Julia Cha of Cha Global Coaching Ltd On Becoming Free From The Fear Of Failure

An Interview With Savio P. Clemente

Know what ideal outcome you’re building: You have to know what you want to build, even if you don’t know the how. You have to have a destination in mind. This doesn’t mean that you should only focus on the financial goal. You need a financial goal, a why for the purpose, and a clear vision of lifestyle goals. You don’t only want the money. You want to make a difference, as well as have fun, relaxation, and joy. All of these items have to be a part of your intention because your intention will guide you to make the right decisions along the way. Act from a place of inspiration rather than from fear and pain. Being in high vibration is the only way you can become free of this fear.

The Fear of Failure is one of the most common restraints that holds people back from pursuing great ideas. Imagine if we could become totally free from the fear of failure. Imagine what we could then manifest and create. In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who can share stories and insights from their experience about “Becoming Free From the Fear of Failure.” As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Julia Cha.

Julia Cha is a holistic Success Coach who works with entrepreneurs and leaders in corporations. Her unique approach to upgrading her client’s mindset from struggle to success has resulted in a list of clients who started from scratch to reach 6 figures and went from 6 figures to 7 figures, within months of working with her. www.juliacha.com

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

My backstory is far from being a Success Coach. If my early story was a book, it would be boring. It’d be a series of chapters with a victim mindset, mediocrity, excuses, splashed with entitlement, which is the most toxic and unsuccessful combination of all. Darren Hardy said, “The day you graduate from childhood to adulthood is the day you take full responsibility for your life.” For me, that wake-up into real adulthood didn’t begin until my early 30s, after I had hit about the 5th rock bottom. Some of us are mighty stubborn and need a lot of pain before realizing we have to change.

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

I have so many, but one stands out because it’s fresh. I recently had a new client who was making about $20,000 a month, doing most of the work himself in his consulting business. During our first conversation, he told me he was tired of struggling. The first strategy we put into place was hiring salespeople, and more strategies took place from there. In 2.5 months, he started making $100,000 in revenue. This demonstrates a simple concept in action: If you have the right systems, you get the results.

Too many times, people struggle for results without implementing the corresponding system.

You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. You need healthy discernment and good decision-making skills. Everyone has an opinion about you, what you do, and how you do it, but most of those opinions are not only invalid, they are destructive if you let them in. Consider first if the person speaking has created anything remotely relevant to what your goals are. If the answer is no, don’t listen. An example comes from my own experience. When I first went into business, people around me told me nobody will pay for coaching, or that I will have to struggle for 2 years to be profitable. It start to put fears in me, so I stopped talking to those people. I was successful in quitting my 9–5 job and transitioning to my own business and making a profit within months. The same people who put fears in me were scrambling when the COVID quarantine happened, not knowing how to balance childcare and work, whereas I had zero concerns in that area. I had already been working from home for years and stabilized my business with a steady clientele.
2. You need to act before you’re ready. Everyone likes to stay on the sidelines and wait for other people to jump in first. People wait for way too long to do the right thing. In our upbringing, through the school system and our family’s scarcity mindset too, we’re ingrained to not value our time. We’re trained to stress over every penny, but not value hours, days, months, or even years of our time. For those who understand success, time is always of the essence. Time is more valuable than money. Don’t wait until everyone is doing it to start suspiciously dipping your toes. By the time it’s popular, it’s too late. By then, you have to work harder and much smarter to dominate the field. A good example is advertising. 7 years ago, if you ran Facebook ads, the return was so huge. You could get a quality lead for $50-$100 ad spend in a typical service-based business. Those entrepreneurs made a lot of money. Many millionaires were made from Facebook ads. If you try running Facebook ads now, for most service-based businesses, it’s not a good idea. Or, you have to be ultra-sophisticated to get a great return. You can end up paying upwards of $200 per lead, and they can be low-quality. Stop waiting until something is proven a million times that it works before you “try it,” meaning, only then, sheepishly dipping your toes in. Instead, find what isn’t popular but has some proven results, then jump in. Figure it out.
3. Have patience. No great empires were ever built overnight. Any overnight success took more than a decade to get there behind the scenes. A client was feeling down. She had been working hard but was still “stuck” in the $50,000/month mark ($600,000 a year). She saw another entrepreneur go from zero to $1,000,000 within a year. I told her not to worry. I knew her business from the early days, and it had so much substance and merit. She was producing a lot of successful client results. I told her that it takes more than getting fast sales to have a lasting business. You need a solid foundation, and legitimacy is one important aspect of a solid foundation. Too many “online entrepreneurs” sell the dream of being an online entrepreneur to frustrated, hurt, sometimes unstable people, promising them some magic. That kind of business cannot sustain for the long term. Sure enough, months later, that “overnight success guru” started struggling, and my client hit her 7-figures, and I knew she was there to stay. It’s not a success unless you can sustain it. Established news networks from all over the world wanted to feature her. Billionaires were contacting her, wanting to have a conversation with her. Her influence is just beginning and rising exponentially.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the concept of becoming free from failure. Let’s zoom in a bit. From your experience, why exactly are people so afraid of failure? Why is failure so frightening to us?

