Banking on Beauty: Ava’s Leap from Wall Street to Skincare Queen

so I also never thought I was going to be an entrepreneur this I built this brand last year purely because I just

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like thought there was no brand doing what I'm doing right now and really emphasizing the Inner Health aspect of

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things right and I knew this is what healed me so I really wanted to get this out to the public but I think my

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audience was honestly the one who told me to start a brand because I was talking about this so organically in my content that they were like please sell

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it please sell it to us and that's kind of how the brand came about in a way is never going to launch a brand

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[Music]

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ever I am very excited to welcome our next guest Ava Lee to quiet the clock podcast you are the owner and creator of

Welcome Ava

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by Ava yes entrepreneur and I do want to talk all things about your business and your your journey and your just career

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and egg freezing Journey so welcome and thank you so much for being here thank you for having me it's an honor oh and

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you were so generous and and gifted me with a little bit of your products which I was like telling you before I'm want

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to buy all of them because I believe in what you're doing and I love to hear like did you always have an

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entrepreneurial Spirit did you always KN know you would do start a business like how did that come to be for you um I

How did that come to be

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actually have quite the entire opposite uh mindset I don't have a single

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entrepreneur in my family never ever thought I would be an entrepreneur to be honest with you you know I grew up in an

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Asian household where all I did was study like we didn't do family vacations all I literally did my whole life was

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books study study study and it was kind of robotic right you take a test you get

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into college you do the same thing and then in college um I actually thought I

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wanted to be a diplomat my whole life and then I experimented that and I was like you know what this is not for me so

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um I was like you know I'm just going to get the hardest job I can get out of college then so I went straight into Investment Banking which once again is a

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very very robotic job right so um I fit that typical stereotype you just go

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behind Excel spread you you work your as off you work like 120 hours a week so that's what I did in New York for the

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first few years wow um and then after investing banking of course I went to another Finance career I worked at a

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hedge fund for a few years and then from there on I went to another private Equity Fund so it was just non-stop

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robotic work wow so that was my career and I thought I was I was going to retire Finance that's all I knew how to

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do I thought I was the most the least creative person on Earth because all I KN knew how to do was work in Excel

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spreadsheet do numbers wow read decks right that was my career so we talk a

Growing up in Asia

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lot on here about sort of this blueprint that's already laid out for us and these boxes that we should be checking

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and beinged byes or mod and so you did not grow up

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in this country right no I didn't I grew up in Asia my whole life the first time I ever came to the United States was for

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college wow yeah no family vacations no nothing you were studying you were busy

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studying what was what was the blueprint if there was one laid out for you like what was the expectation like culturally

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was it different like our blueprint here really is you know College job out of college partnership

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marriage babies that was honestly my blueprint too like my parents didn't want me to go to the US because it's

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first of all very very expensive but I somehow was like I just need to get out of here I need to get out of this like

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Asian like stereotype so I begged my parents to go to the US I went to knowre

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name um cool probably the whitest school in America what was that like transition like for you culturally pretty big

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culture shock in a way so I was born in Korea Soul big city grew up in Beijing

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and Shanghai once again very big cities my whole life and then I went to southin Indiana like that's that's like a

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culture shock from New York yeah like I was like why did I make a mistake right

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how did you choose Notre Dame um I never even heard about the school I always thought it was going to go to like you

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know NYU upen Georgetown George Washington these schools and cities MH

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but then I think like senior year or something like struck me and then ad missions officer came to my school um in

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Shanghai and he like sold me on like the whole you can have the American college

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true American college life watching football tailgating and I was like w that sounds kind of cool and I was like

College

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you know what maybe I just don't want to be surrounded by Asians for college right cuz I always think about it I was

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like What if I went to Berkeley or for college I would not be where I am

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today my life would justan out very differently in a way um know do you think it would have looked like if you

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went to one of those schools I don't know I don't think I would have gotten into like a finance career the way I did

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in a way I think like going to Notre Dame and like really getting myself out of my comfort zone I think that helped

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boost my confidence in a way too which did help me prepare for a lot of my

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interviews and getting into like the hardest field I could get into in a way yeah while as I don't know who knows who

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knows right I think that's the beauty of life right it's like sometimes we get so stuck in decision and making the right

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decision I'm a big believer that there's no wrong decis decision yeah exactly I probably would have ended up in the Miss

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banking to be honest with you but I don't think I would have had the confidence yeah I love what you said

Stepping outside your comfort zone

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about stepping outside of your comfort zone because I believe you know as and personally and as a therapist that's where the biggest growth happens and

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challenging ourselves that in that way and moving through fear it's like the greatest growth I think opportunities

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happened there yeah exactly biggest growth yeah so as you're moving through your career in finance and you describe

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it as robotic MH was there a moment where I guess two question was there a

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moment where you were like this is not for me is there more and or did you see

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someone modeling anything different I know for me like that was the path too like all my friends went into Finance

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after college I went into Finance after college and like 2 years in I'm just like this is not for me and but no one

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else around me was doing anything different yeah I mean the answer to both of your questions is

