Soft Power Project

The week Sarah Tse left her corporate job, Australia went into a national lockdown. A long relationship had ended not long before. Home, alone, unemployed, all at once. She calls it the turning point.

Her heartbeat had surged to 130 on the train into the city, past the Harbour Bridge. She was exhausted at work and lost, and she thought something was wrong with her physically. So when the last round of restructure came, she decided she needed a change.

Sherry and Sarah talk about what happens when the title goes and you have to find out who is underneath it. She is a registered organisational psychologist who knows the power of positive self-talk, and she says that when it happened it was still tough. In the six months that followed she picked up a brush she had not touched since high school, and watched the paintings move from dark navy to something brighter without ever deciding to change the colours. The model she coaches now is be still, explore, act. And the distinction she keeps returning to, between leaders who splash around in the shallow and leaders who go deep before they rise high. Asked what soft power means, she says it is never soft. Handle people with care, she says, and know the difference between gentle and fragile. If you are between who you were and who you are next, this conversation will not rush you.

0:00 - Intro
2:47 - Her name in the grey box
4:50 - She left, then lockdown hit
7:52 - What actually helped her cope
11:30 - Painting and aromatherapy
16:55 - Be still, explore, act
21:39 - Shallow vs deep-dive leaders
36:10 - Why leaders get so lonely
43:34 - Soft power is never soft

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Sarah's TEDx talk, "When I'm fine isn't fine": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcVLJ4CudFI
Shema Coaching: https://linktr.ee/shemacoaching
Sarah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahtse1104/

ABOUT SARAH TSE:

Sarah Tse is a registered organisational psychologist, leadership coach and keynote speaker based in Sydney, and the founder of Shema Coaching. She spent about a decade in product innovation and service design across financial services and government before moving into coaching and speaking full time. She coaches in English, Cantonese and Mandarin.

https://www.instagram.com/shema.coaching/ | https://linktr.ee/shemacoaching

#SoftPowerProject #SoftPower #Leadership #CareerTransition

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Anything healthy can become unhealthy if it's driven by fear, control, or self-policing. I'm learning that this year, in my own body.

I grew up in a family obsessed with wellness and longevity: my dad and his heavy medicine books, my mom making kombucha in a hot Taiwan kitchen thirty years ago, before it was popular, Tai Chi lessons at fourteen with fifty and sixty year olds. I loved ballet, and by ten I was watching my arms and stomach in the mirror. For decades after that I often skipped dinner, because it was the easiest way to control my weight.
Making the Soft Power Project finally got me into a gym for the first time in my life. I told my trainer I just wanted to feel strong. What my body asked for instead was dinner.
I'm still adjusting. I've gained weight, my stomach isn't flat, and my old self still comments on it. But soft power here looks like letting my body find its rhythm instead of policing it.
If you've done all the healthy things and still felt like something wasn't right, this one is for you.

What are you giving yourself permission to eat?

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Sherry's Health Journey Begins
5:25 - The Impact of Family on Wellness
9:57 - Self-Policing and Body Image
12:53 - Finding Balance and True Wellness

#SoftPowerProject #SoftPower #WellnessJourney #SelfDiscovery
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Ysabella Costa was a criminal defense investigator by morning and a stuntwoman by night, for two years, and barely stopped to feel any of it. Ventura County hired her at 23 and handed her homicides and sexual assaults. In 2019 her mom died of liver failure. California gives three days of bereavement. She took the three days, then went back to a nine-week homicide trial and the fifteen or twenty other cases behind it.

Sherry and Bella talk about what happens when a job teaches you to read everybody and never teaches you how to stop. Getting to know her clients humanized them, and for a while she trusted people more, not less. It also left her scanning everyone who came close, sure they were not real and would hurt her. A month in Japan with the first person she ever really loved is where the light came on.

What she built after that is small and physical. She keeps two hours before call time for journaling, a walk, and a workout, and drives home with no music. She broke an arm on a wire starting out and does not fear the work, because she trusts her body and the people around her. When Sherry asks what soft power means to her, Bella describes a punch: stay soft instead of rigid, and when you land it, that is when the power comes in. It is soft power as grace and trust. If you have ever kept your guard up so long you forgot how to lower it, this conversation goes somewhere unexpected.

