Inspiration Interview with Tiny Habits Coach Sunny

So if you can design and reframe your habits, they can change your life. Ambitious is good, go for it, but don't ever lose who you are and don't ever let things you love to do vanish. And that lifestyle really just get me to thinking like, am I burning out myself just for somebody else? And I'm the life coach that say this is going to be help a lot of people, they are struggling they might not have time to do the food truck, right? But they can use the tiny habit to train their living presence skill.

Good morning, afternoon, evening, people who are joining us for this particular interview. I have my next guest, someone who's been a Toastmaster, who's somebody who's also an author, a certified Tiny Habits coach, Toastmaster, and so many other things. Now I'd like to welcome P. Mingsung. I'm sorry if I'm not pronouncing it correct. Please let me know.

Just call me Sunny, it's easier.

Yeah, I'll call it Sunny. I remember the first time I met you in Toastmasters, I think in Toastmasters District 11. I said, how do I pronounce your name? And you said, no, just say pay me some, that would be easy. So that was funny, but welcome to the show. Inspiration interviews. Uh, I have been following you on social media and LinkedIn and Facebook and other places, and I've been really inspired by the things that you do. Uh, so I'd love to know a little bit more about your journey. So what are the kind of things that you have done and what kind of things that you're looking into now? So I'd love to know a little bit about Sunny.

Thank you. Thank you so much. You know, you don't apologize.

I don't know.

I don't even know how to say your name right. I just know you are like amazing. Podcaster and YouTube people I follow too. And, um, yeah, I am currently still in the United States, but originally I'm from Taiwan, so I call myself East and West Navigator. And I believe you are too, right? You are from India, now you're in UK. And that unique experience, I think, is so great. Like, we finally begin to see something if we stay we, uh, where we grow up, we don't really know there's a big difference. But because that navigation, then, uh, really, um, we begin to feel more knowing ourselves, right? Because you get in a different place, you can reflect yourself. So I'm glad to be here and so happy to have this opportunity to connect with audience and share my experience.

Amazing, amazing. So, so Sunny, I know you have done a number of things. So if I have to ask you, what is your favorite thing? I know you are a chef, if I'm not wrong, you do Toastmasters, you have been also been coaching with Tiny Habits. I think you've done some sort of certification with Tiny Habits coaching, and now you're also an author. So what has been the best thing that has happened to you lately?

Well, I would say I'm really thankful for everything happened for me in the past 30 years. 'Cause I'm here in the United States for 30 years already. Looking back, like every stage, every 5 years or 7 years has some kind of transition. So if you are young, you're just starting your career, don't feel bad about it. This is just life. Life will be just turn you to different thing. You just like, why I have to do this? The advice is just have fun, just do it. And then later you will see why you need to do it. 'Cause this exactly happened for me. You know, I go through the journey, come to here, to study biology. Then I find a job, then I settle down as an immigrant, I raise family. And also corporation-wise, I start with a small company, become big corporation. Then I figured out I am not the type to work with others. I'm just too independent, I have too many opinions. And so I start my journey become a small business owner. And if I want to nail one thing that really teach me a lot of thing, it's running the food truck. I actually run food truck for 7 years since 2013, and I closed my business last year. But it's not because of COVID it's because too busy. I really don't have time and I don't have people helping me because, you know, all the restaurant closed and they start to schedule the food truck to their neighborhoods and apartments. So they don't need to go far. They can get food from our window. It's really safe way to get their food. But however, that 7 years really trained me to be so humble and look at all the people. They walk on the streets. They really try to feed their family. They do all they can. They might not have opportunity to get degree or money-wise to go to college, but they do everything they have with that limited resources. They striving, they work hard. Some of my friends, they are actually half a million dollar business, you know, they have 3 food trucks. So they are not really just— they are doing and they got rewards for what they do. And also on the process, I really learned this art of living the present moment. You know, that is so much— everybody say, well, you need to do— you have to stop your compulsive thinking, you have to live in the moment. But for us, sometimes we don't really know what they mean, right? It's just like, yeah, we have to meditate it, we maybe— but if you are a food truck owner, you have a line of 50 people and each people only give you 3 seconds to take the order and get things done. You live in the present because you process the order and move to the next. You don't worry about, you know, things happen in the process. You focus on the moments. So that 7 years of the living in the present moment, appreciation, and also hardworking and physically involved with things I'm doing. It really teach me a lot. So if you only allow me to choose one, that is the one I choose.

