Episode 133: How to Live Boldly (and Embrace Fear) with Adoptee Le Anne Harper
In this episode of F*ck Saving Face, Judy Tsuei chats with Le Anne Harper, co-founder of Unlock, about living boldly and authentically. Le Anne shares her journey as a transracial adoptee, navigating identity, healing intergenerational trauma, and embracing fearless life choices.
They discuss breaking societal expectations, unlearning survival patterns, and cultivating spaces for growth. Judy also updates listeners on her Kickstarter project, amplifying mental and emotional health for Asian Americans and voices of color. A must-listen for those ready to live life on their own terms.
More about Le Anne Harper:
Le Anne is a Co-Founder of Unlock, a future of work, tech-enabled platform that empowers leaders and businesses to harness the collective power of their communities to unlock growth.
Prior to Unlock, Le Anne spent 20 years as a talent and operations executive, working in-house and consulting to companies like Sony Pictures, AECOM, DreamWorks, and Crooked, as well as the executives and Founders fueling them.
Personally, Le Anne is a New Jersey transplant in search of great pizza in SoCal, lifelong learner, adoptee immigrant, and concert junkie (Prince at Madison Square Garden). She loves to build courage by facing her fears including a solo South Africa safari, skydiving from 14,000 feet, singing in front of 10k people, and swimming with sharks.
Sound Bites
"If I was going to stand out, it was going to be for all the best reasons."
"You don't ever lose. You either win or you learn."
"The most rich and alive moments are on the other side of being willing to embarrass yourself or fail."
"When you’re painting the story of your life, you’re not just the painter—you’re also the masterpiece."
"Fear is a signal from the universe—it’s exactly where you’re meant to grow."
"We spent so much time running someone else’s playbook—now, I’m the author of my own story."
"To show up fully, you first have to feel safe."
Takeaways
Embrace your unique identity and live life unapologetically.
Fear is a signal for growth—push through it to unlock new opportunities.
Unlearn survival patterns to live more authentically.
Set boundaries to protect your emotional and personal well-being.
Replace judgment with curiosity, courage, and compassion.
Create safe spaces to foster transformation and confidence.
Pursue opportunities boldly—mistakes are valuable lessons.
Own your story, honoring both challenges and triumphs.
Episode Highlights
00:02 Welcome and Introduction
01:20 Meet Le Anne Harper
04:30 Childhood and Identity
06:50 Coping Mechanisms
09:00 Confronting Trauma
13:45 Fear as a Growth Signal
18:20 Unlearning and Rediscovering
27:30 Transracial Adoption and Identity
34:45 Living Authentically
36:50 “F*ck Saving Face” Moment
43:40 Closing Reflections
Transcript:
Judy Tsuei (00:02.668)
Welcome to the F*ck Saving Face podcast where we're empowering mental and emotional health for Asian Americans and voices of color by breaking through taboo topics. Life may not always be pretty, but it is indeed beautiful. Make your story beautiful today.
I had no idea the conversation that I would have with Le Anne Harper. She's the co-founder of Unlock which expands and fulfills human potential through the power of connection. So prior to Unlock, she spent 20 years as a talent and operations executive working in-house at Fortune 100 companies, including Sony Pictures. And she was also consulting to smaller businesses like Crooked Media and other nonprofits. What really drew me to Le Anne was her personal story, where she is a New Jersey transplant in search of great pizza in Southern California.
More importantly, she's the oldest of five adopted children in a multiracial ethnic family. And she's done so much in regards to healing intergenerational trauma, finding her own identity, finding her own sense of self, and has continually propelled herself to do things that challenge her idea of kind of what's quote unquote normal or standard or traditional. She's
done a 14,000 foot skydive, she's gone solo to a South African safari, she's sung in front of 10,000 people, and she's also swam with sharks. So what I loved about our conversation is how deep she was willing to go, and she shared things that she hadn't shared in other spaces before. I am beyond grateful for our conversation, and I hope you enjoy it too. Okay, we have Le Anne Harper today.
So we are both in the authentic Asian community. And you reached out to me about when I was putting out a call for all of these different guests who could speak to the different steps and how to disappoint your parents in 10 shameless steps. So today we are going to be talking about step six, which for me was get pregnant on purpose before getting married, then live in a van and then get divorced. But the ultimate lesson is to live life on your terms and not others, which is why I'm so excited to have Le Anne here today. The email that you sent to me is,
Judy Tsuei (02:17.388)
amazing with all of your different elements of your life story. But before we dive into that, I'm going to turn it over to you for you to just share, you know, a bit about yourself. Sure. Well, thank you so much for having me, Judy. I'm so glad that we have this chance to meet in this very public forum, but I love what you're building there. So I just, had to reach out and I think even the fact that we're meeting is kind of just a testament to the power of relationships and, and the beauty of being able to see yourself and your experience and others.
