Elisabeth:

Hi freelancer, welcome to today's episode of the freelance blueprint. I'm your host Lisi, a freelance UX designer and digital nomad. Today we're joined by Kai.

Kai helps people heal their inner child and recently published his first book, which I can't wait to learn more about. I've been following Kai for a while on social media and last year I was sitting in a taxi in Chiang Mai, driving home from the airport and I saw this guy who looked oddly familiar. Turned out it was him.

A few weeks later I was in Barcelona and I saw in his stories that he was there too. So I just messaged him and asked if he wanted to grab a coffee because we seem to have the same travel route and I felt a bit like a stalker, but who's stalking who when he's also in the same mood, right? Anyway, he said yes, we got some coffee and now a couple months later we're both again in Chiang Mai and we regularly work from coffee shops together.

Kai is doing a great job helping people heal their inner child but he's also doing a great job with his business. So let's talk more about his freelance journey. Hi Kai, thanks for coming to the podcast today.

Kai:

Yeah, glad to be here Lisi.

Elisabeth:

If I would not know anything about you and I would bump into your sister, how would she describe you to me?

Kai:

That's a great question. So I should start with my older brother Kai. I guess I take that being oldest very seriously.

I should say I'm creative, kind, thoughtful, maybe brave, maybe be silly or spontaneous or reckless. Maybe one of those words.

Elisabeth:

Why reckless?

Kai:

Well, I could be maybe spontaneous or maybe impulsive sometimes with decisions. So it's like it's a good and a bad thing, you know, to be impulsive and spontaneous and try new things and just at a whim or based on your intuition make a big choice. I've also had another friend that was like Kai, you could be kind of reckless sometimes.

Elisabeth:

What's like the most reckless thing you've done?

Kai:

Most reckless thing I've done? Maybe like being here, like kind of taking a year off medical school and changing career paths that some people can see it as stupid, reckless and some people could be like, oh my god, so brave, you know, you're living your best life. So that could have been seen as a big risky decision.

Elisabeth:

I think it's risky if you quit school or pause it or change career path, and it's definitely brave. I also think it's a lot of, is it your wish to do that career or is it someone else's and you've realized or actually it doesn't work out? Or maybe it was your wish and then when you study it, you realize, oh, this is not an industry for me.

What was it for you?

Kai:

Yeah, basically everything you said there where it was a bit of everything where like I kind of grew up Chinese, Canadian, first-generation and a lot of maybe expectations and pressures and I just never really, I guess maybe had a childhood or teenage years that I really had that inner focus on getting to know myself, like my interests, my likes. That was like a pretty big people pleaser and I remember like just one of those moments that's like forever like a memory that lives in my head. I had this really good friend.

His name is Blaine and we grew up grade school together, grade 5, grade 4, grade 5, grade 6, grade 7. Good friends, like best friends. And then from, I came from a small town.

So literally it's like there is elementary school and high school. Elementary school is kindergarten to grade 7. High school is grade 8 to grade 12.

So we went to high school, you know, we kind of had different friend groups and we kind of split a little bit and I became like part of the jocks and the sports people and stuff like that, academic. And he had a different friend group and we're still kind of friends, but it was really changing and our relationship was like devolving. And I remember like one time he was really frustrated with me, you know, pulled me aside.

I was just like, I don't even know who you are anymore. You're like a chameleon. Like one second you're this person, one second you're that person or if you're with that group, like you just like say those things.

So I'll never forget that because I was a chameleon. I didn't know who I was and I didn't really have values or somewhere to act from. So kind of going into medical school, there was a lot of like expectations, but even the hard part about this is sometimes these expectations of our parents or our family, they might not be as intense as the way that we think it is or even like with my parents.

I think over time as they change their own mindset and attitudes, I don't think they're not as heavily expecting that. So I think for me, it really took me going to medicine and then having like a breakdown in my third year for me to realize that, damn, like this sucks. And it wasn't OK for me to like neglect myself so much or put such a priority on like finishing medical school, becoming a doctor that I would even contemplate.

