Power CEOs (Aired 03-10-2025) Unfiltered Business and Resilience Secrets

[00:00:30] Speaker A: Welcome to Power. The truth behind the Business. I'm Jen Goday, your fearless host, entrepreneur, investor, and business strategist. Why are we here? Because iron sharpens iron. And when we bring successful entrepreneurs and investors to share what's working in business and even what's not, we all learn and grow. As a result, our businesses grow. And the ripple effect impacts not only ourselves, our teams and their families, but also our communities and our world. You're in for a treat today because we're going to dive deep into topics that you have asked about time and time again. Resilience in business. How to overcome setbacks and keep moving forward. Entrepreneurship isn't a rollercoaster. And at some point, every business owner faces challenges that test their resilience, whether it's personal hardship, financial struggles, or a major pivot. Today, I have brought to you an expert in the space, James Elliott, founder of Limitless Entrepreneur. He has built a business helping entrepreneurs to break free from burnout, self doubt, and overwhelm. Welcome to the show, James. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. Good to be here. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Well, you are no stranger to the highs and lows of business, so I'm going to dive right in. Can you share a defining moment in your entrepreneurial journey where you faced a major challenge or setback and tell me a little bit about how you navigated it? [00:01:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's. And it's interesting. Like you said, there's high highs, there's low lows. Sometimes in the entrepreneur world, it's, it's really interesting. So, okay, at time, I felt I found a setback. Well, I often find that nothing works forever. Nothing works perfectly forever. And we always need to be tweaking and adjusting things. And I found something wasn't working and I kept throwing more money at it and more money at it. Okay, we're still better. And then more money. Morning eventually starts working less and less, and you're throwing more and more money into that. Hands up, people, if you've ever had that. So one of these big, big moments of the high, high and the low lows, and because the low started getting lower, but it was costing me more and more and more ads or promotion or whatever to be able to maintain. And I'm like, wait a minute, this, this isn't working. Something is very wrong here. And the human, human mind loves comfort. And I'm like, wait, I think I'm just staying in a comfort zone here by truly, truly pivoting and changing and transforming how I do it and what I did. So it was looking at okay, I'm in the comfort zone. It's cost me a fortune. It's depressive because my, my, that part of my business was going down and it was burning me out. It was exhausting. So saying, this has got to stop. Something's got to give. And so looking at what I didn't want to do anymore, what would light me up and what was going to be a whole lot more fun and what would likely work better, I looked at that and I made those scary but important pivots. And now there's an exciting business that I love. [00:03:26] Speaker A: So, you know, a lot of times when we face adversity, we get into fear and people might fight flight or freeze response. Some people might put their head in the sand and pretend that it's not happening. And a lot of times we need to learn lessons from these failures or these hardships. And it requires a mindset shift in order to push through adversity. Can you talk a little bit about the biggest lesson that you've learned or mindset shift that's helped you push through those adverse moments? [00:03:55] Speaker B: Fair, Fair. So other than, I guess change is the only constant and that everything is here for us. To your point, there's a lesson we need to learn. I've been learning many, many lessons all my life. And I think, you know, life happens for us. It didn't doesn't happen to us. There's no failure, there's only growth. So we win or we grow. And I think having that mindset, that growth mindset, and okay, this is not a failure. This is not bad. Even though maybe I don't prefer this or don't prefer the situation, it's not bad per se. And staying out of that victim mindset and instead looking at whatever happens to us in life and business, okay, how is this good? How is this actually going to actually give me rocket fuel for me? How can I take this and transform it? I mean, they use methane for rocket ships and cow poop makes methane. So taking poop to, to, to methane and, and being able to, to have your, your rocket ship or freedom ship or whatever it is, be able to, to take you anywhere you want. Building that resilience, I think requires that, that view, that mindset shift of, okay, even if this isn't good now, this eventually will be good. And, and I've had different things, you know, help me become less egotistical too. Failure points or our hardships helped me become more empathetic, more kind, more open, better listener I've had. It helped me become a Better, better entrepreneur and more charismatic, but also more confident as well because of some of these, you know, hard times, the pitfalls, like I said, even though the times we do not prefer, it's like, okay, this eventually will be good. How is this going to help me eventually? How will this help me in fact? Or how can I take this and use it to go where I want to go? [00:05:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:41] Speaker A: And you know something that's a common thread in entrepreneurship is we're always going to have challenges, we're always going to have hurdles, we're going to have, I call them speed bumps along the way. Some of them are the size of mountains, other than so much. But really resilience is what is the difference between success and failure in business. So that's mental toughness. And I like to say it's kind of like a muscle. Right. If you go