Authenticity and emotional wellbeing in business with Yummii Nguyen
In this episode (quick summary):
Authenticity and emotional wellbeing in business is the thread Dan King explores with Yummii Nguyen—how fear, chaos, and childhood patterning can run leadership unless we return to truth, surrender, and self-trust.
TL;DR:
When your business stops proving your worth and starts serving your wellbeing, your leadership gets lighter—and your impact gets clearer.
What you’ll learn:
- How “chaos” and “fear” often signal old survival strategies—not current reality
- Why childhood wounds can quietly shape decision-making, boundaries, and burnout risk
- How to separate your identity from your business so outcomes don’t define you
- A practical reframe for clinicians: stop “holding” space and allow space to expand
Yummii Nguyen’s quote: “You’re not meant to carry the world on your own.”
Best for: Group practice owners and clinical leaders who feel the emotional weight of leadership, growth, and responsibility—and want a healthier way to lead.
Key terms: authenticity in business, emotional wellbeing, clinician well-being, burnout prevention, nervous system regulation, organisation/organization, counselling/counseling, programme/program, boundaries and leadership, attachment to outcomes
Authenticity and emotional wellbeing in business: when leadership stops proving worth and starts serving you
“You’re not meant to carry the world on your own.”– Yummii Nguyen
In this episode, Dan King speaks with Yummii Nguyen, personal growth guide and former luxury fashion startup founder, about authenticity and emotional wellbeing in business—and what changes when you stop letting fear, chaos, and old patterning drive your leadership. Yummii’s lens is deeply human: she doesn’t frame growth as “fixing yourself”, but as returning to wholeness so your work becomes an expression of your gift, not a replay of childhood survival strategies.
For group practice owners, this hits a nerve. When you’re responsible for clinicians, clients, cashflow, systems, compliance, documentation load, and referrals, it’s easy to slip into over-control. Yummii names the trap: when business becomes the place where we try to finally feel safe, worthy, or “enough”, we start gripping outcomes. That grip shows up as attachment to results, difficulty delegating, and a nervous system that never fully comes down—especially when staffing, utilisation, and client demand fluctuate.
Yummii makes a clear distinction between the individual and the gift. The business can be art—an expression of care, values, and contribution—but it cannot capture the fullest essence of who you are. When you identify with the business, every setback becomes personal and every metric becomes moral. In a practice, that can quietly distort clinical culture: boundaries blur, leadership becomes reactive, and wellbeing gets deprioritised “for the sake of the mission”, even when the mission is benevolent.
A powerful moment in the conversation is Yummii’s lived example of letting go. She describes building a luxury fashion startup that looked successful externally, while her body carried stress she couldn’t feel. That mismatch—your feelings as a poor indicator of what’s happening underneath—will be familiar to practice owners who keep pushing until burnout forces a reckoning. Her takeaway is not to abandon ambition, but to realign the game: the business should serve the individual, the family, and the wellbeing of the creator, not the other way around.
From an operations lens, this episode is a reminder that sustainable practice growth is not just better systems; it’s a healthier relationship with uncertainty. Yummii’s invitation is to slow down enough to hear the “knowing” beneath the noise, then lead from that place—especially when making hard calls about capacity, hiring, client mix, and boundaries. If you’re building practice growth while protecting clinical leadership, this conversation gives you a framework that is both practical and expansive: less carrying, more clarity, and leadership that feels lighter because it’s truer.
Takeaways
- Name the pattern: when fear or urgency spikes, ask what old story you’re replaying before you change strategy.
- Separate identity from outcomes: your practice metrics are data, not a verdict on your worth or competence.
- Make the business serve the individual: design roles, caseload expectations, and boundaries so clinician wellbeing is protected.
- Use stillness as a leadership tool: if you keep “digging up the seed”, you block growth and increase reactivity.
- Reduce attachment to results by improving systems: clarify capacity, referral pathways, and decision rules so you’re not leading from chaos.
- Bring authenticity and emotional wellbeing in business into your leadership rhythm: reflect monthly on what you’re carrying that isn’t yours.
Transcript: authenticity and emotional wellbeing in business with Yummii Nguyens
“You’re not meant to carry the world on your own.” — Yummii Nguyen
Read the full transcript
Dan King:
[0:00] Hello, everyone. So I have something slightly different for you today. Maybe even more than slightly different, maybe very different. I am really excited to be talking to my friend Yumi Nguyen today. Yumi, how are you? And what are you excited to talk about with me today?
Yummii Nguyen:
[0:17] I'm doing so well, Dan. I love connecting with you. And I am excited to talk about things from the heart, to talk about things about our humanity.
Dan King:
[0:27] What's going on in your heart right now?
Yummii Nguyen:
[0:29] Joy joy honestly like to connect with you and to have these conversations to be able to share what is possible with people um heart to heart human to human just brings me so much joy love
Dan King:
[0:45] That so what are the possibilities that you help people create.
Yummii Nguyen:
[0:50] I help people well really i guide them to feel safe to remember that love is who they are and love is why they're here You know, I guide people to... Be able to know that it's safe to receive love just as they are, not because they need to prove themselves, not because they need to earn it. And I guide people to understand healing on a completely different level where transformation isn't about fixing. Transformation is fully surrendering to the humanity in you where healing is to make whole. And that peace in your heart isn't because the chaos is over, but the peace in your heart is a acceptance of what it is and to know that this too shall pass.
Yummii Nguyen:
[1:38] Like the chaos is the chaos is the chaos for now. And then these two shall pass.
Dan King:
[1:43] So there's a lot there. How chaos interferes with our process of becoming, how we let it interfere with our process of becoming, our sense of chaos. There's fear, which often comes with chaos, but can be its own beast. How does, what's the relationship between chaos and fear and the humanity of the typical business owners that you might work with or that might be listening to this?
Yummii Nguyen:
[2:09] Yeah, so this is really interesting. You know, I think as... So, let's work on the premise that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Can you and I both agree on that? The law of thermodynamics is energy can't be created or destroyed. And so, if we see chaos and fear as patterns of energy from our childhood, whether it be a pattern of people-pleasing or a pattern of being afraid of not belonging, a pattern of being a disappointment,
Yummii Nguyen:
[2:42] A pattern of not being in control. So there comes a point in time when we see the patterns move into business and what's playing out is just your childhood wounds in your business versus your business being an expression from you, through you, working through you as a gift from the divine. And so when it comes to your business, and I think for people who do really benevolent work where we are contributing to the consciousness of humanity, where we really deeply care about human being. And that's what has us create the business that we do to support other people.
Yummii Nguyen:
[3:20] That gift came from source, that came from the divine. And then somehow we then go, you know what, let me take over because I'm unworthy. I can't receive anymore. and then that chaos and that fear becomes controlling it becomes shouldering what is not ours it becomes really heavy it becomes an attachment to results and even the carrying of the emotional energy that is not ours and then we forget that we are sovereign as well as our clients and we also forget that there is possibility and choice
Yummii Nguyen:
[3:57] And that with every ebb and flow that comes with life, there are seasons. So maybe this season you were supposed to serve a particular kind of client, but as you evolve, you have to let that go. But we're so scared of evolving or we're so scared of outgrowing our current condition that we grip. And that's where we continuously perpetuate in our contribution with our own suffering. And then the business no longer becomes this joy, but it becomes this reflection of our mother, our father, or whatever we didn't get when we were younger. And it just reinforces the same pattern of how we needed to survive that.
