Don't Wait for the Breakdown: Why Therapy is Your Best Early Gift | Haesue Jo

Summary

Podcast Summary — Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu

Episode Title: Don't Wait for the Breakdown: Why Therapy is Your Best Early Gift
Guest: Haesue Jo, Clinical Therapist (BetterHelp)
Date: December 18, 2023

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Overview

In this insightful episode, Tom Bilyeu explores the nuanced importance and power of therapy with licensed clinical therapist Haesue Jo. They dig deep into why therapy isn't just for breakdown moments, how our attachment styles and narratives shape us, and what it really takes to rewire your mindset for resilience and long-term happiness. With practical analogies and honest reflections, the conversation demystifies therapy, debunks common myths, and arms listeners with actionable insights on self-development and mental health.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Happy, Well-Adjusted People Have in Common (02:15)

• Secure Attachment Style:
  Haesue Jo explains that secure attachment is the bedrock of well-adjusted, happy people.
  • They trust people and the world around them.
  • Don’t operate under constant fear or suspicion.
  • Have faith in others, feel at home with themselves.

  “Generally happy and well-adjusted people aren’t spending a lot of their waking moments afraid that people are out to get them... Folks that have faith in other people, that’s another thing that we’re looking for...” — Haesue Jo (02:15)

2. How Therapy Works and Who Needs It (04:13)

• Therapy involves self-examination and unlearning negative, internalized “core schemas.”
• Core beliefs like “I am unlovable” or “I am not worthy” often stem from childhood and can sabotage adult happiness.
• Therapy helps rewrite those narratives and build resilience, examining not just thoughts but emotional reactions and patterns.
• Healing can be a long process, especially if childhood trauma or adversity was intense or prolonged.

  “You can expect to do a lot of internal excavation with a therapist... really looking inward, which so many of us don’t actually do on a very regular basis.” — Haesue Jo (08:07)

3. Awareness of Self-Narratives (08:07)

• Many people aren’t aware of the unhelpful stories they tell themselves; some are aware, while others only realize them through the process of therapy.

  “So many people come to therapy not even realizing there’s all this stuff they believe about themselves that’s not helpful. But they’re coming in just recognizing something’s a little bit off.” — Haesue Jo (08:19)

4. Is Therapy One-Size-Fits-All? (09:05)

• Therapy is not standardized—unlike most healthcare, it must be tailored to the individual, their experiences, and their current challenges.
  • Core things to nurture: self-efficacy (“I can do this”), self-esteem, self-regulation, and authenticity.

  “As much as I’d like to say therapy is an exact science, I think we all know that it’s not.” — Haesue Jo (09:38)

5. Taking Responsibility for Healing (12:07)

• A critical turning point in therapy is accepting that while your trauma isn’t your fault, your healing is your responsibility.

  • Many people resist this, wanting the “fault” to remain external, which holds them in a state of suffering.

  “Many people struggle with this idea that they have to take ownership over the healing in their own life.” — Haesue Jo (12:24)

• Tom shares a personal anecdote about “victim blaming” and the backlash he received, raising the challenge of communicating personal responsibility without shaming or blaming.

6. Why Letting Go of Old Narratives is Hard (17:50)

• People build their identities around trauma responses or limiting beliefs (“my suffering is my muse” or “I’m just an angry person”), making change feel threatening—even if the beliefs are negative.

  “If you’re saying that I’m going to go to therapy and unlearn a bunch of who I am, I don’t know if I’m ready to face that...” — Haesue Jo (18:15)

• Being challenged by a therapist on these points can be uncomfortable but is necessary for growth.

7. The Invisible Power of “Frame of Reference” (20:33)

• People operate in an unconscious frame of reference—a worldview and self-view so pervasive it becomes invisible (“water to a fish”).
• Therapy’s job is to help clients see that these are not immutable truths, but flexible constructs.

  “The quality of your life is going to be determined by your frame of reference. If you want to improve the quality of your life, you have to improve your frame of reference.” — Tom Bilyeu (20:33)

8. Advice for Parenting: Building Secure Kids (26:34)

• Presence over presents:
  Show up emotionally and physically for your child.
• Validate their reality and emotions, rather than dismissing or overruling their experiences (“You’re not cold!”).
• Allow children age-appropriate opportunities to make choices and learn from natural consequences.

  “Your presence is much more important than presents... If you as a parent are not present for your child, no level of top tier boarding school... that stuff is not going to matter.” — Haesue Jo (26:34)

9. Why Therapists Don’t Give Direct Answers (33:34)

• It’s more powerful for people to reach their own realizations, rather than being told what to do.
• Therapy is about guiding self-discovery, not dispensing directives.

  “It’s so much more powerful for a client to be like, ‘Whoa, I never thought of it that way.’” — Haesue Jo (33:36)

10. The Role of “Why” Questions (34:39)

• Good therapists help clients trace patterns and beliefs back to their origins (“Why do you believe this? Where did it come from?”).
• This helps clients consider alternatives and change future behavior.

11. Do People Have the Answers Inside? (35:56)

• Haesue Jo clarifies: the “answers inside” are constructed when you integrate outside input with self-reflection. Therapy is about uncovering and integrating these composite answers.

12. The Special Pain of Childhood Trauma (41:02)

• Not all who experience trauma develop PTSD; risk factors include absent caregivers and lack of resources.
• Children often internalize bad things as their own fault—distorting their identity and creating lifelong shame.

  “Our parents are... the only way that she would do bad stuff to me is because I deserve it... That’s something people carry with them, this internalized shame of I am a bad person.” — Haesue Jo (42:07)

13. Therapy as Preventative Maintenance (50:13)

• Therapy should be used reactively and proactively, not just in crisis.
• Taking care of mental health is like regular dental check-ups or car maintenance; don’t wait for “breakdown” to seek help.

