Thomas Green here with Ethical Marketing Service. On the podcast today, we have Rachel Chung. Rachel, welcome.
Hello. Thank you so much for having me, Thomas. I’m so glad to be here.
It is my pleasure. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Absolutely. So, my name is Rachel Chung. I’m the founder of Essence by Rachel Chung, and I am a confidence and high-performance coach. My background is the areas of personal brand image consulting and personal profiling. What I do for my clients and for people is, if you’re struggling with procrastination especially challenged by self-doubt and then professionalism and fear, I just maximise that using mindset mastery and personal profiling and personal brand image consulting. And then let you and everyone realise how awesome you are in the cater a personalised plan for attack, and then actually going on to thrive and then kickstart your business and your life. That’s what I do.
I always do a little bit of preparation for any guest that comes on the show, and the first thing I saw was your enthusiasm. Have you got any thoughts on that? Have you always been enthusiastic or is it something that you’ve learnt how to do as a result of your job?
I think I can say it’s mixed because when I did, my born personality was quite introverted. But actually, what I’ve found is I really like – now we are one on one, right? When I am one on one, I get a lot of feedback about bringing something positive right in the room and kind of motivating and, kind of like, a mood blaster. So, after that I realised okay, that’s actually how people perceive who I am and what I’m good at. It has to be natural, and just naturally I’m doing that. So, I developed that part to show who I am and, kind of, matching what I want and where I feel comfortable. So, just developed that part as well, yes. Thank you for that. I’m happy to hear I’m naturally happy.
Yes, it’s infectious. Does it coincide with your confidence training because I know you help people with confidence? Do you, kind of, teach people how to use these principles as well?
Yes. So, the very first one is, I always, always ask people to – because really my passion is, I think everyone is awesome. They are great. So whenever I see people who don’t like themselves, always complaining and comparing themselves to someone else, I’m horrible, I’m terrible, that makes me frustrated. I can see how gorgeous they are. I want them to realise at least you have one great thing inside of you. So, with my confidence coaching, I want them to find a positive part. So, we are here not just to pinpoint every weakness. We are here to find the strengths and just one signature strength, so that’s always a starting point with my clients and people. And then to find at least one thing that they can say oh, at least I’m good at one, yes. And then I let them identify that one, and then they’re going to start accepting that. Okay. On this part, I’m good, yes.
You ask them to highlight their strengths, essentially?
Exactly.
And then you continue to ask them to find more things until the point where, let’s say, they’re conditioned to be a little bit more positive. Would you say that’s accurate?
I think so, yes. So, a brief thing about myself – I have a background in personal profiling. So, the very first step is looking together, jump in together. It cannot give you data that’s 100 per cent correct, but it can with a little bit of guidance. So, with your personality, you have bullet points of strengths. And then after that, I ask them a question to get a score, like, narrow it down. So, you have this much core strength, okay. And then after that, let’s find the top three. Okay. After that, I ask each question so they can really resonate with their strengths, inward and outward. And after that, we get the score and after that, we get the highest score for strengths and then they’re already feeling more positive, finding they actually have a strength they never actually realised. We keep talking about the positives. We don’t talk without these two. We have the top three positives and they’re okay, I have a positive thing. And after they have the list and they are done, they see okay, yes, I have this top score. And then okay, I have the data to accept I have a strong positive part. And then they’re actually okay, I’m positive and confident with that.
One of the things you said that you covered is mindset mastery. Can you go into what mindset mastery is and how do you get started with that?
Whenever I show what I’m passionate about, I just want to be [makes noise] and I have to slow down. Mindset mastery is a big part of what I want to share with people because Thomas, whenever you have an issue that holds you back, it’s highly likely it’s about mindset. Have you experienced that?
Have I experienced a negative mindset, you mean?
Yes.
I think everyone’s, sort of, experienced that little voice that tells you you can’t do something, if that’s what you mean?
