13. Rediscovering Connection with our Authentic Self with Shuang-Min Chang and Shelley Ceridwen Doyle

Ever felt trapped in expectations, striving for perfection that always seems out of reach? Our guest, Shuang-Min Chang, lived this struggle.

She was successful, but far from fulfilled.

Hear her compelling transformation from a recovering perfectionist to a person thriving in authenticity and connection.  Shuang-Min's journey took her across continents, from India to Italy to China, a nomadic journey which started with a life-altering encounter in Vancouver at the age of 16.

Shuang-Min shares how she learned to relinquish control, embrace change, and open herself up to the universe's guidance. You'll be moved by her decision to step away from a lucrative corporate gig to follow her true calling.

We delve into Shuang-Min's philosophy on relationships, the power of being fully present, and the profound impact it can have even in the most mundane moments. Find out her unique strategy of maintaining connections globally through yearly update emails.

Website: https://shuangminchang.com/
Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/shuangmin/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/shuangmin/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shuangminchang/
Book 15-min FTS complimentary call: https://calendly.com/shuangminc/15-min-fts-podcast

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I hope our conversation inspires you to rediscover connection in your own life!

Subscribe now and let the magic unfold.

Love,
Shelley x

About Your Host

Hi, I'm Shelley Doyle, a Social Wealth Strategist and Connection Coach, helping remote and hybrid leaders who are struggling to retain their high performers, with tools and strategies to reconnect their distributed teams.

I also help people who move or work remotely, to elevate and sustain their social wealth, online/offline - everywhere! Discover More

I am currently working on my MA thesis, combining cutting edge research on social wellbeing and digital health, with two decades in corporate communications, to deliver mind-shifting talks, workshops, and programs around the world.

Find me at TheCommuniverse.com and on LinkedIn.

Global Workshop Tour "Beyond Screens" launches September 2024.

To hear when new episodes drop, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, or check out recent episodes.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is Rediscovering Connection with me, shelley, and today I have a guest called Xuan Min who's dialing in from Taiwan today and I'm super excited to connect with you because you have a really eclectic lived experience which will be dubbed into a recovering perfectionist who's lived as 18 years as an expat and lived across India, italy and China and worked in retail and corporate before coming into what she's doing now, and I'm super excited to really feel into this journey with you and really explore kind of the power of connection, rediscovering connection along the way, and how individuals and communities have really played their part in shaping your journey and getting to where you are today. So welcome.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Well, it's a bit. There's some energy. Listening to another person talking about my credit shows it's very interesting. The story I talk about quite a lot to lead to today is actually an encounter when I was in Vancouver when I was 16. I was, I went for summer school.

Speaker 2: 1:19

My parents signed me up and I came from a background with a lot of expectation on success academic school success and then career success and a lot of frames of how a woman or a person from my family should act. So I grew up in an environment that I got used to expectations and I was striving for those. So when I was really young it's very hard to tell about love and meeting expectation and to be loved. It's really interesting. I believe this is a story for a lot of people in my generation and next generation and the current most of the human beings. So when I was in Vancouver I stayed with the homestay and the homestay month. I remember when I just met her she didn't even know me. Actually she saw my Okay, the organization signed me up, so she saw probably some of my information, but I remember the first thing she gave me was a really big hug.

Speaker 3: 2:21

I was 16 and I didn't remember when was the last time I was hugged before that and when I stayed with her she showed me with. She didn't know me Okay, she probably knew me for one month but then she cooked for me and she always encouraged me. She didn't ask me about school and she always encouraged me I should go to Delta on my own. I was 16. I was my own person. So it was actually the first time I knew I could be loved, just be who I was, instead of I'm a straight A student. I went all the awards, all the writing, composition, chinese calligraphy competition. It was a really different experience from my own family. My family loved me. I got to see that more and more when I was mature, but when that at the age it was really confusing. So that was how everything started and the kind of love I felt there. I couldn't really understand how could someone love me before she met me. But I cherished that and then I guess since then I was on the journey to understand what I felt was.

Speaker 3: 3:55

And then, in 23, I was in my depression for some time, and then I came back to really understand who I was, or try to construct some kind of identity that actually only belonged to me. And I left and then fast forward for around 20 years or 20 something years.