to the gym and you want to increase strength. I was in sports medicine forever, so I like this analogy. You can't just go pick up a 50 pound dumbbell and do a bicep curl if you've never lifted weights before. You're going to start with maybe a 5 and 8 or a 10 because that's where you are. But you can, through training and consistency build that muscles to one day you will get to that 50 pound dumbbell curl, for example. So I'm going to ask you, like when everything feels like it's falling apart, as an entrepreneur, what are some steps entrepreneurs can take to regain control and how can they build that resiliency muscle so that it becomes more of a piece of paper as opposed to a mountain of a speed bump? [00:06:46] Speaker B: Right on. I love that. So, so the, the resilience factor I think is, is to be probably a little crazy though. I think all entrepreneurs are a little crazy, otherwise we wouldn't be entrepreneurs or to stay entrepreneurs and not give up, to have that resilience, I think we have to be a little crazy. But it's that never giving up and just remembering, I love remembering the book Napoleon Hill, Four feet from gold. I do not want to be one of those miners that gave up, sold the land, sold all the equipment to a local miner. Ten feet, they say, four feet, ten feet from gold. And then the local miner knowing better that there's various pockets of gold and they start and stop and start and stop and this, this, and it's a true story. This one miner found more of the richest veins of gold in, I think it was Alaska, if not the Yukon. And, and just knowing better when the other miners had given up 10ft previously or 10ft before. So I think it's true to keep going no matter what, and having something to keep you going no matter what, whether it's your passion, your purpose, your family, your faith, whatever it is, having something or just a die hard, never give up attitude, like me, I've been so much, I've been through so much adversity in my life, I've been able to build that muscle. Like you said, it is a mental muscle we have to build. And again, by taking action, facing our fears, bigger and bigger steps, bigger, bigger fears, bigger risks, we do build that muscle. And that way you can go big, so to speak. And yes, there's always a risk in life. We may slip outside on the sidewalk or something happens in business. But it's building that mental muscle to be able to take these big actions. Because fate favors the fearless, that's for sure. [00:08:29] Speaker A: Oh, and it definitely favors those of us who continue to pursue. So for the people who are watching at home right now, what is one thing they can start today? Maybe a practice or a technique that they can start to build that resiliency muscle even if they're not in adversity currently. [00:08:45] Speaker B: Fair. I think, I think looking at the, look at the fear, because fear is what will, what will kill our all. Dreams, fears, the killers of all dreams. Whether we're starting, we're stopping, we're taking action, and I think to just step into that and, and look, okay, what is this fear? Or, or why am I procrastinating? Why am I wanting to bail? Why am I hesitating and thinking, okay, how can I shift? Not giving up, never give up. And that's, that's one of the secrets to resilience is never giving up. Because those are the people who are successful. I think it's a, it's, I guess a test from life. It's a test to say how committed to this are you? Do you just want this or wish to want it? Or are you super committed? Again, like a sports medicine metaphor, Are you willing to do anything possible, legal, moral, ethical force to, to lose weight or, or be more healthy, have more energy or be successful business, or do you just want to want it? I think life's a test, I think, and it's, it's, I guess, testing us. It's also their lessons. It's all lessons as well for growth. So I think to look at where you need to pivot, where do you need to go, who do you need to talk to? I guess there's someone you can talk to. That'll help you, you know, motivate you, stay on the right track, persevere, you hold you accountable and lift you up when you're feeling down. I think that's one of the biggest things. The also, I guess is to, instead of running away from your fears or pushing them down, oh, no, it's okay. Things are not, is to really examine them. Yes, it sucks and yes, it can be hard, but just really to check in and take stock with the fears, the worries. What is this about? What is this making me feel? How am I feeling? And almost really feeling into that, paying attention to it versus head in the sand or stuffing it down. It's like a fire in your basement, really letting it up again. It sucks. It can be scary. And almost feeling through that, burning through that, because eventually it just, it's like a candle, it kind of burns, burns, burns away. I think it's one of the best pieces of advice. [00:10:36] Speaker A: It's really, it's really interesting because one of the things that I like to say a lot of times is awareness is the first, the first step to overcoming anything. And so if we're putting our hands in the sand, folks, we're not addressing our fellows, we're not using that awareness, we're just avoiding it altogether. And so I really like that you brought that up because it's so important that we actually examine what is the fear? Is it rational? Has this ever occurred? Because a lot of times we shift and our lizard brain tells us, oh my goodness, like the world is coming to an end. Well, ask yourself, are you still breathing? Are you still alive? Because the reality is that worst case scenario has never come to pass. And for those of us who are, you know, pushing 50 or maybe a little bit on the other side of that, it's a really good kind of measuring stick to say, okay, well, we've had a lot of fear along the way, but I'm still breathing, I'm still above ground. So there's something to be grateful for and working towards. We do have to take a brief break, but we will be right