Jill Fratianne 0:02

Welcome to the Unscripted Symphony, the podcast where courage takes the lead and life's greatest opportunities happen between the notes. I'm Joe Fradiani, and with Each Week, we'll explore the stories, lessons, and bold decisions that remind us to do it scared, trust the process, and create a life that's uniquely your own. Hello. I am uh joined today with Juan Choi. She is a leadership and identity coach and founder of Juan Daily. I'm a huge fan. If you're not following on Instagram, please do it. She spent 15 years in sales operations and tech in Silicon Valley, and through that experience, discovered that leaders would perform that perform at the highest level without burning out aren't the ones with better strategies. They're ones who've built an unshakable foundation on the inside. Love that. So tell me about staying confident as a leader and a CEO during a time of tremendous change.

Won Choi 1:10

Yeah. So I the the lesson that I learned like in my career. Hold on, pause.

Jill Fratianne 1:17

My my camera fell down.

Won Choi 1:20

I love this. Can you just keep this in the podcast? You should. You should. You should.

Jill Fratianne 1:26

Okay.

Won Choi 1:26

Is this like the real part, the juice? Like people want to see the real people.

Jill Fratianne 1:30

Do they also want to see my my my mug holding? Welcome, friends. This is the one and gel show.

Won Choi 1:41

Yeah, but going back to your question, um, what I learned through my life and career was that confidence is never supposed to come from the outside world. Confidence is coming from the certainty about yourself. And I know you and I relate this a lot, but for me, um, I thought that confidence was going to be built on like results and title and expertise and money. And the funny thing was that when I was in my corporate career, I thought that I'll get more confident if I become a director. Oh, I'll become more confident if I make like half a million dollars, for example. And the thing is that especially like in this new like AI era, we are all getting very challenged about um the results and even the titles, like all of the things and then the expertise, like all of those parts that we built our confidence on are becoming challenged. So what I've learned is that you need to um run from confidence that is coming within yourself. And that's a completely different operating system as we have been living our life. And the ones who have built that unshakable internal foundation of like they know who they are and will operate from that, whatever changes outside of them. I think like they're the ones that will remain confident in this especial like time of uncertainty.

Jill Fratianne 3:21

It's an interesting conversation that comes up. I actually tell my colleagues a lot, and I think it's taken me 20 years in sales. I would, I would be lying if I said I mastered it. But even speaking into existence, your self-worth is not your sales number. So when you're a top-performing sales rep, what happens? Your ego goes all the way to the roof, right? You're at 100%, everyone loves you, you know, it's great. Well, what happens when you're at the bottom of the chart next month? Right. What does that feel like? Or what if you have a bad sales year? And then your confidence, right? I'm sure a CEO that you would deal with is the same thing, right? Right, right. When that when the times are high and you have your confidence, that's easy. When the times are low, where do you build your confidence? And I think something that you if you could tell me a little about, I'm super curious about identity work. And I'm assuming that is where something like that would come into play. Right. What do you mean by identity work?

Won Choi 4:24

Mm-hmm. So the simple way to explain this again is most people like build their identity from what they do, not from like who they are, right? So when we think about identity, um we think about, as you said, like how much revenue you're bringing in, um, what is the my performance metrics, what is my expertise? And if any of that part gets disrupted, then it feels like you're in an identity crisis, right? Because you built your identity based on those performance metrics. Um, what identity work actually is, is like rebuilding yourself from inside out. So it's getting clear on who you are, what your values are, um, what is even your nervous system patterns, like how do you react when things get shaky, and then how you do decision making, like all of that, um that that all of that is like your identity, and that's the work that I do to discover all of those things so you can stay grounded when uncertainty happens.

Jill Fratianne 5:40

Yeah, and and tell me about how we control our central nervous system. What kind of work can we do?