Speaker 2: 4:17

I was 33 years old. I had a very successful career, corporate career. I was in Shanghai, china, so basically I charged one of the biggest market for a French company. But then one day I was sitting on my sofa in my living room and it was a long day Usually it was a long day after work and then there was a voice came to me, asking me that you have so much love in your life. Who do you think you are to deserve all this? Because there are a lot of people. They have less resources, no matter it's material resources or mental resources or special resources. That I did, and I do. So.

Speaker 2: 5:06

The voice was asking me you have so much love and blessings in your life, so who do you think you are to deserve that? And I was like, oh yeah, who am I to deserve all this? Being able to explore love, being able to receive a lot of love, being able to build my own community from that understanding, even it doesn't take, you know, like one month. It takes longer, but I had those. And then the second question came to me, like so what did you do to spread the love and blessings you receive in this life and that was a question made me really uneasy because I couldn't competently say that I was doing that. So I was on the receiving end, but it was kind of I wasn't in the giving end.

Speaker 2: 5:58

So I took a really serious look. I asked myself okay, I am in this career for another 10 years. Is this career going to enable me or give me the space to do the things that I will consider? Or I can competently say that I am sharing the love, my understanding of love and my love and my blessing that I receive? The answer was no. I would have had a very, very good life if I stay in that career. You know, like everything is set, I was on a really good trajectory, I earned more than 60 years and so on, but it was nice. But then it didn't really. It's not going to build me to the person that I want to be.

Speaker 1: 6:45

So that's about how you're ready to lead into your human potential, and this was going to be keeping you in a comfortable place. Yeah, and this is it. There aren't many, many of us who are brave enough to sacrifice what you had, so that really does set you apart from the crowd there. So well done you. Oh my God.

Speaker 2: 7:09

But for me it's like because I decided I guess it's also because I decided I wanted to be ready. So after that evening that I knew I wanted to be the person I wanted to be, that Then this started to have a series of events happen in my life. Actually, in a way, gently or violently or both, pushed me toward the decision of OK, it's like time to hand in my resignation. So I guess it's also the willingness that opened up to the help of the universe or people around. Yeah, oh, my God, I didn't tell this story for some time.

Speaker 1: 7:53

And when you, when you spoke to that first instance in Vancouver by, what came through to me was this was your first dose of authentic connection from someone outside of your family, and they didn't judge you. They saw you for who you are and they and it's like they felt you from the moment they saw you. And that was confusing because people maybe back home didn't, didn't always see you as you saw yourself. There's a discrepancy between that.

Speaker 1: 8:30

And then going forward in your life after having that experience. Have you since bearing in mind that you've traveled a lot around the world have you since felt that kind of instant, authentic connection with many other people?

Speaker 2: 8:47

I do. Actually, I do because I guess for me it's along the way I realized that everyone has a story to share, at least one story to share, and it's only that I have to be waiting to see the other people, or the other person as they are, that they can see me as I am. So I always remind myself that don't hold any prejudgment. You know, when we travel we will search online, people will say something about that someplace of behavior, some people I try not to read too much about those because they will cloud me of, as the more preconception we have towards something or someone, the less possibility we will be opened up for that thing or that person. I am very aware of this.

Speaker 2: 9:46

So I can't say that I always do a terrific job to authentically connect with others. Not that I pretend, because we have ups and downs, but I always remind myself that this person that I chose to spend time with even it's just, you know, paying some bills at a convenience store but I chose to be there and that that person served me. So I chose to spend my time and my energy there. So if there's any chance and if I can make that person stay or I can connect with that person. I try my best to be that because I think that it's rare in day to day dealing especially, you know, at work or being a sales standing in a store and try to convert a customer to buy something. There are a lot of things in our mind that actually didn't give us a space to be that.

Speaker 1: 10:45

So I love that so much. It sounds like you live your life in real presence. There's a I tried my best. There's a film that I love, called About Time. I don't know if you've seen it, okay, no, in the film, the protagonist can time travel back in time, and it goes through like the men in the family. I'm into time travel, so apologies for this reference, but so-.