back with Japes after these messages. Before the break, we were talking a lot about resilience, about building the muscle of mental toughness. And I'm here with James Elliott and we are really having a great conversation because as two people who work with entrepreneurs all the time, we see some of the same things. And I want to kind of address the health and personal well being side of entrepreneurship because, James, I know you and I, we've talked about this and I'm going to ask the question because it's not just about mental resilience and mental toughness, but it's also about personal well being. So we've seen a lot of mental health concerns come coming up in the, in the news recently. What can people do so that they can sort of balance this and continue to build mental toughness, continue to show up, but also take care of themselves along the way? [00:12:46] Speaker B: Fair. I think one of my mentors always said put your free time and your vacation time time off and your calendar first. I thought he was crazy, what would I get work done? Although I found the hard way through burnout that he was right. Because if we don't put our non negotiable rest time in there, it doesn't happen. We get burnt out, we get fried and then we can't work and then there goes our performance in business. And then of course you worry more, you stress more, which wears you out more and makes you even less able to do the work and cope. So that's one of the things too is put your free time in the calendar. Rest is important. Play is important. Even your subconscious mind, 95% of your brain doesn't love when you're working, working, working, grinding all the time. It wants to play, wants to have fun too. And it'll stop you in the form of procrastination, hesitation, distraction or just not wanting to work, not feeling like work. It'll do that. When you need a break or if you haven't had enough fun or play, it'll stop you. And that's what causes this distractionation or being on the phone or scrolling all the time when you should be working or when you should be air quotes, doing something when you want to be doing something different. I think it's important to take note of that. And I guess the last thing I'll touch on is foods. Yes. From a, from an ex holistic nutritionist. It's important to eat healthy. Yes. Have fun, enjoy. Like I just said, life's, life's too short not to. Although if people are living on coffee and sweets and junk and carbs all day long, you're, you're also riding this wave all day long. And your business will also ride that wave as well. If, if you're tired or moody or you have brain fog or, or exhausted, burnt out, you're not going to be a great entrepreneur. Things are not gonna work well. It's hard to get into a great flow state, a state of, you know, high performance, high action. It things Done. It's very, very hard to do that when you, when you're burnt out and eating and diet and exercise too. I'm not saying you have to become a gym rat, but take a walk for 10, 15, 20 minutes a day type thing, go with your colleagues, have fun, go with your special person. But yeah, it's careful, the food, because I saw colleagues years ago, they were, they were useless basically From I'd say 1:32pm onwards because they had a lunch that was either they skipped lunch or had a lunch, it was full of carbs or full of junk, a quick thing and then they crash. They're useless. Then they're useless either for rest of the day or useless for till 4 or 4:30. And then really, if you're leaving at 5, 5:36, there's not much time to do anything. You're just kind of slowly starting to recover from the carb crash or the junk crash or heaven forbid, not eating anything at all. And it doesn't sustain you long term anyways. If it's not killing you now, it will. Living on coffees or cigarettes or junk or nothing will come back to bite you. Even if you think you're Superman, Superwoman now. And you can do it now, it will come back to bite you and haunt you and your business, that's for sure. [00:15:34] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, and we often talk about this in peak performance, like as entrepreneurs, we're truly business athletes and it's about the edge. And we have to fuel our success. Our brain requires fuel. So fuel your output so that we can succeed. And if we're not fueling our body, I completely agree, we have brain fog. We're not able to make the right decision the first time. We don't have speed of implementation. So let's, let's assume that we're doing all of the right things. We're fueling our body, we're moving our body, we're building our mental toughness. And success is what everybody's working towards. But what happens when you achieve that? Maybe financial success and you look back and you become a victim of that success. All of a sudden you're overworked, you're exhausted, you're disconnected, you forget why you even started in the first place. Like, how do we prevent that? Or when we find ourselves that, oh, we've had success by other people's definition, or what our old definition was like, what do we do now when we're more stressed than ever and less fulfilled? [00:16:33] Speaker B: Right on. Exactly. And to your point, some people's measure of success. I don't think it's success, I think it's failure. You are successful to some degree. You have money per se, but you have nothing else. You don't have time, you don't have health. You know what, that's, that's, that's why we're living. We're not living to just grind our lives away. At least most people, the people I want to work with anyway. I think you're right. We become a victim of our own success and we've built this, this engine, if you will, or this business that really has taken our life away or that, you know, the business we work for versus our business working for us. And I think we need to definitely step back and get off the treadmill of, of life, of work, of just doing, doing, busy, being busy and, and like it. Look at things. What can I delegate, what can I