Your Transformation Station - 55. Ex-Google Executive Empowering Women to Step Up

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

Amy Yip is a "life transformation" and mental fitness expert with a certificate in coaching. Providing women with the opportunity to tell their stories. She spent 16 years working for companies such as Google, Booz Allen, and Clorox.  PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com⁠⁠ Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/apple⁠⁠ Spotify: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/spotify⁠⁠ RSS: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/rss⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/youtube⁠⁠ SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Facebook: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/facebook⁠⁠ - Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/instagram⁠⁠ - TikTok: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/tiktok⁠⁠ - Twitter: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/x⁠⁠ - Pinterest: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/pinterest⁠⁠ - Linkedin: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/linkedin⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're looking for change and transformation, 80% of it comes from mental fitness and habits. Only 20% comes from knowledge and insight, which is why reading books only got me 20% in the way there. We're tapping in to surpassing expectations from the most successful people in the modern day and honing in a new foresight, methodologies, and clairvoyance you never knew. This is your transformation station with your host, Greg Favaza. Amy Yip, welcome to your transformation station. I want you to be able to share with us your background and just paint a picture for your audience who you are and what you do.

Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. So I am a life transformation and mental fitness coach. And I am super passionate about mental fitness because it is what has helped to me. me through my transformation. So I don't even know where to begin. I guess you worked at Google. Is that right? Yes. Yes. Okay. And people will probably cringe when I say this, but you left Google after five years. Yes, I did. You went off to volunteer. Yes. Okay. Can you elaborate about that?

Sure. So in January 2020, I sold on my belongings. I quit my job at Google and I took a one-way flight to Ghana to volunteer at a breast cancer nonprofit. And it was my husband and I, it was our dream to just travel the world. So we had plans to volunteer until May and then go travel the world. And then there's that little thing in the world that came called. COVID, which kind of disrupted our plans. So we ended up stuck in Ghana until September of 2020. And why volunteer? So I've always been drawn to giving back and particularly to helping women. And in Ghana in particular, so breast, I focused on breast cancer for a variety of reasons. One is my family has a history of breast cancer. So that's one. Two. is in Ghana, the women who are diagnosed with breast cancer, their husbands will just leave them. Their families will disown them because they have this notion that once you get breast cancer,

you're going to die. And they're also very religious. So rather than seeking medical help, women are told, you need to go to prayer camps and the pastor will just pray for them. And it's really sad because they will be in prayer camps for like a year. Their breasts will become 20 kilos before they go seek medical help. And by then it's either too late or, you know, it's going to be a very challenging recovery for them. And during that time, their families have just abandoned them, right?

And so it's quite lonely. It's really sad. And it's just due to misinformation. And so I was just really passionate about that. And, you know, our work out there was one. supporting the women and giving them the love and care and community that they didn't get from their families. And then the second thing was educating the small communities because they're still run by chiefs, like really small communities run by chiefs. And so going into the communities,

educating the chiefs on this is the science, this is what is happening. And if you could get thereby in, then you can save so many people's lives that are needlessly being lost. Yes, no, I completely agree. Before we move forward, I want to just go back a little bit. Then we'll segue towards your time in Ghana and what you went through. But since you were previously employed at Google, can you explain a little bit about your role there and any additional information tidbits on why you left to kind of highlight the theme a little bit? Yeah. So, while I was at Google, I was in two different roles. One was a marketing role and my role was focused on enabling people to live happier, healthier lives through food. And so, you know,

like marketing could be everything from placement to programs that really get people to understand where their food comes from. And after that, I led the talent. It was a talent, strategy capacity. It was a global role where I led a team to, you could think about it like a chief people officer role because I led a team of people that worked on everything from diversity, equity, inclusion, compensation benefits, learning and development. So all of that. And my passion point there was very much around the diversity, equity, inclusion. And so that might give you a little bit about who I am and why I was so passionate about working with women and helping to empower them in Ghana. And with regard to my departure at Google, so I had always known,

well, when I first started at Google, I always said five years from now, I plan on leaving the company and going to travel and volunteer. Because it's been a dream of mine since I don't even know when. So when I started at Google, I was in my early 30s and I didn't realize how much changes in your life in your 30s and how that's a pivotal point to make a lot of decisions. And so during those five years, I got a husband and for many people who are married or have and, you know, in a relationship, you know how much getting married to somebody changes, how you make decisions. So that happened.

