Episode #20: “My Scarcity Money Mindset Made Me a Bad Leader”

Interview
Written By Eman Ismail

Gloria Chou is a small business PR coach whose scarcity money mindset (which was rooted in fear and generational trauma) made her a bad leader to her team.

We chat about her early challenges, some of the bad decisions she made, and how her “insatiable hunger” for more money impacted her health and marriage. 

Gloria shares how investing in her team, focusing on personal growth, and fostering a positive remote work environment have revolutionised her approach to business.

 
 

Listen to the Episode

 
 

Show notes

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  • Eman Ismail: I was at a conference a couple of years ago, and this guy came up to me and another woman business owner who was at that moment inviting me to join her community for mothers in business.

    This guy, who had not been invited to participate in this conversation by the way, then went on a tangent about how mothers, women, don't need exclusive spaces where they, and I quote, "segregate themselves from men." I told him these are not exclusive spaces. They're safe spaces. And that as a Black woman in business, I will always require these spaces. He argued with me about my need for this. So once that convo was over, I ripped up his business card and threw it in the bin because I didn't want to converse with him again.

    So let's talk about it. Why do specific, usually under-recognised, minority, vulnerable, or marginalised communities require their own safe spaces? And yeah, that includes women. Well, because one of my earliest memories is being bullied as a five-year-old for being a Black Muslim, by other Muslims. If you want to hear more about that, go listen to Episode 3 of this podcast with Jennifer Ogunyemi.

    That feeling of being unsafe, unwanted, unappreciated, disliked, undesirable and unattractive because of my skin colour, that followed me all the way into my teen years when I became obsessed with teen magazines. I remember flicking through them and realising none of the models ever looked like me. The models were always white, the makeup sections were always designed for people with white skin, the hair sections always taught styles that were for people with long straight hair. I just got used to skipping over those pages because they excluded me and people like me.

    I remember one time seeing a model who was mixed race or biracial and I was so happy, but there were still no dark-skinned girls. I was also acutely aware that the Black characters in all my favourite shows were almost always side characters, never the protagonist. I was even more aware that despite the fact that I was reading a book a day, I was struggling to find any books with Black protagonists.

    So when things slowly started to change with shows like Sister, Sister, Kenan & Kel, and That's So Raven becoming more popular, with books by Malorie Blackman and Benjamin Zephaniah becoming mainstream, I clung to them like my life depended on it because they created a safe space where I, as a little Black girl, was seen. Where I was beautiful, where I was appreciated, valued, accepted, and loved in a world that sometimes made me feel and still makes me feel like the opposite is true.

    30 odd years later, and my Black son is experiencing the same thing. That's why he ran to me and excitedly showed me his school book when it had a picture of a little Black boy on the cover. It's not something he sees very often. He couldn't describe why he was so elated. But I understood.

    And this is why the work of people like Gloria Chou is so important. Gloria is a small business PR coach who works mainly with BIPOC and women of colour founders to get them featured, seen, and recognised by more media. Her number one mission is to make PR more accessible so that all founders, especially those who have been marginalised and underrepresented, can learn how to grow their businesses and confidently tell their stories without breaking the bank because as a first-generation Chinese American, she knows what it feels like to be unseen, under-recognised and under-represented.

    Gloria Chou: The mistakes that made me for where I am right now is leading everything through a scarcity money mindset. Growing up as a child of a Chinese immigrant who literally was sewing shoes in a factory, I had a very I would say unhealthy relationship with money where I was told from a very young age that the more money I made, the more valuable and worthy I am as a human being. So my entire notion of identity and safety was wrapped up in that.

    Eman Ismail: On today's show, I'm speaking to Gloria Chou, an award-winning small business PR coach and host of the top-rated Small Business PR podcast about how having a scarcity mindset that came from her generational trauma made her a bad leader.

    Gloria Chou: I remember being on a date night with my husband. He was looking across from me and he had booked this beautiful restaurant and got a reservation, put it in my calendar, and he did everything. All I needed to do was show up. Not only did I show up wearing the same sweatpants I did the whole day with dog hair all over it, while he was trying to talk to me, I was trying to talk to somebody, a potential lead in the DMs. And he looked at me and he says, "Is it really worth it, Gloria?"

    At that moment, I looked at him and I realised I was giving away so much more by constantly being in that hustle. And what really mattered was the time that I had with him. So that was kind of a huge wake-up call.

    Eman Ismail: Welcome to Mistakes That Made Me, the podcast that asks extraordinary business owners to share their biggest business mistake so you know what not to do on your road to success. Mistakes That Made Me is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

    My name's Eman Ismail, and I'm an email strategist and copywriter for online business owners like you at emancopyco.com. I'm a podcast lover, a pizza binger, a proud mama of two, and I have this radical idea that if maybe us business owners were a little less guarded and a lot more open about the mistakes we've made, we could help each other grow a business that brings us more joy and less regret.

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    Gloria Chou: So my name is Gloria Chou. I am an award-winning small business PR coach. My whole mission and ethos is to make PR accessible so that the rest of us can be seen and heard without an agency. For me, my audience is very diverse because the small business landscape is very diverse women of colour, and it's my mission to advocate for them and teach them how they can pitch and get featured and just really get visible and more profitable.

    Eman Ismail: Okay. So I love that, and I'm really interested to know what is it that makes you so passionate about serving women of colour business owners and what is it about this community that you think they require the support in doing this?

    Gloria Chou: It's funny, there's a stat that I don't think many people know, but Black women start small businesses more than any other demographic, and we don't see that reflected in the media. And as a first-generation Chinese American, growing up, when I looked at images on magazines of what entrepreneurs look like or what successful business people look like, they were mostly able-bodied straight white men that were reflected back. And I realised there was a huge gap between what was actually really happening in the small business landscape and the people whose imagery that we were seeing as what embodied success. So I make this as my sacred mission to rewrite that narrative.

    I really think that until we learn how to pitch ourselves and see ourselves reflected in media—I'm not talking about ads. I'm not talking about social media. I'm talking about earned media, actual credible news sources—we will not be able to rewrite the narrative. And so it really is my mission to advocate for that so that one day, hopefully in the very near future, we're going to have the same representation as we actually see in the small business makeup.

    Eman Ismail: I love that. And as a Black woman, I think that's absolutely necessary. You started clarifying then what you mean by PR, but I'd love to just further clarify it in case you listening isn't 100% sure. So you said earned media. What does that mean? Are we talking publications? Are we talking TV?

    What does that mean?

    Gloria Chou: Yeah. So there's a lot of blurriness and this is how the industry kind of can charge a lot of money because people don't know the difference. It's kind of blurred, but I really think there's a difference between paid media—which is your ads, when you pay for a feature. Raise your hand if you've gotten those scammy, you know, getting a 40 under 40, fees applied. Those are the pay-to-play scammy ones that maybe don't have a lot of SEO credibility and they don't have a big audience. And earned media is when you're pitching to be on The New York Times or Allure or Vogue where you're positioning yourself as an expert with a point of view and you're not paying the journalist to get featured. And that's really what's most credible.