outsource, what can I automate and what can I just plain eliminate? What, what, what is a two dollar task? A ten dollar task, a $10,000 task? Of course do more of the ten thousand dollar tasks and less of the $2 tasks. Unfortunately, if we're stuck in self doubt and imposter syndrome, usually it's more comfortable to do the two dollar ten dollar tasks than the big ten thousand dollar tasks, which also limits someone. But I digress. So, so it's, it's, you know, looking at what we do best, what we love to do, what would light us up and energize us to do all day long and then how we can take a lot of those other things off our plate. We can basically 80, 20 rule our business. Prado's principle, right? Pareto's law. Instead of what most people are doing, the 80% that gets them 20% of the results, let's switch that and help someone have in their business and their structure, their actions, taking the 20% that gives them 80% of results and then the other stuff, let's put that on someone else's plate, let's give that to someone else or again eliminate it if it should not be done anyways, which is a lot of times the case. [00:18:24] Speaker A: Yeah, you're preaching to my choir over here. I'm a big fan of working smarter, not harder. And you know, when we think about elite athletes, when we think about elite entrepreneurs, when we think about the, the startup that becomes the billion dollar business, it's all about finding what works and doubling down on that. It's about simplifying as opposed to making it more complex. If you look at the Most successful entrepreneurs, they have a really simple process. They haven't overcomplicated things. And so I really like that you've brought this. So if we were talking to the viewers today and they're watching and they're like, holy cow, I don't even know where to get started. I'm so complex. I'm doing all of these things. How do I find this? What is the one step, the one action they can take today that will start moving them forward towards this sort of do, delegate or delete mentality? [00:19:16] Speaker B: I love that. The Triple D do, delegate, delete. That's amazing. I think one of the. One of the biggest things is to take stock of all the things you do in your business, write it down, a list on your phone if you want, and keep adding to that all, everything, every single thing you do and take stock of that and look at what of that you love and what that you loathe, what someone else can do and what only you can do. Because if it's only what you can do, then that is your unique ability, that is your superpower. Do that all day long. And then, of course, what is actually effective out of that? And then what is the little piddly tasks that either should be at least automated or AI'd or outsourced or maybe not done at all? And I think people need to step back and get off the treadmill and look, okay, there's James down there, he's doing all this stuff and step back and take stock of it versus just doing the doing the doing, being busy. I say to people, take 10, 12, 15, 20 minutes, an hour if you want a day, even 10, 15 minutes, and reflect on. Reflect on your thinking, reflect on your business, reflect on what's working, what's not working, perhaps why it's not working, what you'd rather do instead, what your intuition is guiding you to instead, when you actually take that time to listen to it, because your intuition will talk to you. You just need to listen to it. And in that, you know, 10, 12, 15, 21 hour a day, that's when you can get some of your greatest reflections, greatest insights. No reflection, no progress. You have action with no reflection, no progress. Action and reflection equals progress and growth. And I think that's one of the biggest things, is to just chill, sit and chill, phone off, and just sit and be. [00:20:56] Speaker A: You know, I really like that you brought that up. And so, folks, if you're listening, you just got the best action step of the day so far. It is to schedule some white space in your calendar, all of the most successful entrepreneurs schedule white space so that they have strategic thinking time, so they can reflect, so they can be strategic about why they're moving, so they can say, okay, what isn't working? And how do I get off this hamster wheel? So if you're hearing this, like, pick up what James is putting down, because this is. This is legitimately one of the key characteristics of high performers. James, it's been so great having a conversation with you. That's an excellent action step. How can people reach out to you to learn more about what you're doing and how they can start creating a limitless life? [00:21:36] Speaker B: Amazing. Amazing. So one of the best ways is limitless-entrepreneur.com you can also find me James R. Elliot with one T. You can find me James R. Elliott, LinkedIn, Facebook. I'm also JamesRLiot99 on YouTube, but other than that, limitless-entrepreneur.com and there's even some goodies there as well for you that I'm gonna be putting up as well. Some cool tips, hints, and a little video training for you. So that's one of the best ways to reach me as well. And thanks for having me here and let me do what I love. [00:22:11] Speaker A: Absolutely. I'm gonna ask you one final question. We only have just less than a minute to go before we have to break, but if you knew everything that you knew now and you could go give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be when you started? [00:22:24] Speaker B: I think it would be to stop worrying what people think about you. That is, that stop comparing myself to others and stop worrying what people think about you. Because that's the death of growth. It's the death of joy. You won't take action. If you do, you won't enjoy it. If you have success, you won't enjoy it because you're always comparing. And then, of course, if you are fearful about what people will think about you, you're never going to start. And if you do, it'll be a little safe. Piddly things that are safe, because no one will see me