So I'm so glad that we were able to meet through the Authentic Asian. I'm so grateful to Misa for creating that community. I'll start just with a little bit of personal history because I think all of the stuff I've done professionally, interpersonally is kind of rooted in that. So when you first mentioned the topic, living life on your own terms, I thought, do I do that? You know, it wasn't an imposter syndrome moment. It was just, I'm so busy doing it and living it that I, you know, I don't think I've ever thought about it from that.
lens or perspective, but I guess I really have. So my origin story is that I was found as a baby in Seoul, South Korea, and I was walking on my own. was a baby, but they weren't sure had I been abandoned, was I orphaned, did I walk away from a fatal car accident that took my parents. And just to not even really know the details of your origin story is already kind of a unique experience.
So I was placed in a private foster home for about a year. They made up a Korean name for me. They made up a birthday, which they thought was symbolic. They chose Korean Independence Day because it was like my new liberation. So I lived with that foster couple for another year and a half. I was about 14 months at the time they found me. And when I was two and a half, I was adopted, flown halfway around the world to my very young progressive white parents in the suburbs of New Jersey.
So that started a whole new chapter and adventure. And over time, I, you know, I'm the oldest of five trans racially adopted children. have another Korean brother. have three Puerto Rican brothers. Our family was very multicultural in general, our community, my family, friends were all very diverse and grew up in a diverse part of the suburbs. So that was kind of like the history. And when I look back on it now, it has a lot more meaning than it did at the time. One of the things
Judy Tsuei (04:37.592)
As far as like living out loud, one of the things I do remember consciously thinking about when I was young is, you know, we were kind of like the Pergers family, like rolling up to places with the big family van, but we were like the walking United Nations. So we could not be missed wherever we went. We definitely stood out. Luckily in the small community where I lived, that wasn't a thing over time. It eventually, we just were the harbors. But I think what it really.
pointed out for me very early was this idea of identity that the way you look and show up matters and people form impressions and have ideas about you based on that. And I think what I realized was I was just never gonna blend in or fly under the radar. And so I think I decided at that time, very early in fact, like still single digits, right? That if I was gonna stand out, it was gonna be for all the best reasons. And so I spent, you know, decades really being that
perfectionist, oldest child, type A, very classic overachiever, right? Like student council, cheerleading, straight A's, all the stuff. So anyway, that's a little background. It really drove the way I showed up in work and professionally. And I think it might look different on the surface, like my pedigree or my professional background. so,
I love having a chance to talk about all the parts of it that were twists and turns and unforeseen like obstacles because I, you know, when I was growing up, there wasn't really any Asian representation. There weren't powerful women in the same way. It was like a feminist movement at that time, but it wasn't like on an individual lived experience. No one was modeling that directly for me. So I just like to be able to share some of the behind the curtains, like
bloopers and less than glamorous moments. So that's kind of the foundation. And I did realize that very early on, I just did not want fear or the possibility of regrets to hold me back. And so I've just been living my best, biggest, beautiful life ever since with lots of mistakes and lessons learned the hard way along the way. think that, well, first of all, fascinating story. Thank you so much for sharing.
Judy Tsuei (06:47.196)
And I'm always intrigued by people who from a young age decide a certain thing and decide to do it in a way that serves them as opposed to the way that's destructive. Because I often reflect upon my family of origin and I think, you know, the four of us kids, I'm the eldest of four, like we're pretty good people, but like the way that we were raised did not give us the nurturing to become those good people necessarily. And so how did we decide that and how did we not go veer off another path? And I'm curious because in your early life,
you were talking about you needing to lock your room and like feel safe in your home, like in the email that you sent to me. So can you speak more about that and like how that kind of informed this positive drive for you? Yes, I would be happy to talk about it. And I think ironically at the time it wasn't actually functional, but I didn't realize it until I was looking back on it as an adult and frankly spending hundreds or thousands of hours in therapy.
you know, all that time that I was being what I thought was like the perfect oldest child. What was also happening was there's like a lot of chaos in my house and my parents didn't do this from a malicious place, but it was just culturally a time when you didn't talk about what happened at home and you kept up the shiny veneer. And that was like your family's reputation and anything that challenged that was like, you know, forbidden or explicitly maybe not, but it was just known that
you don't like share family stuff, right? So there was just a lot of it. my, I think that, for example, in my own history and in my brother's history, there's a history of abuse, not because of my parents, but because we weren't always cared for by the adults around us. So I was sexually assaulted when I was seven and frankly, I didn't even remember it until I was in my twenties.
