Breaking generational money traumas with Gloria Chou

Transcript

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

CLARE: So many of our stories around money. And our beliefs around money come from our family, both the family we grew up in, and we can even carry forward generational money trauma. In today’s episode of the podcast, I have a really interesting chat with Gloria Chow, who shares the money stories that came down through her family and what she has been doing to rewrite her life ,her own money stories so that new and more positive stories are carried forward. I really hope you enjoy this episode. I found it really fascinating and I trust you’ll get some benefit out of it too.

Welcome to the podcast. Gloria, can I ask you to introduce yourself to the listeners of the Clare Wood podcast, please?

GLORIA: Oh, thank you so much for having me.

So my name is Gloria Chow. I am from LA, but I live in Brooklyn where my East coasters at. I’m a small business PR coach. I am also the host of the small business PR podcast, and I’ve never worked in PR. I literally started cold calling newsrooms and I kind of just cracked the code on it. And I really want to just make PR accessible for everyone.

 I met you at an event for, I think James Wedmore did like a leadership event. And the reason why I signed up for it was because that was an area which, and which we will get into that, that is literally, that was, that was holding me back.

Because of my scarcity, my all of the things I had to work through, it shows up in your business, right? That’s why I say like our business is literally therapy because you see all of your limiting beliefs. So for me, leadership was where it really showed, you know my inability to have people work for me and really take ownership.

I remember being burnt out and being like, why do I have five people working for me, but I’m doing the work. Maybe it’s me. So we really bonded over the dinner table and we got real deep Clare. Clare and I got real deep generational stuff, talking about psychedelics and therapy. So we’re going to get into it.

But I’m just so happy that we met and that we’re here today to talk.

CLARE: Me too. It was, sometimes you just meet people and you just like, I’m, I’m one of those people. I go deep quickly. So I love that we were able to, to connect and thank you for reaching out to, to come on the podcast pitching. It’s obviously what you do well because you know, a lot of people pitched me and I say, no, thank you.

And, and I was like, yeah. I have to get her on to have this conversation on, on the podcast. So let’s, I mean, where do we even begin? Maybe let’s begin with, with a leadership and with the team. So why were you feeling called to do the work on, on leading the team? What was going on that you were like, we need to sort this out.

GLORIA: Well, I’m sure a lot of your listeners can relate, but you go through this phase in business where you reach some level of success where you can start hiring, right? So you hire, you get out, get things off your plate, all the high level CEO say, delegate, delegate. And I did that and I still found myself utterly burnt out, unhappy stressed Not understanding why it was that I had people working for me, but I still had to solve all the problems and like they say, your business is a reflection of you.

So it really came from my inability to trust and me seeing leadership as not important. And when I hired people, it was very transactional. It was very much. I paid you to do this. Therefore, I expect you to do to, to deliver. But I had to learn the hard way that without really leaning into investing in the person and I’m not talking about just paying them properly, but time commitment, personal growth, giving them flexibility talking to them and reminding them like why we’re doing this.

None of this really matters. And it’s just like you steering a ship, right? They all say you can’t build a business without a team. And if you look at the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies, they’re not spending their time doing the day to day of their business. They’re literally empowering their team and giving their team the best resources.

So once I started to do more research on how these successful CEOs really spend their time, which is on leadership, I started to see the gap of where I was and where I needed to go if I were to really scale my business and make an impact. So that’s why I really try to focus on leadership as the most important thing to work on.

CLARE: Yeah, I love that. So there was something that you said in there that I want to go a bit deeper on. So talking about recognizing the opportunities for growth and something that I know is really important to you is, is, is healing and you’ve been on a big healing journey yourself. Can we dive into that?

Like, are you someone who’s always been doing the inner work, being doing the personal development, be doing the inhaling, or is this something that’s relatively new to you?

GLORIA: Ooh, well, I don’t know how many hours you got, honey, but in, in short, I think because our business is all based on a reflection of us, I got to a point where I did the six figure launch and I did do all of the things that I thought was markers of making it in this online course world. And I found myself so burnt out and unhappy having spiraling thoughts, literally unable to move my body where I had to start doing the inner work because here I was making more money than I ever thought I could and so unhappy. And so there was a disconnect, right? That’s when I started to dig in.