I had everyone around me asking me, why would you leave Google? Everyone's trying to get in. Are you crazy? So that was another pressure point. I probably think you're going through a mid-like crisis or something. Yes. Yes. Especially my parents.

They're like, so why would you do that? You know, like they're, I have immigrant parents and they came from nothing. And they're like, you're going to quit your job to go do volunteer work, not get any money. And why? Right? Like, couldn't you just donate money? That was their mindset. And so that was, you know, I heard a lot of those things.

I heard a lot of you're getting old. Your eggs are rotting. You need to decide, are you going to have babies or not? And if you want babies, you should just do that right now and stop playing because everyone called volunteering and traveling playing, right? They're like, that's just luxury. You're going to regret it because by the time you get back, you'll be in your 40s and you're not going to be able to have kids. That was another pressure point. And then also my parents were aging. And I'm the baby of three girls. My sisters both have kids. So it was up to me to take care of my parents. And so there

was all this stuff happening. And I felt just so much pressure. I was also the breadwinner in my relationship with my husband. So I felt like I needed to be the stability, you know, and like make that money and income. And so my husband and I, we're like, we're going to do something brilliant. We're going to go freeze our embryos. And so we went, we froze our embryos. We're like, that's security blanket. And then a year later, we find out we don't know, there was a mishap at the facility. We don't know the viability of the embryos. And we still don't know. Okay. So When that situation happened, you received that phone call about the mishap at the facility, what was your immediate response?

It wasn't even a phone call. We got an email on a Sunday morning. Yeah. There wasn't even a phone call. It was an email that said, your embryo was in this container. There is this thing that happened. And we're unsure of whether it's viable or not. call us if you want to learn more.

And I call. My God. I don't even have the words, but that pisses me off. They can't even call you, but they'll send you an email. On a Sunday. So they're not even open for me to call. So I'm like sitting there. I read it a few times.

I showed it to my husband. I'm like, what do you think this means? And he's like, I don't know. He's like, let's try calling. But they're not, they weren't open on Sunday. So I call on Monday and I get like a voice answering machine. So yeah, like, you know, I was freaking out during that time. I was like, oh, no, maybe this is a sign from God.

I'm not even religious, but I'm like, maybe it's a sign the world telling me I shouldn't go do this thing. And, you know, so and I always, I just felt like all these pressures of everyone telling me who and who I should and shouldn't be, what I shouldn't do, that I should not play and be a mom. then, you know, and I, first, part of, part of the mishap at the facility, I was like, maybe this is a sign from, you know, some greater being that I shouldn't go do this thing, right? And so on the outside, everything looked great. I had this job at Google. I lived in New York in a nice apartment. I had a wonderful husband, great family, lots of friends, lots of support system.

But on the inside, I was like, you know, I don't feel happy. I want something different. At the same time, I don't know if I should go do it because of all these other factors, right? And I mean, I even in the back of my mind would always hear like, if I go do this travel, have a kid at 40, the risk of them having some sort of an illness

or something, right, is going to be big. I mean, I had people literally saying to me, your kid's going to come out retarded if you wait till you're 40. And so those are really hurtful. And I didn't know what to do. So I decided to go on a self-help journey. And this was the start of my transformation.

I went on this self-help journey. And because everything on the outside looked great, I felt ashamed of even admitting I'm not happy because I should be happy, right? Everyone's like, oh, your life is so great. And so I didn't talk about it to people. I read books. That was my first step. for eight months.

I read every Bray Brown book out there who moved my cheese, like all this stuff. And I learned a lot, but I didn't get the answer I wanted. And there are all actually studies out there that show. If you're looking for change in transformation, 80% of it comes from mental fitness and habits.

