It’s been a few months since I’ve written anything.
The summer was busy, and I had a gnarly stomach virus that absolutely cooked me.
There was a yearning to write, but I felt kind of stuck.
I recently learned that sometimes feel this sort of block is because of an emotion that you’re not allowing yourself to fully express.
This all came to my realization a week ago when I discovered somebody by the name of Joe Hudson.
Joe is an executive coach to some of the highest-performaning teams in the world, such as OpenAI, Alphabet, Apple, and more.
A lot of the things that he talks about are things that have deeply resonated with me.
Some of it is new.
Some of it is things that I’ve heard from my coach, but packaged and delivered in a different way that helped me internalize it better.
(Which is why you should always create content!)
One of his core philosophies is that every single problem that we encounter is related to an emotion that we are trying to avoid feeling.
He’s got a lot of great podcast episodes that I’ll link below, but this one was a live recorded coaching session that he did that I was listening to on my run home the other day.
The session started off with the entrepreneur saying that he wanted to make $250,000.00 a year, but he tensed up while saying it because he’s dealing with imposter syndrome and struggling to have abundance in his life.
As the conversation progressed, he admitted that he didn’t feel like he had done enough yet to deserve what he wanted.
Then everything started to unpack…
That’s when I started crying.
The guy admitted that he was his own worst critic.
The guy admitted that he needed to add more value to be worthy of what he wanted.
Fuck.
That hit right in my heart.
Put in more sweat.
Put in more hours.
Work harder than anyone else.
Convince yourself that you need to be constantly improving so that you can be worthy.
This feeling felt so familiar during the entrepreneurship journey that I’ve been on.
A prompt that Joe has given his students is….
When was the first time you felt this?
We’re often raised with so many expectations of who we are supposed to be, which schools we got accepted to, and what kind of jobs we have.
A lot of these things are status symbols that we bring to the table to show people that we are worthy.
Worthy of being seen, and worthy of being loved.
Everyone knows the Asian parent meme.
I remember growing up and being constantly compared to other kids.
If it wasn’t your grades for the semester, then it was what specialized high school you got into and/or what was your SAT score?
Asian Americans are usually measured by the amount of academic success they have…and it especially sucked if you didn’t have, like me.
Parents are proud to show you off during dinners with relatives, but while it feels great to be celebrated for your successes, it conditions you to not feel worthy of being loved until you have some “success”.
Then you know how the rest goes.
You have a bunch of people with the same trauma.
And everything gets amplified by social media.
The reminders are endless.
How do you compare to others?
Maybe it’s no longer about school and job but…
What is your house?
What is your car?
Then you have kids and repeat the cycle with them.
We are seeing success with our business, but there’s still this angst of feeling like I have to do more, be more, and then I will be deserving of more success.
Work harder.
Push harder.
Put yourself on the brink of exhaustion.
It creates this fear in the back of my mind that I have to keep pushing or I’m going to lose it all…
And the fear of losing it all means you’ve already lost it.
What an emotional release that run was.
I actually felt a lot more creative afterwards.
I’ve been trying to be more open to feeling emotions and welcoming them instead of suppressing them with more effort and work.
I don’t know if you feel stuck right now, but if you do.
What do you feel internally when you’re stuck?
What stories do you have in your head that you’re telling yourself would happen if you don’t get unstuck?
Will you be less productive?
Will you not be able to deliver?
How do those things make you feel if it were to happen?
Can you trace that emotion back to the first time you felt it in the past?
If you can…
I hope you welcome it.
I hope you find peace with it.
I’m crying thinking about it, but man does it feel good…
To know that you can be worthy of being seen and loved without having to do anything more than what you’re doing right now.
Take a deep breath.
And let your shoulders drop.
You’re deserving.
Much love,
Andy
PS: If you want to dive in a little deeper, these were some of my favorite epsiodes that he was a guest on. You can also check out his podcast where he breaks down specific topics, I’m listening to a ton of them now.
Joe Hudson on Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson
Dr. Andy Fata-Chan 
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