And I mean, as far as like those weird messages, I remember it's one of the rare cases where you actually have a repressed memory and it's validated because the guy was our next door neighbor and I was only seven at the time. He was like a senior in high school, like six foot four, but he called my parents within two weeks of me recalling that memory. And so I just have this like.
Judy Tsuei (09:01.394)
maybe it's a woo woo new agey thing, but I feel like he was thinking about it and put that energy out into the universe because I just suddenly had this memory back. And so he called my parents and asked for their forgiveness. He was becoming a born again Christian and he needed to make amends for the mistakes he had made. So he called my parents, asked for their forgiveness. They gave it. He asked for my phone number and they gave it to them, gave it to him. So he could call me with my permission. So he could call me.
I was kind of numb through the whole conversation. It was definitely not a conversation about me. It was a conversation about him getting to heaven. But the weird thing about it and when like appearances and like keeping up the facade become kind of insidious is I remember afterwards still just kind of being numb, not really knowing what to do with that information. Shortly after that, my, my mom mentioned that his family was going to be coming out to spend the holidays at part of the holidays with my parents.
And of course I was expected as the oldest child to go. This is when I was in my 20s. So was already living independently in LA and I was taken aback and I said, well, if you choose to associate with them, that's your choice. That's your business, but I'm not going to be there. And I remember my mom was like, flabbergasted. She was like, what? You're not going to be here? Well, what am going to say? That's going to seem so rude. How am I going to explain why you're not there? And so
You know, again, it's not to vilify my mom, but she was so wrapped up in the idea of keeping up the shiny exterior that literally what he had just shared with her and my dad, I just don't even think it penetrated the surface. Like I don't think they could, as parents, like process it. And so it just rolled like a water off of a duck's back. So I was proud of myself at that time for standing up for myself and setting a boundary. But really my life was a lot about that of having to.
create boundaries because they weren't organically there. So again, one of my younger brothers had been abused when he was in foster care. And at the time we didn't know that. So he was acting out in what they call a sexually reactive way. And what that meant was in my house, I never could really let my guard down. You know, that's the place that's supposed to be an emotional haven and a soft place to land at the end of the day. And I was going off doing my
Judy Tsuei (11:21.77)
you know, outgoing, you know, high achiever stuff, and then coming home after school and after practices and wearing a key to my room because without it, my personal space, my room was not safe. There were many incidents where my personal space was violated or kind of like in a voyeuristic way. So, you know, it's kind of heavy, but the reality is that experience, the experience of being a
person of color in a predominantly white community. All of those things very early on. I don't think I got necessarily the healthiest messages about serving myself and speaking up for myself. But what I did get from the experiences was it reminds me of W.E.B. Du Bois talk about the double consciousness because I was showing up in the world, living my life all the while simultaneously thinking about how I needed to navigate spaces to feel safe.
And I didn't even realize how much I was doing that until I moved away. When I went to UCLA and I didn't leave at home anymore, I didn't have to worry about if my curtains were cracked open a certain way. If someone's hiding under the bed, I literally just like could breathe for the first time. And so, so I had to learn to do that for myself. And I don't think it's necessarily the healthiest thing, but I, I remember from a very early age, like you were saying, like,
consciously acknowledging or deciding that the only person I could really rely on was myself and that also served me at the time but in the long run I think I've had to dismantle that quite a bit and to the point that you made about like how we make choices it's interesting because I've often thought about the different paths that I've taken and my four brothers have taken I would say that two of us particularly went like the do-gooder parents you know teachers pet kind of route and
And the three youngest boys took the opposite approach, which is like, I'm gonna act out and misbehave so that I can prove if you're gonna reject me and abandon me, then I'm just gonna do it on my own terms. I'm not gonna just sit here like a sucker waiting to be kicked out or unloved. So it's really interesting how chasing that for so long felt like I was empowered, but in retrospect, that's when I really started intentionally, consciously doing the things that scared me. I think I talked about it.
Judy Tsuei (13:47.305)
in my message, I just, I don't want to be limited by fear. And I'll share a story. I remember if you've ever seen that movie, meet the Millers, there's a, the teenage girl has a crush on this boy that she meets at like an RV park and he has this tattoo. He's like super proud of it. And it says no regerts. And so like, I really, I have one early in my twenties, I have a regert. So
My aunt, my family friend aunt had this opportunity to interview to be the personal executive assistant to the president of a perfume company. And it would have been all of the glamorous things, right? Personally being his right-hand woman, traveling to Paris, Milan, Tokyo, just nothing could sound sexier or more exciting for like an early 20 something singleton. And I didn't pursue it because I let these thought worms in that said, but
What if your French isn't good enough? Or what if you're over there and they suddenly realize that they can't count on you or that you're not as good as your Polish veneer implied and you get fired? I just thought of the humiliation and like the disappointment and that kept me from putting my hat in the ring. And afterwards when I thought about, well, I've heard that Richard Branson quote about like, if someone asks you to do something you don't know how, like say yes and figure it out.