  “You don’t have to be in crisis... Regular maintenance means you’re much less likely to break down.” — Haesue Jo (52:00)

14. Why Attend Therapy? (49:52)

• Therapy gives you a relationship where someone’s sole goal is to help you grow—with no emotional stake of their own.
• “Well-adjusted people nurture important relationships and lean on their support system.”
• Therapy is about accompaniment, not instruction.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On changing self-identity:
  “I don’t know if I ever will want to face that ... they have internalized different responses that they’ve created to protect themselves, and it becomes who they think they are.” — Haesue Jo (18:15)

• On responsibility:
  “If you take responsibility for everything in your life... you’re now in control of your life.” — Tom Bilyeu (14:52)

• On parenting:
  “Your presence is much more important than presents.” — Haesue Jo (26:34)

• On the gift of therapy:
  “There’s something very powerful in just quality time... You don’t have to do all of this alone.” — Haesue Jo (50:13)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:15] — Secure attachment and what makes people well-adjusted
• [04:13] — How therapy helps people unlearn harmful beliefs
• [08:07] — Awareness and hidden self-narratives
• [09:38] — Customizing therapy vs. one-size-fits-all
• [12:07] — The turning point: taking ownership of healing
• [17:50] — Resistance to letting go of trauma-formed identity
• [20:33] — The invisible “frame of reference” and worldview
• [26:34] — How to cultivate secure, well-adjusted kids
• [33:34] — Why therapy is about guiding, not dictating
• [41:02] — The roots and intractability of childhood trauma
• [49:52] — Therapy as an early, preventative gift; overcoming stigma
• [52:00] — Importance of regular “maintenance” for mental health

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Final Thoughts

By the episode’s end, Tom and Haesue leave listeners with a challenge: don’t wait for crisis to explore therapy. Mental health is most robust when maintained preemptively, not reactively. With vulnerability, insight, and actionable metaphors, the episode invites everyone—parents, adults, creators, or skeptics—to examine their frame of reference and consider the immense value of therapeutic self-inquiry.

For more, Haesue Jo can be found via BetterHelp.com.

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Summary by Podcast Summarizer. Skipping ad segments and non-content banter.

Transcript

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[Tom Bilyeu]

what do you do when

you come face to face with the realization that maybe I'm not the hotshot I thought I was? Whether it's a relationship hitting the rocks or a deal going south, we have all been there questioning whether this is our fault, whether we are ultimately going to be good enough to do the things we want to do. In today's episode, we cover some of these ideas and exactly how to deal with it. This episode is critical for anybody that's trying to elevate their mindset and really build a positive future. To walk us through how to build our mindset and really move forward, we have Husu Joe Ma, Clinical Therapist with BetterHelp to share the secret power that happy, well adjusted people have that other people are missing. Brace yourself, because by the time this episode wraps, you'll be reevaluating the stories you're telling yourself and uncovering the ways your own mind might actually be a breeding ground for chaos. The way you could be sabotaging your own shot at true happiness. I'm Tom Bilyeu and welcome to Impact Theory.

I want to start with a quote. It's one of the most famous lines in all of literature. And it goes all happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And what I want to know is what do all happy, well adjusted people have in common?

[Husu Joe Ma]

Well, one thing that it comes back to is something called a secure attachment style. Attachment styles are something that a lot of people will start exploring and learning about and and how they generally attach to largely romantic partners, but also very significant people in their lives. And something that I think many happy, well adjusted people do have in common is having what's called the secure attachment style. And generally what that's referring to is that they can trust that the people in their lives are safe. They can trust that the world around them is generally a safe place. Generally happy and well adjusted people aren't spending a lot of their waking moments afraid that people are out to get them or that things are never going to amount to the stuff that they wanted to. So I, I would say that that is a common feature for sure is people feeling like the world is generally a safe place and that if I put my mind to something, I can get it done. And people aren't just generally going to be trying to prevent me from being successful. And you know, folks that have faith in other people, I think that's another thing that we're looking for or see and observe in people that are pretty well adjusted.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And so when somebody comes in for therapy, I'm guessing that a lot of the times they, they have learned the harsh truth that I think that we all have to learn, which is sometimes life isn't safe. And I'm guessing that part of what we do in therapy, and you will correct me if I'm wrong here, is help people expose themselves to those dangerous things so that they can be resilient in the face of that. What does that process look like? How do people go from. Because not everybody's going to have been raised in a way where they have a secure attachment style. So how do they begin to develop that? Even though that life will sometimes be unsafe, be, be very difficult, be very confrontational, how do you help them develop those skills?

[Husu Joe Ma]

Well, what you're asking is the crux of therapy. I think people are often asking, how do I know that I should be going? Or how do I know is the time that I should look for somebody to talk to? And really, if you're finding that you experience emotion in a particular way and the way you respond to that emotion is to act in such ways that it becomes detrimental to your important relationships. It gets in the way of performing at the levels that you want to in your workplace or in school and, or whatever setting is important. And in therapy, part of what you begin to do is unlearn, you know, the things that you've internalized as beliefs about yourself. So a lot of people hang on to what's called core schemas or core beliefs about themselves that can be as simple as, I am unlovable, I am not worthy, I'm not worth anybody's other time. And these are the things that somebody can expect to unlearn in therapy to rewrite a narrative of how they show up in the world. So for I would say most of us that actually don't grow up with a secure attachment because all of our parents, most of them are trying their best, but parents don't have a manual that's going to guarantee that this is how you're going to raise a well adjusted, happy individual that trusts in everybody around them. Parents would like for that. But what ends up happening a lot of times is parents are people that also have unresolved trauma at times, generational things that keep getting passed down. And inadvertently a lot of parents will end up raising children that do need to process stuff as adults to rewrite a narrative. So once you get into therapy and you start really examining, uncovering, unearthing all these things that you've turned into beliefs about yourself, then you, you can start learning real skills that build up your resiliency to adversity and to challenging things in your life. And it can be a long process. Research does show that depending on the severity of the issues that you grew up with or the chronicity, as in how long you've dealt with these things without going back to try to heal from something. Generally you can expect to be in therapy for a longer period of time because now you're, you know, learning to examine the way that your body responds to stuff, learning to really get deep into how you respond to your emotional experience in the way that you talk to other people or in the ways that you don't talk to other people, like, for example, withdrawing or shutting down. So it's really this like self examination of looking further into how am I showing up, how do I want to show up, what are the differences, what's leading to those differences. There's a lot of exploration of why, why do I feel this way, why do I tend to respond in this way when this kind of triggering incident happens in my life? Why do I find myself continuing to avoid this and this and this? I'd really like to be able to live my life openly and feel like I can be safe without having to, you know, resist being vulnerable with someone or really being open. And, you know, there's so many different kinds of ways that therapists will approach this thing is integrating your internal experience in your outward presentation, how you are with people. So if, if you're considering, you know, talking to somebody or just diving deeper into what your internal experience is, you can expect to do that a lot with a therapist. You know, it's like just an opportunity to really look inward, which so many of us don't actually do on a very regular basis.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Are people aware of the self narratives that they're telling themselves or is a big part of therapy getting them to acknowledge I don't think I'm lovable or whatever the case may be?

