#308 How to rebuild your confidence and heal your relationship with yourself and your children, with May Lam Rocco.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

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May Lam Rocco  0:00  
focus on something what you're good at. Because when you know what you're good at you work on it, you will excel. When you focus on your weakness. Yes, you can build on it, but you will not becoming the expert in that area. So focus on your strength

Agi Keramidas  0:17  
you're listening to personal development mastery podcast, helping you take the simple actions to master personal development and create the life you gain for. I am your host Agi Keramidas. And my mission is simple to inspire you to take action towards a purposeful and fulfilling life. In this podcast, I invite myself inside the minds of remarkable entrepreneurs, authors, thought leaders, spiritual teachers. So if you're ready to find practical insights that you can implement right now, make sure you follow the podcast and get the episodes as soon as they are released. Today, I am delighted to speak with May Lam Rocco. May you were born in Hong Kong to a very traditional Chinese family. Despite your traditional upbringing, you went on to become one of the most prominent business women in Taiwan and Hong Kong, before the male dominated Asian society caught up with you and forced you to walk away, losing everything except your son. You recently released your first book, comfy dance where you share your inspiring journey of healing your relationship with yourself and your son and rebuilding your confidence. You're now dedicated to helping others rebuild their confidence and to heal that special relationship with their family and children. May welcome to Personal Development mastery podcast, it's such a pleasure to speak with you.

May Lam Rocco  2:00  
Thank you, thank you.

Agi Keramidas  2:02  
We will discuss about confidence rebuilding confidence and some others elements before we go there. Let's talk a little bit about that

Agi Keramidas  2:15  
intriguing background. You you have. And what I want to ask really is to begin with. And I will just give a preface here that most of the people listening to this and also me included, don't really know much about this traditional male dominated Asian society that you grew up

Agi Keramidas  2:39  
in. So can you give me one key difference may be between the Chinese and the Western society in this respect, so we can frame your story better?

May Lam Rocco  2:54  
That is a very good question. I do brought up brought up in a very traditional Chinese family. What I mean by that is, in my family, I got three brothers, and I am the number three in the family. And I'm the only girl in the family. So I brought up with together with my siblings, we are in a business background, my family is three generation in business. So I grew up with learning how to run a business how to what business is all about. But when I talk about a male dominant society is but when I was working for my family business, one day, there was some incident happen that I went to my father and asked my father permission to let me lead the project. But my father firmly told me that no, this is this. The decisions should come from your brother, because your brother is the older brother. And I was very shocked. Because at that time, I know that my brother is not going in the right direction. And as a family member in the family business, I thought I should stood up and told my dad, look, this is not the right way of go going. Why don't you let me do the work. But I was surprised that my father was not addressing to the incident, the project he is more thinking about because I'm not the oldest, I'm not a son. Therefore, you should listen to your brother. So I think that's the big difference between the Asian culture versus the Western culture. And I was very surprised and very shock at that time, because I would I was thinking that I am one of one of the family members you know, so when I suggested a sudden ideas since the family would Gather together will listen to it. So I think this will resonate with a lot of traditional culture family, especially Asian, where boy are still the dominant factor in the family. So this is what I've been saying in my book that I do come from a traditional upbringing family. And that's, that's part of the reason.

Agi Keramidas  5:29  
Do you want to take us back a little? Obviously, you have, your journey has lots of twists and turns. But do you want to share maybe one or two really key defining moments in that journey? So we can understand that those transitions? Better? Yes,