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no I didn't have a role model I didn't have anyone who was doing something differently every single person I knew

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was either staying in finance in like my co-workers or getting an MBA and of course my parents were also very

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traditional so when I even brought up the question about potentially leaving Finance they were like oh it's okay like

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we can help pay for your MBA we can help pay for your law school they would just like you have to go to school or do

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something completely different like being an influencer was something that was like not even an option right for me

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and I didn't even think that was an option for me either like as I said I never thought I was a creative person but this kind of was like a very big

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um plot twist in my life where this was not in like intended in any way I really

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thought I was going to get an MBA or retire in finance but having been the only woman in the office all the time I

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think I came to a realization where like I was trying to be like the guys I was doing everything they were doing I was

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watching football every single Sunday I was doing fantasy football and like

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really getting really emotional over these things because when I lost the fantasy football one week weekend I took

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that as a thing I was like I lost to a guy you know that's how I relate to cuz

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I was always trying to be like better than them or like competing with these guys who to be honest with you I was the

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person who was doing a lot of the behind the scenes work right doing all the models and the spreadsheets and then like my coworker who is like my same

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level gets to go to the meetings right so like that was just happening continuously continuously and I just

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like lived with it I was like okay maybe that's just like how it is like I just didn't think any differently cuz I was

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so young right too and I couldn't speak up in any way because I knew that if I spoke up I would get fired so I just

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worked how was it for you like mentally and emotionally to be in that space especially maybe when you started

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realizing like this is not right or this doesn't feel good to try to like prove

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myself or get it was toxic it was very toxic and like I'm not even kidding like

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every Sunday my mood and the Monday after was dependent on like fantasy

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football like I don't like sports I don't like watching sports and I was like so sick of pretending to like

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sports right cuz I would get like my guy friends um to like help secretly help me

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with fantasy football my co- didn't know they just thought I knew everything like she she Lov yeah like I was so like a

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pretending to be someone who I wasn't um so I think at around that time

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at my last job in private equity um I was going through intense got

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issues like a lot of health issues that was just like an accumulation of everything that it has built up I wasn't

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eating healthy ever I was just treating my body like a garbage can right I was drinking excessively eating like

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seamless meals for breakfast lunch and dinner not sleeping all of that so at one point my body crashed um and that

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was when I was looking for more holistic ways to heal myself cuz I got to work

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right and that's honestly the reason behind how I started goob with AA my

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account in a way too cuz it it is a skincare account for other people but some of my like earliest posts have

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always been about like what I eat for lunch as I try to heal yes I I yes I and

Skincare as medicine

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I was sharing with you this off camera that I've done like an overhaul of my diet and my nutrition and I'm really

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leaning into like a more holistic approach and I know in some of your posts that you you talk about like food

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as medicine and you had also shared like coming from where you grew up like that

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was kind of the way and then you moved to the United States and you just saw this decline in your health because the

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stuff in our products and in our food is not yeah like I was never sick growing up and then I come here and like no

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matter what I was always like sick with something to the point where like I couldn't even stomach an apple right I

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just it was bad back then so that's how I started um but I never thought I liked

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SK care more than anyone else because growing up in Asia like it was just like Norm there's like more beauty stores and

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convenience stores in 7eleven back in Korea so I just every time I got a break

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from um winter break for like a week or two I would go back to Korea and China and I would just like bring luggages

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full of just skincare just because I thought that was like what you do right and I was like and since in college you

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know I a lot of my friends didn't even know what a moisturizer was right so yeah it was about SK R I was washing my

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face with a bar soap for like all of my friends were doing for as long as I can remember unfathomable to me oh yeah bar

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soap yeah and then I come to the US and I didn't think I had an excessive routine or anything like even back in

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college I didn't know about skincare as much I didn't even wear sunscreen back then but I just knew that you should

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moisturize your face right so my friends were always like what is it that you're using so every break I would bring sheep

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masks and like fun Korean beauty products to my my friends um in college and that's how we like bonded same thing

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happened to me in finance where like I would share them with like my female assistants in the office because I didn't have any female co-workers or

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like my outside group of friends so I was like kind of like that person who was bringing K Beauty to the US just

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with my one suit luggage and that's how kind of started and I really wanted to share how to use these products because

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this was before like kbd was a really big thing I think like this is back in 2017

Hiding her face on Instagram

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2018 where Instagram shelfies were a big thing right but no one explaining how to

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use these products so I was like I need to be that person so I would secretly post on stories Instagram stories and

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just teach how do use a sheet mask what's a toner but I was never show my face on the feed itself because I was

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deathly afraid really my co-workers any of my co-workers find me and I would get fired so I never showed my face it was

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only 24 hours on stories oh that's right because the stories used to disappear right wasn't that I mean it still does

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after 2 hour that's right it still does you can tell I'm not well ver in Instagram why I hire someone to help me with that yeah um so you so you felt

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like so you had to hide this thing you're doing because you felt like you would get fired from your job um I also blocked all my co-workers on

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Instagram and their girlfriends no one can find me no one can find me I blocked

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every single person um not that I was big I had like 3,000 followers not even

