In this episode, we talked about:
- The power of breathwork and how it can help individuals manage stress, anxiety, and other challenges in life.
- The importance of self-awareness and conscious breathing in achieving a sense of calm and relaxation.
- The transition from corporate life to entrepreneurship and the redefinition of success beyond material achievements.
- The significance of meditation and journaling as tools for personal growth and self-discovery.
- The role of gratitude, acceptance, and healing in cultivating a fulfilling and joyful life.
- The value of genuine human connection and the importance of creating a space where individuals feel less alone in their adulting journey.
Listen to the full episode now:
"Breathe, Grow, Love. Three very simple words. If you can do these three things every day, I promise you, you will never have a bad day."
Timestamp:
- 0:00 intro
- 1:12 what is breathwork?
- 1:50 introduction and background
- 2:55 from corporate to becoming a breath instructor
- 9:41 how it feels to experience breathwork for the first time
- 13:02 wendy’s experience with meditation/breathwork
- 17:07 how meditation changed wendy’s life
- 19:37 the reason why wendy started this podcast
- 24:48 piyachai’s holistic living approach and entrepreneurship
- 27:33 breathe, grow, love as a way of living everyday
- 28:54 growth as an important aspect in your life
- 31:09 love as an important aspect in your life
- 33:00 list of problems vs list of gratitude
- 35:37 recap of breathe, grow, love
- 39:43 breathing technique: relaxation breathing/sigh of relief
- 43:08 summary
- 43:50 follow piyachai on social media
- 44:04 outro
Stay Connected with Piyachai:
Piyachai’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/piyachaiteo/
Detailed Summary:
Introduction
Welcome to Small Girl Big Talk, a podcast about navigating adulthood — relationships, self-identity, money, health, and everything in between. I’m your host, Wendy, and my hope is that this space makes you feel a little less alone.
Today, I’m joined by a close friend often known as “the breath guy” — one of Asia’s leading voices in breathwork. We met through work, where he facilitated a large-scale breathwork and ice bath session. Since then, I’ve seen firsthand how breathwork has changed the way he lives, works, and defines success.
What Is Breathwork
Breathwork is about learning how to breathe consciously. Most people breathe without awareness, but by changing how you breathe, you can directly influence how you feel — calmer, more energized, more grounded. It’s a simple tool with powerful effects.
From Corporate to Breathwork
Like many people, his path began in corporate life — management consulting, Lazada, operations roles. Over time, he realized corporate systems had a ceiling: no matter how capable you are, progress is slow and capped. That frustration led him to entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship promised freedom, but the reality was different. The pressure to grow, hit numbers, and constantly perform created another hamster wheel — sometimes even more intense than corporate life. Many entrepreneurs leave jobs seeking freedom, only to build a new version of the same trap.
The Hamster Wheel of Entrepreneurship
He shared a story of a highly successful content creator who left corporate, rose quickly, achieved material success — house, car, status — and still burned out. She eventually took a sabbatical, realizing she had recreated a corporate grind for herself.
The lesson: success without self-awareness leads to exhaustion, no matter how impressive it looks from the outside.
Family Challenges and the Turning Point
During this period, he also faced intense family challenges. A cousin struggled deeply with depression and eventually took his own life. This loss pushed him into anxiety, numbness, and unhealthy coping mechanisms like excessive drinking.
Nothing helped — until breathwork.
The Transformative First Experience
In his first conscious breathing session, after months of emotional pain, he experienced something unexpected: calm. In just 10 minutes of intentional breathing, he felt grounded and peaceful for the first time in a long while.
What shocked him most was how simple it was. No substances. No technology. Just breathing. This sparked a deep dive into breathwork science and its impact on the nervous system, anxiety, and depression.
The Power of Simple Things
This experience reinforced a core truth: the simplest habits often create the biggest change. Breathing, movement, awareness, and consistency matter more than complexity.
The Benefits of Meditation
I shared my own experience with meditation — a daily practice for over two years. It’s not always perfect, but it’s become a consistent check-in with myself. Meditation hasn’t “fixed” my life overnight, but it has subtly changed how I think, respond, and grow.
The Path to Meditation
Meditation started as curiosity — inspired by self-improvement content, journaling attempts, and tools like the Silva Method. Over time, consistency mattered more than motivation. Tracking streaks helped build the habit, but the real benefit appeared months later: better emotional regulation, clarity, and self-awareness.
The Biggest Benefit of Meditation
The greatest shift was learning acceptance. Meditation doesn’t remove fear or pain — it teaches you to sit with them without being controlled by them. It creates space between emotions and reactions.
Being Present and Overcoming Anxiety and Depression
We discussed how focusing on the past often leads to depression, while focusing too much on the future creates anxiety. Breathwork and meditation anchor you in the present — the only place where peace actually exists.
The Purpose of the Podcast
This podcast isn’t about step-by-step instructions. It’s about stories, lived experiences, and conversations that reflect real adulthood. After school and university, no one teaches you how to live — how to manage money, emotions, identity, or direction.
Small Girl Big Talk exists to normalize not knowing and to remind you that you’re not behind — you’re human.
Redefining Success and Finding Contentment
His definition of success changed after loss and self-reflection. Success is no longer money or status — it’s growth. Even 0.1% growth a day counts. Learning, evolving, and helping others became the new markers of success.
This shift made entrepreneurship sustainable and fulfilling rather than stressful.
Breathe, Grow, Love
He now lives by three principles:
Breathe — regulate your nervous system and emotions through conscious breathing.
Grow — learn something every day. Growth keeps life meaningful and prevents stagnation.
Love — love yourself, love others, and love what you do. Gratitude and kindness counter the brain’s natural bias toward problems and negativity.
Practicing these daily creates fulfillment regardless of external success.
Relaxation Breathing: The Sigh of Relief
He shared a simple breathing technique anyone can use:
- Inhale into your belly.
- Inhale deeper into your chest.
- Exhale fully with an audible sigh.
Repeat as needed — 5, 10, or even 30 times — to calm the nervous system and release stress.
Conclusion and Gratitude
This conversation reflects what this podcast stands for: honest reflection, shared growth, and real conversations about adulthood. Breathwork, meditation, and redefining success aren’t trends — they’re tools for living better.
Thank you, Pi, for sharing your story, your presence, and your wisdom. And thank you for listening.