May Lam Rocco  5:49  
yes. Yeah, I was originally from Hong Kong. I was born in Hong Kong, but I went to school in England, studying Graduate Business Administration. And I came back to work for my family business. One of the biggest one of the first turn in my journey is, when I, one day, I was working for my father in his construction business, in a small country called Brunei. And because the population is only 250,000, at that time, is a beautiful, you know, country, but it's very small. I was very ambitious that time. And I decided to leave the family business at that point, wanted to go back to Hong Kong, either get a job or do something different. So I went to my father and asked for permission to leave the family business. And my father gave me two option. The first one is to stay back and work for him. The second one is go back to Hong Kong to start up another family business, which obviously, I took the second option, I was gladly to do do it without knowing what to expect. I think that was the turn, the first turning point in my career is to left Brunei and went to Hong Kong to start up another branch of the family business. And then the second critical moments or journey in my life is. At one day, I just decided to leave the family business, I left my marriage. And I'd love I'd left the multi millions dollars business that I was running at that time. All because of events happens in my life. You know, my father, one of the revenge was, I mentioned earlier about, my father decided to let my older brother to take charge of the business and saying that would be the right way to go. And I love my family very much. So instead of constantly arguing and fighting with my brother, I decided to leave the business. So that was when I lifted family business. At the same time, my marriage was not doing well. So I decided to leave the marriage the same time. So in political, I mean, pretty much in one day, I lost all the business, I lost my marriage, the only thing I have smart son, at that time, he was eight years old. So that is the second critical journey in my life.

Agi Keramidas  8:37  
You said the couple of times you use the word die decide as you decide to leave the family business you decided to leave your your marriage.

Agi Keramidas  8:51  
How? You know, I can only imagine that both of them were quite difficult decisions. They make life changing decisions. Was there some element emotional or otherwise mental? I don't know what kind of elements that made you take that decision because obviously things like that usually build up over a long time and there reaches a point that something clicks because of a reason. Was there something inside emotional mental that really tipped you over the edge and you took those decisions.

May Lam Rocco  9:34  
As for the business part of it because I have always been part of the family business. I worked pretty well with my brothers as well as my father was still in the business that time and the build up was that I have always been a voice in the business. I made my decision to my family most of time being heard they will Listen to what suggestion I give them. And then the time when come to this critical moment of handling a project, which we are actually working on an IPO, that time in Hong Kong, and I find that is a very important decision. But my father decided that I should be listening to my brother, the emotion in me that time is first of all, is very surprised, because I thought I have been part of the family has always, and I have never thought about me as being a girl in the family up to that point. So that is a big, big surprise for me. And I, as I said, I really love my family, my, my parents, my my brothers. And because my father, just make that decision without explaining why that actually got me very upset. And, and, and shock. So that is the the emotion that I have, when you're talking about emotion, I feel like Oh, my God, I am not part of the family. My, my, my decision is not important, because I am a woman. And because of that, I decided, like I said, you know, I decided to walk away from the family business, it was a very painful moment. And my father still call me every single day. After I told him, I'm no longer in the business, he's still calling me for a couple of months, I believe, until one day I told him, Look that, you know, I'm not in the business anymore. If you want to know anything about the business, please call my brother. You know, so I think a big park. Now, looking back, the shock is because this is not what I expected. I expected I am part of this family. You know, I wasn't, I didn't expect it. Because I am a girl, my decision that time is not important. In my family is more important that you have to respect that the older brother, you know, you read you have to respect he's the he's your brother, he's the oldest. So I think this is one part of it.

Agi Keramidas  12:32  
Let's talk then about after that time, and those hard decisions, this journey of you to rebuild your confidence, confidence starting really from from scratch, I can only imagine. So do you want to maybe guide us on the the important steps you took in order to you know, rebuild your life, your confidence. So we can