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right like I was a very very small account but I still loved doing it so much and that that's when I realized I

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was like I am a little bit more creative than I thought I wonder if it was always inside

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of you but no one really encouraged it to come out it was no one encouraged me there was no chance for me to right

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right you're the blueprint is laid out you're studying you're spending all your time studying right but that's

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interesting how you then develop it's unfortunate too you develop the narrative that I am not this thing yeah

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but it's inside you it's just not encouraged to come out yeah but I'm but think about if I somehow came across

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this accidentally think about how many other people who were in jobs that may not be the best use of their skill set

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because yes I was good at my job and finance but it wasn't the best use of my

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skill set I can be so much more helpful for other people in a different capacity

Turning point

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yeah yeah and not even not only that but what it meant for you to be in that environment what it meant you had to do

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or how you had to show up it's almost felt like this disconnect from who you really were like you're saying I didn't

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really like football but here am I like so emotionally invested right I felt like like not me yeah most days so where

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was like this turning point where okay you realize you're creative you're loving posting these things on stories

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where did where was it a turning point where like I'm going to do this I'm going to leave finance and like your

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plot twist what's your plot twist my plot twist it wasn't like my account was like huge or anything honestly right I

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wasn't making any money I didn't make any for money for over 2 years but my plot twist was I was waking up at like

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5:00 a.m. every morning shooting content before work like doing all of this and I

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realized that I love this so much that I was willing to sacrifice you know all my income and that's when I was like you

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know I'm getting an MBA I'm going to go get an MBA so that I can go be a um

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marketing director or something at like an Estee Lauder or L'Oreal or just like a beauty company because I try to go I

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try to ask friends like hey can I move to I have a pretty good resume but these

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Beauty companies they wouldn't hire me they would only hire me for their finance division I'm like no I don't

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you're like I'm trying to get out of that I'm trying to get out but not doing Finance at a beauty company right so um

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I was like the only way you can do it is by getting an MBA so I started studying for the MBA um GMAT all of these

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interview courses and while I was applying I was also I

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was like dating my current husband at the time and I just my life was in New York so I didn't want to go anywhere

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really else other than the East Coast around that time um in my MBA

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essay you have to write you have to be very specific about what you want to do so I said I want to be the Global Marketing Director for Amore Pacific

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which is the biggest which is SE Lauder of Korea okay like they own all the skincare companies there and I ended up

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getting a job in a Mor Pacific somehow um before doing the NBA before before the NBA as as like a PR intern okay

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something like the lowest entry level job that was like I got my way in the

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door I can work on my way in two years I don't have to spend like 300K on getting an NBA when I already got my door into

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my dream company so I never went to an NBA I also didn't get in Columbia or like my top school anyways so um I got

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in but then I I've got higher because I had my Glo with Eva Channel even though

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it was like less than 10K but they said I couldn't post about any other brands which I I get it I get it but

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just something about it didn't feel right to me like always trust your gut everything that I did up to now was like

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trusting my gut I think that's so important we were talking about that earlier that intuition it's it's a scary

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intuition and for someone who was making zero money something in my gut was like

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don't do it so I turned the job down oh you never even took the job I didn't I turned the job down I was so happy but

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then I end turning the job down I didn't get an MBA I gave up everything and I

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told my hus my my boyfriend at the time my mom my dad I was like just give me six months give me six months and I'll

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work this thing out what did they say to that my mom didn't talk to me my mom my

Parents support

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mom and I are best friends I don't know if you saw my content but we are oh I've seen your content I know I love it I love that so much content with your mom

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she didn't talk to you talk to me we didn't speak for like almost six months like were you nervous to tell your parents that you were making this choice

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to Pivot yeah yeah it was scary but my dad was very supportive my dad was like

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just do whatever you want while he be your support you but of course my mom like she was like very caring she also

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was like I was the only person in my hometown who to ever work in Wall Street right so she had this immense Pride so

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she was like what am I going to tell my friends now that you're like you know like was not a thing back then it's

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interesting too how our parents attached to the blueprint I mean it's the blueprints that's handed down to them and my parents were opposite where my

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dad was very much about the box and the blueprints and like the job and you know being in finance was sort of the arrival

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of the you know thing and so when I started deviating off of those things and trying to figure it out he was he

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was not that supportive and I kind of you know I kind of like laugh now I'm like well see me now Look at me now yeah

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it's aw but my mom was more the one that was like kind of follow your gut follow

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your intuition like find find your thing MH okay so you so how is that oh God

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that must have been hard to not have your mom talking to you yeah but honestly I don't remember it being hard

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no I think I was so busy building this and like trying to prove everyone that I don't remember

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that period so what was that so you say give me six months and then what's that six months like I told her give me a

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give me six months I'll try to make things work and then give me one year I'll try to make half as much as I did

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in finance um and I did I wasn't making any money when I quit buing zero money

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on Instagram or anything but um were you nervous were you what were you feeling were you feeling I know some narratives

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that will pop up for women or people in general when we make these B pivots is like I'm going to be behind oh my God

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it's deathly scary it is deathly scary because it's not just like

