Hello, everybody, welcome. We are very happy to be here again with you. My name is Mariana Pena, I'm an Instructional Designer for revolutionary experts who want to change the world and their industries, one online program at a time. And of course, with me is my co host and friend, Danbee.
Hi, it's Danbee Shin. I'm a web design mentor, and a global inclusion specialist. I help web designers build sustainable and profitable businesses, so that they can stop worrying about earning enough and just live their life. I am really excited about this episode, excited and like good nervous, because this is going to be a little extra vulnerable of an episode for me, I suggested to my Brianna that we could do some real time learning with her, I approached her with this because I know this is one of the things that she is so good at helping you like really look at yourself and your identities and your beliefs and your values and look at where they come from, and make those things work for you instead of something that you have to fight against. Because as an East Asian woman of color in our very Eurocentric, very white dominant world, there are things that I have felt like I have to reject and things that I had to fight against that my parents taught me that my community taught me that my country of origin taught me. And I feel like maybe that's not the best way to, to move forward and grow. This is something that I've been working on, I feel like all my life, essentially, and I'm ready to talk about this. As
always, these are real conversations that we have, behind the scenes. These are conversations that we are having with other business friends, and just people at large in our networks and communities and families. And we want to invite you to join this conversation. This is not a prescriptive note taking kind of situation, we don't certainly don't have the right answers. We also don't believe that there are right answers that could fit every single one of us, because we are all trying to exist coexist and navigate this world with our own intersections and identities. And that means that we're going to go through things in a very different way. Keep an open mind to this. And you're invited to join this little exercise in real time. So as Dombey said, we are addressing how can we reframe, and or unlearn all the things that are already in our heads that manifest when we are trying to run our business in a successful sustainable way. And one of the things that immediately popped into our heads on both ends in a similar way, but it's also different because we come from opposite sides of the world is quite literally, I come from Mexico, I grew up there. My entire life was spent in Mexico and different parts of Mexico, but just in Mexico. And when then we said, how about we we dig in and we explore the impact in the influence of philosophies. And how has that shape, how we show up in business, I immediately thought we need to talk about this because I grew up in a Catholic country. And I very much still even though I don't practice Catholicism anymore, I very much still carry the fundamentals of the religion. And it's something that I catch myself thinking things that apparently were there all along, and they don't really serve me, I think that's
the part that I struggle with. Because when I notice thoughts that don't serve me, I'm like, Oh, I gotta cut that out and not deal with it. Whereas now I think what I would like to do is really examine those thoughts and make that work for me. You mentioned capitalists ism, it's a hard word to say, I also grew up in a religious environment. My mom's side of the family is Protestant. So I went to church and that is also so it's not the same as going to Catholic church, but very similar, like values. The other side of this for me is that the Korean culture and our value systems are heavily influenced by Confucianism. And I never thought I would be talking about myself within the context of Confucianism or like that I would associate myself with this philosophy, if you like, let alone be talking about it in a public setting like this because it's just not something that I associated with myself, but like you say more and more. I have thoughts that pop up. I'm like where did come from. And if I kind of trace it back, it comes from my home country of South Korea. And Confucianism has been influencing Korean culture for the last like 2000 plus years. This is not something that I'm going to escape just by leaving the country at a young age or immersing myself in other cultures, I did a little bit in another language, or speaking another language, it's so true, because I, mostly, I think in different I think in both Korean and English, but mostly I think in English, I find that if I'm talking to myself, I'm nine times out of 10. Talking to Myself in English, I did a bit of reading of and Confucianism in case this is new or relatively new to it comes from Confucius, who, which is an anglicized name for the Chinese philosopher, who lived about 2500 years ago. So that's good to know.
And yes, that's a very good point for the timeline in our head.
Yeah. And that's not a new thing that has just been influencing culture in recent years. In the recent generations, it's just something that has been there for a really long time. And just a quick overview of the things that I think of our values, like respect your parents and your elders, this is a huge, this is central, you cannot get away from this, maintain harmony in your family and your community harmony is critical to uphold traditions. So there is that kind of barrier to introducing new ideas, respecting hierarchies. And with that comes the fact that everyone has a role in society. And your role must be to protect that role and to play out your responsibilities within this role. So those are some of the things that I have, it's so funny to talk about it and what feels like such a systematic way, because these are all things that I've just been conditioned to value from a young age. So to lay it out in the sun, why, like non academic, like structured way also feels really foreign.