Only 20% comes from knowledge and insight, which is why reading books only got me 20% in the way there. It doesn't actually change you. You have that knowledge now, but are you going to actually do something about it? It's like when people say, I want to be healthier. Everyone knows what to do. Like, you know, you sleep six, seven, seven, eight hours, you eat healthy, you work out. But yet people don't act on it.

That's true. Like the New Year's resolutionists, they'll go to the gym for a month and then they don't keep up with it. It's not about it's about understanding the definition of commitment and being disciplined. that's where your transformation happens. If you can have a solid foundation and let nobody disrupt it, you can make a transformation through anything. I completely agree. And a big element of like the coaching work that I do and transformation

is understanding your own obstacles because we all have different obstacles. And so it's understanding your mindset and what's in your way. to be able to overcome those and then being dedicated enough to do that. I want to pause you here in your line of work. Was there a common theme you came across with the different, you worked with a lot of different people, of vast culture of people. Was there a common theme of obstacles that people encountered? It was always fear-based, afraid of something, right?

And everyone has different fears. So some people, it's fear of fear or some sort of a relationship with money. And there's this constant like, but I need more money. And I need more money to do all this stuff. So I can't like quit my job to do this other thing. Right. So it could be money. It could be fear of failure.

Because if I give up my current secure blanket and do this. this other thing that's unknown, then what if I fail? Right. There's also, for some people, it's just relationships with their parents and being accepted by their parents and fear of if I do this thing, my parents will disapprove. So it's always some sort of a fear, but it just depends on the person. Working with these people, is there like this need for, money or this fear of failure, is this rooted to something from within their childhood that they

latched onto? Oh, yeah. It's a survival mechanism. And this is like why I'm so passionate about mental fitness is because your mind was created for survival. It was not created for happiness. Right. Like your mind is, it goes back to cave women, cave men days. It is, it is constantly looking for what is wrong. It is looking and it looks for patterns so that it could survive, right? Like the trees rustling and last time the trees rustled there was a tiger there. So I see the trees rustling. I better run. Right. And that's just how our brains are wired. It is not wired for happiness. At the same time, you can learn to be aware of it and train your mind to see things differently. And it's not like you can shut off that survival brain. It's a good thing

because if a tiger is coming, chasing after you, you shouldn't be like, oh, cuddly little tiger. You should run. But for a majority of things in our life today, we don't have those tigers that we have to run away from. We should be aware of that. And then we can make better decisions. And the thing with mental fitness is that there's actually, there's two sides of your brain. one that's i like to call it the uh darth vader or you know where your saboteurs live exactly um and then there's the other side where it's the inner jettai right like the deeper wisdom the sage and and they are two different sides of your brain as children we could leverage both the sabbatore side is like the survival side right like always looking for what's wrong if i were to put

your brain under an MRI scan. As children, we could use both. We knew how to use both. Both were active. And under an MRI scan, you could see both sides are activated. As adults, once we become adults, guess which side quiets down and which side gets louder? I would say the inner Jedi. Inner Jedi, what happens to that one? He's going to be the most active. Darth Vader's going to be kind of quiet. No, as adults, your Darth Vader gets louder. Oh my goodness. Yeah. As you become an adult, your inner Darth Vader, those saboteurs, the survival mechanism just gets louder and louder.

And we can see that by putting brains under an MRI scan, which has been done, and you'll see that that survival brain gets stronger and stronger. And the other side is so quiet, right? And that's what most of us do on an everyday basis. We're looking for what is wrong. right we have between 12 to 60,000 thoughts a day guess what percentage is negative I don't know you're going to have to tell me this one 80 percent 80 percent of our thoughts are negative now let me ask you this what is the percentage do we act on those 80 what is the percentage that we act on those negative thoughts so

The thing is your thoughts and your beliefs feed into your actions. So if 80% are negative, it doesn't even matter whether you act or not. You're not going to act on anything positive because that's dominating your mind. Right. Exactly. And the reason why people struggle to transform and change is because of your 12 to 60,000 thoughts a day, take a wild guess percentage-wise. What percentage of those do you think are repeated? day after day after day.