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what am I going to do with my career it's like the public P like how do your friends your family how do they perceive

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you they're going to see you as a failure right like that was what I was scared of I didn't tell anyone that I

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had glow with Ava for forever like maybe until last year

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no way yeah like it was like something that was like ashamed of in a way even though in my gut I knew it was the right

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thing and I knew like I was so passionate about it being an influencer is something that is so cringy in the

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beginning until you make it and the the process of getting to become an actual like influencer is so cringy so I was

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like I didn't want any of my friends to see it at one point I was like even blocking my personal friends on my account because I was like I don't want

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their attention I don't want their judgment when I'm building something um

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it was yeah it was really tough was there a moment when you didn't feel like you had to hide it or you were really

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proud of it it didn't feel so cringey I don't think so until maybe I launched my

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own brand like I was it wasn't like cringey thing it was just more like I don't necessarily have to tell people I'm doing this cuz at that point people

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were just finding out that they were finding my channel but I'm grateful for for a lot of friends

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because I would never tell them that I have this channel but they would find me they would see it on their for you page

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or whatever right but they didn't tell me cuz they knew that I wasn't ready to talk about it oh that's amazing and then

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later on when I talked about it they were like yeah we knew for years you're like I thought I was really hiding this

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very I thought I was hiding it but turns out everyone already knew yeah so I'm like really grateful for like my friends for like letting me do my cringy period

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and just grow and just let me be yeah yeah how has it been to be an

Being an entrepreneur

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entrepreneur like what have been some of the challenges what have been some of the major successes like how do you see

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your life now coming from somebody that was so structured and robotic to now you you create you create things you know

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what it is I if I had to do everything all over again I would still do Finance

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all over again really say more say more I think it gave me such a strong work

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ethic I am already someone who works really hard right I'm a Virgo like I'm

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very structured and scheduled but I don't think I can do this job to the

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level that I can if I didn't have my um Finance background where like all all I

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knew how to do was work hard like I was working 120 hours a week even weekends like everything right WT it was very

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intense but like now to this day like because of that I have that work ethic that I can Implement into things and

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this is something that is underrated and I thought I didn't know this until like recently when my managers were like yeah

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most of our talents don't know how to write a email no yes because when kids

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these days yeah out of school they go straight into being an influencer right they've never had a proper job so first

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of all they're they can be very entitled right because you're making so much

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money by without having like an actual job but they lack the business Acumen

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they don't know how to write a proper email they don't know professionalism right so I learned all of that by having

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an actual job and I do think like being an influencer is great if you have the

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work ethic and like the skill set and everything but I do think like having some kind a real job I agree with you so

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for like a year is so important I agree with you so much I think there is so

Running out of time

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much to be learned to be being in those settings and like you said the professionalism and um one of the the

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themes that come up and like trying to name this podcast a lot of narratives that came up were like the Running Out

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of Time the you know pressure and wasting time wasting time was a big one and that one came up to me as you're

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talking about the gratitude for having this Finance background right so some perspect Ive could be like oh I wasted

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all those years in finance so true yeah but but the way you shift it is so

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meaningful because it's serving you now in this career that you've cultivated for yourself and similar for me like

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I've done a zillion million things and I bartended forever and I feel like wholeheartedly that makes me a really

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great therapist I feel like I got that training there I think it gave me the endurance to like see so many clients in

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a row or do two days of filming so I think that nothing is a waste and I love that you have that perspective too that like you don't reget at that time spend

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in finance mhm not at all what are some of the challenges that you face as you

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or want or an influence influencer and kind of in the public eye and two like as an entrepreneur running your business

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right so I also never thought I was going to be an entrepreneur this I built this brand last year purely because I

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just like thought there was no brand doing what I'm doing right now and really emphasizing the Inner Health

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aspect of things right and I knew this is what healed me so I really wanted to get this out to the public but I think

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my audience was honestly the one who told me to start a brand cuz I was talking about this so organically in my content that they were like please sell

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it please sell it to us and that's kind of how the brand came about in a way I was never going to launch a brand ever I

Is it worth it

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CU I knew it would kill me is it killing you it's killing me

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yeah it's worth it but it's killing me but I just love how how with your

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story and a lot of stories I hear on even my own these things just organically came to me it's not beauty

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of it yeah yeah I think we got so stuck in how we think it should look yeah that

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we don't see all these other opportunities and if we kind of like lean into it a bit things come to us

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yeah and I don't think that like the timing is also I think people are like I need to be doing this by age like 35

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like I need to be doing this by age 45 I need to have a house and kids you know like I really don't think there is like

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a good timeline for anyone everyone's timeline is so different you have to go

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at your own pace right like yes maybe if I started my brand like three years ago

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when like my Tik Tok was like booming maybe I could have sold more products but at the same time I was not

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ready my audience wasn't ready I wasn't ready at all so I think just having the

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grace and waiting it out until like everyone around you and yourself most importantly is ready is very important I

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love that so much the idea of Readiness because yeah I think we're racing to the next thing so much because we one we

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might authentically want it or two we think we should want it and we're not checking in with the the Readiness and I

