Fay Chan (00:00):
A Client said to me that my work is like a microwave. He doesn't know how it works, but it works. So EFT tapping is just that, you want to get to that block faster, you want to break through it at a quicker pace. Then this is your modality. It's really about getting straight into your body, where your emotion is, how it's hooked up to you, how it's driving your consistent behaviours and then unhooking all of it.
This is a real pleasure and a joy to work with adults and children in unhooking all those driven behaviours. That's actually stemmed from an event or a similar thought process or a familiar feeling. That's why EFT is such a powerful modality and it's natural, who wouldn’t want that? Get over your problems quicker, power through them and actually not have it impact you.
That's what I do.
Lucy:
What's really holding you back from true business success? Well, today's Mumbition the Podcast guest has an answer and it's as simple and as complicated as your mindset. Fay Chan is the founder of Living Well with Fay, an emotional freedom technique practitioner and one of our 50 Mums & Co experts. In this conversation, Carrie and I were fascinated by the insights that Fay shared into how she has helped hundreds of clients and also their children overcome obstacles and reach their full potential by learning to listen to their bodies.
Carrie Kwan (01:05):
Now we're passionate, Fay, about sharing women's stories, telling the world about the amazing work that they do and how they do it. Can you please tell us a bit about you and your business?
Fay Chan (01:19):
My story started, well, this journey started 18 years ago when I left my corporate job back then, and I knew that one more day here, meant one less day discovering what it is I'm passionate about. And back then I had no idea. I thought I had an idea, but really in the realm of work and after uni and all that stuff, I had no idea. So I took that step and I quit. And it was one of the scariest days of my life because all through my life has been banked on, built on that trajectory. I've been fed nothing else but that. And so when I really knew I needed to back myself with the uncertainty of not knowing whether I'm going to be okay or not, it all started back there. So it's only in looking back for the last 18 years that I'm now here, or really when I certified and did the course back in 2018 and I was ready when the floodgates opened in 2020, I now know, aha, that's the journey I needed to take to land here as a EFT tapping practitioner.
Carrie Kwan (02:30):
Well, thank you for your bravery in taking that step. It's a similar story for me. I did jump ship from corporate way back to start my first business, my first microbusiness or startup. And that takes a lot of courage. But I think the cost is not worth it. The cost of not doing it is also something that... I Am very much diving into EFT and I want to know all about this because I feel like it's a new concept, wellbeing concept, and discipline. So tell us about EFT. What is it? If it forms the basis of your work now, can you explain to all our Mumbition listeners how this process works?
Fay Chan (03:14):
Yes. I'll explain it how I explain it to children because it really is simple. So here I am holding up a keyring. For the listeners, it's a keyring of the Eiffel Tower. I'm holding up a Rubik's Cube, and I'm holding up a highlighter. So you can point and touch these things. You can hold them and feel them. So if I were to say to you, point to nervousness, point to disappointment, point to doubt, you can't, but you can feel it in your body, because our emotions are actually in our cell receptors and it's actually physically lodged and impressed in our DNA in cells. So with tapping, which utilises the acupressure points, so whilst pulsing with your fingertips on specific points, you're still sending electrical signals to the brain to calm the amygdala. And then we're using the cognitive and exposure therapy, so the talking here to bring it up on purpose, to trigger it. Even though I'm indecisive about what to do with my business, I love and support myself.
(04:27):
So I'm deliberately saying it to bring it up because this, and I'm holding up a highlighter, it's lodged somewhere in your body. So for kids or adults, it's somewhere in the stomach or in their head or in their shoulders. We're looking at this and this is actually lodged in and anchored in with memories, with emotions, and with meanings and perspectives that you've determined for yourself at that time and lived it since. Literally like a computer virus running a script, collecting evidence through time. And that's why life repeats for you. You're going, I've got a different boyfriend, I've got a different job, I've got different friends, and yet the same crap turns up. What's happening? It's because your script that's in your body is running the show. So EFT looks at uninstalling the script. We need to find the source memory and see how it's there and rewire it basically.
Carrie Kwan (05:31):
So what I'm hearing is that we've been the sum of many of our experiences that have accumulated over time, and we attach certain meaning to those experiences. I've heard it once referred to as a fixed way of being. So if something happens, you end up going back into that fixed mode no matter who it's with because you've attached a certain meaning to that experience and it's triggered you and you go back into that. So I love that you can rewrite your story. That's what you're basically saying.
Fay Chan (06:05):
Yeah. I mean, you're not going to forget the memories. You're not going to erase them, neither are you going to give up chocolate just because you tapped about chocolate and found out the source of your emotional eating. You're still going to like chocolate, but you get to say when you have it. So the power is restored back to you. It's not over there with the chocolate or it's not over there with your KPIs. It's not over there, I need to make money. It's over here restored back to you. So you've got clarity and confidence with what you want to make.