But Let me back up a little bit. January 6th of last year, I had a surgery to remove a 13 centimeter fibroid in my uterus. So that’s like a size of a baby’s head, right? And I’m a small person. I’m five foot. So three days after that, I call it a C section cause it’s a huge incision. Three days after that C section I got back on my computer and four weeks later, I pulled off my first six figure launch wearing bandages. And then I went into a complete mental breakdown where I just. I was crying. I couldn’t sleep. I had spiraling thoughts. It was just, I was a mess. And that’s when I realized like that was what physical and emotional burnt out was because I didn’t let my body rest. Right. I was terrible to my team. I was basically really upset because even though we had hit this six figure revenue mark and we welcome so many new members into our PR program, I was only focused on the few people who wanted a refund. And I remember just disempowering my team and, and almost like being like a dictator being like what’s happening here like we didn’t do our job and I look back and I’m not proud of this Clare, of the person that I was and how I led and I was quite awful. Honestly, I’m kind of appalled by my behavior, not only with how I just demotivated my team, but how I treated myself and how I did not let my body rest.

And then I, you know, I had a moment where I talked to somebody else who Had a similar surgery and she’s like, yeah, this is really a, it’s a major abdominal surgery, right? It’s basically a C section. And she was saying how she basically didn’t leave the house for like a month or two months. And here I was like grinding on day three. And so that’s kind of what made me realize like I really got a lot of work to do around how I treat myself and my identity and self worth being tied up and how much money I made. Because I was willing to sacrifice everything for that. And once I got there, I realized it really doesn’t feel good.

CLARE: Can I just say like take my hat off and applaud you because it takes a lot of courage to say, I messed up. And we were talking about this off air and to, to say, I’m not proud of how I behaved in that situation. And I just want to acknowledge that because it’s something I have been learning a lot is how hard it is to, you know, to, to basically say sorry, or I made a mistake. And it’s a huge part of, of a growth and change journey.

So the fact that you even can acknowledge that is massive and yes, having major surgery and just full steaming ahead with life. It’s funny because I, I see other people do this and I’m like, what’s wrong with you? And then I’m like, I go do exactly the same thing myself. I went to a recent illness. I was sick for nine weeks with some sort of cough, cold flu thing. And I just wouldn’t stop until my body physically made me like, it just kept going. Are you still frigging sick? And I’m like, I don’t know. And if someone else did that, I’d be like, for God’s sakes, rest. What’s wrong with you? Take a week off. And yet I couldn’t stop. So I can, I can totally empathize with you know, with that, that side of you that, that kept on going and equally, you know, I can say, you know, that’s a big thing to go through.

And yeah, I’m not surprised that you burn out afterwards given that you didn’t take a break.

GLORIA: Well, let me tell you something that’s even more crazy. I don’t know how, Woo woo your your, your audience is, but there’s been so much study on psychosomatic things, right? And the body keeps the score and how our bodies are always talking to us, right?

If you, if you’ve done a lot of research about this. So when I saw that. That tumor, which is basically to me, stuck energy, right? That’s what like a fibroid is. It’s just a massive block of cells that are not supposed to be there. For the first time in my life, I realized that everything was energy and that that was my stuck energy. I really think that was generational from my mother and from my grandmother.

And here’s why the, the sacral chakra where the womb is controls money. And there was literally a block in that area. Because I wasn’t leaning into abundance. I saw money as kind of something that kept me safe. I had way too much cash in my bank account sitting there depreciating because I was afraid to let go of it. I lived a life of restriction instead of feeling expansive with my money. And those are all the things that, you know, I needed to work on. And so having that mass and seeing that taken out of me made me realize like this is the work that I need to do in this generation. You know, that I need to like untether my identity with I am more worthy if I made more money.

And that’s just a form of internalized capitalism that I think I was taught growing up as a child of immigrants where it’s like, if you get paid, you just put your head down. You say, yes, sir. You know, like that was That was what I was taught. And it’s my job to unwind that because I have the privilege and opportunity to be able to redefine what that means for me, what I want my life to look like.

CLARE: So let’s talk about that. So you’re an American immigrant, what’s your family heritage? And, and what do you think, how do you think that’s connected to the stories that you had and or maybe still working on have around money?

GLORIA: So I am a first generation Chinese American. So my, that means that both my parents were born in China and they came here as adults.

 And you know, without going like too much into my life story, but my, my mother grew up in communist China under Mao, where her first job was sewing shoes in a shoe factory. And then her brothers were like sent away to labor camps, right? Because that was part, partly like what Mao, Mao dictated.