Speaker 3: 11:11

No.

Speaker 1: 11:12

I do. I do me too. So and in the story his dad tells him the trick is to live the day and then go back and live the day again, but this time you're really watching and you're basically really present. But in the film he says he's realized that he doesn't need to do that anymore because he just lives the day in that zone, and what's beautiful is that you just exactly described that as going into the store and every like we are so many different versions of ourselves in this one being, but ultimately, every version of ourselves has got to this one point in time, whatever happened before, whether I like it, I don't like it, I enjoy it, I don't like it.

Speaker 2: 11:57

Without those I won't be in this very moment to be this very person and I will always ask myself do I love myself at this very moment? If the answer is yes, that means whatever happened before and the emotions and so on, then I have something to be grateful for, because if any tiny little thing happened in a different way, I won't be who I am right now. So that's also like bringing me to due to that 16 year old experience. It also kind of led me into that. Actually I'm perfect, I am worthy of being loved and if I can acknowledge the every moment I was, the love that I am and I am perfect, then it really shift a lot of perspective about how I see things in the past, how I see things about my future and how I feel what I feel now. Like before getting on the call, actually I had a really emotional roller coaster this morning, actually Not a positive one, let's say.

Speaker 3: 13:21

In a way, it's not a positive.

Speaker 2: 13:23

No, it's okay, but then it's. But then, since I've been practicing this for a long time, at the same time I remind myself that I have something to be grateful for for that emotion. Even I don't like it, I would probably do anything to avoid that. And then I was thinking, oh my God, I'm getting on this podcast. And then I told myself that if all my intention is to show up here real and helpful and contribute in some way, and that happens, that means this thing is going to. It's meant to be there and I'm going. I meant to carry that into here with you. I didn't know whether I would be upbeat or I would be smiling or I would talk about more negatives. I didn't know, but I acknowledged it was there to feel me to this moment that I was actually consciously preparing myself for.

Speaker 1: 14:23

And how do you feel now?

Speaker 2: 14:25

I feel like it's weird. It's as you said, I can be that and I can be this. And now, folks, of that it's in me, I still, after this call, I still need to go back to deal with that, but I don't know whether I will deal with it the way I deal with it before I got on the call with you anymore. And now I try to think about that incident. The way I feel about it is different. Either I feel less connected to love before I get on the call. Now I feel like, okay, I probably I reconnect again a bit more regarding that incident with love, more so it's. The connection is an interesting thing. It opens us up to know everything can simultaneously exist and I always have space to look into the same thing in a very, very different way, as long as I'm willing to be the contender of everything happened at the same time.

Speaker 3: 15:40

So well, that's what I'm feeling right now.

Speaker 1: 15:47

So, with all of your travels around the world, you must have so many connections. How do you keep in touch with the people that you want to keep in touch with around the world?

Speaker 2: 16:04

I have one habit. It has been for 15, 20 years Whenever I contact with someone, I will ask them that I actually send out a yearly update email by the end of each year and whether that person would love to be included in that update. So I send out an update email and it's really authentic, Like telling, saying about, like mentioning about my ups and downs when I'm dealing with and you know, to my acquaintance and friends and so on.

Speaker 2: 16:35

So I send that email once a year and whenever someone came up by my I make sure that I send a message. At least 95% I did that and at the same time, I am also, along the way, I've learned to acknowledge that each relationship, no matter how much we want to hold onto it at the moment, you will evolve in its own way along with the people who are holding the relationship. So, for example, you and me, after this call, I will continue evolving and living my day. You will also continue evolving and living your day. And it could be, after this call, our, our involvement, evolution kind of call for us to collaborate again and then we will become close. And it could be, you know, after this call, there will be a long time that our day and our evolution, our test, didn't bring us together anymore. And I've learned to that that be. I can't. You know like.

Speaker 2: 17:45

I travel so much, I met so many people and I have so many people in my life. I, I hold on to this responsibility. No, I have to talk to everyone. You know like how often, how many days, and so on. In a way, I didn't give them space to explore and I was holding on to a responsibility that is actually not a responsibility at all, because I believe authenticity is also acknowledged, how things need to be at the moment. So I think my efforts of sending caring or connecting message whenever the person come to my mind I send out an email each year. I am on social media. So if they are on social media, if I say something, I will interact, not just like. If I feel like something, I will interact. And by today I'm not on social media. I try to reach out and other than that, I acknowledge each encounter was there for me for a reason, but it's not there for me to hold onto it.