I can imagine because, like you said, there's something that you have internalized your entire life in ways that are almost subconscious, because it's not like your parents, maybe it is the case, in some families, I don't know if that was the case in your family. For most of us, this type of beliefs. This is a belief system, whether we call it a philosophy or religion is basically it boils down to a belief system, when we are kids, you we don't have the capacity to come up with I'm going to believe, and this is going to stand for that. Our brains are not wired yet to be able to do that. So we absorb through everything that is happening around us. This is why when we are adults, and we're trying to find our way in society, we're trying to find our role in our households now that we have to run our households, all of these beliefs that were dormant, all of a sudden pop to the front, and you find yourself thinking, hold on, do I really think that way? Like, why did I react like this. And these principles that you mentioned, as I was listening, I was just thinking, the immediate connection that I could see how it could impact the way you run your business online, because let's face it, running a business online is participating in capitalism, however, running a business online as a non white person. And now we're going to start layering identities as a non white person from the Global South, who is also one of your identities is a woman. So all of these layers. Now, yes, is participating in capitalism, but is participating in a disruptive way. And I'm very curious to explore a little bit if you're comfortable with that, because your participation in the online world is disrupting the status quo of the online world. Because it is shifting the profits from going to white hands to go into people of color. yourself included, but your clients do being disruptive goes against keeping harmony. Oh, yeah.
If I were, if I were playing by the rules, I would have stayed in my very prestigious job that would allow my parents to look good in our community, and also be easier to explain it to other people. Also maintaining harmony because as soon as you have to start explaining something that's kind of novel not easily explained, like you're already standing out, which is not good. Yeah, absolutely. You're so right. Just by I think just by having your own business or being disruptive, and the fact that we're online makes it even more complex. The interesting
part and the fascinating part for all of us that are doing this exercise in real time right now is that some of these things are happening without us even wanting just by existing by just you being you, and running your business, you are simultaneously disrupting one system capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and at the same time, you are unintentionally disrupting, also the system that basically brought you up. Yeah. Because then now you are going against keeping the harmony. Now you're going against, don't show off. Now you're going again, yeah, stay on your lane. Now you come up and say, I don't really have to follow what my parents think I should be doing. Yeah.
And that's so rough. Because if we really look at the strict rules of a confusion, society, like any disruption you bring to your parents, is considered amoral, you're not being a good child, essentially. Yeah. And thankful. Thankfully, I have a very supportive family like, just because they're supportive also doesn't mean that our entire belief system just dissolves, either. It's always there.
Yes, this is such a unique opportunity. The reason we're doing this exercise, and we do this almost on a daily basis on our own, is because when you are able to identify where these ideas and feelings and thoughts and beliefs come from, when you're able to identify them, then you're able to unpack them. And by unpacking, I mean, naming them thinking out loud, to process what it means for us, and then deciding, because now we have the choice now that we have identified something, and named what is going on now that we have put language into it. Now we have the opportunity to reframe it, the purpose of this exercise is not to just sit down in the discomfort and the overwhelm of everything I do. Even like something was everything, a lie was everything imposed on me. That's not the
purpose. Let's do that with self promotion. Because I know this is something so many of us struggle with, I think the reason we struggle, the reasons are different for different people. But it's something that a lot of us can relate to. And for me what I hear when I think about talking about my unique value proposition and all the reasons why someone should work with me and have me as your mentor, or why someone should sign up for my courses and learn from me, I hear my mom's voice saying don't show off don't basically the undertones are, you're not that special. And even if you were you shouldn't self promote. You shouldn't talk about yourself in that way in. In Korean, the direct translation is more don't pretend to be so good. So don't act like you're so good. Interesting. And there's Korean is such a nuanced language. It's not it's very not direct. It's not literal. But it's a very high context language. The message is don't show off, right? Don't talk about yourself, don't think so highly of yourself. And you can see that the lines too, you need to maintain harmony, you can stand out you in, especially in a world ruled by capitalism, patriarchy, most people are not special. So your role is to remain not special, and be a cog in the machine. And I struggle with that a lot. And it's helpful, like you say, to be able to process it out loud and draw the lines to where it may have come from. And I think until now, my solution was just to fight against it. Just try to block it out. Try to be like, No, I know, this is good. I know. I'm telling the truth. I'm not inflating anything. I'm like, I'm saying it like it is I'm like exaggerating my qualities. I'm lied. I'm putting false advertising out there. So I feel like it's been a lot of like, self talk and be like, Nope, just like validating myself and just double checking. This is the other thing, right? I spent so much time thinking is it right for me to say this about my own programs about myself? Am I being honest? And doing a lot of that like checking myself? auric Yeah. And now I've come to the point where I'm like, is there a way to reframe this idea to make it work for me instead of something I have to keep fighting against?