Amazing, amazing, amazing answers, Ania. Living in the present moment regardless of what you do will help you achieve what you want to do. Amazing. So typically in my— this interview, I, I like to ask one question which is my favorite question, and you'll find it all my interviews. Is that, no, we all talk about success and rather boast about success. I've done this, I've done that, and I'm so-and-so. But what we generally do not hear is the backdrop, the struggles, the failure, the setbacks. And I love to hear when I invite people to share their one or two stories when they really struggled, they really, you know, felt like, no, it's not working out, or no, they had a lot of setup. So you have any of those stories I would love to listen. Wow.

Which one I choose? I have a lot of backstories. Okay. Well, maybe I can go back to the book I just published. The title of the book, I work with 21 other female entrepreneurs and we get into the journey since February this year. The title of the book is Thriving Beyond Crisis. Conversation with resilient entrepreneurs. What happened to everybody, not only just 2020, I mean, if you are a business owner, you all know that's a journey. You couldn't say, okay, I open, I can make money, but that's instability because you need to have a system, you need to have a consistent, the flow with the client, or you can serve it and the result, they can be your testimonial. So that is the process. But what happened for a lot of people, they are stuck in somewhere, say, well, I must be not right, so I stuck in here, I don't see I make money. Or, um, so that's the mindset. So the book I'm sharing, I'm actually the number one story in that book. It's my journey to finally waking up, say, wait a minute, I'm not stuck, I'm just in the process. It's just the timing or the training I haven't got enough. So in that story, I'm sharing, you know, I came here, United States, for 30 years ago. I'm ambitious. I want to be a scientist. I want to have some impact for the scientific field, right? So I got in and take out all the barrier, language barrier, cultural barrier, you know, trying to live by myself. They all done. Then I get a good job. I say, this is American dream. I did it. You know, I just so happy. But the little I know, that is just give me a little sense of successful. Then I start to put on a lot of trainings, which mean the life situation, right? Is each life situation coming to my face at that moment? Yes, I feel suffering. I feel life is not fair. I ever actually get to the depression for 2 years too. And I'm the single parent. I have 2 young kids and I have nobody around me to help me to raise them. And I have to juggle around all the job, you know, expectation. And also the look when people believe you're supposed to be hardworking, you should be like no complaining. You should be taking your job as your high priority. They don't care about your single parenting. They don't care about you have 6 kids at home, right? You need to show up the best. You have to smile. And that lifestyle really just get me to thinking, like, am I burning out myself just for somebody else? You know, if they expect me to be like that, but they not living with my life.

Yeah.