And only recently did I realize from talking to my mother, and there’s been a lot of healing that I’ve done to be able to reunite with my mother, because you can imagine I’m very American and she’s very Chinese, so there’s oceans of distance between us. But recently I had a conversation with her, you know, after visiting her for the first time in four years, and I didn’t even realize, Clare, that growing up she never had a bathroom in her house.

Like she literally used the public bathroom in the alleyway for her entire life. And the first time she ever had a bathroom or a room to herself was when she married my father. And I couldn’t even wrap my head around that, you know, that really painted the image of like, Oh, my God, like, like, I can imagine all five of the siblings living in a house, right?

And living in like a tight space, but when I realized that she was taking communal showers and she like didn’t even have a sink like that really solidified in me, like the amount of, of change that she had to go through from growing up in that to living in the U. S. and raising me here. And I honestly think that’s why we had such a difficult relationship because she comes from such a different generation where literally.

Just one generation ago, they had food rations, right? Whereas like my husband, he’s, he’s from Italy and of course they have their fair share of wars and turmoil, but like. It wasn’t so close to that level of impoverishment in one generation, right? Maybe like three or four generations. And so now I have so much more understanding for my mom on why she wasn’t there for me and all the sacrifices that she had to make.

And obviously psychedelics helped with that as well. And that’s kind of the journey that I’ve been on is realizing like, This is not easy that like my way of thinking and my way of understanding entrepreneurship is at a different starting point that maybe a lot of people who, you know, like grew up with parents who like went to college and like had normal like electricity, right?

So that’s kind of the work that I’m doing and it just means that I have more work to do, but I also have the privilege to do it in this lifetime. So I’m very grateful for that.

CLARE: There is so many different alleyways. We need to go down here. We joked off air that we might need to do a second episode. So okay, let me start with cause you touched on, you, you use the word capitalism.

Now, how does someone who is living in America, you know, in, in the most arguably the most powerful country in, in the world, how do you navigate you know, a world where, where, you know, particularly in the online business world, like that’s what success looks like, right? It looks like money. So talk to me about, you specifically use that word.

Talk to me about your journey with, with money and capitalism.

GLORIA: Ooh. So obviously the wild, wild west of the online world. Sky is the limit. You can make as much money as you want. You can grind 24 hours a day. And so I really bought into that, right? Where I was like, the more I grind, the more money I make.

And after, you know, my surgery and I realized that the more money I make did not produce the life or the feelings that I wanted to have, because I was very unhappy. I started to reexamine that. But now I realize that There is such a thing as conscious capitalism, right? Where it’s like, I can create abundance and in doing so create abundance for other people.

And I, that was another journey I went on as well, is looking at my marketing and working with my ethical copywriter, Brittany McBean to take away those like bro marketing things that are like false scarcity and pressurized timers and three spots left and just removing all of that and still having a business, which creates a lot of a lot of revenue, but in a way that feels aligned and not like trying to pressure people to make a decision based out of FOMO and really supporting them every step of the way.

So from my marketing, you know, the way I do my web, my webinars actually reveal the price of my offer right in the beginning. I say, you know, you’ve all been here, like, you know, where we’re going, just want to let you know, like, this is, what I’m going to present later. This is the cost. There’s a payment plan.

Now, let’s get to the training. Right. And so I think changing my marketing and the way that I really connect with people and, and really like cleansing my mind of all the things that the bro marketers tell you not to do has really helped me feel more intention and feel more aligned with making money.

Right. Because there’s nothing wrong with making money. And also the fact that the population that I serve, my PR core is the PR starter pack, 90 percent women of color. Which is probably more diverse than any other online course program I’ve seen. I mean, we have people who have different learning abilities.

We have people who have different physical abilities. We have people who are neurodivergent. We have people who, whose English is not their first language or their second language, right? We have people who are immigrants and I love that. And I feel like finally, for the first time in my life, I’m able to create wealth and be in a capitalist world, but do it to elevate people.

Diverse voices and people who maybe what, like me, you know, growing up who weren’t always invited to the table. So that’s why I feel really proud of the work that we’re doing now.

CLARE: And what do you think it is about your marketing that attracts such a diverse range of clientele?

GLORIA: Oh, hi. This is a really great topic.

