Why Purpose Without Self-Compassion Leads to Burnout with Jane Chen
Guy Kawasaki's Remarkable People
Guy Kawasaki
4.5 • 679 Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What does it cost to care deeply—and what happens when the work that defines you nearly breaks you?
In this episode of Remarkable People, Guy Kawasaki sits down with Jane Chen, the co-founder of Embrace and author of the raw, unforgettable memoir Like a Wave We Break. Jane shares her journey from a childhood shaped by fear and expectation to building a life-saving global health organization—and then confronting the burnout, identity loss, and reckoning that followed.
This conversation goes far beyond entrepreneurship. Jane opens up about immigration, trauma, ambition, healing, surfing, failure, and what sustainable leadership really requires. It’s a candid exploration of success, self-worth, and why impact without self-compassion comes at a high price.
---
Guy Kawasaki is on a mission to make you remarkable. His Remarkable People podcast features interviews with remarkable people such as Jane Goodall, Marc Benioff, Woz, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Bob Cialdini. Every episode will make you more remarkable.
With his decades of experience in Silicon Valley as a Venture Capitalist and advisor to the top entrepreneurs in the world, Guy’s questions come from a place of curiosity and passion for technology, start-ups, entrepreneurship, and marketing. If you love society and culture, documentaries, and business podcasts, take a second to follow Remarkable People.
Listeners of the Remarkable People podcast will learn from some of the most successful people in the world with practical tips and inspiring stories that will help you be more remarkable.
Episodes of Remarkable People organized by topic: https://bit.ly/rptopology
Listen to Remarkable People here: **https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/guy-kawasakis-remarkable-people/id1483081827**
Like this show? Please leave us a review -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!
Thank you for your support; it helps the show!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone. It's Guy Kawasaki. I believe we are in troubling and dangerous times. |
| 0:08.2 | One of the things that's happening is that privacy is eroding. And when privacy erodes, so does |
| 0:15.0 | democracy. So Maddoz and Nizmer and I, we just finished the book. It's called Everybody Has Something to Hide. |
| 0:24.0 | This is a jargon-free book. It is for everybody to learn why and how they should use signal. |
| 0:32.0 | They should use signal to ensure their privacy, safety, and well-being. |
| 0:36.2 | It comes out on January 28th for five days. |
| 0:40.1 | It'll be free. And then it'll go to $4.4. I hope you see what we did there. The forward is from |
| 0:47.9 | Congressman Rokana because he believes, like we do, that democracy is extremely important. And Signal is one of the tools that |
| 0:58.7 | can help us preserve democracy. So remember the name. Everybody has something to hide. It's by |
| 1:06.2 | Guy Kawasaki and Madison Nyzmer. You have to take care of yourself because that is what is critical for sustainable leadership. |
| 1:16.6 | Sure, you can burn bright for one or two years and burn out, or you can actually take care of yourself and make impact in the long run. |
| 1:25.6 | That is what I really care about. And here's the other thing. |
| 1:28.8 | The way that we treat ourselves extends out to everyone around us. What is the number one most |
| 1:34.9 | important determinant of the highest functioning, most innovative teams? It's psychological safety. |
| 1:40.4 | And it's the ability for someone to come to work and bring their whole selves and take risks without fear of failure. |
| 1:46.9 | And my question for leaders now is, how do you create that as a leader for your team if you don't have that within yourself? |
| 1:53.8 | And this is the importance of the inner work of leadership. |
| 1:59.5 | Good morning. This is Guy Kolosaki. This is a remarkable people podcast. And you're starting |
| 2:05.0 | with this introduction, but we're going to quickly devolve into a recording of the banter that we |
| 2:11.9 | started this episode with, which I must say, we started off the rails and we were able to pull ourselves |
| 2:19.9 | back into the rail. |
| 2:21.4 | But you shouldn't miss the introduction now. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Guy Kawasaki, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Guy Kawasaki and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.