How to Stress-Proof Your Life with Susan Choi

• How Susan found her self-worth through her stress journey (2:53)
• What happens when you only treat the symptom and not the root cause (7:23)
• How the stories that we tell ourselves can become our whole personality (12:40)
• 1 ESSENTIAL thing you can do to improve your mental health (21:10) 
• The magic that can happen when you stop hiding from your feelings (25:02)
• A simple practice to build up your self-worth (37:32)

“Back then, I was spending thousands of dollars on medical bills, therapy, and even hired a public speaking coach because I thought if I could just work on my self-image, everything inside would feel better and everything on the outside would have a butterfly effect. But as you’re probably aware, that’s just not how it works.”

“When I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue, it wasn’t until many months, probably a year into that healing journey, that I realized …. I was basically treating the symptom and not the root. Sure, I was temporarily allowing myself to feel better in the moment and feel peace when meditating, but when I would go back to work, I would still be the same person inside.”

“All of that firing and wiring in the brain that’s happening 24/7 whether we realize it or not, was running an old default program. That’s how I realized a lot of what I was trying to outrun was this lack of self-worth.”

“It wasn’t until I started to realize that I wasn’t accepting myself that I realized what was missing in my life. I didn’t even know I was doing that.”

“The story we tell ourselves is literally creating the emotion in our body, and the longer we experience that same emotion over and over again, it creates a mood. That mood eventually becomes our personality.”

“You’ve been listening to the same voice in your head for your entire life, and unless you’re able to see, hear, and have a different relationship with it, you can easily believe whatever it says, especially on a bad day. You might think that it’s true of yourself, but it doesn’t have to be the case.”

“When I could really own who I was unabashedly and not be embarrassed about what I did or did not do or want to do and say that and really own it, I think that’s where a really big shift happened.”

“Sometimes, we have to start with what we need and not what we want.”

“It’s like the whole self-worth thing. You don’t realize you don’t have it until something happens. Even with emotions, we don’t realize that there is an emotion in our body if it’s not being processed. “

“Honestly, the emotion that you’re feeling has wisdom in it and is trying to tell you something. The sooner you can listen to whatever that emotion needs, the sooner you are on your path to living an amazing life that’s very present, full, and real.”

“Every time you do something that you’re proud of, I want you to say it out loud and talk to yourself.”

NICOLE

If you’re a high-achieving professional woman, you’re likely suffering from intense stress and anxiety on a consistent basis. Today, you’ll find out why it matters so much to allow yourself to break free from emotional and mental limitations. In today’s podcast, I am so happy to welcome a special guest, Susan Choi. She is an empathic executive coach and podcast host of Stress Proof, a consistently ranked top 100 podcast in mental health and careers on Apple Podcast. 

She is the founder of the Stress Proof Method, a program that helps stressed-out and sensitive leaders finally break free from emotional and mental limitations. In our conversation, she shares about the physical breakdown that was a turning point for her to seek a new pathway that leaves her fulfilled every day. Are you a high-achieving woman struggling to release stress and anxiety? This conversation is for you.

Susan, I’m so glad you’re here. We coincidentally found out that we are both in Seattle and we’re all excited because it’s so fun to meet fellow coaches and entrepreneurs who are in the same place, and I’m so glad to have you here with us today. 

SUSAN CHOI

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

NICOLE

This conversation is like a natural progression around the experience in the journey of self-worth. I’m curious, for you, where did it start? I know it’s an open question, but to really start looking back, maybe it began with an awareness of not having self-worth. That’s where the journey starts for many people. So, take us wherever you want to start with that, and we’ll go from there.

SUSAN CHOI

Absolutely, and I love that you’re focused on such an important topic as self-worth. I find that what we’re both passionate about is so intertwined because I found my own self-worth through stress and sensitivity. When I was living in San Francisco, I was working in management consulting at the time, with very demanding projects and lots of stakeholders and clients involved. It was through that process, and my eventual diagnosis of adrenal fatigue, that I realized something wasn’t working. Even then, I didn’t know it was an internal job. 

