Amy Eliza Wong

Nov 8, 2022

DESCRIPTION

How Trust Equates Safety to Our Brains and Rejection Equates Death with Amy Eliza Wong

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

work, blind spots, coaching, trust, book, big, rejection, felt, people, neurobiology, relationship, impact, brain, safe, create, megan, world, clients, roots, communication

SPEAKERS

Amy Eliza Wong, Megan Swan

TRANSCRIPT

Megan Swan 00:01

Welcome back to Energetically You where we talk all things optimal wellness, abundant mindset and empowered decision making. I'm your host Megan swan, a wellness coach and consultant and the founder of the Sustainable Integrated Wellness approach. I help high performance women thread more wellness into their lifestyle so that it becomes a way of life and not another checkmark on their to do list. I designed custom approachable wellness lifestyles because quite frankly, there is no one size fits all wellness. After working with me women have more sustainable energy confidence from within and ultimately make more aligned and empowered decisions. I am on a mission to empower more women through optimal wellness. Today on the podcast I am thrilled to interview Amy Eliza Wong. She is the founder of always on purpose. She is an executive leadership coach, author, speaker and facilitator working with organizations such as Airbnb, Salesforce, Roku, LinkedIn, Facebook and more. Ami offers Transformative Leadership Development and cutting edge communication strategies to executives and corporate teams around the world, as well as institutions including Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley. She pulls from various disciplines, studies and practices to find a can consilience approach to achieve flow and create profound impact through the three lenses of self relationships and results for situational intelligence certified executive coach with expertise in transpersonal, psychology, design, thinking and interpersonal neurobiology, Amy has catalyzed transformative growth for hundreds of executives and teams. She has a passion for helping leaders identify blind spots, reclaim precious time, energy and creative bandwidth and create next level impact her new book living on purpose was released in May of this year. So let's dive in. Welcome, Amy. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today. How are you?

Amy Eliza Wong 02:37

I'm great. Thanks, Megan.

Megan Swan 02:39

Well, I want us to just dive right in. I absolutely love the analogy or the way that you use a tree to represent your your philosophy. So could you kind of like walk us through that analogy and explain the tree?

