John Wang: Overcoming Burnout, Imposter Syndrome & Perfectionism

Have you ever struggled with burnout or imposter syndrome? No matter how much you accomplish, does it somehow feel like it's never quite enough?

Today, we’re here with my friend John Wang, an author, speaker, and global traveler on a mission to help high-achievers overcome maladaptive patterns and break free from the invisible scripts and cultural conditioning that hold us back. 

In this episode with John, you’ll hear:

• How to address burnout before it’s too late
• The hilarious results of John’s 12-month experiment with Radical Honesty
• What the legend of the golden buddha can teach us about our hidden potential
• And much more…

If you’ve ever struggled with perfectionism, people pleasing, self-censorship, imposter syndrome, or burnout, keep listening.

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Please take a moment to make sure you’re subscribed to this show wherever you listen to podcasts. If you’re feeling generous, please write a quick review for the Abel James Show on Apple or Spotify. I appreciate you!

To stay up to date on our next live events, masterminds, shows and more in Austin, TX and beyond, make sure to sign up for my newsletter at AbelJames.com, and check out my substack at abeljames.substack.com. 

In this episode, Abel James is joined by John Wang, an author, speaker, and global traveler, to discuss overcoming burnout and imposter syndrome. John shares insights on how high achievers can break free from maladaptive patterns and cultural conditioning that hold them back. The conversation delves into the importance of being the author of your own story and recognizing the invisible scripts that influence our lives. John also shares his experiences as a third culture kid and the challenges of balancing Eastern collectivist values with Western individualistic cultures.

John and Abel explore various maladaptive patterns such as perfectionism, people pleasing, and self-censorship, and how these can impact personal and professional growth. They discuss the significance of play and creativity in overcoming these patterns and the importance of communication in navigating cultural differences. John shares personal stories from his radical honesty experiment and offers strategies for embracing one's true self while maintaining compassionate assertiveness. The episode concludes with the inspiring story of the Golden Buddha, symbolizing the hidden potential within us all.

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:00):
Hey folks. This is Abel James and thanks so much for joining us on the show. Have you ever struggled with burnout or imposter syndrome?
No matter how much you accomplish, does it somehow feel like it's never quite enough?
Today, we're here with my friend John Wang, an author, speaker, and global traveler.
John's on a mission to help high achievers overcome maladaptive

(00:21):
patterns and break free from the invisible scripts and cultural conditioning that hold us back. If you've ever struggled with perfectionism,
people pleasing, self censorship, imposter syndrome, or burnout, keep listening. Quick favor before we get to the interview. Please take a quick moment to make sure that you're subscribed to The Abel James Show wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you're feeling generous, please write a quick review for the Abel James Show on Apple or Spotify. I really appreciate you. And to stay up to date on our next live events, coaching groups, masterminds, shows, and more in Austin and beyond, Make sure to sign up for my newsletter at abeljames.com.

(00:59):
That's abeljames.com,
or check out my Substack at abeljames.substack.com.
Alright. In this episode with John, you're about to hear how to address burnout before it's too late, the hilarious results of John's twelve month experiment with radical honesty,
what the legend of the golden Buddha can teach us about our hidden potential, and much more. Let's go hang out with John.

(11:49):
Welcome back, folks. John Wang is the author of Big Asian Energy, an executive coach, and a sought after speaker. A global traveler who has visited 52 countries.
John combines cultural insight, humor, and science backed strategies
to help professionals overcome imposter syndrome and self censorship. John, great to have you here, man.

(12:10):
Oh, it is such a pleasure, my friend. Let's start right here because I think it's appropriate for you. In your work, you talk about
the importance of being the author of your own story. And I think a lot of us are guilty of, at least at some point in our lives, kind of going on autopilot and winding up in a place that's a little less sparkly and fun
than we might have imagined

(12:30):
in an earlier version of our lives. Right? So let's start right there. You have lived a fascinating life, and now you help other people do the same. Why should we think about our lives as a story in this way?
Oh, I love that question.
I think that the biggest thing of the concept
of how we should write our own stories is that we're the ones in charge of the actual writing of it. And, of course, if we're all listening to this because we're going going, well, I'm in charge of all my decisions. I wake up in the morning. I do the things that I know I'm supposed to do. You know, I go to the the job that I'm supposed to go to. I have the family, the relationships, even the friendships that I'm supposed to go to. And we don't really take a moment to think about

(13:10):
where those
supposed to's
might come from or or the where the shoulds that we have that come from.
So I like to use an analogy that we're all writing our own story, but sometimes we don't notice when somebody else
reaches through our hand
and picks up the pen for us. And my always question was always,

(13:31):
who are those people?
And we explore all sorts of things, throughout the you know, my own research and my own experience really
is that there's
people from our past, like our family,
that sometimes, you know, might guide our writing and what those stories should look like. Sometimes it's our environment, our culture,
and sometimes it's just society that we live in, and they all play a role in how we shape it. And my call to you and anyone else really who's listening

(14:00):
is how do we make sure that we are the ones who are in control of that story?
And to your point, in in in your book, you talk about all the different ways that kind of these these ideas get in there. And I think it is fascinating too looking at the cultural differences and the cultural conditioning.
You talk about values like humility and harmony

(14:20):
compared to some of the Western
individualistic
values and conditioning
and how those can go head to head in the corporate culture and personal culture as well. So why don't you just riff on that a little bit?
Yeah. Sounds great. So in case you haven't figured it out yet, I am an Asian American Asian North American. I'm actually in Canada right now, but I was born in Taiwan, Taipei

(14:43):
and, you know, immigrated to North America.
And what that means is I am what, you know, people in our field might call third culture kid. And what that means is I have parents or ancestors that are from one culture, and that's the East, which is, you know, more what we call collectivist, which is the focus tends to be more on collective harmony.