Dan King:
[4:33] That's so fascinating how a business can be a reflection of our childhood wounds. And you talked about how we impose ourselves, we are using ourselves instead of our gift. You seem to very deliberately distinguish between the gift and the individual. Something the individual is doing is stopping the gift from achieving its full expression.
Yummii Nguyen:
[4:56] So as a human being, we're both animal and divine. When we forget our divinity, when we forget that we are one, when we forget our own humanity, we become animal. And so the gift is almost an essence of our own love, our own heart, our own expression when we remember our humanity and we're humbled by it as well as we remember our divinity and we're powerful with it. But then we're in the way of the gift flowing through us when
Yummii Nguyen:
[5:28] We become animal-like, where everything's a threat. We're very suspicious of everything, where our behaviors are fight, flight, freeze and form, where we are driven by the adrenaline and cortisol, where we're chemically driven. Neither is right or wrong. Neither is good or bad. It just is an experience. But it's like this if I, you know, as a parent, if I experience my children as a gift, I will remember that they come through me and they're not mine, that I'm a guardian of their spirit. And I will create the conditions to allow their truest essence to rise versus imposing what I think they should be. But if I feel an entitlement to these children and I am in ownership of their life and I forget their sovereignty, I will want to control how they grow up, what they think, what they do and how they should be based on my own projection so the fork in the road right one the road less traveled is the one that says i see you in your sovereignty because i see myself in my sovereignty and so when it comes to our gift the essence that it comes through us allows us to connect with it
Yummii Nguyen:
[6:47] Because it contributes to a greater understanding of love. It contributes to a greater understanding of humanity. It is an experience of abundance, of joy, of expression. It is also a connection to the seasons, the rhythms of life, such that our business can go in the ebb and flow and that we're not gripping. We're not gripping. And so when the individual forgets that it is part of a universe, I think the individual becomes really controlling. I mean, I'm not immune to that. You know, I'm not immune to that. I'm not saying that I'm like completely free on that.
Yummii Nguyen:
[7:23] But when my business is an expression where I can use it to reflect to me, remembrance, to come back to heart, to come back to truth, to receive, that is then contributing to my own evolution and expansion. So I'm not saying I'm immune. Let's just be clear. Very human. Very, very human. Yeah. I don't know. Does that answer the question?
Dan King:
[7:49] Struck by so much there. That was beautiful. So you gave the parenting example and you talked about how if you impose yourself on your children, you're going to be wounding them. And then you analogize to business. Let's talk about that analogy a little bit more. Is it true that like a parent shouldn't to the, I mean, every parent is going to wound every child. That's just the nature of the beast, but we try to diminish it to the extent we can. Is the same true of business where the business wants to be you're a guardian just like you're a guardian as a parent does that analogy hold where we want the business to be what it is and we don't want to impose ourselves on it wow.
Yummii Nguyen:
[8:28] That's interesting so i see it more like the business is an expression of art and it is a canvas where you get to express what is in your heart. However, the business also serves you in your own becoming, right? So I can't,
Yummii Nguyen:
[8:47] Yeah, this is really, really interesting because the analogy that I use with parenting, I don't think it actually also, I don't think it can be transferred over to business because in parenting, you've got two sovereign beings, whereas in business, there is an expression of something, but I don't think it's a sovereign being. I think it's an expression that gets to be created out there. However, your business is not you because it can't capture the fullest essence of you. And it serves at a moment in time for you to express what's in your heart, but as well, you receive back a remembrance of who you are. And so the way that I see business, and I've had many businesses, is like an artist where as the artist evolves, the song also evolves. The artwork also evolves.
Yummii Nguyen:
[9:35] And I think we're so scared of loss or we're so, you know, we're so, there's a scarcity in business when we're struggling. There's a scarcity when we're stressed. And so we can see those parts of ourselves in scarcity, in stress, in control. And we can look at that and go, wow, this is the grip that I have on life. Like what is disturbing my heart and what part of me needs to die so that I can evolve into the next version or an expanded version? I don't know. Does that make sense?
Dan King:
[10:03] There's a few things coming up for me. One of them is playing with the analogy, original analogy. Are our children not a work of art in some ways? And can they not bring up some of the same patterns where they're an expression of a certain aspect of us? They also trigger our survival anxiety, just as businesses do. They are, you're right, they're two sovereign individual beings. So there's a way in which the nature of their infiniteness is a little different than the infiniteness of a business. A business could be way more, have way more than two people involved, three people, however many.
Dan King:
[10:36] I don't know how many kids we can all have, but probably not as many as a business could employ, right? And so there are a lot of core similarities where, look, in most conventional situations, two people give birth to a child. You could theoretically have hundreds of people giving birth, thousands of people giving birth to a business, right? And I think there is a way in which, let's say it's more complex because there's so much complexity in parenting. And I think a good business is the interesting businesses anyway. The interesting businesses really are ones in which they're an expression of the art of multiple founders. There's always a limit. It's interesting that there's always a limit. And this is not to criticize businesses with one founder like yours, but there's an interesting moment of complexity when a second founder participates. And that moment of complexity brings with it a lot of possibility, a lot of risk as well. A lot of them. And there's a level of abundance that in almost all cases, not all, but in almost all cases can only be reached with a willingness to play with multiple people's art.
Dan King:
[11:44] And somehow create a canvas where multiple people are making brushstrokes. And I know for me originally, that was a very hard amount of control to give up. My childhood wounds didn't want other people touching the paintbrush. And my God, there's so much more abundance now that I've let that happen. So much more. Yeah. So I don't know where that leaves us, but the analogy is super interesting. It's so rich, isn't it?
Yummii Nguyen:
[12:06] Yeah, it is. So it's interesting, you said our children are a piece of art. They're not my piece of art. They're sources. Right and if we bring that analogy to let's say can i be fulfilled on my own yes and there's a certain experience of life and the moment that i'm married right like let's say because i don't have yeah like the moment i'm married now there's two people and the expression of marriage is what we're contributing to but that marriage doesn't determine my wholeness that marriage doesn't determine my my divinity right and there's two people who are contributing their expression to this canvas called marriage and it can go either way yet the expression doesn't determine the wholeness the oneness or what is possible the expression of it doesn't like let's say it falls apart it doesn't mean that now we're two broken people it just means that we're two people that came together that created this expression called marriage and didn't work out and it had lessons in that and there was creative expression in that. And I think that's the thing with the difference between business and parenting where, you know, the human being gets in the way of the expression when we identify with it, when we want to take ownership on it, when we make meaning from it, when we place our value,
Yummii Nguyen:
[13:23] Our worth in that. Yet our value and our worth as an infinite spiritual being, having a human experience is infinite. You can't place a number on that. But when you see parenting as an expression. My children came through me so that I could express myself through a paradigm called parenting. That's the same with business. My gift came through me so I could express myself through this paradigm called business. Then through that, I get to explore and remember more of the self in all these aspects and all its different fractals if we're going to go down the rabbit hole. In being able to see all these fractals and all these parts of my light and my darkness through the expression of business, may I remember who I truly am and come home to the truth of my human being and my divinity and compassion, bring leadership, bring courage, bring spirit, like what is needed to bring love to this experience that I'm experiencing in my business that is so human.