I was like, it was very much like either become a doctor or die trying. And literally, I was dying to try because I had this breakdown in my third year of medical school when things were tough and, you know, my coping strategies weren't helping anymore. And I was beginning, I guess, just that desire to become a doctor.

It didn't have that internal motivation to keep it going. So that breakdown, I kind of contemplated maybe ending things like taking my own life. They call it, you know, I know, I know.

But at the same time, like at the time, you know, it was really painful. It sucked. I wish it didn't happen.

At the same time, though, I'm a firm believer that breakdowns like this is like a potential awakening because your old way of thinking, your old programming expectations, they are no longer capable with living life. So in that breakdown, it really got me to reflect, like, why am I doing this? Whose expectations am I living?

And what do I really want? So I think that was a big turning point in my life where I realized, like, I really asked myself, like, why do I want to do this? Like whose expectation is this?

And what do I really want? What would it mean to live a happy, productive, like a good life?

Elisabeth:

I think your sister was right when she said you're brave, because when you hit that moment where you even consider, like also it's difficult to word it properly. I think the proper way to say it is suffered. Like instead of saying they took it, it was the disease that took their life.

I'm glad you didn't. I'm glad you were brave that you chose the difficult part. I wouldn't say the trying to end it is probably not easy either, but it's harder, I think, to be like, no, I'm not going to do this.

I'm going to get out of this and I'm going to face this and I'm going to create a life where I'm not going to feel like this. So, yeah, she was right. You're very brave.

You also mentioned your coping mechanisms weren't working. So what were your coping mechanisms?

Kai:

Yeah, so I'm very fortunate that in university I did like a psychology minor. And like one of the most life changing courses was this third year positive psychology course I took. It must have been what, like maybe 20, 22 or something.

That's where I learned about mindfulness and meditation. And then that's when I kind of started going to yoga. So I kind of had had this new practice and this new awareness.

So when I started medical school, I already had maybe two, three years of that routine. But something with like, you know, I had this pattern whenever I'm like stressed or I'm like in a trauma response or I'm in a shame spiral. I put all those things out the window.

And I was at the point with medical school that like I wasn't sleeping well, I wasn't taking care of myself. And I was putting all my time trying to study and neglected sleep, drinking a lot of coffee. For me, food is always like a coping mechanism.

So for me, I love these little rice chip things. So I would stock my cupboard with like bags of rice chips. So the first thing I did when I got home from the hospital, I would just be so numb, so like fried.

I just like grab two bags of rice chips, sit and just like eat two bags of rice chips. And then I'll try to study. And I kind of neglected the meditating, the yoga, even though it's like it helped me.

And I know it's good for me. But something happens when we feel bad about ourselves, like we kind of treat ourselves like shit. Instead, right?

Instead, maybe if we had that self-love, that self-compassion, we would treat ourselves the best when we're feeling down. Not to like kick ourselves when we're like already down and like not sleeping and coffee and eating chips and not going to yoga. So I kind of was lacking ways to move through or even just understand what was happening inside of me and maybe my own self-imposed expectations and perfectionistic standards.

Elisabeth:

It's also very interesting when how we treat ourselves versus how we would treat our friends and why is it that we treat ourselves worse? So if you would see a friend going through that time and you're like, no, you need to sleep, whatever it is that you can't do by yourself, like, for example, the studying, OK, you have to do. I can't do this for you, but maybe I can help you do your laundry so you can go to bed earlier or something like that.

So we would do that for a friend or we would tell the friend, no, tonight we're not going to go for drinks. You'll just have some water, have some healthy dinner and then go to bed at 10. But if it's ourselves, it's like I'm going to scroll online and until it's like midnight or later or I'm going to like whatever else it is that might numb us.

But if we would see someone else do this, we know what the right thing to do is. But why is it so hard to treat us how we would treat a friend? I also wonder if that has to do with self-confidence in a child.

How did you get into the whole inner child healing journey? Was there like a specific trigger moment or when was the first time you heard about this?

