Why Purpose Without Self-Compassion Leads to Burnout with Jane Chen

Guy Kawasaki:
Good morning. This is Guy Kawasaki. This is the Remarkable People podcast, and you're starting with this introduction, but we're gonna quickly devolve into a recording of the banter that we started this episode with which I must say we started off the rails and we were able to pull ourselves back into the rail, but you shouldn't miss the introduction.
Now, some people believe that a podcast should get off to a fast start and cut all the bullshit at the front, but we don't believe that. We believe that our podcast is like you're sitting in on a conversation between two longtime friends at in Kaimuki at the Rise Coffee Shop, and you're gonna just be privy to a little bit of a crazy conversation.
But this is the Remarkable People podcast. And now we wanna thank you for what you're about to endure.
Where do you live in Oahu?

Jane Chen:
I live in Kaka’ako.

Guy Kawasaki:
In Kaka’ako, in one of those thirty story buildings? Yeah.

Jane Chen:
It’s great.

Guy Kawasaki:
And which side of Ward Avenue are you, ‘Ewa or Diamond Head?

Jane Chen:
‘Ewa.

Guy Kawasaki:
You're ‘Ewa of Ward Avenue.

Jane Chen:
Yeah. So I can see Kewalos from my apartment.

Guy Kawasaki:
Are you close to Whole Foods?

Jane Chen:
Yeah. I'm across from Whole Foods. Yeah. You know that area. I love it so much. As surfing there is a totally different thing than surfing in Santa Cruz. Just like the people, the culture. I love Santa Cruz, but Hawaii's like it's heaven.

Guy Kawasaki:
But so what's your favorite break over there?

Jane Chen:
So I mostly surf Concessions. Do you know where that is? It's the beach park. It's next to like Big Rights. What's on the other side? First Holes, Second Holes, Concessions, Big Rights, Shallows.

Guy Kawasaki:
So far I've heard of none of those.

Jane Chen:
Okay. Well then, Kewalos is the furthest on the right of that.

Guy Kawasaki:
Oh.

Jane Chen:
So you've heard of Kewalos? Yeah.

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm a long boarder, so I don't go to those.

Jane Chen:
You're a long boarder. Yeah. You must love like Diamond Head, Queens, and Pops.

Guy Kawasaki:
My shortest board is nine feet ten inches.

Jane Chen:
Nice. Oh, I love it. Oh my gosh.
Okay. Well, we'll have to surf together sometime in Hawaii or Santa Cruz.

Guy Kawasaki:
I love the Lau Lau at Highway Inn. I go to Highway Inn all the time.

Jane Chen:
It’s so good.

Guy Kawasaki:
And yeah, there is a coffee shop around the corner from Highway Inn that I've spent many an hour writing in. Yeah.

Jane Chen:
Which one? I gotta go.

Guy Kawasaki:
It’s the one that is upstairs and downstairs. It's the Diamond Head Maka’s Korner of that building there.

Jane Chen:
Okay. I'm looking for a good coffee shop to write from, so I'm gonna go check that out.

Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, okay. I am telling you, Jane, I found two of the world's greatest coffee shops to write.

Jane Chen:
Oh my God. Okay. Tell me, please.

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm gonna let you in on this secret. Alright. Now, ironically, they are both named the Rise, R-I-S-E. So one is RISE, the dorm. This used to be the Atherton YMCA. It is on University Avenue.

Jane Chen:
Okay.

Guy Kawasaki:
And it is across the street from the University of Hawaii. They have a coffee shop that is open from seven o’clock in the morning to seven o’clock in the evening. It's all UH students, but it is a great coffee shop. They have very good coffee, very good food.
If you're really nice to me, I'll give you my username and password so you can get on their Wi-Fi really easy. I am on the UH Foundation Board of Trustees, so I made them give me a password and I also got the world's greatest email address. It's Kawasaki@UH.edu. Yeah, so that's number one. Number two is in Kaimuki.

Jane Chen:
Okay.

Guy Kawasaki:
Now in Kaimuki there's about five coffee shops, but every coffee shop in Kaimuki, there are people on top of each other. It's just packed. And let's just say the Wi-Fi sucks in most of those coffee shops.
Okay. But you are gonna thank me. You're gonna say, “This is the best podcast I've ever been on because I found out something useful.” So there is another coffee shop on Eleventh Avenue called Rise. Again, R-I-S-E.
It has one megabit internet access. It is adjacent to a humongous parking lot. You know the parking lot that is the other side of Koko Head Diner?

Jane Chen:
Yeah. Yes.

Guy Kawasaki:
It's on the other side of that parking lot.

Jane Chen:
Okay. I know what you're talking about.

Guy Kawasaki:
It is air conditioned. There is a downstairs and an upstairs. In the upstairs there is an electric outlet every three feet. I have never been there when it's crowded, I do not understand why more people don't use it.

Jane Chen:
And I've never heard of it.

Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, it is the fastest internet I have ever seen in a coffee shop, close to parking, good food. The people are really friendly and that's the place.

Jane Chen:
Okay. Thank you for these little tips. Oh my God. I'm gonna go check it out. Thank you. I've been looking for a good coffee shop. There's none in Kaka’ako, but I used to hang out mostly in Kaimuki, so I'm gonna check that out.

Guy Kawasaki:
Well, this is totally off the rails episode already, and all of this is being recorded. We probably gonna use it. So yeah, I have been searching and searching and finally I found these two, and they're both named Rise and yeah, I have been in coffee shops all over the world and I'm telling you these two rock.

Jane Chen:
Amazing. And they're both in Hawaii. Thank you Guy. This is already a great podcast.

Guy Kawasaki:
Maybe we should just end the podcast now.

Jane Chen:
I’ll see you in Hawaii. See you at Rise.

Guy Kawasaki:
All right, so now I'm gonna really do an introduction. Sorry, everybody listening, but now everybody listening knows the best two coffee shops in Honolulu for working.
Wait, I gotta tell you one more funny story. So I posted this message about the second coffee shop in Kaimuki saying, “Fast internet, good parking, good food, air conditioning, lots of electric plugs.”
And I posted this on Threads, and somebody says to me, from Hawaii, “You're trying too hard. People care about other things in coffee shops.” So he told me I'm trying too hard.
So then I look up his bio and what this guy does is he takes old ancient Hawaiian, black and white photographs and he colorizes it. Okay, so I thought, Here's some irony. He's telling me I'm trying too hard and he's taking classic photos and putting color on them. Who is trying too hard?

Jane Chen:
Yeah that is hilarious. My God. I love you, Guy. I love how you took the time to look him up.

Guy Kawasaki:
Jane one Asian to another. You understand? That’s just how we roll.

Jane Chen:
Oh, I get it. I know I'm cracking up.

Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, so I am going to read you what I think is your introduction.
All right? So obviously this is Guy Kawasaki, you've been listening to some banter. And somebody's gonna say, “Guy, why do you waste our time with ten minutes of banter? We just wanted to listen to Jane.” But anyway, so Jane is the co-founder of something called Embrace, and I'll let you describe.
She has a very, or had a very, well, we're gonna get into that. I don't know the exact status right now of a very, very interesting product she developed at Stanford and India.
I would say that this book that she wrote, which is called Like a Wave We Break, I don't know of another book that is so open and raw about what happened to her and all the trials and tribulations that she has gone through.
So it's a little bit of entrepreneurship, a little bit of mindfulness, a little bit of self-discovery, a little woo-woo. I don't know anybody who has gone through more treatment in more different ways from Bali to San Francisco. It's the most fascinating and she loves surfing, which, right there, that's all you have to do to be remarkable to me.
She loves surfing. Although, Jane, I gotta say that you tell the story of the first time you went surfing and your massage therapist took you to Diamond Head, and I would not have said that Diamond Head is the place to start learning how to surf.

Jane Chen:
On a tiny day in the winter, it is.

Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. But as you mentioned in your book, you gotta schlep all the way down that hill.

Jane Chen:
Oh, yeah. That's true. It's a workout just getting down there.

Guy Kawasaki:
So your book contains what I consider maybe the best one liner of the people we've interviewed in 2025. And that one liner is, “Prayer didn't work for shit.” When I read that, I said, “Oh my God, that is so freaking funny. ‘Prayer didn't work for shit.’ Wow.”
So anyway, we're smiling and laughing and all these kind of things, but I really feel awkward about this, but you're gonna have to tell us a story of your upbringing as a Taiwanese immigrant. And like some of the stories of your father and mother are deeply, deeply disturbing to me.
And one of the things that I learned from your book more than anything is I really hit the fricking lottery because I was not born in a family like that. And I'm Asian American too, but my father never did those kind of things to me.
So I hate to drag this up, but for people to understand the context of this episode, we're gonna have to do it. So please explain this.

Jane Chen:
Yeah, so I'm a first generation Taiwanese American immigrant. I was born in Taiwan, moved to the US when I was four years old. And actually guys, I wrote this book, I really learned a lot about the history of Taiwan. I'm also part Japanese.
So at that time that we moved, Taiwan was under martial law, and Taiwan was one of the country's under martial law for the longest period of time. So thirty-eight years in total.
And during that time, there was a great deal of violence and oppression, right? So hundreds of thousands of people were killed, disappeared, raped, et cetera. And my parents were trying to get us out of that environment. And it wasn't until the nineties that Taiwan actually held its first open presidential election.
So that's just to frame what was happening in the backdrop there. Now, my parents grew up with corporal punishments, and that's how they raised us, their three daughters. And it's something that is more common in Asian culture, I would say, but also something that's not spoken about.
And so it was something that became very normalized in my home. And for us as first generation immigrants. My parents really wanted us to excel in school and excel academically. So there was a lot of pressure for that to happen, right? And that's how my father showed his love, was by pushing me to excel.
But when I didn't meet his expectations, I was punished violently, And I think a defining moment for me in my childhood was when I was twelve years old. I came home from school one day and I decided to read my history book on the front lawn. It was like beautiful and sunny outside.
And when my father came home and saw this, he flew into a rage. He was really angry because he decided homework shouldn't be done on a lawn. It should be done at a desk. And so he beat me up and he demanded that I apologize.