So I actually spoke about this on my friend, Sonia Thompson’s podcast. And I think it’s just, I’ve always wanted to get proximate to people who had different experiences than me. You know, like I studied abroad in South Africa. when most people went to London and France. When I was young, my like fifth grade project about religion, like I chose Islam, right?

And I, I went to like the local mosque and sat with the imam. So I, I have a level of curiosity, I think that like makes it easier for me to just understand different lived experiences. And so I think that’s it. And then also, which is another funny thing is I grew up. In a black family, meaning that when my mother got divorced from my ex stepfather, I moved in with my best friend’s family and lived with them all throughout high school.

And so that, so she’s black, her mother’s a black woman who got herself out of poverty, got herself into medical school, single mother. And I think living with a black family in a predominantly white neighborhood in South Orange County really opened my eyes to interracial dynamics in the U. S. And so I’ve been kind of on this quest to kind of learn about it ever since.

Mm.

CLARE: So interesting. And I love that. I love being that, you know, you can recognize how you are helping people to break through their old stories and to be able to create wealth and success, but in a, an, an aligned and conscious way. That’s, that’s really beautiful. The next thing that I wanted to touch on was, Psychedelics.

I remember I first saw your poster and I was like, she’s on drugs. Let’s dive into, let’s dive into exactly like, you know, is this, this is something relatively new. How did you come down the path of, of trying psychedelics and what’s been the effect on you and your healing journey?

GLORIA: Ooh, it has such a profound, because, you know, psychedelics, unlike what the government wants to tell you, because let’s be honest, coffee is a drug, alcohol is a drug, sugar is a drug.

All those drugs have way more addictive things than psychedelics. Psychedelics are actually not addictive at all. And if you’ve read any of Michael Pollan’s books, they’re the substance that’s actually not, not addictive. And there have been. Doing a lot of clinical trials with like army veterans and PTSD.

So, and, and recently me and my husband invested in a venture fund, which funds like a portfolio companies of mental health companies that use psychedelics. So we are very invested in that. I think what psychedelics has taught me is to release and surrender. And this is a topic that could be its own podcast, but as you know, Clare, like Life is really about letting go, like as much as we like want to hold on.

It’s like letting go of the stories or letting go of the fact that like I am how much money I make. And so I think psychedelics is a great way for me to really embody that surrender and release, because it really takes it. trust to be able to do that. When you live a life of constriction and restriction that energy is not trust, right?

It’s defensiveness, it’s fear, it’s protection. But when you truly surrender and release and soften, that is trust. So just from a physiological thing, psychedelics has really, really helped me. And it’s also really helped me heal my relationship with my mom, where I feel like, I don’t need to always prove to her that I’m, you know, someone or or for to be understood because I, I, I only lived eight years of my entire life with her.

Clare, like my father passed away when I was three. And I moved, you know, I lived with like aunts and uncles and, you know, grandparents. And when I really count the number of years I spent living with her under one roof, it was eight years. So that level of like misunderstanding and all the time that has gone by that we didn’t spend together.

There was a lot to heal. So psychedelics has been the single most helpful thing for me to realize that I need to have compassion for her. And I always thought that my whole life work was like, Oh, I got to forgive her like for not being there. I got to forgive her because I always felt like she was not of my flesh.

Like I always just felt like she’s this woman who was like, Oh, like I have to deal with her. Right. Cause like, I don’t really see her very much. She lives in China and through a recent curated psychedelic assisted therapy. I had this vision where I saw her in the hospital with and it was my father’s dead body and she was holding my hand.

And for the first time in my entire life, Clare, I felt deep compassion for this woman that I never understood, that I never quite understood. enjoyed being around, although I’m sorry to say, and I just, I just, I started crying. I just felt this release. And so this time when I went to go see my mother, you know, now that I’m married, like I haven’t seen her in four years it just completely changed our entire relationship.

Not that everything is healed, but I don’t feel the need to always like, You know, like have this tension with her because I feel like I never got the childhood or the, you know, support that I needed because I’m safe. I’m great. I have a great life and I just, I need to just have compassion for her. And I think it’s one thing to logically understand something, right.

But you know, going through like somatic therapy and all this, all this stuff, you know, that we need to connect the mind and the body. And I think psychedelics has really made me embody deeply what it feels like to have compassion for somebody that I just never felt close to.

CLARE: Mm. Yeah. The embodiment is the challenging part, isn’t it?

