For over a decade, Dominique Narciso Kim navigated life as a “trailing spouse” across six countries—Costa Rica, Venezuela, Indonesia, Peru, South Korea, and Australia. In the process, she faced unemployment, isolation, and a profound loss of her own identity. Instead of letting those challenges define her, Dominique made a powerful choice: she shifted her mindset, changed her actions, and rebuilt herself from the inside out, ultimately leaping into entrepreneurship. Now an inspirational coach, speaker, and author of Live Your New Story: Discover Your Best Self and Live Your Best Life, Dominique shares her intensely personal journey. Discover why defining success on your own terms is the first step toward creating an adaptable identity, and learn the hardest first step in change: the decision to start.
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How To Rebuild Your Identity And Live Your New Story With Dom Narciso Kim
Welcome back to the show, where we celebrate the women who stopped playing it safe and started playing it bold.
I am Dr. Angela Walker.
I am Dr. Sylvia Morris. We have a guest whose story is going to stop you in your tracks because she did not just take one leap. She took six.
That is right. Our guest is a six-time expat who has lived in Costa Rica, Venezuela, Indonesia, Peru, South Korea, and Australia. She spent over a decade navigating life as a trailing spouse. She experienced unemployment, isolation, and a very real loss of her own identity.
Here is where it gets good. Instead of staying stuck, she shifted her mindset, changed her actions, and rebuilt herself from the inside out. She went from international aid and NGO work to the US embassy circuit, and ultimately leapt into entrepreneurship as an inspirational coach, speaker, and author.
She is the author of Live Your New Story: Discover Your Best Self and Live Your Best Life. She is a certified high-performance coach, a global keynote speaker who has graced stages with the US Embassy in Korea and Australia, UN Women Canberra, the Georgetown Executive MBA program, the Philippine Embassy, the Embassy of Ecuador, and the Expat Women Global Summit.
She is also the founder of WE Corps Global, a community and business academy for purpose-driven entrepreneurs, coaches, speakers, and authors all around the world, building portable businesses and living their new stories.
She is a proud entrepreneur and a full-time mommy of three. Please welcome the incredible Dominique Narciso Kim.
Thank you so much. When you see all those things, I am like, “Did I do all that?”
That is all you.
Thank you so much for having me on the show. This is such a joy and such a pleasure.
Thank you.
The Beginning And Life Before The Expat Journey
We are happy to have you. Take us back to the beginning. What was your life like before your expat story began? Dom, take us back to the beginning and tell us what your life was like before your expat journey began?
I can answer it in two ways. Before I met someone or before I had kids. I will go back way back when, from the very beginning, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica. That was a time ago. Before that, born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and went to UCLA. I was that overachieving young person who wanted to make my parents proud. I did all the things. I got the grades, I got the internships, and I got into the school. Just that experience of being an overachiever in multiple areas, not just in academics, but in sports and volunteering.
Doing all these different things. Before I went to Costa Rica, I was really shooting for the stars, and I was like, “I want to make my parents proud.” I really want to step into a type of career that would be challenging to me. I thought that would be somewhere in LA in the beginning. I realized my heart was set for overseas. Before joining the Peace Corps, I was doing a lot of research, like, “Can I do this? Do I want to do this?” and I am like, “This sounds like so much fun to just go explore as a young person and serve my country.”
I have to ask, I am from Inglewood. Where are you from in LA?
I am in Northridge, California, Porter Ranch in the valley.
You are the valley girl.
Valley girl through and through.
You guys have your lingo. I am curious, obviously very accomplished as a student and growing up and going to college, what did you think you wanted to be? Was there a path that you were set on before the Peace Corps? What prompted you to join the Peace Corps?
For any children of immigrants, my parents immigrated from the Philippines. They worked really hard. They are still working. They worked for the USPS. I remember from a young age, just seeing them struggle. The best thing that I can do is do well in school, be a great student, and be a great daughter. When I was trying to navigate, like, what do I want to be? In Filipino cultures, the first question is like, “Are you going to be a doctor?” I am like, “Do I need to be a doctor?” After a while, I am like, “Yes, I will be a doctor,” just to appease parents, uncles, and grandparents.