(then the timestamps above)

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Bella’s essay on the career change: https://criminallychicken.substack.com/p/how-i-went-from-criminal-defense
Bella’s stunt account: https://www.instagram.com/itsysabellacosta/
9-1-1 on IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7235466/

ABOUT YSABELLA COSTA:
Ysabella Costa is a SAG-AFTRA stunt performer and actor working in Hollywood, with credits including 9-1-1, Criminal Minds, and Lioness. Before that she spent five years as a certified criminal defense investigator. She is also a certified yoga instructor, and writes about cases, action, and healing on Substack.
https://www.instagram.com/lifeofbellacosta/ |
https://www.instagram.com/itsysabellacosta/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14066951/

#SoftPowerProject #SoftPower #Stuntwoman #WomenPodcast

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Elisabeth Coleman's body had been sending burnout warnings for years, fatigue no amount of sleep could touch, and she pushed through all of it, until the night she woke up certain she was having a heart attack. The hospital said everything was fine. The next day she went to Washington, DC anyway, to advocate on Capitol Hill. She says she still chose work over her own well-being, when in reality we have only one body.
Sherry and Elisabeth talk about what happens when you've spent years believing your worth is how much you can endure. They sit with the frozen shoulder at 43 and the doctor who said you're too young for this, go to therapy. They follow the guilt to the self-worth underneath it, and the childhood where she learned to be a background character. From going no contact with her father in 2016 to a cocoon phase in Alaska, 4,000 miles away, to a definition of compassion that includes herself.
Elisabeth says she sat with the painful feelings in silence and let them come like waves, each less intense than the last, until it was just low tide, a gentle splash at her feet. By the end, she lands on her own definition of soft power: standing in her own power, sun on her face. It is soft power as calm instead of bold moves. This conversation goes somewhere unexpected.

0:00 - Intro
2:17 - Burnout and compassion fatigue
7:51 - Warning signs and the frozen shoulder
13:01 - Guilt, self-worth, and family roots
21:36 - Redefining compassion
24:11 - Going no contact with her father
29:56 - The cocoon phase in Alaska
38:21 - Why more people choose estrangement
49:44 - Life as a game and soft power

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
LeadHER Dynamics, her coaching and consulting practice: https://leadherdynamics.com/
Elisabeth on Substack: https://substack.com/@elisabethcoleman
Elisabeth on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadHERDynamics
Dr. Joe Dispenza, whose writing on emotion and rumination Elisabeth references: https://drjoedispenza.com/

ABOUT ELISABETH COLEMAN:

Elisabeth Coleman is a certified speech-language pathologist, certified executive coach, and the founder of LeadHER Dynamics, a coaching, consulting, and mentorship practice for women navigating leadership, transitions, and growth. For more than 23 years she has helped people navigate the conversations, decisions, and transitions that shape their careers, leadership, and lives. She writes and speaks about burnout, self-worth, and major life transitions.

https://www.instagram.com/spicymocha/ | https://leadherdynamics.com/

#SoftPowerProject #Burnout #CompassionFatigue #WomenPodcast #nocontact #family

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Two of my reels about insecure leadership went viral, and it's bittersweet. I'm happy they resonate and sad about why.
Three and a half years ago I joined a startup. A year in, my team and I spent two months running fundraising. Then we were taken off the meeting list. No explanation. A month later we learned the fundraising wasn't even happening. Nobody told us. I kept brushing it off, telling myself I was too sensitive. Research has a name for it: workplace ostracism. Researchers call it cold violence. I call it quiet violence. It's the absence of behavior. It hurts like injury.
I brought the story to the Soft Power Project: the managers who admit they see competent people as threats, why we promote people and hope they'll figure it out, and what secure leadership could look like. To me, a leader's soft power is making it safe to speak, take risks, be honest.
If you've ever been quietly left out at work and wondered if you were imagining it: you're not crazy. This actually happens.
What are the real secure leader behaviors you've observed? Tell me in the comments.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Understanding Insecure Leadership
13:17 - The Impact of Insecure Leadership
17:45 - Defining Secure Leadership

Studies
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312555411_Workplace_Ostracism_A_Review_and_Directions_for_Future_Research

Chang, K., Kuo, C. C., Quinton, S., Lee, I., Cheng, T. C., & Huang, S. K. (2019). "Subordinates' competence: A potential trigger for workplace ostracism." The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 32(8), 1801–1827.
Cho, Y., & Fast, N. J. (2012). "Power, defensive denigration, and the assuaging effect of gratitude expression." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(3), 778–782.
Peter, L. J., & Hull, R. (1969). The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). SAGE Publications.
https://www.science.org/content/article/rejection-pain-brain

