Speak Honest Podcast: Real Talk on Relationships, Attachment Styles & the Work of Healing Childhood Trauma

88. How to Thrive and Shine in Love and Life | My Conversation with Julee Sung

• Jennifer Noble, ACC | Certified Relationship, Dating, NLP, & IAT Coach • Episode 88

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What if the thing you’re chasing finally shows up the moment you stop trying to control it?
In this week’s episode, I sit down with bestselling author and coach Julee Sung, whose book Thrive and Shine tells the story of rebuilding your life and self-worth after burnout. We talk about what happens when you finally let go of the timeline, stop leading with ego, and start trusting that the universe knows what it’s doing. Julee shares how being open, grounded, and curious helped her attract a healthy partnership, rebuild her confidence, and learn that the most important relationship she’ll ever have is with herself.

You might want to listen if:
• You keep asking, “Why isn’t this happening yet?”
• You’re ready to shift from control to trust in your relationships
• You’ve been living in the “shoulds” and are tired of forcing things
• You’re realizing ego isn’t self-worth and want to learn the difference
• You’re craving real love that unfolds naturally, not perfectly

About Our Guest:

Julee Sung is a coach, consultant, and former corporate executive who completely reinvented her life after experiencing burnout and a layoff. Now an Amazon #1 bestselling author, Julee helps early-career professionals and relationship-seekers navigate big life shifts with clarity, compassion, and a touch of humor. Through her book Thrive and Shine and her coaching work, she explores how doing the inner work (especially after major change) transforms the way we show up in love, friendships, and at work.

You can find Julee at juleesung.com
or on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube @julees94.

Grab Thrive and Shine on Amazon

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DISCLAIMER: Speak Honest podcast content is informational, not professional or medical advice. Jenn is an ICF relationship coach, not a licensed therapist. Consult health professionals for specific concerns. Client opinions do not reflect Speak Honest’s stance. We aim for accuracy but are not liable for errors or outcomes from ...

SPEAKER_01:

Hello, and welcome to Speak Honest. I am your host and certified relationship coach, Jennifer Noble. It has been my passion for over a decade to help women like you heal. What's been holding you back from having the relationships you deserve? Are you struggling with a relationship where you can't seem to voice your emotions, needs, and boundaries without having it blow up in your face? Then you have found the right podcast, my friend. Get ready for practical tips, empowering truths, and honest conversations. Now, let's dive in. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Speak Honest. I'm Jen Noble, your go-to relationship coach. And on today's episode, I'm so excited to have a friend and a colleague on with me, the beautiful, wonderful Julie Song. And now Julie Sung is one of the fellow authors with me over at my book publisher, Lucky Book Publishing. And I wanted to have her on because she recently wrote a best-selling book called Thrive and Shine. And it has been really such a beautiful journey. It's both a memoir and a how-to book, kind of like part healing guide, part memoir, which I thought is really cool. And I wanted to bring it to all of you listening. So if you're listening right now and you want to dive more into this topic with me, then I invite you to come and join our free Facebook community. Our Facebook community, you can just go Google Speak Honest. You'll see these two little orange hearts next to it. It's where we are. And then we continue the conversation there. So if anything gets brought up in you today in my conversation with Julie, maybe the concept of starting over, the concept of having that breakdown, the concept of starting a whole new life, a whole new career, like that is what you want to be listening to. So even if as you're listening to our story, you're thinking, oh, I haven't really been where Julie is, I want you to hear the nuance behind her story, what she's been through, and how she got over the other side. Now let me introduce Julie to you. Julie Sung is a coach, a consultant, and a former corporate executive who transformed her life after burnout and a layoff. She is now, I'm so excited for her, an Amazon number one best-selling author, and she guides early career professionals and relationship seekers through pivotal life shifts with clarity, compassion, and my favorite part, a touch of humor. So I want you to expect honest stories, actionable insights, and real talk about how doing the inner work impacts our romantic partnerships, friendships, and how we show up at work. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Julie. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00:

I am doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I've been so looking forward to this. I always get such inspiration from all the interviews you do and all your content. So I'm thrilled to be here today.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, thank you so much, Julie. This is so great. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself, the stuff I didn't kind of bring up, like the stuff we don't know about?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You know, when I first started out diving into the early adult world, I was on a completely different trajectory. I was a music major, I was going to go into academia, and I actually started there and just found it wasn't for me. So very early in my life, in my early 20s, I was already making these pivotal changes, sometimes by my choice and other times just by external factors. I somehow fell into working in the corporate world and I initially started thinking, I'll do this for a year. I'm pausing grad school. I don't even know if I want this master's anymore. So I'll just make some money and then figure out what I do. And then decades later, I was just on this corporate train climbing that ladder. And I didn't realize at the time, but I was a very type A, go get it, you know, like this whole thing, I just bought into that narrative so hard. And it became really part of my identity much later in life. Even though the doubts of, am I fulfilled? Is this the life that I want started creeping in? I just pushed it down, pushed it down because I was just on a success track. You know, I was getting promoted steadily, I was making more money year over year. And I was like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. This is what people are supposed to be doing. Meanwhile, my life was all work. I had a series of failed relationships one after the other for a variety of reasons. And I don't want to go too off topic, but I know with you, the attachment theory, all the work that you do there, I say the attachment theory, that relationship dynamic definitely exists at work in your professional relationships as well as personal. So as all that was kind of coming to a head, COVID hits, layoff hits, and I'm like, what am I left with? You know, like where does my life go from here? And it took a lot of falling down and getting back up to reach this point now where I feel like only now in this later stage of my life, am I starting to find my voice and really finding purpose and helping others? So it's been a crazy journey, and I feel like it's accelerated over the last couple of years, especially with this book idea. I never thought I would write a book. I never saw myself doing that. And when, you know, the universe calls and things fall into place, you just kind of go with it and see what happens. So it's a lot of leap of faith, and I'm still certainly learning as I go. Every day is a lesson, but I'm, you know, so grateful for the opportunity to meet people like you and to have this kind of new community open up. So it's been incredible.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for sharing all of that. Yeah, you can hear it in the way that you talk of just how far you've really come. Now, as I was reading in your book, or as I remember, you had this breakdown around the age of 36. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, right around that point.

SPEAKER_01:

Because I have a lot of listeners are around in this age frame. My my clients are anywhere from like, you know, 30 to 60. And I want them to see that this idea of starting over or writing a book, right? I'm 41. It doesn't have to be something when you're younger. So would you mind sharing about how old you are now?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm 54. Okay, beautiful. And I had multiple kind of breaking points, one in my 30s, one in my 40s, and you know, in my early 50s too. And the thing that happened in my 30s is I was in a relationship for 10 years. I went through a breakup that was pretty significant. It shook up my life in a big way. And the funny thing is, it didn't happen to me. I did it.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's huge. Can we like step down on that real quick? It did not happen to me. Do you hear that, ladies? Get out of that victim positioning, right? It was, yeah, tell me more. I love that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, I'm the one who chose to leave. Now, of course, in every relationship, romantic or otherwise, it always takes two. You know, it's never just like one side that just makes everything happen or not happen. But, you know, I was the one who chose to step away from this long-term stable, secure relationship. And then all of a sudden I woke up and I was like, oh, hold on a second. I have no safety net now because I had this partner who was always, you know, this wonderful, solid, stable guy who was just there to catch me if anything happened. So once that was gone and I woke up after the first couple of weeks of, oh, I'm free. Like now I can do anything I want. I can go anywhere. I have all this, you know, liberated freedom. And then when I realized, I'm like, oh, wait, there's a cost to that, meaning I have to now step up and own my own life entirely by myself without that strong foundational support system that I had. Well, then everything in terms of my attitude shifted. I completely had like that early stage breakdown. You know, I can't say it was midlife, but it was definitely like I'm in my 30s, now I'm alone. I own nothing, my savings is like zero. Like, what do I do? And that idea of starting over. And of course, now at my age, I look back, I'm like, I was a baby. Like I was a baby, but at the time I felt like I'm too old to be in this position. Like I should have my act completely together. Of course, I didn't, but you go, you go through it, you do one step at a time, you do what's in front of your nose, basically. So ironically, that's when I really started focusing on my career out of this sense of this is my livelihood. If I get fired, I have no recourse. Like I have to make this work, you know? And that actually is what started propelling my professional success because I started working really hard, really focusing and pouring my energies into my job. And that's what kept moving me forward. And that lasted a good 10 years, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

So during this time frame when you're putting all of your effort into your job, would you consider this something that was helping you or hurting you in terms of like putting all that energy in there?