Guy Kawasaki:
And do you think that your mother and father were raised by parents who did the same thing?

Jane Chen:
Yes, I think it is such an ingrained part of the culture that there isn't an awareness as to the impact on children. And I see this in a lot of first generation immigrants. And again, for me, it was so normalized that I didn't ever stop to think twice about it until much, much later on in my life.

Guy Kawasaki:
But wouldn't you think that if you were violently punished like this as a child, you would be the last person in the world to do it to your children? And yet the cycle continues. What am I missing here?

Jane Chen:
Yeah, the cycle continues. Again, I think when something becomes so normalized in the culture, and I even talk about a phrase in Chinese in the book that's about that's a way of parents show their love is by punishing their children and demanding that kind of excellence. You either go two routes, right?
You either realize that's not something that you would do, and you raise your children very differently, or you do the same thing. You repeat the pattern because that's what you know.

Guy Kawasaki:
So what is your relationship with your mother and father now?

Jane Chen:
I still have a relationship with them. It took me a lot to process all of that, and coming back to this story that I told, I think that moment at twelve years old, I felt so powerless in that moment, right? And what I didn't understand was that would fuel my drive later. That feeling of powerless would lead me to help the most powerless people in the world.
But it would take me decades to connect the dots as to how that all fit together. And I do have a relationship with my parents now, and I'm sure we'll go into this more, but through this healing process, I came to really have compassion for their stories as well, and I've learned what my boundaries are for myself.
And so it's like this combination of being both open-hearted and having my boundaries. But I understand my family history and context a lot better through the writing of this story.

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm almost afraid to ask you this question, but a few years ago there was this big fad because of this professor from Yale about being a “Tiger Mom.” So when you read that, like what was your reaction to the “Tiger Mom” theory?

Jane Chen:
Yeah, that's a good question. Here's what I feel about this. I think that I'm not one to judge how someone parents, but it's about the intentionality behind that, that you make an intentional decision as to how you want to raise your kids. And I think what happened in my household that ended up being damaging for me was there was a lot of reactivity.
It wasn't about just intentionality, but things would happen, or I get punished because my father got angry at something and got reactive. And so I think for a child, it's that kind of inconsistency and unpredictability that gets really confusing. Right?
And what ends up happening, and of course, I didn't know how to articulate this in that moment, was me feeling like, Oh, there's something wrong with me. I'm bad or there's something wrong with me.
Because I didn't know how to make sense of what was happening in my environment as I grew up. But I now believe like the best gift you can give to your child is love and compassion and confidence that they can do anything, and that was something I had to learn to give to myself over time.

Guy Kawasaki:
How long did it take?

Jane Chen:
You read the journey. We could dive into my company later, but it took really hitting rock bottom in my journey as an entrepreneur to then go on a deep healing journey in which I began to confront these things because this was not in my consciousness that any of this affected me.
And now it's so obvious, but I literally did not connect the dots until ten years into creating Embrace and the company failing in that moment and then going on a healing journey that, oh, that was my motivation. That feeling of powerlessness had given me that purpose, but it also drove me to extreme burnout.

Guy Kawasaki:
I think it's time that you give us the gist of the story of Embrace, because it is quite a story.

Jane Chen:
Yeah, so Embrace started, I was a graduate school student at Stanford, as you said, with my MBA, and I took a course the first year called “Design for Extreme Affordability” at the d.school, which is all about creating low cost technologies for people living on less than a dollar a day.
The challenge posed to my team at that time was to build a baby incubator that costs 1 percent of a traditional incubator. And so I teamed up with some incredible students in all the different graduate programs, mostly the engineering schools, and we developed this concept.
Let me back up for a second. What we discovered was that fifteen million preterm and underweight babies are born every year. One of the biggest challenges they face is just staying warm, and that is the primary function of an incubator. But incubators are not only expensive.
What we saw as we went around and did research was that they require constant electricity, which is a huge challenge in developing countries. So based on this insight, we came up with a concept that looks nothing like an incubator.
It looks like a little sleeping bag for a baby. And the core technology is a wax like substance called a phase-change material, which when melted maintains the exact same temperature, ninety-eight degrees for six hours at a stretch, and you can simply reheat this every six hours, and that's enough to regulate the temperature of these vulnerable babies.
So we had this concept and we graduated Stanford and we thought, If we don't take this forward, no one else is going to, so let's just give this a go. And we packed up our bags and we moved to India. India was home at that time to 40 percent of all the world's premature and underweight babies.
And I spent four years of living in India, and so we did everything there. Product development, manufacturing, distribution, and this is not like a Silicon Valley tech company. This is like a medical device that we're doing, trying to serve the poorest markets in the world.
And we were so naive, which I think you have to be to do this kind of thing. And we did save a lot of babies along the way, and that was the most rewarding part of this. And I remember one of the most touching moments was we donated incubators to an orphanage in Beijing, and they found a two and a half pound baby that had been abandoned on a street.
So they kept him in our incubator for weeks, and he survived.

