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Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Dream Life Club podcast where we share insights and inspiration for creatives and entrepreneurs chasing a dream. This is Sumi. And if you don't know me, I built a 200 person company in D.C. and then decided to leave all that behind to follow my dream of being a pop music artist in la. Today I want to talk to you about what it really takes. I'm talking the inside game to overcome fear and, and build your dream. It's an identity shift. It's a new lifestyle. There are things that we have to do to overcome what's blocking us if we're stuck in a place where we don't want to be anymore. So story time. About five years ago, everyone thought that I was having a major breakdown. I had for the past 10 years been building a very successful company on the outside. I was winning all the awards, I was getting major speaking opportunities, I was, you know, getting press opportunities. I had respect and recognition in the industry and I was doing good work. Like, I am proud of, and I was proud of, and I'm still proud of all we did during that time. We developed, we developed something that helped, as I say, catch bad guys with the Department of Justice. We were involved with their international drug trades unit and we were, we were helping them process information and data similarly for the public good. Like, we helped so many people. We were, we were working with a million passengers a day with tsa, helping them remain safe and address concerns. And we helped, like, bring some old legacy systems, old technology and some agencies up to more modern perspective. Like, there was so much that we as a company were doing and that I was leading as the founder president of that company called K4 Solutions. And I don't regret a single moment of it because I learned so much. It taught me about the world. It taught me about who I am as a human, what I care about, why I want to do what I want to do now in the world, what I'm moved by. But it took me so long to be able to actually make the jump because I was really, really stuck and paralyzed in fear and anxiety about what my life was gonna look like for years. For years and years, I actually wanted to sell the company and move on, but I didn't know how to do it. I literally did not know. I felt like I was stuck in, like, thick mud. You know, when you have those dreams, I don't know if you guys have the. Have you ever had a dream where, like, you're stuck in mud and you can't move and Your legs can't move and you're trying so hard. That's literally what I felt like was happening for me for years. And I was trying, I was trying to figure it out. I kept wondering, I kept trying to read books on what color is your umbrella or you know, like self development books and go to seminars and get coaches. And I ended up, you know, going down a few bad paths actually through the mentorship of coaches who weren't aligned because I was so disconnected from who I was that I was will to take anybody's advice and like try something because I just didn't know how to access the truth that was already inside of me and how to trust it. And so finally I went through a whole process which I'm going to share and I decided that I had to choose what was in most alignment for myself. So about five years ago I made the huge leap to sell my company and start a whole new career as a. A singer, songwriter, artist, performing artist, recording artist. First I moved to Nashville and I did that. Then lockdown happened almost right away. And then I moved to LA where I've been growing my career ever since. And it's been the best decision of my entire life. I have never been happier. I have never felt so fulfilled every day. Even though things are not. I'm not a superstar, right? Like things are not. I'm not progressing as fast as some of my peers. One could say I am not. You know, I'm still working really, really hard to gain momentum, traction, build a fan base. But despite me not having some of those outside metrics of success that I would like to have yet I still feel so much happier and more fulfilled on a daily basis than actually I have ever felt before. And a lot of that is due to me just finally pursuing something that is in align with what I want to do. It sounds so simple, but so many of us were conditioned from kids to do what we quote unquote, should do for safety, for survival. That we were. It was almost beat out of me and I know many of you that we could actually do what we want to do, what we desire to do. I mean that thought in and of itself that like yes, you can do what you desire to do is was. Was life changing for me because it was almost something that was like, well, if I wanted to do it, that meant it was fun, which meant it probably wasn't what I should do because I should be doing something that was challenging and painful and, and gonna be hard. Because isn't life about confronting the hard Things. And, like, there was so much, like, little breadcrumbs of truth that I was getting all confused about. And that, you know, because of my culture, as a daughter of immigrants, and my parents sacrificed and gave up so much to give me the opportunities that I had, I wasn't able to really, like, figure out cleanly how to lead my life and to trust that what was calling me was calling me for a reason. I even remember reading books like Steven Pressfield's the War of Art and being almost rolling my eyes at it, like, yeah, isn't that nice? Wouldn't that be nice to be able to trust what you really want to do, to be able to pursue your calling just because it's your calling? Like, the. I had this rebellious nature towards doing what I wanted to do, and it was because I was conditioned to do what was going on, quote unquote, right. Or what I should do. And part of me felt that I had to be stuck in this career building this company that I didn't want to build anymore. And I am here today on this podcast, in life in general, taking a stand for each one of you who feels stuck in something that you don't want to be doing. Now, I am not talking to the people who are, are in survival. Like, if you are in survival mode right now, do what you need to do to get out of it, right? Like, but I don't think that's the people listening to this podcast. If you're listening to this podcast right now called Dream Life Club, you want to figure out how to actually build your dream, which means that you have some amount of flexibility to even have