    If you look at the most credible journalism in the world, if you look at The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, you can't pay the journalist to be featured. That's really an ad. And so, it's really the gold standard for authority building. It's the gold standard for SEO, for being able to position yourself as a big player, and it's also why the PR agencies charge a lot of money.

    But here's the thing. No one teaches small business owners the truth, which is that journalists don't want to talk to PR reps. They want to talk to you, the founder, the everyday small business hero. And in order for them to remain credible, to remain not just a mouthpiece for the Fortune 500 companies, They need you. They need our opinion as everyday fresh new voices so that journalism can represent the world, so that journalism is credible. So we're actually doing them a favour. We just have to take that power back and really step into that frequency.

    Eman Ismail: Wow. Okay. Wow. I want to talk about your business a little bit. So I know that your business kind of exploded during the pandemic. During the pandemic, post-pandemic. Tell me a little bit about what your business looked like before that point. What did you use to do? Who did you use to—I guess what kind of offers did you have? 'Cause I know they change a bit later on. Where were you at revenue-wise to give us a picture of the before, before we start talking about the after?

    Gloria Chou: Well, it's funny because a lot of people assume naturally that if I'm a PR coach, I worked in PR, and I actually never worked a day in my life in any PR or marketing or ads agency. I used to be a government official. So I used to be a US diplomat, and I worked abroad, and it had nothing to do with you know being a publicist or media. But I always loved to see people win and I was always that unofficial hype woman. It's like, "Oh, you should connect with this person." I just love to hype people up. It just made me so happy. And I was a strong communicator.

    So I probably applied for over a thousand jobs, I kid you not, a thousand jobs in PR and marketing, and nobody would hire me because they wanted very cookie-cutter agency experience. So I just had to—without any contacts, books, without any knowledge of PR, I just started cold calling. I started to get these very small clients, and I cold called The New York Times, the CNBC, The Wall Street Journal.

    And I think from cold pitching and throwing spaghetti on the wall and just getting thousands of rejections, I was able to hack PR and turn it into a framework, a pitching framework—my CPR Method that I teach to thousands of entrepreneurs on how they can cold pitch and get featured, again, without a publicist. And this absolutely works. You just need to have a way of knowing how to structure your pitch and knowing how to send it to a journalist. So that was kind of like how I built it.

    And then when COVID happened, I went from being a PR consultant, I pivoted to a digital model, a one-to-many model so that I could have time freedom. And that was incredible. There was a gold rush of this during that time, everybody was virtual. And so we were able to grow very quickly. We were able to scale our online course to a couple hundred students. And I joined these masterminds, figuring out all the things about online marketing that I had no idea.

    I remember trying to get my first webinar up and I had no idea what anything meant in the funnels. And then I had to learn all about, as you know, which i the show-up emails and the reminder emails. And so that was a really hard learning curve, building my business during COVID, but it was also great because no one was really offering this. And to this day, not really anyone's offering PR like this.

    But I will say that obviously, things have slowed down a little bit because now people are inundated with all these online programs and they've honestly been burned by a lot of coaches who promise the world and give them literally no support. And so we really want to be an advocate for the fact that yes, you can still scale empathy. You can still scale high touch. And we want to make sure that every single person in our community, we know them by name, we know their kids' names, we ask them how they're doing. So it's kind of like a family community.

    Eman Ismail: Oh, I love that. So pre-COVID, you were a consultant. That's what your business mainly was comprised of. And then you moved to digital products. And is that when your business started to hit six figures, multi-six figures, seven figures?

    Gloria Chou: Yeah. I mean, definitely, you can't scale your time as a consultant. So I had to learn the mindset, I had to learn to let go of my beliefs about, oh, well, people only want PR if it's done for you. And I realised if you come up with a winning method and a framework and you can really productise that, you can still scale it and offer coaching. So I had to work on a lot of my own internal beliefs about what customers will and won't buy and test it. And luckily, it did work and we're able to get replicable results.

    And I was able to have my first six-figure launch two years ago. So we had a couple one of those. But I will say in all of business, it's not really about the revenue. The revenue part is easy. I think what's hardest is building and scaling a team. And if you want to grow, you have to build a team. You have to really step into leadership. And that is something that no one really teaches you in business. They just kind of say, "Well, here's a funnel, here's a strategy," but without knowing how to hold people accountable, without knowing how to invest in your team and step into leadership, you will never be able to really get into that new heights.

    And that's kind of the struggles that I had. The biggest struggles that brought me the most tremendous challenges was scaling a team and leadership and really what does that even mean for me?

    Eman Ismail: That's fascinating. And I'm going to ask you about your team and the makeup of your team in a minute. But before we move on to that topic, I just want to ask one more thing around this pivot that you made because a lot of us had to pivot during COVID and you did it super successfully. I think we're at a time now where 2023 was a really difficult year for a lot of business owners. And a lot of business owners are still reeling from 2023 and are at a place where, because of the economy, they might need to start pivoting, might need to start shifting something.

    So what is your advice for someone whose business is struggling right now and they need to change something? Where do they start?

    Gloria Chou: You know, that's really the million-dollar question. So we've been doing these mini VIP planning days, and I will say that—and as you know from all the masterminds we've been in—we will have an endless array of problems. Life and business, there's just problems always coming. And I think that the problems don't go away, we just get better at solving them.

    And what separates a successful entrepreneur and those who are making tiny little progress really painfully is successful people know which problem to solve in the right order. And that is so important because on any given day you have 30, 50 different problems. But if you keep chipping away at your to-do list, you never really do the things that move the needle, you're never going to make those 10x growths.

    And actually, I just finished reading Dan Sullivan's book, 10x Is Easier Than 2x, and he says something that from coaching thousands of entrepreneurs, he says, most people just make the incremental changes, right? So they mark things off their to-do list. They're not really making that progress. But if you want to make 10x, huge game-changing growths in your business, you have to be willing to let go of 80% of what you're doing, which is terrifying for all of us. It means letting go of your team structure, your operations, and what you think about content, your strategies, everything, what we know.

    And that's kind of what I'm dealing with right now is as the market is changing, as people want something different, how can we think about doing less but better? How can we think about streamlining things? I hear the word clarity around a lot for this year. I feel like people are just inundated with all the tools and funnels. It's not that we don't have the strategies. It's we need to have clarity on which one we're really gonna go all in on.

    So I'm in the process of also niching down in my business and serving a more specific audience set than I used to have. And by doing that is my hope that my messaging, my marketing will be way more streamlined and clear, but it means that I'm going to have to say no to some people. It means I'm going to lose business because now I'm niching down, and that's the risk and the sacrifice that we take in hopes that we can make those 10x growths in our business.