[Husu Joe Ma]

I hear a couple questions in there. Are people generally aware? Some are and many are not. Some. So many people come to therapy not even realizing there's all this stuff they believe about themselves that's not helpful. But they're coming into therapy just recognizing something's a little bit off. I don't feel comfortable, safe, regulated in these kinds of settings. And I want to get to the root of that. And part of that exploration and that excavation of self can involve an uncovering this realization of I don't really feel good about myself, I don't like who I am. A lot of people are aware of that. But many people realize that in their journey of self discovery, increased insight.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Now, is there a if, if people come in and the quote that we started with is true, that they're all going to have different things that they're unhappy about, different breakdowns of self narrative. One person thinks they're unlovable, another person thinks they're never going to accomplish anything. Is there a set of things that when we begin rewriting the narrative that we want to make sure that they add I'm resilient or I can learn new things? Like, is there a set of things that you want to help them build into their narrative?

[Husu Joe Ma]

You know, I don't know of a concrete list set in stone. These are the hard and fast things that we want to make sure to instill in our clients. It's very individual based. So, you know, a lot of the therapy model, it mimics or it draws influence from health care and, and the ways that physicians and healers, physical healers, will approach their patients. But ultimately a lot of what's happening in our body, that is science and, and we can get down to, you know, this combination of different amino acids that aren't reacting in the way to protein breakdown. We have some kind of plan of action, some standardizing a treatment plan to all people doesn't generally work the same as we find in healthcare. So as much as I'd like to say therapy is an exact science, I think we all know that it's not. So even though there's no set list of these are the things that a client should be able to accomplish and learn about themselves in order to feel better, I think there's going to be some foundational things that all people will want to discover about themselves. You brought some of these things up, is just, you know, the baseline pieces of I can do this, which is the belief in self, self efficacy. You want to build that up with your clients. Self esteem. This is something that a lot of people struggle with, is having higher levels of self esteem. Because low self esteem can come from so many places. Not just your upbringing, your relationship with your mother. It's all the things that happened to you as a kid, all the different relationships that you have with friends, not friends, romantic partners, ex romantic partners, different jobs that you've had trauma in the workplace. All these things will add up to the blueprint of who you are as an individual. So in therapy, you're going to explore and try to figure out, what is it that I need to adopt in order to show up authentically and live a healthy and fulfilling life, rather than here's a list of all the things that somebody else thinks you need to accomplish to get there. So in that way, therapy is very different from, you know, a standardized protocol of this is what you should do if you're experiencing anxiety. It's let's figure out how you are experiencing anxiety, how that's manifesting in your life, and then build skills to self soothe, to self regulate, and to get to a baseline place where you can function, where you can think critically and optimally and perform at the levels in every context that you want to be.

[Tom Bilyeu]

One thing I've heard you say is that if something traumatic has happened to you that is entirely not your fault, but you are responsible for your own healing. Is that something that people struggle with a lot? Is that like a big breakthrough moment in therapy?

[Husu Joe Ma]

I do think many people struggle with this idea that they have to take ownership over the healing in their own life. A lot of times, once you've experienced a traumatic event or a series of traumatic events, that really beats down on your confidence in yourself that you can do anything to change anything. So I think part of therapy is first recognizing where you can insert yourself and you can change your behaviors or approach things differently, work on skills to actually, you know, evolve your relationships, that kind of stuff. So getting back to one of the questions that you've asked, I do think people struggle with this piece of taking ownership over their own healing, and that's why you see so many people day after day staying in the rut.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So how do you, in therapy, how do you begin to coax them out of that?

So

do people like when they're pushing back on that, is it. Is it born of. You know, I have so much shame and guilt over this traumatic thing, and I need it to be external. I need it to be their fault. And they just blur that line and they don't see where it's like, yes, that's true. But now there is this point where you. You not only can not only should take responsibility, but by taking responsibility for it, you're going to help yourself. And now you're moving on a path to recovery.