Yes, correct. I’m not saying it always happens but I find it especially comes with confidence and the first foundation I want people to make concrete is the mindset part. Because it’s also likely it’s coming from their mindset and the main thing is self-doubt and fear. Most likely fear of judgement, fear of failure, sometimes even fear of success, and lastly professionalism. I’m not saying that’s all we have as a mindset block, but in terms of confidence, I think they’re the top three, I’ve found. Anyway, from there on, I think about what I did from my separate task list, I just say okay, the mind is first and then another thing is more physical, like a more skillful thing. And then the other one is okay, more skill and technique parts and the mindset. I just set a test, which is actually the highest, like a positive review. And what I’ve found is that mindset is first and then I share how to clear the block, whatever they’re holding back, and then let them improve their confidence with skill and technical parts. And actually, it’s the best outlet. So from there, I say okay, mindset mastery is absolutely important, the first component that we attack, we overcome. One of my biggest strategies is focusing on personalising. Everyone is different. Everyone has a different fingerprint. Everyone has a different journey. So, in order to solve an issue, we need to look into ourselves first, not jumping to compare ourselves to others and others’ know-how and apply others’ tips. Just focusing on us first. And then personalising what mindset block is holding us back the most, and after that identify that to fully understand it. And then dig deeper and deeper and deeper and then I can assess that part and then I just say okay, so I just have that coaching format . I really lead them to be aware of that. I’m empowering them. I keep asking questions relevant to them, and then at the end, actually we know that the mind is one part. We have an answer just, like, deeply hidden underneath ourselves. I just happen to find that covered up one and then that one specific, biggest mindset block, we clear that one in my sessions before jumping on any other things. So, that’s what I call mindset mastery.
You’ve got your personal brand image consulting. I can see you use a lot of that yourself with your personal brand, but how do you help others with personal branding?
Personal branding is my biggest passion. I think the reason why I love it is because it can be a little bit instant. They can see instant outcomes. Because we are visible, right? And especially the inside image consulting, I don’t want to overwhelm people. I’m not going to unwrap everything. But as part of personal image consulting, we are improving our makeover, our appearance. So, as you can see, my personal colour, my hairstyle colour, and my make-up, even background colour, it’s all congruent to show my strengths, who I am, my personality. So, in terms of personal branding image consulting, actually, I call it personality branding. So, showing who we are, our ceiling of strengths, through image consulting, through image, so in style image. I firstly check your personality, you find the signature strength, okay, and your mindset block is cleared. Now, you’re good to go. So, how can we project your best, biggest and strongest strengths? How can we present and shine? And then I start to analyse this, so in style, appearance, image, they are separate parts to analyse. And after that we find okay, your appearance image with this, this, this, analyse this, I suggest okay, I would advise – so with this analysis, you can make up a plan, so before and after. I absolutely recommend everyone to all wear their personal colour. Simply changing to using the right colour, not only will your face look better and more alive, more energetic, actually you just feel better. It affects your feelings and emotions as well. And then that is how we find a matching personal colour and then apply it to social branding, like an Instagram post colour, and then everything, just apply it to everything. Then when people look nicer, they feel nicer, they feel more confident, and they just pass through the cycle and on and on and on. So, that’s why I really like it and not only the appearance part, one other part is how we posture to show our strengths. And then how can facial expression, how can body language, even voice image, how can we match incongruent voice image to our other image to show our strengths? So, everything comes together. That’s why my branding name is Essence. The core part, centre, everything over it, over it, over it, the best of the best, that’s our core essence and that helps people to have the highest confidence.
I definitely need to watch some more of your content because I’m not exactly the best example with this particular topic. Some of the other topics that you talk about, I think I can probably talk to you about as well, which is you say that you help overcome procrastination.
Yes.
And you’ve touched on self-doubt a little bit. But what do you say to someone, let’s say a coaching client, when they say I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing? Or maybe even you could apply it to me. So, you’ve highlighted a problem today which is the fact that I don’t have much tone in my voice. I haven’t got myself a colour. And in terms of enthusiasm, like I said, the reason why I admire you is because you’ve got so much enthusiasm and I’m, kind of, low on the enthusiasm scale. So, I know I need to do something about that. What should someone do to overcome procrastination?
Okay. So, in terms of procrastination, it all comes to – I’ll just emphasise this part – the most important strategy we need to focus on is personal life. So, even procrastination – just before I explain it – even in terms of a mindset block it comes from everyone is different. So, we need to identify what is the biggest? Same thing. Procrastination. We need to identify and analyse that and what actually do we procrastinate about the most? So, sometimes that’s why some people self-doubt. And, for me, professionalism held me back so much and procrastinating about every single thing. So, for example, may I ask you, Thomas, what makes you procrastinate the most when you just reflect quickly?
I suppose enjoyment about the topic might be one of those things.