May Lam Rocco  13:02  
learn from that. I went through a couple years of depression. Because I when I left the business, I left the marriage I basically have nothing, nothing that time, except probably as a small amount of money in the bank. But my son that time he he went to study in England. So it's very expensive to pay for his tuition and all that. And I went through a couple years of really dark moments of my life, I used to be a very confident person. And before that, I when I was very young, nothing, nothing was stopped me. You know, given those things that I don't know, I will go and find the solution I will learn. But the two years of depression basically, is I have no no courage to do anything. I have no desire to do anything. I feel like I am a loser. And that two years was very, very difficult. For me. I pretend in front of my friends because I've so many business friends out there, they all wanted to know Hey, what happened to you mate, you know, let's come out and have coffee, have a lunch and all that. I will turn it down by giving up by giving some kind of excuses. But what really change is that that time I met my new husband now Frank, he is very encouraging me he has tried very hard for almost a year help. He knows my ability to do things he knows that I have all I have the confidence in me, but it's just that I don't see myself at that time. So one day he told me to go and meet one of his friends who are in the had hunting business in Hong Kong. And Mark was looking for somebody to start the business in China. And I have done a lot of startup in my life prior to that, a lot of startup business in different industry. But I still the same thing I talked to, I told Frank, I say, Look, you know, I don't have the knowledge about running a headhunting business, you know, what do I know, you know, this, all that negative voice into my head telling me, I'm not good enough, I don't deserve it. I'm not worth the kind of things, you know, the negative pattern in my head. But the day when I did push myself to go into the office to meet with Mark, and Mark is a friend. So I met him before. So he did ask me, How are you doing? How are you and Frank doing? And tell me a little bit more about your experience in life, you know. So I will start talking about what I did in the past, as I was talking, I can actually hear my own voice. bringing me back to all those moments or those time that I started different businesses. I actually feel you know, my heart is pounding. And I'm getting the heat from my body. You know, it, I couldn't believe what I was talking, I couldn't believe that I am saying this things that I have done before. And that is amazing feeling for me. Because that is something that I kind of reassure myself, you I have the ability of doing all this thing I have I have it in me, then what happened to me. So after that interview, I went back and I talked to Frank and told him how I feel, I can actually see my confidence slowly, slowly coming back, is I think confident, as we all know, is really a mindset thing. You know, how you think things. But before that, that two years is all the negative thoughts occupying my brain was telling me, I'm not good enough. I have all this fear in me, I'm scared, I couldn't get myself out of the door, I can step out, you know. But after that, that meeting with Mark, I beginning to feel that confidence is slowly creeping back. But don't get me wrong, I didn't get it right away. But that is the beginning of that. And then I tell myself, mate, you know, you got to push yourself, you got to get out there, you got to keep trying, even though it's only 1% a day, it will adds up. So that's how I slowly get myself out of the depression. And because of that meeting, I ended up having a opportunity to work for a Taiwanese lady, who is who is looking for someone to start the business in China in Shanghai. And I was scared because I never worked for anybody. I only work for my family. I don't even know what it's like to work for a corporation. But I pick up my courage. I told her, Okay, I'm going to take the job. So I take up that job, I remove my husband, I moved to Shanghai. And we started that consulting training consulting business in China. And that is how all this started. For My Journey for recovery.

Agi Keramidas  18:41  
I want to take a short break from this episode and quickly let you know about something I'm sure you will find useful. We are drowning in information but starving in wisdom. This podcast for example, his almost 300 episodes and as you can imagine, there is wisdom in them, but who has the time to listen to 300 podcasts. My mission as a knowledge broker is to convert this vastness of knowledge and distil it into wisdom and to implementable insights. So I have created a free special resource for you. I have chosen the top 10 podcast episodes that offer the greatest value in three main categories of life. First, the top 10 episodes about money. Second, the top 10 episodes about health. And third, the top 10 episodes on mastering your personal development. This free ebook is a curated catalogue of those top 10 podcast episodes in each category that will offer you the greatest value and in the shortest time to get it go to personal development mastery. podcast.com/top 10 and you will also find the link in the show notes. Alright, let's get back to the episode.

Agi Keramidas  19:59  
Sounds like good From that, and I will repeat it in my own words as an action point probably too for, you know, confidence because sometimes we, especially when we are in less confident periods or darker periods, we tend to forget about our previous successes and previous things that we have achieved and done. And we think that it's gone. It's because we don't feel like that anymore. But as you were saying, remembering and reiterating all these things that Okay, why don't we have done this in the past, it just helps to bring the confidence back, especially when you've done something before. I would like to ask you about your book, tell us about your book confidence. And first, tell me who is it for?