SPEAKER_00:

At the time, I thought it was helping me in the best way because I was just all of a sudden fast tracked to management, leadership, you know, all these, all this exposure within a fairly large company. I mean, it was a multi-billion dollar tech company, and I was, you know, moved to headquarters. I would like all these things were happening. And I was like, this is great. Like, this is awesome. But again, that became kind of my identity. And I really lost touch with myself personally in that what is important to me, what fulfills me beyond work. When you're chasing just after professional accomplishments, it actually is a very devastating game in a way, because there's always the next title. There's always somebody right on your shoulder coming up after you. You just put yourself sometimes falsely, you know, no one else is doing it. Like you're doing it to yourself in this highly competitive, you know, kind of mindset. And that's not by nature who I am, but I fell into that sort of work persona, if you will.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it gives you a little bit of a almost like a dopamine rush when you get that, right? Like it's and I get it why that happens, but this career, it's like you get these like immediate, like you said, bonuses or promotions or anything like that. And you're like, oh, look, this is so great. You don't really level up in relationships, so to speak, like that. So I think a lot of people throw themselves into their career, into their job, or even their volunteering, whatever it looks like for you, to kind of not look at the connection piece, the the bigger picture. So for you, at what point in time did you start noticing, like, wait a second, I'm not fulfilled here?

SPEAKER_00:

A lot of it started happening when like I would go meet friends once in a while for dinner or drinks or something, and they would say, Oh, so how are you? What's new? And I literally had nothing to add to the conversation other than work stuff, which believe me, nobody else cared about. I mean, it's not like they're like, that's great for you, but I mean, no one in my personal circle is sitting there waiting to hear about my latest project or my latest, you know, whatever. And I thought, God, you know, is this all I have to bring to the table? Like, is everything that I'm doing just about work? But I kept pushing it down because the alternative was, yeah, you've wasted all this time pouring all your energy into work and now you have this really empty personal life. But that was horrible to admit, right? And really painful to kind of go there. So I was like, no, no, no. I'm just gonna do this for the next couple years more. You know, I'll just do this until I, you know, hit 15 minutes. Just a few more years. Just a few more years, just a few more years.

SPEAKER_01:

So, what was the turning point for you? When did you this? You said this was about for 10 years or so. So it's hearing like this was, you know, when you're in like now you're getting into your 40s and you're still doing all this. So, what was that turning point for you where you thought, wait a second, I need to start balancing my career and my connections more?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Funny things happened, all kind of one on top of the other. And it's just, you know, crazy how that works sometimes. So I was in this position. It was my highest corporate level job. I mean, I was reporting directly into our chief revenue officer of this global, again, multi-billion dollar company. And I had worked with him at the previous company. He had brought me with him to this new place. And it was so stressful. And it was a UK-based company. So I was working easily 14 hours a day. I mean, easily. And it was just you have Europe, then you have the US, then you have Asia, and you're just kind of doing all these things. But ultimately, I had nothing tied to my name because everything was just going to my boss or the team or the this. And I started to feel really disconnected from the work I was doing. It was no longer motivating me. The stress was outweighing the sort of dopamine rewards, if you will. And I thought, God, you know, is this what am I doing? But you wake up and you're at work and you're just kind of on this hamster wheel, right? And then a funny thing happened. Right around that time, I was like, you know what? I hadn't dated for a while. I had gotten out of a relationship. I was single for a couple of years, just a date here, a date there. And I was like, I'm gonna actually date. I'm gonna date. I'm gonna go not necessarily find a boyfriend, but just get out there and just put my hand in the game and just see what is out there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