Guy Kawasaki:
This is Nathan.

Jane Chen:
Yes, and I got to visit the orphanage seven months later and hold him in my arms. And then he was adopted a few months after that. And so this was just one of many stories. Nathan is very special to me because I've kept in touch with his family over the years.
They visited me in Hawaii last year and he came surfing with me, Guy.

Guy Kawasaki:
Wow.

Jane Chen:
I know. So that story is very, very special to me. But there were many stories like that, and that's what kept me going and going and going. But at the same time, we face so many challenges like manufacturing challenges, funding challenges, distribution challenges.
We're working primarily with the Indian government. That in itself is like such a difficult undertaking. And so it was just one thing after the next, after the next, constantly running out of money. And you know how startup world is.
And it's like you take like a traditional startup, you put it in India and then you, again, as you're serving these certain markets. And I was just getting so exhausted. By four years in, I was burned out. I kept pushing myself. And then ten years in, we just faced one too many setbacks and we had to shut down the company.

Guy Kawasaki:
But before you shut down the company, you got investments. You converted to a for-profit.

Jane Chen:
Yes, yes, yes. We started as a nonprofit and then a few years into that, we've spun out a for-profit arm. And at that time, this was the beginning of the impact investors coming on scene. And so we were hearing from investors, “If you guys had a for-profit arm, we could invest in that.”
And so we decided to spin out a for-profit arm, and we really did that to diversify our sources of capital, so we could attract both philanthropic funding and private funding to scale in the way that we hoped.

Guy Kawasaki:
And what is the status of Embrace today?

Jane Chen:
It's a miracle. We had shut down the company at that ten year point, and then, I could talk about the prayer and what happened as a result of that. But at the end of the day, there was another investor that came in and saved the day.
And actually there's a whole story about Tony Robbins coming into the scene. But there was a group that just really believed in our mission and did not want it to fail. And so they saved the company.

Guy Kawasaki:
Is this Marc Benioff or is this after?

Jane Chen:
No, this was after Benioff. Marc Benioff was also one of the people who saved us in a low moment.

Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah.

Jane Chen:
There are many, many angels along the way that gave us lifelines.
But Mark came in. We were at that time talking to a company about doing a global distribution deal, and they were supposed to come in and take our next round of financing. And then that deal fell through because the CEO stepped down and we had really put all of our bets on that partnership.
And that was one of the first times we ran out of money. And luckily I had met Marc Benioff in Davos at a meditation session. And it's just such a serendipitous story. And Marc and I happened to sit next to each other. There may be like a handful of people there out of the thousands of attendants.
And afterwards we just chatted, and I told him about Embrace. He told me he had a personal experience with a premature baby. And when this all happened months later, I sent him an SOS telling him what happened, and he immediately responded maybe twenty-four hours later, and I'll never forget what he wrote. He wrote, “Dear Jane, I will fund your company. Aloha, Marc.”

Guy Kawasaki:
You gave it a ten year run, right? It's about eight years longer than most.

Jane Chen:
Yeah.

Guy Kawasaki:
So today, can people still buy?

Jane Chen:
Yes. Embrace, we turned it back into a nonprofit in 2021. And so that is what operates today. I've stepped down. So we have a new CEO in place and it's now donating incubators to primarily humanitarian crises zones. So over the last couple years, we've gotten incubators to places like Ukraine, Syria, Turkey, anywhere there's been a war or natural disaster, we've sent incubators.
And so that's been super exciting. And in fact, the organization, when we were students back at Stanford, our goal was to save a million babies. And just this year, eighteen years later, the organization has reached a million babies.

Guy Kawasaki:
Wow. And do you have any role in the current Embrace?

Jane Chen:
I stepped down in May and I stepped down to focus on this next chapter of my life. So I'm an advisor and a well-wisher, and I have a call with the CEO tomorrow, so I continue to get updates and spend so much of my life and my heart and soul in this organization.
So I feel really excited that it's in good hands, and I feel happy about the legacy I've left.