Back then, I was spending thousands of dollars on medical bills, therapy, and even hired a public speaking coach because I thought if I could just work on my self-image, everything inside would feel better and everything on the outside would have a butterfly effect. But as you’re probably aware, that’s just not how it works. When I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue, it wasn’t until many months, probably a year into that healing journey, that I realized everything I was doing, while great and everyone should hire the appropriate doctors and mentors for their healing journey, I was basically treating the symptom and not the root. Sure, I was temporarily allowing myself to feel better in the moment and feel peace when meditating, but when I would go back to work, I would still be the same person inside.

All of that firing and wiring in the brain that’s happening 24/7 whether we realize it or not, was running an old default program. To answer your question, that’s how I realized a lot of what I was trying to outrun was this lack of self-worth. That set me off on this journey of discovering and rediscovering who I really am and what I truly love, appreciate, and accept about myself deep down, then I can shine that to everyone else out in the world. So yes, it’s definitely deeply intertwined.

NICOLE

Thank you for sharing that. I’m curious, for you, could you trace back where that programming started? Being a woman or a woman of color, it’s probably a complex question, but I’m curious if you have any sense of what the pieces were that were particularly challenging for you to move through. To get all the way through when you were a management consultant, I’m assuming all the way through college and work, to get to that point where you hadn’t really seen anything around it.

SUSAN CHOI

I think you just nailed all of it. I first came to the States for college, although I was in an international school all throughout elementary, middle, and high school, which is why everyone’s like, “But you speak without an accent.” Yes, but I grew up predominantly in Tokyo and Seoul. Many people have probably heard all the stereotypes, but some of that generality is somewhat true in terms of how you present yourself, how you look, and what your grades are. All of that was just deeply ingrained. 

These days, every teenager has a phone and with technology, you can listen to podcasts and YouTube. Back then, it was just whoever you were friends with or whoever you knew that could share with you what they know. So I didn’t really know much. It wasn’t until I got to college and started networking with other people and meeting people from so many different backgrounds and learning different perspectives, that I started to slowly take baby steps. Even back then, everyone was in the same boat in terms of not having access to podcasts like this. I would say it wasn’t until life gave me signs that I should listen, otherwise it would knock me down. For myself, it was the adrenal fatigue that literally had to wake me up. It wasn’t even the diagnosis; it was months into it where I was trying everything I could to go back to that life and it just wasn’t working. 

It wasn’t until I started to unpack that I couldn’t even feel my own feelings in my body, because I was using my mind to outrun whatever feeling it was and work harder, impress harder, lose weight faster, do all these things that we’ve been told so many times through advertising and billboards that especially as a woman, you are not enough. You have to buy this thing to be beautiful or take this supplement to look the way you should. So yeah, it was a combination of a lot of those things that you just mentioned.

NICOLE

Well, thank you for sharing that. I can see that different cultures would teach that, and within the culture of the United States, there is its own pressure, especially around body image and all those pieces. I’m curious about your journey as a person of color who came over when you were older. Did that reinforce programming or how did you adjust or deal with the programming of what it’s like to be Asian American? What is it like for you? Did that play into it at all? I’m just curious about your journey from that perspective.

SUSAN CHOI

Yeah, you know, I had visited America quite often when I was very little, and then there was a gap where I didn’t visit very often. But during my high school years, when I was looking at colleges, I would visit every year. I remember everything feeling so different and even being discriminated against when we were really young. We went to Disney World at the time. My family couldn’t afford much back then, but they wanted to give us that experience. To this day, I still remember somebody from across the merchandise store where you buy souvenirs, doing the thing with their eyes at us. Being sensitive, I could feel my dad being kind of angry, but not wanting to show it to the kids.

It is a constant fine line that I’m aware of, but I try not to give it too much of a story. What I mean by that is even to this day, if I do give it a lot of thought, whenever I go back to my home country in Korea, I don’t really feel like I belong there because I don’t speak fluent Korean the way a native does. Here, I feel so much more comfortable, but at the same time, there are different societal or cultural things that I don’t really relate to either. For example, this is super simple, but when people quote very famous movies or books or songs, I don’t know them. So, I just tell people that I don’t get it and ask them to tell me literally what they mean by that.