time to think about what that might be and to think about potentially going after it. And if that's you, then I personally don't think that there is a wrong answer here. Like, if you have the thought that, like, you want to try this creative calling or you want to quit your job and take a risk being an entrepreneur, or you've always had a dream of opening up your own vintage shop, or you've always wanted to be, like me, a singer songwriter, right? Like there. I think we also think that there's a certain time for that, that if we don't do it when we're 18, that then we've missed the boat, right? But that is so not true. It couldn't be further from the truth. And I truly know now that you're never too late. There is always an audience out there that can meet you, that can find you a community you can build, to have a thriving career and live your dream in alignment with you, with people who get you, with people who love you for you, not the masks that you're putting on right now. I was wearing a mask for so long when I was building K4 because the culture there was just not the culture of who I am. I am a wild heart. I am a woman that saw herself being barefoot on the beach with flowers in my hair, dancing on the California beach when I was sitting in snowy cold, stiff buttoned up skirt suit wearing Washington D.C. with, with pearls on. Like there was a disconnect and I couldn't, I couldn't, I didn't know how to bridge that disconnect. How could I suddenly leave everything that I knew behind? And so that's why I want to talk to you guys about this. Because there were some specific things that I did to first of all build a foundation and then work up the courage so that I could take this risk. And I want to share them with you. So the first thing that I did is I changed my self talk and my self belief and I did a ton of what is now called mirror work. Like I would look at myself in the mirror and this has now been made fun of a lot where people are like some, I think it was, I don't want to name the wrong name, so I'm not going to say a name. It was one of the bro. Somebody in the bro coaching industry who was like, you're never going to, you're never going to get anywhere by yelling affirmations to yourself in the mirror or something like that. Right? Like it's not about yelling I can do it to yourself in the mirror. It's about building a stack of evidence that proves to yourself that you can do it. And while I get where this guy is coming from, I totally disagree. I totally 100% disagree. Because there is a time and a place for affirming an identity that you don't quite have yet. For telling yourself things that you don't quite believe yet but are on the edge of your belief. They're not so far fetched that your mind can't grasp them. But they're also, you're, you're repeating a truth to yourself over and over again so that you can start to believe it. What do you, what do we think propaganda is? That is all propaganda is, right? Propaganda usually has the association of kind of brainwashing you into something that isn't true. Whether that's like political propaganda or whatnot. But what I'm saying right now is the propaganda that you tell yourself becomes true as well. And that will change your life if you let it. Like that one sentence will change your life if you let it. You can decide what propaganda you tell your own mind and then that becomes your truth. Because that's how easily brainwashed we are. Our minds are really susceptible to messages that we feed it. And so my thing about mirror work is telling yourself the messages that you want to believe. For example, I'll give you a. An example. I grew up as an Indian American in the 90s in a school system that was mostly all white. And I felt really different. I felt othered all the time. And I didn't feel pretty, I didn't feel popular, and I didn't really feel like I had an easy time making friends or that people wanted to be my friend. That in and of itself was something that I had to work really hard on changing in terms of the narrative in my mind when I was an adult. So I had to. And it sounds like people who don't have trouble with any of this really don't understand, like how those of us that really have had so much to overcome in life, like, have to do so much internal work to actually feel what some people just feel naturally to feel confident, to feel like everybody wants to be their friend. And so I had to literally repeat to myself, everybody loves me, everybody wants to be my friend. And it may sound so silly to you if you didn't face the same stumbling point, but I needed to do that for, I would say, like maybe a year, six months at least before I started to really internalize it and believe it. And then I could go to social gatherings and networking events and not, not have so much social anxiety because my mind then believed that of course everybody wants to talk to me. And it's, and it's a blessing for me that I share my energy to them. It's a blessing to them. I mean that I. That and, and it's something that I can do as an offering to everybody in the room to offer my energy, to offer my presence. And once I shifted that, like, that was a huge change, if you can imagine, on how I was able to meet people, build a network, and then like grow my company in the process. Right? Because so much of what we do in the world, we do with people. Like, we don't, we don't do things by ourselves sitting behind computers. We do things with people. People, people are the gatekeepers to everything you want in your life. The opportunities, everything comes through people, customers and clients, press PR opportunities for contracts, opportunities for romantic relationships. Everything comes through people. And so once I shifted that sense of myself around people, everything changed. So step number one, mirror work. Tell yourself, look, whatever you feel like you're struggling with, like I used to say, I used to feel like I, you know, I don't, I don't know, like building a music career is so hard. Like, everyone tells you it's so hard, it's impossible. Only like, you know, 0.0001% of people actually break through and everyone's talented. It's nothing to do with talent. It's just, you know, it's just like such a rigged game and blah, blah. Like every you we are getting fed talk about propaganda with propaganda about how hard this is from like every angle. And so what I had to do when I knew that I wanted to build a music career was I needed to reframe all of those statements and I