And I've done that my entire life. That's the living life on my own terms. I figured out things the hard way. I've made some dumb choices. I dropped out of college and I had to go back two different times. It took me three times the charm to finally get my degree decades later. But that was a defining moment where I thought I would much rather regret going for something, trying something and coming up short than wondering what if. And what I've really discovered is
It's such an empowering way to live. That's such a way to live life on your own terms because I love this expression. Like I don't ever lose. I either win or I learn. And some of the lowest lows, I've still hung onto that mantra. Like when my engagement broke off by text message, I cried a lot. And then like after 48 hours, I said, okay, what are you going to do with this? Like,
Judy Tsuei (16:05.615)
The universe is trying to tell you something. What did you learn about yourself? How can you be better or more self-aware, more conscious and intentional the next time around? I didn't think I never want to love again. I'm never going to date. I don't trust men. I thought there's a lesson in here. If I can embrace that, even if the delivery is not ideal, the universe is trying to get my attention. And it did. And so, I mean, that's just one of many ways that I've been trying to.
unravel this idea of being afraid and limited and playing small is just every opportunity when something scares me, I know that that's a message from the universe saying, this is exactly what you're supposed to do to grow your courage, to grow your confidence. You know, when you go swimming with sharks that you're terrified of because you grew up in the Jaws era, getting up and speaking in front of a room full of strangers doesn't seem as scary. you know.
So that's something that has really served me well. think that, you you touched upon so many things. One of them is like, no, and I love it that, you know, the idea of being afraid of sharks because of the JAWS era, but then transposing that into, then speaking in front of people isn't so scary and being able to practice in one area of your life and then allowing it to translate somewhere else, I think is so key. One of the other things that I share with you is learning coping skills from an early age that did serve you at the time.
but then becomes a double-edged sword. And so the unlearning that you're talking about is so important as well because it took me a long time to understand. I don't even know what my core values are. I don't know what color I like. I don't know any of these things. Cause I was so busy just surviving and you know, still demonstrating like success quote unquote until I got to a point of, a minute, do I even like that? Like, is this something that I even want? And so unlearning that to become who you are, I love that you at some point took
those challenges and then have the courage and bravery to do that because it's so easy for us. mean, our brains are wired for this to do things on default, to continue to just go because it's the smoother route and we just want to do the most efficient thing. But what tips would you say for someone? Because I think the other thing that you and I share is not realizing these things until much later and then being like, wait a minute.
Judy Tsuei (18:25.048)
I think there's so many people in my life who are also coming to that and not even in my life, but like I've heard from so many different people of I had no idea that's how I was patterned or I didn't even have the space to think about these other things. So what can you share for other people who might be going through that? Well, that so resonates with me and thank you for calling that out because I think just to clarify, it can sometimes look
when an adult is doing this work and reflecting back on the things that have imprinted on them and the ways that they survived and the way they showed up and learned to navigate those waters. It can look when you're reviewing it retrospectively and unpacking it and unlearning those things. It can look like you're pointing fingers or like looking to place blame somewhere else. And I just want to be really clear that
for me and for most adults who are doing this difficult work, like no one would choose to do it if it didn't really serve them in some meaningful way, because it's really hard. When you're getting accolades, when you get validation, when people say like, Judy, you're a boss bitch, right? You're like, yeah, maybe I actually am. And it's so easy to believe the hype. And those things are all true. I actually feel like I'm incredibly fortunate that I choose that conformist, like very,
well-rewarded capitalist hegemonic way of being. It really served me well because then when it came time to unravel it and I woke up one day similarly going, I don't even know. I'm so used to navigating in reaction to what I believe other people need from me or expect from me. I don't even know what I would say left my own devices. So, so what do do? I mean, these are some of the things that I've done personally. One is
just to have some trusted external person. Like it can be your circle of friends, the people who know you really well. A lot of times they've been a witness to your stories and your experiences, but they can see it in a way that you couldn't see it from inside of your own, you know, self your life. And I remember saying to one of my childhood friends, like we've been friends since we were eight and I love her to death. And I remember saying, because part of, you know, my journey as an adult and
Judy Tsuei (20:46.543)
on learning some of this stuff is to realize that what I thought growing up was a very close, very close knit, nobody could touch us family. In retrospect, I understand it. was like, I had a very in mesh relationship with my mother. It was codependent. And again, I'm not throwing any shade. If you asked her this today, she would say, how could we be codependent? We didn't even talk every day or something. like, she doesn't want to go there and look at it more closely.