Dan King:
[14:20] One of my favorite mental models is the meaning of life is growth. So everything that happens can be a fuel for our growth. It doesn't matter what it is. It can be a very hard concept to understand. And so definitely I can see how, parenting and business can both fuel that universal mission really, really beautifully. And maybe, as you say, in slightly different ways. You had mentioned, I'm so obsessed with this analogy. It's so captured me that you come up with it. So your children are not an expression of you. They're an expression of the divine. Is your business the same or no?
Yummii Nguyen:
[14:59] It can be. I think the business is the potential for the expression of the divine. And once it's served, its purpose it's time to let go and then create something new yeah
Dan King:
[15:09] Yeah yeah yeah that feels right to me too and our knowingness of when that has been threshold has been breached our knowingness is so much deeper when we've transcended a certain amount of patterning right our inherent divinity keeps us in touch with those sorts of answers yeah and so it can be harder to know it can be easier to hang on to something that has already achieved its purpose if the patterning is so prominent in our lives.
Yummii Nguyen:
[15:38] Can i give you like a real life lived example in business that this happened with um so in 20 around 2011 2012 i had a startup and i put everything in this startup like the house deposit quit my consulting um really lucrative consulting deal like just to put everything in this startup and it was a luxury business and it was really hard Dan like so so hard I came from tech and I moved into luxury fashion um and but yet there was something in my heart that said yes move forward with this right so burnt the boats I don't believe in plan a plan b I am like a there's only plan a I'm the burn the boats kind of a person went all in
Yummii Nguyen:
[16:27] During this process, I mean, my things got stolen. It was like this tile of wall where it felt like two steps forward, four steps back. I was invited. But on the outside, the business looked great. It was in publications all around the world or exporting all around the world and so forth. And I remember this moment, I placed my hand on my heart and I said, heart, this is really hard. I want to quit. And my heart said, not yet, keep going. And then there were like words that I said to myself like you know like and so I was okay so we'll kept going and then during this time it was around the fifth year mark I became pregnant and then we lost we had the miscarriage and I remember going okay what's the first miscarriage it you know people said it's common and then as we were about to leave for New York to um share the brand in New York fashion week, I found out two days beforehand that I was pregnant. No, yes, I found out, yes. However, between the first miscarriage and finding this out, I also had another miscarriage in between. Now, the acupuncturist at the time said to me, your body's really stressed and that's why it can't produce progesterone and that's why you can't kick the baby. Your body's really stressed and I'm like, but I don't feel stressed. And that was when I knew that,
Yummii Nguyen:
[17:49] That my feelings were a poor indicator of what is really going on. And so when we found out a couple of days before going to New York where the brand was going to be launched and we had like meetings with the top retailers in New York, like buyers, like this was where my business was going to explode. I placed my hand on my heart and my heart said, the business has served its purpose, let go. Do you know how hard, I was like, what now?
Yummii Nguyen:
[18:19] And it was almost like those five years has taught me so much about spirituality and business, the ebb and flow of what it serves, how to release, let go. Like all my attachments, all of that rose up to go, wow, I am here to prepare life coming through me. If I want to produce progesterone, can I let go of this attachment? And it was the most liberating thing to be able to go, yeah, like this does not define me. And it was like oh my gosh like this feels so liberating i chose my child i chose my well-being and i remember when i gave birth to him it was three weeks in and this voice comes through me and this voice says avery does not care about what numbers you have in your bank account it does not care he does not care about your businesses he does not care how many businesses you have he cares that you love yourself enough to be able to meet him with wholeness so that he remembers his wholeness and for someone that remembers his wholeness yeah yeah yeah and for someone that has a pattern in achievement type a personality you know where i never felt more whole just to be and i remember writing everything down on pieces of paper what i thought i had to achieve while i'm nursing this baby it's crazy and i think people who work with mothers who are high performers and leaders can relate to this. It's like we go from
Yummii Nguyen:
[19:48] Knowing ourselves and the identification of a high performer addicted to adrenaline and cortisol and achievement and then we become a mother and what's needed in that moment is slowing down then you go well how do I reconcile that part that is requiring so much grace so much stillness so much nourishment so much nurturing with my addiction to doing and then you're at this precipice where can you step into a possibility that your business is here to
Yummii Nguyen:
[20:20] serve you and not the other way around. And where we get stressed, where we get controlling, where we are disconnected from the gift that comes through us is when we serve the business. And so I remember in that moment, I was like, yeah, the business is always meant to serve me. And Dan, I would never forget this because I was like, okay, so now I'm going to create a business from a brand new paradigm. That it needs to serve me, my family, and my well-being and me thriving. And at that moment in time, everything, like there was complete chaos in how I thought about business. I was used to working six, seven days a week, waking up at five, finishing at like 9, 10, and, you know, like I was addicted to it. Like I wasn't stressed. Like I didn't think I was stressed. My body was clearly stressed. But I loved it. I really loved it and it served its purpose in that expression.
Yummii Nguyen:
[21:14] Then when I had a children, I was like, how do I create the type of business I want to create working 10, 20 hours a day? No more. And that was my.
Dan King:
[21:23] A week, I assume, but not a day.
Yummii Nguyen:
[21:25] 10, 20 hours a week. Yes. 10, 20 hours a week. That's it. Yes. 10, 20 hours a week. And that's radical for someone that is used to working so hard. And so now the possibility becomes, okay, this is the game that you create 10, 20 hours a week. This is the expression that wants to come through you. And this is the number of abundance that you would love to experience. Now let's play.
Dan King:
[21:48] There are so many, and thank you for sharing all of that beautiful, beautiful personal history and all of the struggle within, because the struggle informs so much of what we think is impossible. So there is the, not just our patterns, there's society's patterns. Society's childhood wounds, right? Which inform our beliefs about what is possible.
Yummii Nguyen:
[22:15] Yeah.
Dan King:
[22:15] And are also, I think, a cause of why you thought you needed to work 10 billion hours a day.
Yummii Nguyen:
[22:22] Yeah.
Dan King:
[22:23] And so as part of transcending the wounds, part of transcending the wounds, I'm thinking is getting so clear with that divine aspect of yourself about what you really want, so clear about it, and defiantly indicating to society and its wounds, I choose this path instead and I'm going to declare that it's possible really going to aggressively stand for it being possible which paradoxically in your case, in my case and in so many people's cases requires a slowing down it's very strange that that's true and yet, It is.