    Eman Ismail: Yes. So I niched in my business. I want to say it was 2020. In 2020—gosh, four years ago—I was a generalist copywriter and then I decided to specialise as an email strategist and copywriter. I put off that decision for about six months, as in I would think about it daily and really wanted to, but I put it off for a good six months because I was terrified of exactly what you just said. Will me niching down mean that I'm gonna lose customers and I'm gonna struggle? Could it be the worst decision that I make for my business? But actually, it was the best decision I made by far.

    And yes, I shed some clients and some customers, but it meant that I could really focus on the right people and also attract more of the right people to me. Best decision I've ever made. And so I can hear people, as maybe you're talking, thinking, "Ugh, I don't know if niching is the best decision for me." I personally am of the opinion that niching is not the only way to be successful in business, but I really think it's the fastest way to be successful in business. It really just accelerates your growth.

    So I totally agree with you and I'm actually about to kind of niche down even more and get even more specific with my audience over the next few months as I'm working on my new website and working with a new messaging expert and copywriter and stuff. So, excited about that. And I'm totally with you.

    I have a question about your team then. So let's talk about your team. Who is your company made up of? What does your team look like? Tell me all that good stuff.

    Gloria Chou: Ooh, girl, you know, in the beginning, it was a hot mess. It was struggle bus. And in many ways, we still are because as an online entrepreneur, there is no blueprint for here is exactly how you hire. And so I think because we're in this wild, wild west and not in a corporate business structure, there's so many opportunities, so many different ways that you can do your team.

    It could be partly fractional, it could be full-time, it could be offshore, onshore. So I think that adds to the complexity of us really knowing what's best. And honestly, nobody does. You can only learn from your mistakes, right? Hence your podcast.

    So I started off with a general VA. No freaking clue how to onboard, how to set them up for success. No idea how to have accountability conversations when performance wasn't going well. Everything was super reactive, no metrics, and it didn't go well. I realised that it was very transactional and this person didn't really care about the business. And it was just a very sloppy copy-and-paste job. And I remember feeling so upset, like why don't they care more? Why is it so hard?

    And then as I started hiring more people and the same things would happen where there's a little bit of a lack of care, I started to realise, well, maybe it's me, like that Taylor Swift song. Hello, I'm the problem. It's me. Everything in our business is a reflection of us. And if I'm seeing a pattern of this, it means that there's something lacking in my systems, in my leadership where not only am I not able to hold people accountable, but maybe I'm not there yet in my leadership.

    You all hear this, right? Teams are made up of great leaders, not really about the product. And so the more I started to realise all of the time that when I was hiring people, but I was like, I remember one night I was crying to my husband. And at that point, I think I had four contractors, and I was like, "Why is it that the more people I hire, the more work I have to do?" It doesn't make sense. And then he looked at me, he's like, "Maybe it's you, honey."

    Eman Ismail: We all need that person in our lives. [laughs]

    Gloria Chou: Yeah. I mean, bless him. He's my angel. And so I realised like, "Holy moly, it's definitely me." Because a lot of times—and I know for anyone that's listening, raise your hand if you believe this—you just want to throw money at the problem, right? I hear the same thing about PR. I don't have time to do PR. I'm just going to hire an agency. $30,000 later, they come back.

    So it's really about like, we want—we're busy. And so a lot of times, we just want to hire, get stuff off our plate ASAP so we can go on to the next thing. And for a lot of us, the realisation that maybe we don't even get a return on investment in a tangible way in the first 60 days of hiring, that's terrifying for us. Or maybe there is always going to be a chance that they're going to leave even after you've invested in them. That's terrifying for us. So we don't even deal with it.

    And I think until I really realised that it's not just about the money, it's not about the transaction of it, that I really needed to step up in my leadership, I really needed to understand how to have uncomfortable conversations and to really orientate myself to be open to the truth and accepting the truth and seeing where things are and not just be in oblivion about it, that's when I started to make shifts in my business to be a better leader.

    Now, I'm still a long ways away. In the last month, I'll just tell you this, we had half of our team basically move on to different things. So it was a mutual decision, but I'm in this really big transition period in my business where not only am I planning a wedding, because it all happens at once, we have a whole team turnover, I am doing a rebranding, doing a pivot, so it's all happening at once.

    But I will say that Gloria three years ago, if this happened, oh my God, I would have been a wreck. I would not have been able to get out of bed. I would have had anxiety attacks. And I think now, when this happened, and I don't really know what's going to happen in the future, I have a sense of relief and clarity that this is my sign from the universe that I am about to unlock my next level. Because I truly do believe that the team and thoughts and the systems that got you here won't get you there. And that's where I am. I'm in this process of shedding and purging so that I can rebirth something at a higher level. But it's scary. It's terrifying. And I resisted it for so long, just like you when you niched down.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah, I totally understand that. And so I'm guessing you still have a small team right now. I know you said some people have left. Who's on your team right now?

    Gloria Chou: Yeah. So we just off-boarded our ads agency. We decided to take it in-house. Our main marketing person, we've off-boarded her as well. And I decided to resume the CMO seat. And then my main—the person who has been with me for four and a half years, she's moving to Asia, so we decided it was best to off-board. And also, our podcast producer is also moving on because his wife was the marketing person. So I think I lost—not lost, but we have four people who are transitioning off. So I had a team of about seven to eight contractors, and now I have about half of that.

    And honestly, it feels—as scary as it was, I felt like it was the fire under my ass that I needed 'cause otherwise, I would have kept the status quo even though it wasn't performing super optimally. As you know, as humans, we have such a strong favour towards inertia and staying where we are. And we would rather stay in the—whether it's a bad relationship or where we are now, knowing that it's not quite right, than actually just pull the plug because it's scary.

    So I think that's what I'm dealing with now. And I'm realising that my reflexes are a lot faster now where I'm like, "Okay, this wasn't working. Let's just have an uncomfortable conversation." I just had to have a performance conversation with one of my assistants today. And I was like, "Listen, I understand that there's a time zone issue and all this stuff, but the business needs a person who can X, Y, and Z, and I'm not seeing that you're able to do this."

    It was a kind conversation, but it's a conversation I definitely could not be equipped to have years ago because it would have been very personal, it would have been very emotional, it would have been very much like, "Well, you did this," and now it's just like, "Okay, this is what the business needs and this is just what I'm seeing. So what do you think? How can we co-create this?" Whereas before it was very accusatory. And I think my instinct is still to accuse because as founders, we feel like we know everything.

    But now, it's more of a curiosity and an exploratory conversation of, "Well, how do you think that we should create the future?" or "How do you see this going?", which is a way of conversing that we are so not used to at all, but you learn.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah, no, I love that. And I've definitely had my own experiences of hires that didn't go right, and I'm still learning. I'm still learning how to hire and how to navigate things when things start to go a little bit dodgy. [laughs] I'm still figuring it out. So I can totally relate to that. And by the way, if you're looking for a podcast producer, I have an amazing one. So let me know because I'll intro you. He's amazing.

