Meet Nicole Tsong

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicole Tsong a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nicole, so good to have you with us today. We’ve got so much planned, so let’s jump right into it. We live in such a diverse world, and in many ways the world is getting better and more understanding but it’s far from perfect. There are so many times where folks find themselves in rooms or situations where they are the only ones that look like them – that might mean being the only woman of color in the room or the only person who grew up in a certain environment etc. Can you talk to us about how you’ve managed to thrive even in situations where you were the only one in the room?

As a child, I was always the only one who looked like me. Back then, I coped by being quiet. I never wanted to draw attention to myself. Even when I became a journalist, I chose newspaper reporting, where I could remain hidden behind the byline, rather than taking center stage on camera. But when I made a major career pivot from journalism to teaching yoga, I had to confront my tendency to hide. When you are the one standing at the front of the room teaching the class, it requires you to understand who you are and stand in your authenticity in a totally different way.

Becoming a yoga teacher required me to look at all the parts of me that learned to hide, starting from when I was growing up as an Taiwanese-American kid who didn’t look like most of the kids in my suburban neighborhood to becoming an adult who tried to hide in plain sight. One of my biggest learnings in becoming a yoga teacher was that I literally am like nobody else, and when I openly share who I am and my own journey, it always resonates with someone in the room. I’ve learned to be confident in who I am, and I find that when I am authentic to myself, I am more effective and am able to impact people.

I also have learned to define my own success. As a kid, I wanted to make my parents proud. I knew that they loved it when I succeeded, so I always did my best to get good grades, go to a good college, and have jobs that they could brag about. But I realized that was also limiting me, and prevented me from pursuing my own passions. Now, I am clear that I am the person who defines success, not my parents or other people, and as a result, I feel successful all the time, even when I’m facing challenging situations.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I started out as a journalist, and felt so lucky in my 20s that I was clear about my career and deeply in my purpose as a reporter. I got to do exciting things, especially when I moved to Alaska to be a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. I’ve covered everything from a U.S. Senate race to the Iditarod.

But after years of covering death, trauma and politics, when newspapers started going through layoffs and moved me from my dream job as a reporter back to covering the suburbs, I realized that the job was no longer serving me. I left the newspaper to teach yoga full-time.

I again felt like I had hit the jackpot of purpose. But after a decade of teaching yoga, I started to be more interested in working on my own growth journey independent of yoga. When I found myself tired of the grind of driving around to teach yoga, I realized it was time to shift.

I left yoga to start my own company, Nicole Tsong Coaching. I now help Asian-American corporate women break generational cycles through their work, and it is the most challenging and rewarding work that I could possibly imagine. I host my own podcast, the School of Self-Worth, and also have become a bestselling author of three books. I love supporting AAPI women to get their dream promotions, while working 20% fewer hours.

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?

The three qualities that have made the biggest difference for me are —

Being in action — I credit my journalism days with helping me take action quickly. I find that most people spend too much time thinking about decisions, whereas taking action will give them so much more information than they could ever get thinking about it. Thinking about switching jobs? Go for it. Thinking about starting a business? Take action now. Your dreams start speaking to you for a reason, and the way to make them come true is to act.

Connection — I love people, and have always loved work that keeps me connected to people. My desire to know more about people and hear their stories got me started in journalism and continues to be a major part of my work as a coach. I truly believe in everyone’s authentic story, and staying in connection to myself and to others has helped me rise. It’s also an essential piece of building your brand and who you are. I firmly believe that who you know will make all the difference for your dreams to come true, and that comes from connection.

Resilience — Before pivoting my career, I had to trust that it would work out. And being resilient was one of the most important qualities I developed with my 3 career pivots. When I was younger, I was afraid of failure, and thought that mistakes would break me and people would judge me for not being perfect. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that those challenges all informed how I got to where I am, and the more I can remember that I do not break, I can always rebound, the more I have trust taking risks and trying new things like starting a business and becoming an entrepreneur.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

This past year, I decided to focus my business on supporting Asian-American women. I thought making this shift would be simple and obvious. I have a lot of experience being Asian-American! In fact, this shift was one of the hardest things I have ever done as an entrepreneur. It brought up feelings like I wasn’t “Asian enough” to lead other Asian women. I realized growing up in the Chicago suburbs, where there weren’t a lot of Asians, that I often hid my own Asian side so that I could blend in and be accepted. This journey has been tougher than I want to admit to myself or others. I often felt shame that I had not been unapologetically Asian before.

But I now see this has been a true gift for me to embrace a side of myself that I am passionate about, and to model that for other Asian-American women struggling to be open and embrace their identity. I really do love being Asian-American, and it’s been a gift for me to more deeply understand how I was raised, the conflict that comes into play for anyone born to immigrant parents who are then raised in another culture, and how I can love all the sides of me. It has made me more deeply appreciate the AAPI community, and also how underrepresented Asian-American women are in corporate workplaces. We have a long way to go, and me getting more connected to my own culture is an essential part of that forward progress.

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Image credit: Marcella Laine

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