You can we were talking about this up there. You can logically go, yeah, that makes sense. But to actually have the experience in your own body where you feel calm or, you know, whatever the, the, the release, the compassion, whatever it might be, that’s a whole other level, isn’t it? So how did you actually, like you, it’s obviously had a profound impact on you.

How did you come to, like, is it something that’s always been part of your life or is this, did, did someone suggest it to you? Like, how did you actually go on the journey of, of trying psychedelics?

GLORIA: Well, we have a lot of kooky friends in New York, you know, we we have a lot of friends who are very curious.

 We have friends who are brain surgeons and are in the neuro space and they were the ones who actually, you know, brought us into this world. So my, my, one of my best friends, he’s a brain surgeon and he’s been doing a lot of this, this deep work. And so he recommended this facility and then we went, but we’ve also done like other things as well.

So Yeah, I guess I just got lucky because I have a lot of friends who are like very curious about tapping into the subconscious, but then they’re also very responsible because they’re doctors and brain surgeons. So it just, it felt like the right time and place to feel like you’re in community with other people who are willing to do the work and, and use different tools and modalities, whether it’s intuitive movement or breathing or release or hypnosis, right?

It just, I feel like I’m very privileged in that way that this is not taboo in any way. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s

CLARE: absolutely becoming more mainstream. And I know, I think it’s here in Australia. I definitely know there are studies underway about the effects on you know, depression PTSD, as you mentioned, like there’s clinical trials underway and, you know, the early signs are looking really promising in terms of what the research is showing.

Let’s talk a little bit more, but you know, being a money podcast, I do want to sort of talk a little bit more about, you know, about the generational impacts that, you know, something I shared with my mother the other day, sorry, going on a segue, but I said to her, I was explaining to her, we were talking about the history of Australia and I was explaining to her how trauma stays.

Like, we know that trauma is physically stored in the body, and it actually is proven up to four generations that it’s, that it actually physically changes the DNA, not just of the person who experiences the trauma, but the generations up to four generations later. And when you think about that, it starts to blow your mind and you’re like, of course that person is like that because their family or their lineage has been through that experience.

So can we dive a little bit further into that conversation?

GLORIA: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I’m not an expert in trauma. I only know from what I’ve done, but I think that it is my job in this lifetime to heal that generational trauma. Otherwise it would get passed on. So that starts with me. Seeing myself not as a vessel of just making money, right?

Like, like I remember telling you, I was like, you know, I always felt like my whole life I had to feel guilty if I enjoyed pleasure or if I spent money frivolously, meaning like, you know, a 12 hour flight, like going on business class, whereas like, you know, for you, you’re like, of course, I’m going to get that.

Like, that’s what I, what I want to do with my money. And I felt like I never had that agency over how I spent my money. It was always as like guilt or shame of like, Oh, you really shouldn’t be doing that, Gloria. Like you could spend the 3, 000 somewhere else. So it was always like mental math, right? It’s like, you got to save, you got to save.

And one of the things I really try to do around my mindset with money where is that it doesn’t always have to make sense. Logically, it doesn’t always have to like. Like, logically be like, Oh, it’s going towards a productive thing. If I were to really see money as a tool and live in abundance, then I should be able to spend my money in a way that feels aligned, whether it’s for my comfort or for whatever.

So I remember talking to you earlier about like, Oh, I really want to get a business class flight when I come back from Asia. And you’re like, hell yeah, you should do it. You should do it. And I was like, I’ve never really spent this much money on a flight. And then I actually did it. So I paid in full with my credit card and it felt so good to be able to like pay for that business class ticket, right?

And not have this, like not beating myself up over like, oh, this money could be spent somewhere else. So it’s just little things like that has really kind of transformed the way that I think about money.

CLARE: Yeah. And it makes sense when you think about it. You know, I came from a family like my, my mom had no money growing up.

 Her family had no money growing up and it makes sense that like that comes down through you. Right. And that’s sort of something that we see. I mean, you know, you see inverted commas, rich kids, right. What do they call them in America? Nepo babies. And it’s like, well, there’s a reason why, right.

Wealthy kids tend to make more money and it’s because well, they just grew up and it’s like, well, of course it’s normal. Like one of my girlfriends had to explain to her child, she, she did not grow up with money, but her, you know, her and her husband have doing extremely well. She had to explain to one of her kids cause they were taking a flight that wasn’t business class.

