We recently connected with Michelle Kuei and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Michelle , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
In finding things that fulfill our desires and creating the life we want to live, I believe Rumi said it the best: “What you seek is seeking you.”
People often believe that resilience is a characteristic that is outside of them, one that must be found and learned. But I believe resilience is a part of us that needs to be remembered. It doesn’t live outside of us; it comes from within.
I love the story of the Golden Buddha that’s been passed down in Thailand.
This is how it goes. Once upon a time, there was a Golden Buddha at a monastery. One day the villagers at this monastery heard the neighboring soldiers were coming to invade the village in search of gold.
So in order to protect the Golden Buddha, the villagers decided to cover this Buddha with concrete, turning it into a stone buddha. Years passed, the soldiers had gone, and of course, no one ever remembered there was a Golden Buddha. Until one day, a monk who sat on the stone buddha saw a chip on the concrete. He was delighted when he saw the gold, and everyone came out to help to uncover this Golden Buddha.
The gold was there all along! It was waiting patiently to be found.
Resilience is the GOLD that sits inside of you, this very moment, waiting to be found.
Sometimes, for whatever reason, maybe a trauma, a divorce, losing a job, or perhaps going through a life-changing event, we tried to protect ourselves: We cover our GOLD with concrete.
But if you look carefully inside, you can hear the resilience whisper,
“Just one more step. One more day. One small action.”
Our resilience is an inert quality that can be cultivated, and we don’t need to seek external sources through validation or approvals. It’s already built-in.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a visibility coach, a certified storytelling master, and a content and email marketing strategist. I am the founder of Elevate LifeCoaching and the creator of the Magnetic Coaching Business Academy.
I work exclusively with women coaches and entrepreneurs to teach them how to use the power of storytelling to attract their dream clients so they can turn a passion for coaching into a profitable business.
I consider myself a storyteller.
To be more precise, I’ve been a storyteller all my life. I believe we all are because humans live in stories. It’s the internal narratives we have within ourselves and hows we choose to pass down these narratives to others..
I started my coaching business from a story.
I was driving to Walmart one day, and as I got out of my car, I noticed there was a stain on my T-shirt. This happened a few times already, and I couldn’t figure out where it came from. That day, I decided to sit back in my car and think back to how this stain got there.
As I looked down, there it was: My belly was rubbing against the steering wheel, leaving a stain on my shirt It was a light bulb moment for me. I realized that for all the years that I was feeling sorry for myself, I had neglected the most important person in my life: Me.
I had a job and lifestyle many women could only dream of, with supportive friends and family, but I didn’t feel fulfilled or happy with myself.
It was at that moment I realized that something had to give. That something was me.
You see, I’m physically disabled from a car accident that happened when I was 11, and it resulted in permanent damage to my legs. I’m 4’4”, and I walk with crutches. The last thing I ever wanted was to get more attention from everyone… I just wanted to blend in. I didn’t want to be different.
Standing out in the crowd because you’re different is a very lonely thing. I wanted to belong. I wanted to be part of the norm.
So when I had my light bulb moment, it was my wake-up call to go on my own Hero’s journey.
I decided that I wanted to climb Machu Picchu, and I worked so hard to get ready for it. This journey didn’t end when I returned from my trip. It continued and helped me to start a coaching business.
This life-changing transformation taught me that every woman deserves to have a place in this world. Their stories matter.
It’s the untold story inside each woman that got them to where they are today.There are many other women who feel they don’t have the courage to be seen or heard.
For coaches and entrepreneurs, they are in a very unique position where theirstory is going to inspire someone else in the audience, whether it’s the clients they’re currently working with or their followers on social media.
Your story needs to be seen and heard. The work you do is priceless. People are willing to pay you for what you can do for them. The way you tell your stories is what will attract, delight, and inspire someone to get up from their seat today and take action.
This is what I teach in my Magnetic Coaching Business Academy. It’s a new way of marketing your coaching business without the old-fashioned, vanilla “one-size-fits-all” strategy of chasing and finding your prey. Rather, it’s about telling your story that builds the connection between you and your audience that inspires them to sign up with for your program, follow you on social media, come to your event, or maybe to simply subscribe to your newsletter.