I can't even bathe them. 95%. You have the same thoughts repeated, right? And that's why it makes it so challenging to change and transform because 80% are negative. 95% are the same thoughts day after day after day. And it's because we get stuck in our stories. And the negativity is for survival reasons. It's looking around at your landscape at what could possibly go wrong, what is wrong, what is

not good so that I'm aware of when danger comes because your brain was created for survival. This is interesting that you brought this up. I haven't even came close to thinking about this, but the fact of certain thoughts that repeat, we don't even question them why they are repeating. In a way, it's like our bodies are trying to tell us, like when we're sick, we know we have some experience symptoms. And our brain is telling us these thoughts, which is our symptoms on why we are unhappy. We don't know why we're unhappy, but we usually find that out through our social interactions. But these are the symptoms of saying, okay, this thought has occurred already 20 times. And people who are reflective and who spend time journaling and all those exercises that benefit self-awareness can

probably identify this. I just think it's really interesting. I never thought of it like this on this level. Yeah. And being able to, and that's why awareness is so important because if you can become more aware of your thoughts,

and that's what mental fitness and the work that I do is all about is learning to become aware of your thoughts so that you can catch it before you take any sort of action or whatnot, right? And so it's almost like being able to take that pause wasn't recognizing, okay, I'm thinking about this thing. And now what choice do I want to take?

Let's segue back to while you were in Ghana. You were there for one year because of COVID. Tell us about that experience. So, well, actually, can I finish the part. about how I even left Google? Yes. Or that journey. Please.

Because that will help explain the Ghana part. So I was talking about reading self-help books. Yeah, we went off. The self-help books, which clearly didn't help me. And then for all the reasons that we just talked about. And so after that, I went home. And my good friend told me about. about ayahuasca.

And for those who don't know what ayahuasca is, it is a medicinal, like, it's a psychedelic plant. They use it in Peru as a ceremonial type thing for cleansing and cleansing your spirits. And so my friend told me about it. And she's like, you know what? I heard this thing about ayahuasca. It's supposed to give you clarity. And I was like, clarity.

That's exactly what I need. You need clarity. Yes. So I flew down to Peru for five-day ayahuasca ceremony. Wow. And they always say, though, ayahuasca gives you what you need, not what you want. So I got a lot of clarity about my way of being and, you know,

my relationships and how I showed up in the world. If you met me even three or four years ago, like you would see a very armored. Amy. I would not be sharing any of this. I would be saying, I'm this strong independent woman. I don't need your help. You know, like, that's what I was saying to my husband at the time. I don't need your help. I love you, but I don't need your help because I'm a strong woman. And so I learned a lot about just my way of being, my armor, how like that armor really wasn't actually strong. It was just a fake way of trying to protect myself. And, and, and so I got a lot of insight, but I didn't, I went home without clear. of do I have babies now or do I go and live my dream and travel the world? Do we, did you experience anything different? Since you didn't come to the big aha moment that you wanted, was there a change in your, in your behavior, in your action?

Like, was there anything different or noticeable by your husband? Oh, yeah. Like I went home. So before my ayahuasca experience, I never allowed him to take care of me or help me. But one of my evenings doing the ayahuasca, I had this vision that I was burning and I was in a lot of pain. And I was curled up in a ball on the floor.

And I was just in so much pain. And normally, like, I would not let anybody take care of me. I would take care of myself, right? But in my vision, I saw my husband. He showed up and he just started rubbing my back, holding my hand and telling me it'll be okay. And I was just telling him how much it hurt. and he's like, it's okay, like, I'm here, I'll take care of you.