Won Choi 5:49

Yeah. So nervous system is such an interesting work, and I think this was something that I learned throughout my career was we as high performing um high achievers as we all are, if you're in sales, you're in high achiever. Um we tend to think that if you have the right strategy or tactics or process, right, then everything is going to turn out to be in good results. But the actual thing is if your nervous system is not aligned with the big actions that you want to take, then you're not gonna take action because it becomes too scary, right? So have you been in a situation where, and I've been on like sales calls now, I'm I'm on the other side.

Jill Fratianne 6:43

Oh, I know, right? Welcome to the dark side one.

Won Choi 6:46

It's very, very bringing you over. Exactly. So on the sales side, when you're ready to present an offer, or um when a client says, like, I need to think about this, then do you kind of have you experience where you like start to kind of contract and then it kind of like feels like you're not able to um like speak in the level in your voice that you used to speak. Have you ever experienced that through a sales call?

Jill Fratianne 7:16

Sure. Early on in sales, building confidence and actually the power of pause and silence, you know, when you when you give a presentation, it's something I actually learned, learned the concept of very early on in my sales career is you give someone three options. One of the one of the best I I learned all of, even though I've been in tech sales for almost 20 years, I still look at the early foundational years I was in insurance sales as the most impactful years of my sales career, right? I was working commission only, and I knew enough to know, and I'm sure it's because of you know musical training at a high level before then to surround myself with the very best. I knew absolutely nothing, right? I'm just this kind person that wants to help people. Yeah, but I didn't know how to translate that into getting an order, right? I could get everybody to like me, right? Right, but I didn't know how to get the order. And one of these things is a guy, this guy's name was Todd, and I still remember it vividly back when we used to sell around the kitchen table. You give the option, you slide it over, and you pause. And the power in that silence, the first person to speak is the true is the true objection. And then the other point, like when you pass over pricing, what do you want to do? You want to talk about it, you're a little comfortable about it, you want to push it over, right? You just stay silent and unc until it's super uncomfortable for you. But what you're not understanding is that person on the other end has uh five seconds to think for themselves, and that's what they're doing. They're not they're thinking, they're taking what you said, they're absorbing the contract, and you just have to remain silent. It helps them make a decision too, because if you talk over that, right, you're missing a real opportunity to listen.

Speaker 2 9:21

Right.

Jill Fratianne 9:22

It's like the power of the cause. Right, right, and that takes years of uh confidence, and the only thing that gets you that confidence, I wish you could say you could we could read it in the 10 pages we're supposed to be reading every day, is at bats and practice, right, right, it's very hard because you constrict, you get nervous, you feel the tension, right, right? And uh so when you're working on confidence and at bats, it's uh it's so important.

Won Choi 9:57

Right, right. And I think what you said is like valid. It's like how you can train your nervous system to sit in the discomfort like long enough where your nervous system could calm down and not see uh discomfort as a threat, but just something as okay, this is something it's uncomfortable because it's new, right? You just said it takes reps to get on it to get more comfortable with discomfort. Um, so that's why I think um working with your nervous system um is so important, especially when you're in in sales and doing things that are uncomfortable. And the other piece um around the nervous system work is um a lot of our nervous system is like set from our like early years, like childhood years. So I, one of my clients, um he was he's a CEO of a tech company and he had not to go into too much detail, but he had a difficult relationship with his father. Um so as a child, like he would shrink when he felt pressure from his father. And the thing was that um that pattern was still showing up in the boardrooms. So when one of his board members would start pressuring him, his nervous system would react as he would have reacted as a child. And he would shrink in those moments and not like speak what he needed to speak. So um we were able to work through that through um the coaching and the work that I do. And I think it's all about kind of recognizing the patterns and recognizing how to work with your nervous system when things like that happen and being able to, again, like practice the pause could be an example, as you said. Like, what are some things that you can do when those new things or scary things happen? How can you respond rather than react?

Jill Fratianne 11:57

Well, and it's interesting too, because one response would be just to quit and stop doing it, don't do it again. That's one response, it's a natural response. Another response is to work it yourself, read some books, right? And then there's a time when you realize you can't do it on your own. Right. Yeah. And how to get how do people get to that point? How do they go, you know what, pause, time out, I can't do this on my own.

