October 22nd, 2022.. I was ugly crying on the sofa in my hotel room in Paris, because I blanked out in the middle of my speech earlier that day. 

I so desperately wanted to nail the speech because I craved for my coach’s praises… I yearned to see that sparkle in her eyes while speaking highly of me! I hungered for her to tell the world how proud she was of me! And yet I failed… and I saw that disappointment flashed across her eyes. And that disappointment reminded me of my mom.

That painful realization of how much I needed other people to validate me hit me like a ton of bricks 🧱 

And at that moment I said this to myself: “Claudia Chan! I am proud of you, for standing on stage and failing!” 

I learned to be proud of myself, to be my own cheerleader whether I fail or succeed. 

One year later, I was standing on a beautiful stage in the same dress(!), and I delivered one of the most powerful speeches! 

This speech was a journey, and it only captured a small glimpse of the bigger journey I personally went through.

Two weeks prior to me speaking on stage, my friend asked me.. what if you could sit in the possibility that no matter how hard you try, you won’t get the result you craved? 

It took me a while to understand what he was trying to say. But as I dived deep into my own subconscious mind, I came face to face with the “intense dissatisfaction of my “current” situation”, one that I had experienced since I was in highschool. 

When I was in my teenage years, I always felt “trapped”, because no one seemed to understand me, all I wanted was to drop everything, move somewhere, and restart my life.

And since then, I had created “Limbo” in my head, and in this space, all I wanted was to get myself out of this unpleasant situation, whether through walking, running, or even crawling… I had to get out. 

And that was why I worked so hard, because I didn’t want to be in “Limbo”. 

I walked, in my subconscious mind, for 25+ years… that was the most exhausting realization… so I made myself slow down, and come to a stop…

It was like watching one of those movies, where the actor was desperately trying to escape, and she was running and stumbling, and eventually came to a stop due to exhaustion and hopelessness, and then she dropped to her knees, and ended up wailing and crying... That was the moment for me when I stopped… I came crashing down ugly crying in front of my friend for 20 min. and then silence... then peace. I could finally stop hustling for the sake of getting out. 

At that moment, I was asked to a look at this place called the “Limbo”, at first, it looked like a scene out of a zombie movie, where everything was run down and neglected. And THEN! I realized I could change the scenery in this space to however I wanted it to look. 

If you’d seen Lego Batman movie, it was like how the Joker transformed the Wayne Manor into a Jokers theme park. And that was what I did. The buildings in my Limbo turned into a scene in Japan, where I could go shopping, and had ramen… and I built a stage for the little girl inside of me, so she could sing to her heart’s content. 

And from there, that was how I stepped on stage. 

Whether I win or not, I was giving my voice a place to speak, to share my stories, to share my findings. 

To bring fun and joy to other people. 

Thank you for walking through this journey with me. Thank you for witnessing me. I appreciate you being in my life. 

I am proud to present to you my speech. “The Joys of Chicken Dinner” 

This week, I’d been taking some time off for myself after the speaking competition.

And I was reflecting how at this time last year, I wouldn’t have believed that I would stand on a stage in June for a speaking competition, won, and stood on stage to speak again in November.

For my entire life, my mom’s voice dominated over me.

She did believe that we have to speak up. But the way she did it was through yelling. Believing that the only way for her to make her point across and be in her power is to be LOUD , and shoving things into other people’s faces, showing them “what you did is wrong” and you should be doing it this way.

She grew up this way, because she worked at a clothing factory since she was 13, along with a bunch of men. Because she was a very-matter-of-fact-person, and could speak her mind, she rose up to be the manager of the factory under her boss.

It served her for her life, but the way she brought me up didn’t help me. Because I am very different from her, I believed that everyone should be given a chance to speak. And because I wasn’t given a chance to speak, I grew a very deep belief that my voice didn’t matter.

I had to learn the hard way to speak up and share my story, share my thoughts, share my feelings, EVEN IF no one is paying attention to me, EVEN WHEN no one cares to hear what I have to say.

And this takes courage, because as humans, often times we do care about what other people will say or do.

Because when we speak, it is painful when no one is listening, because it feels like rejection when no one is paying attention.

