How to Create Your Baseline Happiness as a Female Entrepreneur with Yenvy Truong

We explore what baseline happiness means and how to build it with a simple Wheel of Life check-in, using awareness, proactive health, and small daily habits to restore energy and focus. We share practical ways to personalize self-care without guilt and why “go slow to go fast” truly accelerates growth.

• defining baseline happiness and the role of awareness
• using the Wheel of Life across eight domains
• spotting daily stressors versus core causes
• shifting from reactive care to proactive health
• movement, sleep, and nutrition for stamina
• meditation to calm reactivity and spark clarity
• customizing routines without comparison
• simple next steps to raise low-scoring areas
• why fun and connection protect performance

If you loved what YenB said, please leave a review and subscribe for other self-care self-care tidbits as we go along with our week on the show

Transcript

Meet Yenvi And Today’s Focus

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Wellness and Wealth. My name is Wendy Manganaro, and I am your host. Today we are discussing the topic how to recognize and create your baseline happiness with Yenvi Trung. Yenvi is a 15-plus year veteran of the healthcare and wellness industries, a serial entrepreneur, investor, and thought leader. Yen began her career as an analytical chemist in a major pharmaceutical company. She ascended the ranks of several corporations and diagnostic startups before embarking on a career as the founder and catalyst of successful companies. She has founded and co-founded startups in the arenas of digital health and remote lifestyle monitoring, as well as metabolic, functional, anti-aging, and regenerative medicine. In the process, she has had the privilege of working alongside prominent physicians, Nobel laureates, and industry-leading healthcare innovators. Throughout her career, Yenby has embodied a passion for systemic reform, supporting the shift from a reactive disease care system to a proactive health care system. She lives this passion by promoting the implementation of cutting-edge technology, physiological, medical, and nutritional science developments into standard patient care. Welcome. That is quite big bio. I'm so glad you're here with us today. Thanks, Wendy. Thank you. And I love this idea about baseline happiness. So I'm so glad that we're going to talk about that. And I also love that your bio reads a shift from reactive disease care system to proactive. And I know that has probably a lot to do with learning what that baseline is. So I really love those topics. I think they're so important, especially for women. So for you, what does that baseline happiness look like?

Defining Baseline Happiness

SPEAKER_00 1:49

I think it starts off with an awareness of whether you're happy or not, the feeling that things aren't right, the feelings that things aren't going the way, waking up in the morning and not excited about the morning. Those are instances and points in time where we're like, wait, things aren't working the way it is. And sometimes we don't know what it is and we can't pinpoint what it is that's making us unhappy. We get so consumed with everything that's moving around us that we have a hard time becoming aware of what to put our fingers on. So I spent a lot of time really understanding my baseline of these are all the things that should be in place, the basic needs, the things that I've strived for, and there's certain types of quality of life, I know that I can be grateful for and be happy with. And just starting that, and there's different departments, I guess, in our life that impacts how we're happy or not. And so I can go over those pieces as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah, and it's so interesting that you're talking about this because I was actually just reading an article on stressors. But this idea, as we're talking about baseline happiness, is that it was an idea that it's the everyday thing that actually cumulatively stresses more than sometimes the traumatic thing and puts our body into a constant reactive mode. And I was, it was a mindfulness article, but it was saying that if you can catch yourself, which is what you're talking about essentially with the spaceline happiness, that you don't have to go into those constant fight or flight and those physical things that happen to us right at the beginning of a stressor. Like I'm one for always, I have no idea where my house keys are. That never fails. They'll be in my hand half the time, but like little things like that. So is that kind of on the realm of what you're talking about?

Daily Stressors Vs Core Causes

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Low. One thing I always do when I feel that I'm a little bit out of flow or out of whack or I'm unhappy is I use this thing called the wheel of life. And it has these categories in your life. And very objectively, I rate myself in these categories right away because these stressors throughout the day can be triggers more than what's the core of my unhappiness. And so I go through this wheel of life and it's eight categories, and I'll share the categories of your job, your business, your career. That's one category, your finances, your health and well-being. Just are you healthy? Your family and friends, your community around you, the people that you interact with every day, your relationship with your partner. Are you doing things like personal growth? Are you growing every day? Are you doing things that's challenging your growth and feeling that you're alive every day? And then are you doing things that's fun? Sometimes we're just so focused on work and doing that we forget to have fun as well. And then the other is what's the environment? What's the stress factor around the environment? So I sit down and I really score myself on each of those categories. And then from there, you'll start to see, oh, wait a minute, I have a lot of friends, but I barely ever work out, for example. And so that could be a reason for why my cortisol is level, there's all these other physiological issues when you're sedentary, you don't work out and exercise. And so there's all these impact from just sitting down and doing that. For me, it's that objective baseline measurement. And then it goes into the core of ah, this is probably why I can't sleep at night. This is why I'm moving through the day unhappy because my finances are out whack, or I don't have a relationship that I've been wanting. And so it's like these pieces that allows us to say, this is where I need to focus, right? This is where I need to focus is because all these things are in line. My wealth is in line, but my relationship with my family is not in line. So I need to focus on this to bring it me back to that happiness state.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah, I've seen those wheels before. And it's always interesting because sometimes you don't realize fun is a big one, I think, for a lot, especially for entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