Guy Kawasaki:
I have to tell you that as I was reading your book there are so many sort of coincidences, right? So you went to Stanford. I went to Stanford. You got a Stanford MBA. I got rejected by the Stanford MBA program. So I never donate money to Stanford because I still haven't gotten over that.
And then I have friends at d.school. And you mentioned one liner about the company that was making the light, and I think it's called d.light, right? Yeah. And when I started a company called garage.com, and we actually funded d.light.
So there's that overlap, and then you go on this whole thing about how you take beta blockers to make speeches, and this is time for Guy’s true confessions.
I have something called Meniere’s. And Meniere’s is tinnitus and hearing loss and vertigo. And one of the theories of Meniere’s is that it's caused by anxiety. So years ago, my doctor prescribed Lorazepam and I took Lorazepam as an anti-anxiety, which is not a beta blocker, but you know, same theory, right?
And you talk about beta blockers and how you take it to help you make speeches. And so I was taking Lorazepam and he said, “Take Lorazepam whenever you're in a high anxiety situation,” which is making a speech as you mentioned. So I took it like the first three times, and the three times I took Lorazepam before a speech, I got standing ovations.
So I thought, Man, Lorazepam really helps me get standing ovations. But then I thought, Oh, what if I'm gonna be psychologically dependent on Lorazepam to get standing ovations, so I quit cold turkey. But anyways, and then your co-founder, Rahul. Rahul, I hope I pronounce that name right. He introduced you to Carol Dweck, who has also been on this podcast who is like a friend of mine.
And then the last thing that I loved is that your first car was a Toyota Corolla. And my first car was a Toyota Corolla. I wish I could have that car back.

Jane Chen:
I know it's a great car. It lasted like twenty years.

Guy Kawasaki:
It was a stick shift, and it was so much fun to drive. Yeah. So now back to, this is the most disjointed episode of Remarkable People ever done.
So, you know, sometimes people say that “The way to find inner peace and happiness is to help people less fortunate than you,” right? So now I'm reading your book. I'm thinking, Man, she certainly is helping people less fortunate than her, but it sure as hell doesn't seem to be bringing her inner peace. So do you buy that theory or is it bullshit?

Jane Chen:
I think there's an aspect of that, and it is wonderful to give to other people, that was the fulfilling part of my job. But I think what was also mixed up with that was my identity was completely wrapped up about my work, right? So I was so entwined.
And that's many of us overachievers, we define ourselves by our jobs, our titles, the companies we found, our accomplishments. So what happens when all of that goes away. And so I think for me, there was also like this feeling that I was never enough and the need to prove myself. And so that was also mixed in there as well. It was very nuanced.
And that was the part that I think was keeping me unhappy, that no matter how much I did, no matter how much recognition we received, it still never felt like it was enough. And I think what happened was because I believed in what we were doing so much as well, I just kept pushing and not listening to the signs that I was burned out and exhausted.
And I think, again, I see this in many of us overachievers that we keep pushing, pushing, pushing to the point of burnout. And part of that comes from this need to prove something. And it's even more confusing when it's for a great cause. So I think that’s what was happening.
I wasn't honoring my own needs for rest and balance and all of that. And for years, Guy, my mantra was Embrace first, me second. Focus on the company first. Get it to where it needs to be, then you can take care of yourself. So you know what happened? I never took care of myself.

Guy Kawasaki:
So are you therefore advocating that even when you're in the eye of the storm, you still take care of yourself? Or do you believe in this serial process?

Jane Chen:
No, absolutely. You have to take care of yourself because that is what is critical for sustainable leadership. Sure, you can burn bright for one or two years and burn out, or you can actually take care of yourself and make impact in the long run. And so that is what I really care about.
And here's the other thing, the way that we treat ourselves extends out to everyone around us. I truly believe that. And so we talk so much about psychological safety. That I'm sure you're familiar with the Google study on what is the number one most important determinant of the highest functioning, most innovative teams?
It's psychological safety, and it's the ability for someone to come to work and bring their whole selves and take risks without fear of failure. And my question for leaders now is how do you create that as a leader for your team if you don't have that within yourself, right? And this is the importance of the inner work of leadership.

Guy Kawasaki:
And if one of these next generation leaders said to you that “We want people in our company to achieve work life balance.” Do you just laugh at them, or do you say that's possible?

Jane Chen:
I think it is possible if you're really mindful about it, but I think you as a leader have to set the tone. And I think that this is just so foundational and imperative. Look at the rates around burnout and disengagement right now. It's really horrifying, and so it's like showing up in people's like mental and physical health.
So again, if you wanna create sustainable impact, then pay attention to this.

Guy Kawasaki:
Now do you believe in the theory that a for-profit startup can have a double bottom line that is to make money and to make the world a better place? Because until I read your book, I have to confess, my theory was you cannot have a double bottom line. You make a lot of money and then donate it as the next step.
But to try to do both at once is not possible. So tell me I'm wrong or right.