(15:03):
Sociologists
have kinda labeled, if you divide the world cultures, you can kinda start seeing there's people who are on the East versus more collectivist, and then there's individualistic
cultures. So I'll give you an example of that.
In Eastern cultures that are more collectivistic,
the main focus might be on taking care of your family and your parents when you grow up. So, like, the expectation

(15:24):
of being especially if you're a son or one of the older kids is that when your parents get old, you you kinda stay around and take care of them. Like, that's part of your family
construct.
Whereas when I was growing up in Canada, for example, or North America,
the focus is more on, okay. Well, you hit 18, you're an adult, you go off to school, you go off to college, you go get a job, and you start a new family.

(15:49):
And
for this type of mindset of the collective as cultural values, you know, we look at things like
harmony, like you said, as as a major one, which is the importance of putting
the the needs and the feelings of the group of the family before your own, even before your own desires and ambitions
is a big part of that. Making sure you're honoring

(16:10):
your parents in that, like, the decisions you make or what career path you choose, you know, what kind of industry you go into. There's that old joke about, you know, Asian parents who want their kids to become doctors or lawyers.
That's a real thing for many of us. Not to say we're all a monolith, like, we definitely aren't, but for many of us, that was a real thing or even the type of relationships you have. So that's a big part of that. Whereas, again, in Western cultures,

(16:36):
that may be a suggestion
that our parents may have, but it's not as big of a role. So we look at honor,
harmony,
humility, like you said, that's a really big one, making sure that we're not trying to
seem as we're better than the rest of the group because, again, it's the collective before the self. You know, humility as well as hierarchy. You know, making sure that we're respecting our elders, which is a really positive virtue and value.

(17:03):
And seeing that that might be different in in a westernized
environment, social space, workspace,
and how that might create different scripts for us, especially as these third culture kids like myself growing up in the middle, balancing between two worlds.
Yeah. And you think about these things that you hear over the years, whether it's, you know, kinda indirect cultural conditioning

(17:25):
or it's just people saying, like, don't speak unless you have something to say. But then you enter the workplace and you see all these kinda, like, self aggrandizing,
pompous extroverts
who are just cleaning up because they're out there telling stories and holding court and getting all the promotions. And you're like, wait a minute. I'm actually competent here. Like, what's going on?

(17:45):
How do you help people navigate that?
That's a great question. Right? Like, because this is something comes up so often. I can't tell you how many people I've spoken to who comes back and they say, you know,
even my managers have come back to tell me I need to speak up more during meetings or, like, I need to be else more more assertive or confident or outspoken, whatever that is. Why are you so quiet, etcetera.

(18:08):
And
it's a tough thing because, of course, we understand it. And, yeah, there is that guy in the, you know, in the meeting who's always got his hands up.
And, unknowingly, you know, even while we're looking at that, we're gonna be like, that idea wasn't that good. Or even I had that idea first. You know? Why did he get all the credit for it?
But

(18:28):
what really sucks are those moments and you see those people get promoted
or get, you know, like, ahead of you. It doesn't matter in the workplace or even just in our own personal lives. And get the things that you want, and it feels like, oh, maybe I should have been different.
And for me, I think that there is a difference. And one thing I always come back down to is what if there's nothing wrong with the way that we've shown up, but there's just a different

(18:57):
way that leadership or a different way that self
confidence can look because it looks different in different cultures.
Yeah. What about the pieces of advice that that maybe
aren't serving you anymore or you could kind of readjust
to, suit your goals better in the future?

(19:17):
How do you know that that some of these things that you've internalized need to be reexamined,
and worked through?
It's a good question because I think that a lot of people, they jump to, oh, okay. So I grew up with a culture that or maybe my family grew up and told me, your job is to work hard, keep your head down, don't make waves, you know, the world respects meritocracy if you just work harder than everyone else, which is a lesson I got while I was growing up. Right? My mom used to have the saying, which is dumb birds should fly first,

(19:50):
which is a way of saying, look, if you're not gonna outsmart everyone, then at least outwork everyone. That was something that she I'm gonna say affectionately,
even though she was calling me a dumb bird.
I'm gonna say she was affectionately teaching me. I was kinda like this value of, like, okay. Well, if you just outwork everyone else, you don't have to speak up and, you know, just take on everyone else's jobs. So I became

(20:14):
kind of a fixer. Like, that was a pattern that I took on, this, like, caretaker of the people around me. And, you know, I always believed that if I just kept on achieving the next big goal, the next big goal, next big goal, then eventually, someone is gonna tap me on the shoulder and say, well, I see you work, and and and I recognize
you for what it is.
But
what I later on learned, and that might be a tough lesson, was no one is doing that. No one is coming to tap you on the shoulder to see your work because there's gonna be like, oh, great. John loves doing all the extra work. Let's just dump all the projects on him that we don't wanna do. Right.

(20:49):
And what that led to for me was in 2016, it led to a time of burnout and, that it that was my kind of, like, turning point of realizing, hold up. This isn't the way. So it isn't about
it isn't about the abandoning of our values, and that's a big one. You know, if you were taught to be humble, stay quiet, and all these kind of things, that's not in and of itself a bad virtue. These are great virtues. Harmony,

(21:14):
humility, these are fantastic virtues.
The only question is,
when are these coming out because they're they're truly who we are? And when are they coming out because we were taught that's how we're supposed to act, but it's no longer serving us? And that's always the starting point.
So the first thing I talk about is, you know, the the seven patterns that have shown up over time as these kind of protective or maybe

(21:43):
adaptive patterns.
And the question always come back down to is, are these who you really are, or are these patterns like caretaking, people pleasing, or, you know, overachieving,
not necessarily succeeding, but just overfunctioning?
Are they actually helping us?
Yeah.
And

(22:03):
we do
that type of behavior so often and so repeatedly that we don't really even realize we're doing it at some point. Right? Oh my gosh. Yeah. They're they're always that that there are the invisible pens, right, that we're talking about early on. That they're the people writing down the pages that we didn't even know they were in there. Like, where did this sentence show up? Like, you need to keep working harder to burn out in order to be good enough. Like, I didn't write that sentence. Who wrote that sentence in there?