I appreciate you sharing this moment where you are with this topic because I feel that all of us who have identified or realized wait, that doesn't really sound like something I would say why am I prepared doing this, why am I reinforcing this? We come to this cross point, right? So now what? So now I have identified this now I have named it now I'm thinking out loud to myself, Okay, and now what? I don't think there's a right? Answer. It's how every one of us goes through events in our lives, such as grief, in very different ways. For example, in your case, maybe the entry point was just to suppress all these feelings, these thoughts come to play, and I'm just gonna suppress them, I'm gonna keep on going, because I have to be productive. And this has to be perfect. And then maybe the next step was wait, suppressing is not really helping, because it's really there. Like it doesn't go away. If I can just find it with facts. And I say this with love, because we have worked together for years now. But every time we discuss a new topic for courses, on your end, you're like, let me do some research to see like, that may come on how many statistics you need,
even for this podcast series, I was like, Can I go do some research to make sure that one I think has been validated by someone else out there.
And why I appreciate that, because that plays into your other side of know, we do trust in the collective, we do trust in the fact that collectively, as a society, we come up with knowledge, and we gather to create wisdom, I understand that part. But sometimes, it's a little bit too much to put on ourselves. We don't have to, and I think this is so relevant for people of color, anywhere you fall under the non white umbrella, we, we have been gaslit our entire lives, we have been trained to believe that we're not that smart, that we're making the most out of, we're not that attractive, we're not that special. That if we get to be in places is because somebody is doing us a favor, and we should be grateful for that. So how we counteract this is by, okay, so then I'm gonna backup everything I do. And everything I say, and every single one of us and every single one of you that is listening to this or watching this, you're going to be nodding at least because tell me that this is not true. When you were in your last corporate job, you kept the file on everything you did that was not asked from you, but you did it anyways. Because if your manager or if your boss would get upset, and ask for receipts, you would have the receipt, you had the receipts. I
emailed my receipts to my manager every week.
I email things to myself when I used to work at a university because I work I know this is gonna come up, like I know, somebody's gonna ask, Why did I do this. And I just want to validate all of these experiences. And at the same time, let you know that we don't have to be afraid to take the next step in our business, we can do that without double triple checking ourselves. Because allowing us to exist is a revolutionary act. It's one of my favorite little acts of resistance, trusting the fact that you are enough in your business, it's revolutionary on its own. Like I said, I don't have the blueprint for you than they are for myself. Everybody's going to have an entry point when it comes to reframing this. But I do invite everyone is included, to allow ourselves to reframe that, to allow ourselves to explore what feels good now, if this behavior based on this belief, doesn't serve me at this point in my life right now, and it certainly is slowing me down from building the business that I want to build in order to have the life that I want to have, then you are allowed to reframe that you are allowed to say thank you, I appreciate this tool. I appreciate this believe right now, it's not needed anymore. I get to choose how to do that. And you can infuse that in your marketing event. The you don't have to suppress it, you don't have to fight it, you can just bring it to the front. Storytelling is an amazing way of marketing. And when you share these type of experiences, it just connects to your audience immediately because we all have that
that's such a great idea. It's I think it's so easy to feel like if you're struggling with something like you shouldn't share it to ghosts to that idea of perfectionism, which is the next thing I wanted to bring up right, it feels as soon as you said you should you can choose to share this like absolutely, but I don't know why I know why. But my instinct was no this is something I need to work through in private which is also true, but I feel like because it's just because it's something that I am working through the something that's hard for me doesn't mean it's something that I can't share with my people. And I guess, actually, that's exactly what we're doing at this point. So this conversation
doesn't matter. This is the most meta episode of the whole series.