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have so many female clients and male clients too where in their dating they're just hitting the wall and

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they're repeating the patterns and I'm like I you're you're the Readiness isn't there you're not ready to to be dating

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in a way that's going to make it very enjoyable and successful so I love that you bring up the

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Readiness MH yeah the struggles beyond that is just being a female founder

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right and the thinking you can do it all I know when you can't I think I really

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struggle with that because um I still struggle with this I really feel like I

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can do everything when I'm like I I really can't like killing my body over

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doing this but um delegation is I think the hardest thing ever mhm really really

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really hard um because I'm someone who's such a control freak with everything that I do that I think that no one else

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can do it better than I can when actually they can or like I need to be able to focus my time on the things that

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I'm really good at that if anyone can do it 80% as good as me or like if someone

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is much better at something than I am then I should 100% delegate like for

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example like this setup for podcasting right it would take me probably like a

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month to figure out camera settings and microphone settings like oh this is why you see all these people in the room

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here like I can't do this without them every single day for a month and I still wouldn't really be able to figure it out

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but old me would be like I'm trying to save money I'm going to do everything myself right like I'm learning to Tate

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it's hard I really struggled at the to and even starting my own practice I was doing everything for the practice all

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the administrative work seeing a case load of 30 clients and and it was killing me too and I think there's this

28:29

idea and I I work with my clients on this a lot is like yeah we could probably do it all but what are you sacrificing what does it mean to be

28:36

doing it all and for me it was like endless hours in front of the computer like not sleeping not eating well like

28:42

not spending time with my boyfriend you know like just there were there's a lot of sure I can do it all but there's there's things falling to the Wayside

28:48

yeah yeah the sacrifice knowing what you're sacrificing yeah and being yeah our heal our our health which is your

28:54

focus can you share more about the brand and the products that you offer yeah so my brand name is by Ava we are a

29:01

holistic health company that um focuses on Inner Glow Inner Health outer glow is

29:06

kind of like a tagline it came out because I was struggling with my own health journey and I really relied on

29:12

the concept of food is medicine so you know when I left Asia I completely

29:17

relied on the American diet and in the most unhealthy way growing up I didn't

29:24

know what a calorie was I didn't track anything like I literally didn't know what calorie was until I came to college

29:29

that is so interesting but that's so heavy in our culture in Asia there's no calorie count on a package but now you

29:35

see what here it's like it's yeah you go to the restaurants and they have them on the menus and like well now I don't want to eat that thing I anything because I

29:42

was like you I knew how to intuitively eat when I came here I got obsessed with

29:47

calories it was not healthy really yeah because it was a completely new concept I was like oh you know what if this

29:52

pizza slice is 500 calories but this chicken bowl or steak is 600 calories

29:59

I'm choosing the pizza because it has lower calories I didn't know the concept of good calories and bad calories for a

30:06

very very long time and and then you know if I'm in finance I'm just eating

30:11

something that can get me full very fast cuz like I didn't have even like five minutes to eat right so I was just

30:16

relying on like fast food Patti all that all the time so I think from then on I

30:24

just completely forget forgot about like well my mom was feeding me like the

30:29

really nourishing food once I got sick I was like you know what I just can't take

30:34

Tylenol all the time I'm going rely on a lot of the Chinese herbs so that's kind of what I lean back on I have this

30:42

powder that's actually the reason why I started by Eva because I was talking about this amazing powder that helps

30:48

with your gut your skin brightening all that so I would have in my finest job at

30:54

my desk I would have like eight different jars with these powders these super powders and Prebiotic powders and

31:01

I was like doing this little Scoops every single day from that into like my yogurt or like um my bowls and my car

31:09

like what is she doing what's happening over there what's happening but that is

31:14

my very first product the Brazilian skin booster you'll see it in like the small box oh I can't wait to thank you so much

31:19

I can't that one is some it's like our all-in-one it's got vitamin C vitamin E

31:24

zinc ninite prebiotics everything to like really heal your gut and I really think gut health is skin Health cuz when

31:31

I started doing that practice not only did my sibo and IBS like get cured but

31:37

my skin it was like not Dull looking all the time yeah you you're mentioning how

Health

31:43

you didn't even know about calories I knew so little about nutrition and health before my fertility journey and

31:49

after really so in your 30s I'm 43 now in my 40s really I thought I was eating

31:54

health healthy and I I considered myself like healthy person but after my miscarriage I dove so deeply into

32:02

thyroid things and I want to get into your egg freezing Journey thyroid and gut health and I started working with a

32:08

nutritionist and a Hol a hormone specialist and I'm like I'm doing all the wrong things here listen I'm not

32:14

perfect even though I own a wellness brand I'm still learning so much and it's mindboggling it's exciting and

32:23

being going back to the gratefulness thing too you know if I'm not going

32:28

through if I didn't have my gut issues and like my health issues back then glow with Ava the channel would not be here

32:36

right if I'm not going through all my health issues I'm going through again right now I don't think I can talk