[Husu Joe Ma]

Yeah. So I think a lot of what somebody might expect to see in therapy is being challenged. Your therapist kind of pointing out ways in which your thinking isn't in line with things that you've brought up before. So we all tend to contradict ourselves. We hang on to one belief, but we behave a different way. We say something and we say, we're gonna do this, but we actually do something very different. So part of therapy and this experience that you have with this other person that is there to truly try to identify all the times that you keep doing that, it can be uncomfortable. It can be painful to confront all the times that in some cases, you've been lying to yourself for a lot of different reasons. Some of those reasons might be good. You might be protecting yourself or attempting to protect yourself from further trauma or from being taken advantage of by people

[Tom Bilyeu]

if they're in that situation. And they are, they're finally at that point where they can have the breakthrough and realize, okay, I need to take responsibility for this. How do you get them to recognize that this is going to be advantageous in their life? And the reason that I ask is. So I get asked a lot in a business context or just a mindset context, like, hey, my life isn't what I want it to be. How do I make it? And the thing that I'm always trying to get people to understand is if you take responsibility for everything in your life, if you step back and say, my life. Life is an exact reflection of my choices, that is, to use the parlance of therapy. It's very confronting. But once you're on the other side of it, it. You're so desperate for people to understand. No, no. Like, if you take responsibility, it doesn't. Don't. I'm not saying feel badly about yourself. I'm not saying that you should take on the weight of, like, oh, this bad thing that happened to me, and carry that like, you've done it to yourself. It's just that if you realize that you can do something differently and get a different outcome. You're now in control of your life. But getting people to take that on is very hard in a way that I don't fully comprehend. And so I'm not sure, like, what is the thing that makes that so difficult? Why don't people race towards it? And I'll give you one more piece of personal insight here to understand how blindsided I was by this idea. So I once wrote, oh God, you're going to hate this. I once wrote an article, a blog article. I thought it would be like the greatest gift. It was the thing I was like, okay, what is my success tied to? I'm like, okay, personal responsibility 100%. My. My willingness to save my life is an exact reflection of my choices. So I write this blog article and I say, oh, God, saying this to you is horrible. If you were hit by a drunk driver, it's all your fault. And I go and explain it and why. I believe that only. Only to say that you've made a series of decisions that led you to that circumstance. And even though the insurance company is going to tell you like the, the hardest core people, they're going to tell you this isn't your fault. I'm saying if you take ownership of all of your choices, even the ones where it's like, obviously you didn't make that person drink, you didn't make them do something stupid. And so I get why people say it's not your fault, but if you take ownership of that, then you will be more thoughtful about the different decisions that you'll make next time. And the vitriol that I got in that post completely took me by surprise. I didn't see it coming at all. I had no idea, which I'm sure to you seems absurd, but I had no idea that people were gonna be like, you're victim blaming and all this stuff. But given that you recognize a key thrust of therapy is getting people to understand the trauma, okay, not. Not your fault. Don't take that on. What is it about owning your healing journey that is confronting for people? Why is that difficult?

[Husu Joe Ma]

I think some part of it. A lot of people have some difficulty in owning this healing journey because for some people, it means things that they've internalized and turned into pieces of their identity because of a result of what' happened to them. It's hard to let that stuff go. So an example that's coming.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm the victim.

[Husu Joe Ma]

Not necessarily that, but an example I'm thinking of is like a lot of creatives, a lot of creatives share and report that the. The creative juices get flowing because they're in pain because something or some series of things have happened to them because some important relationship was really damaging to them. And now they're able to create. They're created their this pain and this sorrow and all this stuff that came from something that's technically like not so great. It spawned something in their creativity to. To bring some aspect about that painful time into something. So letting go of that or, you know, facing the possibility of losing this piece of my identity, that can be very challenging for people. Some people take on the, what we call trauma responses that they develop over time to be who they are. But if I'm not this like angry whatever, then who am I? That's like all I know myself as or I've defined myself after 40 years because of like the childhood emotional neglect that I experienced. All this stuff about who I think I am. I'm not ready to let go of that piece of my identity. And if you're saying that I'm going to go to therapy and unlearn a bunch of who I am, I don't know if I'm ready to face that or I don't know if I ever will want to face that. And I think that's at least part of it for some people is that they have internalized different responses that they've created, built, I don't know, to try to protect themselves and it becomes who they think they are. So I don't know if that answers your question, but it does.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's actually really very interesting.

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[Tom Bilyeu]

So people have. I talk about this a lot about frame of reference. So what I mean by frame of reference, and this happens sometimes with my wife where we're having a conversation and I can tell the words I'm saying and what I mean when I say them is not what she's hearing. And I'm like, I'm not able to pierce your frame of reference. So we all see the world in a certain way. The way that we view the world and ourselves is Built around beliefs about the world and ourselves, value systems about the way the world ought to be, a sense of identity. So the self narrative that they're telling themselves, like you said, my, I'm an artist and my suffering is my muse. And so all of these things become the lens through which they view the world. And your. The quality of your life is going to be determined by your frame of reference. And so if you want to improve the quality of your life, you have to improve your. Your frame of reference. But one frame of reference, in my experience, is a bit like water to a fish. It's just so pervasive, they don't even realize that it's around them. And then maybe even a bigger problem is once they do realize it. Oh yeah, that thing. Cool. You're calling a frame of reference, fine, Whatever that is the truth. That is the world. I didn't make up who I am or I didn't make up the way the world ought to be. I didn't make up the way the world is. It just. That is how it should be. That is how it is. And they don't realize that these things are hyper malleable. And so in a therapeutic context, it sounds like that's what you guys are trying to pierce. You don't use that word or that phrase, but that's the idea that their sense of self is so pervasive and often invisible and yet deeply comforting, that even in its sort of pain and torment, in some cases that that's why that's already come up multiple times in this conversation is that's the foundational thing?