(22:30):
Yeah. What are some of these other patterns that you identify
in your work in terms of, like, the archetypes of where people might be coming from?
You mentioned the fixer.
Yes. So if we take a look at these, and again, these, this is gonna sound a little bit like personalities almost, but they're really just sets and patterns. So we have the overachiever, the achiever,

(22:52):
we have the fixer. So the the overachiever
is his whole or his or her
whole basis is I have to do more, be more,
succeed more in order to be good enough to ask, let's say, ask for that promotion or to be seen or to be recognized. Like, if there's somebody else who is outworking me, then I haven't

(23:12):
deserved it yet, which is a pretty big statement. You know, we talked a little bit about the fixer before, who is the caretaker of everyone else. There's the chameleon,
which I was also a really good version of the
example of that, which is I have to try to make myself as much like all the other people around me as possible. And, you know, the the the strength to that is I could fit it anywhere. You throw me in a, you know, into a group of white people at a gala, and I'm like, yeah. I'm there. Or you could throw me with my Asian friends, and I could very quickly code switch to better fit in. But at a certain point, you start looking at, you know, where do I, as my real self, get to come out. Right? And that's also what leads to self diminishment or the self minimizing

(23:56):
that we often see.
There's also the charmer, who is the one who's always putting on a show, who's always, like, got a happy face on and is always charming, but again,
isn't willing to be or able to perhaps to be as vulnerable,
to be as connective.
There's a rebel who is almost the opposite
of the charmer in a lot of ways who's just like, well, my way of being is I'm going to succeed by only carving my path. And sometimes that can be a little bit ice isolationist.

(24:25):
And then there's the commander,
who is the one who has always been taught that they have to be the one in charge, as in, like, not to claim that spot, but if they're not the one in charge, then things won't get done right. And oftentimes, that's a family role that takes on that we kinda take on for the rest of our lives. And then the final one, which is
perhaps my favorite because it's the one that always gets ignored is the invisible one. And the invisible one's role is to self abandon, is to say, well, I don't wanna be a burden to other people. I don't wanna be an inconvenience to other people. So let me just hide my needs and hide how I really feel

(25:01):
so that
nobody ever has the chance to
see who I really am and perhaps reject me for it.
So how do you take identifying these maladaptive
patterns and turn them into something that works better
down the road?
Yeah. I mean, the first thing is recognizing that these patterns aren't meant to be shamed as if they're bad. A lot of people go into, well, yeah, I've I have that achiever pattern. I have fixer pattern, but that's what helped me get here. You know?

(25:31):
And I always acknowledge that. Yes. Absolutely.
And a lot of people I talk to, especially the Fortune 500 companies, like, they're all achievers. None of them will ever say they're a high achiever or a high performer because in their mind, they're always like, what are you talking about? Everyone else has done more than I do.
If anything, I'm the fraud. Right? That's the imposter syndrome that we all done we oftentimes talk about, and that's a serious topic. I realize I'm I'm kinda cracking up at this, but it's truth is it's just that I've experienced that day so many days of my life

(26:01):
that I can't help but chuckle at it.
So first and foremost is acknowledge that whatever got us here with those patterns and, you know, we have
quizzes and we have, like, you know, worksheets that you could take a look at to see if you identify as any of these things. But if you have taken all these patterns, the first thing we accept is they were there for a reason. They were there to help you get to where you are now. They were there for your survival. They were there to help you get belonging. They were there to help you go through those hard days where

(26:30):
you had no other option
but
to be the fixer, to be the chameleon, to be the charmer, and to burn yourself out.
But the question is to actually look at those behaviors and go, okay. Well, where can I take on the discomfort?
And that's that's gonna be a little bit self, almost a little bit, counterintuitive

(26:52):
because it's like, well, why do I want a discomfort? The discomfort of facing what's underneath it.
So let's say that I am a fixer because that's my pattern of I would just go around trying to take care of everybody else's problems. And
as a result, I kinda recognize that it's hard for people to see me as being, like, a strong powerful leader because I was always caretaking other people. I was always trying to be the nice guy, and I was always trying to be the harmonious one trying to, like, blend in everywhere.

(27:19):
And so I ended up sacrificing the next stage up. So the question then is,
why did I feel like I need to
caretake everyone else or silence myself or self diminish or, you know, when somebody is like, oh, you should go for that that opportunity, my first thought is, oh, I can't do that. That's for somebody else who's done more, who's achieved more, who's got more recognition to their names. So I would self reject.

(27:41):
Right?
So the question then is to go, well, where's the discomfort in that self rejection
that I need to face and go, well, what if I did take a chance and, you know,
it actually is working for me? Or what is that discomfort that I can slowly ease myself into? And, you know, I personally went through some pretty extreme solutions.

(28:04):
Like, I did, like,
a one year, you know, rejection challenge. I did, like, a one year challenge where right, like, prepared for my death. And I did a one year radical honesty thing. So I did a lot of these personal experiments to see how far I could push that. And usually these days when I work with clients, I don't give them that
level. But why not start with, like, a week of saying no? Like, how does that feel in your body? What part comes up and starts speaking to that? So

(28:30):
it's all about
facing the discomfort that's underneath in a safe and gradual way so our system knows it's okay. It's okay to be seen.
What about those challenges? What was the the best and the worst outcome
or or a few examples from all of your different escapades? Oh, dude.

(28:54):
I had a plate of spaghetti thrown at me one time.
That's pretty good. At a That's pretty good. At a at a public restaurant.
I was at a we were it was a group of friends,
and I always tell people, look. At the time that I was doing the challenge, I was like, I'm doing this challenge. It's called Radical Honesty, which means that I've taken an oath. I can't tell a lie, including white lies. Whatever you ask me, I have to speak the truth no matter how embarrassing it is

(29:19):
or how direct it is. Right? Because it wasn't like I was lying, but it was just that I never knew how often I was self silencing by, you know, not
sharing my opinion. So this is definitely not what you'd wanna be doing, but this is more of an extreme example.
So there was this woman who's at the table.
We were, like, kind of friends,

(29:40):
and she is like, okay. Tell me everything you
like about me and everything you don't like about me. Oh, no. And I always said this. Look.
Anything I say is is is because I'm expressing
my it's not what I really feel or believe. It's just like, this is just what's off top of my head. And I I told her that I found her attractive and that I would totally date her, but I didn't like her haircut.