fail. Hey, go big or go home. Because that's when, again, fate favors the fearless. That's when you can go really big, take action, take a risk, and have fun with it, too. [00:22:58] Speaker A: Thanks so much. It was such a pleasure having you on. Folks, stick around. We do have to take a brief break. I'm just going to remind you to look at your calendar today. Schedule that white space in today. It's incredibly important to have that time for yourself that you can unplug that. You think you can reflect on your business and you can strategically move forward. That's how you get off the hamster wheel and do everything that we're talking about. Feel free to reach out to James and start creating your limitless life. We do have to take a brief break. We'll be right back after these messages. Welcome Back to power CEOs the truth behind the Business. We are going to switch gears a little bit because I have our next guest here. Sylvia Kang is a biomedical engineer. She's a CEO and founder of Mira, which is a market leading hormonal health company that's really making waves in women's health. She has been recognized by Fast Company and incorporated. But the truth is behind that rapid rise to success is a reality that most entrepreneurs don't talk about the hidden challenges that come with building a fast growing company and then what happens when we actually achieve success? You're going to want to buckle up and welcome our special guest. Welcome, Sylvia. [00:24:55] Speaker C: Thank you. Hello everyone, I'm Sylvia. [00:24:58] Speaker A: Sylvia, truly the unspoken realities of entrepreneurial success is something that needs to be shared. You have been published. I read an article and you spoke a lot about what happens when you finally look up and you're like, wow, I've achieved this success but I'm lonely. There's isolation, There's a lot of other hidden costs that come with this. Can you talk to me a little bit about your journey and what was the most surprising hidden cost of success? [00:25:33] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. Happy to do that. So I started Mira when I was a little bit over 30 years old and really trying to start a family. And I realized there was really no solution for women to understand their hormone level. So trying to conceive with was becoming very challenging for women as the having a delay that maternal age and the either test by ovulation predictor kit which is one line versus two line, very confusing or they have to spend out of pocket $30,000 per cycle for the IVF. So I was like I really need to invent something for women to test their hormone at home and doctor can understand the hormone better so the treatment outcome will be better too. And given my background was biomedical engineering. So I invented Mira, which is the hormone tester for consumer to do that at home. So you can take action based on that. Regardless you are trying to concate whether you're menopause or having irregular cycles or so on. And the company was really growing and become very successful especially post Covid. So we had the really high growth rate and then obviously my life changed along the way. So talking about the challenges that I didn't expect when starting Mira, I think there are several things. One is like it was a very lonely and long term journey, especially at the beginning of the startup journey. And you have been working on something for so long and you have no idea if that's going to be successful. And your friends or family, they don't believe in that because they're like, why don't you just stay in a big company and get a good pay and rather than really risking your time on something that's so uncertain. And then also what I realized is that I started to have a very different, like a journey, like a growth journey and the daily experience and my friends. So it's become more and more difficult to connect with the friends. Like for example, when the founder started the company, there is a very long period of time, you probably don't see any return, you see deduction of your own pay and you probably cannot change your house to be something big, you cannot have a second child. So you have to be really cautious about what you're spending. But after a certain point when the company become much more successful and your wealth definitely grows much, much faster than you have a paid job. And that's a very different experience than most of my friends who are going through the corporate ladder. And what they worry about and what I worry about are totally different. And after a while when you become more successful and your friends only looking to you for your highlights and say, wow, you won this awards and the product and you know, fantastic, you got being featured on some journal whatsoever, but they don't really appreciate your journey. They don't say how things become like that. They don't say what you worry every day, what you concern every day, what your value is, what's important to you. So that pushed me to go to, you know, really expand my network and trying to know more friends like other people who have been successful entrepreneurs before or you know, share some similar experience as me. But that also has been a challenging journey because it's rare to see women as an entrepreneur, successful entrepreneur and working in women's health. And I'm not a white, I'm not white. So it's like a very niche, you know, so it's difficult to find the role model. [00:29:08] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, it's one of the hardest things is people who are not in the arena with you and haven't been on the journey, they don't understand it. And one of the things that I hear a lot because I actually coach many entrepreneurs and many entrepreneurial women. One of the things I hear is I don't have anyone who I can actually share my successes with because they don't understand and I can also not share my challenges. So how did you rebuild that circle? How did you find the circle for you? Like what did that