We get so much into work mode, we forget why we're doing this. I think that's the huge thing for female entrepreneurs. We go into our business and it's like, oh, it's because I want to make my own schedule, and all of these reasons that kind of give us independent, and then we take away our independent and go along with our company. So for you, I'd love to know was it always like that? What's in your journey of realizing that you needed a baseline of happiness?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Oh boy, it's uh the lack of balance and the heavy focus in one area of your life and then losing balance or losing focus in other areas of your life, especially as an entrepreneur. We focus so much on growing this baby of a business or this thing that we're putting our heart into that we forget about the relationships, our own finances, our own physical well-being, our mental state, and all these things that compounds every day as we ignore it. And so my journey was I started off in my career really heavy focused on business, on my companies, just growing my professional growth, and forgetting about everything else. And the further I got along with my career and my business, the less happy I was. And so I realized there's something wrong. I have to figure this out. And it took a lot of self-work and growth work and self-discovery and painful realizations and painful encounters with relationships and those types of things for me to realize that, oh wow, I've been neglecting all of these things around my life because I've been focused on one area. And so when we focus heavy on one area, we lose focus on the other. And that's where the baseline of happiness is starting up. How do we evaluate these areas in our life? And then if one is too heavy, the others are not being focused on. And so, how do we measure that and keep coming back to that baseline and ask ourselves am I happy in this category, in this category, in this category? Do I need to put a little bit more focus on this area now? And just I'm really doing really well here, but let's focus a little bit away here and get myself back to that place.

The Wheel Of Life Framework

SPEAKER_01 8:02

And as you're talking about this, because I've been there, I've been where all career or they even all volunteer it sometimes. And I think it's just one thing we go to those extremes and we don't realize it creeps up on ourselves. But I'm curious to know from you, and it'll lead into my next question. But because sometimes it's hard to go and say, Oh, wait a second, I know that I'm unhappy, but really moving from one place to get back to that baseline, because sometimes you're so stuck in it, it feels really difficult. And you're like, okay, so what do I do now? So those female entrepreneurs that are telling themselves like they're not that very happy. Like, what are those warning signs, especially the one of not getting up in the morning and being able to be like, hey, I'm excited for my day.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

I think there's the question because we know when we're not happy, even when we're cruising along and all the check boxes are ticked off, that we have a family, that we have a roof overhead, that we're eating well, we have lots of money, but then we still sometimes find ourselves like, hmm, I'm still not happy. What are these things? It could be because we're not growing. We have all these things. Now we're just complacing and cruising along. It could be that. And so I think that's why I go back to the wheel of life is something that's so visual and so easy to just look at right away when we is that's that awareness that, hey, I'm not happy right now. I'm not where I want to be. Uh, this feeling doesn't feel right, starts with the awareness and then a tool, just a simple tool to say, okay, let me just check myself right now, because it does impact every, you know, these different compartments in our life. And so having awareness and then a tool to just give us some direction. And all these things throughout every day is just triggers or just awareness stimulants that that's saying, hey, I'm not waking up in the morning, I can't get out of bed because I'm not excited for the day. That should be a trigger for us to create awareness. That should be a signal for us to realize that this is not, I'm not content. So being aware of those signals, I think is because for each of us, these signals could come in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Yeah, and I agree with that. I do want to ask you something here because it does help with what you were talking about in your body, this idea of like reactive versus proactive healthcare, because I think actually, and I really do believe that with our health, that's probably where female entrepreneurs sometimes talk the most. And even for me, I know I have a tendency. I'm like, do I really have time to go to the doctor? And then I'm like in pain. I'm like, I guess I have time now because your body will tell you at some point in time. So I'd love to hear from you this idea of proactive health care on that baseline, because I don't think that as we get busy as moms and taking care of stuff or everybody else, that we always know the components of what that's supposed to look like. Other than care about mammiograms and stuff like that. But I think it goes a little further than that.

Career Overload And Lost Joy

SPEAKER_00 11:02

I've been there where I've worked so hard that I'm exhausted, fatigue, and had health issues where because I wasn't taking care of myself, I was very heavy focused on one area. And because of that, it set me back. And so, as hard as we want to go forward, not taking care of ourselves and being preventative and taking care of our body and our mind could set us back by years. And so just keeping that in mind is so important. And also, when we give ourselves time to really rest, when we work really hard and we give ourselves time to rest, and then we're consistent with just walking every day and staying active. We don't have to go do CrossFit, we just have to be active, and so our body's moving. It will keep us healthy and keep our mindset healthy as well. I work out, I'm very mindful of doing my activities every day, meditating every day, because I know that it allows me to go even faster without having to feel the impact of going really fast, either. So my stamina, my energy level is much higher. And I'm going faster, I'm thinking faster. If I was slugging along, just pushing along like a boulder because I felt guilty or I felt in my own head that if I stop or I slow down, that I'm doing something wrong. Where actually, when I do give myself that time and that respect to myself, I actually go much quicker and I do much better.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

