Description In this episode, I sit down with Jane Chen, bestselling author of Like a Wave We Break and co-founder of Embrace Global, a company that developed a groundbreaking low-cost infant incubator that has impacted over 1,000,000 babies. Jane's story is one of extraordinary impact, but also deep personal reckoning. After spending years building a company with the mission of saving premature and underweight babies around the world, Jane found herself burned out, broken, and forced to confront the trauma, identity, and inner pain she had spent much of her life outrunning. Our conversation goes far beyond achievement. We talk about what happens when success becomes your identity, how childhood wounds can quietly shape ambition, why healing requires feeling instead of just thinking, and what it means to lead from wholeness rather than fear. Jane shares the journey that took her from Stanford to India, from building Embrace to nearly losing herself, and eventually to Hawaii, where she began rebuilding her life around presence, compassion, surrender, and joy. About the Guest Jane Chen is a speaker, leadership coach, bestselling author, and co-founder and former CEO of Embrace Global. Embrace developed a low-cost infant incubator designed to help premature and underweight babies in areas without access to traditional medical equipment. The company has now impacted over 1,000,000 babies around the world. Jane is also the author of Like a Wave We Break, a memoir about achievement, burnout, trauma, healing, and the search for identity beyond external success. She is a TED speaker, Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, and has been recognized by Forbes, The Economist, Fast Company, and the World Economic Forum for her work in innovation and social impact. Today, Jane works as a leadership coach and speaker, helping people cultivate resilience, emotional awareness, self-compassion, and conscious leadership. Key Takeaways → Why achievement can become a hiding place for unresolved pain → How Jane's childhood trauma shaped her drive to help the most powerless people in the world → Why building Embrace became deeply tied to Jane's identity → What happens when the thing you built begins to collapse — and you no longer know who you are without it → Why trauma is not just something that happened in the past, but something that lives in the body and nervous system → Why talk therapy alone did not work for Jane, and why somatic healing became such an important part of her journey → How Internal Family Systems and "parts work" helped Jane understand her inner critic, overachiever, and need for control → Why self-compassion is often more powerful than self-improvement → How high performers can confuse external success with internal worth → Why surrender, patience, and rest are essential parts of healing → What it means to lead from wholeness instead of fear, ego, or control → How Jane now defines success through values, love, growth, service, and joy Closing Thoughts This conversation with Jane reminded me that success can create impact, but it cannot heal what we refuse to face. So many high performers spend their lives building, achieving, proving, and pushing forward — only to realize that the external wins do not always quiet the internal pain. Jane's story is powerful because she did not just build something that helped save lives. She also had to learn how to save herself from the identity, pressure, and pain that had been driving her for so long. The lesson is not that ambition is bad. The lesson is that ambition becomes dangerous when it is disconnected from self-compassion, presence, and truth. Real healing does not come from doing more. It begins when we stop performing, listen to what is underneath, and finally meet ourselves with compassion.