Amy Eliza Wong 02:55

Yeah, absolutely. I think it might help providing a bit of the backstory. So I, you know, I've been coaching for over 10 years and and over those 10 years, you know, I've been really dedicated to following my inspiration and my passion. And it's interesting, where it's really guided me, and maybe about six, seven years, no more than that, at some point during the 10 years. But early on. I was just so fascinated with communication, all aspects of communication. And I think really where that stemmed from was, you know, I had studied math at UC Berkeley for my undergrad, and I was doing a lot of teaching and a lot of facilitating, and I was so enthralled and just so excited about how it was that people were able to perceive the subject at hand, and more importantly, identify what it was that they didn't know that they didn't know. And I started to recognize as my journey continued to progress that, you know, it's not so much the topic, it's really the our ways in how we communicate, that makes things possible or not. And so I really became very, very passionate about all things communication, I got certified in conversational intelligence, understanding the neuroscience of communication, neuroscience of trust. And that's when all of a sudden everything started to click for me where all these deeper transpersonal principles and transpersonal psychology which my master's is in, like, oh my gosh, like all of this stuff that I've been fascinated with and all the things that I'm doing with coaching, like, it all really starts. I'm really seeing how this all comes together. And the tree model came up when I was working with a big tech client, and we were trying to explain why. Or at least we were trying to very succinctly explain why we were gonna go real deep in a conversation so that we can really make make better communicators. You know, because on the outset, you could say, oh, well, yeah, I think that kind of makes sense. But, you know, unless you can visualize exactly what's going on, it's hard to take that for face value. And so what, where the tree model was born out of is when I was explaining I'm like, Look, imagine a, a beautiful thriving oak, like all of us want to be thriving. So let's just imagine big oak trees. Like if you want to thrive, you want the whole oak oak tree to thrive. Now, when it comes to coaching, people think, Okay, well, I want to thrive, prune my leaves, make my leaves look might make my canopy look really pretty. And so people will come to coaching, thinking that, okay, you're gonna give me a list of to dues and you're going to project manage my change, and I'm gonna take on these new behaviors and practices and try to take on new habits. And I'm like, Well, we could do that, we can change these techniques and communication. And so that's where it was really came up. It was like, all these communication techniques. I was like, well, we could do that. But that's effectively like pruning a canopy of an unhealthy tree. And it might look okay, but it's not going to serve you. And so what do we have to do we have to temporary, the roots, right, and then we have to understand, like, where's the tree in relationship to others in the sunlight and, and so that's where it was like, Oh, my gosh, and that's everything I also do, and it all and this is how it happens in coaching. So the roots really represent the relationship we have with ourselves. And this is absolutely critical. Because, you know, we get that, but we don't usually understand why. But here's why it's critical, because that relationship with self forms, the fundamental primary lens, that we look out to out to the world, that gives color and meaning to everything we perceive. So in other words, the the world out there is not objective, what we experience is a projection of the relationship we have ourselves. And so if we want to thrive, if we want to be if we want to have impact, if we want to succeed, that is one of the most fundamental and necessary things we need to do. So that's the roots, it's really watering the roots. And then of course, the health of the tree in relationship to others. That's our relationships. Because why is this important? We don't create in a vacuum, nothing happens in a vacuum. It's all happening in relationship to one another. So what's our ability to be conversationally intelligent, create trust, and to make magic happen with those that we interface with. And then you've got the canopy, and the canopy has all the skills and the techniques and the habit changes, and all of the, you know, the pruning that we might want to do in our life. So these are the these are, this is a choice at the level of action. So for example, if I want to be healthy, I'm going to choose an apple over a candy bar, right? And so it's like, what are those? What are those effect, you know, effectual things that we can start to shift and then all of it together is important. And we have to mind all three.

Megan Swan 07:51

So brilliant. So I'm curious, are the blind spots that you usually find for people

Amy Eliza Wong 08:00

at the root system? Are you saying arts was the question? Do you find them at the root system? Yeah, are

Megan Swan 08:06

always these blind spots on essentially what the relationship we have with ourselves.

Amy Eliza Wong 08:11

You know, we they actually exist on all levels. And they all have pretty, pretty interesting impacts the ones that the root, right, so the relationship we have with ourselves Absolutely, those blind spots, when we can uncover and transform those, that's going to create a pretty powerful ripple effect. And then the next level, the blind spots that we experience in relationships and in communication, that can also have some pretty powerful impacts as well. And so I would say, blind spots are going to be found really at every level. But when we when we really want to create true transformation for ourselves. Some of the biggest gains can be felt in identifying the stuff we don't know that we don't know about what we're believing about ourself, what we're interpreted, interpreting about ourselves in the world around us, you know, and at that level, that's where, yeah, big changes can happen.

Megan Swan 09:09

Yeah, so what do you find is sort of, are there commonalities in doing the work that is required for this kind of? What are the sort of major Ghana themes around resistance?