look like? Because I know my viewers are asking that question. That's great. I feel this, I feel this viscerally. How do I find the people who I can share these wins and it not have maybe a backhanded compliment to it. [00:29:56] Speaker C: Yeah. So I think, you know, the strategy I used was I just try to divorce my network. So I used it used to be, you know, I share very similar experience with my peers so we can talk about everything in life. But once I started the company become very different. I still have good connection with my old friends. So we talk about daily life, you know, somewhere like good food or like how kids are doing, going to school whatsoever. But at the same time I do have another level, like a layer of interest like you know, how to run a successful business, how to manage the wealth and how do you really pursue the next goal, how do you manage your team and even something very practical like how to run the company on a day to day basis I couldn't share with anyone and those challenges were emotional up and downs were very difficult to be shared and to be compassionate about as well. So I went to a lot of events, tried to connect with other entrepreneurs and also I learned that there's many entrepreneur community and, and they're different, you know, some are more for later stage companies, some for earlier stage company. The key over there is like you have to find the people who are similar to you because even earlier stage and later stage they're totally talking about different things and you don't have to be in the exactly same industry but I would say if you find other founders and then maybe you can share something on a day to day basis and that can serve that goal and for even higher, you know, like near future whatsoever, you probably can connect with someone LinkedIn or find some advisor. I wouldn't really say mentor because I think it's difficult for, you know anyone can really mentor a startup CEO because CEO is like such a, like a multi dimensional job but you can have mentor on different things like you're interested in finance, you don't know how to run finance, you can find consultant about that and you can find consultant about team management, how to manage your HR function or technical development or new Product development. So yeah, so we did a lot of that. So that really helped me on a day to day basis, very practically, you know, how do I deal with my life? And I think the last piece will be emotional support. I think that's the hardest part. Honestly. I didn't really find any specific person can share 100% what exactly I feel. But I know my friends still care about me. I talk with them, I still talk with them, be honest about that. And they can show their compassion, although they may not understand 100%. So I think we should accept that, you know, their good intention. And also another thing I found was like I started to read a lot of books recently. In the past couple years I was reading more than like 120 books per year. And one primary goal for that was really trying to look for some advice. And I found that's actually a really good tool. You know, people do talk about, you know, everything you suffer like emotion or like, you know, connection and even how to run a company. There is some scientific science behind that. So once you understand that, you put the situation in the perspective, you reframe and you deal with that more like a, you know, not take it personal. Basically have the space between the thing and you know, how you can deal with that. So that helped me to really think much more clearly. [00:33:17] Speaker A: You know, I am, I share your love of reading and self development as well. But talk to me a little bit about the other thing that happens and that's when you've always set a goal like let's, let's, let's be real high performing individuals who have goals and aspirations, who are founders of companies. We have this goal, we have this financial goal, then we meet that financial goal and we're like, wait a minute, this doesn't feel the way I thought it would when I get there. I had that experience. It sounds like a lot of, a lot of people have that experience. So how did you determine once you hit the big milestone whether it was financially or a level of business success? How did you rediscover your sense of purpose and fulfillment beyond that goal? [00:34:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's a really good question. And there is no set checkpoint or milestone for that based on my experience. So we're just, I'm basically just in a, you know, day to day basis like operation drive for the next month of growth, next years of company growth. And it's really been a point that I realized, okay, now it's a starting point of the success. The success was only realized when I was looking back you know, I was looking back and when review and they say, oh, this is how much I have gone, how far I have gone and how much has been different. And that everything, it's not just like a number of employees or your revenue, but how you think and how you appreciate life, what's important to you, how you spend your everyday time, all this become different. And then you start to think about, okay, maybe I'm on the next level of my life. I should think about something more than just, you know, I was purely focusing on driving the growth for the company or whatsoever. So that's the time I started really to reflect. And then, you know, obviously, you know, reading so many books was really helping, helpful to me. And what I realized is that the fortune or money you're making and even your career, all these are like temporary and they have a. It's not like your ultimate goal. Basically. It's great. I think it's great we're doing this business and we impact people, we help people. That's what I really, really, really motivate me because I see, you know, our product is really helping women, you know, having a better health care. And obviously women's health industry has so much gap and we