Kai:

Oh, it's a funny story. So I always like to tell my clients and stuff like, you know, it's like a lifelong learning journey. And when you're ready, like the right teacher will show up.

So my teacher came in the form of a she must have in her 60s, this like six year old woman, Canadian, lives in New Brunswick. And she was my therapist through the phone. I connected with her through like my employee, I forget the name of it, but through medical school.

I had access to like seven or eight sessions biweekly on the phone with this lady. And I've worked with like maybe five different therapists in my life. And with her, I had a difficult relationship.

I'm not sure if it was over the phone or it was just the age difference and maybe like cultural. But she was really triggering for me. It brought up all these like wounds that at the time I didn't know what's going on, right, because she was a pretty talkative.

And I felt like I was not being listened to, I was being misunderstood. And there were like so many times I was like, I'm just not going to show up anymore. I'm just going to get a new therapist.

But I stuck with her. And she was the woman that told me about inner child healing. Like she was like this John Bradshaw guy when I discovered it 30 years ago, it changed my life.

I did this inner child healing work, like how you need to do this, you need to do this. And I was just like, no, I just like wrote it off. Like that sounds wooey gooey, I don't like this woman, she doesn't even understand me.

So I didn't touch it. And literally every phone call, she would like share stories and the other clients that did it. And I just wasn't ready for it.

And it sounded bizarre. It sounded bizarre that, you know, we have these inner children, you got to talk to it, connect with them. There's a source, a lot of our shame and low self-esteem and angry explosions.

So I wasn't ready for it. And I just, I just wasn't ready for it. And so we finished working together.

And I'm pretty sure I was like half a year later, half a year later, somehow, like she came up in my head. And like the book or like the name came up. And I forgot the name, but I was just Googling inner child healing.

I forgot the name of the author. And then I bought an audio book and that was just like, and this was maybe 2017. And that opened me up to this whole world of inner child healing.

Elisabeth:

What was the first step you took to heal your inner child?

Kai:

So it was an audio book and it was John Bradshaw. He's passed on now, but he kind of reads his book and also he shares clips of the workshops that he taught. So just listening to that book, just listening to the audio and just him speaking is healing.

And I think for me, I think one of the first things I did was use the meditations that he offered in that audio book. And I think one of the first practices that I did was writing a letter to my inner child. So that was the first kind of practice that I started with the meditation, where it's kind of like I'm visualizing and you kind of see your little inner children at different ages and you give them the encouraging loving words that they need to hear.

And just spending that time, it was so crazy at first because it's like use your non-dominant hand, no, use your, yeah, use your dominant hand and write a little connection letter to your inner child. And then using your non-dominant hand from that child's perspective, right back to your adult self.

Elisabeth:

Interesting exercise.

Kai:

Yeah, very interesting. You know, I was pretty atheist, very scientifically minded, and that's its own religion. So it was really hard for me to suspend that logic or that scientific atheist religious mind to really be open to this and to really feel and make that connection.

Elisabeth:

I did have, I mean, some people go through trauma and there's like something where I'm not ready yet to talk to the public about it, but something has happened, which caused me to go to therapy. And there was a specific trigger, which really impacted me a lot. And it had something to do with my heartbeat.

Every time I heard or felt my heartbeat, I had flashbacks to that moment. And I tried so many different things to kind of like be able to sleep again, you know, anyway. So someone recommended a hypnotherapist to me, where you basically visualize certain things and you're in this drowsy moment.

And it's like similar where you go for this journey of like, you're very scientific, like, does this make sense? What's behind this? And all this woo-woo stuff.

There are studies about this, how this helps. And one of those exercises was also to visualize yourself in a room as a child and remember what you look like, how you talk, these kind of things, and then put different versions on the table around you. So like a wise person, the wise person, the protector of things like that.

And kind of like, okay, what would the protector say? Okay, bring up the wise person, them having like all these inner versions of you having a discussion. And it's kind of in this hypnotherapy session, you're in this drowsy, it's like almost like you're sleeping, but you're not sleeping.

So it feels super weird. And then when you wake up, it's like, oh, my God, am I schizophrenic? Why do I have so many versions of myself?