And he just held my hand. And I allowed him to. And it just felt so good to let somebody take care of you and help you. And so when I returned home, I started asking for help and allowing him to help me and take care of me, which I used to not. So that was one of the things. That's interesting. I mean, I just had a thought and I just wanted to share it. Like for people that hit the certain age and they start to.

to experience this midlife crisis. It's just a fascinating subject on why this occurs. And like they do, but they, for those that do, they just do it. And that's what I did with myself. I mean, I hit 30 and I realized that I'm going to be a dad. And I'm also fathering two children that aren't mine. I have a blended family. So I had to make a decision, well, Greg, what are you going to do?

Well, we can't stay in this apartment. I went out and bought myself a house. And now do I continue the podcast? Do I go back to school? How am I going to support them? I don't know, but I'm just going to do it. That's the decision. It's are you going to do it or are you not?

And then when you don't, you're going to have to do it later. And it's just like after the emotional breakdown or before. A hundred percent agree. And I always use the- I want to stop you because usually when thoughts are flowing, we got to hit it. Otherwise, I lose it. I just want to understand if we're going through that what's missing, and I've noticed that I can connect this with the midlife crisis topic, that a lot of people aren't embracing their vulnerabilities as their authentic selves. Yes. And that's why they kind of feel like

something's missing. Like, I have the job. I have this. But why do I feel like I'm missing something? And it's because you were afraid of allowing your guards to be down. You choose to wear a social mask. You wear your occupational mask when you're at work. And then you barely show your loved one your real self. I could not agree more with you. And it's, yeah, I had masks on and I was protecting myself. And I had like different personas.

And I mean, part of it is also, I just didn't know. who I was myself. Like I, and this goes back to when you're a child and what are your survival mechanisms? And those survival strategies are carried into your adulthood. Yes. And the work of mental fitness is about like learning about what are those survival mechanisms, what are those conditioned tendencies that you have? And part of my conditioned tendency as a kid, I used to be this, the nice,

this little kid, but then I got bullied all the time, you know, and I got. And so my survival mechanism was, I'm going to be a hard ass. I'm not going to let anybody in. I'm going to punch your face if you try to, you know, like that became. Yes. Yes. You adapt. You adapt to protect yourself. And now people have this misunderstanding about you that, oh, I don't want to mess with her. She's a hard ass, I can't deal with her. It's like, well, if you actually spent some time interacting with her, you'll know she is very soft and gooey. But you don't.

You make a judgment based off your own understanding from previous engagements. Oh, that she meets the criteria of an asshole or a heart ass. And that's where there's so much confusion in this world as we base all of our previous experiences on what they think is relevant right. now when it's all bias. It's all flawed. Nobody critical reasons or challenge what they believe. Correct.

And it's all based on judgments and assumptions. And I always say that every person has a story, even the people we deem to be evil or horrible out there. Right. Like you, like, I'm in Poland right now. So I've been visiting a lot of the sites on Hitler and the Jewish internment camp. And even Hitler, like he is an evil guy. Many people believe that, right? Like, I mean, he's, if you look into his history, he was bullied, he was rejected.

He was like, there was all this stuff that happened. And I'm not saying that justifies it, but it gives you a sense of empathy for what he went through as a child. He got beaten up all the time. And then, right, like, it just kind of went to his head and he, something. flipped in his mind. And this happens to a lot of people. And so just even understanding people's stories, it doesn't justify their actions or behaviors.

At the same time, it helps you to build your own empathy skills for understanding that everybody has a story that can kind of explain their way of being. I'll probably get some back. Go ahead. Nobody's, well, nobody is, nobody comes out from their mother's room saying, I want to be evil.

I want to hate on people. I want to be this angry person. It is the story of their life that has caused them to become a certain way. And actually, empathy and kindness is one of the greatest antidotes to helping people transform and shift into becoming a better person. I'm probably going to get a little negative backlash on this, but I don't care. Hitler, definitely an asshole, but a total genius to be able to. get thousands, hundreds of thousands of people to do what he wanted them to do.

I mean, that kind of influence, that kind of, that ability just to persuade just, these were merchant people to act. To me, I think that's fascinating. I completely agree. And imagine if people had believed in him before. he could have used that brilliance in a positive way rather than this negative crazy way. Because he was latched on to his past. He didn't know how to work through those emotions and understand why things happened. And what he's looking back is his adult right. He's rationalized with his adult mindset.