32:42

properly about like Woman's Health so in a way I am grateful in a weird way that

32:49

I have all these health issues going on again right now because now I'm treating my body as a guinea pig to see what

32:55

works what doesn't so that I can properly give advice to people right if you haven't gone through acne once in your

33:02

life you can't give advice on like acne products necessarily right so I I've had

33:08

the same experience I think I shared it today earlier so people are going to hear it a couple times but um I really

33:13

leaned on that after my miscarriage because I was like there's a bigger purpose here and now because I've

33:19

experienced it I can speak to it differently I can relate differently I like I said dove into learning so much

33:25

so it's just I wouldn't say I'm grateful for that I see a purpose in that and that's sort of

33:33

helped me you know I like the term better purp yeah there was a purpose to it um yeah so I think there's like again

33:42

the mindset shift or the way that you look at things yeah can you share because you shared oh there's a fly

33:48

right here um you shared very openly on on YouTube about your own egg freezing

33:53

Journey can you share a little bit more here about that and curious to cuz you

33:59

did get married and you you froze after you got married um were there any

34:04

assumptions made or by other people as to why you were doing that if you were married or any narratives of like why do

34:10

you have to do this God of course everyone on the internet judges you for anything that you do I know you're brave

34:16

to be out there like I just thought it was very important for my content I'm trying to be very transparent about

34:22

everything because I want people to learn and make their own decisions I'm not saying you should freeze your eggs

34:27

right but for me it was a personal choice and I explained like why I was doing it and um everything too but for

34:33

me going back on things um I've been on birth control for a very very very long

34:41

time honestly only because my periods have just always been IR regular and I when I came to the US in college like

34:47

all my friends were taking birth control and I didn't even know what birth control was cuz in um in Korean birth

34:55

control if you translate it if you want to buy it Korea it's called anti- pregnancy pill really yes so it's not

35:02

called birth control it is called like anti- pregancy so it's like very taboo

35:08

to ever talk about it so I didn't even tell my mom that I was going on it it wasn't because I was having like a sexual like life or anything it was

35:15

purely because my friends were like taking it they were like it's helping with what their acne it helps them lose

35:21

weight or all these symptoms I was like you know what like I have a regular period why don't I just go on it and it

35:26

was so easy to get on it in the US that was anyone explaining even now I'm

35:32

learning more about birth control but was anyone explaining to you like no yeah nothing I just got on it and then I

35:38

just loved the fact that I knew exactly what my period wash that's why I was on it and it was just such a habit that I

35:45

was on it for over a decade like without even thinking about what it was doing to my body I had zero idea of birth what it

35:54

was doing you know and it wasn't like I was ready to have kids even even when I got married so I'm just going to be on

36:00

this and I went off of it because I was in Korea for 2 months and I didn't have

36:07

my backup for birth control I didn't want to go to Korea Korean doctor and be like I want an anti- pregancy pill so I

36:15

naturally just had to get off of it when I went off of it and get my period um a

36:21

very long time wow it was three months and I was like oh that's and then every doctor I went to was that's totally

36:28

normal 6 months go by I'm like something is not right keep seeing doctors here

36:34

they're like it's normal I did my blood work they're like nothing is wrong with you nothing is wrong with you a year

36:39

goes by and I'm like something is wrong what was that like to keep getting I feel like it's that's part of the

36:45

problem is it's like so I went to so many different doctors and they were like it's just normal just give it a

36:52

while give it a while like I I was just so lost I was why am I not getting so then I was like should I just go back on

36:58

the pillow because I'm like I feel like my body is just dry of not bleeding or

37:04

something so I literally went back on the pill because I was like I think if I

37:09

don't bleed for such a long time my it it's just going to be bad for me too

37:14

were they saying like it's normal because like were they giving you any like no my doctor was like you should probably just get back on the pill so I

37:22

went back on it and then it was when I got my period I was so happy but I was like that's not

37:28

real period right right on the pill again so that was just like a cycle and

37:34

then um after that I I think one of my friends was like

37:39

freezing hers I was like you know what maybe I'll just like go see a doctor for the future so I just went to go see him

37:45

and then that's when I got diagnosed with PCOS I thought I was immune to PCOS

37:50

over like any fertility stuff like I just never thought I would get that I

37:55

don't think anyone does think like even me now I'm like I I'm in this camp but I

38:01

I I just didn't think I would be in this Camp I never thought I would be in this Camp that's how I found out I PC I was

38:08

like oh great and I that's why I did egg freezing because it could have

38:14

potentially be hard for me to have naturally right so who yeah I guess was

Relief

38:20

there some relief in sort of disbelief that you're in this camp but would there's was there some

38:25

relief to have an answer to there was relief yeah M and what was the

38:31

overall like I know you share it and I watch your whole YouTube but share here like what what it was like for you what you felt doing it what you felt after

38:38

doing it and maybe where you are now in your fertility journey I am this I just

38:44

didn't even know what to expect because honestly cuz I travel so much I went to

38:49

go see a doctor not because I was going to freeze my eggs okay I just wanted to get in consultation because apparently

38:55

my friend went to him he was great and I just wanted to get an appointment for like the future um when I went to go see