And then you don't just have one inner child. It's not like your two-year-old version. It's also your five-year-old version, your teenage version.

And if you have different wounds in those different stages, there's a lot of work to go and do and try to heal them. I actually did your quiz. Someone also recently told me that anyone born before 2007 has some kind of childhood traumas, because our parents weren't educated on how the first five years impact the child.

And I was not surprised, but the result was, you're pretty immature. And then I saw your, like, it went through your journey and you have a very good lead magnet, actually, like doing the quiz, getting the email of the person, getting the first two sessions for free. And another thing I noticed is on your intro call, you're blonde.

And I find it so interesting. I met a few Asians who dyed their hair blonde. I mean, my mom is Thai, but I'm very whitewashed and never had this where are you really from kind of thing when I say I'm from Austria.

But it did go through a phase where I dyed my hair blonde. Even now I have highlights. And I also wonder if it's a way of trying to fit in to come across more white.

But yeah, anyway, so I noticed you have blonde hair. And was that recorded at the time when you started your business, when you quit medical school? Because often when people quit relationships, they feel like they want to have a new haircut or something.

Was that like your new version of yourself? How was it when you started recording those initial course slides?

Kai:

Great, good questions. Yeah, it is a great lead magnet, isn't it? I read Alex Ramosi's newest book, Hundred Million Dollar Leads, and I made that lead magnet from his teachings.

Yeah, so I would say when I went blonde, it wasn't to fit in more. But definitely a lot of my history was like born in a small rural Canadian town, mostly white people, whole life was trying to be white and fitting in. And I didn't realize it, but I had developed inner racism.

Like I hate it. I don't want to say hate, but I was kind of racist way of thinking towards Chinese people, like my own kind, my own race. And like, you know, always jokes growing up that, you know, I'm kind of a twinkie, I'm like yelling the outside when I'm the inside.

And I would like try to be white, like showing my hair. And even like with my Asian features, I got pretty prominent big eyes, so I didn't like it. I wanted deep seated eyes.

So it was really bad in high school that like I remember I had really low self-esteem, like body image issues. And like I would stand in front of the mirror trying to push my eyes in. Yeah, a lot of body images trying to be white.

So when I went blonde, it wasn't to fit in anymore. But I did make a big change when I first went away from medicine to start this coaching career. I changed my name and my name itself is pretty funny and unique.

So my parents immigrated to Canada in 1990, and I'm the first child, the first prototype. And, you know, I admire them. They figure out a lot of things, but like certain things they didn't quite figure out, like, for example, Christmas.

They never figured out Christmas, so I never got lied to. I knew right away that there was no Santa. There was no Santa?

My parents are Santa. Yes, it was really brutal because, you know, kids are so magical thinking. So I also thought that maybe I'm just a bad boy and that's why Santa doesn't visit me.

So there wasn't Santa growing up. But also like my legal first name is a combination of my Chinese name and my English name. But it's all my legal first name.

It's Kai Tai. That's my Chinese name. And then Kevin.

So if you look at my passport under first name, it's three names. Kai, Tai, Kevin. So most of my life I went by Kevin.

And like we had a family friend who was like in Canada. She's also Chinese, but she's like, you gotta have an English name. But I get it.

It's important to have a Chinese name. But like if you don't want your kid like bullied or teased, you want him to have an easier life. You got to give him a white name.

So I'm Kevin, my brother Steven, and then my sister is like Karen. So we have our English names. So I went by Kevin my whole life.

But then when I had this big change of career and stuff, I was like, I don't want to be Kevin anymore. I want to be Kai. So then it kind of felt like a little bit of a reclamation and like me really stepping in to maybe more who I really am.

But when I went blonde, it was more of a, it's based off an anime character. There's this anime called Demon Slayer and there's this like flame samurai and he has fiery hair. And I was, I want to be like him.

So I also want to do something that was very different. And like, it takes a lot of courage to dye your hair blonde. Have I showed you a picture of myself when I first got it dyed?