Amy Eliza Wong 09:25

Yeah, no, absolutely. There's so there's, so when it comes to the relationship we have with ourself, you know, a pretty universal blind spot. And I think this is just because of how we are conditioned and how we are, how we are, I guess, conditioned to develop within our society. There's a big blind spot, a big blind spot around the reality that all of us neurologically neurobiologically face around rejection. And so, you know, rejection as an experience is so highly triggering for you. Minutes. And it's it literally registers this physical pain in the brain, which I find fascinating. When I learned that I thought, oh my gosh, how are we not talking about this more, this is so interesting to me that the wiring that humans have, and what it means to really stay safe and to exist and to into to thrive, we're trying to stay socially safe and environmentally safe at the same time. And you know, that search for safety is constant for the human brain. And so it's not just safety environmentally, like people with knives and tigers. It's it's snide comments, and, and, you know, just the any any social threats were equally looking out for. And so when we don't fully understand the, the reality that each of us face, and the implications and the impact that that fear of rejection has on us, we actually end up acting out in ways that we don't intend. And so a big part of doing the work is really understanding our neurobiology as it relates to ourselves and the beliefs we have established as a result of this fear of rejection, and then how it unconsciously prompts us to interface and interact with others. So that's a big one. The other one pretty universally, experienced as a blind spot, is the false limiting beliefs that we hold about ourselves that we don't realize, you know, and so a lot of us have fear a lot of us have, you know, if you've heard of impostor syndrome before, all of that. Yeah, he's like, all of that really is stems from holding on to a false limiting belief that you're terrified that it's going to be revealed as true. And so that, sorry. And that's even after I put the posted, hey, please go around him in a podcast. My 14 year old there anyone listening my 14 year old just enter the office. So yeah, so back to blinds. But that that's really the identifying, going and doing the work to really identifying what we hold on, in terms of how like, what we hold on to, in terms of what we think or hope is not true about ourselves is a big, big realization. So that's a big one. I could talk about the ones in relationships, too, because that's, that's also pretty big, and communication and relationships. There's some pretty universal blind spots that we hold, as well.

Megan Swan 12:33

Okay, definitely. Let's do that. Put pin and pin pin in that. Yeah, I do want to ask another couple questions about impostor syndrome, because it's one of the things that I deal with, with clients. I mean, I think it's fairly universal. Some level and I wanted to ask when you say, you know, when we understand the neurobiology, do you mean, like, what are the tendencies that are no fault of our own? Or do you mean, like, some different understanding of neurotransmitters and what's going on in the brain? Ah,

Amy Eliza Wong 13:06

no, it's really more the the former that you just described. And so when I wrote, so I wrote my book living on purpose. And it was largely to really dispel all of this, because what I had been working with, with clients for, for really, truly over a decade, it was really working, like my gosh, I've got to get this out, for people beyond just those that I can work with. And so in my book, Living on purpose, you know, Chapter parts two, and parts three, are really dedicated to understanding exactly what we're talking about here with imposter syndrome. And how is it that we're holding ourselves back and, and the neuro, the neuroscience, or at least the neurobiology that maps to why it is that many of us experience impostor syndrome, how it is that we, we have these fears that by the way, we think we're the only ones? Like, we're the only ones that think we're suffering with this one, in fact, like, everyone's just having these fears at certain times. And I know Yeah, we're all silently suffering. And so part two, really, is essentially, is written in order to understand like, what is going on in the brain? How is it that we develop that, that that has us all taking on some false belief that oh, I'm not good enough? Or I'm not smart enough? Oh, actually, I'm not. I'm not as competent as the rest of the people on my team are all of these false beliefs that we take on? How does that happen? From a developmental and neurobiological standpoint? Because guess what, we all have that? And then why is it that we are desperate to keep that from being found out from others? Because that's essentially what impostor syndrome stems from? And then how in the ways in which we show up to keep others from thinking or finding out that we're not good enough, we're not smart enough, are really the survival mechanisms that we develop, because of all of this. And so parts two and three are really dedicated to helping dispel or at least edgy came with us on what's going on? And then what are what how do we get out? How do we free ourselves from this? From this pattern that many of us find ourselves

Megan Swan 15:11

prey to? Yeah, well, I definitely think with you know, rejection or essentially being out from the tribe like that has deep monkey brain, probably wiring, but the imposter syndrome isn't your opinion, it's more of our education system. And we're, we're raised into it, or it's also, like a survival wiring,