People connect and build bonds through stories.
I’m actually in the middle of a launch right now. I’m offering a 3-day live masterclass where I teach you how to use storytelling techniques to create powerful connections with your audience, quickly build trust and credibility, and even make sales through the power of stories. It’s a free offer, so women coaches and entrepreneurs who want to learn the power of storytelling are welcome.
Depending on the time our readers come across this interview, if you happen to miss this round, don’t fret! I got another one coming in a few months. So, feel free to jump on my waiting list, and you’ll be the first one to know when I offer this again.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
What started as a fitness journey turned into one of transformation. The next thing I knew, I took my abs to the gym and booked a ticket to hike through the 26 miles of Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with my two crutches.
On this trip, there were a few things I learned:
Number one is that we have this unique superpower within us. You can call it resilience, courage, tenacity, or however you want to label it. It’s a very unique superpower. It’s the Golden Buddha within us that takes us to go that extra mile to do things.
So if there’s anything you would like to accomplish, the first step is to always harness that superpower you have from within. Let it be your travel buddy on this heroic quest of transformation—whether it’s in your business or personal life. We each have this superpower we can call upon when things get tough.
The second thing that I learned is to have an open heart when facing adversity. Challenges are everywhere. Just because you decide to do something brave for yourself, success is not a guarantee. When changes, good or bad, come towards you, the one thing that we can do is to welcome them with open arms.
Have an open heart and embrace what life is throwing at you. Know that every moment we live, we have the power within us to make a choice to let it stop us or to keep moving forward. Ask yourself: What lesson do I need to learn from this experience? How might I do this better the next time?
The third thing that I learned on this life and business journey to reach mountaintops is the power of persistence. Persistence is a much stronger will than just having the motivation to do things.
Motivation can be short-lived, but being persistent in the absence of motivation is what sets you apart and allows you to cultivate the resilience inside of you. You no longer rely on a simple spark of motivation, but rather, you have the will to be determined, dedicated, and disciplined in achieving the milestones you set forth in life and in business.
The last word of advice I would give to a woman who may be feeling a bit stuck and not sure where to go and how to start would be this: “Action speaks louder than words.”
When in doubt, take that step in whichever direction your heart tells you to go. In order to get to places, you have to put on your shoes and take a step. And this is true in life and in business. There’s always a 50/50 chance of you ending up somewhere. Every lesson you learned, every moment you had to start all over again, is information on how we can do things better the next time around.
The beauty of this is that there is no wrong turn or wrong step because they are just information for us to be better, wiser, and brighter.
So if you have something to say, say it today. If you have a project to work on, work on it today. If you have a person in mind you would like to call, call them today. Any action is still better than waiting for things to happen.
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
I believe it’s much better to go all in rather than trying to be a jack-of-all-trades and hoping something will stand out.
I’ve never set foot in a gym and didn’t know how to use a treadmill. I didn’t think it was possible, and it was something that all my loved ones had told me to avoid.
Avoid jumping because you might fall and break your bones.
Avoid stairs because you might hurt your knees.
I’ve been told to avoid many physical activities because it’s not my strongest area. I can try and listen to everyone else and be good at drawing, painting, sitting down, and crafting. But that’s not what my heart wants.
My heart wanted to hike Machu Picchu, and it wants to prove to everyone, including myself, that I am capable of doing beautiful things.
I was all in!
No one is good at riding a bike the first time they try. If I wait and settle on the fact that I won’t ride a bike because I’m not good at it, or just find out a better way to walk, I’ll never learn how to ride a bike ever.
Trying something new is always scarier than settling for something that is familiar.
And I believe if you can have the courage to try new, scary things first, you can use the skills you already have in other areas to shorten the learning curve while learning this new thing. Not the other way around.
I believe it’s about going back to what we talked about earlier in this interview…Resilience is something that is already available inside of us. If you believe this is true, then any decision you make, no matter how scary and difficult it may be, you can face it and go all in. Each time you use and stretch that resilience muscle, it becomes stronger, but you have to go all in to stretch it.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://elevatelifecoaching.org
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/elevatelifecoach
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lifecoachingbyelevate
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellekuei/
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/michelle_kuei
- Youtube: http://youtube.com/michellekueispeak