And I couldn't really convince them. The only thing I can do is change myself. So what I did is, in that situation, all the life's, um, challenges, I would say I just need to focus on myself. I cannot really be everywhere. Now, if they want me to be a dedicated 9-to-6 scientist and just drop my kids in the daycare all day, all day, I don't have the way to take care of them. And some— the weekend is already rush, rush, rush. I just don't like that lifestyle. So I do— the wake-up moment is I just want to survive, right? So I get out the corporation and I do all the odd jobs, you know, Food Trust one of them, but I really appreciate it. I got this chance to go in different level of the society. And in that moment to say, wait a minute, and I still— I just don't like myself. Like, why I have to give in and just to survive. So even I don't have money, even, you know, I'm totally still struggling with single parenting, that's financial and business, everything, but I feel free. I feel the peace coming in. I say, gosh, so happy everybody can do that. But the caveat is sometimes we choose not to do it. We become fighting. We just say, okay, maybe next job is better than this, so you change job. But your mindset's still the same way, right? You want to be, you know, working hard and get that, but you lose that balance. You don't really know why you do that. It's because your supervisor want me to do it, or because your society people think you should be certain way, so you strive for that image, but then you lost yourself sometime. So I really appreciate everything led me to getting to the bottom line. Like, I'm totally in the bottom. It's like, okay, I have to close my restaurant. I, I have nobody to help me the food truck. Then I'm struggling with my identity. You know, I come here as an immigrant. I'm not here to do the business like cleaning the restaurant table, right? It's not me. It's that give me push to the corner, and I think, wait a minute, this is not me. So in the sudden, that identity crash is just gone. I'm just me, and everything I do moving forward is my choice, and it— and there's nobody block me. It's just me, right? I just— I don't want to do this. I don't like this, you know. I hate this. The wall, right, you're building a lot around, but It's just everybody. So don't feel bad about you are doing it, because me, if I don't have this experience building wall, then I don't have experience to be free. So I really, you know, if you're young, you just started it, ambitious, good, go for it. But don't ever lose who you are, and don't ever let things you love to do vanish, because that is really who you are. If you like to daydreaming, keep the moment of space in your life. Daydreaming, watching movie, and go hiking— everything you love to do when you're little kids, that is really essential. You need to keep doing that.

Absolutely, absolutely. Amazing, amazing, Sunny. So few things I noted down, which is living in the moment. If you think that, no, whatever you're doing is not giving you the satisfaction that you should be, not giving you the kick as they say, that, no, this is what I try to do, this is what I want to do. Maybe it's time to think, uh, go back and think and go back to the board and think about, is this really I want to do, or just that because it's a, it's the societal pressure or the, you know, the money or whatever is the other thing? Is that because I'm doing that? And, and when that happens, yeah, you'll probably start living in the moment. Great, great. Now I looked at your profile, Sunny, and I see that, no, you are a proponent of tiny habits. So How did that happen, and what has that impact— how has that impacted you in your journey?

Wow, that is really another turning point. I was struggling with social templates, like how I'm going to start my business and there's an audience there for me to really help. And I struggle a lot until someone said, you know, go to Clubhouse. I say, I don't have time for another social template. You know, I do LinkedIn, I do, you know, others. I usually super busy. Who got time to do Clubhouse? So I was just bored. I'm eating and I say, why not? So I get into the Clubhouse. Oh, in 20 minutes, I'm totally hooked. The Clubhouse is really the audio, but you can hear people's voice and their authenticity. You know, their sincerity, their, uh, the wisdom is all in their voice. Just like you doing the podcast, because you can communicate in the, the frequency level other than, you know, physical connection. And that's how my hookup— so I'm floating around, I said, hey, there's a room called Tiny Habit, what is that, right? So I just flowing in there, I said, listen, it's just like, wow. This is exactly in that it's living the moment because you have to pay attention in that anchor moment. So you put a little behavior after the prompt. So you need to be present in order to really put that behavior in. And I said, this is another training of living present moment. And I'm the life coach. I say, this is going to be help a lot of people. They are struggling. They might not have time to do the food truck, right? But they can use the tiny habit to train their living presence skill. So I got certified and everything, but after that, and also the Clubhouse connection, I'm just— I connect with so many people around the globe, and they have a million followers, and they all become like friends. You know, you just— you can go to their room and you can just chat with them, and they respond. I, I don't need to be, you know, travel to their place, and because they are there for us to really connect. So right now I have a movement, if I may, I can share with everybody. It is a called Hope Movement. What that does is, because I'm like a midlife woman, and a lot of time I'm in the Clubhouse, I see someone like wear this party hat. I mean, they just get into the platform and they are intimidated. They don't want to say anything. Invite them to speak, they just say, thank you, I'm done speaking. They don't say anything. But like 2, 3 weeks later, if they show up, I see them, they are speaking, they are so happy to be able to share. It's just like energy is totally different. So I just think, I think I have the same feeling too. I, I, I feel like, but then I just love and I connect with all the people there. And if that happened in such a short time, 2 months or 2, 3 weeks, And how about I can build a platform, like global platform for women, or, you know, they just feel like they really don't have their voice. They may be intimidated, or they feel like society say, oh, you don't have a degree, you know, you're just the homemaker, who care about? No, but the Clubhouse is the place for everybody to speak and practice. And plus they have a Toastmasters. I was there to train people how to do table topic. So it's a lot of fun things to do. I believe if you're not in the Clubhouse, give some time to check out. You might not like it, but if you are like me, like it a lot, you have to watch out the addiction. Don't get there all the time. But the movement is gonna be connect with isolated caregivers. They cannot leave their house because I also have a son in wheelchair for 24 years. And also you might be feeling you are isolated because your age. You may be retired, you know, you don't like to go Facebook or other platform to be, you know, TikTok and funny. But the Clubhouse, you don't need to be funny. They just want to hear your wisdom. You know, you just connect with friends. And also for someone, maybe they're wheelchair-bound, right? They cannot really do anything, but they can listen. They can change the theme and I can listen to music. They can listen to comedy. They can listen to cooking. They can listen to anything you can choose because Clubhouse is so grow, you know, globally. So that's my passion to connect with women to get into my platform. I teach them health, the openness, positivity, and engagement. That is Tiny Habits. So the HOPE movement is this 4 words: healthy, openness, positivity, and engagement. And they feel confidence. Then the next thing, if they want to be part of my VIP, we push them become the international bestsellers because I got everything, um, around. I, I see it happen, I know how to do it, and I have a professional team. They do that for 7, 8 years, so I know that's a guarantee. So that is the whole movement, just to transform, uh a loss, you know, limiting belief and opinions and sadness and habits, to into positivity. Because that's happening in me and happening so many people in Clubhouse. And when it happened to you, right? So even you might not be the meatlight, but if you know someone, you can see they need a boost, um, just follow me and I can definitely— we have a free master class every fourth Saturday, um, in Zoom. Okay. And they just connect with me, and we would love to let you know that positivity, how it boosts your vibes, and that will definitely help them to get a long way. Hope that's not too long answer.