Again, it’s one of those things where I do notice it but given everything that I know now about how so much of the story that we tell ourselves affects the outcome of our lives, I just decide to tell myself that it’s not as important.

NICOLE

I love that you notice it and observe it, but it doesn’t have to be something that actually really impacts how you live, day to day.

SUSAN CHOI

Yeah, I do appreciate the diversity of the cultural perspectives that I have from Japan, Korea, and America. It’s interesting. There’s an appreciation, but at the same time, I don’t want to dwell on it too much.

NICOLE

I think what you’re saying is perfect because balance to me is a continuous thing. We might go too heavy one way and then have to go back the other way to find that place of equilibrium. It’s a continuous process, which I feel is also true of self-worth.

I’m curious about your journey. You took us through your experience with adrenal fatigue and recovery. What would you say you found for yourself? I know there are listeners who have probably gone through similar things, like a medical crisis or hitting rock bottom. But rock bottom is only the first step on the journey back up. I’m curious about what that progression has been like for you. Could you share a little bit more about it and what has really helped you along the way?

SUSAN CHOI

Yeah, so when it comes to book smarts, I think a lot of people can relate to this. Your grades speak for themselves, your work speaks for itself, and who you know speaks for itself. I feel like self-worth has categories, and those boxes were all checked when I hit rock bottom and started to heal myself. It was understanding that I did not accept myself at rock bottom. My endocrine system was all over the place and healing itself, and I had depression and anxiety that were taking over my life at the time. I could not accept that because I wasn’t being the ideal image.

It wasn’t until I started to realize, as you so eloquently put earlier in the podcast, that I wasn’t accepting myself that I realized that was missing in my life. I didn’t even know I was doing that until that moment. And I remember having an Evernote of ideas, and at the time, when I was 32 or 33, I remember thinking that each age would have a title. And 33 was when I told myself that this was the year that I truly understood what it meant to love myself. That was where it all started.

In terms of how to heal, there were so many things that I did, to try to heal myself. Everything from reading so many books on how the story we tell ourselves is literally creating the emotion in our body. And the longer we experience that same emotion over and over again, it creates a mood, and that mood eventually becomes our personality. Learning little things like that and being very aware of how I was treating myself, made a huge difference.

These days, what I’m so proud of is if I make a mistake, or if I’m in a situation where normally I would be hard on myself, you better believe that I’m doing this. For those of you not watching the video, I have my arms crossed and am using my hands to self-soothe on each side of my arms while saying ‘Good job girl! You would have talked to yourself so horribly before, but look at you now! You’re so aware. I love you. You’re doing a great job; keep going.’

That makes so much of a difference because not only are you talking to yourself more positively, but you’re also giving yourself the acknowledgement that you’re changing, and have changed.

NICOLE

That’s so powerful. It really is. Noticing and catching yourself quickly in those moments makes such a difference. Sometimes, when we let it go, it can take us into a really dark place that we live in for a very long time, and it can be hard to get out of.

SUSAN CHOI

Right? And that’s the crazy thing that I want to acknowledge. What you just said was so amazing. We don’t even know that we’re doing it. We think that what we’re saying to ourselves in that moment, what we’re thinking in that moment, is true.

NICOLE

But if you can get it quickly, right? Then you’re like ‘Oh, I did a good job’.

SUSAN CHOI

The truth is that it’s really scary. You’ve been listening to the same voice in your head for your entire life, and unless you’re able to see, hear, and have a different relationship with it, you can easily believe whatever it says, especially on a bad day. You might think that it’s true of yourself, but it doesn’t have to be the case.

NICOLE

Yeah, that’s so powerful, right? It’s true that until you have an awareness that the voice in your head is not actually who you are, it’s just a voice speaking in there, and you start to distinguish that for yourself, that’s when you can actually start to make progress. 

I’m curious about your journey. You had that period where you crashed into adrenal fatigue and then started to come out slowly through books, mentors, and other things like that. What changed in your life? What changes did you start to make once you saw that it was important for you to live your life differently? I’m sure it wasn’t just a snap decision to make that change.