One of the things I was thinking about though is I've heard other guests say on this idea of going slow to go fast. And that is that what we're talking about, that day on, especially when you're talking about meditation. I love to meditate. It's one of my favorite things to do. And I noticed that when I don't do it, life becomes really overwhelming because I haven't taken that time as we get into rhythms and go, oh wait, what's that a whack here? And usually for me, it's because I haven't spent enough alone to just refocusing. And it helps you recenter too, obviously. And so then you can have more stamina. So for you, and I'm just curious because I've had guests come on and they're like, I don't need to nap during the day. Do you find that's like an individual thing as we're talking about care and self-care? Because I'm like, I love the five-minute nap. I'm the five-minute nap. So I'd love to hear from you like how that balance at Daiseline has helped you with stamina because everybody is so different about that.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

That's right. Everyone's different, and we shouldn't judge ourselves or compare ourselves to others on what's right for us and our body and our mind. And so I think we have a tendency to compare ourselves quite a bit to what's working for others should work for me, as opposed to let me feel this out, let me test it. And hey, this feels really great. And I saw results from it, so I'm gonna keep this. And that was part of my journey as well was trying everything that I could to find what worked for me. And so when I give suggestions, it's just my suggestions of what works for me, doesn't mean it's gonna work for you. But going back to the nap, occasionally I'll take a nap. If I feel like I need to, I'll take a nap. I'll set my alarm for because I base a lot of the stuff that I do on science. I don't take more than a 20-minute nap because then you're going to like a deep state of sleep and everything like that, and you're more tired. So a power nap is if I needed to, I would do that. If I take espresso shot in the afternoon or eat carbs, don't eat carbs. There's all these things that are different for all of us when it comes to how we feel throughout the day. But what we do know is nutrition is a very big nutrition and being active, keeping our body moving are two key things to keeping our stamina and our mentality up as well, because it does reduce cortisol level. That's the stress factor that really creates a lot of chaos. We create our own chaos because we're producing all this stress chemical by not taking care of ourselves. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

And it's funny because my husband's like, How do you do that? I'm like, five minutes, I am good. It's half meditating, half quite quote unquote napping. But there is something about that. And if I do that once or twice during the day, I am good. And then if I don't know, I will feel it for the rest of the time. Why am I dragging? And I think that's important that as we're talking about this, and we're talking about that baseline is like really taking the time, and this is essentially what you're talking about is taking the time to find out really truly what works for you. And I love our show because there are so many suggestions on what could work for people and try them. I don't think that there's anything wrong with trying them all and then saying, okay, and this is what I found out that really works for us.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

That's right. And that's what the baseline is. You're finding out what works for you. You have a toolbox of things that help you and will work for you. And that's part of creating your happiness, making these types of discovery that's unique to you and to your happiness and what you find enjoyable. And so at the end of the day, we just got to do it, just move forward, just do it. And I think as an entrepreneur, the power in being an entrepreneur is that if I was working for a company and I had a boss or somebody, for me to take a five-minute power nap, I wouldn't be able to go do those types of discoveries. So the power of being your own boss and entrepreneur is hey, you know what? I'm gonna spend 15 minutes meditating without being questioned about it, because I'm the boss, I have this freedom. That's why we gave ourselves this challenge of being an entrepreneur so that we could have those moments of freedom when we need it the most and when we want them. And so it's empowering to be an entrepreneur for our own development.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, absolutely. And so I have one last question, which is if someone doesn't know what their baseline is, and you talked about the wheel, but is that the first step to figuring it out?

Warning Signs And Awareness Cues

SPEAKER_00 16:46

First, like I said, it's always awareness. And you brought up meditation, which I think is extremely important, and that's one of the areas where I find is the most impactful for every human being is meditation. And there's a lot of research and science around how meditation develops the prefrontal cortex, which is the area of the brain that helps you really rationalize and solve problems, and then it diminishes the impact of the amygdala, which is the fight or flight part of the brain, where you're always in a reactive state. And so, starting up with maybe meditation, because sometimes when I sit and meditate, even though we're trying to quiet the mind, I get these amazing solutions and epiphany just because I'm allowing my mind to quiet down. And so these are all just tools and different ways for us to get to that point to create awareness first, and then using a tool like the wheel, for example, to say, okay, where in my life is it unbalanced? And can I should I just focus on that a little bit more than the other areas? I agree.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

I am like I said, I've been meditating for years, and it always is the thing that brings me back. So whenever I'm out of balance, it's usually fun and meditation. It's amazing how the same too.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

It's amazing, it's so simple. You just sit there and just let yourself just sit there, and for some reason, everything just solves itself. It really does. So I'd love for you to share with everybody how to get in touch.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

And and thank you for being on the show.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

You can find me on LinkedIn at YenB Trump. You can find me on Instagram at yenby.305. That's the area call for Miami.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Thank you for being on the show today. This has been great. Thank you, Wendy. Thank you. For our listeners, if you loved what YenB said, please leave a review and subscribe for other self-care self-care tidbits as we go along with our week on the show. Have a blessed and abundant day, everyone.