Creating a voice for Asian women by featuring their stories in their journey to confidence.

My Name is Sheena Yap Chan and I am Chinese Filipino. I was born in the Philippines and my parents migrated to Canada when I was 7 years old.

My podcast, The Tao of Self-Confidence started as a support system for Asian women who were dealing with confidence issues and also a way to provide a stronger representation for Asian women.

Growing up in Toronto, I never saw anybody that looked like me so it was difficult to embrace my own culture. I wanted to make sure that our current and future generation will have role models that look like them to look upto.

My listeners are mostly based in the US, Canada, Australia, UK and Philippines.
 

Back then, there were hardly any Asian people podcasting and I love the idea of podcasting since people can download the episode and listen to the audio at any given moment. It was easier for my audience to get the content they needed if they were stuck in traffic or jogging outside.

My goal has always been to create a stronger voice for Asian women. Till this day, Asian women are still invisible in all industries and I wanted to showcase Asian women from around the world who are in different industries and different backgrounds. I wanted to dismantle the negative stereotypes we still go through till today.

I started my podcast in September of 2015. As I mentioned, there were hardly any Asian people podcasting and I delayed it a bit since there was no representation. I found Ken Fong who had a podcast where he interviewed Asian Americans and because I saw his podcast, I started mine. It actually took 4 months to release my first episode only because of my fears and doubts. I knew I just had to release it and be okay with the outcome.
 

In the beginning I was crazy to release 5 episodes a week for the first 5 seasons. I really didn't know what I was getting into. When I produced my first episode it took me 3 hours and I thought I was in trouble but of course when you start something it will suck and you just have to embrace the suck.

In order to produce 5 episodes a week ahead to plan ahead of time and also record enough episodes during the off season. The interviews were also shorter so around 15-20 mins long per episode. When it came to expenses, it was my USB mic, podcast hosting and website. The podcast was self-funded.
 

I haven't dabbled into sponsorship but podcasting has taken me to opportunities that I never thought were possible. I will be releasing a book with Wiley under the same name which is crazy. I have been able to speak for companies on topics such as confidence, mental health, leadership and more. I have been able to connect with people of higher influence and have gotten over 1.2 millions downloads since I started. Podcasting has been the best thing I ever did.
 

I normally have a set of questions to give to each person i Interview. In the beginning, I had to reach out to so many women who wanted to be interviewed on the podcast. Some said yes, some said no and some ghosted me. Some I had to follow up for 3 years believe it or not.

As the podcast got more popular, so many people were asking me to be on the podcast and some were referrals.

The tools that I used to produce the podcast are my USB mic (your sound quality matters), zoom to record the interview and I use audacity to edit the episode.
 

I normally market the show through my email list and social media. Also being featured in third party media helps me promote my show whether it's me being a guest on a podcast show or being featured on TV. I also ask my guest to promote their episode which helps me out to promote the show.
 

Start messy! It's okay if it's not perfect because there's no such thing as perfection. Have an intention as to why you want to start a podcast and surround yourself with people who can give you honest feedback.

I have a resources section on my website - https://thetaoofselfconfidence.com/resource/
 

You can check out my websites
- https://thetaoofselfconfidence.com
- https://sheenayapchan.com
- https://taplink.cc/sheena.yap.chan
- https://taplink.cc/thetaoofselfconfidence