The Neighborhood of Enough with Julie Pham, PhD

In this episode, Melanie Vargas sits down with Dr. Julie Pham, founder and CEO of CuriosityBased and author of Seven Forms of Respect, for a thoughtful conversation about the emotional messages we inherit and the inner shifts that help us redefine what it means to feel rich, connected, and enough. Julie reflects on growing up with scarcity and comparison, the pressure to impress, and the journey toward abundance, belonging, and real intimacy. Together, they explore curiosity, authenticity, and why our role in relationships is not always to fix what’s hard, but to receive it with care.

Julie reminders us that when someone shares something real or challenging with us, our job is not always to fix it or fast-forward them to the silver lining. Sometimes the most respectful thing we can do is simply receive it. To listen. To stay curious. To let it matter. And that’s a lesson so many of us need right now.

For more information on Dr. Julie Pham and Curiosity Based: https://curiositybased.com/

If this conversation resonated, please follow, rate, and share it with someone who is doing their own inner work.

What’s In Your Neighborhood™ is a nonprofit focused on leaders developing their inner landscapes and building community dedicated to normalizing healing, reducing stigma, and expanding how we think about strength, leadership, and what it means to come home to ourselves.

To learn more, get involved, or support the mission, visit www.whatsinyourneighborhood.org.

Until next time, keep tending to your own neighborhood. It matters more than you know.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to What's in Your Neighborhood, Conversations for the Shame Shifter in All of Us. I'm Melanie Vargas. After decades in executive leadership and coaching high performers, I've learned the real work happens in the parts that we hide. Each episode, I sit with leaders, rebels, and real people who've taken off their masks to explore their inner landscape, shaping how we live and lead. If you're ready for more truth, courage, and authenticity, you're in the right place. So let's go there. What's in your neighborhood? I am very excited to introduce our guest today. We're walking through Julie Fam's emotional neighborhood today on our show. I'd like to read a little bit about her background and experience, and then I want to talk about how I know her personally. But Dr. Julie Fam is the founder and the CEO of Curiosity Based, an organizational development firm based in Seattle. She is the author of the number one Amazon new release and bestseller, Seven Forms of Respect: A Guide to Transforming Your Communication and Relationships at Work, and a TEDx speaker. She was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and raised in Seattle. Dr. Pham earned her PhD in history at the Cambridge University as a Gates Cambridge scholar, and she graduated Magna Kumlade from University of California, Berkeley as a Haas scholar. She earned her real life MBA by running her family's Vietnamese language newspaper during the 2010 recession. She has worked as a journalist, historian, university lecturer, marketer, nonprofit, executive, and management consultant. Beyond Julie's impressive professional journey, Julie is also someone I have known for many years, and I'm grateful to call her a friend. We met many years ago when I was working for an organization where I had an opportunity to work with her, and I've admired her and her perspective ever since. Julie, I'm very, very excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining me today. Melanie, thanks so much for inviting me. Thrilled to have you here. It's my honor. I'd love to start with you walking us through your own emotional neighborhood. What really comes to mind for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:19

So, Melanie, I am trained as a historian. And so when I saw that question, I thought, well, are you talking about now or are you talking about in the past? And so I feel I should actually talk a bit about the emotional neighborhood I grew up in. Because that is actually very different from the emotional neighborhood that I have moved to. And so the one that I grew up in, a really important part of my identity is growing up as a Vietnamese refugee, as a boat person, and growing up in a really close-knit community that had a lot of abundance and resilience, courage, and a lot of scarcity and competition as well. And so the I would say growing up, I would see these messages of pride and yet also not having enough. And so there were a lot of stories about if I think a lot of the emotions were tied around money and feeling that we should have more and comparing ourselves to other families and other businesses who had more. And it took me a long time to actually to shake that. But I I remember I think I was five or six years old. Somehow I wrote, We are poor, not rich. And I wrote this down, and now I think about that. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I wrote that. I can't believe that was important to me. And yet somehow that was some message that I was getting. And it took me quite a while to actually to disrupt that.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

When you think about those defining moments, what are what comes to mind in terms of some of the emotions and feelings?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