    So one of the things that I was really fascinated about, when I was researching you and listening to you on podcasts and things like that, is the fact that first of all, you moved around quite a lot as a child. But also that you left China at 13 years old to live with your best friend's family in the US. The level of resilience that must've taken. It's no wonder you're such a successful business owner now. First of all, tell us a little bit about that. And then I'd love to also know how you think that early experience has shaped you as a business owner and person.

    Gloria Chou: Ooh, it's so interesting. I'm sure you know this. The very things that make you successful are also the things that are going to hold you back. And so I think everything is a double-edged sword and it's in that balance that you create harmony. And I think if you lean too much into the one side, that's where it holds you back. And so that's exactly what happened to me.

    So growing up, my father died when I was three. My mother worked abroad a lot. So I was raised by aunts and grandparents and a product of divorce as well and just moving 13 times as a kid. I was always very independent, always very resilient, and it was very much me against the world, which is a lot of what the common story of entrepreneurship is. You go through a hardship, you realise you're your own hero, and then you start something that's against the status quo. So that's what gave me the gumption to be able to carve out this path that's very not traditional.

    And then in high school, I moved to China to a boarding school for one year where I had to cut my hair to my ear length. And it was very hard for me as a Chinese American to then go back to China. And I moved back because I was so depressed and I was using AOL messenger at that point. And I would be crying to my best friends and they were going to prom and I was stuck in this dorm. And my best friend was like, "Why don't you just move in with us for the rest of high school?"

    And so they took me in. She's my best friend. She's my sister. And, and I call her mum "Mum" and they're a Black family. And so also, I was exposed to living with a Black family in a predominantly white neighbourhood, which opened up my eyes to what it was like to be Black in America. So that's like a whole different conversation. So that was really interesting. And when I think about where I grew up, it's a hard question because I don't see myself as a product of anything. It's just kind of like I am a—I call myself an orphan of the world. I belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And that's really great because—

    I was actually talking to my friend, Sonia Thompson who has a diversity and inclusion podcast, Inclusion and Marketing, and she's like, "Why is it that you've been able to attract such a high number of BIPOC women?" Because when I look at my program, it's one of the most diverse in the entire online space. Most people are either women of colour or they're first-generation immigrants. People whose English is not their first language. People who are neurodivergent. People from all different faiths and abilities.

    And I told her, "You know, I don't know why that is. I feel really grateful, but I think it's maybe just my energy or my ethos." Because I've been exposed to so many different ways of living, whether it's family dynamics or my role in staying at someone else's house, that my messaging and the way that I orientate myself is very open and I think I have a curiosity. So I've been able to attract a very diverse clientele.

    Now, the flip side of that, because it's not all sunshine and rainbows, the flip side of that is that I'm very impatient and I feel like I got this, I know best. And so because I've been able to do it for so long by myself, when I needed to grow my business and really hire a team, it was very hard for me because I didn't have the patience that is required to fully onboard someone with success, to make them feel supported. It was very much transactional and people left.

    I remember I hired someone, onboarded them, and then within two weeks, they left. And I was like, "What was that?" And so that was money, that was even more money and more time. And I realised that I could not keep leading and running a team in that way. And I had to really evaluate what it was, how can I get people to buy into the mission and the vision and have systems to be able to constantly remind them of that instead of just "Well, here, I paid you to do something. Go do it."

    So it was a very humbling lesson to see where my shortcomings are, but it was also one of the best things because in my journey of becoming a better leader, I become a better person. I become a more empathetic wife to my husband. I become a more patient daughter to my mother. And so I see how becoming a better leader has helped me in all other areas of life.

    Eman Ismail: Are you an only child, Gloria?

    Gloria Chou: [laughs] Yeah, I am an only child.

    Eman Ismail: Me too. I'm an only child as well, which is very unusual in my community. You do not meet people from my community that only have one child. In my entire life, I don't think I've ever met another Somali who is an only child. And if you know one, please let me know because in my entire life, I've never met one.

    And so I feel like only children have this fierce level of independence. We are so used to doing it alone, figuring it out alone, being alone. And I don't mean that in a bad sense because I loved being alone. [laughs] I loved my own company, still do. And I did grow up with a lot of extended family. So I really never was lonely.

    But you do have that sense of like, "It's me and I got to figure this out." And I'm, again, fiercely independent. And so when I hear you talking about figuring out how to be a leader, I feel like, certainly in my experience, it's been difficult to let go of the reins because I feel like I've always done it on my own. I just need to figure this out by myself. I can do it on my own. And it's easier and better for everyone if I just do it.

    And so that letting go of the power and letting go of control and accepting help and accepting support has been difficult for me. I don't know if you experienced that. I attribute it to that experience as an only child. I wondered if you'd experienced something similar.

    Gloria Chou: 100%. Yeah, I think our threshold for patience for other people to get it—because I don't know if you feel this way, but I have a feeling, and I noticed this with my husband—who is also an only child, but he definitely did not move as a kid, he's never had any kind of instability—that we do things on a much faster timeline than most people And that's very hard when you have a team from remote who have maybe English is not their first language. So being so action-taking, because we're very action-oriented, that maybe it's hard because it can come off as lack of patience. It can come off as a lot of pressure.

    And I've definitely disempowered my team that way because I'm like, "Why can't you finish this? I could have done this five minutes ago." And if you keep leading like that, then who wants to work for someone like that? Where is the empathy in that? So that was definitely a realisation, was that I needed to stretch my empathy and patience way more to be able to grow as a team. And there was just no way you can operate a business if you're always doing things for them.

    Here's another thing. If you keep correcting everything, which I used to, like every little spelling error, they just quickly get disempowered. And then you're so focused on the little things, nitty gritty, that, A, they don't understand or fix their mistakes because you're always going to catch them, so then they just don't care. Then they just come to you to double-check their work. So you're not giving ownership to that person. So you're creating more work for yourself because you're always going to do it for them anyways. And then you disempower them because you're basically saying, "I don't really trust you to do this so I'm just going to trust you to have a part of it, but I am going to be the final person."

    So there's there's no accountability in that and there's no way that you can really concentrate on your area of work if you don't completely hand off things. Then that's why you hire a lot of people and you're still doing more work because you're not really handing off anything.

    Eman Ismail: Wow. Okay. You know what? Let's get into it. I'm excited to chat with you about what I invited you here for. Are you ready, Gloria?

    Gloria Chou: Yes.

    Eman Ismail: Okay.

    Stick around. Don't go anywhere. We'll get right back to this episode after this quick break.

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    Gloria, what is the mistake that made you?

    Gloria Chou: So many mistakes, but the mistakes that made me for where I am right now is leading everything through a scarcity money mindset where everything was so scarce and I was just only so focused on the money that I lost track of the big picture.

    Eman Ismail: Okay, let's talk about that. So take us back to the beginning. What was going on in your life, in your business that made you experience life and business from this kind of money scarcity mindset place?

    Gloria Chou: I think we talked a little bit about the manifestation, but let's talk about the root of it. So growing up as a child of a Chinese immigrant who literally was sewing shoes in a factory, I had a very I would say unhealthy relationship with money where I was told from a very young age that the more money I made, the more valuable and worthy I am as a human being. So my entire notion of identity and safety was wrapped up in that.