SUSAN CHOI

Right? I mean, everything changed from not caring about small details that seemed insignificant but were huge at the time. For example, because of the adrenal fatigue, I wasn’t able to drink alcohol. So being at happy hour when networking or going to a friend’s wedding and not having a drink in my hand, not that I was a heavy drinker before, but just that social conditioning of needing to have a drink in order to network or seem like you’re having a great time with other people. Saying ‘sorry, I don’t drink’ and really owning that and not caring and having that energy behind those words. Watching other people respect that, and if they gave me a hard time, not backing down and saying ‘no, I’m sorry, I just don’t drink anymore.’

Those little shifts were also really important. How I started off every morning changed too. For example, not checking my phone immediately but going into the moment and saying ‘Thank you God! Thank you, universe!’ and then just sitting there and breathing and doing my meditation. Not just any meditation, but active meditation where I would list what I was grateful for, what I was looking forward to that day, what I wanted to see in my future. All of those little things.

I would cultivate little practices like that, but mostly I feel like the practices that mattered the most were the ones where I was also able to speak whatever action I was taking to the outside world. When I could really own who I was unabashedly and not be embarrassed about what I did or did not do or want to do and say that and really own it, I think that’s where a really big shift happened.

Before, I would have apologized or made up a white lie about why I couldn’t be there or what I didn’t want to do. But now it’s just ‘hey, sorry, I can’t.’ It’s those little steps that you have to take to really build up your self-worth.

NICOLE

Well, I love what you’re saying about how there are all these moments where you have to keep doing it. I love what you’re saying because I’m assuming that when you were saying ‘I don’t drink,’ it was before it became a thing where people don’t drink, and there are all these non-alcoholic beverages now. You had to just own the decision and the choice, and not explain yourself all the time. Was it hard at first, or did you just get over it quickly?

SUSAN CHOI

Yeah, back then I really did have a medical condition where my body was just rejecting alcohol. Thankfully, I was surrounded by really good friends. When it came to weddings and social functions, that was the end of the conversation. In the workspace, it was a little bit more like ‘Oh, why not? It’s Friday or Thursday or whatever day it was.’ But back then, it was a little bit harder to have that be accepted.

NICOLE

Yeah, well, like you’re sharing, it is a journey. Self-worth had to come from saying ‘I don’t drink,’ which can be really hard socially and especially in the work environment. But then, how did you start to have the self-worth to begin your morning with those kinds of rituals and practices for yourself?

SUSAN CHOI

Yeah, you know, I think that for a lot of people, sometimes we have to start with what we need and not what we want. A lot of people may see what’s on social media or in whatever show we’re watching and think ‘Wow, I would love to have my life look like that.’ But there’s a saying that sometimes we don’t act on something until we feel a little bit of pain. I know that for myself, heading to the phone first thing in the morning and making sure that everyone else was happy was not working for me. So I decided for myself that this was something I needed to do for myself. It was through that practice that it then cultivated into a temperament and then a personality, and that’s just how I have to be now.

I would even say that social media at the time, I remember it’s different now because people talk about it so much and go on social media breaks. It’s much more common. But back then, there was no awareness that people were just posting the positive 50% of their life and nobody was really posting the negative parts. I found myself every time I saw a beautiful moment or when I was off on a hike and saw something beautiful, I would take a picture and post it. I didn’t know what was happening at the time, but I just felt this sense in my body that I didn’t like what I was doing because there was this constant thought of ‘this would be great to post on social media’ rather than being in the moment.

I used to be a photographer back in the day, so the urge to get out for Instagram was even stronger because when Instagram first started, it was mostly just for pictures. So one day, I remember thinking ‘you know what? I’m just not going to check or post anything. I’m going to delete the app for thirty days.’ Thirty days turned into now, and basically, I remember standing at the corner of a street where the bus stop was and thinking ‘Oh, my brain is so quiet.’ The way that I tell people what this feels like is, imagine you’re on a highway on a really long road trip with a friend. All of a sudden, your friend turns off the radio and it’s quiet. You didn’t even realize that the radio was on and all that white noise in the background that you didn’t realize was there, is gone.