#SoftPowerProject #SoftPower #Leadership #WorkplaceOstracism

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Mia Vivone was dropping weights at the gym and thought it was carpal tunnel. It was a broken neck from an old domestic violence injury she never got care for. Three months later she was in an eight and a half hour surgery that ended her career as a fitness instructor and a professional bodybuilder.
Sherry and Mia talk about what happens when the things that kept you alive start costing you. Mia explains why so many capable women who have been through trauma become the high functioning ones, running on what she calls an override switch, and what the mask costs the body when it stays on too long. She walks through exactly what she does in the moment shame arrives, which she says sounds like running into a burning building for a lot of trauma survivors.
From a fused neck to a framework she built out of sheer desperation to a definition of soft power she found in Rosa Parks.
Mia says her control is no longer externally located. It does not depend on anyone changing, or apologizing, or being present. It depends on the promises she keeps to herself.
If you have been holding it together for a long time, this is a Soft Power Project conversation that goes somewhere unexpected.

0:00 - Intro
1:47 - Survival mode has no off-switch
4:35 - A broken neck ends her career
9:37 - Why trauma makes women high-functioning
13:14 - The mask and what it costs the body
27:06 - Oxygen mask first: processing shame
35:51 - Same song, different partners
41:05 - Rosa Parks and where control lives
45:33 - Self-trust is keeping your promises

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
The UNTRIGGERED Woman Trauma Transformation System: https://miavivone.com/the-untriggered-woman-trauma-transformation-system

The Untriggered Woman Academy: https://www.skool.com/the-untriggered-woman-academy-5575/about

The Untriggered Woman Podcast: https://theuntriggeredwomanpodcast.com/

Dr. Gabor Maté, who Mia credits with the term compassionate curiosity: https://drgabormate.com/compassionate-inquiry/

Rosa Parks, Quiet Strength: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/886101.Quiet_Strength

ABOUT MIA VIVONE:

Mia Vivone is a professional trauma recovery coach in California and the creator of The UNTRIGGERED Woman Trauma Transformation System, a framework she built after a spinal injury ended her career as a fitness instructor and professional bodybuilder. She works with professional and entrepreneurial women moving out of survival mode by rebuilding the connection between mind, emotions, and body.

https://www.instagram.com/traumacoachmia/ | https://miavivone.com/

#SoftPowerProject #TraumaRecovery #NervousSystemRegulation #WomenPodcast
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Jenn M. Choi spent five years writing a book about reclaiming self-worth, and at the start she was still chasing a New York Times bestseller. She had checked every box: the STEM degree, the cancer research career, the consultancy. She believed the things on paper are what make you worthy and enough.

She lost her father to lung disease, then her mother to blood cancer, and the bulk of her healing came after they were gone. She had been too loyal to name the hurt while they lived, and afterward she couldn't call them, couldn't bring them into a therapy session, couldn't say she was hurt by people who did their best and weren't there to defend themselves. She defended them, until her idol fell from the pedestal and two truths had to coexist: her parents loved her, and her parents hurt her.

Sherry and Jenn talk about what happens when the healing you need is about people who cannot answer for it. She was healing and becoming a mother at once, meeting her mother's rage in herself when her son expressed the feelings and needs she was never allowed to express. She knows why the book took that long: she needed to become the person who could stand behind it. She still struggles. The old persona still asks why it isn't selling more.

From filial piety to shadow work, and a rage she now calls sacred. Her definition of soft power, the question Sherry asks every Soft Power Project guest, starts with looking at your own pain. This conversation goes somewhere unexpected.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
1:39 - Filial piety, saving face, obedience
6:57 - Losing both parents. Two truths.
11:04 - Postpartum rage, seeing her mother
17:13 - Powerlessness, triggers, sacred rage
23:39 - The resume, the mask, the book
33:18 - Grounding, nature, and raving
39:37 - Rave mom, not tiger mom
46:31 - Her definition of soft power

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

- Enough to Rise, Jenn's book: https://jennmchoi.com/enoughtorise/

ABOUT JENN M. CHOI:

Jenn M. Choi is an empowerment coach and the author of Enough to Rise, a memoir about reclaiming self-worth and breaking the cycle of generational trauma. She grew up in Chinatown, San Francisco, the eldest daughter of a Chinese immigrant family, and her path ran from cancer research scientist to project manager to entrepreneur to coach.

https://jennmchoi.com/ | https://www.instagram.com/jennmchoi

#SoftPowerProject #GenerationalTrauma #ShadowWork #Healing

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I started the Soft Power Project because I needed it. I needed the courage to let go of something I'd been holding since I was maybe four, and I needed to hear how other women did it.