but I just had to do the work because I was like in my late thirties and in my early forties, still sitting in the back of their SUV, going on family road trips or vacations like a grownup child. And I realized, this what the rest of my life is going to be? Like always living in reference to the being a daughter or a sister or an auntie. So I really had to do the work with the therapist going back to that childhood front. said, you know,
my parents and I have had a falling out and we're estranged and we actually are still estranged now. But that was the first thing I had to do to actually create some space to not have that constant voice of judgment, the all those internal narratives and stories we tell ourselves. And to your point, it's, not even on us. We are wired biologically for survival to stay safe and growing up knowing the ways we
had experiences early on, it taught us like, this is the way that I will survive this. So really getting intentional and almost being able to do kind of like an objective, like if you were to twin yourself and have like an out of body experience, it's actually an exercise they do often in therapy, right? Where you kind of step out of yourself, you leave the feelings and everything behind, but you can just objectively observe and start noting without judgment what it is you're seeing. Like when you relive certain experiences,
what did you actually feel if you let all the messages get stripped away to kind of think, well, actually, when I came out of that, I was, for example, I was like really proud of playing piano. You can see it right there. It's still a huge part of my identity, right? And I naturally loved it when I was very little. And I remember my parents lovingly telling me the story about how I just kept going back to the piano. And finally, when I was four, they started me in piano lessons. But there are other times when I look at that and I think,
Judy Tsuei (23:09.268)
that was part of the show, know, like singing and playing Christmas carols when neighbors came over to show like, we're this like sweet close knit family. And that was also true. Like both things can be true. So that's one of my tips. Like having your own new interpretation of reality and your lived experience does not negate the other positive things, the wonderful loving things that you got from those moments and experiences in those relationships. But
something else can also be true at the same time. It can be true that I swam with sharks while I was terrified logically in my head saying, you are stepping off of this boat ladder into shark soup. You are an idiot. This doesn't make any sense. And I can also simultaneously be saying, wow, I could guess I'm like totally swimming with sharks, you know? So I just kind of like removed the judgments and let myself like,
revisit the things and I didn't go digging looking for it either. They bubbled up. When I gave myself permission to look back, the things that kind of always didn't sit well, they started bubbling up and having trusted friends that you can kind of get some external perspective on was really helpful. In my case, reflecting back on that childhood friend when I mentioned that I had become estranged from my parents and I talked about some of the things that had been hurtful that I felt I needed to get distance from.
because they were kind of just enduring kind of patterns. And I didn't know how to break them in the confines of the relationship. And my friend said, you know what, I remember you telling me stories about growing up and things that people would say to you or experiences that you had. And I remember just thinking like, that's not right. But I never wanted to say it to you because I didn't want you to feel judged or feel bad about it. But now that you're saying this, like it totally makes sense.
You shouldn't have people saying these types of things to you. you know, it took me a long time to even realize like, I don't have to own everything that people want to put on my plate or the monkeys they want to put on my back. So I would say grace and patience, a supportive loving community, and just giving yourself time to process. then, and also just balancing that with real life too. Like, you know,
Judy Tsuei (25:30.773)
these different dimensions of our history and our identity, they come in and out of focus at different times. Like I'm still the co-founder of a business. I'm still incredibly busy, but once a week I'll take time to like journal or have a session with a therapist and really take the time. Cause it's like, it's like exercise. It's like building muscles of like you discern things differently and better. can, your skill and your ability to unravel all of that.
it gets better and then it doesn't become such a heavy lift. So those are some thoughts. And I do think there's a lot of great thought leadership. You don't have to figure this all out on your own. There are great books. Like in my particular case, one of the books that I really found helpful was adult children of emotionally unavailable or emotionally immature parents. And I think in retrospect, I don't really care about the book title, but that's what I really came to understand as my experience.
My parents were very loving, doing absolutely the best they could. And for all accounts and purposes to the outside world and 90 % of the time to me, it felt idyllic and like this model family, but understanding when your needs as a child couldn't get met because your parents didn't know how to create that safe space for you. So I was like kind of a de facto.
third parent, essentially. But there are books, that's the point I'm trying to make. There are people doing this work who have forged the path and meeting other people through groups like the Authentication. Yeah. Helps you feel seen and validated. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that you talk about, which I also didn't know how to articulate, is when you're taught a lot of black and white thinking,
it's difficult to think about the and. You're always like either this or this. There's no and. And I love that you're highlighting and lifting up the conversation around, you can have both. Like you can be both at the same time. And also fitting it into the life that you, it's not like you, mean, maybe some people can go to like an ashram and just focus on all of this healing work, but most of us have lives that we need to continue to live that continue to unfold. And then more things happen. And so carving out that time recently,
Judy Tsuei (27:40.778)
I'm getting ready to go on a trip on Sunday. And so my trainer is like, well, let's try to have you come in every day. And normally I'd be like, my God, I'm looking at my calendar. There's no way that I'm going to try to fit it in. But then I realized it's actually my release and my opportunity to take care of myself and make sure that I have the bandwidth to continue on and persevere and have the strength. I'm going to prioritize this. When I was teaching yoga, we used to say, you can't find time for meditation. You need to make time. And so I think that that's kind of like, you know, the same idea.