Those are just little things that I started to do and then they stuck with me, even to this day.

NICOLE

That’s so powerful. I love what you’re sharing about how you just deleted Instagram years ago when it was the thing to do, and you’re just not doing it anymore. I’m curious, you really focus on stress and emotional sensitivity for people. I’m sure you’re not telling your clients to go delete social media immediately because that’s a big ask. But how do you start to progress people on that pathway if they’re feeling so intense or on the edge, and could be at the point of needing medical support? How do you help them start to ramp it down a little bit?

SUSAN CHOI

You know, not everyone needs to be off social media. That just happens to be my preference. I always joke around and say that if I could go back to any time period, it would be the early ’90s when I didn’t have access to anything and people had to knock on your door to know if you were home.

What matters the most when I work with people, especially whether or not they are aware that they’re emotionally sensitive, is first feeling the feeling and knowing how to accept it. Most people feel the feeling by thinking it through and saying ‘How am I going to solve this problem? How do I feel better? How do I make that other person happy?’ They ask themselves when this started, how old they were when it started because they see it recurring in their life. But wait a minute, the emotion that you’re feeling in your body is here now and just needs to be felt.

I walk them through the process of feeling the emotion in their body as sensations and also being able to not resist what they’re feeling. Because when we resist what we’re feeling, we end up going to the pantry and endlessly eating chips or drafting that perfect email back to the person who sent us that high-priority email for no reason. We think those things seem innocent, but in the long run, what we’re doing is weighing our body down with this dense feeling without even realizing it’s there.

It’s like the whole self-worth thing. You don’t realize you don’t have it until something happens. Even with emotions, we don’t realize that there is an emotion in our body if it’s not being processed. You don’t realize it until that moment when you snap or eat one pizza slice too many or pour that extra glass of wine.

So that’s what I walk people through first: what are you feeling? Can we just have a conversation with that emotion?

NICOLE

Yeah, well what I’m hearing too is that when people suppress their emotions and they’re not feeling, is what leads to stress essentially.

SUSAN CHOI

Yes, definitely over the years. Stress is also an emotion, and I remember way back in the day, someone asked me how something made me feel, and I literally could not come up with a feeling for 60 seconds. That’s how out of touch I was with my body. All I knew was how to respond to something through actions in my mind, like ‘Oh, well, I need to call this person or talk to them and have this conversation.’ But no, no, no. How do you feel in your body?’ That changed everything for me because I realized that I wasn’t even in my body. I didn’t know what that meant.

NICOLE

So what you’re doing is giving people this new language of really relating to their body in a totally different way and starting to feel their feelings. I’m curious about where that takes you. When you’re able to say ‘Okay, I’m releasing the stress and really connecting into my emotions,’ what’s possible for people after that?

SUSAN CHOI

Well, I love this question because the first thing that comes to mind is that now you can have a different relationship with whatever feeling you have the hardest time with. For example, I’ll give you a real-life personal example. One of my biggest, scariest emotions that I really didn’t want to feel was anxiety and sadness. Anytime I started to feel that, and this is back in the day when I had no awareness that emotions were causing all of this to happen, I would try to numb that vibrational sensation in my body with food. The more food you eat, the more chemicals load your system, and then all of a sudden you feel different sensations.

I started to unknowingly train my body to eat every time I had this emotional response. Now, whenever I feel anything, I would rather feel the truth of that moment instead of hiding the fact that I’m feeling a certain way about my life. When I’m in touch with whatever emotion is present for me in my body, I’m creating a direct connection to a deeper part of myself that must have felt something about whatever situation and therefore able to parent, mentor, or love that part of myself that wanted to feel that feeling.

It creates such a stronger relationship with yourself, and you start to trust your body and what you’re feeling. It creates a butterfly effect in terms of how you show up, how you talk to people who are in your life because they really appreciate you versus just for any other benefit. It really is a trickle-down effect once you start to tap into what you’re really feeling and honoring it, not resisting it, and getting to know it.

