A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:
Jane W. Wang is a self-actualization coach based in Taipei, Taiwan. She spoke candidly with me about the challenges she faced in her journey to become a coach, which involved dealing with imposter syndrome and bouts of depression. She’s channeled these personal experiences into creating her Multicultural Hero’s Journey program. We also talked about the field of coaching, what coaching is, and how it differs from counseling and psychotherapy. I interviewed Jane back in July of this year. We’ve spoken since then and Jane is ever evolving. It’ll be interesting to see what future developments we hear from her.
Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:
- Jane’s connection to Taiwan
- How being a third culture kid (TCK) has shaped her identity and life purpose
- Her career path before becoming a coach
- Why she wanted to become a coach
- Her personal journey, the struggles and depression that she dealt with along the way before she became a coach
- Why she decided not to get a degree in counseling from Columbia University and instead got certified in coaching
- What is coaching and how it differs from counseling or psychotherapy
- Jane’s own experiences with coaching, being the person being coached by someone else
- Jane’s advice on how to pick a coach to work with
- The challenges Jane faced in becoming a coach
- The depression and imposter syndrome she experienced in the process of becoming a coach
- How Jane dealt with her self-judgment and learned to love herself
- How Jane dealt with three bouts of depression
- What she learned from going through depression
- How someone can identify whether or not they themselves or someone they know is experiencing depression
- How Jane created her Multicultural Hero’s Journey coaching program
- Who would benefit the most by going through the Multicultural Hero’s Journey coaching program
- Jane’s advice for people who are interested in becoming a coach
- What it takes to be a good coach
Related Links:
Jane W. Wang’s website: https://www.janewwang.com/
Third Culture Kid (TCK): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_culture_kid
Imposter syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
“How do you know when you’re depressed?” (an article from Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute): https://bit.ly/3ESSxeX