Yummii Nguyen:
[22:56] It requires a stillness. I mean, if you think about any seed that you plant, if you keep digging up the soil, it's not going to grow.
Dan King:
[23:04] Yes.
Yummii Nguyen:
[23:05] And when I remember the aspect of me that is connected to the divine, I'm so humbled by that because then I realize that any gift that flows through me or anything that I receive, I don't have to fulfill on or think about the how or the resources. What my role in this co-creation is to have faith, to surrender, to receive, to allow myself to be human, remember my humanity and remember my divinity in the same space. And so children that came through me, I'm like, no, the universe didn't gift me children to then go, okay, well, I'm out of here now. You sought these children out. No, the universe says, no, these children chose you so that you could feel on your expression as a parent because you desired that. Now, if you believe that these children chose you, you also believe that the universe is going to support that decision. Yeah. Your role is get out of the way.
Dan King:
[24:03] In a sense, there's an egolessness and an egoicness to that choice. Yes. So it is not a purely selfless. Like you were proudly, this is so hard to do for most people, I suspect our audience of practice owners to selfishly on one level declare what you want even in the face of supposing contrary evidence and also at the same time trusting that it's meant to flow through you it's like an assertion of self and allowing the divine to play the role through you that is sort of meant to occur the.
Yummii Nguyen:
[24:40] Way that i would describe it is i believe that there are infinite versions of us. Like there's infinite potentials happening at any one time and there are infinite versions of us. And yet there's one version that's infinite.
Dan King:
[24:51] One version that's?
Yummii Nguyen:
[24:52] Is infinite. So one version that is in truth, one version that is connected to source, one version that is so humbled by this fleeting experience, yet so enamored for the gift and reverence of what it is to be in this vessel. And when we know that by heart, like if you think, I know I'm very, I find artists really interesting because when you talk to an artist, they're just like, I just know it by heart. It's a pure creative expression.
Dan King:
[25:21] Yeah.
Yummii Nguyen:
[25:22] And it's a love that they cannot put into words, but they create it in form, whether it's through paintings, through food, through music. So as an entrepreneur, it just happens that our art is the business and we know it by heart. But yet when we forget it by heart and we go into our head, we think it has to look a certain way. And so the infinite version of us is in our knowing and in our heart and in this divine connection.
Yummii Nguyen:
[25:48] And the finite versions, which are, there's infinite versions of this finite, are the characters, the plays in our head on who we think we need to be, on who society told us we should be. It's like, say, for example, being a woman, being... In this incredible time, Dan, women are told they can have everything all at once and can do it all, like give birth and have the family, you know, do it all. And that has been so unhealthy. Dan, when I didn't have a role model, you know, I had a broken relationship with my mother and so I didn't really have a role model of what a woman that loves herself was. And my only role model at the time before I was married and had a child was a mentor and a guide that I absolutely adored. She gave birth and three days later she was lecturing on leadership. That was my only role model. And she was like, see me? I'm so powerful as a woman. I just gave birth and here I'm lecturing on leadership. That was broken and I did not know it at that time. There is such a reverence for this thing called human being and no business should ever compromise your health, compromise your mental health, compromise your physical health, compromise your spiritual health, compromise your connection to self. And when a business does that or you allow it to and you tolerate that, there is a misalignment.
Dan King:
[27:16] Very healthy reminder, I think, to all of us. I think to listeners who are ambitious, who believe that, in general, the work they do, as is the case with our listeners, the work they do is soul-driven, that even the thing that at least in terms of let's talk about goals is a representation of that infinite version of you. In the process, in the carrying out, it can easily become something very, very different. So, so different. And...
Dan King:
[27:49] I just admire your courage so much for honoring what you want. It's a very, very hard thing to do. Very, very hard thing to do. And I'll confess, I struggle with it as what I do becomes more complex. I feel the demands of more and more people, more burden on my shoulders. I love what I do. And it's like each stakeholder brings up new patterns, new opportunities to heal, new chances to live into the truth that the meaning of life is growth and sometimes it just feels like a.
Yummii Nguyen:
[28:21] Lot there was something that i read recently and and i'm reminded of this as a parent as well there's this entrepreneur who was growing and growing and growing and he was stressed out he's not present with his wife not present with his family and he went to this mastermind and in that mastermind there was this other entrepreneur he met who had the same level of income for the last eight years. And in this mastermind, I mean, they were like, you know, eight figure owners. He was so perplexed at this owner at the same level of income for the last eight years. And it's like, why aren't you growing? And he goes, I'm happy. And he's like, look at you guys, you're all stressed. I'm here because I just want to hang out with you. But like, you're all stressed. You keep growing and growing and growing. And for what? I'm unwilling to increase my hours I'm unwilling to grow my team because it's working and I'm unwilling to compromise my experience of self like this is beautiful for me and the ultimate luxury of wealth is to do what I want when I want with who I want and the luxury of time and more money doesn't necessarily equate that and then so this entrepreneur was like it just blew his mind. It blew his mind that business is not necessarily always about more in terms of the numbers, but it's how the experience of more freedom within yourself or freedom for the expression of the gift. And so I think what's so important
Yummii Nguyen:
[29:49] It's that we know that we can make choices any time and we get to decide the game that we want to play and we get to decide what we want to experience, with whom we want to experience it with. And does it contribute to a greater understanding of ourselves, a greater understanding of love, a greater understanding of our own humanity?
Dan King:
[30:06] Yes. But one of the most beautiful, and it can seem simple at first glance, one of the most beautiful exercises you can do. It's easy to do in a sort of half-assed way. It's not necessarily easy to do in a fuller way and that's visioning self-authoring frequently, every month every two months every quarter i don't know but watching your vision shift even sometimes subtly hearing that what you're putting down is is a representation of that one infinite version of you you're not always going to understand everything it says because it speaks in so many different languages. Over time, the more patterns you transcend, the louder its voice, but it speaks in many different languages. So you do your best to discern what it's telling you, and then you keep doing that because it's going to keep telling you more things. It's so powerful. It sees so much. And as that evolution happens, you can watch yourself get closer and closer. And at the same time, I'm present to how different levels of complexity introduce more voices and yet more challenge in making sure that it's the vision is still a representation of that deeper truth that you feel so obligated to honor and that that's a really really beautiful journey yeah.
Yummii Nguyen:
[31:25] I love how you articulated that
Dan King:
[31:26] As we come towards the end of our time together we could go on for hours and hours but there's that that boring boring set of things to do out there are there any either last words or thoughts feelings visions to throw out there to an owner of a mental health practice who, is feel some connection to their infinite. Anything remaining to share?
Yummii Nguyen:
[31:49] You're not meant to carry the world on your own. You're not meant to carry it all on your own. Like, that's not why your gift came through you. You've got to trust, connect more with that divine power, and ask for guidance. And then follow through on the guidance. Like, follow through on the guidance.
Dan King:
[32:05] Yeah, could not agree more that doing it entirely on your own thing had got tired from you a while ago.
Yummii Nguyen:
[32:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is very heavy.