Honestly, the emotion that you’re feeling has wisdom in it and is trying to tell you something. The sooner you can listen to whatever that emotion needs, the sooner you are on your path to living an amazing life that’s very present, full, and real.

NICOLE

All of that is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that because really, I think that’s sometimes what we get so focused on is like okay, I want to get rid of the stress but then like really what’s the connection after that, and it’s just like having that present beautiful life that so many people are really looking for and desiring for themselves.

SUSAN CHOI

Let’s use a real example. Let’s say someone is feeling stress because their boss just messaged them on Slack and said ‘Hey, actually I need that report today by 5 and not tomorrow at 9.’ Then you feel stress because there’s a story in your mind that you’re telling yourself about that situation, whether it’s about the boss, your job, your life, or whatever it may be.

When you can really feel the stress, tap into that emotion in your body and speak to it, it will tell you what is really going on beneath the surface. It has nothing to do with the deadline being changed. If you love your job and are really in tune with everything and in the highest alignment with everything in your life, sure, you’ll be frustrated and annoyed. Maybe you’ll say something to your boss in the future about how that’s not cool.

But if your stress is actually saying to you, nudging you in a very loving way like ‘Hey, are you really happy? What are you doing? What is this really about?’ then that’s such an individual question and answer. When you can really tap into that stress, it’s like it’s leading you down this path and giving you breadcrumbs. That’s what I get really excited about.

NICOLE

Yeah, I love it. It’s so good. Instead of being afraid of it or avoiding it, which is what so many of us do, it’s like really seeing for yourself what it is that’s going to give you some information that will actually lead you through to the other side, rather than choking it down with chips or whatever else. I love your example of food. Mine is online shopping. So if I’m scrolling towards something, I know something is up. Right?

SUSAN CHOI

Exactly! The analogy I like to use is like imagine a flotation device, and you’re trying to press that thing underwater and re-press it. It’s just going to pop back up. It has to. And that’s the same as with our emotions.

NICOLE

Yeah, it’s like those dumbbell weights. If you’ve ever taken an aerobics class, like water aerobics, they use these dumbbells that are flotation devices. You try to push them down, and that’s the resistance, but it’s really hard and then you’re moving around. I have that visual. 

I’m curious, and this is a new direction, but what would you say is your favorite thing about yourself?

SUSAN CHOI

I would say my favorite thing about myself is that I’m always wanting to learn more. I have this insatiable curiosity to understand how things work. And I don’t mean technically, like I don’t need to go behind Google Analytics and look at the code. That’s not what I mean. I love looking at different modalities, whether it’s through spirituality, psychology, or astrology. I look at all those things and see if they work for millions of people. What is it about them that gives people that acceptance? I love finding that through line and trying to piece together the foundational pieces that make it work so that I can then relay it back to my own clients and give them a different lens through which to see something.

NICOLE

Incredible, I Love that.  So it’s just that perpetual curiosity and learning being a big part of you? You always want to learn more and know more.

NICOLE

What would you say is the best piece of life advice you’ve ever received, as someone who is always learning?

SUSAN CHOI

Oh, that is so hard to choose from. I don’t know if this is the best, but it’s one that’s most recent, so I’ll use recency bias here. I heard that the more time and effort you dedicate towards something, the more success you will have. We have to be careful with that word here because if you’re dedicating time and effort to being negative about yourself, then yes, you will succeed in being negative about yourself.

But the way it hit me this time was how much actual time and effort are you putting into whatever it is that you want? If you ask most people, they will say they spend a lot of time thinking about something, but they will not be able to back up the effort. And by the way, there’s no shaming in that. It’s just the awareness of understanding like ‘whoa,’ and that awareness is everything, because it can either have you double down or create a different timeline, so that you’re not hard on yourself or unnecessarily shaming yourself for not having something that no effort was put into.

Whether it’s someone’s job, relationship, health goal, or business, I think that’s such an amazing way to put something, because it really gets you to reflect on your own self.

NICOLE

Yeah, absolutely. I love that it’s based more on the actual effort and output versus just thinking. Thinking is just being in your head, versus being in life.