Amy Eliza Wong 15:36

I think it's more of a, it's definitely more of a survival wiring, right? Because, you know, if it's true, that rejection literally hurts, which it is, and then, you know, in our brain can't really differentiate between Tiger jumping out of a bush, and, you know, being humiliated or being judged in a meeting, right, our brains trying to keep us safe. And so it's going to do what it can to keep us environmentally safe and socially safe. And so one of the ways in which, so my hypothesis is, and this is why I wrote the book, My hypothesis is, is that the ways in which our brain tries to keep us safe is that it in our earliest years, and by the way, it doesn't have to happen in our early years, it happens at any point in our life. But when we confront it, I'm it's that first very significant experience of perceived rejection, right? Whether it's humiliation, judgment, exclusion, just over rejection, that extreme feeling of discomfort, like you're not a part of the group, and you're not safe with the group or you're not safe with that person of influence, or you're not accepted by that person of influence. In order to make sense of that experience. Then we imprint a false limiting belief to make sense of it. Right? So it's like, oh, my gosh, this just happened. Oh, I gotta make sure this never happens. Again, I gotta go. Okay. Well, we had to make sense. Why did this happen? Oh, you must not be good enough. Right. And so we take on a belief, that's not true. But it's a belief that we take on nonetheless, in order to make sense of that rejection, because, again, the brain tried to keep you safe. So now and it makes sense, because the brains like, Okay, well, this in psychology around this as well, if I got to keep you safe, well, I got to know what to look out for. And so therefore, now, if you know yourself is not good enough, or not smart enough or not, whatever. Now, I'm going to look for all the opportunities in which you can stay safe. So that means you're gonna go do this, and you're going to avoid that, and you're gonna go do this, and you're gonna avoid do that. And so, very, you know, so we enter into this roller coaster, where we're constantly like playing it safe and trying for the things that we think we can do, okay, and all of that just feeds this, this persona of, gosh, this, this, there's this part of me that I just got to make sure that I can't get found out. And so that feeling of imposter syndrome is simply a very real effect of all of this that lives within many, many, many, many of us. And I actually think it's all of us, when we just do we do a really good job of surviving this reality.

Megan Swan 18:04

Yeah. Okay, so let's shift now into relationships and prominent and blind spots there. Because when you say that, I'm guessing you mean, like, you know, in the workspace as much as you know, relationships, parenting all the things?

Amy Eliza Wong 18:19

Yeah, absolutely. Well, the biggest one that comes up in every instance, whether it's home or work, one of the biggest blind spots we can have is the blind spot of not really being aware of the impact we're having on others. And definitely, when we're not ensuring that our impact is congruent with the intention we hold, you know, and so all of us, and I'm pretty certain about this, all of us show up with a good intention. All of us are the heroes of our own story. And all of us essentially want to do good and be good. I don't think anybody wakes up going, Oh, really want to screw over Megan today who, you know, I think nobody does that. Right? We wake up with a really good intention. And then, and then we go forth. And then we choose words, and, and more. So it's our tone in our body language that is felt by another and oftentimes will go forth. And the way in which something lands isn't congruent with the intention we hold, and when we're not aware of that intention and impact congruency. And we don't check with others to make sure that we're aware of that. And we actually don't work to make sure that the impact is, is matches. That's when we break trust. And when we break trust, we can't get much done. And so that's that's probably, I mean, this this topic comes up so much, Megan, in coaching and executive coaching and communication coaching and conversational intelligence coaching. It's tremendous. I mean, this is it is a big, big, big, big, it seems like low hanging fruit and at the same time, it's like, it's so pervasive, just how much we Don't recognize how we land without another's.

Megan Swan 20:04

Yeah, what what kind of like a hyper scenario there that comes that I always find so interesting is when somebody passes away, and like all the ways people react and things people say, and obviously the people that are closest to that individual are very sensitive to everything being said or not said, and most people are just reacting from their own position. You know, they're not really thinking of like, what does this individual need most from the moment?

Amy Eliza Wong 20:37

Perfect? That's exactly right. Perfect. Perfect way to put it. Yeah, really good.