[Husu Joe Ma]

Yeah, this thing that's deeply comforting. I was thinking like, well, sometimes oddly comforting. Some people don't always recognize that what's familiar might actually be very chaotic and painful and not helpful for a future of healthy living, but it's familiar. So, you know, people have a hard time breaking out of something that's familiar. So examples we see all around us is folks that don't take compliments well, that are unable to receive gifts because these things are attached to past trauma. Well, the people that treated me well before ended up hurting me quite deeply. Or the people that I trusted to keep me safe ended up being the ones that showed me that the world is not a safe place at all. So now I'm an adult and I don't know how to receive compliments. I don't know how to process it when someone's being kind to me because I don't trust them. That's attached to something very scary or it has been in the past. So, yeah, I. I think a very monumental piece of therapy is really examining and looking at all these things that you've taken in as beliefs about your identity and recognizing, like you said, that these things are not static. They're things that you can influence and actually change. Your beliefs about yourself aren't things that have to be pervasive for the rest of your life. You can change that stuff. Stuff which can be very hard because then you're changing the way that you think about certain significant people. You're changing the way that you think about yourself and feel about yourself, which is not easy to do. I think we all want to believe. Yeah, I know who I am. I recognize, like, these kinds of things will set me off, and I know how to respond in this way, but I think a lot of us are actually quite far from that and. And, you know, wanting to get closer to, like, a idealized view of who we are. It involves confronting the idea that we're not that person right now or we haven't been. And that can be very painful to come face to face with, is that you are not who you think you are or that you are not as good as you had hoped.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Woof.

How do you help people through that moment? The realization, oh, my God, this is good. So you. You've built a self narrative that tells you that you're really good at something. And then as the therapist, you realize, oh, they're going to have to confront. They're not as good at that thing as they think they are in order to be able to build a better future. How would you help somebody through that moment?

[Husu Joe Ma]

It's like, as the therapist, sometimes you recognize, like, whoa, it's not so much. Maybe they're not as good at this thing that they think they are. It's more about this thing that they have held on to as they're good at this thing. It's not all of who they are. There's other stuff that they've been not neglecting all the time, although sometimes that is the case, but things that they have been able to push away or ignore because they're really good at this other thing. So good example is perfectionism. People, like, turn to perfectionism and say, like, well, I'm really good at making spreadsheets and keeping things organized, everybody's schedules on point because of everything that I do. And that's a great way to distract yourself from. But I also don't really feel like anybody's ever going to love me and accept me for who I really am. So let me just put on this face of I'm really good at spreadsheets, though. So everyone's going to turn to me as the expert of this thing, and then I don't really have to confront this darker thing about how I feel about myself, because on the outside, people think I'm okay, so I must be okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. Building your sense of self around something that is useful. If you had, like, if you were going to jot down, let's say, three quick things that you wanted the parents out there, the parents to be, to start instilling in their kids what are good anchor points. I know there's nothing that's truly universal, but, like, what are a few anchor points that will be useful to people so that they don't end up as the spreadsheet girl?

[Husu Joe Ma]

Why do all of us have this, like, visceral reaction when someone asks, like, advice about parenting? I think part of it is, like, because we've all had experiences of knowing that it's a very sensitive topic. People are very protective about the way that they will raise their child. And the ways that we raise our children is heavily influenced by the ways that our parents parented us. And it's generational. Things get passed down. Whether they were good or not is questionable sometimes, but they get passed down because this is how it was always done in my family and this is how we've always related or not related, talk to each other, or didn't communicate. So this is what I'm passing down to my kid in combination with maybe there's another parent present and they're bringing their families good stuff and also their family's baggage. So that's why it can be difficult when someone asks, like, what, you know, parents do. But I think one, one big thing to remember for sure is that your presence, your, your presence is much more important than presence. So presence, as in, like, you being there for someone, you instilling in this child that you're a trustworthy and reliable person that will respond to their needs. When a baby or a young child is crying for you and you are there and they can trust that you will appear when they need you. This is much more important than presents, than buying them stuff, than even, like, you know, throwing a lot of money at something or making sure they have the best this and this and that, like, they have the best education, of course those things are very, very important. But if you as a parent are not present for your child, no level of top tier boarding school or greatest, like, electronic Stuff like that stuff is not going to matter if you're not there for them because now they're learning that the world is, you know, full of people that I can't rely on. People are not going to come to me when I have needs or an expressed thing. Like for kids, when they are expressing that they have a need in something, they cry out, they're looking for somebody to be there for them. And when a parent is inconsistently reliable, as in they either don't show up, you're building now this worldview in this very small person that they can't trust people. I'm not going to cry out to anybody for support anymore because that doesn't get me what I want. So as a parent being present, which is so hard in this day and age, especially for very busy working professionals, it can be very challenging to navigate. I gotta make money for the family I need to provide. And then on the other hand, I need to spend time with my kids. It can be very, very, very hard to create the time needed. So I'll let folks figure out what that means for their families and how to make that work for themselves. But your presence, being there for them is how you're going to build up a well adjusted person. A well adjusted person generally trusts other people. If you find folks in your life that don't trust anybody, chances are they had parents that weren't really physically present for them either. And physical presence, emotional presence, these are different things that also, you know, accompany each other from time to time. So be there for your kids super long winded. Some other things I think are good to know is that your child is creating their worldview. Their philosophy on everything is being built in these early years. You know, like when you think about a five year old, six year old, these kids are sponges for everything around them. Like kids are learning so many words per day, much more than any adult that you know how many adults are learning so many new vocabulary in one day, sometimes in multiple languages. Kids are also absorbing, you know, this thing I talked about, is the world a safe place? We learn that from our earliest caregivers. And if they're living a life with you that they can't expect somebody to be trustworthy or not, that's going to turn into this like perfectionist person, maybe that's seeking for approval and the validation that they never got as a child like this sounds like all really cliche, but it's because we see it repeating and reenacted in our lives and our friends lives and people that are important to us. We see it happen all over and over again. People looking for this external validation because somewhere along the way they weren't really shown how they can do that for themselves. So, you know, like, validating your kids is so important. Quick example. I think every kid knows going outside they want to play, and their mom is saying, make sure to take dad or whoever, take a jacket with you. Take a sweater with you. It's cold outside. Kid says, no, I'm not cold, I don't need it. Mom says, you are cold. You don't know. So you need to take this jacket with you. It's like what feels like an innocuous example that child just learned. This person who I love and trust deeply, or I'm supposed to, doesn't believe in me when I say I feel a certain way.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So what do you do in that moment?