Speaker 1: 18:57

Beautiful, beautifully said, and I love the idea of your annual updates. Yeah, so precious. I don't think how long that list must be for you right now, but that's just beautiful. And I love the idea of kind of the non-attachment, the understanding that you meet someone and you have an interaction and you may or may not bump into each other again, but you're kind of learning and growing with every encounter.

Speaker 1: 19:28

And I think with social media we are still connected with so many people from our past versions of ourselves which go back a few decades and they would have been part of your past and you wouldn't necessarily have any sight of what they're doing currently.

Speaker 1: 19:48

So I think it's both a blessing and also a curse, because it means that we are incredibly distracted If we do go onto these platforms and spend much of our days on them, because you can just get consumed in what other people have been up to. So it's about really setting those healthy boundaries with ourselves, because in a recent podcast interview with Robin Dunbar, we spoke about the limits, the capacities that we have as humans for people in our lives and when you're saying that people are dropping in and then you're acting upon that, so you are sending those messages when people drop in. According to Robin Dunbar, we only have the capacity for 150 people in that consciousness, so the likelihood is the people who are dropping in are within your 150, whether you know it or not. And kind of understanding the science of all of this just helps me to understand how important it is to have those connections intentional connections with people. So I love the idea of your annual update. I think that's just beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Speaker 2: 21:05

No, thank you, yeah, so yeah, what you mentioned was also interesting. Like in our present day, we know people from our past in a way of the past. Something happened to me actually Sunday or Saturday. It was an old friend from college and we didn't really connect. We were in the shadows, fear, social media and group and so on, but we didn't really connect and there was an incident happened.

Speaker 2: 21:38

It was a huge realization to me as well that I think, thinking about them in the mindset that I had 25, 30 years ago, because that's where we met and where we were classmates and friends, and I told myself that no wonder I couldn't really connect anymore, because there was not me, there was not them, but I had no information or new data to connect with them. So there was always this oh, I want to try to connect, but I didn't feel like I could connect. And then, or this is recently I'm also in a disruptive energy, so I want to destroy everything. So that's everything. Feel like everything from the ground up. I'm very conscious about this energy because I can feel very disruptive. But so, yeah, that's what you said. Like when we are aware of, are we really living the present with the past energy and past memories, or we are really bringing everything to here and now, and to see everything that's actually really here and now and acknowledge it.

Speaker 1: 22:49

Yeah, Beautiful Xuang Ming. When you tell us about what you are doing today and if you have an offer that you would like to share, then this is your opportunity to do that.

Speaker 2: 23:02

Oh, okay, so I am a personal consultant and coach. I basically hail high achievers well the long the chronicle. High achievers not a bad term, not because I aim to finally feel the achievement they have in life and I do it through clarity, alignment and connection. So that's always a bridging of our spirit and our reality and our inner creation and our external creation. That's what I do for my clients and I do have all-perfecting complementary call for people who really want to explore their connection with their sense of success, sense of achievement, and they really want to create a next level of success. Whatever they define, their success are in a more authentic and effortless way. So I offer like 15 minutes call to help to set them up A new action plan and new perspective. Depends on how that person meet. They can find everything, all the information, on my website and also on social media Instagram, facebook, linkedin as well. So I write about all these and also my own journey as well.

Speaker 1: 24:23

I will include all your links in the show notes, but is there one dedicated page that you'd like to direct people to?

Speaker 2: 24:33

Go to my Instagram and see whether whatever I'm working on and feel a contact, and if that answers yes, then feel free to drop me a comment at DM and take the 15 minutes call. But I can do a lot in 15 minutes and I don't sell. I don't push on that call, so rest assured.

Speaker 1: 24:58

Beautiful Xu Fangming. Thank you so much for joining me today, I'm really rediscovering how connection has played a part in your journey and I hope to connect with you again. Thank you so much. Thank you.