SUSAN CHOI

It’s easy to be tricked because when you think about something, you think you’re spending a lot of time on it, and you could be. You could be sitting here all day long thinking about what you want. But if you’re not actually doing anything about it, there’s no traction there. There’s no skill-building, experience-building, networking, or any of that good stuff.

NICOLE

That’s so incredible. I love that too because it really is about taking aligned action. It’s not just thinking about something for a while and figuring it out, but actually moving something forward into the world through the steps you take. Beautiful.

Thank you so much for sharing all these things, Susan. I love to leave people with a tip around their self-worth. What would you say is a practice people could put into place every day to start to help build up their self-worth?

SUSAN CHOI

This might be too simple to say, but I always say that simple is best. Every time you do something that you’re proud of, I want you to say it out loud and talk to yourself. The way I do it is by saying ‘Girl, good job! That was amazing, because in the past you would have said this, but now look at you. You’re so amazing.’ I really do this every day and it makes a world of difference.

So if you’re working on building your self-worth and want something super simple but feels good too, tell yourself ‘Girl, or boy, or whatever it is that you want to call yourself, Queen, good job!’ and then say why. What is it about it that’s such a good job?

NICOLE

I love that. It’s so beautiful. I’m with you, the simple practices are the best because that’s really how we get through and build those muscles over time. So amazing. Are you ready for our rapid-fire questions? Let’s do it! First, what was the last thing you watched on TV?

SUSAN CHOI

I watched a camping video on YouTube. People may or may not know this, but I love watching people who go out in the freezing winter and build their own shelter and do crazy stuff. That’s what I literally just watched. I will send you a video after this.

NICOLE

I Love that. I had no idea that existed!  So that’s like a whole sub-genre. There’s so many video genres of things in the world. Okay, good and then what’s on your nightstand?

SUSAN CHOI

I have an altar with letters that I received while traveling, appreciation gifts, a candle, and things that remind me of what’s precious in life and past memories. I have a picture frame, 3M earplugs that I sleep with every night, eye drops, and usually a mug with some sleepy time tea in it.

NICOLE

I love it. Be practical. Some people’s nightstands sound very minimal, while others have a lot of stuff on their nightstand or things on the floor next to it because the nightstand is full!

SUSAN CHOI

I will say though, I did do a total declutter. I pretty much tried to be minimalist anyway, but I have gotten into this whole Feng Shui thing and decluttered everything that did not belong in the bedroom or the office. I put them all in their appropriate places and wow, it feels great.

NICOLE

Awesome. Okay, next one, when was the last time you tried something new and what was it?

SUSAN CHOI

These answers are coming so easily for me. I thought I would be stumped. The last time I tried something new was three weeks ago, and it was my first pole dancing class. It was super fun. I thought that I would be out of place, that everybody would be amazing and sexy, and I would stick out because I’m so robotic. But when I got there, everyone was so warm and welcoming. You realize it’s an art and very technical. There are people from all sorts of backgrounds, some who have never danced before, and some who used to do ballet and now they’re doing this. It’s been a workout; I’m still sore in my shoulders from pulling myself up using my back muscles.

NICOLE

That’s awesome. I’ve only done it a couple of times, but I was also very sore afterward because pole dancing is intense. So cool. Okay, last question, what are the 3 most used emojis on your phone?

SUSAN CHOI

Wow, okay, I have the fire emoji, the crying emoji, and the twinkle stars emoji.

NICOLE

Yeah, like gold stars. I use that one a lot too. 

Well thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and all of the work in your own story and your tale.  What is the best way for people to reach you and find out more?

SUSAN CHOI

The best way to reach me is through my podcast. It’s www.stressproofpodcast.com. There, you will find access to my podcast, all the free masterclasses that I have, and other ways to work with me.

NICOLE

Incredible. We’ll be linking all of that in the show notes as well. Susan, it’s such an honor to connect with you this way, to hear your story and all the wisdom and teachings that you’re putting out into the world. I’m so grateful you were here for us today.

SUSAN CHOI

Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed this conversation.