39:02

him he was like you can just do it right now and honestly I would I was traveling

39:07

every month that that week was the one period those two weeks were the only period that I could potentially just do

39:14

it and I didn't want to do it in the summer because I don't want to be bloated and all that so it was in March when I did it was like you know what

39:20

it's kind of cold I'm going to Bali in two weeks so might as well just get it out of the way before wild how that it

39:27

was it was wild like I went for a consultation and like I think like 2 days later I started freezing so I like

39:33

it was not mentally prepared for this sure at all didn't tell my husband I was like hey I'm actually going to freeze my

39:38

eggs like no one knew that I was going to do this it was very sudden MH but when I went through it I realized like

39:47

this must be very lonely for a lot of single woman and it's very brave at least like my husband was there to

39:53

somehow help me I'm deathly afraid of needles so there's way I'm doing this to hire a nurse to do this for you is $200

40:01

a time yes oh and you do this what for like 10 days right so that's also a lot

40:08

of money I had my best friend do it for me one day my husband like he's freaking out he's like I don't want to like just

40:15

injure you or like poke you with needles and it was very emotional like 10 days

40:20

for both of us yeah especially like you said not mentally prepared I was not mentally PR I mean you can't be fully

40:25

prepared for it but to have a little bit of time and space to think about it kind of get grounded emotionally maybe I always say like line up your support

40:31

system but you had like no no time no time at all mhm but I'm very very glad I

40:38

did this I know every woman thinks differently but for me um as someone who's not really ready to get pregnant

40:44

soon either like I just don't know when I can I don't really have a timeline per se which is amazing I mean this is the

40:50

entirety of the podcast is like let's get rid of the timelin let's live our ownly I'm turning like everyone's like

40:56

you should have baby when you're before you turn 35 I'm like I'm 35 very soon like I don't think I can have babies

41:02

before then I had my son at 40 and for me you know there was so much angst of like not knowing if I would be a mom or

41:08

like feeling like I wish I didn't hold these narratives but feeling like you know I'm running out of time but now

41:13

having mm40 it's like the biggest blessing it's the best time it was meant to be at that time it's it all lines up

41:20

the way that it's supposed to so we did embryos because um it was like the better option if you are married we did

41:27

that it was a success um but I remember before I even went through the um the

41:34

process I told my husband I'm not doing this again I don't care if I get zero eggs I am not doing this because it was

41:41

just so emotionally draining it is emotionally draining yeah I think it's really amazing when women can set those

41:46

boundaries before going into it because it can be really hard if you are not successful in that

41:52

first round to do another or do another you can very easily like just keep going at it and I think it's really important

41:58

to set those it very much is boundaries we're not doing this again I don't care

42:03

yeah but you were you were happy you were successful with yeah apparently I mean maybe with the PCU or something but

42:08

I got 42 eggs oh wow you did document that yeah yeah did you always know that you were going to document your

42:14

experience and share it publicly tell me what that decision was like I share

42:21

everything on the internet but for me like I don't share like if I have an

42:26

argument with my husband like I don't share that I don't share like the super personal things but for me this was such

42:32

an important thing to share for women like I didn't even question should I share this or not it was like of course

42:39

I have to share it with all my female followers because I know that I get questions about fertility when are you

42:45

going to have kids like I get asked those questions all the time what is it like for you to get how do you feel when

42:50

you get those questions I think it's a natural question I'm like very open to it I don't feel weird about it at all

42:56

but I just think like people look up to me or like they want to do what I'm doing like to a lot of women out there I

43:02

am somewhat of a role model right especially to a lot of Asian women out there too so I think that's why they're

43:08

keep asking me these questions when are you going to have a baby it's it's very weird like I get that question a lot

43:14

interesting interesting but I love that what you're saying if you are this role model like you are creating a different

Health Issues

43:19

blueprint like you are showing that it's possible to Pivot and have plot twists and to start a company and do something

43:26

different and live on a different timeline so I love that you are you are the model for that that's amazing yeah

43:32

you'd mentioned earlier that and I don't you said you're an open book so I'm just going to ask you um that you're going through some health issues currently

43:40

yeah I I think the biggest irony of starting a wellness brand was I started

43:45

this to share everything that I've learned and like just help people heal from the inside and out because I really

43:52

believe like good skin health comes from the inside and what you nor

43:57

right and health equals skin health so that that was the motivation behind starting this brand I was so passionate

44:03

about but by starting this brand and being the only person who worked on it I

44:09

destroyed my health I was so busy I wasn't eating well I was drinking I was

44:14

just eating croissants and fried food all the time I wasn't sticking to my the

44:20

lifestyle that I preach and Beyond just the eating I was so stressed my body so

44:27

stressed I was living on a plane all the time so like all of that adding up I was

44:33

so excited about building this brand that honestly I never felt fatigue you're like running on adrenaline

44:39

adrenaline all the time but that's not good and my doctors were telling me if you're running on Adrena like that but

44:45

you don't sleep like this your brain is over working if your brain is

44:50

overworking your liver and your other organs are dying right oh my gosh so that was what was happening for like