Won Choi 12:34

Right. So personally, I um I had a time where I was working very, very hard to get to where I wanted to be. And um there was a point where I hit like severe burnout. Um, I was not getting where I needed to be, but I was just like running the cycle and cycle of okay, if I perform the next thing, if I just work a little bit more harder, then I'll get there. Um, but there was a kind of a point where I could no longer move from point A to point B from doing the things that I used to do. Um and I think a lot of leaders like hit this point where as a leader, there's a time where you need to move from being an operator, an executor into like a visionary leader who can actually lead versus do everything yourself, right? I don't know if you experience that shift in in your career. Sure. And a lot of that is also, it's not something that you're doing wrong. It's again going back to your identity, where if your identity was built on something that you're always someone that is known for doing work and doing hard work and being someone who's needed and always like people please and overachieve, like all of those identities, like keeping you stuck. Where if you want to move on to being someone who can lead a team, um, there needs to be that identity shift where I am someone that um does not tie myself with doing. I'm someone that is confident enough to know who I am and even be comfortable that I don't have all the answers. Um, but I can enable the team and make them successful and let go of like the past um like identity that they held on to as an executor.

Jill Fratianne 14:42

There's something you said really powerful too in a leadership role. Being okay with not having all the answers.

Won Choi 14:50

Mm-hmm.

Jill Fratianne 14:51

Right. It's a tricky one for people. Right.

Won Choi 14:55

Yeah. And I think that comes from Sometimes when you tie your worth with um what you do, and again, tying your worth with all of the external things. And if you don't know like who you are in the core, then um it kind of just feels like you have to always like add value and say something and be the most important person in the room.

Jill Fratianne 15:21

Right. And sometimes sometimes silence is the most confident thing to do, exactly. Which is very hard because what happens when we get nervous, right? We start talking, we start defending, we start trying to sound like we may know something. One of the Brian Halligan, who um was a CEO of HubSpot, uh now he's on to really some pretty critic incredible things. Something I always admired whenever I was around him. Because back in the day, early in the day, I'd book my partners with him, we'd have conversation, and this is the guy that everyone wants to show how smart they are, right? They get into a room and they asked him 10 things about technology and you know how this tool and that tool, and do you know what this company is and that company? He'll just look him dead in the face, he's like, No, I I don't, I don't know. And I don't think he was ever consciously saying that, but I was always like, and that's why he's the leader he is. He'll just go, I don't know what you guys are talking about, right? And you can see you can see people fighting for set trying to sound smarter than the other in a room with him. And I said, Wow, it's like that's such a move, right? Such a sign of confidence to be like I'm I'm Brad Hagan, the CEO of HubSpot, and I don't I don't know what you're talking about.

Won Choi 16:41

Yeah, it's so good. Yeah, that's like really good. And I think um I think like that that confidence or that knowing of knowing who you are and being able to just be flexible around all the changes that are happening right now, I think it's gonna be such an important part in this new AI era because um like knowledge, right? Knowledge and expertise is now gonna be more of a commodity because everyone can access that knowledge and expertise through AI. So it's gonna be like who you are as a person and how can you confidently navigate change and make decisions and be okay with not knowing what's happening. Um, I think like that aspect of a leader, I think that's gonna be like more important as we kind of navigate through this change.

Jill Fratianne 17:37

The human element, right?

Won Choi 17:39

Mm-hmm. Yeah, the human element.

Jill Fratianne 17:41

The human element. We're gonna take a little detour on the conversation because I think it's important for people to know. Tell me the difference between therapy and business coaching. Yeah. Or it or success coaching, right? There's a difference there.