Have you ever been in a situation where you started sharing one of your stories? But midway through, maybe the other person got interrupted, or they looked away. You were hoping that they will say to you, “Hey, continue your story!” but they never did, so you wondered if you should continue your story?…. And then you didn’t….

Oh yup, so many times for me!

There are times where I still wonder if I should continue to share, and I have to continuously remind myself that I am worthy to be heard.

So are you! You are worthy to be heard!

Since December is coming up, and today is Nov 27th (and I heard that it’s the moon of Gemini, which is all about communication- I don’t know too much about this, I just heard it from someone)

I’d like to invite you to share a story with someone.

Maybe sharing how tired you’d been.

Or how happy you are. Or how much you’re struggling with your life. Or how excited you are for the upcoming holiday!

If you’d like to take on this challenge, I invite you to find a friend to share. Or if you don’t have anyone to share it with, you can send me an email, long, short, one line, up to you. Just so you start sharing, and letting your brain know that your voice is meant to be heard!

Let’s create some evidence for you!

I’m here to witness you, so that you can allow yourself to exercise your voice.

Because YOU matter.

Looking forward to hearing your stories!

This past weekend had been massive for me! Back in June, I entered a speaking competition with Speaker Slam. Since I won, I got a chance to be in the finals, where I competed against 13 other people, which happened this past Saturday!

There were so many lessons I learned from it, and I'll share 2 with you!

First and foremost, I am super proud of my accomplishments.

Even though I didn't win, I already won!

I won the moment I saw what my son got out of it.

My son is 6 yo, he got a chance to see other people go onto the stage to speak, and he was ABLE TO TELL ME EXACTLY what he liked during the event, it brought tears to my eyes. I worked so hard these past 5 years, and I saw the result!

While growing up, I wished that someone could show me more possibilities!

I wished I had someone to show me what they did to build a successful business. I wished I could shadow someone, to see how they interact with others, hear what questions they ask, how they present themselves, JUST SHOW ME HOW!

And because of my work, my son got a chance to see me speak on stage, and he got a chance to watch other people speak, for a 6 yo... And that was one of my wishes, to show my son what's possible, to show my son new possibilities.

I cried happy tears when I realized that.

Second, I learned to let go of expectations.

2 weeks prior to the speaking competition, one of my coach friend asked me, what if everything you do won't amount to anything?

No matter how hard you work, you won't make anymore money, you won't get anymore clients.

??It took me a long time to process this one.

If you're not understanding this, it took me a while to wrap my mind around it too.

Here's how he put it:

If you lose your earbuds (earphones), it sucks, but you can replace them.

If you lose your glasses, it sucks more, but you can still replace them.

but if you lose your fingers, no matter how hard you try, they won't grow back... right?

So you can be depressed, you can be mad, and at some point, you'd be like, okay, this is reality, I've had enough of this, what do I want to do now?

So in my situation, if I'm not going to get anymore money, or clients, and I'm at this spot I'm in forever, then what do I REALLY WANT to do, for me?

At first, it created a lot of despair within me...

Because for a very long time, I didn't want to be where I am.

I had to spend some time to go into my subconscious mind, to see that I'd been trapped in a "layer" where I called the Limbo. And I was so dissatisfied with it that I'd been trying to get out! I've had this feeling since I was a teenager. So some days, I'd be walking, some days running, some days crawling... but no matter what it was, I was just trying to get out! And when I finally become aware of this, I made myself slow down... and then stop. When I finally stop, I ended up dropping to to my knees and cried for 15 min.

That was my extremely strong tendency to chase what's outside.

The beautiful thing was, once I stopped crying, I was able to look at this Limbo, and see the landscape changing. It turned from a scene from a zombie movie (where it was all deserted and run down), to a vibrant, fun, beautiful city.

I am happy where I am.

This helped me gear up for the speaking competition. Because all I wanted was to go in, have a lot of fun, and believing that my voice is worthy to be heard.

I am very proud and satisfied where I am standing. It is totally amazing!

Anyway, once I have the video to my speaking, I'll definitely share more with you!

PS

How have things been with you?

In my email above, I shared how I was able to stop myself from chasing after the external things.