Yeah. So so that that, that. yeah completely agree and and i know a lot even when i talk about hitler and you know like some people are like really i'm like yeah you know like everyone has a story um so while in ghana uh what were well um so after ayahuasca though oh iwaska though yeah after after after so after iawaska i got back I didn't know what I wanted. I still didn't have the answer. And this is the last part. So a colleague told me about coaching.

I didn't know anything about coaching before. And honestly, I had my doubts about it because I'm like, how could somebody else help me figure out what I want to do in my life? Like, I'm smart enough to figure it out. But I was so desperate, I'm like, whatever, I'm willing to try it. And so my coach is the person who helped me to peel back the layers of my onions. All those, the layers of the onions are the shoulds, right? Like people telling you who you should and should.

be what you should and shouldn't do and to get to my core of my being on what it was that mattered and what I really wanted. And so at that point, that was when I made two decisions. One is I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to go volunteer and travel the world because if I don't, I will hold a lot of regret and who knows, I might end up unintentionally holding a lot of resentment in towards my future child. And I don't want to do that. And so I made the decision to leave. And the other was I decided I want to be a coach because that just sucked the last

few years of my life, right? Like not knowing what I wanted and feeling like I couldn't talk to anyone about it and feeling stuck. And so I went to a coaching certification program for eight months, studied. And after I finished studying, and I always believe things have. happen for a reason. The program that I went to, they just happened to have a program that graduated December 2019, which was my five-year point at Google. So right after I graduated, I left the company, and in January 2020 was when I went off to Ghana. So is there any difference with being a

certified life coach versus being like any other kind of coach. Because when I think of coach, I feel like it embodies everything because everything is connected. I mean, if I need to improve my finances, well, I'm sure my finances would definitely improve if I would go to bed on time because I can start making better choices. If you can explain to me like the key aspects that your certification covers to help get people moving in the right direction. Yeah. So with coaching, so coaching is is about helping you to go in the direction that you want. It is about helping you to help you to help you to change in the way that you wish. And sometimes you don't even know what that changes or what that direction is because it's about helping you to peel back those layers, right? it helps you to see the choices that you have because oftentimes when you feel stuck, you feel like you don't have a choice.

And so it's helping you to see those choices and helping you to feel empowered to make the change and take one of those choices, even if it's uncomfortable and helping you to see what are those barriers in your way. I always liken myself to being the mirror for people. So the mirror that you may not want to look at or that you just don't see. So with the peeling back the layers of the onion, you came cross, we talked about earlier, the need of money and then fear of failure. So how do those people get past those two different issues? If we were to say, like, just put it down on paper.

In order to get past this, you have to do X, Y, and Z. If you can share that with us. So the other thing with coaching is it is not advice giving. And it's the exact, you know, like what we talked about earlier, because and helpful. and health and well-being is one of those because I could tell you all the things you need to do. But it's not going to, you know, like we all know what to do to be healthy. But why does it not work? Because it might not be specific enough to you. Like it's not identifying what's in your way.

Okay. Now I see. Right. Yes. And it's almost framing the mindset, but then also knowing what motivates you behind the reason why you do the very thing. Correct. And also identifying where that even came from. So for example, one of my clients that has relationship issues with money, it came from growing up in a household where she had to grow up much older. She had to work. They lost everything. She watched her parents lose everything.

Right. And so she has this fear of loss. And so it's not even about the money, but of the loss of it. And she feels like there's never enough. So it's working around those emotions and those fears and being able to release that rather than like, okay, this is what you need to do with money. And it's also, depending on the person, if they're a rational thinker or an emotional thinker, being able to help them through that. So she was very rational person. And one of the things that we worked on was she constantly talked about not having enough for the lifestyle that she wants. Oh, yes. And so we talk. So then I was like, well, what's the lifestyle that you want? And she's like, well, I've never really thought about that. And I'm like, okay, well, let's talk about it. So we started

talking through the lifestyle that she wanted. And then I was like, so how much does that cost you? And she's like, I don't know. And I'm like, okay, so if you don't know, how do you know it's not enough? And so one of the things that she went back to do was actually jot down, what's the lifestyle I want? How much does that cost? And what income do I really need to make to be able to support that lifestyle? Because before that, she was just like, I just don't have enough and I need to make more.