And also you touched upon the fact that, again, we're not trying to throw people under the bus. And I think if we're lucky, people take responsibility in authentic and genuine ways, if they can, if they have the consciousness and the awareness to do it, and that you had this facade on the outside of what looks like a really close knit family. And so I think that's also a great lesson and a reminder of we often compare our insights to someone else's outsides, but we're comparing things that aren't even accurate.
Apples and oranges. Yeah. so I was just, I think it goes back to living a life on your own terms and making sure that it's aligned to you because then you don't have to worry about keeping up with the Joneses or whatever it is that you think someone else is doing as long as you're aligned to who you are. My question for you also is given that you were adopted, know, you are trans racial adoption.
this journey into finding your identity, like coming into the authentic Asian group, owning your identity as an Asian woman, how did that all unfold to get you to the place where you are now? It's an understatement to say it's a lifetime's worth of work. But no, honestly, like I'm joking, because as I said, from a very young age, like, I'm clearly an Asian girl, right? And my parents are suburban white people. And so it was never hidden. I never had that aha moment like
by the way, we have to sit you down until you're adopted. So I did have like such an interesting experience from a perspective of understanding identity because I remember we did so much like work and activism in the community, serving food at the soup kitchen. And I remember picketing on behalf of farm workers rights with my parents when I was like maybe four or five. So there was always this idea that we could make a difference in other people's lives. And
Judy Tsuei (29:59.619)
So I was exposed to so many other races, cultures, ethnicities, but ironically, for better or worse, like the only Korean people that I consciously remember from my childhood were our family's dry cleaner and our Taekwondo instructor. So I wasn't getting a lot of positive representation or modeling about, you know, what it meant to be Korean. I remember because, you know, being an Asian person when you're in
communities that don't know you particularly, you're always at risk of being targeted or having some racial slur like thrown your way. And I remember when I was a child, people would say things like, I won't even say it, I won't dignify it, but they throw out some racial slur. And I would say, that person is so ignorant, like in my wisdom, right? In my 12 year old wisdom, I'd be like, that person is so ignorant because they don't even understand. I'm actually Korean. So they don't know what they're talking about. And later I realized,
I don't know what that means either. So I grew up in New Jersey and then I go to UCLA where, my gosh, talk about a culture shock, right? You're in a sea of Asian people. So many people are like, that must've been like a mother load for you, right? And it was eventually, but let me tell you, it was very unsettling. I was so used to being this person that people couldn't put in a box. I got to go wherever I wanted to. dated across race. And so.
I never specifically, I never thought I was white, just to be clear, because some people do go through that identity struggle. I never thought I was white or wished I was white. Although I do know I was living in a white centered world, but I didn't know what it meant to be Asian. So going to UCLA, my first reaction was, holy crap, I am so not special and unique anymore. There are like thousands of gorgeous, brilliant Asian people running around this campus. And what the heck?
even know what to do with that information. And in my family of origin, growing up without Asian parents and the Asian, I have my own version of like parental guilt and all the stuff, but, I didn't have that distinctly Asian experience. And so I also felt like I couldn't totally relate. But in any case, I was fortunate my freshman year in college, I made a friend who was also Korean, not an adoptee. So I got to live vicariously through some of her.
Judy Tsuei (32:23.27)
cultural norms and honestly, she was like an affluent girl from like upstate New York or something and I was like a middle-class girl from the suburbs of New Jersey. That's how we related more. But I think what it made me realize is being Asian in this context is just the rapper and it wasn't until I did my own work. I did go back to Korea on like an adoptee journey to understand like what is the country's history? What was the cultural context?
for why I might've been abandoned or orphaned at the time. I didn't realize it was part of a bigger cultural thing that was happening. I always thought it was like a me thing. So that was part of it. And then just learning to not other other Asian people and to not other myself. So giving myself permission to move into spaces with people that were Asian or not Asian. Like it became like over time, just like with anything, just through experience and exposure and intentionally.
putting myself in some of those spaces, that became less of a thing. And I became more clear about what that meant for me in my hybrid kind of amalgamated version of being Asian and also being like a New Jersey girl, also being, you know, an immigrant, like all the different dimensions that played in. And I even did a guest lecture once at UCLA on identity as it relates to gender and ethnicity and age. And this is like post LA riots and stuff. So.