Dan King:
[32:17] Yeah. The whole myth of Sisyphus thing is, you know, it was written for a good reason. Yeah. Trying to move a boulder up a hill. It's not for the faint of heart. It will flatten you if you're not careful.
Yummii Nguyen:
[32:28] That's right. Yeah, you're not meant to, like no gift comes through you without
Yummii Nguyen:
[32:33] the divine saying, let me support you.
Dan King:
[32:35] Yeah, you can kind of luxuriate into that. You can embrace it and it should be easier. It should probably be easier than it is.
Yummii Nguyen:
[32:45] Can I share something that I received in one of my meditations around this? There was this moment in time where I felt like I was at capacity for holding space. And I think this is what practitioners, a lot of us say, where we're holding space for people. So I take this into my meditation and I share with that infinite divine source. I'm like, I feel at capacity and I don't know what to do. Can you give me some guidance? And in my meditation, it comes through and it says no human should hold the space. You allow the infinite to come through to expand the space because the space is not meant to be held. That quantum leaked the way that I saw my guidance, coaching, and mentoring. I was no longer needing to hold the space, to retain it, but really trusting the infinite to come through, the infinite of my clients, the infinite of me to come into this space to expand it out.
Dan King:
[33:38] Yeah.
Yummii Nguyen:
[33:39] Because space is infinite. I mean, that just alone changed the heaviness, especially when we're working with people sharing with us things that they would never share with anyone else, and they're carrying a lot.
Dan King:
[33:54] We, and I think our audience here of mental health practice centers are present to how emotions live in the body, and all of this stuff that we carry is heavy at an existential level. It's not that it's more pounds at the gym than you can carry, it's something different, right? It's a different kind of weight.
Yummii Nguyen:
[34:12] Exactly.
Dan King:
[34:13] It lives in us, and it kind of crushes our essence, diminishes our probability of bringing our are true gifts into the world.
Yummii Nguyen:
[34:20] Yeah, when we don't know how to let it move through.
Dan King:
[34:23] So good to see you, always.
Yummii Nguyen:
[34:25] I love spending time with you, Dan.
Transcript: authenticity and emotional wellbeing in business with Yummii Nguyens
“You’re not meant to carry the world on your own.” — Yummii Nguyen
Read the full transcript
Dan King:
[0:00] Hello, everyone. So I have something slightly different for you today. Maybe even more than slightly different, maybe very different. I am really excited to be talking to my friend Yumi Nguyen today. Yumi, how are you? And what are you excited to talk about with me today?
Yummii Nguyen:
[0:17] I'm doing so well, Dan. I love connecting with you. And I am excited to talk about things from the heart, to talk about things about our humanity.
Dan King:
[0:27] What's going on in your heart right now?
Yummii Nguyen:
[0:29] Joy joy honestly like to connect with you and to have these conversations to be able to share what is possible with people um heart to heart human to human just brings me so much joy love
Dan King:
[0:45] That so what are the possibilities that you help people create.
Yummii Nguyen:
[0:50] I help people well really i guide them to feel safe to remember that love is who they are and love is why they're here You know, I guide people to... Be able to know that it's safe to receive love just as they are, not because they need to prove themselves, not because they need to earn it. And I guide people to understand healing on a completely different level where transformation isn't about fixing. Transformation is fully surrendering to the humanity in you where healing is to make whole. And that peace in your heart isn't because the chaos is over, but the peace in your heart is a acceptance of what it is and to know that this too shall pass.
Yummii Nguyen:
[1:38] Like the chaos is the chaos is the chaos for now. And then these two shall pass.
Dan King:
[1:43] So there's a lot there. How chaos interferes with our process of becoming, how we let it interfere with our process of becoming, our sense of chaos. There's fear, which often comes with chaos, but can be its own beast. How does, what's the relationship between chaos and fear and the humanity of the typical business owners that you might work with or that might be listening to this?
Yummii Nguyen:
[2:09] Yeah, so this is really interesting. You know, I think as... So, let's work on the premise that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Can you and I both agree on that? The law of thermodynamics is energy can't be created or destroyed. And so, if we see chaos and fear as patterns of energy from our childhood, whether it be a pattern of people-pleasing or a pattern of being afraid of not belonging, a pattern of being a disappointment,
Yummii Nguyen:
[2:42] A pattern of not being in control. So there comes a point in time when we see the patterns move into business and what's playing out is just your childhood wounds in your business versus your business being an expression from you, through you, working through you as a gift from the divine. And so when it comes to your business, and I think for people who do really benevolent work where we are contributing to the consciousness of humanity, where we really deeply care about human being. And that's what has us create the business that we do to support other people.
Yummii Nguyen:
[3:20] That gift came from source, that came from the divine. And then somehow we then go, you know what, let me take over because I'm unworthy. I can't receive anymore. and then that chaos and that fear becomes controlling it becomes shouldering what is not ours it becomes really heavy it becomes an attachment to results and even the carrying of the emotional energy that is not ours and then we forget that we are sovereign as well as our clients and we also forget that there is possibility and choice
Yummii Nguyen:
[3:57] And that with every ebb and flow that comes with life, there are seasons. So maybe this season you were supposed to serve a particular kind of client, but as you evolve, you have to let that go. But we're so scared of evolving or we're so scared of outgrowing our current condition that we grip. And that's where we continuously perpetuate in our contribution with our own suffering. And then the business no longer becomes this joy, but it becomes this reflection of our mother, our father, or whatever we didn't get when we were younger. And it just reinforces the same pattern of how we needed to survive that.
Dan King:
[4:33] That's so fascinating how a business can be a reflection of our childhood wounds. And you talked about how we impose ourselves, we are using ourselves instead of our gift. You seem to very deliberately distinguish between the gift and the individual. Something the individual is doing is stopping the gift from achieving its full expression.
Yummii Nguyen:
[4:56] So as a human being, we're both animal and divine. When we forget our divinity, when we forget that we are one, when we forget our own humanity, we become animal. And so the gift is almost an essence of our own love, our own heart, our own expression when we remember our humanity and we're humbled by it as well as we remember our divinity and we're powerful with it. But then we're in the way of the gift flowing through us when
Yummii Nguyen:
[5:28] We become animal-like, where everything's a threat. We're very suspicious of everything, where our behaviors are fight, flight, freeze and form, where we are driven by the adrenaline and cortisol, where we're chemically driven. Neither is right or wrong. Neither is good or bad. It just is an experience. But it's like this if I, you know, as a parent, if I experience my children as a gift, I will remember that they come through me and they're not mine, that I'm a guardian of their spirit. And I will create the conditions to allow their truest essence to rise versus imposing what I think they should be. But if I feel an entitlement to these children and I am in ownership of their life and I forget their sovereignty, I will want to control how they grow up, what they think, what they do and how they should be based on my own projection so the fork in the road right one the road less traveled is the one that says i see you in your sovereignty because i see myself in my sovereignty and so when it comes to our gift the essence that it comes through us allows us to connect with it
Yummii Nguyen:
[6:47] Because it contributes to a greater understanding of love. It contributes to a greater understanding of humanity. It is an experience of abundance, of joy, of expression. It is also a connection to the seasons, the rhythms of life, such that our business can go in the ebb and flow and that we're not gripping. We're not gripping. And so when the individual forgets that it is part of a universe, I think the individual becomes really controlling. I mean, I'm not immune to that. You know, I'm not immune to that. I'm not saying that I'm like completely free on that.