(30:07):
I guess she didn't take that too well.
So she mixed up she had this plate of pasta that was, like, Javier didn't. Right? Like, it was spaghetti.
Picked it up, her plate, her whole plate, and she threw it at me. Now I'm just there talking. Right? I'm like, look. I I this is, like, the third person I'm doing this with. It's like people my friends treated it as a parlor show at this point of entertainment.

(30:30):
So I'm like, okay. I had to save it through. And then so she threw it at me. And I just remember like, so she threw it at me, the plate landed on my chest, you know, I was completely covered in sauce. And she's, you know, she's laughing. She's not really that offended. But I'm just, I'm just like, yeah, I deserve that.
But you know what though?

(30:50):
Best worst?
The the hardest conversation that came from, I'll use the radical,
honesty one as an example.
The
the hardest conversation I had had actually
was talking to my parents
and telling them the truth,
about
every single lie I could think of telling them when I was young.

(31:13):
When I was
because that was part of the assignment was that you had to go and retell the truth to the people who matter to you.
And,
I I gotta sit there and I had to tell them every time I was like, yep. You found some cigarettes when I was 15.
They were my cigarettes. They were not my friends.
I was smoking,

(31:34):
which they were just like, Yeah, you idiot. Like we
knew that.
But but they led to some really deep conversations as well, like, you know, even mental health. I was like, yeah. I went through a year where I was really struggling with mental health stuff, and and they were so loving. And it was one of those beautiful, really connected conversations because after that, they came out. They were like, actually, we felt something was all about you, and we were really worried, but you wouldn't tell us. So all we could do was walk from the sidelines and hope that you could do better and try to be there for you. But,

(32:06):
you know, it was
I could feel that care, but at the time, I just wasn't able to receive it.
Knowing what you know now and having gone through those experiments, how do you bring what you've learned to your day to day life? Like, how do you ride that line between
telling the truth and not getting
a place to get thrown in your face? Yeah.

(32:28):
Yeah. Fortunately, I've been spaghetti free since, I don't know, whenever I started doing that. We'll see going forward.
Now, you know, the the exercise that I went through was really about challenging yourself.
Of course, the always my my standard is always I can't remember who it was. Maybe it's Eckhart or Toomey or some wise teacher out there who said this, but,

(32:48):
you know, we think about
everything we're about to say and ask ourselves the question of, is it kind, is it true, and is it useful?
And I think that's the three tests, which is the first and foremost is what I'm about to say is a kind.
And second thing is, you know, what I'm about to say, is it true to me? And to me, true to me is, like, is it true that

(33:09):
if every person in my life heard me say that, would that change how they view me?
Because that's the thing is I I will
soften my language for the right audience. I will shift the performance of who I am, but that's the chameleon side of me that once was there. But the part that I don't need anymore is the part where I hide who I am. So my my beliefs will always be true to me, and that's important.

(33:36):
And the third thing is, is it useful? You know, looking back at that challenge, I probably wouldn't say a
of things because it was just like, well, that's just your belief, and that's not useful or kind to the other person.
So I was by the way, I was I was big that during that time that I only said what they asked for.
Mhmm. So I wouldn't I wouldn't go up to strangers and tell them that their haircut sucks. Right. But if you ask when I have a penny, I'll give it. So where I landed on that now is

(34:00):
what I call compassionate assertiveness,
which is if I'm about to say it's coming from a kind place,
I can make sure that what I'm saying has the groundedness and truth behind it without hiding
and know that my intentions
and my integrity is there.

(34:21):
What about you mentioned imposter syndrome, and I've heard this come up
more and more in the past few years. I don't remember hearing it a few years ago. And now almost everyone at every level seems to be talking about it or experiencing it. And I have as well at multiple points in my my career and my life. How do you help people
get through that and recognize it for what it is?

(34:44):
Absolutely. So imposter syndrome is the feeling, for those people who don't know, is the feeling of
not
belonging almost. Because the feeling is that, like, I am not good enough
where I am to be what people think of me as. It's a very, very common experience, especially people who are at higher levels,
because, you know, it was originally studied, I think, at Stanford,

(35:06):
with with these students. And these are really smart, capable students. They've worked really hard to be there. They've earned that spot, but there's still a part of them that believes they haven't.
And when I was doing research on this, I found that this was a very, very, very common thing. In fact, there was a study, you know, speaking of Asian experiences, but I was looking at that. I realized that, like, oh, wow. This was even studied as having ties

(35:29):
to family background.
And, of course, there's some elements
for many people that is this a social experience.
But the family background piece is at what point were you taking on the belief or the conditioning
that your identity of being good enough is dependent on external validation?
So I'll use myself as an example. It's, you know, if I am

(35:53):
getting
recognized,
you know, by
a at an award, for example, or, you know, by by somebody else, or something as simple as somebody gives me a compliment.
A lot of times I noticed my first immediate response is rejection,
Is to say, no. No. No. No. No. You you thank you for the kind words, but I don't deserve it. And let me either, you know, reflect that back to you and give you a compliment to deflect it

(36:17):
Yeah. Or just to deny it.
And this is so reflexive in me because growing up, one, that was actually something that was taught as this cultural script. And what I mean by that is that I was literally taught by my family, like, hey. You know, we were humble. You know, somebody pays you a compliment, you must never accept it. It it was wrong to accept it as a matter of fact, because, you know, they're just saying it to be polite.

(36:38):
You have to then
reject it and be like, oh, no. No. No. No. No. Your child is so successful. You know? Oh, no. No. No. No. I my meager
accomplishment is not worthy of being
praised. Let's talk about someone else. So the question of how do we overcome that
is did that action ever become a belief?