needed to create propaganda for myself that made me believe that I could, could do it. Like self belief is such a hack because most people don't have it. Most people don't really believe that whatever they're setting out to do, they can do. And they not only can do, but will do. So I had to create a different message for myself and I had to tell myself all of the reasons and literally journal and repeat this message to myself every day about all of the reasons why I actually was going to make it in music. I had the raw talent, I had the experience. While I was building my company, I was sitting there in the evenings learning guitar and writing songs for 10 years before I started doing this thing. I won't let anybody tell me that I don't have the experience which I used to, which I used to be like, oh, I'm new here. I would present myself even that way. Like, I just started doing this. I don't really know what I'm doing, you know, oh, could you help me? Like, not people would like think that they're way further ahead than me because of how I would present myself. And then because of that lack of confidence, my ideas wouldn't be as good because I would be, you know, questioning them and not saying them. And then people, you know, like, for example, when you're songwriting with people, you have to be really confident in your ideas. You have to even offer the ones that do suck to get to the good ones. You have to know that you have the skill and talent and then just not be afraid of the judgment that's going to come if somebody doesn't like your idea, you just have to go and know that you are capable, right? But it was because I didn't know that I was so constantly imposter syndrome questioning myself that then everybody else questioned me as well. So somebody would suggest something that in retrospect is not at all where I wanted to go with the direction of the song or how I wanted it to be, or even a lyric that now I realize my idea would have been so much more powerful or more in alignment with how I wanted to create the music that I wanted to put out there. But I would believe other people. And then I had. I had this experience so many times where this is how I was presenting myself so floppily, so, so insecurely. And then like for months, somebody would have this vision of me, but then they would hear something that I did or watch something that I did that they hadn't seen yet and be like, wait, this is you. Like, that's. That's epic. That's amazing. Like, this is it. This is the sound. And I'm like, wait, but I was telling. I told you about this all along. You just didn't believe me. I guess because of my tone of voice or because of how I wasn't owning it, you know, and so that's where. Stacking what you have done. So that's where I believe what that rope is. That's where I agree with that, bro. Podcaster, in terms of the importance of stacking the evidence for why you're going to succeed in your dream, all the things, all the reasons, any reason you can think of, any small thing that you sung when you're in the sixth grade, right, that you won the, the spelling bee and now you want to be a writer. You know, when you were in the seventh grade, like anything that you can say stack as evidence for why you actually have everything that it takes for you to build this dream successfully. Keep stacking it, keep writing it every day, make a new narrative for yourself around why you are going to be successful. Anyone that's ever told you that you have this talent or that, wow, I really appreciated when you sung this song or when I read this poem of yours, or you have an entrepreneurial mind or anything that you can think of in your entire life that that builds the narrative toward why you will be successful. And a hack to this too, if you can't think of very much is look at other people who have done it with less or the same of the experience that you have. And I will bet you you will find so many people who have overcome all odds to build their dream. And then it's, if they can do it, of course I can do it. So for me, it was like, I know that I have the talent. I've been taking voice lessons for 10 years. I've been putting in the work. I've been writing songs for 10 years. I now have. I know that I can build something because I built and sold this company. I know that I'm capable of creating something out of nothing. I know that I'm capable of defying the odds because I just did with this company that I built and sold. I know that I'm capable of changing my narrative because I used to be shy and insecure and now I can walk into any room and befriend anyone. I know that I'm capable of doing, of doing all this right. So every day, when I was feeling down, when I was feeling low, I mean, I know that I'm capable of learning right. I remember my high school trumpet teacher once told me, wow, you have flashes, flashes of brilliance in you. And he meant that, he did not mean that as a compliment because he meant that actually, like, I wasn't practicing as much as I should be. And he was like, you have, he was like, you have flashes of brilliance, but you're not consistent. But I took the fact that he told me I have flashes of brilliance that, okay, I'm musically really gifted. And I would keep stacking, keep stacking evidence for the narrative of why I am going to be so successful on this dream. Because let me tell you, the people who do get to where they want to go, who successfully build their dream and have it look like what they want it to look like, are just the ones that keep going. I promise you, they're not more talented than you, they're not more skilled than you. They're the ones with the most self belief. So that's why I'm really emphasizing this narrative part of the inner transformation. What it takes, the inside game to get over fear and build your dream. This creating a narrative for yourself and stacking the reasons for why you can and will be successful on the stream is the number one most important thing that you can do. And then I would say the second most important thing that I built for myself and that I really want you guys to do as well, is you need a safety net. And what I mean by that is when we're taking risks and we're putting ourselves out there and we're facing feedback and criticism and not all of it's good, right and some of us need to be okay with being a beginner again and maybe putting work out there, creative work out there. There. That's not necessarily where we want it to be. Like Ira Glass used to talk