No, no, that's definitely not too long answer. So, but I love that answer because you have a purpose behind what you're doing. You're not just hanging around on Clubhouse and just listening to any— I know that I've tried Clubhouse a few times. I know there are two types of Clubhouse. One, you don't want to get into the rooms where it's all garbage going on, but then there are Clubhouse where you have those motivational speakers. I, I remember listening to— there was an interview of Les Brown, and that was so, so pumping and so motivating. And he talked about his story and how his mother was treated because, you know, they were from the Black society. And that was so moving. So it's, and I, I believe it's not only the Clubhouse, it's any social media. It's, it's not the social media, it's the person and it's the way that we consume the social media. We can be either the consumer or bad consumer, all sort of garbage is there, or you can choose to go follow the pages, uh, like people like, no, Les Brown, people like Tiny Habits, authors. There are so many people, so much motivating content. Then you can do. And I love you have, you are doing that noble job of helping women. And I know a lot of women needs to have that push that no, you are worth it, you, you can do it and you are great. So no, I really love it. Uh, I'll get the links and everything from you and I'll put it on the video description and all. And people, please, if you can, uh, please connect with No Sunny. I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy the master class. That she's having. Yeah, I do have to ask— sorry, you were saying something?

No, I think I appreciate this chance for me to share my messages so people can find me. Thank you.

Absolutely. So now I have to ask you one— if you have to give one quick tip or one lesson from your program, that, no, kind of a teaser for them that what they can expect, uh, please give us in like next few minutes.