Yes, I totally get it. And to be honest, Thomas, we can’t cover everything, right? We can just talk about what we love most and that’s why I’m here to talk about why I’m passionate about personal image consulting. And you are in marketing and I also saw you cover a lot of productivity and other topics. So – I was side-tracked, sorry about that – but what I’m telling you is that’s the part that people are facing. People, especially – we are one person, right? We want to do everything. It’s okay. Some situations make us do that, to cover everything, talk about everything, satisfy everything, everyone. But it’s impossible. That’s reality, right? Because even myself, when I talk about the financial or tech part, I just want to hide somewhere and then actually my energy is gone. You’re going to meet a totally different Rachel. You’re definitely going to be who’s that girl? Who is Rachel? Like that. So, in terms of procrastination, the first step is to identify what actually is holding you back most and then find a face first. That’s my part. Face first and then be aware of that, and the second part is to deeply find and identify what actually makes me really procrastinate and what is holding me back, which is Thomas, to talk about what you don’t like. And then why is it like that? And then maybe you’ll think I’m not really happy and that confident about that topic and I’m worried that maybe I made some mistakes, some people are going to be judging me, another expert. So, like, dig deeper. And then okay, deep down the root is fear of judgement. There we go. And after that, we’re going to move on to the fix part. So fix it, it’s okay. What it means to fix it is also now we have already narrowed it down based on your personalised lever. At the fix stage, it’s time to transform, fix that one. So okay, fear of judgement. I have a big root problem that is holding me back and then makes me procrastinate all the time. So after transforming that part it’s all different because if you’re going to fear judgement, for example, most likely it comes from how to overcome that part which is giving yourself a big reason, a big why. For example, if we are – it’s not identically relevant for this example – but, for example, I, Rachel, start going to the gym. Suddenly, I really worry about what if I get injured. Because I don’t want to go, actually that’s a fact, and also I’m scared about what if I get injured. What if other people look and my body looks weird when I go to the gym, right? And after that suddenly my friend, Thomas, says okay, I’m going to be an accountability gym buddy. So, the gym buddy is there, so that’s my reason, right? Okay, so the next morning, 6:00 a.m., it’s a rainy day and dark. I don’t want to wake up. I just want to procrastinate about going to the gym because of fear of judgement, I feel tired. I feel really lazy. But suddenly ping, and it’s a message from Thomas that says, hey Rachel, let’s go, let’s go. And I think okay, all right, I can’t let my friend down. All right, that’s my reason to go. And then even though Rachel really doesn’t want to go, I have a reason. Thomas is waiting for me. Okay, I’m going to go. So you go to the gym and you overcome that moment of procrastination. So, in terms of fear of judgement, we identify your reason for procrastination. We find it and fix it and then give you the solution. So, the reason why I’m saying personalisation is it’s important to find the best solution to transform and to overcome procrastination. Because if I have a headache, if a doctor gives me medicine for diarrhoea, then my headache is not going to change, it’s not going to be fixed. So, we need to be really smart about how we can fix it. That’s how to fix it, to find out how to personalise your reason, your problem, the root problem. So that’s it.
Good, I like it. The accountability buddy.
Yes.
People do have to make sure they don’t procrastinate in hiring an accountability buddy though, right?
Yes, correct.
Have you got any thoughts on fear as well or is that in the same ballpark?
Pardon?
Would you have the same solution to fear as you would around procrastination?
Yes, I can say that. For me, yes, fear is actually more like a gut. Like, when I’m just dividing, in terms of the fear, it’s more related to the gut. And then our self-doubt is more like a heart. And then about professionalism, that comes more from our brain, our mind. So, I think, for me, it’s more likely – yes, it happened to me, my fear – but I think, for me personally, it’s more mind. It’s, kind of, a paradox. The link with the mind is mastery but I also face it. And then I’m also a vulnerable person. I’m not perfect. So even every day I just really need to work on how I can overcome my procrastination. I can’t always be productive every day. Sometimes I feel lazy. Sometimes that’s holding me back. But the most important part for everyone, if you struggle with procrastination, is sometimes it’s okay for you to pause and give yourself permission. I’m not saying every day you must force yourself to be productive. Give yourself permission to stop and then reflect. So, just say to yourself okay, I feel lazy. Stop. There’s no point in keeping pushing forward. You’re going to feel drained. And then just stop and give yourself permission. And just think why? Why do I feel lazy today? Why do I always follow the trap of procrastination? I like writing, brainstorming. Okay, there you go, all right. I think I came to do this. I’m already telling myself I can’t do that. I’ve already given myself doubt. Okay, how can I fix this? And on and on and on. So I fix that part and then, okay, let’s go.
Great. Bit of self-reflection, yes?
Exactly. Self-reflection is very important. And a lot of people actually neglect it. They are only delayed in part.