(36:59):
So one of the fastest ways I like to tell people when they're when they have a an imposter syndrome experience, let's say a client comes to me. My first thing is, let's go and take a look at the thought because the imposter syndrome is a belief,
which is to say, I will not be good enough or, you know,
worthy enough of receiving praise
or worthy enough of being in this position or worthy enough of getting that promotion

(37:21):
until
I blank.
Now that's a hidden belief, which is that we don't actually walk around thinking this,
but underneath it in our unconscious, we carry it.
And I go, okay. You feel like an imposter. An imposter doing what? And sometimes they'll be like, well, you know, I recently got this promotion and or I wanna ask for a new position, you know, in six months from now, but I haven't really proven myself yet. And I go, well, proven yourself how? How would you prove yourself?

(37:49):
And we start actually identifying what they think they need to do
or be
in order to deserve the praise they get. And a lot of times, this is scoring to look at that and go, well, is that true?
Is it true you need to have more
sales than anyone else on your team?
And, you know, is that true of what you think about the other people? Is it true that you should only go for this position if,

(38:12):
you know, you have this accolade or this recognition?
Have you seen other people get that position without it?
If you were talking to your best friend, would they also
need to have that before you view them as being successful?
So it's it's voicing the unvoiced. Right? It's it's once again, it's taking a look at who else is writing those sentences that we're not even reading and slowing it down and going,

(38:39):
I wonder who wrote that sentence and does that still apply to me?
How about people pleasing?
Oh,
that's a good one. So people pleasing is a safety protection. Right? People pleasing isn't about other people. That's a lie. The lie that people pleasing is for other people
or, when you know, even talking radical honesty,
you know, if I'm holding back a truth, it's not because I'm actually trying to be kind to the other person in the in the older model that I used to be. It was just because I want to avoid conflict.

(39:08):
So people pleasing is a protective mechanism.
It keeps me safe, the story, the line is, if I
am making everyone else around me
like me enough,
then I'll be safe and I'll be long.
Right? So it's it's actually coming from a self. It's, you know, there's a term called the I think it's a hidden contract.

(39:29):
It comes from a place of a hidden contract, which is if I am nice enough to you, then you deserve then I deserve for you to be nice enough to me, to like me, to love me, to give me acceptance, to give me praise. It's a transaction
that's hidden away in that.
So for me, a lot of times I'll ask people, I'll be like, well, you're doing this thing as a favor perhaps or because you feel an obligation.

(39:54):
You know, what are you expecting will happen?
And, you know, what are you expecting? What's the transaction there? And oftentimes, the simple truth is just like, when you're about to do something for someone, does it come from a place of joy?
You know? Does it come from a place of a glad heart where you're kinda like, oh, yeah. It brings me joy to bring you this coffee as opposed to, if I get them this coffee, they'll like me better and they'll accept me better.

(40:20):
And then self censorship also has become
more and more,
egregious as an issue that we need to wrestle with as the Internet steams ahead because you see a lot of top down influences affecting people in various ways and algorithms and that sort of thing combined with kind of what's happened with being politically correct with certain terms and what you call other people and that sort of thing. So in the in the workplace and also just in personal life, how do you help people

(40:48):
know what's appropriate there without self censoring too much, which obviously also becomes a huge problem?
Yeah. Again, it comes back down to, are you self censoring because it's better for the communication? Right? Communication is always about, I am trying to
create an outcome through what I'm saying.
And I think a lot of people, they use

(41:10):
censoring
either as a defense mechanism or, again, self protective,
or they say things because they
want to feel a certain way without considering how their communication impacts others. So if you're self censoring because you know you're walking into a place where there's a standard of communication, it's kinda like a a dress code. Right? Like, you understand this is the language we use here because that's appropriate. It's been found to happen the most effective at getting everyone what they need,

(41:35):
business, negotiations,
etcetera.
But the question is just that little dial
of assertiveness that you go into. You know, the more direct and more assertive you are, the more
communicative you can be and more powerful your communications can be. The softer you are, the more empathetic your language might become.
So, incidentally, we we analyze this as well through, there's a great book on this called Culture Code

(41:58):
that talks about how there's low context versus high context communication
countries or cultures.
And low context ones are like North America, we're much more direct, and that includes giving direct negative feedback or being direct in our languaging.
And if you go to places like Japan, for example, it's much more high context.
So people there are much less direct. They use hints, and they use mitigating language

(42:23):
to kinda get their point across.
So
there's a cultural element attached to this. And maybe if you grew up in a high context communication style, you have a hard time being more direct because you were taught that that's wrong.
Right? You were taught that, oh, being so direct of being telling someone to their face what you really feel is rude and disrespectful.

(42:44):
So let me just soften my language,
and that will create impact. So it depends on again, who are you speaking to? Can they handle it? Like, are they are they adults? Is this is the context
appropriate for this? And if so, then again, I come back to say,
do you are you holding yourself back from speaking the truth out of fear or discomfort?

(43:07):
Or are you genuinely being kind?
And that's where I think that you're right. We have a lot of people with a lot of messages these days.
Communication has become
tricky
because it's so hard to navigate that. My general belief is that the more we communicate, the better. I do not believe that there is such a thing as over communicating. I think if anything, we are under communicating by trying to shortcut words, shortcut ideas, and we get way too aggressive way too quickly. You know, we get too emotional about things that the other person didn't say.

(43:38):
Well yeah. And then especially combined with the culture
of burning people at the stake for what they said on Twitter twelve years ago or whatever that is, like,
or
biting their tongues, especially now that, you know, pretty much any room you're in, especially in a corporate setting or even increasingly out at bars, like you're being recorded in video and audio, and it could very well come back to you. And it's probably being analyzed by AI or your your, you know, whoever the people are, the puppeteers behind everything. It's a little bit creepy. So I wonder what we do

(44:08):
to counter
that to to some degree or at least get over that because we do need at least some sort of venue to speak freely and not be held accountable
forever
for being wrong about something or asking a question that was a little bit, you know, worded not quite the right way because this is how we learn, especially the generations coming up. Right? So at least we got a good shot at John growing up where we have to live free of that for a long time, but I mostly worry about the people who are coming up now. It's like we we do need some level of appreciation for the fact that we're not gonna be perfect, and we are gonna say the wrong thing. We're gonna think the wrong thing for a while too. And and through better communication, we're all gonna be able to work through it, hopefully, not less.