And she said he was like seven or eight and he’d never, ever flown economy. Okay. And so she’s like, look, it’s very important that when you get on the plane, you don’t make a big fuss about the seat being small. And I was just like, whoa, this is so mind blowing to me. And then I’m like, of course, he’s going to grow up.

You know, he, he, his whole life, he’s flown business class. He’s going to go to the best private schools. He’s always going to have lived in massive big houses. So for him to create a life. With that level of wealth is going to be very normalized to him. Whereas if you are the person who’s breaking through an old mold or a story, it’s really flippant, uncomfortable.

 I know for me, like my dad, you know, when we got our BMW, he’s like the elite with their BMWs. And I felt, you know, all the shame and everything that comes along with creating the shift. Is that something that you’re, you’ve sort of experienced as like, it really is that process of releasing the. the shame and, you know, do I deserve to be doing this and creating a different life?

GLORIA: And it crippled it really holds you back in so many ways, right? Because instead of investing your money to whether it’s buy back your time or in talent, you’re always looking at the money part and, and then you’re never going to attract that level of client cause you are what you, you are. So if you’re looking at only saving money, then you’re putting out into that.

The world that you’re going to attract people who only care about money. So that’s not the vibrational frequency that I want to be on. And obviously you also have made such an impact on other women doing this work. But the moment I kind of let go of it and I’m focused more about the experience, the transformation, like money, it’s, it’s just like a number, you know, in terms of like, in terms of charging and raising your prices, like that’s, let’s talk about that one.

Right. I remember I was so scared to raise my prices like by 90. Dollars. Right. I thought I was like, there’s no way. And now like we’ll have a multi like five figure VIP day and I sell them all the time. So it’s just a different level of just being like stepping into that and knowing the results and transformation and just being unapologetic about that.

And that has been a powerful journey for me.

CLARE: And, you know, sitting here as a, as a white, you know, person who’s, who’s, who’s grown up in a, in a a very, they call Australia the lucky country. How do you see, it’s, it’s one thing for someone like me to be breaking through stories. It’s, it’s another thing for someone of colour.

to be breaking through their stories. Can we have that conversation? Like, what is the difference if someone is white and they’re like, I’ve gone through, it’s, it’s a different conversation, isn’t it?

GLORIA: I mean, I don’t think that there’s anything worse or like, it’s, it’s hard to compare, right? Like everyone has, has different, levels of trauma and challenge.

And so instead of comparing it, I think what we need to do is just invite people of all lived experiences to share their story. Like you are right now, like having me on your podcast and then doing the work to like highlight different people in your community, right? Like, for example, we have someone who is deaf and like a little bit visually impaired, right?

And so, I learned that like I need to present my materials in a different way. And she taught me because we were on like a group coaching call. And then she was type, she was typing. She’s like, she’s like, not everyone like can just unmute and speak. Right. And I was like, wow, you’re right. So it’s about being open to learning that people have different ways of receiving and, and digesting information and just being humble enough to be like, great, I’m going to try to like have all the different resources for every learner.

That’s kind of how, what, what I think we all need to do in the online course space is not just perpetuate like your own reality and know that there’s people with different realities who are joining your program

CLARE: and it’s, it’s really hard. when you start focusing in on creating a more inclusive space.

Because whenever I start having these conversations, the instant defense that people say is they’re like, but where does it stop? That’s one of the first things that I hear people say, like, you know, then I’m doing this and then I’m doing this and it’s like, but. If you are truly caring about creating a, you know, a world where everyone can rise and where you do want to be creating impact through money, then ultimately that’s what you want to be doing is creating a safe space and, and creating a space where you recognize, like, I think, you know, when Black Lives Matters first hit, a lot of white people, myself included, we went into, Oh my gosh, I don’t want to get called out.

Like that was the prime, you know, Reaction that a lot of people have, right? And then we’re the victims and blah, blah, blah. And then when you start diving a little bit deeper into the work and you realize, oh my gosh, of course I’m not attracting, you know, of course I’m attracting a homogenous group of people because look at my marketing.

Everything is, you know, Tailored to one specific demographic of people. And I think that if you’re truly passionate, you know, passionate about making an impact, this kind of has to be part of your work. And it does mean, you know, being, as you said, humble and getting uncomfortable and, and doing things that perhaps aren’t super convenient at a first.

Glance or first take. Like probably with you in your course, you’re like, Oh my gosh, that’s going to be a real pain in the butt to have to do things differently. You know, in terms of how I’m delivering my course content.