You said that you looked at my productivity stuff. Did you get to watch it? I just wanted to check if there’s anything that we share in terms of, shall we say, approaches to productivity?
Are you asking if I’ve checked your sharing in terms of productivity on your channel? Is that what you said?
Yes. What would you recommend in terms of productivity?
Oh, yes. That’s better, thank you. In terms of productivity, I think, for me, there are tons of books and tons of YouTube, tons of experts, sharing such great resources out there. And I appreciate that and I respect that part. But, for me, just reflecting back on myself, what actually made me think what’s best for me and even for my clients – and I think you must be sick and tired of hearing this part – personalise. And then the other thing I want to add on is balance. That’s my second value in my coaching and my whole life and for my business. So, productivity, everyone is different in being more productive. Just before we share about how we can fix procrastination, that means that that’s, kind of, equal to how we can make ourselves more productive. Does it make sense? So it’s on the same line. So procrastination is – if you overcome procrastination, your productivity is going to be higher. So, once again I just want to emphasise this part. Just follow the steps with faith, time to be aware, and then find, identify the root problem, and fix, transform time, and then just exact the matching solution. So, I think actually that’s the fundamental way for us to improve our productivity. There are so many techniques out there and then here is the thought, I can but I’m thinking it’s not enough time, and I don’t want to hold you back. So, just in terms of a basic theory, basic step, just follow this one and really, really dig deep into what is your root problem. And then the second one is – the quick tip if I can share – I love logic. I love an action plan. I love planning. And in terms of the increased productivity, actually, an easier way to start is really a bite-sized logical action plan. So, what I mean by that is, if you have a big chunk of a project and you think when you look at the planning, okay, I need to do this big project, and then you already feel overwhelmed. I can’t do it. I think that’s too much for me. Oh, tomorrow. Maybe later. I’m not ready. So, to avoid that and to actually work on the big chunk of the project, we’re going to break it down. So, just break down this project, okay, let’s just break it down into five steps. First, plan. Okay, what should I do for the first plan? Okay, break it down. And then you’re going to be hit with and think okay, I can do that. When you instantly think you can do that, you are just telling yourself to stop there because you can digest it and you can do it easily. So, that’s the bite-size. So, your brain logically thinks you can do it. So, you will do it, and then you’re going to do it. I think that’s the tip I want to share because that’s actually what works really well for me and for my clients as well. So try it. And then lastly, the balance part. So, to be more productive – not all the time, if you can, then that’s a good scenario – it’s actually quite challenging to always be productive and have our highest productivity. So, this means, as I said before, stop, pause. It sounds like a classic cliché, but just sometimes it’s okay to have your own self-care time to recharge because if it’s going to lead to your energy running out 100 per cent, it’s going to take much longer to recharge back to 100 per cent. So, pause, re-charge, pause, re-charge, and keep going and keep going.
It’s possible I might have seen it on one of your socials, actually, correct me if I’m wrong. You need to recharge yourself as much as you recharge your phone. Is that something that you posted?
I think something similar, yes. The reason why I shared that is because one of my clients had absolute burnout. So, I just thought to share with her, here we go, yes, it’s time to recharge.
You’ve mentioned the root cause of some issues in order to diagnose why you might be, let’s say, not confident or procrastinating. Have you got any examples where you have gotten to the root cause of why you’ve not been productive or why you’ve been procrastinating? Just an example.
Let me give you my example because even though I’m sharing how to be more productive, I’m a human being. So, in terms of how I find the deeper level of the root issue and then increase my procrastination, I think what happened was, I was about to launch my brand-new coaching business after I qualified. And then, for my official launch – it was a big project, right? And then I felt scared and then I just started to say it’s okay tomorrow, yes, it’s okay tomorrow. Maybe I can do this one. So, what I did is, I kept learning because at that time I was trapped in professionalism. I thought I wanted to make everything perfect so I need to have a perfect coaching programme, perfect workbook, perfect social media, perfect website, and perfect every single thing. And then I started learning, so how can I be better? So I started learning and learning through the online courses, and then due to Covid lockdown, I had plenty of time. So, I fell into the trap of procrastinated learner. So, I started learning, but I was procrastinating and not taking action, just trying to learn something else and something else and something else to justify it. And then I just took a moment to think if I keep doing that, I’m never going to launch my brand-new coaching business. And then I started there and it was time to dig, right? Blank paper. I started writing down I keep procrastinating. Why? Because I feel I want to be perfect at everything. Why? Because I think everyone will like me. I want everyone to be impressed by me. Why? Because I want everyone to think I’m an expert. Why do I want to look like an expert? And then after that again I wrote I probably really care what other people think about me. Why? And then after that, because I’m scared people won’t accept me. And then when I kept asking that, sometimes it rotated. And then when you find the buzz word and it keeps rotating and the keyword keeps buzzing and the rotation keeps finishing with that one, that’s my root. So again, I think I fear judgement. I really care about what people think about me. I want to be perfect. Probably back to personal image consulting, I always look perfect, I think, my make-up, everything, my gestures, my facial expressions, I must be perfect. Maybe I got used to that because of my background as an image consulting expert. So, when converting from image consulting to coaching business, of course I used branding image consulting. I’m holding that block to me that I always must be perfect because they’re going to be judging me. They’re going to choose if they’re going to work with me or not just on if I look perfect. So, that was my journey. And after that, okay, all right, there we go, and then I just moved on to the fix part. And finally, I launched it. I’m so glad about that.