Okay, with that and the reason why people don't do the very thing that they should do is just write this stuff down for the issue with the need of money, that there's a common thing with people not wanting to look at it because they're afraid of come to the realization that what they're doing is they're way over in their head. They're living beyond their means or they really just don't know and they're just filling the void to, make it in this world. There's always a fear. And honestly, for her, like, she jot it down with the lifestyle she wanted. She has plenty. She doesn't need anymore.

Like, that was her, her, like, you know, she had this fear of loss and everything. And she justified it by telling herself she didn't have enough. And it was a justification for the fear, not the reality itself. When she actually sat down and looked at everything, she's like, oh, I could not make a cent more than I do right now, I could actually make less and totally support the lifestyle that I want. Right. And that was a big aha moment for her of like, well, that that kind of throws my fear out the window.

Now I should have asked. I should have framed the question that way. Can you give me an example of someone with the fear of failure? Can you repeat that again? Sure. Could you give me, can you give us, because you just gave us an example of someone you've encountered with the need of money. Could you give me an example with someone that you've experienced and helped with the fear of failure? Yes.

And so this is specifically, this person, so the fear of failure, our fears of failure often come from different places. And one of my clients, his fear of failure came from growing up. up in a household where anytime he failed, he would just be lashed out at, right? Like, you're just not good enough. And so he associated achievement and success and, you know, not failing as love from his parents. Because the only way to get love when he grew up was by getting an A plus or making a sports team or scoring a point, right? And so he was so afraid of failing because he associated that as if I fail, my parents will not love me. And so it was working around that relationship with his parents.

And, you know, on the positive side, like, his parents were still alive. So having that conversation with his parents and really getting an understanding because he would say all these things like, yeah, but my parents love me, they don't love me. They don't, you know. And I'm like, how do you that. And he said, because I just do. And helping. And so what we did was work on how do you have those conversations with your parents? And what he did was he eventually did start having open conversations with his parents about success, achievement, the pressures. And for them, they pushed in the way they did because they came from nothing. And they didn't want him to suffer in that way. And so they always felt like education and success had to come from like achieving and being the best.

And that was all they knew. And that was their story. Right. And so by him having those open conversations with his parents, he was able to heal those experiences that he had in that notion of failure. So with helping people that have those, that have experienced those issues with their parents is the realization with them kind of understanding. it's not their parents' fault on why they feel what they feel, but it's more of understanding that your parents did everything they could possibly do to help you become successful. And that's where the gap is where people are missing, is to understand that and then be okay with the fact of that nature. Yeah.

And so for everyone, you know, it's about empowering you to, to understand that you own your life, you own the stories, and that you can rewrite your story. So one of the things that I work on a lot with my clients is to identify the stories that they have about their life, their history, right? Like, we have stories and all of it is just stories because we filter out what we don't want to see and we only filter in and see what we want to see. Like if I were to ask you to look around your room right now and count how many things green, right? How many do you see? I have zero in this room because I'm an padded room of black and

white. Okay. So normally you would look around and then if I asked you, okay, well, how many are red? You wouldn't know because you filtered out all the red to look for the green. And that's what we do in our life. And so helping people to understand that we filter things in and out. And that's how we form our stories of our life, our history, who we are today and what is possible for the future. And so helping them to reframe those stories and see that they own their reality. I own the story that I tell myself about what my life is like. I can see my life as, you know, being wonderful or I can see it as being horrible. And it's all about my own framing and perception.