(44:47):
I agree. I think that this this is the key. Right? If we take a look at it. Let's use an example here of somebody saying something ten years ago. You know, I watch I was watching Friends,
the other day because I'm like, have you seen that show TV show Friends from the nineties?
If we this show wouldn't get made now because there's so many jokes that were appropriate back then for, you know, prime time. I don't know if you would agree, but I I certainly consider that one of the tamest shows on TV the entire time it was on TV as well. It's it's not like they were trying to ruffle feathers, really. Some shows were a a lot more, but that one in particular was pretty pretty tame.

(45:23):
Yeah.
And and if we take a look at that, this is why this and I'm like, we we should stop attacking words. We should start looking at the intention and what's behind it.
And because we're you're right. We're always gonna make mistakes. And to a certain degree, I'm kind of like, I felt that I felt like this, like, I don't know if I can say this, if I should say this, if I should say that, and there's so much of that. But the fear of that is always that I'll be attacked.

(45:46):
Right? There's gonna be Internet haters who are gonna come in, you know, slide into my DMs. They're gonna use, you know,
let's say, profane language
because the anonymity of the Internet has provided that. And I think that the bigger issue here is just like, okay. So can we take the energy and power away from the words for a second and take a look at the meaning behind it? Because if you are trying to influence change, if somebody uses a word now,

(46:12):
of course, I'm not talking about the extremes. Right? Like, there are some words that inherently
have so much negative power. But I'm talking about, like, for the most part, it allows us to actually ask the question of, like, well, what what do you mean by that?
And what do you mean what's underneath this? Like, one of the things that I I advise for people when they're dealing with even something as extreme as racism

(46:34):
at work is when somebody makes a racist joke, my suggestion is just ask the person,
what did you mean by the joke?
Because a lot of people don't realize that in the moment, they're like, oh, yeah. I just made a cracked little joke, And they might then go, oh, is my joke making somebody else uncomfortable?
Not because they're yelling at me, because I'm afraid that they're gonna yell at me, but because I'm a good person, and I don't wanna make people feel uncomfortable.

(46:59):
And I didn't realize that me saying that was creating this feeling of otherness.
And in that moment, instead of going to let me just say you are, I'm gonna use the word like a racist, a bigot or whatever it is. What if we actually ask? Like, can you tell us
what that
means? Like, why is that funny? And and maybe underneath it, we understand something entirely different, and we learn something from each other.

(47:24):
But if we start with attack, it shuts everything down. Yeah. Because then now we're not in talking mode anymore. We're just picking up the sword and the shield, and we are fully going at it.
Right.
And people use words very, very differently
across cultures, even within the same cultures. And so it's it's dangerous
to argue back and forth about what you know, you don't even have the same idea of what you're talking about, yet you're going at it. Right? Just guns blazing.

(47:50):
That's a recipe for disaster. I think the Internet really makes it worse because it is hard to tell what someone meant
by a tweet or by a post or whatever. And it's very easy as well to not
think it all the way through because you're not looking at anyone else in the face and waiting for them to punch you or throw a plate of spaghetti in your face. Right? You're just pressing send or post or whatever. And so I think taking that out of the equation because

(48:15):
everyone has experienced the thing where people have said things to them online that they would never say to them to their face. And
I think that that is a nice
thing to have around when we're communicating a little bit. Right? It's
not always perfect. There are pros and cons. But for the most part, having that accountability to each other, that at least you're both in the same room or in the same place or on the phone call together or whatever. These days things are so disconnected,

(48:40):
you know, you're sending texts every few minutes or every few hours, all the conversations are broken up, something hits differently in the afternoon than it would have that morning, right, and it's just like a huge mess
of communication
styles and words meaning different things. But I I appreciate your point that we should all embrace communicating more because that's that's really something that also we need to practice.

(49:04):
I really love
communication because I think communication makes us better,
genuinely.
And most of the time, I can tell you right now, like 90% of the time I I witness people because, you know, we deal with people going through conflict a lot, right? They're like, oh, I'm having this conflict with coworker,
friend, blah, blah, blah. How do I navigate this? And usually,
unlike within three steps, we could probably zoom out and see you're on the same page. Yeah. And so often,

(49:31):
like, I was just use an example. A couple of days ago, I was at a, you know, a restaurant and you know, two people who were sitting at our table were having an argument
about ghosting, you know, idea of ghosting somebody was like, in a relationship and you stop messaging them. And there was a guy there
who was basically like saying, I think it's okay to ghost people.

(49:51):
And there was a woman there who was really unhappy about that, who was just like, no, like ghosting is never okay. And they went at it for like a half an hour. Like it was, it was this epic argument.
But the truth is, and this is what's funny is that like, I later on, I laughed, I walked away and I was like, honestly, if somebody had just asked the guy and being like,

(50:13):
Okay, are you talking about ghosting someone after the first date? Or it's kind of like, okay, you guys meant there wasn't much energy there. Whatever.
Bye. Hope everything goes well. Or are you talking about ghosting someone after six months? Right. And to the the same question I would oppose to the woman, it's just like, wait, what does ghosting mean to you? Is it okay? Does that first date okay? And she's probably gonna be like, Yeah, that's fine. Maybe even after the second date is still fine. I don't know. But certainly not after six months.

(50:40):
So like, those two people were not in disagreement.
They were possibly in agreement, but they were just using words because what she is talking about is I'm so mad that the last guy that I put emotional investment into
who never texted me back, And I'm so angry that I have to make sure no man ever does that again or no person ever does that again

(51:03):
because of that wound.
And to the guy, he might have been, I'm so tired of people expecting
me to, you know, respond to everything. Or for that matter,
when I do try to be overly direct, you know, it ends up hurting people's feelings, and I just don't think that's necessary. Like, after the first date, I don't need to text you to say I'm not interested in you. We get it. The uncommunication

(51:25):
is communication,
and both sides might have been bringing in challenges they have had into that conversation without even knowing
perhaps that they were more on the same page than they realized.
And the Internet gives no room for subtlety.
No. You know? Somebody could take somebody to say on this
on this interview and cut it in just the right way, and I'll be like, well, alright. I guess I was that guy who told a girl that I thought she was hot, and then she threw a plate of spaghetti at me. I'm so sorry, Internet.

