I’m Julia Cha, holistic success coach and author. I’ve worked with hundreds of women founders, entrepreneurs, and executives all around the world to reach their impossible. 

To become successful in my own ventures, I had to become my own client first. So much of this journey had to do with breaking and healing my generational trauma cycle.

Just 11 years ago, I was far from who I am now. I can’t even recognize myself. In 2011, I had just given birth to my daughter, my second child. In my upbringing, being a mom was supposed to make a woman happy and fulfilled. I was happy to have a daughter. I always dreamt that I’d have a daughter. Yet, once I had her, I was terrified that I’d raise her to become like me. I had so much self-loathing. There was a part of me that felt dead. 

I couldn’t articulate at the time, but I was frozen in so much fear. I had big dreams I couldn’t make come true. I felt I had no power in relationships. I was a big people-pleaser. I felt helpless around finances. I was afraid of everything. It’s hard to believe, but at 28, I didn’t even have my drivers license. That’s how fearful I used to be.

Having my daughter and observing her pure perfection, something shook in me. Something was manifesting inside, and that was a realization that this version of me that I’m living wasn’t who I always was. Once, I was as confident, as cheery, and as authentic as my baby girl. I even felt that I could remember a young version of me like that. This small realization shook me to the core. I couldn’t ignore the truth that this fearful person I was being wasn’t who I really am. If that was the case, then there must be a way for me to become this version of myself that my daughter was reminding me of. 

For more on breaking generational conditioning, check out my best-selling book, Am I There Yet? The Messy Business Of Being Yourself When You Have No Idea Who That Is.

This realization spiraled and birthed a new realization that I could no longer take back. If my greatest identifiable fear was that my daughter will potentially become who I was being, the only way to stop that meant that I had to become someone else. A powerful woman who makes it all happen. An independent woman who creates it all. The more I leaned into this, the more I realized that my relationship was toxic and it was making me more of who I didn’t want to become. 

I separated from my ex, my children’s father. It was 2012. I had a 4 year-old boy and a 9 months old baby girl. 

It took me years after the separation to fully accept that I was being abused. While in it, I never saw my relationship as an abusive one; after all, there was no cheating or regular physical violence. Yet, it was controlling and manipulative. I committed to this relationship because of years of unresolved childhood trauma. I saw control, put-downs, and manipulation as “normal.” This relationship made the effects of my childhood trauma significantly worse. I was unable to do anything because of constant put-downs, which magnified the self-hate and fear. 

Leaving that relationship was only the beginning journey for success. The true learning began once I had left. I had to figure out how to balance between growing a career and raising two little ones. I was constantly put in a situation where I had to make a choice between working and mothering my children with time and care. I had to figure out my finances. I had to face the fears around money, and financial decision-making. I had to learn to resource-up. Then, I realized that working a job to pay the bills was not enough. I wanted more. I needed fulfillment from a career that builds like an asset, with my efforts. I had to find and live my life purpose.

Taking one step at a time, I took big risks that shook me from the inside and out. The next biggest moment that shook me to the core, soon after becoming a single mom, was becoming an entrepreneur. The biggest moment after that was pursuing the path of coaching and authorship. 

This journey has been about finding who I really am, rather than who I was trained to be. It’s about living a life that fully aligns with my values. It’s the journey to “having it all”: fulfillment and abundance in both personal and professional life. It’s a commitment that no matter what the pressure is, I won’t choose one form of success over the other. This is about breaking generational cycles in families around gender, money, family connection, and work-life fulfillment. This journey is about you, what you’re craving and wanting deep inside.

It’s been a radical, roller-coaster 10 years of journey to success. For half of that decade, I’ve been a coach working with hundreds of clients who were dedicated to finding their own path, becoming their greatest version, and changing the course of their generation. 

You can get a fast summary version of what it takes to achieve your impossible by reading my latest book, Rich & Loved™ – The Modern Career Woman’s Success Guide To Having It All. 

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