See what is out there. Yeah. So what did you end up doing? Did you go online dating? Did you try like in-person stuff? What did you end up doing?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I did both actually. I was online for a hot minute and then I realized that it's pretty much like a part-time job. So I was like, okay, well, this isn't for me. But I met a couple of really nice guys through that. Once my friends figured out that, oh, you know, I'm kind of back in the game of maybe dating, they set me up a couple times. And again, every guy I met was really, really nice, but no real chemistry, no real connection. It just felt good to be pursued, but it was that sort of my ego was fulfilled, but that was really it. You know, there was no real substance behind that. And again, no offense to any of these guys I met. They were all great. They just weren't for me, and I certainly wasn't for them. And then as my work started getting really, really, really, really stressful, and you know, the pandemic was now looming, and now my boss was most likely going to be, you know, pushed out, and all these changes were happening. I was at dinner one night. After dinner, my friend, my best friend and I were out. We went to a bar right next door, and I met this guy, and we just started talking and exchanged numbers at the end of the night and started dating, and that was it. And now I'm with him. I've been with him for, you know, ever since that time, and that was it. And now he's like my life partner and it's wonderful. But everything at work was falling apart, and then my personal life started to kind of rise up, saying, like, hey, this could be something, but it wasn't easy. It wasn't an easy situation, and the hardest part was for me to mentally shift into, hey, I need to feed this other side of my life that I've ignored on and off for for many years, but for so long.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Can we talk about how you met him a little bit? Could I could I like like get nosy? Okay, because that's so cute. Okay, because I gotta tell you, I've been doing this for a long time. I help women date all the time. Like, I again I also just want to tell anyone out there listening, what happened to Julie is still like hitting the lottery. It does not happen like this all the time anymore, ladies. So, like, but it can happen. So, what do you think it was in that moment that put you out there to kind of say, Hey, I'm open and I'm single? And like, did he ask you for your number? Did you ask him for his? Like, I want to dive down into this. How did it happen?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So it was funny. So he was out with his friend. Now, this was a neighborhood that I actually lived in. Okay. He lived far enough away. I mean, you know, not so far that it was going to be a plane ride, but on the other side of town, let's say. And he was just there coincidentally. And what happened was it was a Friday night, and it was a bar that all of a sudden, at some point, you know, right around that 10 o'clock time frame, it became really crowded, really loud, very young. And so the four of us, my friend and me, and his friend and him, we got kind of pushed into a corner.

SPEAKER_01:

Just like randomly? Like you guys hadn't been talking yet. This was just kind of random. Okay, cool. Great.

SPEAKER_00:

We were just looking for a quiet corner because we were like so out of place there, you know? So we kind of like huddled. And then when the four of you are in this little corner, you make eye contact, you say hi, we started talking. And then for whatever reason, I saw this guy, and he was just not coming on to me, not aggressive, not trying to hit on me or anything like that in any way. We just happened to say, like, oh, hey, how are you? My name is this, my name is this, oh, it's great, you know. And the conversation just organically happened. And we sat down and we talked for probably over an hour.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, really? Wait, what was your girlfriend doing during this time? What was it?

SPEAKER_00:

She was just talking to Yeah, she was just talking to his friend who was not at all looking for anything because he was married. He was like, Yeah, oh my god, great wingmen.

SPEAKER_01:

You guys have good friends. This is good. Yeah, exactly. Oh, and then they just it started talking. But like at this moment, you could have pushed him away. You could have been like, I don't have time for something like this. You could have, right? But you didn't. It seemed like at this point in time things were starting to kind of work together to where you were open for this. Is that is that right?

SPEAKER_00:

That's exactly right. I do firmly believe that if I hadn't, you know, months before kind of decided like I'm going to date, yeah. I'm just gonna go out there and see what happens, not look for anything specific, not have a goal like, hey, by this date, I'm gonna have a boyfriend, nothing like that. But just I'm gonna put myself out there energetically, see what happens. If I hadn't done that, I don't think Gary and I would have ever met. Or if we had, we would have just brushed shoulders, and that's kind of it. And I think just by being open-minded and looking at this guy who was, again, not flirting with me, not trying to, you know, hit on me right away, not being aggressive at all, but just continuing the conversation instead of like, oh, okay, great. It was nice meeting you, have a good evening, and just keeping that conversation going, I think made a difference because that signaled, like, hey, I'm not looking to just hook up with someone. I'm not on some kind of agenda, like, are you married? Do you have you know, like this kind of 20 questions with him?