Congratulations, if you’re going through that process and you’ve got to the other end. So, well done.
Thank you so much. Much appreciated
The last thing I wanted to ask you about is, if you’ve covered all these things, let’s say, gone through all of these things and you’ve conquered them – it’s probably more likely you’re going to be your best self if you’ve done all these things – but any other thoughts on what it means to be your best self?
Yes. I like that question. First of all, I want to say to everyone, your best self is not your perfect self because that’s what I thought and that held me back. So, your best self is not your perfect self. It’s different. So, people say your best self is the best version of yourself. People always say that, right? Through coaching, through this, blah blah, and then let’s find the best version of ourselves. So, for me, my definition of best self is through my coaching, through my service, when I help, and the most important part is – because I’m a confidence coach – you feel most confident. What I mean by that is, confidence is not just only inside or outside. You’re fully confident externally. You’re fully confident internally. So, in personal image consulting, I have to be fully confident externally and then mindset mastery is going to flick confidence through you internally. And then when they balance and they harmonise, that’s when you feel most confident and you’re not going to be biased. You’re not going back to the first point, oh, I feel less confident, and then you’re not going to be back to that crescendo of self-doubt and the lack of your self-belief. I’m saying it’s really important to get a balance and then maximise between that internally and externally, and that’s why it’s also very important to be aware of your signature strengths. And then when you’re aware, you can accept that and you’re actually going to believe in that, and then every day you can assure yourself and then let your mind, let your brain, let your heart, actually be aware of that and that will actually make your best self. So, I’ll say it again. Your best self is not your perfect self. Your best self is when you find the best version of yourself which is finding your own signature strengths and finding the balance between external and inner confidence.
Great answer. Rachel, what are your goals?
I think my big, hairy, audacious goal, my mission, is I want to have 100,000 people at their start-off stage and especially stuck in their self-doubt, stuck in their professionalism, stuck in their fear. I want them to overcome that part and then they can actually kick-start their business – not like old Rachel – and actually kick-start and thrive in their business and also life, and then actually do what they love and enjoy their freedom and just love their life. And then share as much of their positive impact with the people who actually need their help. So, that’s my goal and mission. In five years.
That’s quite a good goal, so thank you for sharing it. Is there anything that you feel would be valuable to the audience that I haven’t asked you about today?
As you ask that, the first thing that pops into my head is, I think I really like the balance because my lucky number is five, middle-five balance, and it comes in yin and yang. In our nature, our ecosystem, we have our yin and yang combined together to co-exist. Actually, our nature is to expand and thrive, right? So, in our life and business, it’s the same. When you’re stuck in that time, our nighttime – and I’ve been there – your depressing and darkest time, actually we’re also waiting for our shiny sunrise time, daytime. It is coming. It’s just that we don’t know when it’s coming but it is coming. So, when you have a dark time, also you are having a bright time. And when combined, actually, you’re going to enjoy your life and actually you’re going to really appreciate that. And you’re going to actually enjoy life. Life can’t always be good. Life can’t always be stuck. There’s always a balance. It’s yin and yang in your life. You have it in your business. So don’t make yourself so stressed and depressed and start beating yourself up. It’s coming and you can do it.
You can do it.
Yes.
A good statement to end on. Rachel, where is the best place for people to find you?
You can find me on Instagram or Facebook. I’m most active on Instagram so find me on Instagram by searching Essence by Rachel Chung. Then I’ll help you find your essence.
Okay. Thank you very much for your time and all the value today, Rachel.
Thank you so much. Bye.