Essential listening for anyone who has overcome the worst, achieved something worth celebrating, and still feels a quiet ache that it's not it anymore.

There is a particular kind of suffering in building a life that looks great from the outside while something on the inside quietly goes silent. You keep showing up. You keep pushing. You tell yourself it will feel different when you hit the next milestone. It never does.

Catherine Choi knows this well. She built a successful, mission-driven product brand, got her bags into some of the most sought-after retailers in North America, and spent years wondering why none of it felt like enough. The answer had nothing to do with the business.

In this conversation, we go all the way back. To a childhood marked by control and fear. To the four years of heroin addiction that started the moment she finally had freedom. To the unexplained gift of getting clean. And eventually, to the volcano that led her to dismantle her business, her marriage, and everything she thought her life was supposed to be.

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Covered In This Episode

• The price of safety and what it costs us to live there for too long.
• How a childhood built around survival shapes the choices we make the moment we're finally free.
• Why the first real taste of freedom can also be the most dangerous moment of your life.
• The difference between being freed from something and being truly, deeply free.
• What a business growing into Whole Foods and Anthropologie can teach you about the gap between ego and heart.
• The moment Catherine put her hardest truth on her children's lunchbox website and what happened next.
• What it looks like when the universe keeps whispering that it's time to let go and you keep saying not yet.
• The strange, specific beauty that shows up when you stop holding on and start trusting the unfolding.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome to the Courageous Pivot Podcast
01:51 Childhood Fear and Control
07:52 First Hit and Hooked
20:15 Recovery Life and Work
23:16 Beyond 12 Steps Healing
25:47 Psychedelics and Peace
31:14 Parenting and Letting Go
33:21 Founding SoYoung Brand
39:47 From Vision Boards to Store Shelves
46:12 Scaling Stress and Pandemic Crash
50:05 Ecuador Volcano Turning Point
52:11 Summit Mind vs Body Truth
57:38 Hard Choices After the Climb
01:09:08 Rest, Rebuilding, and Trusting Next

Special Offers

• Free Heart Coherence Masterclass – A complimentary session with Meghan Telpner exploring how to create alignment between your heart and mind, access inner calm, and live from your most authentic self.

• Click here to get 30% off Rise & Shine: A Guided Approach To Heart-led Living and Leadership. (Click here if you reside in Canada)

Related Episodes

• EP 018: The Silent Grief of Growth: Letting Go of the Life You Built — Because sometimes the hardest part isn't the dismantling, it's mourning what you built with your own hands.
• EP 020: The Price of Alignment: How to Rebuild a Life with (former) Ethics Professor Julie Ponesse — When staying true to yourself costs you everything you worked for, and why it's still worth it.
• EP 022: The Midlife Chrysalis: Designing Your Next Chapter From the Heart—When midlife isn't a crisis but a chrysalis, and you're somewhere in the middle of becoming.

More About Catherine Choi

Catherine's Platforms

• Catherine's Instagram

• Catherine's Website

Teachers & Practices Mentioned

• Dr. Joe Dispenza — Meditation teacher and author whose retreats and visualization practices helped Catherine clarify what she truly wanted (and what was coming from ego versus heart) 

• HeartMath Institute — Heart coherence practices and research that informed Catherine's approach to embodiment

Other Podcasts Mentioned

• Know Thyself Podcast: Why Women Feel Lost in Midlife (And What’s Actually Happening) | Dr. Mindy Pelz

Catherine Choi is the founder of SoYoung, a heart-centered lifestyle brand that, for over 20 years, has created beautiful and functional bags for on the go.

What has always distinguished SoYoung is its deeper mission: it became a platform for healing and transformation, where Catherine openly shared her story of overcoming heroin addiction and building a purposeful life. Her journey has inspired others to see that resilience and intention can transform even the most difficult beginnings into a source of meaning and peace.

Today, as she intentionally winds down SoYoung, Catherine is entering a new chapter of her life’s calling. She is shifting her focus toward sharing the lessons of recovery, healing, and soulful entrepreneurship with a wider audience, helping others navigate their own paths of transformation with courage and grace.