SPEAKER_01:

You mean you weren't planning your wedding out with him as he's sitting there talking to you? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Just like on this mission, you know? Yeah. And just letting it organically happen, I think, signaled to him that, hey, you know, she's someone I can talk to, she's easygoing, no pressure. But also we can have a conversation. It's not just you look great, you know, what are you up to? Let's get out of here, kind of thing. Right. So it was, I think that giving it that time, that little bit of hour plus to just tell me about you. Here's what I'm about, and having that early phase conversation of introducing ourselves to each other really made a difference.

SPEAKER_01:

And then did he ask for your number at the end of the night? Is that what happened? Yeah. Or did you have to like kind of like poke him and be like, are you gonna ask or what?

SPEAKER_00:

Like no, so we all walked out together and he asked for my number. So we exchanged numbers. I was sitting there the next day. I'm like, if this guy doesn't call me, something is definitely wrong. Like, I need to, you know, light some candles or something. There's no way this guy's not gonna call me. And then it was 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock, and I'm like, no word from this dude. I'm like, what is going on? I thought then, like, much later, two o'clock, three o'clock in the afternoon, I got this long text from him, like, hey, I had a great time speaking with you. If you're open to it, I'd love to take you out to dinner.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Okay, so also any guy listening right now, because I know there's a lot of guys that like to listen to try to be like, okay, but how do I get her this right here? See, he didn't come on too strong. Like, he waited to get to know you. He asked for your number, he wrote you something nice, and he asked you out immediately. Did that feel good? Did that feel like uh like being pursued and you were like, Okay, yes, this is it. He wasn't like, oh, it was nice to hang out, and then that's it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, and the guys I dated before, again, great guys, but not all of them, but some of them were like, Hey, what are you up to via text? And you're like, Oh, I'm just hanging out. Like five lines at that point in time. Yeah, is there is is there something else following up this question? Because I didn't want to carry on this, you know, week-long text conversation for what? Like, what's the point? So when I got that text from him, I thought, this is a grown-up. Like he's an adult man. This is a man.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Who's not playing games?

SPEAKER_01:

We really don't have high standards. We just want grown-ups, you know. It really helps. He's not playing games. He so he asked you out on a date. Did he like say, Hey, can I take you out this weekend? Is that what happened?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, he's like, Hey, you know, I'm going out of town next week, but I'd love to take you out to dinner before. Are you free on this night? I can come to you, let me know where you want to go. I mean, it was so it was very so he just made it really easy. He left the door open for me if I wanted to do something different, but otherwise he just said, Hey, you know, let's meet up and get together.

SPEAKER_01:

So it was it was really, and then you guys went and got dinner and you just kept getting to know one another. Was there any time, like when you first met him, let's say in the bar, was he your type? Like, is he someone that you typically find attractive, or was it kind of interesting at first?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, I think he was, but I've never had that one type. Like I've dated all different sorts of guys. I don't care about height, I don't care about dark hair, light hair, you know. I've dated people of all backgrounds. So for me, it's more, you know, I certainly found him attractive, and that was a big thing, but I didn't have that one, like, it has to be a guy that looks like this that I find attractive. I was much more open. But he is a handsome guy, so that helped for sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Definitely helps. And I but I like to hear that because sometimes what happens is women can get in these stuck mindsets, right? But he needs to have a beard or he has to have brown hair, or I really don't like, you know, guys with a tummy, or he has to have big ar, you know, something like that. And that's where I kind of am like, but you can see here with Julie, she was so open to whatever it was the universe brought to her that at that point in time she's just kind of open. And so she didn't push him away again because oh, he had brown eyes instead of blue eyes. So we want to be careful with that kind of stuff too, so as to not miss out on what could be, you know, your life partner for right now while this is going on. Aw, thank you so much for sharing all of this with me, Julie. I love a good dating story, it's so fun. So so you and you and your partner, you're dating now. Is this after the pandemic? Is this happening kind of like during give me time life?