Won Choi 17:57

Yeah. So I am not a therapist, um, but I do if uh so let's like kind of go back to uh your question. What's what's uh different between therapy and coaching? I would say um therapy is and again, I'm not a therapist, so this is gonna be something that I define based on what I think what therapy is. Sure. I think therapy is um something that you do to um like heal the past and understand what are some things that are like patterns from your past that needs to be healed, and you work with an expert to identify that and um try to like heal the wounds. That's like what I think as therapy. Um I think for coaching is like yes, we look at different patterns like from the past. I'm not saying that we look not look at anything in the past, but I would say coaching, um, what I find is trying to um help that person like become a better version of themselves. Um, and that could come from understanding like where they're stuck and why they're stuck and being able to help them with um like different tools and mindsets and strategies um and nervous system work to be able to help them like move like forward and being able to go help them towards where they want to be. Um so I would I kind of see a coach as someone who's there to like help you achieve your goals uh faster. Um so I I would say like probably like that that's my definition of like therapy versus coach.

Jill Fratianne 20:22

Yeah, I I totally agree. As someone who has graduated from therapy and now invests and have invested for many years in coaching, right? I think there's um I don't know and I could be wrong, could be my own bias, but I think it would be hard to really coach someone to success if they haven't dug deep somewhere. Uh ideally with a therapist. Maybe it wasn't a therapist, maybe it was somewhere else. You know, not all therapy is created equal, but it does allow you to go, okay, these are the patterns that make me behave the way I do. I get it now. I get why I have certain fear around certain things or fear of failure, or you know, name the thing that's happened in your past that really kind of that formed your brain when you were young enough that it created a a habitual pattern that you need to erase, right? Once you're able to go there, you know, I don't think you ever really graduate from getting over it. You you can, but at least you have the awareness right in a business coach or a success coach or a burnout coach, I think it would be hard to do well if the patient, right, or the client hasn't gone deep there. For example, your your example of the CEO was awesome, right? What was holding him back on a sales presentation wasn't the fact that he's prepared, was over prepared. You know, it wasn't the fact that he probably spent hours on slides or, you know, read a hundred self help books or sales books, right? It was this thing that happened. To him when he was a kid that was getting him choked up. Right, right. And so I think either therapy or even just the willingness and openness to understand that your patterns may have come from a time that you might not even notice because it was so normal to you, you didn't realize that it could be something that you wanted to change, right?

Won Choi 22:21

Yeah, yeah, that's that's exactly. And I think it should be um the work as like therapy work and coaching work. I think it has to be done. It's great when it's done together. So that's what I do in my my coaching work is that um I have a trauma specialist that I work with, and my clients work with the trauma specialist. So the trauma specialist is someone who would go in the past and see what patterns are holding them back and heal them on the nervous system level so that I can work together on um like moving them forward, like as well, to like make sure that they could achieve what they want to achieve.

Jill Fratianne 22:58

Not many business coaches would also say I work with the trauma specialist, but we talked back and forth. It was actually one of the most interesting things. And then you also said, which I found fascinating, I hadn't ever experienced breath work until I went to the pink skirt in Kelowna with the. Um I thought it was super interesting because I had yet to hear a business coach that involved a trauma specialist and breath work.

Won Choi 23:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's all connected. It's all connected. Breath work is incredible because again, it works on a nervous system level. So it works on your body level. So again, going back to there's something that Tony Robbins always says that um there's like three S's, which is um strategy, story, and um state. So he talks about these like three S's. And a lot of us like focus too much time on strategy. But actually, where you need to start is your physical state, your physiology, because when your nervous system is in a strong state, when your body is actually in a strong physical state, then you're gonna tell yourself like more positive stories, right? Like you can do this versus you have you can't do this. And then when you tell yourself a better story, then you're able to take better action and then you can take the right strategy. Um, so that's why in my coaching practice, I do a lot of work on the state as well as as well as a story. And the breathwork piece is something that really elevates your state. So um anytime I go into a meeting or even the podcast, like I would spend three minutes and do breath work. I also ask my clients before they go into a sales call or before they go into a high-stakes meeting, then always do breath work and get your like state in a very strong state. So that set up. Um, and just like changing that physiology is is just gonna help you um move through any challenges in a better way. And I think breath work is the quickest, easiest, like most powerful way to do that. No one teaches that, Juan.