Jane Chen:
Well, I think it really depends on your business model, your market. I think there are some companies that have been able to do this, like back in the day when we were looking at Warby Parker or TOMS shoes or companies that had a U.S. market but were making money and then donating that to other markets.
Yes. And then look at d.light. D.light is a for-profit company. They've done remarkably well in terms of getting their products all over the world in a profitable way.
So I think it is possible, but it requires a certain set of factors to all fall into place. And I think with Embrace, what we discovered was that with a very low cost, low margin product that was very difficult to distribute and a medical device on top of that.
So we have a lot of regulations. Then you're talking about the healthcare. Dealing with the healthcare system, which is primarily operated by governments in emerging markets. So we're stacking one challenge upon the next, upon the next, and that was not a viable business model. So I think it can work.
I think in this particular case it didn't make sense and it took us a while to unpack all of that.

Guy Kawasaki:
Has anybody ever said to you, “Jane, what the hell were you thinking? Like you're in this market that doesn't have money. That's highly regulated. That's 12,000 miles away in a different culture. Besides that, Jane, everything is easy.”

Jane Chen:
You know what's funny, Guy? I think back to when we were developing our business plans and I'm like, all these investors who are so seasoned, how come they didn't say anything? How come they didn't say, “You guys are nuts.” You know what I mean? But it was really awesome, so Vinod Khosla, he was our lead investor for the for-profit company.
And I really love a lot of things about the way Vinod thinks, but he's just willing to take a bet on the chance that it could work, right? And so I love that. He's very visionary and he took a bet on us, and it took me many tries.
He rejected like the first ten meetings with me, but then he finally sat down with me and funded the company. And then, when all of this unfolded and we had to shut down the company I saw Vinod, at TED actually, a couple years ago, and I pulled him aside.
I told him everything that happened, and I felt like a little sad that things had happened the way they had, and what he said to me, and I love this so much, he said, “Jane, I never really thought it would work as a for-profit, but I figured it was worth a shot.”

Guy Kawasaki:
Wow.

Jane Chen:
Yeah. And I thought, Wow, that is amazing. And that's captures to me the ethos of Silicon Valley, that people are willing to take that bet in case it could work. And you know what? It didn't succeed as a for-profit in that form. However, we did reach over a million babies, right? And that's the part that he was the most excited about.
And that investment certainly helped. And so I thought, Wow, I really so appreciated Vinod for that. That it wasn't about that return on investment, but taking a bet on something that could be worthwhile and then the impact saving babies in the process.

Guy Kawasaki:
It seems to me that Vinod put in, I don't know, five million and Marc Benioff put in whatever he put in. So let's just use a round number and say that you raised, I don't know, ten million dollars total. You could make the case ten million dollars saved a million babies.
That's ten dollars per baby. That's a deal. That's a great deal. You would make that deal all day long if I were you.

Jane Chen:
Yeah. And you know what's really cool, Guy?
There was this impact of saving babies and there's this secondary thing that happened, which is, I can't tell you the number of people, students, especially who have come to me to say, “The Embrace story inspired me to start something that did good in the world. The Embrace story inspired me to take this project to the next level or try something I never thought I would've tried.”
So there's also a ripple effect that happened and that gets me super excited.

Guy Kawasaki:
As I was reading your book, I said, “My God, Jane has tried everything like meditation, yoga. She goes to India, she tries to find herself in Bali and India, and you know everything. And she takes MDMA, magic mushrooms, and everything.” Like you have tried everything.
So can you give us an analysis of what it takes to find yourself and to find this peace?

Jane Chen:
Yes. I think, for me there's a couple of things. One, the most important is to pause. Okay, we live in this culture that's about doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, right? When do we take the a moment to actually pause and sit with what we're feeling?
And so when difficult emotions come up, instead of turning to your phone and scrolling on social media or turning to work or getting a glass of wine, to just sit with that, to sit with grief and heartache. Who's not had grief and heartache in their life? To sit with fear, to sit with anger and just allow ourselves to feel whatever comes up for us.
Because that is the only way through difficult emotions, is to sit with them and feel them. And I think that also happens in community. And this is where I've been so grateful for friends, teachers, the healers I work with, the therapists I've worked with who have created a safe space for me to do that.
And I see this with a lot of entrepreneurs battling very challenging things, battling anxiety and difficult feelings. So how do we create that space and community for ourselves to do that? So that's the first thing. Secondly, the most important thing in life, I believe now, is the relationship we have with ourselves. That dictates everything and that dictates how happy we are.
It's not about external successes, which are fleeting. If everything is pegged on the external, the goal post keeps moving and you're never gonna be happy. So how do we find that sense of internal happiness? And one of the biggest things that I've found beneficial is a practice called ‘parts work.’
It's also called Internal Family Systems. So this is based on the premise that we all have a multitude of parts within us. So Guy, you might have the overachiever, the perfectionist, there's an inner critic in there, there's the surfer, there's the jokester.
There is also the parts of you that carry difficult emotions like fear, abandonment, rejection. You talked about the Stanford rejection, right?

Guy Kawasaki:
I've got that over then.