SPEAKER_00:

We met literally right before shutdown. Oh my gosh. Like I think shutdown happened in March, and I think we met like February. I mean, like right, right before. Oh, good timing. And so, yeah, perfect timing. And so everything kind of got a little bit elongated because shutdown was happening, the world was crazy, we were trying to get to know each other, and by the way, everything is closed. You can't go see a movie, you can't go out to a restaurant anymore. I mean, all that was going on, and we wanted to take it slow anyway. I mean, for him, he was coming off of a very long-term marriage where his wife had passed the year before, and he had two girls who were older, but you know, we were very sensitive to that. He certainly wasn't looking to date at all. And so we were planning on taking it slow, and the pandemic just sort of forced that pace to happen, which honestly I'm grateful for. You know, I really wanted to be respectful to his situation and of course his girls who are wonderful humans and you know, and and really take it slow. So it all kind of worked out. But the other lesson in this is if it's right, it'll happen. It doesn't have to happen in the timeline you think it's going to.

SPEAKER_01:

Good point. I love that. It doesn't have to happen in the timeline you think it's gonna happen. What a secure thought process to really be, you can almost feel this way in which Julie's releasing attachment to outcomes, right? So that's what we talk about a lot, which is how can we really like live in this hope for having something and yet at the same time live without attachment to it? And that's secure attachment right there is you went into dating, you weren't like, I need to be dating a guy, you know, within three months and then we're gonna be married or anything like that. You just kind of released it and said, I'm open, what's going on? He reached out to you, you're open, let's see what's going on. And then you could have, could you imagine? And I mean, I've definitely been this way where it's like, oh, thanks a lot, universe. I finally met a good guy, and now you're gonna go a global pandemic on me. Like, but like you can hear in your voice, there's no victim positioning there. There's no level of like, why is this happening to me? It's more, okay, here's a guy I met. We're gonna take this low. This is what's gonna happen, and we're gonna go along it with each idea kind of as we go. So as you're going along with all this, and you're dating him, pandemic's happening. I think I heard you say there was kind of another shift, another mindset shift, another maybe breakdown, you know, whatever it is you want to call it. Talk me through that and how you kind of found yourself again. Because I know you talk a lot about finding this journey back to your self-worth in the book. So I want to hear about that a little bit too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you know, it's this really interesting thing. And for the longest time I couldn't put words to it. But as I was diving into this new relationship, which was really important, and me hanging on to this belief that if this is meant to work out, it'll work out however way it does. It doesn't have to be fast for it to be the right thing. As that's happening, my professional life is pretty much crumbling apart because layoffs are happening. I mean, thankfully I got, you know, a few months' notice because my boss had left the company. I was definitely his right-hand lieutenant. So I and others kind of in that part were on the layoff list. Pandemic is raging. And they were like, you know, Julie, we really love you at this company. You can network internally and find another position. There are lots of people who probably would want to hire you as long as they have budget and headcount. And I was like, okay, yeah, that's great, that's great. And I literally did not lift a finger to make that happen. Because even though logically I knew that was the secure thing to do, the safe thing to do, guarantees income, who knows what the world is gonna be at that point. No one knew anything about anything. So the smart move would have been to, yeah, network internally, find and land another soft position somewhere inside and write this out, see where it goes. And I was so unmotivated to do that. So unmotivated that I didn't send a single email. I didn't make a single phone call. I was just writing out this layoff with nothing else lined up after that, by the way. Like I was so in this comatose state. And I think that's what burnout was. And I didn't know it was burnout at the time, but I was so jazzed in my personal life and so exhausted in my professional life that I lifted not a finger here in my work life, but on my personal life, I was giving it a lot of care and nurturing and you know, patience and kind of doing all that stuff. And then the layoff date, of course, came. They told me it would come and it eventually did. And I thought, ah, what do I need to do now that I'm not a badged employee anymore? When I meet people, how do I explain who I am? You know, I mean, a lot of times that's how people introduce themselves. Oh, my name is Julie. I do this for a living, right? And that's so part of how people meet you. And I thought, no, you know, if I'm not gonna do that, then who am I really? And what I came around to through a lot of coaching myself and receiving coaching for the first time at that point, I realized that all this time I had been leading with ego, but not this idea of self-worth or self-value. And I had mixed those two up. I thought if I have a big ego, that means I value myself and I think I'm worth a lot. When in fact, that's not true at all. In fact, the bigger ego means you're trying to cover up and fill all your insecurities. So you do it with these external rewards and accolades and, you know, chasing after that gold star is what I say in my book. Because I didn't have the solid foundation of what is my self-worth, what is my self-value. So I kept covering it up with all this ego-driven actions and behaviors. And it took me a long time to come around to that realization and say, if I let go of this, my ego goes with it, right? It just goes. And that's out the window.