One hundred episodes later, this is the thing I was too ashamed to tell you.

I'm going through a reset with my parents. I'm not sharing the details, my family gets their privacy.

Growing up, my family's problems were a puddle of water behind a wall. There was a hole in it, and my job was to hold it shut so nothing spilled. I was told I was good at that job. The puddle became an ocean, and I held on until I couldn't.

I let go for my daughter.

I'm not sharing this as someone who has it figured out. A week and a half ago I was in bed. Today I can say it out loud. That's why I record.

If you're carrying shame about your family, you're not alone, and you're not a bad daughter. Soft power, right now, looks like compassion for yourself and seeing what's real.

Thank you for a hundred, and let's do a hundred more together.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - 100 episodes, and we made it through
2:25 - The reset with my parents
6:35 - Letting go, and the spill that followed
10:16 - Questioning what I was taught to believe
12:31 - Listening to my heart, one small thing
15:56 - You are not a bad daughter

#SoftPowerProject #Boundaries #Healing #CulturalIdentity
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Fiona Chu had to talk to her therapist before she could send her dad one text message: that she'd spend a week of her trip home traveling alone.

Sherry and Fiona talk about what happens when a good daughter starts setting boundaries. Fiona grew up walking on eggshells after her parents' divorce, taking care of her mom's feelings and learning to put everyone else first. The definition she carried said a good daughter listens, doesn't disagree, and never has too many feelings. Years of burnout, chronic anxiety, and therapy later, she's rewriting it. Setting boundaries, she says, isn't keeping her parents outside the door. It's how they finally get to meet the real her.

From a solo trip where her inner voice got louder, to seeing the fear under her parents' anger, to letting go of the apology that isn't coming. The inner critic still shows up every day, and the spiral still comes. It's just shorter now. By the end, Fiona names her own definition of soft power: keep choosing yourself. She's been listening to Sherry since her previous podcast, years before the Soft Power Project existed. This is the conversation they finally got to have.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
4:56 - Life after burnout and chronic anxiety
7:56 - The inner critic and tools for anxiety
12:45 - Traveling alone to meet yourself
16:56 - Why going home feels heavy
21:55 - Redefining the good daughter
28:16 - Reparenting your inner child
33:05 - How healing changes relationships
39:29 - Soft power is choosing yourself

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Episode 14 - Overcoming Fear Through Solo Traveling with Lisa Saper-Bloom (on the show's Apple Podcasts page): https://podcasts.apple.com/id/podcast/soft-power-project/id1795635125
- Overseas, We Rise - Fiona's upcoming podcast

ABOUT FIONA CHU:
Fiona Chu is a Taiwanese UX designer living in Southern California, where she documents her healing journey through her 30s on Instagram: therapy, boundaries, inner child work, and learning to choose herself.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hi.fionachu/

#SoftPowerProject #Boundaries #InnerChildHealing #MentalHealth

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When I was in survival mode, I turned everything into a task. Even the things meant to restore me became one more thing to get done, and all of it felt draining.
This episode is about three small, cheap things that pulled me out of overfunctioning, without me realizing it at the time. I painted a sunset at a café for no reason, at my lowest low. I hired cleaners instead of losing every weekend to it. And I picked up a book that had nothing to do with being productive, and remembered what it felt like to read for me.
Years later I found that painting again and realized it had become the purple-to-orange gradient on the Soft Power Project cover. My body knew what I needed before my head could admit it. To me, that’s what soft power is: choosing something just because it’s yours.
I’m not sharing this as someone who has it all figured out. I’m still catching myself turning rest into another achievement.
If you’re overfunctioning, this is your invitation to carve out one part of your life that isn’t for productivity or achievement.

What’s one thing you could do for no reason?

Timestamps
0:00 - Escaping Survival Mode
6:24 - The Power of Creativity
9:40 - Outsourcing for Clarity
12:26 - Rediscovering the Joy of Reading

#SoftPowerProject #Overfunctioning #SurvivalMode #SelfCare

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