    Now, obviously, my mother, having been a widow and having been a product of divorce, I also saw her be very financially oriented and she's very strong, but she always reminded me, she said, "No one will ever take care of you. You can't depend on anyone. You have to be the only person to take care of yourself." So I had it so deeply ingrained in me that that was the end goal was financial stability, more than anything.

    And I saw how as I got into a relationship with my husband and how as I was growing a team how that really—not only did it suck the joy out of everyday little moments, but it made me lose sight of what was really important, which is who is the person I am becoming through leadership?

    I realised that by only focusing on hiring very cheaply or hiring for the least expensive, not only did I not get the best result, because oftentimes I could have just made a bigger investment and had way more growth, but I instead just went with the cheapest option so then people ended up leaving or it wasn't the right proper skill set so it delayed my growth in so many ways. It also prevented me from really realising what's the point of all of this.

    And the point of all of this is not really to make money. I mean, it is, but it's really the person you get to become in the process of doing that. It's the leader that you become. It's the amount of empathy and patience and investment and the vision that you can share. And I really think that I forgot all about that. I had no idea that there was a huge piece of business that I was not tapping into, which is becoming a leader, becoming someone who could get the best out of people, not in a transactional way, not only through hyping people up, but really seeing how they can achieve the best version of themselves and unleash their creative potential.

    So I completely was not receiving that. I cut myself off from that because when you live in an energy of constriction where everything is like, "Oh, I just have to hoard everything," or if you make some money, you have to keep it, you're not creating a space, you're not creating an opening for all of the joy, abundance, and beauty, and possibility to come into your life.

    So now that I've done a lot of healing work around that with somatic therapy and breath work and really making my nervous system feel safe and getting to the root of why it is that I feel this need to whether it's be scarce or to constrict or to hoard then I'm able to rewrite that narrative and to take bigger risks, and it has absolutely changed my entire life—the way that I show up with friends. Yeah.

    Eman Ismail: We're going to talk about that in a bit, but I want to just clarify something with you, and you kind of got into it just a little bit there. You spoke about having scarcity around money. What did that sound like in your mind? What did that feel like in your body? And how did that translate to the decisions you were making in your business?

    Gloria Chou: So the feeling of it—because we all store emotions in our body—it feels like a tightness in my chest. It feels like a tenseness where your shoulders are up. It's the energy of holding on. So it's a tenseness. And in terms of how it manifested was always negotiating with everyone, seeing how I could get the cheapest rates. It was almost like I valued that money part more than that relationship. And nobody wants to do a good job for you if you're so worried just about how much you're going to pay them.

    So I was focused on the dollars more than the relationship I was creating with that vendor or contractor. And so that really took away the beauty in the relationship because things were not in flow. And yeah, it's, on every level, closed me off to so many opportunities for growth and collaboration.

    Eman Ismail: Wow, you mentioned when we were talking privately before I hit record, that this led to some bad hires and made you a bad leader. Give me an example of a time when you were a bad leader or that you hired wrong.

    Gloria Chou: Yeah, I can give you two examples. So one of them is our launch. So after we had our first six-figure launch—the team was working tirelessly, we finally did it—I remember looking at the few, only a handful of people who wanted a refund, and I was so upset at my team. And I remember saying, "What happened here? Why are people asking for refunds?" And instead of celebrating this amazing accomplishment that we, as a very young business, were able to create a six-figure launch, I was only focused on the handful of people who wanted a refund. And I just took all that joy and accomplishment away from my team. I ruined that moment of celebration.

    And I look back on it and I'm so not proud because here they were working so hard for a common vision that I had implemented, and after we crossed the finish line, I was still focused on those four or five people who wanted a refund. So it's really short-sighted of me, and that's really what this energy does—it makes you a short-sighted person, and leaders are not short-sighted. So that's one thing that I learned.

    Another thing that I learned is when you're hiring, when you want to save money because you just started in your online business, you want to hire a jack of all trades who can do everything—the marketing, the social media, the funnels, the admin. And one thing I learned from my friend, Veronica Romney, who is great at team building and stuff, she's like, "There are the doers and then there are the thinkers in the business. And the worst thing you can do is disempower someone who is a strategic, great, brilliant mind and make them do all of the implementation."

    And so I used to hire someone to do all of it. You figure it out, you implement it. Who wants to do that when there's not a clear definition of what they are accountable for? Because let's be honest, if you're accountable for everything, then you're accountable for nothing. So I used to hire people to do everything in my business because it was easier, because it was the best deal. And now, I really focus on hiring experts.

    And in fact, one of the lessons I've learned is that I'd rather be the CMO in my business and hire people like you for very strategic, high-level specific projects than have someone like you working with me on a retainer. And I think it's so much a better use of your time as a brilliant strategist than to have you in the business in the day-to-day. So that's the big thing that I learned.

    And so for anyone that's listening, I encourage you to think about that too. Are you trying to just stuff everything into one role and getting really lacklustre results, or are you able to really see clearly what are the things that you need in your business and hire those experts at that pay grade? Yes, they're going to be more expensive, but there's a reason for that, and to have it be done well.

    Eman Ismail: So interesting that you say that because it took me a good few years to realise that if you want to save money when you're hiring, hire the best person for the job, even [laughs] if they cost more because when usually, when you're paying more for the expert, you will save money in the long run, and they'll do a better job faster as well. So I totally agree, but it took me a long time to realise that.

    I listened to you in another interview talking about the hustle that this scarcity mindset kind of created in you. You spoke about an insatiable hunger for more, always looking around at what everyone else has achieved and feeling like what you've achieved is just never enough. Tell me about that.

    Gloria Chou: So this always goes back to the root, which is our feelings of safety. So the way that we orientate ourselves in life, in love, in business has a lot to do with our feelings of safety. And so as a kid, I never felt safe. And my feeling of safety was money. So it was this equation that I had when in reality, there's no amount of money that could have made me safe.

    How did I know that, Eman? Because I did my first six-figure launch and I went into panic mode about the five people who wanted a refund. So I had "accomplished all of the benchmarks for success," but I was so unhappy. I was so burnt out. The next thing I was like, "How are we going to make another six-figure launch?" And you hear this about celebrities and people who win Grammys. It's like, "Well, how am I going to top that?"

    And so I realised that there's something that was fundamentally wrong with the way that I viewed safety and money that I needed to unravel at the root of who I was because I was just going after the money at the sake of ruining my date nights with my husband, ruining my health. I had a huge fibroid that grew during the time that I was building my business. It grew to 13 centimetres, which is a baby's head. And I really do believe that that grew at the rate that it did because of my inability to listen to my body.

    I remember being on a date night with my husband. He was looking across from me and he had booked this beautiful restaurant and got a reservation, put it in my calendar, and he did everything. All I needed to do was show up. Not only did I show up wearing the same sweatpants I did the whole day with dog hair all over it, while he was trying to talk to me, I was trying to talk to somebody, a potential lead in the DMs. And he looked at me and he says, "Is it really worth it, Gloria? I just want one hour where we're just together and we're not on our computers. Could you not even put in the effort to change?"

