“Do I exist simply to only be someone’s wife or am I able to also pursue my own dreams and contribute to the world?” - Diana Chang

🦋 My very special guest in this episode is a dear friend and an inspiring human being, Diana Chang. In 2015, Diana quit her corporate job and left Singapore to accompany her husband who had an overseas posting in Indonesia. As time passed, she started to feel she wasn’t “useful” or had “a sense of purpose” like she did when she had a job previously. Here she was in a foreign land, unable to speak the language and far away from her family and friends and from the outside looking in, people thought she was having the time of her life as a “lady of leisure”. Hearing that sank her into further loneliness because she was already feeling incompetent and overwhelmed by the inability to put into words how she really felt only made her resent her life even more. Her only reprieve was to cry to herself in private and she felt, through prayer, that only God understood what her heart was going through. 

🦋 We learn from society on how to study for better grades, work harder/smarter to get a job promotion etc, yet we are not taught how to approach and embrace change; and how to process the emotions that come with it in a healthy way. And Diana’s advice is this, “Never hurry yourself in the process to ‘snap out of it’ and dismiss those feelings away so quickly. Try to understand your feelings so that you can reflect on how to make things better for yourself.” (Sic)

🦋 Listen in on how Diana went from a season of feeling empty to using this time of transition to establish her true identity and self-worth - ultimately leading to the birth of Yumi Active. A Japanese-inspired name, Yumi means “abundant beauty”; and Yumi Active represents Diana’s love for how much heart the Japanese pour into service and design. It also embodies an image of a resilient and confident woman with a zest for life overflowing with her inner beauty. Combined with a distinct and rich East Asia heritage that is reflected in her designs, it is her wish for her female customers to experience that adopting a positive active lifestyle can enhance their overall physical and mental wellbeing. Today, Diana is a woman in her own right - an entrepreneur to a brand that she worked to conceive to bring “happiness to those who wear them because it connects to something in their hearts’. Isn’t that wonderful?

🦋 I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I did recording it with Diana.

🦋 Search “The Life Uncommon” on Spotify, Apple and Google Podcasts

🦋 Yumi Active IG: @yumiactive