[Husu Joe Ma]

So in that moment, it's like, you may not be cold right now, but it'd be great for you to take this jacket in case you get cold later, rather than, that's why it's so hard to be a parent is you're finding the balance of, okay, in some ways, I do know more than you. And the other ways I want you to experience the word world for yourself and come to these decisions on your own. It could be, and I'm not suggesting to parents that they use their kids as experiment, you know, points or anything like, okay, then go outside, see how cold it is for yourself. You know, when you have these moments to give kids a chance to make choices on their own, I say go for it. Give them opportunities to learn on their own. Obviously, you're not going to send your kid out into a blizzard with no jacket. But if it is a bit chilly and all they would need to do is run back inside to get something if they want, you say, all right, or the jacket's going to be here if you want it, so you can come get it if you want, rather than dismissing what they've just told you, which is, I'm not cold right now. Same thing with like, but I'm not hungry right now, but I don't want to do this right now. But I don't feel feel like I feel this way. I think we've all we can hear our parents even saying, like, you don't know what you're saying. You don't know what you really want. That kind of stuff can be really dismissive of a child who's now trying to. Without realizing they're doing this explicitly, they're Trying to find ways in the world to have a voice of their own, to express themselves, to make decisions. If you as a parent are to the point of overbearing enough that you never allow your child to make a difference, I mean, make a decision for themselves, chances are you're coming from a good place. You don't want them to make the same mistakes that you've had. But I think many of us would say the most salient lessons I've taken away with myself are the ones that I learned the hard way. And we, we as parents don't want our kids to suffer. Of course we want all of our kids to live as burden free lives as possible. But I think part of the human condition is like learning for yourself and figuring that stuff out.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Is that why in therapy you guys don't just give answers?

[Husu Joe Ma]

Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's so much more powerful for a client to be like, whoa, I never thought of it that way. Or like, I didn't realize that I was thinking that way until right now. That's so much better than if your therapist were to say, you know, client, I've been writing down on these notes that you do this and this and this. I think you should X, Y and Z in order to feel better. And the clients over there like, okay, yeah, that makes sense, I'll try it out. Like that's, it's just not as impactful as somebody coming to that realization themselves. And like leaving a session with, okay, I have this like really solid plan of how I want to move forward and how I want to live my life rather than, you know, my therapist said that I should really do this and maybe that's going to make me feel better. I'd rather hear my clients say, you know, after that session, I feel empowered to X, Y and Z. I don't want my clients to be saying, okay, I'm starting to feel anxious. And I remember my therapist said that I should so and so and so it's no, I'm starting to feel anxious and I believe in myself that I can self soothe now.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So in that process, are you just trying to get them to ask why questions until, so that they understand what's driving it?

[Husu Joe Ma]

Um, I do a lot of the why questions. I'll ask the questions to get you to answer yourself and I'll dig into different, different points of reference that you may bring up to try to explore with them so that they can uncover where, where did this belief come from, what kind of interaction or series of things that happened in Various relationships got you to think this way. Why do you have this belief about how things are supposed to be? And let's unpack that a little bit. We hear that phrase a lot too. Unpacking is okay. So you have this answer to my why question. So let's get deeper. Where does it come from? What does the world look like if you were to think of it differently? What are some of the things you think might happen in this relationship if you approached it this way? And you have them explore just different avenues in which they could have made a different decision to get them to think about, maybe next time I can make a different decision. And I think everybody has the answers inside of them, really. It's just a matter of uncovering them.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Interesting. Tell me more about that. Because I have a fundamentally different assessment of most human beings. I think they are lost and completely confused and unless they encounter the idea. Or maybe it's just me, maybe I'm just not bright enough. But I have needed in my life over and over to either. Going back to your point about learning the hard way, like, I'm never going to just get there. I've got to suffer some sort of pain and then be. Encountering ideas from other people has been the, the greatest gift of my life. Like, I read or listen to a podcast in almost every, what I call transitional moment in my life. Brushing my teeth, making food, whatever. I'm always trying to learn something because I feel like I don't have the ideas hiding inside of me and that I, when I encounter somebody else, like if I were in therapy, I'd be like, hey, obviously I will discern whether I think what you're saying makes sense for me or not. But just tell me, like, don't, don't make me guess what you're thinking. That I don't want to go down a six month thing where I finally have the realization. It's like, I just want you to tell me what you think. Then I'll think about whether that makes sense. And then, you know, we can go back and forth. But there's a reason I'm not a therapist. So, yeah, help me better understand why you think we all have the answers inside of us and how can I tap into them in myself?

[Husu Joe Ma]

I should probably backtrack. So I think life is a combination of stimulus that we're receiving and we're also doing this screening process. We take what we want, we leave what we don't. And then with all this stimulation from the outside world coming into our internal systems, then we Start formulating those answers that I think are inside all of us. Of course, if you, I mean research shows like people are hardwired to connect with other people. If you leave an infant alone for hours on a days, they don't do this kind of research anymore, thank goodness. But you know, looking back, if you leave an infant alone with no connection to other people, they will not develop in a healthy way. Some of them will never develop the ability to speak. So I think that says something. So I don't want folks to think what I said is you don't need anybody else. You don't need to exchange ideas or share worldviews, have experiences where you can agree to disagree on something and understand that your reality can exist alongside with somebody else's. So I think what I, what I meant or what I was trying to mean when I said like the answers are in you is often when you're struggling and when you're feeling really lost and when you're feeling like you don't have the answers, the answers for the questions you have, you're not going to get them solely from other people. A lot of those answers are brewing somewhere in you and it's just a matter of you uncovering them through this kind of conversation, of taking in different ideas that you've gotten from other sources and integrating those into your beliefs about yourself and how you want to communicate yourself outwardly. So this thing of uncovering what you really feel about yourself, I think, you know, what I'm trying to get at is in this therapy relationship, how your therapist thinks you should move through life. Because that's always going to happen. I'm still a person too. I'm going to have judgments, I'm going to have assumptions about you, I'm going to have feelings about. Well, I think if you go this way, this is going to happen. But the ethics of being a therapist is not imposing how I feel about how your life is supposed to look like. It's getting you to a place where you can uncover how you want your life to look like. And even if I as a therapist don't agree with the life and the direction that you want to go, it's not my job to say that, you know, it's, it's my job to get you to figure out what direction you want to go, what decisions you do want to make, and feel good about that stuff as long as you're not hurting yourself or other people. So this, this uncovering of self internal motivation and drive, of course it's going to also account for all the different things you've been taking in from other people too. And I, I very much think it's important to hear out other people's worldviews, ideas. I also engage in a lot of podcast consumption, try to read as much as I can from different kinds of writers, and expose myself to news sources that are, you know, not just within the vacuums of how I think about the world, because I think it is important to take all that stuff in and then you can make an informed decision about how you want to show up and how you want to be with other people.