Fear of failure comes from our natural human survival instinct. We are social animals, and this fear is related to not being accepted by those who we consider our “inner circle.” It’s a fear that wants to keep us belonging to a group. The need to belong is a powerful motivator that supersedes willpower.

People are afraid of disappointing those they love. With every client I’ve worked with, this has been a consistent theme. They are afraid of disappointing those who they are responsible for, such as their children. They are afraid that they won’t be able to provide for them. This is the exact fear that I manage within myself as well. I’m the most afraid of failing my children.

Next, people are afraid of failing their loved ones, like their spouses, as well as their parents, who invested a lot in their education and hold high expectations. People also care about what other people will think of them, such as colleagues, friends, and others they have known for a long time.

The last person they’re afraid to disappoint is themselves.

Fear of failure is instinctual. That means we cannot completely delete it because it’s part of being human. In fact, there is some good to it. The fear exists to keep us safe. It is important. Fears can be useful, but also stop us from thriving.

Thriving requires the opposite of survival. We cannot get rid of the survival fear, but we can discern and manage it effectively.

What are the downsides of being afraid of failure? How can it limit people?

When you give in to the fear of failure, it keeps you in survival mode. That, by nature, means you have to accept limitations. You have to stay safe. This is the opposite of achieving an impossible goal because to do that, you have to be willing to take risks. Survival is highly risk averse. In survival mode, people wait much too long to take action on what will move the needle. Fear freezes people from thinking long-term, and encourages people to make decisions that give them instant gratification. Instant gratification always sabotages the prospect of long-term success and legacy.

When you live in fear, you repel happy and balanced people. Misery loves company. You’ll surround yourself with fearful people who are equally frozen, then we have a “blind leading the blind” situation. You’ll wonder why your life and career are not progressing. Misery and scarcity have momentum and build over time. You observe a magnified version of the fear you started out with.

Here’s an example. A woman was afraid of getting her dance choreography wrong. She hired a private tutor, but that’s not what she needed. She needed to stop relying on others while distrusting herself. She was afraid of failing and looking ridiculous on stage. That fear made her forget the choreography, no matter how much she studied and repeated it. The same woman had a dream of starting a new business. She had great ideas, but she couldn’t take action. She was frozen while needing constant approval and reassurance from her spouse or friends. She was afraid of making the wrong decision at every turn. She trusted the opinion of people with no relevant experience more than her own as an expert. The more you repeat a pattern, the greater it becomes.

In contrast, can you help articulate a few ways how becoming free from the free of failure can help improve our lives?

When you stop imagining the worst-case outcome, you become free. You become free to explore. You become more curious. Good things happen to you more, because you’re open and willing to connect with others. You become more interesting and fun to be around, which builds your network. You make decisions that keep building abundance upon abundance. This is how some people have that magic touch, where everything they touch turns to gold. Just like scarcity and misery, abundance also has a momentum that builds and snowballs exponentially over time.