We have a tendency to keep looking outside, maybe we compare ourselves to others, or we may keep looking at our shortcomings.

Have you ever find yourself feeling upset about where you are in life because of all these external comparison?

I hope that you're able to take a moment for yourself to celebrate you. See all that you've accomplished, all that you have in your life. I celebrate you!

Here's ​a video of my accountability partners and I dancing to celebrate me speaking on stage​!! Because we're just 3 crazy ladies! LOL

Recently, I’d been coaching a handful of people who said that they have no motivation to do anything. 

While at work, they’re not motivated to work on their projects. At home, they’re not motivated to do more than the bare minimum. 

They want to do more things, like exercise, or clean the house. 

But they find themselves scrolling on the phone (while telling themselves they should sleep early), or they’re watching Netflix (while telling themselves they should go on the treadmill while watching).

So they feel bad, they feel lazy. 

Here’s something I always say to them. 

Our body knows exactly what to do that is the best for us. 

Look at all the things you are doing right now!

I’m sure you can rattle off 10 things you need to do right away! 

I need to do the laundry.

I need to pick up meds for my mom. 

I should make something healthy too because we haven’t eaten so well lately, and you know what? Christmas is coming, so I need to list all the gifts to buy!

…. …. ….

Take a deep breath in. 

And out. 

Look at all the things you’re doing in your life right now. 

Can you blame your body for not being “motivated”?  It desperately wants to protect you from potentially burning out! 

Nothing has gone wrong. 

And that’s why I’m here to offer you, a free Community Hour called, “Stress Free Holidays”!

I’ll share with you tips on what you can do to de-stress. 

We’ll go on a “Inner Knowing Journey to help you decipher between what you want to do vs what you have to do.

I’ll also share some tools to build your confidence, so you know what to say when your brain criticizes you. 

The Community Hour will be held on

Monday Nov 6th, 8pm EST

Sign up here, Looking forward to seeing you! 

My clients:

• are strong, smart, hardworking, intelligent, fun, creative, courageous, etc. And yet, they
• are frustrated with whatever they're dealing with now, it's been so many years and they're sick and tired of dealing with whatever they're facing
• have tried many different things to move forward, but nothing is working. They're getting disappointed, feeling like "it only works for other but not themselves"
• they'd been trying to deal with all of these through emotional eating, excessive shopping, spending a lot of time on Netflix, or even have thought of ending their lives
• are still fighting hard to believe that there is hope for them, things can change around

As a coach, I believe my clients:

• know exactly what they need, their bodies have an intelligence that act in a way that is best for them (which means whatever they'd tried before and didn't work, it was only because something else was blocking them)
• are learning to see their lives with new perspectives
• have a deeper knowing of what is best for them and are looking forward to learning more about themselves
• are excited to gain new skills to overcome whatever challenges they're facing so they can level up
• have the inner knowledge to solve any problems that they're experiencing
• know that they're meant for more and they're looking forward to what happens next

It is extremely important for me to create a space where my clients can freely express themselves. When we are allowed to say what we want to say and admit to the darkest truths, that's when we can let the pain and suffering go.

I believe that my role as a coach is to stay right there with my clients and guide them to their inner knowing.

So often, our inner knowing has been buried deep within us through years of living, listening to others, neglect, shame, blame, which are extremely painful. Now it is time for us heal ourselves, so that we can dig that back up, to trust ourselves and live truly as who we are supposed to be.

Also, while growing up, we were left to our devices to deal with everything in life, and part of us feel extremely alone and tired. When I was going through my own journey, all I ever wanted was someone to be right there, to stay beside me, hold me, cry with me, laugh with me, walk with me, be proud of me.

And this is what I came here to do, not only to to stay beside you, hold you, cry with you, laugh with you, walk with you, be proud of you. I am also here to give you tools, offer you new perspectives, cheer you on, and celebrate you. Because I see you at your highest, and I want you to see it, go toward it, and be it.

You are worthy to be fought for. And I'm right here with you.

If you'd like to work togethers, you can book a free 20-min consult with me, and we'll see if we're a good fit to work together.

For the last few weeks, I had kind of stoped creating content or making offers.