Lucy Kippist (06:37):
So the concept that you've explained to us is fascinating, but I wouldn't say that it's not without complexity or not without a certain level of confrontation. If you're open to those kinds of things, you're going to be fairly receptive to it. But what happens when you are networking, which I know you do a lot of as a small business owner, and you're trying to get that concept to someone in that, Carrie talks about it being sort of that one to three minute kind of pitch. How do you synchronise all those thoughts quickly and connect with someone so that they're receptive to the message that you're sharing in that networking capacity?
Fay Chan (07:15):
Yeah, good question. A lot of people would've heard about tapping, seen tapping online, may have done some videos or some scripts on YouTube or on an app, and so they're already familiar. So I just really distinguish for them what it is to work with a practitioner versus tapping for yourself, which is really about self-regulation, feeling better in the moment so you can get on with your day versus the unplugging, the transforming work, which needs to be done with a practitioner.
(07:48):
And I guess because I've been in personal development for such a long time that the language naturally comes to me when I'm talking about stuff. And prior to me being in tapping, I was in budgeting, so I've been around the circles around, but using numbers, budgeting as an access to transformation, because when you cough up your numbers, what it is and what it isn't, it's actually there's a real power there, knowing whether you're in a negative or in the positive. So there's a real power also to how you've been being or how you've ended up being up here as to a specific memory that the body has recognized that it needs survival in. Right?
Lucy Kippist (08:39):
Yeah. Fascinating. And that's really relevant because you're part of the Mums & Co expert team for the next 12 months, and you're running workshops based around this idea of unblocking these blocks to our business. And a lot of the time, as you've shared before, it's about that money block, and we tend to think, oh, I've just got to scrutinise my spreadsheet, or I've got to re-strategise my strategy. But what you're going to be sharing with the community in your sessions is actually, it goes, yes, it's about those things, but in order to have leverage, in order to move through them, you need to do this initial personal work first in order to clear the path.
Fay Chan (09:20):
Yeah, definitely. Because anyone working on a money mindset is coming to me with the 10% of the iceberg that's on top of the water. It's called, this is the problem, this is the, I've done masterminds, I've read books, I've done mantras, I've done affirmations, I've done meditations, I've got all these books of money and nothing's moving, or they're plateauing. They'll hit something, they'll plateau or dive and hit again. It's just a cycle. And so in the personal work is the deep dive into the water, into the iceberg, and you don't know what's going to be presented, and that's a surprise, but that's a confrontation at the same time.
(10:00):
So I've tapped with people on money and what's resulted is shame and embarrassment due to an abuse situation where they were young or I've tapped with people on money and what's resulted is a deceased person in their family or procrastination is actually about not being with finality and completion, nothing to do with, I can't make things happen. So you never know, and I never make promises what to know because it's all inside of you. Your body has embedded it, has taken the meaning, has lived it like your truth and your belief, and it keeps recycling. So you're coming to me with a 10% above the water because you're going, "It keeps happening," and I need to work with you to deep dive into the 90% that's under the water. There's only so much strategy you can do. When the strategy keeps repeating, then you know there's an emotional anchor there.
Carrie Kwan (11:03):
And I imagine that can be quite a confronting process, and a lot of things kind of surface in that sort of measured look at a meaning and how you attach something to that experience. That nature of work requires clients to share a lot of potentially very private information about themselves. And I'm always fascinated by the concept of how we de-risk the business-owning journey and how we protect our children from risk and our family from risk. So how do you view risk? What does risk play as a role in your business?
Fay Chan (11:43):
This is a natural modality, and they're tapping on themselves. I work solely online. So I'm not tapping on the client. The client is following me, tapping on themselves and because it's a 100% natural modality, there's no side effects as such. Now, there are emotional side effects called being with yourself, looking at yourself in the mirror, understanding how that one particular event was the chain reaction to the last three decades of your life. And you're like, oh my goodness. The domino's fall.
(12:20):
So inherently what I see as the risk lies in the ethical component. It's about not sharing information with other people because it's private and confidential, understanding that there's implicit trust placed on me from the client as the practitioner, that it's a real privilege to hear humanity. And so for me, it lies more in ethics than it does about risk, because I've heard the worst of the worst, I've cried tears with clients, I've sobbed on the couch myself afterwards, but it's the access to humanity. So for me, it's not about risk because it's their life that they're actually talking about, and I'm releasing it out of their bodies for them. But really, it's all about ethics here. It's like what ethical grounds that I discern for myself that I do not cross.
Lucy Kippist (13:26):
But you don't have a website and you rely solely on social media to promote your business. So we know that visibility is a core challenge for lots of our community. Can you just share one of the ways that you've used really successfully to help boost the visibility of your business?
Fay Chan (13:43):
I ask for reviews.
Carrie Kwan (13:44):
Fay, hot off the press, we've actually just had the Micro Business Report. It's called Micro but Mighty, and it's by the McKell Institute, commissioned by NRMA Insurance. And interestingly, 41% of all microbusinesses conduct more than half of their business online, solely online.
Fay Chan (14:07):
Oh, wow. Okay.
Carrie Kwan (14:08):
So it's interesting to have, this is definitely a key channel that most people use, or 41% of microbusinesses use.