May Lam Rocco  20:55  
It has been for many years that I wanted to leave something to my son. And I think there's no better way to leave him is about my life story. A big part I wanted to share with him is that life is not always up, up, up up, you know, it does ups and downs. My biggest fear for him or even for myself is when you are done, are you able to pick yourself up, I think that is so important. If we're able to pick ourselves up, I think things will go, Well, if you're not able to pick yourself up, you will stay in the bottom. And that is a very scary feeling. And so because of that, I went through this up and down in my life, and I wanted to share too with him that, look, you know, even me as your mother, I went through that I was able to pick myself up. And that was the original thinking about writing this book is to share my life's journey with him. But in the midst of writing this book, I find my mission to, I really have seen so many people who have so much capability and quality in them. But they don't necessarily see that themselves are recognising themselves. And I hope my story will be able to help others to bring that alive, to believe in themselves. And to go and pursue whatever they wanted to pursue. And then another part of it is my relationship with my son, we have a few years very difficult relationship we fight we argue we cry, you know, is a very difficult time, especially those of the time that when I went through my own depression as well, I don't know, even know how to work with my son on how to communicate with my son. And that part of the journey. Then later on, I know that there's nothing more important to me at that time is my relationship with my son. So I went to England where he was studying England and start rebuilding that relationship with him. So the second half of the book, I talk a lot about my relationship with my teenagers son. And I think it is nothing more important for any parents is to have a special relationship with their children. And no matter how difficult the situation seems to be at this, at that moment, it can change. And right now I have the best relationship with my son, we talk every single day we text each other every single day, we encourage each other. And I wanted to share that this is possible for any parents who are going through some challenge with their children right now. So the book is of two parts. One is how do you rebuild your confidence through the experience that I have went through? And the second part is how do you reconnect with yourself to your children? I think that is the second half of the message I wanted to send out both of

Agi Keramidas  24:21  
them very important things for sure. And you mentioned that you talk about your journey you mentioned that what healed your relationship and I've seen the phrase on a few different occasions you use the word love or unconditional love. That was you know the major factor so do you want to share some of your thoughts about how did that work and its importance in in healing relationship with yourself with your family with your son With your buy, whatever. Yes.

May Lam Rocco  25:03  
Yes. Parenting my, someone has once told me there's no school for parenting, every situation is different. And I look at my way of parenting is how do I learn parenting, a lot of time I learned from my parents. So that's how my parents was taught me when I was young, I used the same way that I am, you know, with my son. But there's one thing that I do notices, I have always been a very strong mother. Strong mother doesn't mean that I don't love my son, and all that it's just because I always think I'm right. I'm always think I have that experience in me. So I better tell you, if you're if I see he's not going in the right way, I will tell him look, you know, this is not the right way to go. You should, you should try something else, because I've been there before. And I think that in some degree, it it. It might work. But I think we also have to respect our children respect that. The situation that in the environment they're in because in this generation is not the same as my generation or my parents generation. I remember one time l has, I did ask him after a relationship, you know, getting much better. And he asked me, he said, Mom, I asked him why you were so difficult that time you know, and he looked at me as a mom, you have no idea, you are judgmental, I'm never good enough for you. You know, whatever I do, you have you have to criticise me. And I will shock because I don't think the parents will be thinking in that terms. All we're thinking is, we just want the best for our son, we went through that this one telling you that you should be doing different thing. So what I learned about unconditional love, what that really means is like when your children is not doing things that you want them to do. Does that mean that they are not worthy of your love? You know, I believe that as parents, we have to assess our kids grow older and older, you know, what they're looking for, is your love, and your respect. And for me, that is a wake up call for me. So when I respect my son in a way, what I mean by respecting meaning, if he's going through doing certain things, you know, let him go through it, let him go through that, that process, let him go through that experience in his life. And then for me is to be there to support him to guide him. And to build that relationship, you have to build a trust first, if he trusted you, right, more likely that you will be able to have a meaningful conversation with your children. When you have that meaningful phone conversation, you can guide him, you can tell your experience to him, and he's more willing to listen. So when you when you bring that communication back on the table, then everything else will be better. So that is really the first step. How did you build back that communication, build that trust back with your children. And it's all started with unconditional love, meaning that even though they're not doing the things that you want them to do, or you don't think that is the right way to go? Let them try and support them and ask them questions and, and they will be more likely to come to you and ask for advice. Because our kids have a lot of I'm sure they all have a lot of fear in them when they tried to something new or do something different. They always wanted to have someone to support him to hear them out, you know, to hear their their fear. And there's no better way is to come to the parents instead of going to their friends. So building the communication is so important. And I think there's no right time or right moment to stop. And you have to start now.