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[Tom Bilyeu]

I want to talk about trauma. So I think I know how you're going to answer this now, though. I know it's a very difficult process, but trauma, especially childhood trauma, is so pernicious. It, I really find it unnerving. And I want to know what I'm guessing you're going to say that it becomes, especially when it happens young, it just becomes such a part of your identity that that's the. You have to do that unwinding process. But why is trauma so difficult to deal with? And how do you help people past the sticking point of but this thing happened to me and it will always be true. It will always be a part of who I am. And no fancy reframing is going to change that. And I find that so brutal that I'm almost not even interested in confronting it. It's just, it happened. It will always be a part of my story. It's such a dark cloud and, you know, 40 years into my journey, it's just still overwhelming.

[Husu Joe Ma]

That is a tough one. And you know, the interesting thing too is not all people who experience traumatic events will develop issues. Not all people that, you know, experience something that's so scary and life threatening are going to develop the symptoms of PTSD that just there's so many factors, right? It's actually a minority of people that will experience trauma that develop the full fledged criteria of meeting the diagnosis stuff for ptsd. I, I wish I could say this is why it Happens because if we knew why, then we can put more things into place as, like, public health systems to prevent this kind of stuff from happening at all. But I think the. The reality is that we don't know why a lot of this stuff happens, but I think there's a combination of factors that protect people. They're called protective factors, which is resilience stuff. You know, like folks that have solid support systems, loving families present parents are less likely to develop the symptoms of PTSD than somebody that has absent or negligent caregivers, folks that are not being provided with proper nutrition or even shelter. These folks are having a long list of what's called risk factors. Folks that grow up in poverty or lower socioeconomic class. It's no secret that a lot of them may develop mental health challenges somewhere down the road, and that translates into generational trauma that gets perpetuated generation after generation. And some of these people feel very stuck because of how they. What they were born into. So I can't. I don't have the answer to why is it that some people come out of a traumatic event and they're like, seemingly fine, where others, it seems to ruin their life? I wish I could tell you the why, but there are risk factors that we're aware of and protective factors that we study. And a lot of public health systems are trying to invest in that stuff. Better education, better nutrition for food. We hear about this stuff all the time on the news. Those foundational pieces of taking, being taken care of will build somebody's resilience over time when they experience something. But you already hit some of it. You said you knew I was going to say this. Kids that go through trauma, they're still making sense of the world. And most kids, I would say, they look at the people that are taking care of them and they are on a pedestal. Our parents can do no wrong. Our parents are the ones that have a plan of action if something bad happens. They know what they're doing. They have the manual of life. They have it all figured out. So if this person that I trust wholly to provide for all of my needs because I'm 100 dependent on them, if they do something like hit me or if they do something like harm me, neglect me, it must be because of me. It must be because I deserve it. There's no other way for a kid to make sense of this, because mom is amazing. And the only way that she would do bad stuff to me or say bad stuff to me is because I deserve it, because she's Too good of a person to be doing it because she's bad. And I think a lot of people out there can relate to this is when you have that aha moment of realizing, oh, my parents are just people. My parents are also maybe damaged and my parents were reenacting their own trauma in the way that they treated me because they were not regulated. A lot of people will have this realization without all the explicit language there. But before you realize that your parents can do no wrong. And so the only reason, the only reason that must make sense to my five year old brain is that I deserved it. And that is something that people carry with them, this internalized shame of I am a bad person. And the only reason that bad stuff happens to me is because I deserved it. That's super hard to shake because now you've turned it into your identity, these core beliefs about yourself. And I think a lot of people are actually walking around out there among us with this idea that I'm not deserving of whatever. I can achieve so many accolades and rewards and awards for all the things that I've done, but ultimately I'm a terrible person is how a lot of people feel. And, and getting rid of that is. There's a lot of reasons why it's hard. Some of it is like confronting truths about yourself that are painful to do. Some of it is not realizing that there's a different identity that you can even have. Some of it is a lot of these things that you've built up over time, which some folks will refer to as defense mechanisms, are. They're effective, they have protected you from the things that you've been trying to protect yourself from. They have been the thing to get you through all these difficult moments. So then in your mind and in your body and systems, you have twisted this into. Things are still good today relatively because I did all these dysfunctional things. You're not probably thinking of it that way, but like, I'll try to make this more concrete with an example. Somebody may have experienced emotional abuse from their early caregivers. And this can look like so many different things. I won't get into that part. But now they're an adult and the some of these folks will look like, you know, they're avoidant of commitment in long term relationships. They get scared away when relationships become a little bit more difficult. It's not just all happy, fun, go on vacation stuff. It's now facing the reality of we have a challenge in front of us and we want to move through it together. But that can feel too small, scary. Because now you have to open up and be vulnerable. And if you are someone that as a child when you opened up and you were trying to be vulnerable with this person that's supposed to care for you and you were met with either neglect or outright abuse as an adult, you for sure are not going to want to open up to somebody because of what that's attached to. Anytime I've tried to open up, I got yelled in my face or I was told that I need to suck it up and it doesn't matter. And you know, like moving through the world in this way to try to justify the actions of others, we do that too because we don't want to confront this idea that like, I could be different. It's very hard to shake anything that's being shaped as a child because like you said, it becomes your identity or at least you think it does. And if you, if you don't go back at some point in your life, which many people don't to examine, like, was it really your fault? Then you're gonna live your life as though it was your fault. A question that I've posed to some people is like, okay, if you look at any 5 year old today and something terrible has happened to them, would you tell them to their face that it was their fault, that they deserved this? And most people will say like, of course, I would never say that a five year old is responsible for, for what an adult did to them. It's like, so how come you have adopted the idea that five year old self is the one responsible for all these bad things that have happened? And that kind of like, that's very difficult for people to make sense of and reconcile also is like, I didn't think of it that way. I'm thinking of it as my 36 year old self, that it was my fault. It's like, but five year old self put that kid in a different chair in front of you and like, would you actually tell them that they are responsible for this? But people have a hard time like separating this child inside of them as something else or somebody. It's just who they are. And you know, it's, it's an unfortunate thing that so many people continue to carry around this identity that they formed as a very small child and somehow think that that's like the end all be all.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's heavy, it's intense. Beautiful. To see people come out the other side though. And I'm super optimistic for anybody going through something like that. That there is another Side speaking to those people. What if you had just like 30 seconds to get somebody who might be considering therapy? What would be your quick elevator pitch for why they should or shouldn't do it?