    And not that he's judgmental about how I looked, but I just had no effort whatsoever. He's like, "You know, I got a haircut today. I wore this outfit. And I don't need you to be fancy, but I just wanted two hours where we could just be husband and wife, where you are not a business owner." And at that moment, I looked at him and I realised I was giving away so much more by constantly being at a hustle. And what really mattered was the time that I had with him. So that was kind of a huge wake-up call.

    Eman Ismail: That's so heartbreaking. I laughed when you said the sweatpants thing because that's me. That's just me. I'm like, if I can just show up, I'm there. [laughs] At least I made it, you know? So I totally get that. But it was absolutely heartbreaking. But I love that your husband was able to say that to you and give you that perspective. And you're so right. Sometimes we don't realise the other things that are passing us by while we're busy focusing on X, Y, Z.

    I am trying, I've noticed recently that I'm spending a lot more time working around the kids where usually, I wouldn't have. Firstly, I've never been able to, really, but as my two-year-old is getting a little bit older, two and a half now, there are small pockets of time where I can sneak away and be doing stuff on my computer or usually my phone. And I just started thinking, I don't want that. I specifically have built this business, I built it because I was unhappy about the way that I was able to show up as a mother in the standard 9-to-5 that was way more than 9-to-5.

    And so that's not what I want. When I'm with my kids, I want to be with my kids. I want to focus on them and have fun with them. And when I'm at work, I want to focus at work. Because you'll have those moments—and I know that parents will get this—where when you're trying to do both and you're trying to be here and there, you just leave—you just feel like you're not doing anything well.

    So you've had a day where you just feel like you've been a really bad mum and just totally not present and you've also been a bad business owner. And so there's no—you just kind of lost it all, you know? [laughs] You got nothing from trying to be everything and do everything. And so that's something I'm definitely trying to work on at the moment—being more focused, more present because, again, I can see it kind of slowly disappearing. So I totally get that. And I totally feel for you and your husband as well. But I'm glad you were able to turn that around and realise that.

    I'm glad you mentioned your abdominal surgery and having your fibroid removed and that struggle that you went through because I think it's so important that we listen to our bodies. You were working through your launch with bandages on you. That's how much you were in the hustle and grind.

    Gloria Chou: Oh, I feel like getting emotional thinking about that. I have videos of me, actually. We take B-roll, and so there was a video of me just on my chair just doing these webinars one after another and just staying on. I think one webinar was like three hours. And then I was like in the DMs. And so the whole day, my husband was just following me around and I didn't even pay him any attention. I was literally voice noting while I was in the bathroom. I was voice noting while I was like eating my meals. And while I was still recovering from the surgery.

    And you know, what really hit home for me was I met a woman who also had a similar surgery, not for a fibroid, she had a C-section, which is pretty much the same thing that I did because I had an open abdominal surgery, it wasn't a laparoscopic one. And she said something like, "Oh, wow, you have the same surgery," because I showed her my scar. And she's like, "Oh, man, you must have been bedridden for months. I didn't leave the house for like 10 weeks." And I'm here thinking, "I did my six-figure launch within three weeks of that surgery."

    I didn't tell her that, but at that moment, I realised how poorly I treated myself and how major that surgery was and how I gave myself no time to recover whatsoever 'cause I was just so focused on next, next, next. And I think that's my default. It's not like today, when I'm talking to you, I don't have that. I think my tendency, which is my default wiring, is always like more, next, that insatiable thing, but now I recognise it. And, yes, some decisions will be made that way.

    Today, I didn't feel very proud because I talked to one of my team members and she was going over her retainer hours and this was a pattern that I was seeing. And I made a comment about how, you know, we really need to stick within the retainer hours, which objectively is true, but then I immediately felt bad because I feel like, well, she's been doing such a great job. Maybe I'm disempowering her.

    So I constantly am at odds, but at least I'm aware of that internal battle. And now I create a level of spaciousness where maybe not ten out of ten times I'm gonna react that way. Maybe it's only five out of ten times that I'm reacting in my default way and maybe five of those times I'm choosing to be different. So it definitely is a spectrum. It's a practice that you have to do every single day. It's a muscle. But it's very hard when it's generational for all of us. And I'm sure you as well, right? Especially women of colour who have been coming from war-torn countries or famine and it's just so ingrained in our generation.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah. Gosh, there's so much I want to say about this, so many things I was thinking as you said it because I feel like some people who maybe don't get it might think that this conversation is coming from a place of greed, like more money, more money, more money, but it's coming from a place of trauma. It's coming from a place of the most kind of basic, deepest of human needs for security and safety because we have seen what insecurity looks like. We have seen and some of us have lived and some of us have heard from very close sources what it looks like, what it sounds like to not be safe.

    And so I can actually really relate. I remember going through this as—it was actually when I was saving for my maternity leave for my second son. So I spoke about this a little bit in another podcast episode, but my first maternity leave—well, I didn't get a maternity leave [laughs] with my first son. I just didn't get one. I was working throughout.

    I had a C-section. Both births were truly traumatic. Three days of labour and then emergency C-sections after three full days of labour, no sleep, couldn't birth the babies because of medical reasons and—naturally, I mean, couldn't birth babies naturally or vaginally. I hate that term "naturally" because a C-section is still giving birth naturally. Giving birth is natural, so I just have to correct myself around that. But I couldn't give birth vaginally, so I had to have these emergency C-sections. The most pain I've ever experienced and oh my gosh, I'm like transporting myself back to that place and I don't want to.

    But within a few days, I had my laptop out and I was working, and I had my three-day-old baby next to me and was working because I needed to make money and I wasn't even making a lot of money. It was like pennies that I was making at the time, but I needed to make that money.

    So when it came to my second pregnan—well, this pregnancy, I stopped myself because I actually had a miscarriage on my first, so my first pregnancy wasn't my first baby. Second pregnancy was my first baby. Third pregnancy was my second baby. So with my second baby, I couldn't go through that again. I need to make as much money as possible. I need to hoard all the money because I'm not gonna be able to work for I don't know how long. That desperate fear and like, I need to save the money.

    And it was terrifying. And I did it. I did it. I made the most that I've ever made up until that point in my business that year out of sheer determination and fear. Nothing drives you like fear. But then when it was time to start spending the money that I had saved for my maternity leave, it was terrifying because, I mean, I'd done all this work to save this money for this point so I could spend it so that I didn't have to work. But then spending what I'd saved was like a whole other trauma. [laughs] No one prepared me for that.

    And I remember speaking to Linda Perry, who is a mindset coach. She's amazing. If you don't know her, check her out, Linda Perry. And she said to me, 'cause I was having these nervous feelings just before the baby came. I was talking to her about it and she said, "Well, it's no wonder because you've been saving and saving and hoarding and hoarding and hoarding. And for you right now, the hoarding and the saving is the security. And so spending that is dangerous. Spending that takes you out of that security and that safety."