Yummii Nguyen:
[7:23] But when my business is an expression where I can use it to reflect to me, remembrance, to come back to heart, to come back to truth, to receive, that is then contributing to my own evolution and expansion. So I'm not saying I'm immune. Let's just be clear. Very human. Very, very human. Yeah. I don't know. Does that answer the question?
Dan King:
[7:49] Struck by so much there. That was beautiful. So you gave the parenting example and you talked about how if you impose yourself on your children, you're going to be wounding them. And then you analogize to business. Let's talk about that analogy a little bit more. Is it true that like a parent shouldn't to the, I mean, every parent is going to wound every child. That's just the nature of the beast, but we try to diminish it to the extent we can. Is the same true of business where the business wants to be you're a guardian just like you're a guardian as a parent does that analogy hold where we want the business to be what it is and we don't want to impose ourselves on it wow.
Yummii Nguyen:
[8:28] That's interesting so i see it more like the business is an expression of art and it is a canvas where you get to express what is in your heart. However, the business also serves you in your own becoming, right? So I can't,
Yummii Nguyen:
[8:47] Yeah, this is really, really interesting because the analogy that I use with parenting, I don't think it actually also, I don't think it can be transferred over to business because in parenting, you've got two sovereign beings, whereas in business, there is an expression of something, but I don't think it's a sovereign being. I think it's an expression that gets to be created out there. However, your business is not you because it can't capture the fullest essence of you. And it serves at a moment in time for you to express what's in your heart, but as well, you receive back a remembrance of who you are. And so the way that I see business, and I've had many businesses, is like an artist where as the artist evolves, the song also evolves. The artwork also evolves.
Yummii Nguyen:
[9:35] And I think we're so scared of loss or we're so, you know, we're so, there's a scarcity in business when we're struggling. There's a scarcity when we're stressed. And so we can see those parts of ourselves in scarcity, in stress, in control. And we can look at that and go, wow, this is the grip that I have on life. Like what is disturbing my heart and what part of me needs to die so that I can evolve into the next version or an expanded version? I don't know. Does that make sense?
Dan King:
[10:03] There's a few things coming up for me. One of them is playing with the analogy, original analogy. Are our children not a work of art in some ways? And can they not bring up some of the same patterns where they're an expression of a certain aspect of us? They also trigger our survival anxiety, just as businesses do. They are, you're right, they're two sovereign individual beings. So there's a way in which the nature of their infiniteness is a little different than the infiniteness of a business. A business could be way more, have way more than two people involved, three people, however many.
Dan King:
[10:36] I don't know how many kids we can all have, but probably not as many as a business could employ, right? And so there are a lot of core similarities where, look, in most conventional situations, two people give birth to a child. You could theoretically have hundreds of people giving birth, thousands of people giving birth to a business, right? And I think there is a way in which, let's say it's more complex because there's so much complexity in parenting. And I think a good business is the interesting businesses anyway. The interesting businesses really are ones in which they're an expression of the art of multiple founders. There's always a limit. It's interesting that there's always a limit. And this is not to criticize businesses with one founder like yours, but there's an interesting moment of complexity when a second founder participates. And that moment of complexity brings with it a lot of possibility, a lot of risk as well. A lot of them. And there's a level of abundance that in almost all cases, not all, but in almost all cases can only be reached with a willingness to play with multiple people's art.
Dan King:
[11:44] And somehow create a canvas where multiple people are making brushstrokes. And I know for me originally, that was a very hard amount of control to give up. My childhood wounds didn't want other people touching the paintbrush. And my God, there's so much more abundance now that I've let that happen. So much more. Yeah. So I don't know where that leaves us, but the analogy is super interesting. It's so rich, isn't it?
Yummii Nguyen:
[12:06] Yeah, it is. So it's interesting, you said our children are a piece of art. They're not my piece of art. They're sources. Right and if we bring that analogy to let's say can i be fulfilled on my own yes and there's a certain experience of life and the moment that i'm married right like let's say because i don't have yeah like the moment i'm married now there's two people and the expression of marriage is what we're contributing to but that marriage doesn't determine my wholeness that marriage doesn't determine my my divinity right and there's two people who are contributing their expression to this canvas called marriage and it can go either way yet the expression doesn't determine the wholeness the oneness or what is possible the expression of it doesn't like let's say it falls apart it doesn't mean that now we're two broken people it just means that we're two people that came together that created this expression called marriage and didn't work out and it had lessons in that and there was creative expression in that. And I think that's the thing with the difference between business and parenting where, you know, the human being gets in the way of the expression when we identify with it, when we want to take ownership on it, when we make meaning from it, when we place our value,
Yummii Nguyen:
[13:23] Our worth in that. Yet our value and our worth as an infinite spiritual being, having a human experience is infinite. You can't place a number on that. But when you see parenting as an expression. My children came through me so that I could express myself through a paradigm called parenting. That's the same with business. My gift came through me so I could express myself through this paradigm called business. Then through that, I get to explore and remember more of the self in all these aspects and all its different fractals if we're going to go down the rabbit hole. In being able to see all these fractals and all these parts of my light and my darkness through the expression of business, may I remember who I truly am and come home to the truth of my human being and my divinity and compassion, bring leadership, bring courage, bring spirit, like what is needed to bring love to this experience that I'm experiencing in my business that is so human.
Dan King:
[14:20] One of my favorite mental models is the meaning of life is growth. So everything that happens can be a fuel for our growth. It doesn't matter what it is. It can be a very hard concept to understand. And so definitely I can see how, parenting and business can both fuel that universal mission really, really beautifully. And maybe, as you say, in slightly different ways. You had mentioned, I'm so obsessed with this analogy. It's so captured me that you come up with it. So your children are not an expression of you. They're an expression of the divine. Is your business the same or no?
Yummii Nguyen:
[14:59] It can be. I think the business is the potential for the expression of the divine. And once it's served, its purpose it's time to let go and then create something new yeah
Dan King:
[15:09] Yeah yeah yeah that feels right to me too and our knowingness of when that has been threshold has been breached our knowingness is so much deeper when we've transcended a certain amount of patterning right our inherent divinity keeps us in touch with those sorts of answers yeah and so it can be harder to know it can be easier to hang on to something that has already achieved its purpose if the patterning is so prominent in our lives.
