Kelly connects with Jane Marie Chen, a globally recognized entrepreneur, inventor, speaker, and leadership coach. She is the co-founder of Embrace, which developed an infant incubator that has helped to save over a million babies. Jane has been a TED fellow and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. She has a new memoir, “Like a Wave We Break: A Memoir of Falling Apart and Finding Myself.” 

I just read this study in a book for an upcoming podcast that in many ways for a disruptive future, leaders who have experienced depression will be more equipped to help us. 

“Wow. Yeah, I really love that. Yes, I agree. Actually, I just did a TED talk about resilience. And what I really have learned through my journey is that there is something actually quite beautiful about hitting rock bottom or about going through those depressive states. And I think when you resurface, you’ve done this deep reflection, right? You understand who you are, what drives you. And I think you’re more aligned with your inner truth. And what I actually discovered through my process was that resilience is not about this kind of grit, which is I think how we’ve defined resilience for so long, right? Like keep enduring and pushing harder. And I think it’s what’s led to this massive burnout epidemic in our country. What I’ve started to understand is that resilience is actually about self-compassion. And that’s what allows us to make mistakes and go through failure without punishing ourselves, without believing that the outcome defines our worth. And when we can separate that, then we actually become more courageous, more vulnerable. We’re willing to take more risks. And all of the research on self-compassion actually supports this as well.” 

You didn’t speak English when your family moved to the United States from Taiwan, correct? 

“Right. I very much felt like I was the other. We lived in a pretty much all white neighborhood, and I was honestly ashamed of my culture. I just wanted to fit in. I wanted to look at it like everyone else. I remember thinking, gosh, if I just had like blonde hair and blue eyes, my life would be so easy. And, you know, there was a lot of racism in this country at that point. And we ate different foods; I looked different; I got made fun of because my eyes were slanted and my hair color was dark. And I just felt very much like the other. And so, I think that led to some isolation and a lot of secrecy, just not wanting to do anything or reveal anything that made me stand out.” 

This is also a book about generational trauma. 

“When I wrote the book, my intention was to write about every person with love and respect, right? And to tell my truth at the same time. And what that meant for me was also understanding my parents’ upbringings, the history of Taiwan, the history of Japan. I’m also part Japanese. And I started to see very clearly, and I think this is so relevant to what’s happening in the world today, but I started to see how violence and oppression makes its way into family systems and into lineages and then into our society, right? And that is the effect of intergenerational trauma. And so, I think it’s upon us to kind of look deeply and to do that healing work so that it’s not carried forward to the next generation.”