Agi Keramidas  29:35  
Thank you and what you were saying? You know, sometimes we we think we know what's best for the other person because of our own experiences and so on. But

Agi Keramidas  29:48  
many times it's the other person that has to experience whatever it is and in this case, you're talking about the parents and their kids. yielding. And it's important what you said to, regardless to support and if, if they take, let's say the, the decision that you wouldn't take, but they need to take it, you know, to learn from it, and then they end up on the floor. That's part of our support to help them as you say, they'll pick yourself up when you're down into, you know, when you have someone, a parent or to help you with in this particular case to get up. Yeah, that's even more important, because you also have learned from your own experience and not by, you know, your mom's experience or it is, you know, very different.

Agi Keramidas  30:48  
May can you give to the listener based, you know, the conversation we've had today, so far, can you give them something actionable, something that they can implement? Right now or tomorrow morning.

May Lam Rocco  31:06  
Okay, I would like to talk about starting to rebuild your confidence first. So, the first thing that I would do is to have that self love, self care of yourself, it is very important for your well being physically, mentally and emotionally. Because a lot of time, we don't take care of ourselves. We always do things that what other people wants. And we very seldom to look inside of ourselves and ask ourselves, what what what do I want? You know, what do I care? I think that part is so important, because that build on your self worth, be the bill on your resilient bill on your self esteem, that is the beginning of motivating yourself. So love yourself first. What I mean by love yourself is like, go deep and look at yourself, what you're good at? What what are the things that you have done in the past? What are the success that you have made, no matter how small, how big, it doesn't matter. Go back and look at it, but not look not looking at the past what I've done wrong and all that stuff. But really pat yourself on the back and say, Hey, I have done that, you know, I have succeeded. You know, I have done this before. And also treat yourself well. Not always do things for other people first, take care of yourself first. And I think that is the most critical part for doing that. Number one. And number two of that is set goals, but achievable goals, something that you can achieve. Not not the we may have a big dream, we may have a big goal in front of us. But it's good to have that big goal, but you make small steps. The reason why having achievable goal is also another thing to motivate you to go forward. And confident is like building a muscle. You know, you have to work you know the first the first maybe a few times. It's difficult, but as long as you push yourself out there and start building that muscle. So setting goals, small goals, meaning every time you achieve something small, is is making you happy, is also assuring you that you can do it. So setting goals, setting achievable goals. That's number two, I would advise people. Number three is to identify that negative thoughts patterns you have, especially when people lack of confidence, that's a lot of noise in their head or telling them whatever they want to do the next thing they say, Oh, I'm not, I'm not good enough. Like for myself, I want to find a job, I will say, Who would want to hire me. I've never worked for other people. I only able to work in the certain industry. But something different. I don't have the experience all this negative thoughts in our head, try to change that into a positive statement. Because the word that we use is so important. And I often when I'm not feeling particularly positive, I've this negative thought in me, I was standing in front of a mirror I talked to myself, I say, mate, get it out, get that out of the way. Acknowledge that it's there. Don't Don't don't sort of think that they're not there. They're there. But tell yourself that hey, I can do better. I'm better than that. I have that experience and that experience. So recognising that negative thoughts and replace it with something positive. In the long run, it will help. And then the fourth thing I was thinking is, obviously learn from mistakes. But I don't like to use the word mistakes, you know, because it's a negative part of it, there's something that thinks that doesn't have the result that you want. Learn from it. And because there's a lot of opportunity for us to learn and grow from the experience that we, we have. So whatever experience come, you have right now, it might not be what you were looking for. But look at it on the other way is what have I learned from this experience. And then this other thing, again, is building up your confidence building up your self worth. And the last one, but not least, I would think is recognising your strength. And a lot of people will always focus on what I'm not good at. But focus on something what you're good at. Because when you know what you're good at you work on it, you will excel, you will become excellent. When you focus on your weakness. Yes, you can, you can build on it, but you will not becoming the expert in that area. So focus on your strength. So these are some of the tips that I would advise people when they are wanting to build their confidence, or stepping out of their, whatever they are having right now struggle they have and slowly build on it.