44:56

over a year of just building this company and last year at the peak of when I was busy I got diagnosed with hyp

45:03

um hypothyroid me too yeah yeah yeah yeah and um once again I thought I was

45:10

immune too this I was like wow I have PCOS and hypothyroid and just every gut issue out

45:18

there because if you think about it everything is Interlink yeah and I didn't know that either as I'm diving

45:26

deeper into to what causes were like remedies for my health I'm realizing that stress is the root cause of

45:35

everything stress INF causes inflammation causes everything mental health I thought was separate from gut

45:42

health but it's so related now it's crazy um so yeah I I have hypothyroid

45:49

but honestly even after I found that I was busy I found out in Korea when I went MH and like ah you know what I'll

45:57

just take medication or something and I just continue to live the lifestyle that I was didn't do anything didn't even

46:05

Google what what can I do for I both like completely ignored it for a year a

46:10

year yeah I completely thought I was like thought it would miraculously go away it actually worsened everything cuz

46:17

I didn't do anything to cure it and I think this year I was on a flight to

46:23

Korea and I was reading a book on on thyroid it's like a medical book and I

46:30

started crying on my flight cuz I was like I felt so heard and I was like why am I been ignoring everything for what

46:36

like for all the sacrifice to do what right if I don't have good health I can't do my job right it's interesting

For What

46:43

to think about and we have been talking about this like the for yeah the for what question like what is the for what

46:49

that is allowing us to overlook our health and I think so many of us get caught in that like the purs in the

46:55

pursuit of ever it is we're just so Tunnel Vision on that thing that we're

47:00

we're we don't give ourselves permission to slow down we don't slow down enough to take care of ourselves we over schedu

47:05

ourselves like I I've been similar to you I've been asking like for what like for why am I like have 8 million things

47:12

to do on one day like why yeah yeah so it's been what two three months now of

47:19

on a new Ava 2.0 or 3.0 journey of just really trying to slow down taking care

47:25

of my mental skin and gut health it's like a 360 approach getting help asking for

47:33

help that's a big Del I know that's a big one having me time I relate to all

47:39

of this so much I'm similar to you like again I was hard hard to delegate hard to ask for help and then after the

47:44

miscarriage I'm really proud of myself because I have like asked for so much help after that right like just having

47:52

you know people that are specialized in things that I don't know about helping me and supporting me and and that's hard

Staying Grounded

47:57

yeah yeah I I never did that I mean I'm and I'm a therapist like like I'm doing it for everybody else like maybe I

48:03

should get someone to help me with this but I think it's so so important and that was my question to you was like the

48:10

how to stay grounded when things get so busy how do you stay grounded or not

48:16

susceptible to pressures or comparison or timelines or stressors or things that

48:21

are pulling us in all these directions and it sounds like in the last two or three months you're kind of getting clear on what those things are but is

48:26

there do or people listening I think the

48:32

biggest thing that I try to do is like a um like a mindset shift where you know I

48:38

work with a lot of like skincare Beauty Brands and I see these Brands growing at like an astronomical pace and I keep

48:46

comparing myself to a lot of these Brands I'm like well if they're growing in an astronomical pace and I'm like why

48:53

should I be doing the same things right but what I don't realize is like we just have different philosophies as a brand

48:59

too like I don't want for example like investors right now but all these brands have like you know millions and millions

49:05

and millions of funding which is why they can grow in Asal pce and I learn

49:10

more about the behind the scenes of like you if you do that you have to give up control over your company like all of

49:16

these things but for now I'm like my priority is so that I can formulate the projects that I want without outside

49:23

pressure at my own pace and I think it's really just like what you want as a Founder for me right now this year that

49:31

is my priority yeah to really establish my brand the way I want it to without

49:36

any outside pressure so of course I can't grow at the pace that other companies can but I'm okay with that so

49:42

being okay with standards that you set for yourself is so crucial and that has

49:49

been like like a light bu moment I'm like yeah I love that so much and I

49:55

think you know you're talking about in the context as a Founder but I think it applies as a person as a woman as a what

50:00

do I want what is my priority right now and drowning out what everybody else is is doing and staying totally connected

50:07

yeah to what you prioritize and value yeah exactly oh my gosh thank you so much for being here this was an amazing

50:13

conversation I loveed and resonated so much with everything that you shared here and it was wonderful to have you and wishing you all the success

50:19

continued success oh my God thank you and health for you you and me both yes good health for yes and and sticking

50:26

with our habits and all the things that we know to do and yeah thank you so much for being here I really appreciate it

50:32

you it was lovely if you're someone struggling or relating to the topics that we're

50:37

talking about now and you're feeling the anxiety or the stress or the pressure of feeling like you're running out of time

50:43

you're behind and you want some extra support check out my group therapy practice in Midtown Manhattan NYC

50:50

therapeutic Wellness we have an amazing team of clinicians ready to support you in your journey to help you feel more

50:57

grounded to help you feel more grateful to help you feel like you're just exactly where you need to be so check us

51:03

out at www.nyc therapeutic wellness.com

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