My brain had been really mean to me, saying things like, “You’re so lazy, of course no one wants to work with you.” “Claudia pull yourself together, why can’t you even get one task done?”

Then yesterday, I realized it’s because a part of my brain really believed that I was the only one working really hard for something (even though it’s not true), and it is at a point where it doesn’t want to keep going anymore. So it became really rebellious.

That was why it was coming up with every excuse to stop me from doing what I needed and wanted.

And I had to go into those feelings to work through that. Giving myself the permission to feel emotions, like anger, tiredness, disappointment… and I just let myself cried them all out.

Then I was able to go back to work.

Allowing myself to face the feelings without making it mean anything is a really big skill I have gained.

I have also gained a tremendous ability to be insightful about what exactly is causing the feelings, which allows me to help my clients pinpoint why they’re feeling the way they do.

So if you want to figure out why exactly you aren’t doing what you want to do, and you want to go further from where you are, book a free 20-min consult with me!

Let’s figure out what you want to work on, and I can share with you which areas we can dive into, so you can go further.

Because you deserve to go further, and right now you’re not moving because your body is trying to tell you something. And nothing has gone wrong!

Book your consult now and Let's chat!

It's September already!!

Can’t believe it's back to school. Our son is going to Gr 1 on Tuesday! New school! Have a mixture of excitement and nervousness!

This Thursday, I’d like to invite you to join me and my good friend Magda Diaz, from Elemental Truth, to redefine what it means to be a “good mom”.

In this post, I'd like to talk about acknowledging our kids.

​
A week ago, I took a nap prior to dinner. When I got up, we were close to eating, so I got a set of knife and fork to cut up my son‘s food.

Once I started cutting, I noticed a set of knife and fork set out by my son. But since I already used mine, I asked him to put the clean ones back.

He went into a full meltdown, because I asked him to put “his” knife and fork away.

At that moment, I thought.. arrgg, what’s the big deal anyway? It’s just a knife and fork.

I was trying to stay calm, but a part of me was like, Really? What the f-? 😤

He went on crying. I tried to ignore him by continuing to cut up food. Then eventually, my husband started hugging him.

Upon seeing this, I took a deep breath, and said, “I‘m sorry, I didn’t see your knife and fork. Are you upset because I didn’t use your knife and fork?”

He nodded, I said I’m sorry again. And then I told him, “I appreciate you putting it out, it’s just sometimes Mama doesn’t see things in front of me, so I missed it. Next time please let me know so I can see it.”

Then he calmed down, and went back to his happy self.

And just yesterday, he pointed out that he’d put out the cutleries for me.

​

Now you may ask, why is it important to acknowledge our kids? The world doesn’t do that. Wouldn’t it make my kid feel disappointed once he/she goes out into the real world, and doesn’t get appreciated?

And I’d like to propose that, THAT is the exact reason why I believe it’s important to acknowledge my kid.

So often, we put in an effort, but don’t receive a thank you. The world dismisses our effort, and it hurts like hell, but we were told to suck it up, that's how it is! And guess what? We end up dismissing our own effort!

How many times had we set a goal, accomplished it, and then went immediately to our next goal?

Or how many times did we do something, but rather than looking at the progress we'd made, we kept looking at the things we did wrong?

The truth is, no one can appreciate us more than ourselves, but because our parents never showed us how to appreciate ourselves, we didn't know how to do it, and end up dismissing our children's effort too!

I want to change that for my son. I want to demonstrate to my son I appreciate him, I see his effort. So he can learn to see his own effort, without needing to rely on others.
​

When I can encourage him, he can learn to encourage himself to keep trying, even when other people tell him no.

When I can appreciate his effort, he can learn to appreciate his effort, even when he fails and other people laugh at him.

When I can celebrate him, he can learn to celebrate himself, and continue to pursue his dreams!

Going after our dreams can sometimes be a lonely and scary journey.

But if we can understand what it means to appreciate our efforts, to celebrate ourselves, and have our own backs, it will make it easier for us to continue on our path.

So this is not just about acknowledging our kids. it is to learn to acknowledging ourselves.

and I invite you to join me to go on this journey, so we can demonstrate it to our children.