need some company like this to disrupt here and there and push consumer awareness, push the doctor's awareness, and eventually this healthcare system will be able to absorb and accept the women's health and more as the standard practice. So that's definitely pushing the society forward. Another thing I really like to do right now is to share. I go to a lot of panel discussion in the Bay Area and including interviews like this and trying to share my personal experience, ups and downs hopefully can inspire more people going through this journey, entrepreneur journey or women leadership or women entrepreneur. That's even harder. So I think that's, you know, very. I mean, from the feedback I heard it was really inspirational because when I was going through that journey, I never had the role model. So I think those younger people will like to have that. And then eventually you know, ultimately about, you know, what I want to do. And I think, yes, building this business successfully is definitely great thing, but I think eventually it will come down to be what kind of person I want to be. So I want to be a great person. I want to contribute to the society. So basically the question goes back to what value do you hold, you know, what's truly important to me? And that answers for sure, not money, not company, not a career, because those are things outside of you. It's not something define you. So maybe My value is like I really, you know, want to contribute more to the world. I want to share, I want to be curious, I want to know more. I want to experience my maximize my own experience to live a really fulfilling life. This for myself and for others, really helping other people, as many as possible expand my impact, things like those. [00:37:27] Speaker A: So absolutely we do have to take a brief break, but we're going to dive right back into this after these messages. [00:38:10] Speaker C: Foreign. [00:38:17] Speaker A: Welcome Back to power CEOs the truth behind the Business. I am here with Sylvia Kang and we have just had a very great conversation. Before the commercial Sylvia, we were talking about once we achieve these milestones and these successes within our business journey, within our personal financial journey, we look for what is it that motivates us and what keeps us moving and shaking. And one of the things that you said that I really want to dive into even more is you mentioned that you've started speaking and doing appearances and PR and it's been inspiring other people and that is a part of what's fueling your success and fueling purpose for you. And one of the biggest gaps for female entrepreneurs has been strong mentorship, strong leadership and those, those role models who pave the way. So I want to dive a little into that because as you are currently on this journey, you've done a lot of self development, you've done a lot. What, what is it that you find would be is is missing or that would be really beneficial for women who are moving into entrepreneurship? Female founders, what can we do? How can we show up and how can we mentor and link arms with other ladies so that we can provide and fill those gaps? [00:39:39] Speaker C: Yeah, so that's a great question. So there's definitely a lot of challenges as a women entrepreneur and because of society, the social stigma is that the entrepreneur, the leader are supposed to be a man and you're better to be a white man. So that's more trustworthiness and you will be easier to raise money. And when you measure a team, you know, usually women as a leader, if you're pushing things really hard and as a demanding, aggressive, ambitious leadership styles you consider as mean, but for men was more like a determine the great leadership or so on. So those are what's existing. We cannot change them overnight. But I think as a, as the, you know, how I grew my career, there are several things we could do by ourselves. I think one thing is that you have to do a really good job. So unfortunately, you know, for this world, maybe you just have to, you know, do 1.5 times as well as your white male peer in order to really get the same opportunity. Is it especially true at the beginning? So I don't see that as like really it's, I don't see that as a like last like unfairness then more like I really want to do my best in you know, for being responsible for my company and for my customer or so on. So it's not something going to hurt you. That's a foundation for everything. And I think after that there's many other things like how do you really strategize strategically grow your personal brand and the company brand. So that's very important because if you look at every person right, so how do we really impress others? How do we build a connection? How do we build trust with the customer, with the investor, so on. Everyone has a different angle. It's not like you know, female all the same and men all the same. So and you have your own strengths. Maybe you talk really well, you, you know, you connect with people really well. Maybe you are doing fantastic job on product development. Maybe you know R and D so well. Maybe you just can resonate with others feeling other emotion. So you can design really good UX and UI for your consumer product. Things like this I think leverage that strength and really position that strategically. So really you know, make people hear you and make people, you know, appreciate what where your strength is at. And that's very important too. And in addition to that you can build a complementary team. So this goes back to what I was talking earlier. I read so many books and I think the self awareness is so important. So we have to aware we are women and we're in whatever this society is and how people might be perceiving us, might be perceiving our startup ideas. So maybe you need a founder that's compliment you. Maybe you need someone if you are really good commercially you maybe need someone technically or someone can really execute other people can really lead whatsoever. So not you