Fay Chan (14:18):
Yep, for sure. Yeah, I ask for reviews and I don't ask the client to... I say, "Do whatever you want, say whatever you want. You can be as general or specific as you like," because it's about their life really. And I do share that often. And I do ask for, not with every single client, but I do ask for it often. And it comes and there's been a lot of feedback from other new clients that say, "I've been reading your reviews, and finally I'm reaching out." And it might take them two years to reach out because they are talking about something confronting them. So when they're ready, they reach out.
(14:58):
So, I share a lot of reviews. I share pictures with clients with their permission. The last one I had was she was holding up a Cadbury Dairy Milk, was it a Caramello block, whatever, in front of her face. So she doesn't show her face, but it's a chocolate block because I'm tapping with her on chocolate. I do share stories about children. The last one I shared was on a nursery rhyme that a child has sleep anxiety about, because their imagination just ran rampant with it. So it was out of a nursery rhyme that kept the child up or kept him scared from going to sleep. So I share a lot of personal aspects, and everybody's human, so everybody goes through their variation of the same thing.
Carrie Kwan (15:44):
As you were just giving that example with a child, I was actually wondering, does this modality actually work for everyone?
Fay Chan (15:51):
Now, I work with children and adults. I find that it works with children faster. They've got less baggage. They've been here on earth less, and they're a lot more attuned and aware of their body. And although my style with kids is different because I need to draw out more information than I do with an adult, I test a lot more inside my tapping sessions with kids. I test it. I'll bring it out of them, I'll ask questions, I'll ask yesterday's questions and see whether it resonates. But it works fabulously with kids.
(16:28):
And the thing is, if they know how to regulate themselves at such a young age, they can just keep using, just tap on a point at school. Or when they're fighting with their sibling and they've got big feelings coming up, they just tap on top of their head because that's where they feel comfortable tapping. And I've heard parents' feedback that to me, it's like, "I saw him fighting with his brother and then all of a sudden he's sitting there tapping." Because they know that big feelings come up and this is how they can calm themselves down. So it really teaches them self-regulation, and that's really powerful to get at a young age.
Carrie Kwan (17:02):
Now, Mums & Co, we talk about harmony as a triangle of ambition, our livelihood and our wellbeing. There are all our different identities that have to harmonise together. Can you describe the shape of a good life for you?
Fay Chan (17:17):
Well, first and foremost, wellbeing used to be my value of security, but I know that's a survival mechanism for me, given I'm Asian. So it used to be about security, but really now it's wellbeing. Good community and relationships, although I've discovered that the more I've advanced in my personal development and wellbeing, the lonelier it gets. So you need to be really comfortable with yourself and comfortable being by yourself more often than not. And ambition, yeah, used to be ambition for me, but that's sort of morphed across to passion and fulfilment for me. So, fulfilment's my currency. When I get feedback from clients from what they experienced last week versus now, or the feedback they get from other people going, "You look different. I can't believe you do this," or, "You're so confident now, what happened to you?" So when others see the change in the client and that gets feedback to me in a session, it's a real palpable, exquisite fulfilment I feel in myself. And that's my currency now.
Carrie Kwan (18:33):
Beautiful interpretation.
Lucy Kippist (18:35):
In the spirit of women supporting women, which I know that you do, who are the mumbitious, the women unapologetically blending motherhood and business, who you'd like to shout out to today?
Fay Chan (18:46):
Gosh, there's so many. I like to acknowledge, especially single mums trying to get their business off the ground. It's already hard enough doing it partnered and with a very supportive husband and partner who knows a lot about marketing himself. It was hard enough getting this off the ground, but I can't imagine with the little bit of time that you've got as a single mother trying to do it. So hats off to them because I know how hard it is wrangling children, wrangling yourself, the household, and then seemingly trying to appear online and do your work as well.
Carrie Kwan (19:27):
And we absolutely resonate in that hat tip to those women because they are incredible. And we promise we respect their time, and we respect what they do and however they show up.
Lucy Kippist (19:46):
Thanks so much for joining us on mum, the podcast by Mums & Co. If you'd like to find out more about Fay Chan and EFT, you can find her on our Mums & Co membership directory or join her upcoming expert workshop session on Wednesday the 2nd of November at 10 a.m. You could also book a one on one session with Fay for 30 minutes via the Mums & Co expert platform at mumsandco.com.au.
We really hope today's story has inspired you and we'd love to help support your own business journey in 2023 at Mums & Co we help women in business grow. And our four tiers of membership provide strategic advice, access to deep networks and opportunities to be more visible. Head over to mumsandco.com.au. For more details or book a 1 to 1 member chat today. And if you've enjoyed this podcast, please make sure to like and review it. As it helps other women in business, find us so we can support their business journey too.
Question from little Co (20:14):
What’s your advice when fighting with your brother?
Fay Chan (20:20):
Oh, okay. Recognise the big feelings in your body first, let it go in a balloon, and then replace it with another thought. Feel better, and then talk to your brother. Feeling that, just tap. Literally just tap and you access it.
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