281. How to Make BIG Changes and Invest in Yourself When You’re Scared with Sun Yong Kim-Manzolini

What causes people to change? We have a really tough time actually shifting who we are, and how we’re walking through the world. The answer is one that I touched on, in the very first podcast episode of the Game on Girlfriend podcast when I said, “don't live a life of almosts.”

Sun Yong Kim-Manzolini was born in South Korea and abandoned at birth by her family. She spent her early years in an orphanage, enduring hardships that she likened to living in a modern-day concentration camp. Today, Sun Yong is a highly successful seven-figure entrepreneur and the CEO of Lush Enterprises, LLC.

In 2015, she retired from a $35,000 a year job with no savings and limited resources. Determined to change her circumstances, she dedicated herself to options trading. By the end of her first year, she had earned $178,000, six times her previous annual revenue. She believes that true freedom comes from living authentically, pursuing dreams without fear, and achieving financial security.

Sun Yong says being orphaned gave her a sense of abandonment – no one invested in her. She was adopted by an American family and eventually got her dream job as a certified medical assistant. 

But she was missing something. She wondered how she got there.

“So that's when I started investing myself by saying, I'm going to retire, even though it was my dream job,” says Sun Yong.

She decided she would retire within a year. She had $10 in her account and was living paycheck to paycheck. 

“Of course I was scared, but I thought for me to invest in myself, I have to get those things out of my mind,” she said. “I have to start taking actions. So that's the beginning of investing in ourselves. And it is very, very critical. The reason is because if we don't invest in ourselves, who's going to invest in you?”

Sun Yong says she started to learn to serve herself, as she had with her patients. She started talking about her own story – even the ugly parts that she didn’t want to share with others. She says we tend to focus on negative things, what we’ve heard and what we’ve faced. We might think we’re not worthy – the excuses and reasons are easy to find.

Sun Yong said the decision to change was made easier watching the lives of her patients. She says some of them were struggling as they got older, and in some cases by the time they were ready to retire they were too sick to enjoy it.

It prompted Sun Yong to retire while she was still healthy and could enjoy life.

Sun Yong says once you have healed, you can help others from your present self without focusing on the past. 

“I’m no longer an orphan, but a lot of times we hang on to this thing like ‘Oh, I’m an orphan,’” she says. “We have to let go of the things that we used to be.”

She says it takes many pieces to become who we are – from investing with money, investing within ourselves mentally, investing in ourselves with who we spend our time with. 

You have to implement every part on a daily basis to have a balanced life from your physical and mental health, to your financial stability and your relationships.

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