Jane Chen:
Yeah. Except for that little, “I'm not gonna ever give to Stanford,” but we have those feelings. So how do we start to relate to these parts of ourselves differently? And instead of trying to shame or banish, to really have compassion for each of these parts, right?
And so what I saw in myself was I had this like warrior, overachiever part that was so active, and it was protecting this little girl inside me that never felt like I was enough, right? And so I had to really give that love to myself.

Guy Kawasaki:
Let me understand something. So you gave us these two thoughts, but are you saying that these, you know, the yoga and the meditation and the magic mushrooms and all these kind of things that you tried, led you to this realization, or they were fads, or they were experiments, or they didn't really matter?
I mean, is there a magic bullet? Tony Robbins changed your life or something?

Jane Chen:
He did. I love that you're touching upon this because here in Silicon Valley especially, we want the magic bullet, we want the elixir. And that's what I was looking for. I thought if I just found the one thing I will find inner happiness. Sorry guys, that's not how this works.

Guy Kawasaki:
What do you mean? Surfing is that.

Jane Chen:
And surfing was part of my healing process.
Being in the ocean, all of these things were beneficial for trauma and specifically, psychedelics, particularly MDMA. And we could talk about the science behind that, but that was very helpful in teaching me self-compassion. And so these are all things that have been helpful.
And actually for folks listening, I have a free resource page on my site with all the things I've tried and resources for people to access those things themselves. But in terms of what led to that healing, it was an accumulation of many of these things that led to those insights.
Right? And it was a slow process. It was not linear. I didn't go from point A to B to C. It was sometimes two steps forward and one step back. And then having to learn all over again, but slowly developing that sense of self-compassion.
And I'll tell you what helped me realize that, that I was shifting is that inner voice in my head, often we are the meanest to ourselves, we're the most critical to ourselves.
And so that voice that would come up that was like just criticize me constantly. It's not that went away entirely, but I'd hear a different voice come up over time. A voice that said to me, “Hey, it's okay. You get to take a break.” Or if I did something and I didn't do it perfectly, that's okay.
And I'll give you a real life example since we're talking about beta blockers. At Stanford, I was convinced I was the admissions mistake. Convinced.

Guy Kawasaki:
So was I.

Jane Chen:
Yeah, so I had such bad imposter syndrome. I had to give a talk in front of all my classmates, and I blacked out.
I blacked out. I had to leave the room. And I was so mortified that for the next thirteen years I just had this horrible fear of public speaking. And so I had to take beta blockers to calm the physical symptoms of the anxiety. I did this for thirteen years, Guy. A couple years ago, after doing all of this healing work, I was asked to give a talk and it was a finance conference, 500 people.
I think Peyton Manning was the other headliner. I didn't know who Peyton Manning was. I'm so embarrassed. But he was the other headliner. And so I thought, you know what? I'm done with beta blockers. I'm not doing it anymore. I just wanna show up as me, and you know how I prepared for that talk?
Instead of visualizing success like everyone tells you to do, I did the opposite. I visualized getting on that stage and blacking out, just bombing. And then I had a conversation with seven-year-old me and I just said to her, “Hey, it's okay. You're still enough, you're still loved. It doesn't matter if you succeed or fail, you're enough.”
I got up on that stage that day and I gave probably the best talk I've ever given at the conference. Yeah. The conference organizers told me it was the highest rated talk they had ever had at the conference, and I've never had to take a beta blocker again. And this was like four years ago.
So there's something there. And so we talk about like resilience and for me, resilience before used to mean pushing harder. If I'm tired, keep going. And now resilience means how do I slow down and care for myself?
Because when we have this inner sense of worthiness, we can take risks and fail and just brush ourselves off because we know we're gonna be okay no matter what. And so to me that is resilience now.

Guy Kawasaki:
I can't suppress my Asian DNA so much.

Jane Chen:
It's okay.

Guy Kawasaki:
What happens if you overshoot this and you forgive yourself too easily, and so you never press yourself to do better? Isn't that a danger too?

Jane Chen:
Maybe, it's interesting because I think just the way I'm built and our overachiever folks that probably the folks who are listening to this podcast, we're just built in a way where we are gonna be driven by goals and all of that. So I'm not really worried about that to be honest.
But what if our goals come from this place of having to prove ourselves. That's when it can get unhealthy. But if our goals can come out of this place of pure love and joy and just wanting to do this thing because you're so excited about it, then that's coming from a different place and that's gonna sustain you.
And frankly, and I think you'll be able to relate to this. That's what surfing is for me. It's not about a goal or I'm not proving, it's just pure joy. And you'll love this analogy. A couple months ago before my book came out, I did a meditation retreat, a silent meditation.
It's maybe just a five day one. And I had this image during that retreat of me riding an endless wave and being so in flow with the water and the elements and all of that, and it was so joyous and beautiful. And I thought, I'm moving into this next chapter of my life beyond Embrace. And it actually doesn't matter what I'm doing.
It's the way I want to do it, and I wanna do it from that place of joy and flow and excitement, as from a place of striving.