Yummii Nguyen:
[15:38] Can i give you like a real life lived example in business that this happened with um so in 20 around 2011 2012 i had a startup and i put everything in this startup like the house deposit quit my consulting um really lucrative consulting deal like just to put everything in this startup and it was a luxury business and it was really hard Dan like so so hard I came from tech and I moved into luxury fashion um and but yet there was something in my heart that said yes move forward with this right so burnt the boats I don't believe in plan a plan b I am like a there's only plan a I'm the burn the boats kind of a person went all in
Yummii Nguyen:
[16:27] During this process, I mean, my things got stolen. It was like this tile of wall where it felt like two steps forward, four steps back. I was invited. But on the outside, the business looked great. It was in publications all around the world or exporting all around the world and so forth. And I remember this moment, I placed my hand on my heart and I said, heart, this is really hard. I want to quit. And my heart said, not yet, keep going. And then there were like words that I said to myself like you know like and so I was okay so we'll kept going and then during this time it was around the fifth year mark I became pregnant and then we lost we had the miscarriage and I remember going okay what's the first miscarriage it you know people said it's common and then as we were about to leave for New York to um share the brand in New York fashion week, I found out two days beforehand that I was pregnant. No, yes, I found out, yes. However, between the first miscarriage and finding this out, I also had another miscarriage in between. Now, the acupuncturist at the time said to me, your body's really stressed and that's why it can't produce progesterone and that's why you can't kick the baby. Your body's really stressed and I'm like, but I don't feel stressed. And that was when I knew that,
Yummii Nguyen:
[17:49] That my feelings were a poor indicator of what is really going on. And so when we found out a couple of days before going to New York where the brand was going to be launched and we had like meetings with the top retailers in New York, like buyers, like this was where my business was going to explode. I placed my hand on my heart and my heart said, the business has served its purpose, let go. Do you know how hard, I was like, what now?
Yummii Nguyen:
[18:19] And it was almost like those five years has taught me so much about spirituality and business, the ebb and flow of what it serves, how to release, let go. Like all my attachments, all of that rose up to go, wow, I am here to prepare life coming through me. If I want to produce progesterone, can I let go of this attachment? And it was the most liberating thing to be able to go, yeah, like this does not define me. And it was like oh my gosh like this feels so liberating i chose my child i chose my well-being and i remember when i gave birth to him it was three weeks in and this voice comes through me and this voice says avery does not care about what numbers you have in your bank account it does not care he does not care about your businesses he does not care how many businesses you have he cares that you love yourself enough to be able to meet him with wholeness so that he remembers his wholeness and for someone that remembers his wholeness yeah yeah yeah and for someone that has a pattern in achievement type a personality you know where i never felt more whole just to be and i remember writing everything down on pieces of paper what i thought i had to achieve while i'm nursing this baby it's crazy and i think people who work with mothers who are high performers and leaders can relate to this. It's like we go from
Yummii Nguyen:
[19:48] Knowing ourselves and the identification of a high performer addicted to adrenaline and cortisol and achievement and then we become a mother and what's needed in that moment is slowing down then you go well how do I reconcile that part that is requiring so much grace so much stillness so much nourishment so much nurturing with my addiction to doing and then you're at this precipice where can you step into a possibility that your business is here to
Yummii Nguyen:
[20:20] serve you and not the other way around. And where we get stressed, where we get controlling, where we are disconnected from the gift that comes through us is when we serve the business. And so I remember in that moment, I was like, yeah, the business is always meant to serve me. And Dan, I would never forget this because I was like, okay, so now I'm going to create a business from a brand new paradigm. That it needs to serve me, my family, and my well-being and me thriving. And at that moment in time, everything, like there was complete chaos in how I thought about business. I was used to working six, seven days a week, waking up at five, finishing at like 9, 10, and, you know, like I was addicted to it. Like I wasn't stressed. Like I didn't think I was stressed. My body was clearly stressed. But I loved it. I really loved it and it served its purpose in that expression.
Yummii Nguyen:
[21:14] Then when I had a children, I was like, how do I create the type of business I want to create working 10, 20 hours a day? No more. And that was my.
Dan King:
[21:23] A week, I assume, but not a day.
Yummii Nguyen:
[21:25] 10, 20 hours a week. Yes. 10, 20 hours a week. That's it. Yes. 10, 20 hours a week. And that's radical for someone that is used to working so hard. And so now the possibility becomes, okay, this is the game that you create 10, 20 hours a week. This is the expression that wants to come through you. And this is the number of abundance that you would love to experience. Now let's play.
Dan King:
[21:48] There are so many, and thank you for sharing all of that beautiful, beautiful personal history and all of the struggle within, because the struggle informs so much of what we think is impossible. So there is the, not just our patterns, there's society's patterns. Society's childhood wounds, right? Which inform our beliefs about what is possible.
Yummii Nguyen:
[22:15] Yeah.
Dan King:
[22:15] And are also, I think, a cause of why you thought you needed to work 10 billion hours a day.
Yummii Nguyen:
[22:22] Yeah.
Dan King:
[22:23] And so as part of transcending the wounds, part of transcending the wounds, I'm thinking is getting so clear with that divine aspect of yourself about what you really want, so clear about it, and defiantly indicating to society and its wounds, I choose this path instead and I'm going to declare that it's possible really going to aggressively stand for it being possible which paradoxically in your case, in my case and in so many people's cases requires a slowing down it's very strange that that's true and yet, It is.
Yummii Nguyen:
[22:56] It requires a stillness. I mean, if you think about any seed that you plant, if you keep digging up the soil, it's not going to grow.
Dan King:
[23:04] Yes.
Yummii Nguyen:
[23:05] And when I remember the aspect of me that is connected to the divine, I'm so humbled by that because then I realize that any gift that flows through me or anything that I receive, I don't have to fulfill on or think about the how or the resources. What my role in this co-creation is to have faith, to surrender, to receive, to allow myself to be human, remember my humanity and remember my divinity in the same space. And so children that came through me, I'm like, no, the universe didn't gift me children to then go, okay, well, I'm out of here now. You sought these children out. No, the universe says, no, these children chose you so that you could feel on your expression as a parent because you desired that. Now, if you believe that these children chose you, you also believe that the universe is going to support that decision. Yeah. Your role is get out of the way.
Dan King:
[24:03] In a sense, there's an egolessness and an egoicness to that choice. Yes. So it is not a purely selfless. Like you were proudly, this is so hard to do for most people, I suspect our audience of practice owners to selfishly on one level declare what you want even in the face of supposing contrary evidence and also at the same time trusting that it's meant to flow through you it's like an assertion of self and allowing the divine to play the role through you that is sort of meant to occur the.
Yummii Nguyen:
[24:40] Way that i would describe it is i believe that there are infinite versions of us. Like there's infinite potentials happening at any one time and there are infinite versions of us. And yet there's one version that's infinite.
Dan King:
[24:51] One version that's?
Yummii Nguyen:
[24:52] Is infinite. So one version that is in truth, one version that is connected to source, one version that is so humbled by this fleeting experience, yet so enamored for the gift and reverence of what it is to be in this vessel. And when we know that by heart, like if you think, I know I'm very, I find artists really interesting because when you talk to an artist, they're just like, I just know it by heart. It's a pure creative expression.
Dan King:
[25:21] Yeah.