Jill Fratianne 25:17

They didn't they didn't teach that at uh music school, which is shocking to me where I went to college, but I'm quite sure it's not part of an MBA pro.

Won Choi 25:28

Nope, it's not, it's not. Yeah. This I wish um, and this is something that um I want to like eventually bring into like sales kickoffs that we need to change the state of sales reps, um, not just like working with like the mind and strategy. Um, and that that has been on my one of my vision boards where I would like do breath work, like when we open up SKO, we start with some movement and breath work and then like help them feel expansive um so that the information could be absorbed even better.

Jill Fratianne 26:05

Yeah, I mean, I'm so with you. And having lived it live with Samantha give doing the breath work, there were some people that just, you know, you could see she said she looked out, some people were just not, it was tough for them to make that personal transition, and then the rest of us were just bawling like the most and we all looked at each other like, what's going on? Why am I crying? What's happening? Um so I I couldn't agree with you more. Um, we have a couple minutes left, and I wanted to put one more concept out there, and I'm sure you can do it. We'll do it, we'll do a speeding round. Okay. Um you also walk the walk. You do this yourself, right? And you do it publicly, which I'm quite sure, just like myself, even though I, you know, I'm starting to do that more often. I really believe in the concept of being seen and the importance of helping others through content at this stage of our lives, right? It's very difficult to be visible. Um, and you also declared the 180 days at 1%. I learned about that one today in something you posted. Can you just give a brief a brief explanation on that part?

Won Choi 27:22

Yeah, so um there is like in the book Atomic Habits, um, there's this thing that if you improve yourself 1% daily, then you're gonna be, I think like 37x times better um every year. So I committed to myself this year to make myself 1% better every day. And I'm at like 182 right now. Um, but like why I keep doing this challenge and make it as um like a consistent daily thing is because I've learned that this helps you build confidence and this helps you become the person you need to become to do bigger things. And the other thing that I recently committed to was 75 Hard, where I'm doing a list of things every single day for 75 days. And the reason that I'm doing this work is that when I'm doing sales calls, um, when I'm ready to present the offer, I found myself like flinching and kind of hesitating at that point. And I was negotiating with myself at the last second. So when you start building habits and say, these are the things I'm gonna commit to no matter what, every single day, what it's doing is you're building a muscle and doing the reps. So you don't you learn how to not need to stop negotiating with yourself, like doing it anyways, right? And we talked about that concept of like doing it anyways, like you're doing with this podcast. It's it's uncomfortable, but you do it anyways. Um, so I think there is power of committing to yourself every single day. It could be something small, it could be something big that you're committing to doing every single day, no matter what, then that's gonna build your internal foundation and internal confidence. So when I get into the next sales call and ready to present my offer, even though the client doesn't seem very um like appealed to that offer, I would still do it anyways. And I think like building that rep, I think that's gonna like really help me and um I would like highly recommend for someone to uh decide what they want to do, have a consistent plan that could be a 30-day, 60-day, 90-day plan and commit to it because like I think like that's the ultimate way to build your self-confidence.

Jill Fratianne 29:48

I agree. Confidence is built in the small, small commitments we hold to ourselves every day. Yeah. Well, thank you, Juan, for joining me today. It was an honor and a pleasure to have this conversation. And if people want to find you, where can they find you?

Won Choi 30:13

Yeah, they can find me on Instagram. My handle is uh Wand Daily Shots on Instagram. Um, so this the things that I talked about today, um, this is something that I post every single day. Um and for I know that we talked a lot about like identity and how building identity is going to be so important in this like new age of AI. So for your audience, I did put together a quick workbook. It's called The Identity Reset. Um, so that will help people understand like who am I, who am I really beyond my title and beyond my reputation? Um, so if you're interested in learning more about yourself, um you can just DM me Clarity and I can send you that workbook as well.

Jill Fratianne 31:02

I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Unscripted Symphony. If today's conversation inspired you to take one courageous step forward, share this episode with someone who needs it. Remember, life isn't about playing every note perfectly. It's about having the courage to keep playing. Until next time, go create your own masterpiece.