One Fear Per Year

From Penniless to Top 1% Sales Professional: Jackie Shows You How to Have One Conversation to YES

War-torn Vietnam. A refugee child. Penniless. Barely spoke English.   That was the starting line for Jackie Wu. She didn’t give a polished version. She gave the real one. The night her father was taken away. Their home and property confiscated in less than 24 hours. A childhood shaped by the belief that everything coulddisappear at any moment.  And then… America.   No English. Penniless. People yelling at her on the phone during her first customerservice job. The constant fear of becoming homeless if she failed.   What struck me wasn’t just that she survived. It was that she did all of the following THROUGH the fear.   Jackie went on to: • Become a Top 1% sales professional nationwide • Advancing in Human Resources at Stanford University and NVIDIA • Build a global business during the pandemic • Close six-figure deals in a single conversation But this episode isn’t about sales tactics. It’s about how fear can either cage you or quietly train you to rise. Jackie explains why fear never fully left her… and why she’s grateful it didn’t.   If you’ve ever: • Felt like the odds were stacked against you • Struggled with rejection or self-doubt • Wondered how confident people actually got that way You will find answers in this episode.

Saying YES to the Impossible, Doing Batshit Crazy Things, and Also Knowing When Enough is Enough

I didn’t expect this episode to go where it did. On paper, Sam Penny looks fearless. TEDx speaker. Business exits. Ice miles. But halfway through our conversation, he said something that made me think. Cold water. Dark morning. No one had ever done this before. Swimming the English Channel IN WINTER! A few hours in he decided he needed to stop and go back to shore. Not because he was weak. But because he listened to his team and his body(hypothermia). He talked about the weight of that decision. Going back to his room. And feeling that decision. The crazy cool thing is that support poured in. From strangers. From people who had never met him. From people who understood that trying matters more than finishing and that failure doesn't exist when you learn a lesson from it. This isn’t a story about conquering fear. It is about naming it. Living with it. And realizing that failure doesn’t isolate or demote you the way your mind tells you it will. Sam shared what it’s really like to: • Feel imposter syndrome before a TEDx talk • Train for things that genuinely risk your life • Step away before the finish line and still stand proud • Learn that people don’t judge effort. They actually rally around it At the end of the episode, I asked him the question I ask every guest. What’s the opposite of fear? His answer came without hesitation. Start. If you’ve been holding back because you’re afraid of failing, being judged, or not finishing strong…This episode might shift something for you.

One Phrase that Can Help You When Fear Floods Your Body: BE BRAVE. BE BRAVE. BE BRAVE.

You don’t usually hear this part of leadership.  The part where fear shows up in your body…before your brain ever catches up.  The part where success doesn’t make it go away. Where titles don’t quiet the inner critic. Where confidence on the outside can still mean paddling fastunderneath.  On this episode, I sat down with the remarkable Julie Menden. She is an executive coach, keynote speaker, Forbes Coaches Council member, and founder of a boutique leadership development firm working with executives and high-performing leaders across industries.  Pretty incredible person to be speaking with on the topic ofFEAR!   What we talked about wasn’t a surface-level leadershipconversation.  Julie shared what it looks like to • navigate fear at every stage of success • understand how the inner critic is formed (and why it sticks) • build presence from the inside out, not through performance • take the next step even when fear is loud • and show up on stage shortly after cancer treatment wheneverything in her wanted to cancel  There’s a moment where she talks about getting stitches removed from her face, getting on a plane anyway, and speaking to a room full of healthcare executives while repeating one quiet phrase to herself:   “Be brave.”   This episode is for leaders who are doing the work and still feel fear. For people who want real tools, not generic. For anyone building courage one step at a time.   If fear has been whispering lately this conversation might be exactly what you need.

We are the Dam - We Control the Energy that Flows Through Us - From Panic Attacks to Chaos Reduction

Most high performers do not need more discipline. They need a better recovery plan. (And no, a once a year vacation does not count.) On the episode, I sat down with Eric Recker, a dentist and “chaos reduction” coach for medical practice owners. Eric has lived the thing so many leaders hide. He ran an 18 person dental practice into the ground, burnout, panic attacks, the whole spiral, then rebuilt it into a calmer, profitable practice that runs smoothly. Now he helps other medical entrepreneurs create calm, not by adding more systems, but by reducing the chaos at the source. Eric teaches “the dam analogy.” Outflow is everything that drains you, even good things. Work. Habits. Volunteering. Vacation planning. All outflow. Reserves are the lake behind the dam. When the lake is low, you can look “successful” and still be one hard week away from snapping. So the real goal is balance. An appropriate amount of outflow, matched with self care that fills the dam back up. If you work 40, 50, 60 hours a week, this episode is for you.

Elastigirl: Doing Everything for Everyone All the Time / Tapping into the Divine Feminine

This week on the One Fear Per Year podcast, I sat down with someone who understands the weight of “doing it all”… because she lived it.  Carol Williams isn’t just a productivity coach. She’s a certified coach, speaker, and thelongtime Dream Director at the Beacon of Light Center --> thewoman executives and business owners call when their life feels scattered and they’re burning out quietly behind the scenes.     She has spent 16 years helping entrepreneurslevel up without losing themselves, speaking at statewide HRorganizations, summits, and podcasts, and building her signature “Success Cake”method that brings the fun back into productivity.     But what I didn’t expect was how deeply she would speak to the fears we never say out loud. The ones that push us to overwork. The ones that whisper “you won’t be enough unless you keep going.” The ones that make us ignore our own non-negotiables until we crack.   She shared the moment everything changed for her, leaving a toxic marriage, sitting with the terror of “How will I make it alone?” and asking for help for the first time in her life. (Not because she wasn’t strong… but because staying the same was finally more painful than stepping into the unknown.)   We talked burnout. We talked feminine and masculine energy. We talked about why so many of us are afraid to slow down… even when it’s the only way to heal.   And at the end, I asked her the opposite of fear. One word. Her answer?   Love.   Because we’re either living from fear, or living from love. And every day, we choose.   What’s one fear that’s been pushing you to go faster… when what youreally need is to pause?   Full episode in the comments below!  #onefearperyear