Yummii Nguyen:
[25:22] And it's a love that they cannot put into words, but they create it in form, whether it's through paintings, through food, through music. So as an entrepreneur, it just happens that our art is the business and we know it by heart. But yet when we forget it by heart and we go into our head, we think it has to look a certain way. And so the infinite version of us is in our knowing and in our heart and in this divine connection.
Yummii Nguyen:
[25:48] And the finite versions, which are, there's infinite versions of this finite, are the characters, the plays in our head on who we think we need to be, on who society told us we should be. It's like, say, for example, being a woman, being... In this incredible time, Dan, women are told they can have everything all at once and can do it all, like give birth and have the family, you know, do it all. And that has been so unhealthy. Dan, when I didn't have a role model, you know, I had a broken relationship with my mother and so I didn't really have a role model of what a woman that loves herself was. And my only role model at the time before I was married and had a child was a mentor and a guide that I absolutely adored. She gave birth and three days later she was lecturing on leadership. That was my only role model. And she was like, see me? I'm so powerful as a woman. I just gave birth and here I'm lecturing on leadership. That was broken and I did not know it at that time. There is such a reverence for this thing called human being and no business should ever compromise your health, compromise your mental health, compromise your physical health, compromise your spiritual health, compromise your connection to self. And when a business does that or you allow it to and you tolerate that, there is a misalignment.
Dan King:
[27:16] Very healthy reminder, I think, to all of us. I think to listeners who are ambitious, who believe that, in general, the work they do, as is the case with our listeners, the work they do is soul-driven, that even the thing that at least in terms of let's talk about goals is a representation of that infinite version of you. In the process, in the carrying out, it can easily become something very, very different. So, so different. And...
Dan King:
[27:49] I just admire your courage so much for honoring what you want. It's a very, very hard thing to do. Very, very hard thing to do. And I'll confess, I struggle with it as what I do becomes more complex. I feel the demands of more and more people, more burden on my shoulders. I love what I do. And it's like each stakeholder brings up new patterns, new opportunities to heal, new chances to live into the truth that the meaning of life is growth and sometimes it just feels like a.
Yummii Nguyen:
[28:21] Lot there was something that i read recently and and i'm reminded of this as a parent as well there's this entrepreneur who was growing and growing and growing and he was stressed out he's not present with his wife not present with his family and he went to this mastermind and in that mastermind there was this other entrepreneur he met who had the same level of income for the last eight years. And in this mastermind, I mean, they were like, you know, eight figure owners. He was so perplexed at this owner at the same level of income for the last eight years. And it's like, why aren't you growing? And he goes, I'm happy. And he's like, look at you guys, you're all stressed. I'm here because I just want to hang out with you. But like, you're all stressed. You keep growing and growing and growing. And for what? I'm unwilling to increase my hours I'm unwilling to grow my team because it's working and I'm unwilling to compromise my experience of self like this is beautiful for me and the ultimate luxury of wealth is to do what I want when I want with who I want and the luxury of time and more money doesn't necessarily equate that and then so this entrepreneur was like it just blew his mind. It blew his mind that business is not necessarily always about more in terms of the numbers, but it's how the experience of more freedom within yourself or freedom for the expression of the gift. And so I think what's so important
Yummii Nguyen:
[29:49] It's that we know that we can make choices any time and we get to decide the game that we want to play and we get to decide what we want to experience, with whom we want to experience it with. And does it contribute to a greater understanding of ourselves, a greater understanding of love, a greater understanding of our own humanity?
Dan King:
[30:06] Yes. But one of the most beautiful, and it can seem simple at first glance, one of the most beautiful exercises you can do. It's easy to do in a sort of half-assed way. It's not necessarily easy to do in a fuller way and that's visioning self-authoring frequently, every month every two months every quarter i don't know but watching your vision shift even sometimes subtly hearing that what you're putting down is is a representation of that one infinite version of you you're not always going to understand everything it says because it speaks in so many different languages. Over time, the more patterns you transcend, the louder its voice, but it speaks in many different languages. So you do your best to discern what it's telling you, and then you keep doing that because it's going to keep telling you more things. It's so powerful. It sees so much. And as that evolution happens, you can watch yourself get closer and closer. And at the same time, I'm present to how different levels of complexity introduce more voices and yet more challenge in making sure that it's the vision is still a representation of that deeper truth that you feel so obligated to honor and that that's a really really beautiful journey yeah.
Yummii Nguyen:
[31:25] I love how you articulated that
Dan King:
[31:26] As we come towards the end of our time together we could go on for hours and hours but there's that that boring boring set of things to do out there are there any either last words or thoughts feelings visions to throw out there to an owner of a mental health practice who, is feel some connection to their infinite. Anything remaining to share?
Yummii Nguyen:
[31:49] You're not meant to carry the world on your own. You're not meant to carry it all on your own. Like, that's not why your gift came through you. You've got to trust, connect more with that divine power, and ask for guidance. And then follow through on the guidance. Like, follow through on the guidance.
Dan King:
[32:05] Yeah, could not agree more that doing it entirely on your own thing had got tired from you a while ago.
Yummii Nguyen:
[32:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is very heavy.
Dan King:
[32:17] Yeah. The whole myth of Sisyphus thing is, you know, it was written for a good reason. Yeah. Trying to move a boulder up a hill. It's not for the faint of heart. It will flatten you if you're not careful.
Yummii Nguyen:
[32:28] That's right. Yeah, you're not meant to, like no gift comes through you without
Yummii Nguyen:
[32:33] the divine saying, let me support you.
Dan King:
[32:35] Yeah, you can kind of luxuriate into that. You can embrace it and it should be easier. It should probably be easier than it is.
Yummii Nguyen:
[32:45] Can I share something that I received in one of my meditations around this? There was this moment in time where I felt like I was at capacity for holding space. And I think this is what practitioners, a lot of us say, where we're holding space for people. So I take this into my meditation and I share with that infinite divine source. I'm like, I feel at capacity and I don't know what to do. Can you give me some guidance? And in my meditation, it comes through and it says no human should hold the space. You allow the infinite to come through to expand the space because the space is not meant to be held. That quantum leaked the way that I saw my guidance, coaching, and mentoring. I was no longer needing to hold the space, to retain it, but really trusting the infinite to come through, the infinite of my clients, the infinite of me to come into this space to expand it out.
Dan King:
[33:38] Yeah.
Yummii Nguyen:
[33:39] Because space is infinite. I mean, that just alone changed the heaviness, especially when we're working with people sharing with us things that they would never share with anyone else, and they're carrying a lot.
Dan King:
[33:54] We, and I think our audience here of mental health practice centers are present to how emotions live in the body, and all of this stuff that we carry is heavy at an existential level. It's not that it's more pounds at the gym than you can carry, it's something different, right? It's a different kind of weight.
Yummii Nguyen:
[34:12] Exactly.
Dan King:
[34:13] It lives in us, and it kind of crushes our essence, diminishes our probability of bringing our are true gifts into the world.
Yummii Nguyen:
[34:20] Yeah, when we don't know how to let it move through.
Dan King:
[34:23] So good to see you, always.
Yummii Nguyen:
[34:25] I love spending time with you, Dan.