Megan Swan 20:43

So how, tell us a little bit more about your backstory and what got you on this very unique web multi-discipline That you're on at the moment?

Amy Eliza Wong 20:54

Yeah. So gosh, I was a kid. I was. So just I loved the really big questions about life. And I remember when I was really young, my mom and my grandma, I just I lived for visiting my grandma, they had a ranch up. And it used to be Mount Shasta. And then it was truly Lake, California. And it just wouldn't get so excited when we'd go visit. Because my mom and my grandma and I, we would all sit around the table. And my mom and my grandma would have these big beautiful conversations about consciousness and about just causality and just the nature of consciousness, not very metaphysical, and I just loved it, I lived for it. And, you know, so very, at a very early age, just craved that stuff. And I remember, you know, starting to meditate early, I found tech, not Han in fifth grade, and read one of his books and fell in love with it. And Wayne Dyer in seventh grade and start, you know, went to a Deepak Chopra meditation retreat in high school. And so it's just very, very and hungry for that stuff. And then at the same time, I loved math, all I wanted to do was math. And all I wanted to do was play piano. So both a mathematician and a music a musician at the same time, and it was just my love of that led me to want to teach it. So in high school, I had a business, a tutoring business. So I was constantly teaching kids math. And then I had a and then I taught piano. So I rented a piano study studio, from my teacher, my piano teacher in Sacramento, and I had a really thriving business in high school. So I'm teaching all these young children how to teach, you know, our sorry, how to play piano, and on math. And as I was mentioning, earlier, I, I caught pretty early on my junior and senior year, I was like, you know, you know, what I'm really enthralled by, it's really listening for this stuff that they don't know that they don't know, because that's where they're getting stuck. And, and I started to pick up on that. And as a result, I was able to really alter my lot my logic or my words, so that I could help them discover what it was that they didn't know, so that they could actually learn. And so I picked up on that really early. And so then through college, I was doing the same. And this time I was but I was very mindful of the fact that I was like, wow, you know, like, what is it that you don't know that you don't know here and so was very effective in teaching math at Cal and then went off to you know, then I graduated work at Sun Microsystems. So I ended up in tech. And so I was there for almost 10 years. And for the for that time, I would always end up in these roles were I was the go between between development and end user, and just always had this translating mode. And again, it was capitalizing on this gift. And this passion I had for really tapping into other people's worlds and perception to close gaps and build bridges. And it was after my first child was born, who you watched, walked right behind me here in my office, who's now 14, and just the love of my both my children are just, I just love them so much. They're so wonderful. But after Aiden was born, I had a total breakdown. And I it was it was a you know, kind of a dark night of the soul sort of experience. And it's where I realized, oh, my gosh, I have no idea who I am. Because I can't go back to work. Because that's meaningless to me. But that was so jarring because it was everything to me. And as a mom, now I didn't know who I was. And so in this massive breakdown became a breakthrough. And everything changed truly after a massive epiphany. And that's actually what precipitated the principles in the book that I you know, that is now out and available. But after that big breakthrough, everything changed in a moment. And I committed from that point forward. You know, from from here on out. I'm only going to operate offense for ration. And I'm just going to follow what feels right instead of what sounds good. And, and it was so hard Megan because like, you're I'm this very logically, very academically rigorously trained mathematician. That is everything has to make sense. Everything has to be logical. And now all of a sudden, I want to go to the science and non duality conference. And I'm like, looking at transpersonal psychology and my husband's like, what are you going to do with all of this? I'm like, I don't know. But it feels and it sounds amazing. And like, I just, I just know, I have to study it. And thank goodness for my amazing husband, who's just he's like, Okay, if that's what you think you need to go ahead, and I set off and very quickly, boom, it was coaching found me and then it just took off like wildfire. So

Megan Swan 25:50

you work with a lot of leaders, which probably means a lot of egos. I'm curious, do you have some tips or some specific methodology because I'm sure not everyone wants to be told that they don't know something. And that they're, they need to know something in order to get to where they want to go. I'm gonna have some delicate techniques.