So helpful, since we touched on perfectionism, and how some of the ways, like you mentioned that it shows up for me is I do a ton of research. When I put something out there, there are so many Instagram stories and Instagram posts that I've started and not posted, because it was not backed up. By fact, it was too emotional in air quotes. It feels I feel like it's also really tied to, if I'm going to be disruptive, there should be a good reason for it. And it's not I'm not talking about being disruptive for the sake of being disruptive. But as you said, just by being myself and having thoughts that I have, it can be disruptive. So I think it's so important to try to be aware of when I am just expressing genuine thoughts that I have, which I think is 100% of the time. I don't think I'm ever thinking like, okay, what can I say that is going to be super controversial, just to stir the pie. That's not who I am. Perfectionism for me is doing the research. And that's something that I have been rewarded for all my life. And I think that's the conditioning that also shows up. Like how was a really good student, I was the really annoying student might my best friends made fun of me for being a teacher's, but part of that was trying to be a good daughter, because being good daughter means not creating drama for my parents, and not having my parents not having to almost parents, me, because I'm parenting myself and making sure that I don't require parenting, although, of course, my parents are a huge influence in my life. Yeah, I feel like those are the things that show up for me in business.
Of course, the way we experience our first phases in life, are going to have a direct impact on whatever it is that we're doing right now. So when you talk about this childhood, and how your experience with the education system was and how that translates into perfectionism, right now, it makes perfect sense. And it also makes perfect sense that it has an impact on your business, like second guessing every single thing that you want to post spending a lot of time in your head before outlining a new course. And while being cautious and being thoughtful is a good thing. Over doing that, it just puts a lot of pressure on yourself. And nobody else is asking that from you. It's just the expectations that you set for yourself. And again, this ties back to culture. I think the roles and the responsibilities that we acquire when we are young, the way how young women are brought up in the Global South, I will use myself as an example like in Mexican households. I'm a first daughter. I was brand defied from the moment I was born, I was a mother to my younger sibling. I don't remember having a childhood. I don't when people talk with their friends or to be a kid, what a joy. And I'm like, what is that? Like, I don't have these memories. I'm not saying that. My childhood was a regimental environment. I, I if I'm being truthful, it was not like that. But it was also not a childhood. I had a lot of responsibility. I had a ton of responsibilities. I took care of my sister, to the point where she when she got married, it was an issue for me because I felt what then were what's my place now. And now we're talking about like bottles. And now we're in our 30s and I'm questioning myself what is my role in my sister's life now, now that I'm now in repair, why don't go in Mom, I'm not her parent anymore. And the way that shows up in business for me is I have to be very aware of I am not the parent to my clients who work primarily with women of color and I immediately absorbed that energy and I have to remind myself before every single client call, I am not their parent, we are peers, we are co creating something together. We are partners in thinking but in no way shape or form. Am I to be expected to be a role that I'm not or assume that role on my own? I think for a lot of Latin Latina women. This is something that takes a lot of our our energy to create that reframing, I can put my heart into things I do for my business and for my family and for my network. But I cannot take up on the role of a parent.
Wow, thank you so much for sharing that, I can totally see those parallels. I really like what you said, it's not, it's not that you're not gonna be caring, it's not. And I'll say this, as someone who has worked with you in your mentorship program, it's not that people don't see you as a role model, because I do. But it doesn't mean that you have to be that parents will figure and I like, and I really liked the way that you are not rejecting like a wholesale that entire role if I guess this is reframing your, your reshaping, like taking appropriate elements of that role, and then creating this role in your business as a co creator.