Elisabeth:

No, I only saw the video of Delete Magnet, the first one, the introduction one.

Kai:
So it wasn't just blonde, but it was fiery red.

Elisabeth:
It was fiery red.

Kai:
It was blonde, like blonde on the inside. So when I tie it up, it looks all blonde. But when my hair is down, it's like black, but it's like blonde.

But then on the tips of my hair, it was like fire red.

Elisabeth:
Well, you have to show me a photo of that. Just to get the timeline right, you grew up in Canada. You went to school, you started medical school and you had this moment where you're like, this is not going to work out.

And luckily you got yourself out of this and decided to take a break. And then you started traveling. Yeah.

What happened on this journey?

Kai:
Yeah, so before we kind of get to like starting coaching and then starting this lifestyle, like nomading. So when I did have that breakdown and I had these like new realizations and maybe a new program, I wasn't sure yet that I actually didn't want to become a doctor. But all I knew was that I needed some time off.

So I actually dropped out. I finished halfway through my third year and I requested a leave of absence. And my intention was actually like I really was in a dark place.

I really I'm even like kind of made up. I had this memory problem as a way to explain why I don't have memories of childhood and why I can't be a doctor. So once you're in that dark place, you kind of make up these beliefs and they become real.

So I took six months off. And during that six months, I was actually planning to drive across the country. Like I literally lived as far east as you can go on an island all the way back to the Yukon, which is like West Coast, in my little hatchback.

And my plan was actually to like give things away, store things. And I store things with my friends and I sold things. But I actually had no intention of coming back because I didn't believe I could do it.

So literally, I was going to drive all the way back to my parents' basement, call my school and be like, I'm so sorry, you picked the wrong person. I'm not coming back. But as that break went on, you know, my mental health got better.

Finally, I had all the stress that I didn't realize that you're carrying when you're in it. And then I did this crazy road trip where I spent over two months living out of my car, going through America. And that was something that I always wanted to do as a child.

Like growing up, you know, we did little weekend trips. But I was very envious of my friends who are camping and fishing and Monopoly and dinners every night. I didn't get that.

And that's not something that you get as like kind of a poor Asian family where your parents are at the restaurant all day, all night and fishing. Camping is just not appealing, you know, and it's expensive. So that was a little childhood dream I had that I took myself on and I didn't realize it was going to be like a soul journey.

Those two, three months living out of my hatchback by myself where I kind of found myself and I kind of got this newfound confidence. And I realized that I was not sure yet that I didn't want to be a psychiatrist because for me, I wanted to be a psychiatrist. But in my third year where you can you kind of specialize and you kind of get to see the different professions, I didn't make it to psychiatry.

So I felt like I didn't have everything I need to know to make a right choice. So I actually went back to medical school. I drove across the country.

I drove back, started school. But with medicine, if you take a break, you get dropped a grade. So it was like Groundhog Day.

It was literally like a movie where I redid my third year, but with my classmates a year below. But it was so crazy because I went to the same rotation, like surgery and then pediatrics and then obstetrics, gynecology and then family medicine. But I was a different person.

So it was so crazy that I was going through the same rotation, similar doctors. I was way more gentle with myself, way more encouraging. And then I kind of went through medical school.

And it wasn't until like my last year when I was moments away from hitting submit to apply for psychiatry schooling that something in me was like, Kai, this doesn't feel right. Like five years is a big commitment. And it's one of those things once you hit apply and once it goes through, it's pretty taboo for you to like not do it.

So it was a very big decision. And something in me was like, no, Kai, like let's actually give ourselves a year off. Like I've never in my life given myself a full year to kind of do what I want or to pursue a career path that might be more aligned with with who I want to be, how I want to live.

So then that one year off, you know, started me pursuing this coaching program or this coaching business. And it kind of worked out. It worked out.

But it doesn't mean it was easy. There's a lot of ups and downs. Even now in my business, there's still lots of ups and downs.

So it's kind of this like slow journey of like, should I do this? Should I not do this? And making these little decisions that finally got me here.