have to do everything. Even you might be facing some bias or challenges because you are women and there's other way you can work around. Usually there's a perception the women are better to know how to build a great team. Women are more supportive and more collaborative so you can leverage that strength. And I think the last one I want to say is really find the right opportunity to express yourself. So you know I did face many situation like in the networking situation when people look at me and they probably say oh this is like a female entrepreneur on women's health product. It's not gonna go big. I don't want to take her seriously. I did face a lot of situation like that, but I also found opportunity. For example, there's opportunity I can apply to go to the stage and talk. And you have to talk really well with the great product idea, with data to back you up, things like that. And people are impressed. They are. At the end of the day, people are looking at your product and your business opportunity and how you really look like, how your face really look like, your age, your gender, whatsoever. They are the secondary. They definitely impact the emotional perception of other people. But eventually they are rational. They will down to earth to say what your product is and are you capable? Do you have all this expertise in your team to really scale up the business? So find that the best opportunity, the most suitable opportunity for you to really shine up. You don't have to win every opportunity. Some may not work for you. So find the best way and you still can make a good impression. [00:44:07] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And one of the biggest challenges I find is there's a lack of visibility where there was a fear in female founders to be as, as visible as male founders. And I'm an investor and so I watch this being pitched and very few female founders even pitch to the investor groups that I'm part of. And so everything that you said is completely spot on. And so if you're watching this, it's time to shine. Find the pieces that you need to strengthen the find the team members that you need so that you have the greatest team to present. And don't be afraid to step on that stage because there are people who are listening, such as myself, for those female founders who are going to present in that way and be very confident and be surrounded by the right team to make things happen. So I know we're running very close to the end of the show. How can people reach out to you, Sylvia? How can people learn more about Mira if they're interested in learning more? Because the things that you guys are doing from a company standpoint as well as you personally are just phenomenal. [00:45:13] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. So our website is miracare.com so it's M I R A C A R E dot com and you can find me on my LinkedIn profile. So just to search, Sovia can and it will say the CEO and the founder for Mira and you will find me. I, I look forward to help everyone. So if you have question you want to learn more, feel free to connect. [00:45:34] Speaker A: Me on LinkedIn and I'm gonna I really appreciate you being here. I have one final question for you. Talked about a whole lot. You've talked about the hidden downsides of success. You've talked about how you've navigated challenges as a female entrepreneur. If you could go back to the very early stage when you started this journey and done anything different, what would it have been? [00:45:57] Speaker C: I think the honest answer is because there are so many things and if we summarize that in one sentence, that is I should be more prepared. So I think most 99% of entrepreneurs got into a journey, they don't know what that is. Honestly, they don't know. And then there are many things like I could do better product market, product research, market research. I could prepare a better team. I could tailor my strategy about hiring. I could prepare my family better, like a timing to have a family or like gain more support, be more clear to my husband and to my mom about, you know, what kind of support I will need or manage my friends relationship, manage expectation. Nothing was really, you know, really, really bad along the journey. But there were many surprises. So I think we basically if we have more awareness and maybe talk with more founders before you found a company and or do more preparation or like try to have some ideas before you quit your job and really start a company full time, I think that will give you more message information about what real disease looks like and what you can really prepare yourself. [00:47:07] Speaker A: Thank you so much for your expertise. I really appreciate you. Thank you for joining me today. [00:47:11] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:47:13] Speaker A: And you. Yes, you. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, including this show. But the good news is you have an action step. If you've listened today, you've heard Sylvia talk about some of the things that we can do, we could be more prepared. Think about your next stages and who do you need to talk to, who's already done that, learn more, prepare better and then find that right circle who can be there, who you can. A circle of peers who you can bounce ideas off of, who you can share the journey with because it is so incredibly important. Don't be surprised when success happens and you look up and go, wait, what happened? Prepare for that. You have excellent content here. Today is the day to take action. Not tomorrow, not next week, but today. What is the one thing you're going to prepare better? What is the one step you're going to put in place for your mental, social or purpose support so that you can move yourself forward? Because that's what we're here for and let's do it. Don't wait. The good news is, even though today is over, we will be here same time, same station next week. Until then, win today, win this week, and I'll see you next time.