And I'm still figuring out every single new client is any relationship is a new moment, where I have to calibrate my thoughts and my feelings, especially now that I'm in a phase where I'm doing a lot of like, decolonial work on myself. And in my household, I'm trying to approach every client interaction with the idea of, we are peers here. So even though they are coming to me, is searching for an expertise that they don't have, I don't have all the answers, but we're gonna find the answers together. And that has been like not to sound too, like spiritual. But that has been a very healing process to allow myself to say I was brought up in this like Catholic way of thinking, but now that I'm going through my decolonial journey, I don't want to approach hierarchies like that anymore. I believe in collectivism, I believe in co creation, and this is how it's gonna show up in my business. For me, it has been It is to this day, a daily exercise, but it has been very healing. So if anybody out there is thinking, how can I do that journey? For myself? How would that show up for myself? I don't know. I don't have the answers. But you can start the journey today. I do know that.
Yeah, it's gonna look so different for different people. And as you were talking about how you say, Well, I don't and this is we're working as peers, like, I don't have all the answers just because you're coming to me for my expertise, because I think we're in the spaces where it is seen as a virtue to be able to say, I don't know, on the surface, it seems, yeah, you should absolutely be doing that. Of course, you should be doing that. But then, at the same time, it's quite unsettling to be able to say that, especially because like you said, we're participating in a capitalistic system, and they are coming to you with money. This is how you earn a living. And to be able to say, I'm still going to be able to help you because we're going to figure out the answer together. But I don't have all the answers from the get go. It's so hard. And I feel like that also takes so much internal stability, like it takes so much trust in yourself to be able to do that. I'm so glad we talked about this, because like you said, it's a journey. And I feel like talking about it. It's such a big part of that like to be able to, I think, just just to know that some of the thoughts that I've had in my mind, it's not just me, it's not happening it only to me. And these are things that become like almost easier to process and to work through. If you talk about it out loud with someone else who gets it. It seems so simple, but it works. I'm laughing because I'm like it. Yeah, no. Of course this helps. I know that we try really hard to bring others into our conversations and give people concrete things to do to participate. I think the obvious thing for this topic is to look at, whether it's religion, whether it's some other kind of system of beliefs, take a moment to reflect on what that looks like for you. Honestly, I never like I said earlier, I never thought that I would be talking about Confucianism as part of my identity because I feel like on the surface, it's the farthest like system of beliefs from what I stand for today, but it's there. And I think it's important to take the time because it takes time to get there sometimes to look at what influences you've had throughout your childhood. I also feel like talking about your childhood feels like such a cliche because my head goes it's in the past Dover it was such a long time ago. But of course, those things have shaped who you are today. So yeah, that would be my invitation. What about you, Marianna? Are there other things that come to mind, that could be a good starting point for folks,
I just want to reassure anyone that is going to start this journey of unpacking and reframing and unlearning, I want to tell you that you're not alone, you're not the only one doing this, it's gonna feel a little bit unsettling at times, is gonna feel like it would be better to not do it. But I want to invite you to see in the discomfort of not knowing what comes next. Because that discomfort is the clear pathway to your own cell, on the other end of the discomfort is rediscovering yourself, like your true self. And if we are running online businesses, we are our own bosses. And so we have to be at that level of confidence, we have to be able to know who we are no matter what. So I had
it set that way. And so true, nobody
else is gonna be there to tell you that maybe you need to hand in the report by three o'clock. Nobody's gonna tell you that there is a million and a half choices, decisions and opportunities that you will have to make or pursue. And the only way that you will feel confident is that if you're connected to your true self, and that's something that requires work. So we are inviting you to do this work. If you want to share your steps along the way with us. We would love to continue the conversation with you just reach out on any of our socials linked here. I am very excited to hear from all of you. Me too.
I want to hear what leaves which terms are plaguing everyone else. But of course talk through all the challenges that we go through together and look for ways to reframe and unlearn. Thank you so much for doing this with me Mariana. I know it was a bit of an experiment. It was yeah, it was basically what I expected it to be like a really fun but uncomfortable conversation. trusting the process. Always with you. All right, we're gonna wrap it up here. Thank you for joining us for this conversation and see you for the next one.