And one thing that I learned from medicine and doing this, that freedom is a top value in myself and medicine, even though I might have been rich one day, private practice, I could have some freedom, but not this freedom where I can live six months in Thailand, six months in Canada. You just can't do that as a physician, at least not in Canada, really.

Elisabeth:

Actually, that you decided to take this year off and do something that you want to do is such a great thing because you hear so many stories of people of, oh, I'll do this when I retire and I'll do this later. And then you don't know if later ever happens. In this year, I met, luckily I wasn't affected directly, but I met a couple of people who lost their siblings or their best friends.

And they're all in their early mid thirties. You don't know if you will ever get to retirement and it can be an accident. It can be some health issues.

It can be whatever reason. So it's good that you're like, what do I want to do before I have this commitment and maybe can't go back from it? It's great that it worked out.

And even though it has ups and downs, like every business owner will understand those, the highs are amazing. The downs are like, why am I doing this? Why did I start this in the first place?

But for me personally, I really resonate with the freedom. Like my friend from Austria was here recently. You met her, Astrid.

And she was like, hmm, yeah, you're very busy. Even though I actually took time off client work to work on this other business. And she's like, hmm, can you come to this yoga retreat without taking your laptop?

It's like, I could, but I'm going to take it just in case. It doesn't limit me. And I maybe spent like one hour or so on the laptop.

So it's not forever. But on the other hand, I get so much more freedom from doing that because yes, I can be in Thailand. Like you say, you can decide where you want to work from, which you probably wouldn't be able to do if you were a doctor with your own practice and stuff.

And those ups and downs and even those moments were like, why am I doing this? Would it be easier to just have a permanent job somewhere? So when I have a holiday, it's actually a holiday.

I think it's still worth it, especially for the freedom. What was it for you to start your own business? I understand like with becoming a doctor, you realized it's probably something you've done more for your parents than it was for yourself.

But did you feel like you wanted your own business or would you have rather been an employee somewhere? Did you have many people around you when you were younger who had their own business or would freelance? What was it like for you?

Kai:

Yeah, it's a great question. I think for me, part of the freedom is business freedom, like your own business freedom, where you make your own schedule, you create things. That was really missing from medicine where you're in a system, there's a lot of research, diagnostic manuals, and it's kind of one right way of doing things, one right way of diagnosing someone and one right treatment.

So that was very suffocating. I didn't have any business experience. If anything, like when I took that year off, I was pretty naive that I just got to be a good coach, build a good program.

I spent like two months in the summer building a good program, not realizing there's marketing, not realizing there's sales because I did high ticket coaching. So the only client I had was a university friend. I worked with her for two months.

She paid by donation. She paid $100. So literally, my year off was one month away from me applying to medicine again, and it wasn't working out.

So it wasn't like that year of just like sunshine, butterflies. It literally was like six months of crazy energy. I was doing everything like Pinterest strategy, blog posting and like all this stuff, but no money, nothing was coming in.

So it was October 2020, and then the application date was November. So literally my happiness, my excitement was fading. Stress, shame, confusion, fear was all coming back.

And literally it's like I'm a firm believer of like magic and divinity that when you're kind of in alignment, it's almost like a leap of faith or it's almost like you see a big chasm in front of you, but you still take a step without proof that you're not going to fall into this chasm. But when you take that step and when your foot about to land, a step, a step. So it was October.

I was in a really dark place and then I was living on this island. So I always go on a drive to clear my head. So I was driving to Cape Spear.

You drive along the Atlantic Ocean and it's the furthest point east you can go in North America. So as I was driving, listening to a podcast and it was this interview with this person, it was an Enneagram podcast. It was a type four like me.

And he was sharing how he has discovered this writer called John Koenig and he has made online, which is now a paper, Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. So he, this guy, this writer, has made all these kind of sad, sorrowful, made up words to describe the human experience. And that was when I discovered this word sonder.

And it's the realization that each random person is living a life just as vivid and messy and complicated like your own. So when I heard that word, I wasn't like inspired. I actually felt very shitty because it gave me a reality check that I spent because I struggled with anxiety my whole life.