SPEAKER_01:

It's powerful, but scary.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that's really scary. But once I let go of that, and once I let go of having to be validated by others, by my job title, by my paycheck, then what do I have? And it was that journey of getting back to who I am and what's important to me. What do I like doing? Do I have a sense of purpose with my day? Now, don't get me wrong. I mean, I I do think there is real value in people who live the corporate life because the better you do, that means your company is healthy, that means it gets to employee people, and that means families get fed, and you know, there's a a work and community around it. I think all that's really valuable. So I'm not poo-pooing any kind of corporate life. It just simply wasn't ultimately for me because of the way I lived it and I approached it in this very ego-fueled external validation-seeking way. Because of that, that wasn't right for me. Other people I know are out there doing, you know, great things and doing it the right way. It just wasn't my story. That's that's all that was, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. That's such a real way to really put it though, because it's so true that just like in relationships, not everything's right for everyone. And and what is it that you're bringing into your career, your job? We even see it in the coaching world a lot of times. A lot of people come into the coaching world driven by their ego. I love the way you're saying that. I love the way you're really explaining the difference between your ego and your self-worth and that they're not the same thing. But I hear this sometimes too. Like, you know, my clients will come into me, you know, and they'll be like, Well, I know that, you know, I'm a good catcher. I know how amazing I am, but like no other man seems to like really see this. And it's like when we really like kind of come down more and dig deeper, we kind of really see, no, that's just a front. You know, they're there really these things that you think you can offer to your relationships, those that's your ego. It's really like, are you just inherently worthy of love? Not what you have to bring to it. So I love how you bring that difference up into all of this because it really helps for people to see, like, oh, oh, okay, this is my ego over here, but this is my self-worth. So I want to ask you a quick question for the women listening right now, and they feel exhausted or they feel disconnected, and they kind of like something clicked in them right now, as you're hearing Julie talk, and they're like, Oh shit, maybe it's been my ego this whole time. Like, what would you say to her to start the process of figuring out how to stop being ego-driven?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it's so difficult because ultimately it's like old habits die hard, and the gravitational pull is to your ego because it feels like a safe place. It has this voice of like, oh no, you're great. You're, you know what I mean? And because of that, there's the lure of if you can go back to your ego, you feel like, oh no, no, no, this is where I'm supposed to be. This is my safety net, this is my safety blanket. But ultimately it works so against you, but it takes a long time to kind of figure that out.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so there was one quick question I wanted to ask you about, which was you said something in your book, which I really liked, which was there is no quick fix, but there is a way. And I was wondering if you could expand on what that means for someone just starting out in their healing journey.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, we're taught that fast is better. And find the shortcuts, you know, fake it till you make it. You know, there are all these ideas out there that push you towards this do it faster, skip over, leapfrog, you know, all these words are seen as positive. Unfortunately, when you do that, what happens is you are building a house of cards, basically, that you're trying to stand on. And that does not work because if you don't have a solid foundation, ultimately you're going to fall. That's what happened to me. No question about it. When you're going at 100 miles per hour, and when you feel like I have to get there, I have to get there fast and I have to get there tomorrow, it can feel really overwhelming. And it's hard to take a pause and say, hey, hold on, like I need to just take a breath and take inventory of what I'm good at, what I'm doing well, where I want to go, what I want to learn next. And sometimes that's just a few minutes a day of just pausing and taking a sticky note and writing an idea down, or having a text conversation with a friend over, you know, coffee or a glass of wine or something, and just that's all it takes. But we're so taught to just go, go, go, go, go that we don't even pause for a few minutes for ourselves to just do it. The danger in this is if you're just going, going, going, and if you're not staying in touch with who you are and what you're trying to do and what feels right to you, not what feels comfortable, because sometimes you do need to get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself, but what your intuitions or your instincts are saying, like, oh, I want to go there. I'm curious about this, or I feel like there's something there that I want to, you know, go, go explore. If you don't let yourself do that, what'll happen is you'll get to a certain point and you'll look back and say, wow, I'm now lost. I've lost the breadcrumbs. I don't know really where I'm going. I'm just now going with