[Husu Joe Ma]

You know, a lot of people might be hesitant to try speaking to someone largely due to stigma, stigma associated with it. We've all received messaging in some form or another that if you're leaning on somebody else for support, something about you wasn't strong enough. And, and I'd like to challenge that because we just talked about well adjusted people, trust other people to support them. Well adjusted, happy, healthy people lean on their support systems and nurture really important relationships because they've recognized largely that life is not meant to do alone. I think there's like an old proverb that says if you want to go fast, then go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. And that's, that's part of my conceptualization of the world too, is like therapy is effective because you're getting this opportunity to do something together with somebody. If you yourself are having a hard time navigating the world and solving life's problems by yourself, maybe you need somebody to accompany you, not tell you how to do it and not tell you how to make these decisions, but to be with you on your journey. There's something very powerful in like quality time by just sitting next to someone that you love and care about. You can't replace that with a zoom call or being on the phone with someone we all know from somebody we love deeply. Being on the phone with them is very different than getting to sit next to them. You don't always have to even be saying anything. And that's something that you get to experience in therapy too, is just having the undivided attention of another human right in front of you. So this would be an encouragement for folks is like a lot of us don't actually have the opportunity to sit with someone that cares so intently and deeply about your decision making and how you want to propel yourself forward. The people that we love and care deeply, that also love and care about us, they have their own agendas because they're emotionally intertwined into our life and they want to make sure, even if they're not aware of it all the time, that their emotional needs are also being met in this relationship. In therapy, your therapist is not there to get their emotional needs met by you. If they're doing that, that's a problem. And we have codes of ethics to prevent that. So, you know, like, you don't have to be in crisis. In fact, I don't want folks to wait until they're in crisis to consider talking to somebody. I think the narrative around going to therapy is shifting now, which is great. And there's analogies to be drawn. Like if you care very much about your vehicle, your car, you're not waiting until you're sputtering on 405 and unable to get out of your lane before you call a mechanic. Caring about a car means regular maintenance and getting all your transmission and oil levels filled. I don't know anything about cars, I don't know why I use this as an example. But you know, you're going there for regular maintenance so that your car doesn't have some kind of issue on the road when you have no things to lean on. I mean, same thing with a dentist. Like we go there every few months to get our teeth cleaned. Generally that's like the idea, right? That's what the dental community wants us to be doing. Because they don't want you showing up when all your teeth are falling out of your head and you need like five root canals and all this stuff. Your insurance doesn't want to pay for it. The dentist is saying, this is very invasive. It's going to be painful, it's going to be hard recovery. But if you had been coming to your regular cleanings all the time, then we can get some little tune ups going along the way. Then I can identify if, like, I think I'm starting to see a cavity. Let's have a treatment plan to address this thing. Then you have a healthy mouth and a healthy set of teeth to carry you forward into old age. Same thing with your mental health. You want to be maintaining this stuff preventatively, proactively. You don't have to wait until your life is falling apart or you're about to lose your spouse or your kids are going to get taken away. At that point, you've basically done the equivalent of let your car die out on the freeway. And you know, like, if you had had regular maintenance, then not only do you have a car that's taken care of to get you from point A to point B reliably and consistently. You've also built some tools up and now you have things in your trunk so that you know how to change your own tire, you know how to get a jump from somebody else, meaning you trust that somebody's going to say, yes, I'll help you with your car. You've also learned that you don't have to just sit on the freeway alone until like you get rammed into from the back like, I don't know, you've built up a repertoire of things to help yourself, to learn that you can trust and lean on other people to help you too, that you don't have to do all of this alone. So super long winded thing to say. Anybody can benefit from checking out therapy. Even if you are having a hard time identifying whether you have like a problem to come in and talk about, something's gonna be uncovered, something's gonna come up, and your therapist is trained and educated to go there, to get deep with you and not avoid, not to deflect the things that our friends love to do. Because it can be really hard to get into this stuff. Your therapist is going to sit there and sometimes they might sit there silently because what they're modeling for you is you have control over the conversation and you get to talk about whatever you want. And sometimes sitting there in silence is what spawns this stuff that you've been keeping in that maybe you didn't realize that you have been repressing somewhere.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I love it. Where can people follow along with you and learn more about this whole process?

[Husu Joe Ma]

Well, they can definitely check out betterhelp.com and all the questions that they have about this service. Signing up for therapy. A lot of stuff there that they can go to.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I love it. All right, guys, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.