about, I remember, like, 15 years ago or something, hearing him say something like, there is a. There's a gap between your taste and your skill, and you have to keep going until you can close that gap. And what he meant by that is, like, take me as a singer, songwriter. I might like certain music, and I have good taste in music. I like certain music because it's good music. Now I try to make music, and maybe it's not as good yet. Maybe I have more developing to do. I have more work to do until I can close the gap between my skill level at creating music and my taste. And so I need more time putting out art that maybe not up to my bar. It's not up to my bar of, like, my good taste in music. But I can't stop. I can't let that gap stop me, because then I will never get there. So during that part where we're a beginner again, we need to have a safety net. People who, you know, you can call, who will be there and have your back no matter what. And I will say, I had one friend in particular who I would call crying, like, almost every other day, like, oh, my God, I did this. And this happened. And I was at this open mic night in Nashville, and the judge there said I would never make it in Nashville. Like, literally, that happened to me. And, you know, and that's gonna happen. That happens to everyone. Everyone who is a success has stories like that. And so we can't take that as rejection and let it stop us. What we need to do is we need to have a support system, a safety net around us. People who we can call, who we know, like, we're not gonna die. We're not going to die. If we take this risk right now. Even if everyone in this room that I'm about to meet or I'm about to share my art with hates me, laughs at me, makes fun of me behind my back, I know that at the end of the day, I'm okay and I'm safe because I have a safety net. I can call my friend, he'll back me up. He'll tell me that it's going to be okay. I am not alone in the world. And that is just so important. I can't stress enough. Because we are social creatures. We need to know that we're not going to be alone in this world. And we need to have that safety net, the support system around us that will allow us to take risks. The stronger your safety net is, the bigger risks that you can take. Like, I'm single, and I always think about the fact that someone in a good marriage has an advantage because they know that they can come home to someone and cry on their shoulder that that person is going to be there for them. And those of us who don't have that need to create that in other ways. Okay, So I really hope that this has been helpful for you guys today, that creating a support system and a safety net and doing mirror work with, creating and stacking evidence for why you will be successful in your dream, in building your dream, is so important. Those two things will change your life. Those two things will allow you to that. Those two things literally are two levers that do most of the work, that allow you to bridge that gap between being stuck in something, in a life that you don't love, and having the courage to take a risk on your dreams. So, in conclusion, I want to just say that as human beings living this life together, you know what excites me the most? I think what excites many of you the most is being able to express ourselves at the highest level of our human potential. And whatever those innate abilities and tendencies and ways of being and ideas and ways of contributing that we feel naturally most excited about and most aligned to are where we're going to have the most powerful impact in the world. If we care about having a powerful impact in the world, then one of the first things we have to do is get into alignment with our natural selves. We have to know where our. Where our natural skills and talents and abilities lie. So that when we tap into those natural skills and talents and abilities and then put the work in to improve on those things, we're going to have the most powerful impact on the world that we could ever have. That we could ever have. For example, Quick example. I was really conflicted for a while because I care so much about what's going on in the world right now. And in this country, there's a lot going on that is happening. Extremely troublesome and depressing and horrifying all at the same time. And because I have a background in D.C. and I have a background working with government, and I have a master's in public policy, part of me thought, am I making the right decision being a musician? Because should I be working on a political campaign or doing civic education, which I was doing for a little bit. And here's how this all ties together. I know that my natural skills and ability and calling lies in music, right? Well, just the other week, a very prominent political organization connected with me and said, hey, I would love. We should talk about partnering so that we can use your upcoming song called American Dream in our campaigns. You guys, my mind is so blown. We haven't had this call yet and haven't confirmed the details, so that's why I'm not saying their name yet. But I literally had goosebumps. I was like, yes, yes, and yes. Like, this is. This is why I'm doing this work. This is so that I can make an impact through my music. Because where I am going to make the most powerful contribution is through music, since that's where my desire lives, that's where my calling is. And when that came together with that political group, I was like, what this. Like, this is. This is like. I mean, this is heaven sent, right? Like, and I. I am a woman of faith. I believe that everything is divine. But sometimes it's like, so clear to us. And it almost brought tears to my eyes to think about where this partnership could go and the impact that my music can have on what's going on in the world as well. And so there's always other ways that you once lean. Once you lean into and snap into alignment with who you are there, you will find that doors are opening that wouldn't have opened before in ways for you to amplify your impact and actually have more of an impact than sticking with the thing that you think you should quote, unquote, do. So with that, I will say goodbye for today. I will so look forward to speaking with you guys next time. In the meantime, please find me on Instagram, at Xosumix and on Spotify or all streaming platforms at Sumi last name X and listen to my music. Send me a DM. My DMs are open. I love to hear from you and I'll talk to you soon.