the tide. Sometimes it's okay to go with the flow when you feel like, I don't want to make up my mind right now. I don't want to dictate what's next. I'm just going to do what feels right. That's different than just mindlessly going along without stopping every once in a while and asking yourself, hey, am I doing the right thing? Am I taking note of what I'm actually doing well? Am I pausing to get reinforcement and validation in a work sense that could come from your manager, your peers? It's good to take stock of, hey, am I kind of where I need to be? And am I asking myself the right questions? Take all of that time for yourself. And when I say all of that time, it's not take three months off, go on sabbatical, come back. I mean it's just a few minutes a day. That's all you really need to do. Um we're taught as leaders later in life that, hey, you know, be an authentic leader, have a genuine voice, be a trusted leader. Okay, well, if you weren't taught to practice authenticity from the beginning of your career, how are you supposed to find it 20 years later? That doesn't make any sense. So you need to practice it now. Stay in touch with who you are, be authentic to yourself. Doesn't mean don't stretch yourself. Definitely do that and stay curious and stay open, but don't lose touch with what's important to you and who you are. And ignore all the voices around you that say, Oh, forget about that. Everyone's going there, you go there. Maybe you should, because that's what you want to do, but maybe it's not where you want to go, you know, and that's okay. And it's okay to explore those different avenues. And the one thing to remember is you already bring a lot to the table. Whether this is day one on job one or day a thousand in job 30, it doesn't matter. You already are strong, you have value, you have worth. You know, there is something special that you bring to the table. Otherwise, you wouldn't be there.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. You already have something to bring to the table. That is so though, that's so beautiful, Julie. And I love, I love that so much. And as we're wrapping up here, I just want to talk again about your book, Thrive and Shine, which is ignite your career journey and confidence with grace. So I really recommend that if anyone there is a professional in that kind of career world and they want to pick this book up just to hear her story. Like you can hear, she's a beautiful storyteller. You just want to learn more about what she's been through, grab it and just help you. There's this thing that we talk about, which is we can learn through other people, right? It's why I have coaching calls on my podcast. It's why I bring in interviews, it's why I want to hear the people I interview. I want to hear their story. Not just how to do things, but what did you do? Because through that, we get to kind of pick out what what do we want? Like, oh, I really like how Julie did this over here. I'm gonna pick that out of her story. And that's what I recommend you guys do. So you can go, it's a beautiful cover, by the way. If you guys want to check it out, you can get it on Amazon. That's right, Amazon, we can get this. Julie, as well, is over here in California with me. So we will be doing some sort of book launch for both of our books coming up soon. So as soon as I have more information about that, guys, I will absolutely let you know. You can come and meet Julie with me if you want to come down to the LA area with me. I think it'll be really fun. Our publishers are gonna come out, throw a big party for all of us. We're gonna try to get more California authors up in our community, aren't we, Julie? Because we need some more West Coast love. That's right. Right? But tell us more about how can people find you? Instagram, anything else, website, tell us more.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep, my website is Julie Sung, J-U-L-E-E-S-U-N-G dot com. And all my social media links are there. I'm very active on social media, as you know, Jen, and I'm a big follow-up of yours because you do great work there. My Instagram is at Julie's J-U-L-E-E-S 94.

SPEAKER_01:

Beautiful. All right, everyone. So go follow Julie on the Instagram. Go check out her website, go grab her book. And Julie, is there just one last message you would like for the readers to take away from your book before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, uh, thank you. What I would like to say is have grace for yourself. If you're not gracious with yourself and give yourself the room and space to be who you are, you cannot be gracious with others. And that's true for every relationship. So the most important relationship you have is with yourself. So show yourself plenty of love and grace.

SPEAKER_01:

What a beautiful way to end this. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Julian. I'll speak with you later. Take care. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. As we wrap up today's conversation, always remember that healing is a journey, not a destination. And it is an honor to be a part of your healing journey. If you want to dig deeper into the topics we covered today, be sure to head over to our show notes, where you can find all of the valuable information mentioned in today's episode right there. And please remember to rate, review, and subscribe if you enjoyed today's podcast. Your feedback means the world to us and helps others discover our podcast. Until next time, remember to speak up and speak honest.

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Jennifer Noble

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