The Heartbeat: "Asking for money doesn't make you a bad person — and giving your services away doesn't make you a good one."
Judy Tsuei
I amplify women leaders | NLP Coach + Founder, Branding and Marketing Agency |🎙️F*ck Saving Face podcast | 📚Simon & Schuster Author | Featured in NASDAQ & Fast Company | 2023-24 Tory Burch Foundation Fellow
I love volunteering.
I love helping people.
I love being of service.
I do not love being taken for granted.
I do not love feeling like my needs aren’t reciprocated.
I do not love expressing myself and not being heard.
I had a tough session with my therapist today.
She wants me to stop offering my consulting services for free, especially because I meet many people who invite me to be part of their start-up ventures or want to pick my brain.
“You like being creative, you like building things,” she said. “You’re good at it.
When we dug deeper as to why I give so much of myself away, we uncovered something my parents used to say to me all the time growing up:
“Ni ne me zi ci.” You are so selfish.
They said this when I wanted to play instead of cleaning the house.
They said this when I wanted to hang out with friends instead of watching my younger siblings.
They said this whenever I expressed a need. A normal human need.
And so I learned hard “truths” from my immigrant household:
That my needs don’t matter. That other people’s wants and desires are more important than mine. That I should be responsible rather than enjoy my life or have fun.
Mostly, I learned that if I ask for what I want, the pain of not getting it is so immense…
It feels like it would decimate me.
So I stopped asking.
“If you like someone,” my therapist said, “you can give to them — and you can also receive.
She told me I have to take a leap of faith.
I have to practice asking, to stop hemming and hawing about this. The people who are meant to be in my life will stay and the relationships that are meant to dissolve or shift will do so, too.
The biggest thing is that I have to become accustomed to the discomfort of maybe not getting what I’ve requested.
“Not getting doesn’t have to do with you,” my therapist encouraged.
We all have growing pains we have to go through in this timeline of our lives. Some of us meet them head-on. Others run away. Lots of us ignore them completely until life circumstances make it so that we can’t ignore those opportunities any longer.
Is your view of yourself changing, too?
Have a beautiful week ahead, Judy
P.S. Check out my Office Hours for women below to kickstart your marketing that fits within a founder’s budget.
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Recent studies show that 40% of divorces report having at least one child under the age of 18 living in the house.
Yet, the way that a child interprets divorce and the way that it impacts the co-parents, it's an area that could use so much more support...
Especially if you come from cultures of color, where there is so much shame and stigma attached to "failure."
We need to reinterpret what makes a "successful" relationship because sometimes, the greatest success is knowing when to call it "over."
That's why I'm so excited to have Fiona Kong on the latest episode of my F*ck Saving Face podcast.
After experiencing separation and job loss in 2019, Fiona courageously launched Home Sweet Homes Journal during the pandemic. Her driving force? To support not only her own son but co-parented children worldwide.
Delving into her own childhood trauma, Fiona recognized a critical need for emotional support in children. Thus, she crafted journals containing the nurturing elements she longed for as a child.
The Home Sweet Homes journal, along with the All About Me, by Us journal (suitable for any family dynamic), are empowering future generations by instilling emotional intelligence, communication skills, and fostering stronger parent-child connections.
For AANHPI Heritage Month, there's nothing that makes me prouder than normalizing conversations around taboo topics, such as divorce and mental health.
Tune in today — and check out Fiona's incredible journals!