Amy Eliza Wong 26:20

You know, it's, I'm really, I feel really fortunate because I get to work with some amazing companies, and all of the leaders that really want to do this work want to do it. And so that requires a fair amount of curiosity. And that's really kind of that's the minimum, actually, I'd say like, when it comes to, like, hey, let's work together, hey, let's do some work together as a team or as a department, it's there has to be some level of responsibility that they're willing to take for the quality of their own experience and the impact that they're having. And so, fortunately, I haven't had anyone that was so intransigent. That was like, you know, what, what can you tell me that? I don't already know, where it's, you know, that it's somewhat of a stalemate. However, I do have a funny story, though. So there was a period and in, you know, not long ago, how, what year was it 20 2017, maybe, I started doing negotiation training for a firm, in addition to doing public speaking, coaching, and outside of my practice, and they sent so this firm sent me to go train all of the con, it was, it was all of the heads of construction that manage all the contractors for all of the schools that are built in New York state. So you can only imagine so I walk in, and it's like, this room full, and I'm not kidding, it was roomful of say, this is so much love, old dudes that were like probably in their 50s, you know, mostly white, and they were sitting back, you know, arms crossed, and they're just like, given me the stink guide here, I this chipper blonde comes popping in like, we're gonna learn advanced negotiation. And they're just looking at me, like, what could you possibly know more than we know, because, you know, because they, they've been doing what they're doing for decades working with slimy contractors, schools. And, you know, honestly, I, so I'll tell you what the trick is, in order to and it's not a strategy, I generally comes from my heart, in order to truly meet them and make and make for an amazing experience. I just, I just see them all as dear friends, I just don't know well yet. And they just don't know me yet. And they are dear friends with amazing histories with tragedies and traumas. And they have desires and they have fears, and they're all humans, they're all trying to do the best they can. And guess what I do know, a ton, it was gonna cut a talk about the neuroscience of trust, and it's going to serve them tremendously when it comes to better negotiation. So I'm certain I know that and they don't, but they're gonna get super excited when they do find that out. And so I'm just gonna have fun with them. Because these are just your friends that they just, I just don't know them. We just don't know each other well yet. And exactly with that mindset, it's amazing how, when you come in as a friend, and you genuinely don't, you don't let that their impact. Take away your deepest intention. Again, because of everybody's neurobiology, they just want to be seen, they just want to be felt. They just want to be safe. They just want to belong on a neurobiological level. It just takes one other person to give them that to melt away their defenses. And so pretty quickly, it the the entire, the entire tone and mood was was completely transformed and we ended up having a pretty phenomenal day.

Megan Swan 29:56

So I love that A reframe my question. So let's talk about trust. Your mentioned, what can you tell us about trust when we're maybe in a situation where we're not sure we trust someone?

Amy Eliza Wong 30:16

Well, we, you know, that's it's valid. And so taking a step back, you know, trust. Trust is one of those things I think a lot of us just take for granted. And we think it's, a lot of us think it's an emotion, or we think it's just this thing that happens if we like each other, or we have this history, or we happen to get along. And so there's trust. But the way I frame it is trust really is the ultimate currency. And if and we are creating an eroding trust in our micro moments in our communication, and trust, though, isn't really an emotion. It's a neurological state, in which we are optimized for our greatest thinking, for our risk taking, for empathy, for imagination, for creativity, for taking disparate ideas, bringing it together, and innovation. And so, you know, trust really is this neurochemical state in which we are thriving, right, because essentially, trust is safety to the brain. Because if rejection is death, and what's life, well, that sense of safety with one another. So if we've got that sense of safety, then we can be in a, we can be in a regulated state, where our bodies can actually digest where we can reproduce, where we can regenerate. So that feeling that that, that seeking of that sense of safety is super, really, really super important. And so when we're with one another, you know, we're seeking that sense of safety, which is, you know, can I trust that I'm safe with you? That my image, my status, my reputation? Do I belong? Are we a part of a Wii? And then third, am I being seen, am I being felt, am I being appreciated and heard, for the eye that contributes to the Wii. So those three questions together really work to determine if we kind of trust someone or not. And so, you know, I look at this really from a, like, a life force sort of perspective, where we really if we want to, if we want to thrive, if we want to have an amazing impact in the world, we need to be able to be in trust with those around us, or at least create and sustain trust with those around us. Now, does that mean that everybody's trustworthy? But, you know, it's, it's really understanding that it's important to put a spotlight on trust? And then do what you can to intentionally create it and sustain it? Because otherwise, if we don't we just make life so much harder for ourselves? Because you know, this right? Would you buy anything of significance from someone you didn't dress? No. Would you share critical information from someone you didn't trust? No. And so it's, it's really, it's, it's very important. Yeah.