Yeah, there is two things I really think that's so crucial for us to live a full life. One is the belief. You really need to believe you are everything you have, and it's just to make it shine and let it go outside from inside. So you need to believe you don't follow anybody's opinions. You believe yourself, you believe you are everything you need, so you can move on. And the second is the habits. That everything, every moment you do something or think something unconsciously, that is the habits. You know, we talk about behavior as something, but we happen all the time. Like you have your favorite food, right? You don't even think about what is favorite food for me today, right? You just get it. So the habit is really inside unconsciously, effortlessly. So if you can design and reframe your habits, that you can change your life. So once you believe you can change your life, you have confidence and empowerment, then you do some actions to remove or reframe your behaviors. First, you need to be consciously, right? So, but you do it too many times and it becomes effortless and unconsciously. That is the beauty of the tiny habits, because they are so tiny that you don't resist it. You don't need a lot of time to get that. It's only less than 1 minute. That is the very tiny starting point. For example, if you want to go out jogging for 15 minutes, your tiny habits will be, after I read my book, yeah, I will put my shoes on. Then celebrate, I put my shoes on. That is the tiny habit. That's the starting point. Regardless of raining or snowing, whatever, you never let that putting the shoes on die. That's your tiny habit. But then you reward yourself as I did it.

Yeah.

So that ABC, the anchor moments, behavior, and celebration need to happen within that 1-minute timeframe. Then you boost up your vibration because you celebrate yourself. So the belief and habit, that is also my key point in my program, is if you have a belief in yourself, then you're reminding, you know, reframing, and do things, the tiny habit, and let you feel good. Then you can create magic.

Awesome, awesome. So believing and then acting on to that belief using that ABC formula, if I may summarize. And that's amazing. I am also a buff of non-fiction book, and one of my favorite book of this year was Atomic Habits, which I think talks on the similar line of Habits tracking and how do you get started and how do you make 1% improvement every day and it becomes an enormous improvement. So, you know, very amazing, amazing talk.

Yeah, yeah. The, the, the, the author of Atomic Habits, I think he went to all the gurus to learn and make that book. So he, he was a Dr. Fung's student back to 2012. So he's definitely integrated with that science on Dr. Fung and his own experience. So great book.

True, true, definitely. So now we are coming towards the end of the interview. So Sunny, if you have to give one advice to any of the young students who are graduating or any of the people who are just starting out their career, because our interview are primarily focused about inspiring them, uh, so if you have to give them one or two advices so that they can thrive in their career or in their entrepreneurial journey, what would that be?

Yep. Well, the very advice, if I know that when I was young, is celebrate the small wins. Don't focus on the big, big win because you will wait too long, then you don't have energy. So get the small win, the little, um, little fun. Like even you, you're, um, just pick up a quarter on the floor and say, hey, I'm richer. So, you know, that little small win, they just say happy because our brain really scientific thing. If you feel more happy, more frequent, then you boost up your energy. You know, when you have high vibes, everything coming to your way, right? The law of attraction. So if you waiting for that big win, then you drain, then your vibration going down, you're not attracting. You just get more of the hard thing coming your way. So really focus on small win, boost up your high vibes, then everything's fine.

Amazing, amazing. So yeah, it's very, very important to celebrate a small win, and if you can get a big win, that's, that's good enough. But yeah, celebrating small wins leads to bigger wins. So thank you so much, and it was great to have you. And I'll have all your contact information in the description and all. Uh, if people want to contact you, I think you already described about what is, but if there is anything else that you want to tell why people should be connecting with you, or if there is any Specifically, yeah, I have a Linktree link.

I think I recently upgraded, but so I will give you the update one because the Linktree will link to my Clubhouse handle and my LinkedIn profile and my offer, you know, free masterclass and to buy my book because all the proceeds we sell for the book is, uh, benefit nonprofit. So we don't get anything other than the visibility and also sharing our message. But really we want this, the global collective efforts, and so we can help everybody else.

Awesome, awesome. And yep, I will have the Linktree link also in the, in the video and everywhere we'll put it. So thank you so much once again and looking forward to collaborate more with you in future as well.

Thank you, thank you for this opportunity. Yeah, exactly, we are going to shine together. This is great things to do. Thank you.

Thank you so much. So this was Cybersefsani, if I may call, and that was next interview of Inspirational Interviews. Until next time, as I say all the time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep going out of your comfort zone. This is Haritosh Srivastav, and I'll be back with another episode of Inspirational Interviews. Thank you so much.