(51:55):
I apologize.
We're all getting canceled after this one. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
How about, you know, self promotion comes
a lot more easily to some people than others.
But the way that things are going with with the Internet, personal brands, or even increasingly
leadership,
and executives of companies being expected to essentially be influencers

(52:18):
at this point.
Self promotion, especially in in certain cultures, is considered selfish.
But how do you get over that? And also, where do you draw the line? Like, what's an appropriate amount of getting yourself out there, getting your ideas out there, and how do you know if you've pushed it too far? It's gonna be different for everyone. It's it's not the easiest question, I'm sure, but
I'm sure you've thought about this as well.

(52:40):
Oh, all the time. And is this is one of the biggest topics because so many people I spoke to, have spoken to, especially those who are from family or cultural environments where,
you know, speaking out too much is actually
seen as this net terribly negative, like, very selfish, very self indulgent, very narcissistic idea. And they go, I I don't know how to speak up and and tell people all these things. It's just not me. And I go, great. Don't do it from the space of selling yourself because it's not true to you.

(53:11):
If you feel inclined, the question just is that, like, well, if you don't wanna share yourself, share the things that you are excited by. Maybe that is your projects. Maybe that is your work. Maybe it is the values you believe in, and
it doesn't need to be selling. It's just being authentically living in the moment and documenting your journey if it so feels right for you. And this is always a thing. I go, like,

(53:35):
in a career
perspective or in a job per leadership perspective,
I usually take a look at that and go, well, it depends on what the context is because you don't have to share to the whole room. You can just share to one person.
And this is what we call strategic visibility. Right?
Being visible is necessity.
Because if you're if you're not raising your hand up at some point, nobody knows to, you know, that you're you're available for the spot. But being visible doesn't mean having to be visible to everyone. It could just be to this community,

(54:03):
to this group, to this person.
So how do we strategically think about
who do we want to be visible to? Who do we wanna be visible to? And in what ways are we comfortable sharing? It doesn't have to include being loud. It doesn't have to be include shouting down everyone's throats. You do not need to be on TikTok learning how to twerk.

(54:24):
If all you want is to share this cool new project you're working on with your LinkedIn community or, you know, your work community,
you could easily start a sub stack and be like, here is something I learned recently. And that is something that somebody was gonna take and be like, that's high value.
I like this, and I wanna hear more.

(54:45):
I love that response, John. It's so great because, I think a lot of people probably assume,
that you need to just
be out there being a butt model on Instagram or something and just kinda
showing flesh in order to get I feel like we're man, we have too many people trying to be influencers. I'm like, I we have too many people, and and I fall under that same freaking bucket. I think we have too many people

(55:08):
who feel like they're supposed to be always out there talking about themselves,
and I think they don't realize that it's counterintuitive,
that it's actually diminishing
how much real connection there is. You know, figure out whatever your cadence you wanna be. Some people might be, I only post once a month. I only post once a quarter, but it's just something I really believe in. And that will probably have greater impact

(55:31):
than you feeling the pressure of I just gotta show up, you know.
We brought in this social media person one time we're chatting with, and, you know, they were like, oh, the right cadence is four times a day.
I'm like, what?
Like, that's a lot of noise. I don't need a like, oh, I got an AI algorithm that's gonna be able to come with con like, no.

(55:54):
I don't need more robots talking for me. I'm enough as it is.
I feel the same way. At some point Right?
Yeah. It's a war of attrition, and humans are losing.
Yes. Oh, man. That's a great sentence. It's a wall of a it's a war of attrition, and humans are lose we are. We're losing connection.
Right? Like, we're losing real connection. Like, oh, we're losing real ability to really see the human behind it, and that's the tragedy.

(56:23):
You know, a a a one hour conversation over coffee is always going to be
better than, you know, a thousand email blasts any day.
Yeah. It's really I I think about a lot of this in terms of memory and having memories of your past and your adventures and that sort of thing. It's like, I can't remember ever being on the Internet, if that makes sense. Like, I don't have any concrete memories of, like, like, being on the Internet with maybe Home Star Runner when we were kids, but it's back in the nineties that I had. You know? Like, I'm probably on the Internet.

(56:55):
Oh
my god.
Shout out HomeStar Runner. But it's like
every cup of coffee, every meal that you have with someone, all of those touch points, they have a chance of of really affecting your life. And so it's so important to spend time doing these things. But that maybe this is a nice inroads to talking to the importance

(57:15):
of play because,
you talk about that in your book as well. And there's a tendency as we grow up and become older and more serious, all these responsibilities,
To think that all sorts of play are frivolous, or even hobbies in general are frivolous or kind of a waste of time. But what if the point is pointlessness?
Are you on that one for a bit?

(57:35):
So this is a common pattern I see with achievers, and
they tend to,
like take on so much of their identity as what they're creating what they're achieving in the world. And it becomes a situation where we no longer really connect to the humanity of ourselves. I mean, we're talking about just a moment ago of like, what if we there's so much in our lives when we meet with other people that feels almost transactional because, oh, it has to serve a purpose. But how often are we giving ourselves our own permission

(58:06):
to just be?
And this this is actually a funny thing because when I bring this up in in, you know, workshops or leadership seminars, everyone in the room kind of takes a moment back and they're like, play? Like, aren't you gonna tell us about work?
Like, I I play, like, you know, I I I play video games. I play Call of Duty. And I go, yes, but play from the perspective of do you ever

(58:29):
let yourself have room to create
without purpose? Because that's what play really is. There's a great book written by psychologists who study specifically the idea of play.
And he says that play is actually an integral act in our cognitive development.
We need play in order to be more creative, more productive,

(58:49):
which is seems to be the only way I could convince people to play more is to tell them that they can be more productive.
But it truly is. Even something that's giving yourself, like, an like, a couple of hours a day where you kinda just goes follow your intuition of what it is. Maybe it's creating a piece of art. Maybe it's drawing something, but you do it without any expectation of outcome.