I think it's just doing the work. And when I talk about doing the work, whether it's like unpacking unhealthy messages from my childhood or evaluating and evolving my identity as an Asian woman, I don't actually mean work like with a capital W. It's like work that I relish and enjoy because like to your point before Judy, it's like we spent so much time calling the plays and running the plays that were in someone else's playbook that this is truly the
living life on your own terms version. This is like Le Anne 2.0, but I'm the author. There's this expression I heard once like, don't forget that when you're like painting the story of your life, you're not only the painter, you're also the masterpiece, like simultaneously, right? And so I think that's what it's been for me. Like as, as an Asian woman is just really learning to embrace and better understand and living in Orange County as I do now, I'm really fortunate to be exposed to all different types of cultures and
Judy Tsuei (34:47.29)
You know, I'll be honest, I tried to study Korean like two or three different times in my life. I even lived near to K-town at one point when I was really exploring it. would go like late nights. I'd have like ramen and nori bang and stuff with my Korean friends. And some of those friends were adoptees because they could understand that in between limbo that a lot of us are in. But now I'm just able to kind of embrace and express all of those different versions of myself.
So beautiful. I could talk to you for hours. I'm sure you hear this a lot, just like, you know, you're a wonderful storyteller and you've lived a lot of life and you have so much wisdom that just comes naturally. So I very much appreciate it.
I always ask us as the last question of the interview, if you could say f*ck saving face about something, what would you say f*ck saving face about? Ooh, okay. I should have seen this coming. It is the name of your podcast, right? Well, before I say, let me just quickly say this. I'm so glad we had a chance to talk about this and I'm, yeah, I'm embracing the conversation we had. I'll just be totally transparent. There's a part of me that's saying, I didn't talk at all about my work. All I did was talk about myself, you know, and.
That's something I'm not accustomed to being trained in corporate America and like high profile companies where you have to keep your personal persona, like mostly conveniently tucked away. So it feels incredibly refreshing. I don't even know what to do with it. I'm sure I'll have some thoughts later. So f*ck saving face as far as just thinking you have to show up as like the business polished version of yourself. But no, really I would say the worrying about
making mistakes or messing up or saying things incorrectly. think there's so much, it really is at its core. It's still just about fear. It's like if we could stop judging ourselves and frankly stop judging each other, we would be able to live in, know, technicolor and really never have any regurts because that's just it. Just stop living through other people's expectations and give yourself permission to fail forward.
Judy Tsuei (36:49.695)
to learn the lessons, again, I don't even like to use the word failure. All the great stuff that's out there, like the most rich and alive moments are on the other side of being willing to embarrass yourself or fail or have your heart broken or be wrong. So I'd say fuck being right or caring if you're right. I love that. The judgment that you were talking about, I think it's so easy to be so harsh in judgment for ourselves. And then I've been hearing lately, especially like,
with women with other women, judging one another. And, you know, it's not just like a woman being in a man's world and like having all of that, but just all of that judgment. was just speaking with a business advisor this morning, because I'm part of this Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. And he was saying to me, just we were articulating kind of my unique selling point in the things that I do and offer.
And it was clear that one of the key things that I do is to create a non-judgmental space in order for people to show up to build their personal brand. Because unless you can have that, how can you show up completely fully and then have the confidence to go out there and promote yourself and build that brand? And so he kept reiterating, like, you're not just like another branding and marketing agency that anybody could hire to do all of the technical marketing stuff. What you're doing is holding space for someone.
in this way where they can process almost like in therapy. Yes. And then show up and go through that to shift their mindset to do that. And I think the only times that we are able to change, and this was something that I learned when I was teaching yoga too, is you have to feel safe. If you don't feel safe, your body will constrict, your willingness to show up will become smaller. And so
That non-judgmental space, if we can give it to ourselves to start, and then if we can start doing it with other people, I've seen how transformative that could be as a business owner working with clients and in relationships, like you said. How can we continue to nurture these? And even when things go south, even when things unfold in ways that we didn't think, it was still a learning. It was still part of our story.
Judy Tsuei (38:55.04)
But that's such a superpower, Judy, to be able to create that safe space for people. And I don't think we do that enough. That's exactly what we do at our company for executives too, because when you're thinking about doing something different or pivoting or, you know, maybe going fractional or whatever it is you're thinking long-term, what you want your legacy to be, it's a very scary undertaking. If you're being honest with yourself, like you feel vulnerable, you're judging yourself or wondering what your brand is like as a person. So.
