond myself and my ego and my controlled environment to find some sense of peace.
It has really helped.
It's been fundamental at every step of the journey.
And the more I deeply believe some of these things which is that I am happiest when I'm living in accordance with my true value system, like I mentioned, that I require connection and inspiration and significance in order to be okay.
The truth is, I'll never not be ambitious.
So that's not going anywhere.
The truth is, we live in a capitalistic, money -driven world.
It matters what you own.
It matters what your resume looks like.
We can't ignore these things.
But how can we call in what is needed based off of where we're at, based off of how sucked in we've been into culture, into the narratives that we should be doing all these things?" That, to me, is the paradox, it's the contradiction, it's the tension of like, you want both.
So to have both, you need to be doing a tight rope walk on some level, but you can.
People are with you wanting to do that, because we're getting in a world that has become, I think increasingly obsessed with the achievement and the rat race.
And it's seeing the consequences of those actions and doesn't want to live with them.
I feel like Gen Z, right?
Our girl Greta Thunberg, we're living in a world that is increasingly interested in being in the now, not forsaking our mental health until we reach some kind of benchmark.
As scary as the world may seem, we have never lived in an environment that has more resources and more community and more people who want to join you and help you in that balance.
That's so true. We're like way more connected nowadays.
The internet is at an all time high.
I can call it that, but there's like communities everywhere.
And at the click of a button, you can talk to someone halfway around the world.
I don't know, just like our parents generation, they have to send snail mail and that would take probably a month or something.
Yup. I wonder though, maybe to like satisfy the ambitious side of ourselves.
we, instead of focusing so much on purely hitting marks, we can challenge ourselves to be like, how many rest days can I fit in here while also hitting this mark?
And that is like the monthly challenge.
You're like, mid -maxing your mental health.
Yeah. I know. I live for a challenge like that, and again and for better and for worse, but it's yeah, I think like in my burnout and the addiction to working, you have to radically accept that rest is a task.
Rest is a responsibility you owe yourself and I mean if this motivates you it's like you will actually be more productive if you rest, but you know, also fuck that.
You should just be resting for the joy of your life and the wellness of your spirit.
Yeah I keep imagining your I think it was IFS internal family system thing that you mentioned earlier.
And yeah, I just have this image of now yelling at all the other people in your system going back in and then all the other people being like damn such a hard ass you know, it's like very corporate but I do think that's very valid and to me it's kind of a healing way to look at it because it's so much more emotionally hard to think of myself as one like person, then if I succeed and have a good day, it's me having a good If I do poorly all of me is having a bad day.
Yeah, but if I kind of break it out and compartmentalize like maybe The ambitious side of me is unhappy today But the healing side the social side like all these other things could be fulfilled so maybe it's about like breaking down the pie chart and You know seeing ups and downs and like each section instead of combining all of it into like one up and down totally and then asking yourself which part is running the show right now or has been running the show for you and For me, I wasn't cognizant of the fact that the drill sergeant was one part.
I was like, that's all I am, and that did not lead to happiness and success on a deeper level.
You know, it's like just acknowledging that there is a part within you that is always calm and competent and sure of themselves and able to extend kindness.
It's kind of like a revelation, you know?
I really like your point, Lindsay, as well about you can't just also go all in on one part.
or, if you become the all peaceful, all self -loving but then you're not doing anything else, that's also hurting yourself in some ways because, as you said, we're in a capitalistic society and we'd still have to be somewhat productive to survive in this world.
Yeah, you've got to live somewhere, pay those bills.
So it really is a pretty big challenge to find this balance.
There's never going to be an end -all -be -all answer to this.
Everyone is so different and it's kind of just figuring out what balance on the scale is gonna work for you individually and unfortunately, that means a lot of self -reflection and a lot of work when maybe some people would much rather put that energy into other work.
I think the older we get, though, the more obvious it gets because when we're younger, were driven by that youthful energy and invincibility, you could have all -nighters, and still pop back up totally fine.
But now it's like, okay, no matter how you spin it, you cannot deny that the body grows old, and things change.
What are you talking about, Crystal?
It's not going to happen to me.
Yeah, right. I definitely still do whatever I want, right?
But it's inevitable and you have to learn to adapt.
And maybe it's almost acceptable in that sense to a certain degree that you just go full in on that hustle culture when you're younger.
But then as you get older, you're like, I really need to reprioritize and figure out what this all means.
For sure. I've heard Brene Brown talk about how on a sociological level that the 20s and 30s are the era for acquiring.
you were acquiring property, acquiring net worth, acquiring a family and then usually it's like the 40s and 50s come.
You reached the top of your corporate ladder, you get the family unit in order and then usually that's when people have their midlife crisis because they realize it's not enough.
They've been living in the same pattern.
And if you're lucky to live this long, hopefully you can do this before you get to that midlife crisis.
You get to like the era where you are cultivating meaning.
usually this is where people become philanthropic, they give back, they connect through community, they start a podcast, they write a book, whatever it may be, because they realized that this spinning their wheels on this treadmill, as isn't actually working for them.
And so even though I knew that in my early twenties, I was still like, that's cool, but I'm definitely going to abide by that.
I don't plan on that anymore, but I did spend a majority of my twenties is just obsessed with the acquisition of my success.
And then reality starts to set in.
Well then you have a crisis and you realize you're not well and you've got to be turned upside down and start figuring out how you can, yeah, live for the right reasons.
Well now I'm just stuck with that metaphor of imagining ourselves as like a corporation and I'm like, do I need to call HR on myself?
Where's my CFO? You might.
It has been so rewarding to sit here and talk to you both of you ladies, because it makes me feel so normal.
I can't believe all of the stuff that I've been battling with, all the demons I've been fighting.
This is just a part of this life stage.
So thank you both for sitting down and really opening up about negative self -talk and balancing ambition with self -love.
And Lindsay, Do you have anything you want to plug for our listeners so that our listeners can find you?
Oh yes! Please do find me my tag or my handle on Instagram and Tik Tok is Lindsey Kami.
So L -I -N -D -S -A -Y -K -A -M -I.
And of course I am the host of the YouFounder podcast, which I welcome you to about community.
You can find me wherever you listen to your podcasts.
And thank you, Jisoo, and Crystal.
It's been, like, an honor, a joy to be here with you guys.
Of course, thank you so much for joining us and we'll definitely link all of your socials and the podcast in the show description as well.
And for our listeners, if you have any thoughts on how you balance your ambition with your self -love, feel free to reach out to us.
We have Instagram at ircrustpod and we also have email at ircrustpod at gmail .com.
And if you like to catch our other episodes then don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
We upload new episodes every other Wednesday morning.
Thanks for listening.
And don't forget to eat your crust.