GLORIA: Yeah. Well, you’re either at any given moment, you’re always perpetuating a pattern or you’re breaking it.

You can decide in that moment what you want to do, right? You know, for me, I always, when I’m invited to like speak somewhere, I’m always looking at the, the other speakers and their roster and to be like, are there people from different lived experiences or is it kind of just the same, right? So, Also, it’s just getting proximate to like learning from different people, from different coaches, like buying from different people and using your own platform that you have to elevate those voices.

So,

CLARE: yeah, I love that. I love that. And I think that being the person to go, I want to create a different reality for The next generation, you know, and that doesn’t mean even your own offspring necessarily like the next generation of people who are coming through and looking up to business leaders and peers and friends and all of that.

It’s hard work, isn’t it? So how have you found like what’s been the biggest challenge that you’ve found breaking through the old stories that you had around money?

GLORIA: Oh my God. How much time you got? Now with that, when you make money, you have to hold onto it. Yeah. Okay.

CLARE: Yeah.

GLORIA: And it’s kind of this hoarder mentality.

And I realized this time when I visited my mom, like she’s kind of a hoarder. Like she has the way she hoards is she has literally boxes and boxes of clothes with tags on it that she’s never even worn. And that gives her a sense of security. So that’s like the manifestation of her like unresolved things, right?

It just makes her feel good to be able to go online shopping and just buy a ton of stuff. For me, it was not being smart with how I. I invested my money. I just saw it as something that was growing in a bank account for a rainy day because I felt like something bad was going to happen. You know, I’ll never forget when I was When I, when I married my husband, you know, I told him something, I said, you know, like, I have these flashing visions that one of us is going to die a horrible death because I don’t deserve to be this happy to be in such a fulfilled relationship where I just never felt like that.

And so I was brought up thinking that there’s always a price to pay. And that if you have a great comfort in this area of life, then you’re going to suffer a tragedy, right? There’s always this kind of mental math that I made. And that is something my husband doesn’t have. He’s like, he’s like, why shouldn’t we grow old and be happy?

Why do, why does one of us have to have like a terrible illness that like an I and, Through my conversations with him, I realized like this neuroses was really deep for me. I needed to do a lot more work around that because these visions would come more. It’s like, Oh my God, something that’s going to happen.

So anytime I experienced pure joy and rapture, the next thought was like, Okay, I’m going to have to pay for that. Right. And so that comes with the money as well. And that’s why I wasn’t smart with investing my money. I think about all the times when I could have used my money to like invest in different opportunities and instead of I just kind of held on to it and it’s just depreciating.

And so what I’m trying to do now, which is hard, is to let my money flow back into the universe more and trust that it’ll come back. So that’s, that’s something that I’m actively working on.

CLARE: On your hubby, cause that’s coming, you know, he’s, he’s come from an Italian background. When you think about the evolution that you’ve been on, the, the personal development you know, doing psychedelics, doing a lot of this healing, have you found that your relationships have, change, both with, you know, your husband and or friends.

And have you sort of found that anyone has drifted away in that process?

GLORIA: Ooh, I think anytime you work on yourself and unlock a different level where you live from a place of more truthfulness, because that’s really what we’re trying to get at is like truthful, like our relationships are a reflection of our ability to be truthful.

Right to ourselves to each other. You will lose some friends. And unfortunately, that has happened. Like recently, I think I was just telling you, you know, I, I didn’t invite one of my really close childhood friends to our wedding, you know, because I honestly haven’t felt closer connected to that person for quite a while.

And I wanted my wedding to be a very, Intimate, like intentional, intentional event. And this person didn’t take it well, obviously, you know and we’re talking about it and it happens, right? It happens and it’s life and not everyone is going to be able to evolve with you when you do the deep work because I’m just, I’m so, I’m in a such a different place than I was a year ago, you know, having overcome like the burnout and then the way I see my business, the way I see my role as a leader and not just a transactional, like the person who’s, who’s dictating.

 To, to an army of robots, my relationship with my mother and the impact that I want to make, it’s, it’s, it’s profound changes and healing that I’m doing. And I can understand that not everyone is able to hold space for me in that way. And that’s okay. You know, that’s okay. That’s, that’s kind of what we sign up for.

So we kind of just have to surrender to what it is and approach it with openness and honesty and. But yeah, it definitely does happen. And you know, and I think we were talking about this, a lot of entrepreneurs say that when you unlock another level, like you will lose friends, because your friends want to keep you safe.