Megan Swan 33:03

Can we go back? You said, there's three questions. Can you repeat those questions?

Amy Eliza Wong 33:07

So the first is, Am I safe? Do I need to protect myself right now? Right? And so beyond beyond like, environmental protection, like, oh, you know, from the elements or from sharp knives, it's really the protection is my image, my status, my reputation? So am I safe right now with you? The second is, Do I belong? Am I a part of a Wii? Like, am I included? Am I a part of this tribe? The third is, am I being seen? Am I being appreciated? Am I being felt? Am I being acknowledged, am I being valued? Right? And so when you have all those three together, the brains like woohoo, we're this great. And so we get a surge of oxytocin that opens up the prefrontal cortex. And then then we get we have access to great ideas, and we can take risks and I see what's right instead of what's wrong. I love that.

Megan Swan 34:01

Well, I'm so looking forward to reading your book, it's on my list. So tell us a little bit more about the story of writing it has this been, you know, like a labor of love for many years? Or was this a COVID?

Amy Eliza Wong 34:17

I would say all of the all of it all of all of the above. I knew what this book needed to be in 2015. And it wasn't until I learned about the neuroscience of rejection that in 2016 that brought it all together. So I had all these things that made sense. But there was one piece that was missing that just but I didn't know it until I actually learned about that and it was like all of it just gelled was like okay, this is it. I've tried it all and it all makes sense. Everything I've been passionate about everything that I've been interested in now totally makes sense. So that I knew exactly what it needed to be but I also knew that it wasn't time to write it yet, because I was still in process of all the client stories, all of the examples, the case studies, and the research, I was just I was so immersed in it. And I knew in my heart that I would know, when it was time to birth it and bring it to the world. And really, my motivation was largely for many of my clients saying, Amy, do you have a book that really supplements kind of what we're doing here? And I'm like, No, it hasn't been written yet. So like I got, I gotta get to work and write this thing. But also to just because it's been so transformative with all of my amazing clients, and I just didn't want it limited to those that I could work with. Personally, I wanted to make it available to everyone who, who was ready for this conversation. And so in 2019, it's like, Okay, it's time I got what I need. I got it all. And right at the end of 2019, I'm getting it all like, Okay, I'm making the decision. I'm going to do this and I meet who's now a dear friend, Christine Carlson, who co wrote don't sweat the small stuff. She wrote my foreword in my book. She took me under her wing she's like, girlfriend, let me help you be I will be your book doula. Let's get this out in the world. And I'm like, okay, so I went up to her place in Mount Shasta for the in the first week of 2020. A my magic with her. And Deb, and he's an other amazing women and map out like, what's his book going to be immediately get to work, and then the world shuts down? Like, which honestly, was somewhat of just what a synchronistic gift because all my travels canceled. I'm not doing any workshops. I'm not doing any. I mean, I'm doing coaching one on one, but that wasn't that. Anyway, I just gained so much time we're not entertaining. Like, oh, my gosh, my weekends are free now. Because we love to party, my husband and we entertain all the time. And I'm like, Oh, now nobody's coming over. So yeah, the book was fully written by the end of 2020. Yeah.