When you can do that for other people, really is a gift. And one of the things that I've used is like, I use the three C's. I try to come always because it's easy to say, don't judge, but what's the alternative? Like so many of us are like programmed to just have these snap judgments and knee-jerk reactions. So I've replaced it with curiosity. Don't make an assumption, just ask the question. So approaching people and situations and myself with curiosity, with courage.
and with compassion. And I think when we can do that for each other, like you said, when you can have this like trusted circle of advisors, people who will hold space for you, then you build that confidence, you build that strength. And Brene Brown says it really well, like you trust people when they've earned your trust. So give a little and see how they honor and respect that and how do they treat it as sacred. So, and that when you can actually show up as the person in the safe space.
That's a gift. You're inviting someone in to see who you really are. And I think we're going to see so much more of that. It's exploding. Last year, authentic was the word of the year, right? So I think we're all really thirsty and just so hungry for that opportunity to fully live into like our full potential. And I think that last thing that you said too about the curiosity, one of the women who I know, which I admired this and I hadn't said it out loud until our other business partner.
said it as well is she does a really good job of acknowledging if she doesn't know something without judgment of herself and just being like, I'm sorry, I don't know that. like, you know, can you, can you explain that? I haven't heard of that before. And I think for so many of us who are overachievers, not like we don't ask that question because you don't want to be perceived as, I didn't know. And it's taken a long time for me to just acknowledge. I, I'm not familiar with that. Can you? I love that you gave
Judy Tsuei (41:16.918)
an alternative to not judging. Because yes, we say a lot of things like, you know, let's not do this, but then what's the alternative? What do we do? And so that sense of curiosity and that sense of self compassion allows us to say, I actually am not familiar with like what it is that you're talking about. Can you elaborate more? an ALB plus one on that and double clicking on it. It's a place of power. When you walk into a room and you see someone who goes, Hmm, I don't really know about that. Tell me more. That's a person who's powerful.
they're confident enough to discover and explore. The person who's like so eager to raise their hand and like they're trying to prove something and that doesn't generally read as confident. I think we do it just out of training because we're conditioned that way in school, like be the people pleasing. Like I want to be right. We are conditioned to be right. And it's not a norm to be wrong, but exactly to your point, like having questions, having the confidence and the power to just say it's actually is a very,
strong place to come from. I'm really curious about what you just said, Judy. Tell me more about that, because I'm not that familiar. That doesn't make me seem weak. That makes me seem really interested and smart enough to know, like, I'm not going to walk away from this without being a better person or a more knowledgeable person because of it. So I think when you can just flip the, pull the judgment out of your own judging so that it doesn't get in the way of you actually learning and growing and just being really fulfilled and connected to people. People love being able to.
help and answer and serve others. So, yes. So people want to follow up with you more. Where can they find you? Well, our company unlock is at our unlock.com. We're building a tech enabled community focused space for executives who really are looking to reach their greatest outcomes through the power of connection. And so that's exciting for us. And I'm also on LinkedIn. I would encourage anyone to look me up. I love to connect and
I love to help support people on their path. So feel free to reach out there. And it's been such a gift to have this conversation, Judy. I feel so much like myself, like not the veneered version. So that's a gift. And that's why I say that truly is a superpower of yours. So thank you for that. you. Thank you. I also want to say thank you so much to everyone who's supported the Kickstarter for my book, How to Disappoint Your Parents in 10 Shameless Steps, a Modern Asian American Guide.
Judy Tsuei (43:40.427)
Because of you, we were able to raise $10,800 plus, which surpassed my stretch goal. And because of that, I'm going to be able to hire a hybrid publisher and get my book into book fairs and schools and libraries because the whole purpose of it is to amplify mental and emotional health for Asian Americans and voices of color by telling stories that we don't normally share, just similar to what Le Anne did today.
I hope that you will continue to follow the journey. And if you want to learn more about the coaching that I'm doing for women of color entrepreneurs, where I'm blending personal branding with neuro-linguistic programming mindset coaching, and it's creating extremely powerful results for different people, you can find it at my website, judytsway.com. And that's T-S-U-E-I. See you next week.
Judy Tsuei (44:32.695)
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you'd like to support me and this show, please go to iTunes and leave your review. It means so much to me and it'll help others find this podcast. I'll catch you in the next episode. And if you'd like to stay in touch between now and then, please visit wildheartedwords.com and sign up for my weekly newsletter. I've had people share with me that it's the best thing to arrive in their inbox all week. Aloha.
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Keywords: mental health, Asian Americans, stigma, parenting, community support, mindfulness, emotional health, collective grief, early intervention, cultural awareness