Agi Keramidas  36:41  
It may, where will you direct the listener that wants to connect with you and find out more about you.

May Lam Rocco  36:48  
I'm on linktree on mainland, Rachael, it's my name. And I might Instagram I'm on Tik Tok and on Facebook. So currently, I'm working on a online course, to talk about how to rebuild your confidence. Hopefully, in a short period of time, I'll be able to have that course online.

Agi Keramidas  37:10  
That's great. Thank you. I'll have the links in the show notes. And me, I will ask you two quick fire questions which I always ask us wrapping this fascinating conversation. And my first question is, what does personal development mean to you?

May Lam Rocco  37:31  
Personal Development to me everything. Because if we don't grow, we'll die. It's a tree tree don't grow, they die. So it no matter how old we are, how young we are, you know, we have to grow, we have to learn. So learning is very important, doesn't mean that you have to be a rocket science or something. But learning something that you are, you want to learn that nowadays, there's so much information out there. And I just find that I don't have enough time to learn. I want to

Agi Keramidas  38:08  
say I can relate to tell me me, hypothetically, if you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self, what's one piece of advice you would give her?

May Lam Rocco  38:19  
If I can go back to my 18 years old? I think what I would I would do is I wanted to learn more about having more self awareness of myself. And I mean, at 18 years old, I'm pretty much a pretty confident person. So on the confident part, I think I am all K, you know. But I think what I'm lacking is understanding myself more. And what do I really want, because I just go with the flow, because it's a family is the family business is a traditional family. And I thought that is the way that my life should go, you know, without really asking myself, what do I really want without understand where is my strength? Why I'm behaving a certain way. So I think that self awareness, if I can start at a very young age, that really will help me a lot going forward.

Agi Keramidas  39:25  
May I want to thank you very much for our conversation today. And I want to wish you all the very best with your mission and your book, of course. Do you have any closing thoughts on what we discussed?

May Lam Rocco  39:39  
Thanks. First of all, thank you for having me. This is a really wonderful conversation. If there's one thing that I want to leave to the listener, I wanted to say confidence is a journey. So you learn as you grow, you know every step of the way. If you're currently struggling with confidence, Once you know you have it inside of you, you just need to take it out and have the courage to step out even though it is fearful, even though it is scare, because the minute you step out, you'll be surprised what you can see and what you can learn. So I will encourage the audience to do that.

Agi Keramidas  40:24  
Thank you for listening and I hope you got valuable insights from today's episode. For your free ebook with the top 10 podcast episodes that offer the greatest value in three main categories of life. Go to personal development mastery podcast.com/top 10 Until next time, stand out don't fit in!