One of the defining moments in terms of the messages that I got from my parents was uh I remember I was in college and I should back up. So growing up, early memories was in public housing and and yet my parents worked really hard. They had their own business, running a Vietnamese newspaper. And by middle school uh by high school, we were able to ascend to the upper middle class. And so we had this big house, yet the house was so cluttered that we we wouldn't invite people over. It just felt and sometimes if a friend dropped me off, then they would just say, Oh, did you just move in? It was just, it was this on the outside looked really, really nice, and yet on the inside was just so chaotic. And I remember going away to college and my parents were they wanted to set me up with a nice Vietnamese boy. They there was a friend of a friend who was a well-off entrepreneur, and they had a son who they thought would be a good match for me. And that Christmas I came home, they decorated the home and they cleaned it up and they bought dishware. And they did all these things to invite this woman over. The sun wasn't coming over, and I just thought, oh, they're trying to impress this person, and this is what we need to do to impress someone. And yet, I mean, we never entertained, even though despite my parents being the publisher of the newspaper, we always went out or went to went to other events. We never invited people over. And so that was that was something that when you entertain, it has to be a certain level. And if you can't have that, then you don't have people over.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

I heard so many key messages and what you were saying there, and some of those messages that form us in ways from our kind of family origin rooted stories to now when you think about your own emotions. What do you feel like was the most active during that period of time for you?

SPEAKER_00 5:57

I felt that if other people had things then that reflected on how much I had because I had to have I had to have just as much or more. And I actually even felt that way with friendships too. I actually used to be really jealous of friendships. Like I wanted to be the the best friend in relationships where it's just well, no, let me be the better friend. And and I think that had to do with just hearing messages of just constant comparison. And I mean, even decades later, I remember having this Thanksgiving meal with my mom, and she was comparing uh a friend of a friend came up and and it was just oh her daughter, I can't believe that she got to marry a doctor, and you know, she's not that great, and like yet they're really well off now. And and and I said, Oh, well, that that person's she's awesome. I think the doctor's lucky to have to have her. And and I also pointed out to my mom that, hey, you know, your kids, we're healthy. We like what we do. I mean, I think you should actually be grateful. And my mom said something like, I only look up, I never look down. Which is really, I only look for people, I only compare myself to those who have more because I should be aspiring versus looking comparing myself to people who have less. And I mean, by that point, I had already moved to neighborhoods, and I was just like, Oh, that's I felt I felt like wow, I'm glad that I'm not in that neighborhood. But those are just the messages that I got. And so it it took me a really long time to not compare myself and to not have this strong sense of I think the word we would say now FOMO, right? It's just like I needed to feel invited, I needed to feel um included. And I think also part of that is we moved around a bit when I was in elementary school, and so it was difficult for me to make friends. And finally, I think by high school, I I was able to find different groups of people. Um, but for a long time I just was insecure in my ability to to make friends. And Melanie, I actually had a I had a an imaginary friend in a tree. I remember my best friend abandoned me in um in elementary school, and I ended up spending the rest of the year talking to a tree. And so there was just a lot of um just trying to trying to fit in uh and trying to also have the material things to fit in, feeling like, oh, if I dress this way or if I do this, then I will fit in. And it took me a while to realize like that's actually not what's important. And um, I can I can talk about how I start to move neighborhoods, but yeah, that's that's those are a lot of the messages and the motions that I grew up with. It's just feeling this constant competition and envy.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah. I hear um, you know, some of those messages around comparison and envy. Looking back when you think about that shift that you made from those old messages. We are using the metaphor of you changing neighborhoods here a little bit. How did you make those shifts through? A lot of it was actually because of my best friend.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

We are still best friends to this day. Uh, we met when she was in grad school and I was in undergrad, and she's just a beautiful person inside and out, and just so generous and warm. It took me a while. I was in my late 20s, and I just I constantly felt I am not interesting. I'm surrounded by people who are more interesting than me. And this was after I was living abroad and in different countries and doing my PhD work, and yet I was feeling like I'm not enough. And and so I moved to Hanoi and we lived together. And she's just one of those people who's she's so beautiful, and so there are all these guys who are just constantly hitting on her, and yet she had so many girlfriends as well, and she just and she just had this real way of bringing people together, and it just kind of shifted for me. Oh, friendship is not limited, it really was that switch from feeling if that person loves someone else, then they can't love me as much. To oh, actually, if I love this person and then their love, and you know, it just spreads, and there's more and more community, and that that community grows. And just watching her do that, and feeling also like, wow, I'm really lucky that she she likes me, that I'm her best friend, right? And and so that was a big shift, and I think to have that model because it was it was very different from the model that I grew up with, and also embracing, no, actually, I am an interesting person, I have done cool things, and other people are interesting as well, and we are just interesting in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

I love that message that you just gave around limitless community, limitless love, that we have this capacity in our hearts that's so much bigger than we even know. So that was a beautiful message, and that you had this amazing person come into your life and support you in a in the way that you needed at this time in your life. And really, you know, the the show is about that bridge to how you went from this part of your life to shifting into agency, which is exactly what you did. That's why I'm inviting you as being one of my first guests. You are the one of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life. And so to hear that that big shift that you made is really, really powerful for me and as well for our listeners that are gonna hear that. When you think about this amazing amazing journey that you've had, what are some of the kind of pieces of it that you feel like are the most useful or an insight that you think our listeners really need to hear?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

So there is the, so I just talked about the the feeling of abundance in terms of relationships. And something else that really had to shift for me was how I showed up to other people in terms of not needing to impress people or just being, hey, this is just me, right? Because I grew up with these messages of, oh, if you invite people over, this is how the house should look and this is what you should do. Also, when I start to think of myself as an interesting person, just you know what? Having a good conversation is enough. I don't have to stress so much about what we're gonna eat or what the decor is gonna be. I mean, Melanie, you've been over to my place. There is mismatched flatware. It's kind of just, and it's it's some people call it cozy, some people would call it dated, but it's it's fine. And for me, I think a lot about now is just it's about how people how you make people feel and and to to focus on that. And that was a big shift as well. Because I've been to those homes where they're so beautiful and the food is exquisite, and they've even hired hired servers, and the conversation is so boring. And I'm there and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm trying to have some interesting conversation, and and there's nothing, and yet I'm just sitting here being impressed, and and I realize, okay, my contribution is not going to be in delighting the census, right? In terms of the visual, the taste senses. My contribution is going to just be sparking conversation that really engages people. And that's actually enough. I don't actually have to I I mean, I used to I used to feel that I had to go to do things I couldn't afford financially because it was just like, oh, that's what I'm supposed to do. And so bit by bit, I think because of moving around, and she's oh, I'm just gonna invite people over. And actually, when I moved back to Seattle, I moved back in 2008, and this is after uh living abroad for a while, and I moved into a small studio. It's I'm actually in this right now, and it's a 500 square foot studio, and and I want to get to know people, and I'm gonna invite people into my home. And it was really interesting to hear people say, Oh, I haven't been invited into someone's home to eat. And and you know, I don't have a dining room here, right? It's literally I have a studio, my bed is in the corner, and this is where I live, and there's this sense of the people who I invite over feel there's intimacy. And there's just they actually feel um trusted and invited, and that's actually the sense that I want. And so one of the other things I started doing was I'd go to these networking events, just like, oh yeah, we gotta see each other. Yeah, yeah, let's have coffee sometime. And we and you know, you never do that. And then I was just huh. Well, I need to eat. And what if I just invited people over, one friend, one different friend a week. We would cook together, I'd get to do my meal prep for the week. It would also be time just for one-on-one time, and I would actually really get to know people. And so I started doing that. Gosh, I think it's been uh since 2000 since 2009, 2010. Uh and it's just this is me. This is this is what I have to offer. And I found that's enough.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah. I love that. What a what an incredible message for everyone that um that connection that you feel with the people and the feelings underneath it are far more important than what kind of flatware we're eating we're eating off of, for sure. And I have been to your house and it was it was absolutely beautiful and wonderful, and so much connection and community and friendship that you were able to foster with with that, with that setting. It was just amazing. Um when you think about this process of integration from your past to your present and who you are today, what does that look like for you moving forward? Because those family origin messages can certainly pop up from time to time. So tell us a little more about what that looks like for you now.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

I mean, I'm I'm super proud of the progress that I've made. And I also am aware of there are still times where I'm like, oh, I don't know, I'm kind of embarrassed. I don't know if I want to share that. Right. So I can't say that it's all the way, hey, this is absolutely who I am, or oh, what I can afford or can't afford. That's always and I I think that's actually in general in the in the US, the way we talk about money, there's a lot of coding around that as well. I mean, when I lived in Vietnam, what I what I discovered is people are so much more transparent about the way they talk about money. And here in the US, there's a lot of don't talk about it and yet think about it. And so I'm still working on that. What I've been actually playing with recently is just how if I share something, if I share, hey, yeah, my business is a bit down, it's interesting to see people's reactions. Because for me, I grew up with parents who are entrepreneurs, and so there are ups and downs. That's just the nature of a small business. I mean, my parents started the newspaper in 1986, and the environment for the newspaper in 1986 compared to today, and it's drastically different. Right? And so for me, it's just we just gotta roll with it. And the reason why you have a business isn't just for the money. And yeah, it's interesting to see people's reactions because sometimes there's this, how do I fix this for you? Well, maybe do you need to get a job? Or oh, and I'm like, no, I'm good. I'm just sharing with you that it's this is this is real. I'm not asking you to fix it. I'm not asking you to make me feel better. You know, I'm just sharing that this is these are things that I think about. So that's something that I'm that I'm still working through because I also think that people are also just uncomfortable with that too. I I don't think it's just me. Just I was just thinking about how people talk about how, oh, Gen Z, they're they're lazy, they don't work hard. And yeah, actually, I think about what my parents were able to afford because the economy was just different and things, homes and education and everything was just so much cheaper. It's it's not it's not that because they don't work as hard, it's because things have gotten so much more expensive. So much more expensive. And recent years just been, oh, it's things are different. And it's not because, you know, I don't own the big homes that my parents that my parents own. And that's not because of that's not because I didn't work hard. Um, and it's also and also it doesn't matter as much to me, too. Because I also know I have a lot more time to invest in relationships and a lot a lot more quality time with people than my parents actually ever were able to. But it's also just in general, the world has gotten a lot more expensive. And so I think that these are there's there's not just the individual agency, it's also we have to look at the the environment and be okay with hey, there's some things we can control and some things we can't control, and the things that we can't control, we just have to accept. So I think part of that is just even what is success, right? It's not a 3,000 square foot home for me.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

I completely agree with you that we in the US we are very focused on enough, making enough and working a certain number of hours a week and getting to this certain point. And we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and the people around us when we have that kind of mentality. And what I heard from you with your shift is around this idea of abundance. And if I'm operating from a place of fear, then I'm focused on those times when my my businesses are kind of ebbing and flowing and maybe the clients aren't coming in as much. And if I'm focused on abundance, then I'm not worried about it because I know that things are gonna be just fine during those periods, and it is a very big difference in perspective when you're operating from abundance instead of fear during those times.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

And then there's also just the willingness to to invite people in. I over the summer um I met up with a longtime friend and her and her grandson. And so, and I've been to her house. It's been a while, but I've been to her house, and so her grandson now lives with her. And she said something like, Oh yeah, we're gonna have Julie over. And the grandson's like, Oh yeah, I well, I gotta fix this up. And then she was like, No, no, Julie's family, it's okay. We're gonna have her over, right? And it's just even that, it's like, oh, well, no, after the house is fixed, or after we do this, then we will entertain. And so, how many often do we hold ourselves back because we're waiting for things to be ready to look nicer, and and we we don't just say, no, you know what? This is this is my home. This is this is me. And if it's important to you that I entertain you in a particular way, then maybe actually maybe we're we weren't meant to be friends or to deepen this relationship, if that's important to you.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

We're always seeking something else to be good enough or to fit in, or there's a comparison piece, or I should be doing this or I should be doing that, versus just being okay with what we have. And that means the house may not be put together and you know, I may be a little disheveled. I may show up with my jeans on and no makeup on, and that's a-okay too, that I don't have to present in a certain way for someone else, that I'm just good enough the way that I am. Yeah, I love that. Anything else that you feel like our listeners will want to hear?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Now that I mean, we're in a time where the economy is tightening, and so I'm really curious to see do we do we talk about this differently? Do we talk about our hardships and our constraints differently? And instead of just hiding them or just focusing on the good stuff, it's just like, do we just say, like, this is what I'm going through? Hey, you know, instead of eating out, can we meet at my home? Or can we go for a walk? I mean, I I I wonder if this invites people to actually be more open about it, especially as as a lot of people are feeling crunched. And I I hope that it does. I guess that's there's my curiosity and then there's my hope. Because I I think it's an invitation for just for sharing who we are as we are. And I'm a big believer in constraints create lead to to creativity. And so in these in these times of constraint, I mean I, you know, I worked through the 2008 recession running a Vietnamese newspaper. I did things I never imagined doing, building relationships I never thought I would forge because of that. And they're lasting friendships that I have to this day. And so as we as we're in this time of lots of layoffs, lots of economic constraints, I hope that I hope that we do something with it. I mean I think even during the pandemic I would not have started my business left my great job and started my business if not for the pandemic actually. So yeah so just uh curiosity and hope.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

And so much about you is about curiosity. And I I really want to double click on this idea of because I think what I heard in what you were just sharing too is during these deepest darkest times or these moments that we're in where things feel so heavy, there is also this wonderful opportunity for abundance and and how can we realize it's both and right we can be sitting in these times that we feel are very, very challenging but we can also experience joy and love and these beautiful things that life has to offer if we're if we have that perspective versus just being stuck in the the negative, you know, where we are in this moment. And so I think that you know there is that time that we're in. We're still in a very ambiguous uncertain environment. And so there's so much hope for people out there to know that you have exactly what you need where you are right now versus just always seeking for something more.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah. And when and when someone shares that with you when sh someone shares with you hey this is where I'm at and it's like oh I didn't expect them to that's that's pretty real there that's that's that's not this beautiful shining example and then and to say I don't need to fix that. I don't need to tell them how it's gonna get better right I can just sit with them and say like oh yeah me too or like tell me more or how's that going you know it's just we don't always have to give advice oh my gosh we do not have to give advice on how to I mean Melanie once I I told another entrepreneur oh yeah times you know it's tough and he was just so you thinking of quitting like no like I'm not I and it was just a venture backed um entrepreneur. I'm like I don't know if is that what happens when you just get a whole bunch of money and you don't have to do it by revenue? And so yeah just I think also I guess an invitation for your listeners is to be aware of how we receive people's authenticity too. Tell me a little more about that. Just I think it's so there can be a certain discomfort when t someone tells you about the the parts that aren't aren't great in their life and I might feel uncomfortable and so I want to push that away and maybe I want to gloss over it and it's like oh well I'm sure this will get better or finding that that silver lining. Right. And it's just like if someone shared that with you just sit with that for a bit.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

We like to fast forward through just uncomfortable things to get right to the comfort of it or to the quick fix because we don't want to sit with discomfort. And there's actual beauty in the discomfort and I think that comes back to curiosity too right that if we're trying to give advice or fix something we're rushing past it versus if we're just sitting in curiosity we're being still with the discomfort and that's actually okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Because you know every time I share myself it's a risk. Right? Every time someone shares themselves with someone else it's a risk and it's just it's that in the the Gottman Institute the the of language it's a bid right for for connection and and if you just brush it away well then there's a little there's a little sense of rejection and then there's a sense of oh I guess I shouldn't do that. And so I mean actually even just receiving and being there to listen we can just help build more connection by just doing that by just saying like I'm gonna I'm gonna be uh curious here and I want to listen to you and and you shared something with me and thank you. I mean even sometimes it's just that it's just like thank you for sharing that with me. I feel honored that you shared that with me.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

And I do feel honored that you shared this journey with me. There's so many little nuggets that are important messages for people to hear in your story and where you've gotten in your life and where you are today is it's an impressive journey. And we often make a lot of assumptions about people just based on where they are in their life without really taking the time to understand or be curious and not try to rush in and fast forward through through someone else's experience. Julie um I I just want to say thank you so much for your willingness to come on the show today and share your amazing story with our listeners. It was absolutely a joy to have you on the show it was an honor to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Melanie thank you so much for these deep questions I've I haven't shared these stories before and you know even in the preparation she's wow all right we're gonna go there so thank you for for receiving my my stories and making me feel heard and seen.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Well thank you and thank you for being here thank you for joining us today. As you head back in your day we invite you to notice what's happening in your own neighborhood at work at home or inside yourself change often starts close to home and sometimes the smallest shift in awareness can create the biggest ripple. If something in today's conversation stayed with you we'd love for you to carry it forward and share it with someone else who might need it too. And if you're finding value in these conversations it would mean a lot to us if you subscribed and left a review. We're just getting started and your support really helps us grow the community. Until next time, take care of yourself and each other.