    And so I always feel really frustrated when I see people laughing and mocking women who talk about wanting to make six figures or making six figures or making seven figures or making money or just talking about money in general. I know that the internet tide is turning a little bit where we're frustrated with people talking about money online. I will never be angry at a woman of colour specifically, a child of immigrants specifically, talking about money online. We do it because we know what the alternative is, and we don't want it.

    Gloria Chou: That's so powerful. You're making me tear up. I mean, that's absolutely incredible. And you know what's so funny is one of the things that I—I do a lot of plant medicine journeys and it's really helped me with my trauma because I really do believe that trauma has to be processed in the body, not just rationally. Safety is a feeling that you have to feel and that's how I've been able to heal my relationship with my mother, who I only lived eight years of my life with. That's for another episode.

    But I realised that in the online space, there still is not a space for people to talk about business and wealth through the lens of the generational trauma. It's all like, "If I can do it, you can too," and "Follow this person for six, seven figures." But what about the deeply ingrained traumas that unless we really unravel that, we will never be free. We will never be able to come home to ourselves. I think making money is part of that but really feeling good about that money, feeling like you deserve to get yourself a business class ticket while you're pregnant, those are the things that people don't talk about.

    And so I think the work that you and I are doing, especially with having this conversation, is realising we're not all coming from the same place. It's not just make money and you're set. Let's talk about how it's very different from someone who is from a war-torn country or someone whose family escaped communism and had food rations and were sent away to labour camps. That is a real scarcity that's ingrained in the DNA, and if you study epigenetics, it surely gets passed down.

    So I want to see more conversations in the online space taking that into consideration instead of this one-size-fits-all manifestation, like, "Let's do it, girls," because that's just not the reality for so many people. That's only a part of the picture.

    Eman Ismail: I totally agree with you. And also, in addition to that, some people have the privilege of only needing to take care of themselves and worry about themselves. And I think a lot of other people from other different communities don't. We know that we have to take care of our families. Right now, people are having to take care of their families back home or extended families back home, or you know that you're going to have to take care of your parents in elderly age financially because there is no generational wealth. There is no house to be passed down. There is no money to be passed down except for that which you make today.

    And so it's a completely different world. It is an entirely different world that we're coming from. And I totally agree that we need those spaces where we can talk about that and be understood. And sometimes you don't even want to explain this stuff. You just want to be in a space where you can be silently understood.

    Gloria Chou: That is so powerful. I think another episode needs to be done on just that. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: I agree. I so agree.

    So let's talk about the second part of this, the more positive side of this. So you experienced all this scarcity in your money mindset. That was your biggest business mistake. But how did this mistake make you? How did it shape the person and business owner you became? And how did it help you become the person you are now?

    Gloria Chou: I think from learning how hoarding money and seeing things through a very transactional lens did not lead to greater leaps, did not lead to greater abundance, whether it was me feeling abundant or in my business, I started to realise that that equation, it just didn't make sense anymore, that zero-sum equation of, well, if you spend money here, then that's money that you're not going to spend somewhere else.

    I realised factually from seeing how I could have grown and I didn't because I took shortcuts or I hired cheaply, I realised that that equation was fundamentally flawed. So I had to create a new one. And I also illuminated my shortcomings in empathy and my lack of patience and the ways that I was willing to sacrifice joy and progress and presence and abundance just so I could hoard more money.

    So that has fundamentally changed the way I see how I show up, how I'm a partner to my husband how I'm a leader in my team, and it's still very uncomfortable. But I will say that now, for example when I hire someone, I see it not as, "Well, what are you gonna do for me?" It's more, "How am I going to set you up for success in the first 30 days or two weeks? How am I going to give you a proper onboarding checklist? How am I going to set you up with one-on-one meetings with everyone? How am I going to co-create your KPIs?" Instead of, "Okay, I hired you, I'm paying you. What are you going to do for me?"

    And that has fundamentally changed the way that new hires are enrolled in the vision of the company. How, even if they are contractors, we're still able to get full-time buy-in and commitment, which is very hard these days. It's also shown me that obviously, not everything is about money. It's not that if you technically pay someone more, they're more committed because it's really about the vision.

    So I've been able to elevate myself from this boss role into a leader, and that's really what we want because we all want to work for leaders, not bosses. Nobody wants a boss, but everybody wants to be led. So that has fundamentally changed the way I show up.

    It's also changed the way that I see business partnerships differently. So seeing things through a lens of, well, maybe there's not money to be exchanged, but there's so much more value to be exchanged, whether it's the conversation that we have now, whether it's the intrinsic value that we're building, that we're displaying. And so it has just brought such a deliciousness to my business where before, I was absolutely closed off to it because I just saw opportunity and gains through a very singular lens.

    And what I started to do is I started to do these free champagne and canapés happy hour for my community where people who have enrolled in my program, every city I go to, I try to meet up with them. I meet up with them in person. I take them out for coffee. I ask them what their mailing address is. I like to send them a little tote bag. And so I'm in the process of shipping out these 50 tote bags. And it's all free, but I feel like in that karmic exchange, in that energy exchange, I am flexing that muscle of me finally learning that lesson that abundance is not just about money. And in most cases, the most beautiful displays of abundance is not anything that you can buy.

    Eman Ismail: Wow. I think one of the things that demonstrates really well how much your mindset shifted was the retreat that you took your team on. Tell us about the retreat.

    Gloria Chou: That too. So I would have never in my wildest dreams been able to justify me paying for an all-expenses retreat, flights, hotels, dinners. And I started to listen to what people in my mastermind were doing. The people who had the most successful businesses, they kept talking about, "Well, for our retreat, we did this." And I was like, "What do you mean retreat? You mean like retreat for your clients?" And they're like, "No, retreat for my team." And I was like, "Well, that's really interesting."

    So what I did this year is I have people who work with us in the US and in the Philippines. So I flew the people from the US to the Philippines and we all went onto an island. We got a villa so we did team-building exercises. I also bring in coaches, so I bring in productivity coaches, mindset coaches, even someone to do like a meditation for us. And so I think having those things, especially when you have a remote team, shows them that they are part of something bigger, and I think we all want to be something bigger than ourselves.

    And so that has single-handedly really increased team performance. It's increased the way that we communicate with each other. We all know that anything with performance has to do with a breakdown of communication. And when you do have team members from all around the world, which many of us do, we live and die by how well we can communicate and how the teams can feel comfortable communicating without you being there.

    And so having those team retreats in person where people some people might be introverts, some people might be extroverts, you're always going to get a mix of that in the team, it's allowed us to smoothen the edges. It's allowed us to fill in the gaps and to just get everybody talking to each other and it has absolutely transformed our performance in so many ways.