I was once afraid of posting anything authentically myself on social media. Instead, I used Facebook to blog about my kids, which is something I’m now against. Children need to be in a position to consent, and being children, they cannot consent. I have since deleted all posts relating to my children. I was living vicariously by talking about how great my kids were. I intensely feared judgment from others. I also thought of myself as being really bad on video, especially when speaking. I was self-conscious about my speaking, as English is my third language.

One day, at the peak of my fear, I decided that enough was enough. So I took my coach’s challenge to go live on Facebook for 7 days straight. Even when the coach and I parted ways, I coached myself to go live three times a week for over a year. My business snowballed from facing that fear. I did the same on LinkedIn and later implemented the same strategies on YouTube and TikTok. I don’t believe many women influencers are comfortable going on camera with zero makeup. I am. I have done it many times. My value comes from my knowledge and wisdom, not my looks. My audience barely notices it. They like my words, what I once thought of as my “weakness.” It turned out that using words is my strength.

Any time you want to avoid something, that’s where your development needs to happen to elevate you. The best way to overcome your fear is to act to face the fear. That’s where your success begins.

We would love to hear your story about your experience dealing with failure. Would you be able to share a story about that with us?

I mentioned at the very beginning of the interview that for most of my life I was mediocre. Thanks for continuing to read even with that kind of introduction. I don’t like to call failures “failures.” I like to call them experiments. I had so many experiments and they have been my greatest teachers, not my successes.

I had an experimental partnership that was proven to be unsuccessful. It took me away from the life I wanted to live. I found myself playing a role in someone else’s movie, in a role that I didn’t feel I consented to, but I did consent to by being there. I’ve been mostly single since then, raising two kids as a single mom. I’m proud of my teenage son and my preteen daughter. They exceeded my expectations, and I know that has a lot to do with my leadership. Our successes always have to start in our personal life. There is no such thing as professional success without personal life success. Professional success without personal life success is a fleeting illusion. In a scenario like this, your professional success is unsustainable, and time will show you that. Your personal life is the foundation, and you build your professional success on top of that, not the other way around.

I had many experiments in my professional life as well. I had clients who were not my ideal. It was mutually an unfavorable fit, and it took experiments to understand that. I had mostly successes with clients, but the experiments showed me more about why I love the clients that are the right fit. I love them so much. We mutually get a lot of power, drive, and energy from each other’s presence.

I once experimented with a group mastermind which did not work to my standards. Instead of abandoning the idea completely, I disbanded the group and analyzed why it didn’t work the way I wanted it to work. I’m currently masterminding an amazing experience that will give clients a lot more than what a 1:1 experience can ever give them, including many unconventional methods such as moving energy through movement, and writing. Both my former experience in dance and authorship has given me this unique idea that will radically shift and develop people in record time to go from fear to embodying a successful, abundant mindset.

How did you rebound and recover after that? What did you learn from this whole episode? What advice would you give to others based on that story?

Every failure, aka experiment, has elevated me to the next level. The more pressure you feel, the more growth you’ll experience when you accept the challenge. Stop resisting, and instead, accept it. This is your chance to become greater than the fear and the challenge facing you. Jump before you’re ready. Do the right thing. Waiting too long will make the fear even greater. Imagine standing by the edge of a cliff, waiting to bungee jump until you “feel better.” It won’t happen. The longer you wait, the fear will grow greater, and become monstrous to engulf you to the point that any fine intentions or willpower won’t stand a chance. You won’t jump, turn around, and descend from the mountain. You’ll feel bad about yourself and identify yourself as a “giver upper.” You missed the chance between the sharp pang of fear and quickly pushing through it. If you act fast, your push, or momentum, can beat the fear.

My advice is to ask yourself how this fearful experience is actually helping you, rather than seeing it as a force against you. Then, just jump, with the belief that you’re capable to figure anything out.

Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that everyone can take to become free from the fear of failure”? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Know what ideal outcome you’re building: You have to know what you want to build, even if you don’t know the how. You have to have a destination in mind. This doesn’t mean that you should only focus on the financial goal. You need a financial goal, a why for the purpose, and a clear vision of lifestyle goals. You don’t only want the money. You want to make a difference, as well as have fun, relaxation, and joy. All of these items have to be a part of your intention because your intention will guide you to make the right decisions along the way. Act from a place of inspiration rather than from fear and pain. Being in high vibration is the only way you can become free of this fear.
2. Focus on the pleasure of the outcome, rather than the pain of the process: The brain desires pleasure and avoids pain. You can do anything if you focus on the vision of the pleasure that the outcome will give you. Think about how people can get huge and complex tattoos. They care about the beautiful outcome, and that pleasure overrides the pain of having the needle penetrate the skin thousands of times. Their appreciation of body art and the sense of identity they feel from having this art on them is what overrides the pain. When you apply this concept, you can truly withstand any turbulence and fears. You win over them every single time.
3. Get support and a community: It’s anti-human to override our survival fear. You have a much higher chance of succeeding when you have the right support and a community of people living boldly. You become who you surround yourself with.
4. Commit to your goals every morning through reading and visualizing: Our memories are not that great. You can’t remember what you ate for breakfast 5 days ago. There is little chance you stay connected to your long-term goals unless you remind yourself daily. Prime your mind continuously by reading and visualizing what you are creating to ingrain in your mind what outcome you are moving towards. Then, it’s much easier to make the right decisions.
5. Experience ease and opulence regularly to experience a high-frequency state: You can’t create and live what you’re unfamiliar with. Be serviced with a regular massage, get a really nice blow dry, go on a helicopter, test drive a car that you want, take a whole day off, and have a relaxed day with your family. If you don’t give yourself a curated experience of a life you want and familiarize yourself with those experiences, you won’t create it.

The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.” Based on your experience, have you found this quote to be true? What do you think Aristotle really meant?

I absolutely agree. Success leaves footprints. All you have to do is find someone who has done it and follow those steps. People overcomplicate things all the time.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Leadership is full of scarce and toxic leaders. Historically, human civilizations have developed under narcissistic, authoritarian, toxic leadership. Toxic leadership has been the typical norm. Under such leadership, we observe temporary “success” and efficiency,” and temporary can mean decades or centuries while creating long-term mess and chaos, as well as generational trauma that causes great problems in humanity. The Americas were created from colonization, genocide, and slavery, and we’re now heavily paying the price in our societies. Many corporations run unethically for decades. My goal is to inspire conscious change-makers to take prominent leadership roles. Narcissistic entitlement and inflated sense of self puts toxic individuals as leaders across industries and organizations. Many conscious leaders need a lot of confidence boost and development to start taking those leadership roles and govern in a people-centric way.

This is a huge process that will take much longer than my life span. I’d like to contribute to this movement along with many others with the same mission.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them :-)

Makeup artist Kandee Johnson, entrepreneur Arlene Dickinson, and author J.K. Rowling have both been huge influences that opened my eyes that single moms can do great things. I’m forever grateful for their existence.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can check me out on my website, www.juliacha.com, and read my books. All the links are available on my website. If you resonate and would like to do this work together, consider joining my Rich & Loved™ Leadership Mastermind. The information is also on my website.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.

About The Interviewer: Savio P. Clemente coaches cancer survivors to overcome the confusion and gain the clarity needed to get busy living in mind, body, and spirit. He inspires health and wellness seekers to find meaning in the “why” and to cultivate resilience in their mindset. Savio is a Board Certified wellness coach (NBC-HWC, ACC), stage 3 cancer survivor, podcaster, writer, and founder of The Human Resolve LLC.

Savio pens a weekly newsletter at thehumanresolve.com where he delves into secrets from living smarter to feeding your “three brains” — head 🧠, heart 💓, and gut 🤰 — in hopes of connecting the dots to those sticky parts in our nature that matter.

He has been featured on Fox News, and has collaborated with Authority Magazine, Thrive Global, Food Network, WW, and Bloomberg. His mission is to offer clients, listeners, and viewers alike tangible takeaways in living a truly healthy, wealthy, and wise lifestyle.

Savio lives in the suburbs of Westchester County, New York and continues to follow his boundless curiosity. He hopes to one day live out a childhood fantasy and explore outer space.