(59:10):
And it's one of those things that allows that part of us
to be seen because the goal of how do we get to self authorship has to be from
trusting
our own inner creations
and our own inner voices
to come out. And
when it comes out, it has to be coming out from a place without judgment
or purpose, as in like the purpose is the creation.

(59:34):
You're a musician. I'm sure you could relate to this. Right? Like, sometimes it's just like that
getting to just enjoy the process
is so
essential. It's holy in how essential it is. It's a spiritual experience.
Okay. That last one may have ran a little bit too far, but, no, I like it. I mean, it is well, so here's the thing. With music, if you approach it as a business thing, it destroys the spiritual thing, at least

(01:00:00):
in my experience. For the most part, if you come in with that intention, you're like, I'm gonna write a banger that's gonna sell a bunch of copies, like, you're not going to be channeling God when you write your song. Right? Which to many musicians,
artists, writers, that sort of thing, like, that's what they're doing. If you they might not say it exactly like that, but they are getting out of their own way

(01:00:20):
and channeling something bigger than themselves. Like, for everyone from Keith Richards
playing guitarists
to, you know, songwriters like Greg Brown and many people who come from spiritual traditions, they all argue the same thing. And I I would challenge anyone who does write something and tries to write it that way to say that it's them because it's just not. You can't argue with it. And if you feel like you're writing it, you are.

(01:00:43):
Right? So it's the whole goal is to get to the level of skill where you can get out of your own way, get to flow, and let it write itself. It's it's really a powerful and profound thing, and you don't actually need
that much of a level of technical skill to get there. You just need to actually show up and do it and and play and have fun.
Absolutely.

(01:01:03):
In the study so it's it's doctor Stuart Brown and, Christopher Vaughn and their two neuroscientists. I look at it. They they say there's basically seven
primary process emotional systems that drive our motivations.
So there's two components
to play because play is problem solving, it's intelligence, it's social skills, it's adaptability,
but there's only really two things.

(01:01:25):
One, it does not have a specific outcome specifically. As in, like, yeah, if you wanna be like, oh, I wanna build a draw a painting of a castle, that's an outcome, but it's not graded where it's about judgment.
And more importantly, it puts us into a state of flow.
So when you're talking about music, I was like, that's exactly what it is. It's when we can be in the act of creating in its own purest form.

(01:01:48):
And this is really where I think human beings are at our best. When we're creating from playing, a lot of people ask like, oh, I'm trying to figure out what I should be doing with my life. I feel stuck. I feel like I'm procrastinating.
I can't do my important work.
I go, well, what if
you approach your work as if it's not this big important thing that if you fail at, you will die alone and rejected,

(01:02:14):
which is how you feel like it is in your mind, and you just approach it as play.
And I could tell you right now, I
so many people
automatically
next time I see them, they're like, I cracked it. I just went home and I just decided to play with it, and I and I created this thing I've always wanted to create.
Such an easy but
forgotten thing in our society.

(01:02:37):
We've just got a couple minutes left, but I would love for you to share the story of the Golden Buddha for those out there who haven't heard it.
Oh, yeah. Basically, the story was that there was once a temple that built this beautiful Golden Buddha,
and then the country was being invaded by outside invaders.
So the monks in the country decided,

(01:02:58):
okay. You know what? We're gonna cover this up with mud and stucco,
basically, clay, so that we can make it and pass it off as one of the hundreds of other clay Buddhas that we have that isn't worth much. And then this way, when the invaders come, the robbers won't see it, and they won't take it and steal it. So that's what they did. They covered it up. They hid it away in this little shack in the middle of nowhere, and

(01:06:27):
it worked. The invaders came. Unfortunately, all the monks were killed, but the Buddha was untouched. Nobody ever found it.
And it sat unfound for two hundred years,
actually,
until
later on, they decided to remake this whole temple and were moving the Buddha. And all the other Buddhas, they can just, like, lift up with rope and everything like that. This one, they try to lift it up because it was made of pure gold. It smashed and fell off and broke the the whole pulley, and it broke open. And you can imagine being in the room with all the workers, like, staring at this giant golden Buddha

(01:10:09):
that was, again, pure gold or, I think, like, a quarter of a billion dollars.
And I've always felt like this is such a beautiful metaphor because it's really how so many of us have grown up. Whatever these patterns we talk about, these experiences of imposter syndrome,
these feelings and challenges of people pleasing, self censorship, all these kind of things, they were all protective shields that we learned to take on and put ourselves.

(01:10:34):
But somewhere in us is still that golden Buddha, still that brilliant, playful,
creative
being
that has something to be seen for
as long as we're willing
to shed that outside clay,
even though at some point it was there to keep us safe and keep us hidden.

(01:10:56):
Beautiful, beautiful words. I love it. John, what is the best way that people can find your work? Big Asian Energy is the name of the book.
What's coming next, and what's your website?
Yeah. So you could could check out the book, on Amazon. Just type in Big Asian Energy. It's available preorder.
If you go to our website, bigasianenergy.com,
we also have a bunch of
free,

(01:11:17):
you know, prerelease bonuses like an assertiveness guide. You know, we talk about the seven patterns and how to break through your imposter syndrome. All these free downloads, you can go and check out now. You could also find me on Instagram and TikTok. On TikTok, it's just John Wang Bae. On Instagram, it's John Wang official.
And, you know, I really love talking to people. Like, shoot me a message, you know, send me a thing. No. Just shoot me a message on Instagram. I I I get too many messages on TikTok. I can't check it. But send me a DM on on Instagram.

(01:11:46):
And, yeah, check out the book. It is a you know, while it's called Big Asian Energy, truthfully, I think there's a message in it for anyone who wants to break free from that golden Buddha and let their light be seen.
I agree. I really enjoyed the book and encourage all of you folks listening to check it out as well. John Wayne, thanks so much for being here, man.
Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. Appreciate you.

(01:12:12):
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(01:12:38):
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