I like that. That's that's a very unique. And I can see where it all integrates from. And I think that's fantastic. But we're segueing back to Ghana and we're going to get some takeaways from there. Is there some, can you give us a few takeaways from our audience for our audience in that experience? Yes, I definitely can. So I ended up getting stuck in Ghana and everyone's like, oh man,

And, you know, that must have sucked. But it was actually such a gift. And my main takeaway for any part of your life is that if you look hard enough, there is a gift or opportunity in every circumstance, every single one, right? Like if you look at your lifeline from all of all the high points, if you looked at the high and low points of your life, every high point was only made possible because there was a low point. And so you can always find a gift or opportunity no matter what the situation.

right? Like the only reason I'm married to my fabulous husband now is because I ended all those other relationships. When in the moment, I was like, oh no, I'm being rejected and this is horrible, right? Like in the moment, it was horrible. But the gift and the opportunity was I met the best man out there. And so with Ghana, like so many wonderful things happened. One, while I was at Google, I traveled a lot. I was always on the road. And I always said, I wish that I could just be in one place and just have a slow-paced life. And that's exactly what I got in Ghana. I was able to read books, do yoga, you know, like all this other stuff. I rediscovered my love for writing for bringing people together. And that's actually what triggered the growth of my coaching business. Because at first,

I was only going to keep two or three of my clients because I wanted to travel and be focused on traveling. And so while I was in Ghana, I started writing more, sharing. I started bringing people together in groups. And that was the start of my group coaching. That was the start of like, you know, people got inspired from stuff that I wrote and they reached out for one-on-one coaching and to speak at conferences and workshops. So like my business thrived from that. And then it also just helped my relationship with my relationship with my workshops.

husband because we were stuck in a very small room together all the time. And we learned to work with each other in such a small environment. So it strengthened our relationship. So that would be my one takeaway for everyone is no matter what your situation or circumstance, can you look for what the gift or opportunity is? I think that's fantastic advice and information. That always made me wonder during like COVID, like with people that are married, like you guys are no longer going to your jobs and be doing a nine to five that you're home with the people that you love. And it's kind of, and I'm not 100% sure, but through my experience, through hearing from my peers, some of them are coming to the realization that, damn, why did I marry this person?

But so it kind of makes you think about what you want out of your life. And is that the person that I'm living with, the really the right person? Some of them, because some people won't address their issues and they'll just push past it. But as you continue to do that, you're kind of just standing on a tiny, tiny little pole. That's about 1,000 feet off the ground.

And eventually you're just going to drop. And that's when we kind of hit rock bottom because we've been avoiding these root issues. Yeah. And no, I think that is a fantastic story. It was all over the place. And I was physically all over the place. But if you could, can you give us some information about your business and how people can get in contact with you? Yes.

So you can visit amyyyipcoaching.com to find out more about my coaching work. I coach people one-on-one. I have group programs and I also run workshops and talk for organizations and groups. And for the women out there, if you go to my website, you can download the nine roles for remarkable women. It's a workbook on how to live life remarkable. Wow, I love that. And I want to get one more before I just forgot about this one. What are three pieces of advice you have for people who are stuck in their life right now in a job or just a situation and they don't know what to do? What would you tell them? One, hire a coach and don't do this on your own. And, you know, like, this is not a self-promotion, but I truly believe everybody needs a coach. I still have a coach. I still have a coach.

because you just don't see what you don't see. Two is journal. Journaling helps so much to unravel the thoughts in your head. Don't get stuck in your head. Journal. And three is be mindful of who you share this with because everyone has an opinion. And it will just get you more confused

when you try to tell your loved ones about your confusion or what you're thinking about. And everyone's going to tell you all these things of what you should and shouldn't do, and it'll just get even more confusing. Wow. That's a fantastic piece of advice. Amy, I really appreciate you coming on for your transformation station. Thank you.

It's been a pleasure. You've been listening to Your Transformation Station, rediscovering your true identity and purpose on this planet. We hope you enjoyed the show, and we hope you've gotten some useful and practical information. In the meantime, connect with us on Facebook and Instagram. at YTS, the podcast. We'll be back soon. Until then, this is your transformation station.

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