They want to keep you the way it is. And the more you change, the more you grow, some people are not going to be able to deal with that.

CLARE: Yeah, absolutely. And I found it’s interesting because the people who’ve been, who’ve fallen away in my life, it’s not me who’s ending, like, I don’t know if it’s not ending the relationship, but you know, it’s, it’s them who’s getting uncomfortable with it and distancing themselves is what I’ve noticed.

 You know, there are definitely some relationships that I’m leaning more into and some that I’m leaning more away from as I’m changing as well. But a lot of the time it’s other people feeling uncomfortable with the change that’s happening and needing to grow out of it.

GLORIA: 100%. And that happens with your team too, right?

That’s why they always say, and we’ve lived it, where what got you here won’t, won’t got you there. It won’t get you there. So at every level, you literally have to kill yourself, your old mentality dismantle your team and then get to the next level. And that’s what every entrepreneur says. And I’m kind of in that process right now.

It’s painful. It’s arduous. It’s frustrating. But that’s what it takes to get to that next level.

CLARE: And I, you know, as someone, I’m coming up to 10 years married and it’s something that happens as well inside your relationship is that, you know, when one or both of you are on personal growth journeys, it’s like, you’re constantly checking in.

Like, you know, are we, are we growing together or swimming in the same direction? Do we need to, you know, do the work together again to keep. our connection. And, and, you know one of my old mentors in the time that we were actually, I think it was just before we started working together, but she’d just separated from her husband.

And she was talking, saying that no one really talks about the, you know, as you’re changing, growing, evolving, sometimes your partner, friends, team, like team as well, are growing with you and changing with you and coming on the journey. Or sometimes you kind of, you know, aren’t on the same path anymore. And also that’s okay. The evolution of you as a leader, there’ll be some people in your team and you’re like, Oh my gosh, like you’re stepping up and you’re coming on this, this journey. And then there’s going to be some people that you’re like, yeah, this is not an aligned relationship anymore as as you grow and evolve.

So. Wow. Okay. We’ve gone all different kinds of places in this conversation. I have absolutely loved it. Is there anything else more that you want to share with my listeners about money, about, oh gosh, even about PR, about anything before we wrap up today’s episode?

GLORIA: Oh, there’s so much, but I, I will say that, you know, through my journey of healing and reuniting with my mom after four years, and that time I got married and that time I built my business, when they say that change starts with you, I freaking believe it because Because my mom didn’t change.

Like she’s still living in her house. She’s still the same, but I changed and I softened and I no longer worried about how she perceived me or having her make up for the time that she wasn’t there or understand me, right? Because now I understand her. And so when that happens, she softened as well. And I could see that the ripple effects of me changing myself, how it has affected the people around me.

So anytime when you think that you can’t make an impact or that what you’re doing. is scary by saying no, by drawing boundaries, by, you know, taking time for yourself, know that what you’re doing to serve your best and highest self is going to impact everyone around you. Because the change starts with you and it really starts with you and it really ripples from there.

CLARE: Oh, I love that. And it’s so true. You know, even in the space of money, I know that when people see you succeeding and then people go, well, Hey, if that’s possible for her, it’s possible for me. If people see you taking care of yourself, I know that a lot of people like, I saw you go and get a massage and I went and got one.

I’m like, Fantastic. The more people that are looking after themselves, the better, right? So that is such a beautiful and powerful thing to end on Gloria. Thank you so, so much for coming on the podcast and sharing so openly with my listeners. If people she’s giving me a little love heart emoji, right back at you.

If people are listening and wanting to find out about how they can work with you, connect with you, what’s the best way for them to do so?

GLORIA: So I’m on Instagram and all the things at Gloria Chow PR. That’s Gloria C H O U PR. I also host the small business PR podcast on how anyone can hack their own PR.

I interview journalists and I have my PR starter pack program, which helps diverse women get featured and feel confident to pitch their story. And yeah, I look forward to connecting. Oh, and by the way, if you DM me the word pitch, I will also give you An actual like word for word pitch document that can help you get that podcast pitch. Because I really think what we’re doing here, like being on a podcast, every woman should get on a podcast at least once or twice. Every woman has a story to share.

CLARE: I’ll pop all of those links in the show notes for today’s episode. It’s been so magical chatting to you again, Gloria, and I’m sure we will talk again soon. Thank you for coming on .

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio