Adulthood isn’t a straight line. It’s a juggling act — a little bit of survival, a little bit of dreaming, and a lot of mess. Joanne Xie knows this firsthand. As the founder of a lifestyle brand born during COVID, she never had a mentor, a map, or even much money. What she had was instinct, generosity, and a stubborn belief that she could figure it out as she went.
In this episode of Clean Your Toilet, Joanne shares what she calls her “butterfly cycle”: the phases of transformation that come fast, stall unexpectedly, or stretch far longer than expected. Some cycles were about business — sourcing products, building partnerships, risking collaborations that sometimes backfired. Others were about identity — being a solopreneur in her twenties, carving space for herself in a market that didn’t offer much guidance. Through it all, she carried the chaos of adulthood: finances, friendships, responsibilities that don’t wait for your timing.
Travel became her therapy, offering distance from the noise. In Japan, away from expectations, Joanne found herself returning to the simple questions: what do I want, and who am I becoming? Susan Chen listens closely and reframes the story: strategy is often presented as control, but in reality, it’s about learning how to meet uncertainty without breaking. Together, they explore how business and selfhood grow in parallel — each misstep shaping not only a company, but a person.
Key questions emerge:
How do you build a business when you have no blueprint?
What does it mean to trust intuition when chaos is louder than clarity?
Can adulthood itself be seen not as a burden, but as a creative cycle?
Joanne’s honesty is both practical and poetic. Juggling, she reminds us, isn’t about perfect balance — it’s about learning which balls can be dropped, which must be caught, and which new ones you dare to throw in the air.
🧼 Curiosity is the clean water.
🚽 Perfectionism is the drain.
💩 Comparison, fear, self-doubt? That’s the clog.
Keep juggling. Keep flying. Keep becoming.
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