    So I highly encourage you, whoever's listening, if it's not feasible to fly people, then see how you can do a virtual retreat or play a game where it's not about work and it's just about you guys getting to know each other. And I promise you, you're going to have so much goodwill and positivity on the team, it's going to keep paying the dividends even beyond that virtual one hour.

    Eman Ismail: That's really amazing. And something that really stuck out to me is when you said we live and die by communication. I think sometimes we forget that managing a remote team, working in a remote team or in a remote setting, can be really difficult. There are so many pros. That's why I do it. And all of the contractors that I work with are remote as well. But there are a lot of challenges.

    And so often, like you said, it's just a breakdown of miscommunication. And so often it's because you can't hear even just like a tone, or you can't hear how the person is saying a thing. Because you can say something, like I can say something to you and it sounds fine, but I write it down, and devoid of the tone that shares the meaning and the intention behind it, it can come across sometimes as really either too direct or maybe a bit rude or a bit short.

    And I've definitely experienced this where someone has completely misconstrued, misunderstood, misinterpreted something that I have written or said. And I think one of the things I said to someone I used to work with, we don't work together anymore, was that like, "I assume the best of you and I need you to assume the best of me. So if I ever say anything to you, assume that it's coming from the nicest and the best of places and I'll extend that same courtesy to you. And also, we're on the same team. We are not against one another. If there's an issue, it's us against the issue, as relationship therapists like to say, versus us against each other."

    So that's something that I've been really working on with my team and it's something I've been thinking about a lot and that I'm now thinking about more listening to you, is that I work with a lot of contractors and sometimes those contractors work together, but they don't know each other. They all just know me. And so I need to, and want to work more on helping them create relationships with one another so that communication is smooth and so that everyone does know each other and so that everyone feels like we're moving in the same direction and for the same mission and values. So, yeah, I mean, as you're saying this, I'm already writing down my to-dos.

    Gloria Chou: That's powerful. I'm actually going to—what you just said, I'm going to say it to my team. I love what you said. "I assume the best of you and I want you to assume the best of me and it's us against the issue, not against each other." I got to write that down. So many gems. Thank you.

    Eman Ismail: I'm glad I could help. You taught me a lot. I'm glad I could help.

    Thank you so much for everything that you've shared with us. You've been so open and vulnerable as well. I would love to know, what do you want people listening to learn from your experience?

    Gloria Chou: I want people to know that it's never too late to truly understand the beliefs and the narratives that helped us survive and to unravel that. And I feel like life is about letting go, letting go of our old narratives, letting go of our default patterns, so that we can step into a higher version of ourselves. And a lot of it starts with letting go. So think about what ways can you let go of maybe the beliefs or the things that have kept you going for a long time but are no longer serving you.

    May this episode serve as a permission for you to feel safe to let go of that so that you can let something even more beautiful in, which in case for me, that's what happened with me. I had to let go of the scarcity of that control so that I could become a more empowered and visionary leader. So how can you let go of something so that you can let in something even better?

    Eman Ismail: I love that. I can hear someone somewhere listening to this episode and saying, "How do I know if I have a scarcity money mindset versus  this is actually just not a good decision and I should keep my money?" [laughs] How can we identify when holding onto your money is the right thing for you versus the wrong thing?

    Gloria Chou: I think it comes down to knowing what is the most dominant intention at play in a certain scenario. If your main intention when you're debating between contractors is, "How can I save more money?", then obviously, you know that that's money at play. But if your main intention is, "Who is the most aligned to do this work for our business at this stage of our business?", then you know that you're truly approaching it from a different lens.

    So think about what are all the decisions at play and what is the most dominant overruling one, what is that energy, and then you'll be able to discern whether or not you are truly living from a place of abundance and trust or a place of constriction and scarcity.

    Eman Ismail: I love that. That was the perfect answer. Thank you so much, Gloria. Where can people find you if they want to stay connected?

    Gloria Chou: So I'm on all the social media, mainly on Instagram. You can find me @gloriachoupr. You can watch my PR masterclass and learn how to get PR for your business. That's gloriachoupr.com/masterclass. I also host my own podcast called Small Business PR, where we give you all the things that the PR agencies will not tell you. We interview journalists about exactly what they're looking for in the story and how to follow up with them. And if you actually DM me the word "pitch", I will give you a pitching freebie to help you get started in your journey so that you can impact more people because your story deserves to be seen by more people.

    Eman Ismail: Amazing. And those links will be in the show notes. So do check them out and go find Gloria on Instagram and DM her that word "pitch." Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being here. This was such an amazing conversation.

    Gloria Chou: Thank you.

    Eman Ismail: That was such a great conversation. One thing that really stuck out to me was the story of Gloria being in that restaurant with her husband but not really being very present. I mean, I think we've all done this. I know I have. I actually had this happen with my baby—okay, toddler—recently, and I'm really ashamed of this but I'm going to share it anyway.

    I was busy doing work on my phone—and I think that's what's difficult about our work is that it often happens on our phone, especially when we're posting on socials and that kind of thing. But I was doing work on my phone and my two-year-old was calling me, "Mama, Mama, Mama." If you've ever been around a two-year-old, you'll know that's nothing new. He calls me all day and all night. "Mama, mama, mama." 

    Well, this one time, I didn't respond because I was looking at my phone, working or doing something, and he cupped his little, tiny, two-year-old hands around my face, and he physically turned my face towards him so I was looking at him. We made eye contact, and he said, one last time, emphatically, "Mama." That's when I put my work down. That was my restaurant moment.

    What are we sacrificing in order to make money? Money will always be there, but the people around us? Not so much. I'm working on being more present so that when I'm working, I'm working, and when I'm with my kids, I'm really with my kids. That was a hard story to share. Again, I'm super ashamed of it. But if it helps you think about how you could be less focused on the grind, the hustle, the money, so you can just be with whoever you want to be with and really be with them, it's worth me sharing it.

    Ever wondered what goes into creating this podcast? What my production process looks like? How I came up with the concept for this show? How I choose which guests to invite and how exactly I research them? Well, I'm sharing everything inside my bonus episode, Behind the Scenes: Making the Podcast. For this special episode, the show's podcast producer, Zuri Berry, takes the reins and interviews me so you can find out all the juicy details and behind-the-scenes stories. 

    I reveal, for the first time ever, how I landed the HubSpot partnership and what that agreement involves, as well as the key to sending a podcast pitch that'll get my attention, the interview methods that helped me nail my podcast interviews, and the resources and strategies I've used to help make this show a success.

    If you want instant access to this bonus episode, click the link in the show notes or head over to emancopyco.com/bts, that's behind the scenes, emancopyco.com/bts. Put in your email address, and that's it. It's yours.

    Next time on Mistakes That Made Me.

    Mai-Kee Tsang: He didn't tell me to do it, but it was always celebrated when I did. On a sales call, if I managed to get someone to cry. Yeah, it's to heighten the emotional state so they're more susceptible to saying yes to you, to help you get out of that state. So he broke down why it works and I hated doing it, but at the time, I felt like apparently, this is how it's done. Okay.

Eman Ismail
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