Guy Kawasaki:
Jane, now thousands of people are gonna say, “I'm gonna be a better speaker by visualizing failure.” Okay, so we just changed the world there. Yeah. Peyton Manning is saying, “Oh, that little Asian woman just cleaned my clock.” Yeah, so now looking back, an obvious question is how do you define success?

Jane Chen:
Yeah. Well, now the way I define success is less about the external. It's less about outcomes. Because look at what happened during COVID, everything turned upside down. Nothing went the way that we planned. And so many people fell into like anxiety and despair. Now, the way I define success is, am I living my values every day?
Am I acting with love? Am I giving to others? Am I growing every day? And so that's really success to me, less about the specific outcomes and more about living my values day in and day out.

Guy Kawasaki:
A few minutes ago you mentioned one of the positive outcomes has been that many young people come up to you and say that you're inspiring, and one of the things that concerns me now about the Silicon Valley and tech entrepreneurship is, if you look at the heroes like Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, it's hard to conclude that's the kind of role models you want, right?
So I would say, more people should know about you and fewer people should know about Mark Zuckerberg. But what's gonna motivate the next generation to do good as opposed to make crypto successful and ensure that there's long-term capital gains tax that's low?

Jane Chen:
I love what you're talking about here, Guy, and it's why I feel even stronger about my book and the message that I'm putting out because I look at the leadership and many of these organizations, or even in our country today, and here's what I see. I see that there are people who have not faced some very deep inner wounds.
And that when that happens, you tend to lead from a place of fear, control, and ego as opposed to truly from a place of compassion, love, and shared purpose. And again, this is why to me it is so important to have this self-awareness and to do our inner work. My belief now is if we had a society in which every child felt safe and loved, our world would look so different than it looks today.
And I think that goes to the inner child in each of us as well. And so I think we are at this kind of very pivotal moment in our world where we get to make a choice. And I think we need to wake up to something. And it's why I feel so, so strongly about the message that I'm sharing.

Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. My last question, and it's pretty serious actually. So having done all these things and experienced these things from your parents and there's a whole book full of experiences here. So what is your advice to people who are now new parents? What is your parental advice?

Jane Chen:
Yeah. Okay. So this is my advice, and this goes back to what I was saying earlier, when we don't look at the things and the wounds that have shaped us, we're very likely to pass those to our children, so the work that you do on yourself, the more self-awareness you have, the more compassion you have for yourself, that extends to children as well.
And that's what I see often, just like these repeated cycles when we're not aware. It's only when we have awareness that we can change the cycle. And that's what you were asking me at the very beginning about, Guy, like, how could this continue? It's that lack of awareness.
And so how do we take that moment to pause and reflect and do our work? And it's also why, I mentioned I stepped down from Embrace in May, and what I'm turning to now is leadership development training, leadership coaching, and personal coaching. And it's because I really want to equip other people with the tools to do this.
And so that's what I've done for the last number of years. I've gone around the world. I've tried every kind of healing modality you could possibly think of.

Guy Kawasaki:
You certainly have.

Jane Chen:
And I've had the great fortune of working with some of the best teachers in the world, from Tony Robbins to Bessel van der Kolk, who wrote The Body Keeps the Score, to many others.
And so what I hope is just to spread that awareness and to spread everything I've learned to others so that they can cultivate that within themselves because it affects the way we show up, not only as parents, as partners, as leaders. It all starts from within. This is not about policies and frameworks and all of that.
It's doing the hard work of looking within.

Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. That is a great way to end this podcast.

Jane Chen:
Thank you, Guy.

Guy Kawasaki:
So I just wanna thank you. It's been delightful. I will be in Hawaii in January if you're back there.

Jane Chen:
Let’s go to Rise.

Guy Kawasaki:
We will go to Rise and let's see, we'll go to Rise, and I'll take you, I don't know if you've discovered this, but the world's best blueberry scones are at Diamond Head Bakery.

Jane Chen:
Oh yes, I've had them with cream cheese. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Guy Kawasaki:
Exactly. Five dollars each. Yeah.

Jane Chen:
So worth it. Let's do it.

Guy Kawasaki:
We'll eat our way across Hawaii. We'll start with Diamond Head Bakery scone. Then we'll go to Koko Head Diner and then we'll go to Rise and work. And then we'll end up the day and we'll go to Roy's for dinner.

Jane Chen:
Let’s do it, and then we'll surf in between to burn off all the calories. Okay.

Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. But if we surf, we're gonna go to Canoes.

Jane Chen:
I'll longboard. It'll be super fun.

Guy Kawasaki:
Two crazy rich Asians at Canoes could be dangerous. Yeah.

Jane Chen:
Well, I'm not rich, but I'm crazy.

Guy Kawasaki:
All righty. Thank you so much. And I wanna thank the team you've been interacting with Madisun Nuismer, so you know how remarkable she is. And she has a remarkable sister named Tessa Nuismer who does our research and co-producer, Jeff Sieh and sound design engineer, Shannon Hernandez.