Megan Swan 37:00

So what was your biggest lesson in writing?

Amy Eliza Wong 37:04

Oh, my gosh, got a couple. But I'll share the one that was probably the most powerful. It's funny how. So one of the one of the teachings in the book is about how we focus in what it is, and really claiming what it is that we stand for, you know, in each moment to create a lens that's very powerful. And what I had recognized that, as in the process of writing, I would fall into this stance where I was standing for proving the skeptics, proving myself to the skeptics. And I was, I would find myself in these in these attitudes. And like, it was just it was this more energetic than anything, where I where I'm writing, but I'm finding myself needing to protect myself and really needing to prove and, and to prove myself to the naysayers, and I kept, I can't tell you how many times in the writing process, I'd be like, stop me stop, like, remember who your audience is like this. These are for your, your dear clients, these are the people that want to What are you doing? And so I can't tell you how many times I would shift into that, oh, I want to, you know, protect myself from the skeptics. But again, that's the power of the neuroscience of rejection. Right? So see how it all kind of ties together. So I had to really? Yeah, totally. Oh, my God make it I totally had to eat my own dog food. It was wild.

Megan Swan 38:30

Well, this has been lovely getting to know you better. And I'm so excited for you in this this journey. I think it's just going to get bigger and bigger from here. What's your next project? Or if you can talk about it?

Amy Eliza Wong 38:45

Yeah. Well, so I, I'm really thinking through, like, how, because I work primarily with companies at the moment. And so with teams and leaders and, and so on, I have all these incredible individuals I really do want to be able to work with and for and, and so I'm in the process of developing kind of like, cohort based community based, like coaching programs, or at least transformative programs that, that I can work with larger amounts of people at a time in a group, just so that there's that group support. So that's, that's exciting. And then the other thing is, I know what book number two absolutely is. And so but I'm also in that place where Mike not quite ready to write it just yet. I know that my interest and my inspiration will tell me when it's time but I have a feeling. Come next year, it'll probably hit me and I'm like, Okay, let's do this. I just hope another year.

Megan Swan 39:50

Say why this just came up this year. I mean, you're still like in the afterglow.

Amy Eliza Wong 39:55

Ah, yeah, that's true. enjoyed a bit

Megan Swan 39:57

longer.

Amy Eliza Wong 39:58

Yeah, but well also too, but it's But there's still so much more to the conversation. I'm like, gosh, you know, but yes, so maybe so maybe not next year. We'll see. We'll see what my inspirations.

Megan Swan 40:10

Yeah, amazing. Well, thanks again for all of your wisdom and your time. And where would we send people? I will, in the show notes, the link to buy the book on Amazon. What's your website?

Amy Eliza Wong 40:22

Yeah, yeah. So real quick about the book on Amazon. So I did my own audiobook. So if Oh, I didn't know that was a public thing. Yeah. So like meaningful meeting I narrated. So that's the audio books available. It's on Audible. I didn't produce it. Oh, my goodness, no, but I got to narrate. So there is that option. So you can find find living on purpose, five deliberate choices to realize fulfillment and joy on Amazon. And my website is always on purpose. You can find me on LinkedIn. I do you have an Instagram account. But like I was telling you earlier, I don't really use it. But you can follow me if you like. They may or may not start using it just totally depends on my inspiration.

Megan Swan 41:08

Well, beautiful, and I look forward to being in touch and following your journey.

Amy Eliza Wong 41:13

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Megan Swan 41:17

Thank you so much for being here and listening in to energetically you if you want to support the show. You can share the episode with a friend. Subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. Possibly give us a five star review if you feel so inclined. And you can always follow me on social media. Tell me what you thought of the episode. You can find me on pretty much every platform at Megan Swan wellness. Hope you have an amazing day.