I never really wanted to be a doctor. I love biology, though. When I went to UCLA, I had this vision of being like a journalist. I had these thoughts, I am like, “It would be so great to be outside of an office.” That was my vision of what I wanted for myself. What that looked like, I did not know because I did not have any role models to see. It was really a journey of “I am going to go try, test, and see if I like doing this.” That is how I have always been throughout my life.
Thank goodness for my parents for not giving me “This is the path to success” because I explored and I experimented. Thinking about the Peace Corps, I actually saw one of my best friends, her brother’s wife, who had a picture in her house, and she is from California. She is not Filipino, but she was in the Philippines. I am like, “What are you?” It was a really young picture of her. I am like, “What are you doing here? Is this the Philippines?” She is like, “Yeah, it’s the Philippines.”
I am like, “What were you doing in the Philippines?” She says, “I was a Peace Corps volunteer.” I am like, “What’s that?” I was fifteen at the time. I tucked that memory in the back of my mind. When I started to go to school at UCLA, and I was a pre-med student taking all the classes, at one point, I was failing organic chemistry because I was like, “I do not even know how to do this.” It happens. It was like my first D plus. I never actually said that out loud.
You are like D plus.
I realized at UCLA that I do not want to do this. This is not my path. I studied abroad in my third year.
Where did you study?
I studied at the University of Sussex in England, which is really fun. That was my first stint being overseas and away from home, and I loved it. I love traveling. When I was approaching my senior year in college, there was a person, a Peace Corps volunteer on Bruin Walk, handing out flyers. That is when I am like, “The Peace Corps.” I went to information sessions and said, “I want to do this.” I just knew in my heart that that was just intuitively something I would like to experience as a young person.
Thank you for sharing that. I love this platform because we get to hear about people’s stories. So much of what you just said resonated with me. Number one, if you do not see it, sometimes you do not know that you can do it. Your experience seeing someone who had actually been in the Peace Corps, but that notion of being outside the office as a physician, I always imagined that too, as a doctor, but I was like, “I do not think this, maybe I would have an office where I can open my window.”
That has never happened, but now I am in a season where I can travel, speak, and coach. That has opened up that window for me to be outside the office. I definitely connect with being outdoors and in nature, and all those things you experienced. I think so many of us followed. I do not know that I can say that our parents necessarily said that we needed to do, but those were just paths that we saw as our options, and not necessarily exploring the opportunity to explore all the other things that you did. Thank you for sharing.
Dom, can we go back to the Peace Corps for a moment? I want people to understand that getting selected for the Peace Corps is a big deal. It takes a lot of effort, thought, and intentionality around the application process. Please tell me, when I have met people who have done the Peace Corps, they all seem to have had just an interesting experience that then colors their entire life going forward. Can you talk about maybe a few things that you learned from being a Peace Corps volunteer?
Things Learned From Being A Peace Corps Volunteer
I love this question, and thanks for asking it. One of the things that you will never fully recognize until you live outside of your country, especially Americans, is how American you are. I learned as a volunteer that “I am super American.”
You thought you were Filipino.
Yes. I thought I was Filipino. I am like, “No, I am very American in the way that I view the world and in the way that I carry myself and show up.” That was like the big “I am very American.” I will take a step back. At UCLA, I studied women’s studies, and I wanted to be a social activist. I came of age when 9/11 happened. A lot of us during that time, we wanted to serve our country. When I was studying women’s studies, I was like, “There is all this inequality and all this misrepresentation in the media.”
I just wanted to make a shift in that. I was very adamant about doing gender equality work in the Peace Corps. When I did that, what I recognized was, “I am coming from a place of privilege.” In rural Costa Rica, gender roles really matter because that is just how the society works. The men are out farming, and the women are at home raising the kids. Maybe they are with the kids, and they are also farming, but it just challenged my notions of what it meant to have gender equality.
I recognize that in this society, this works. In America, we have all these different ideas about what that means and what it could look like. That was the second lesson. What else did I learn? The third is to live in the present. The Costa Ricans have a saying, pura vida, like pure life. There are other sayings, si Dios quiere, if God wants. What I recognize too is that as an American, I like to plan, I like to think about my future, whereas in Costa Rica, it is like living for the day. I really learned how to be more present.
As an American, I like to plan and think about my future, whereas in Costa Rica, it’s more about living for the day. I really learned how to be more present. Share on XThere were moments when my high-achieving self was like, “Things are not working the way that I want to.” Eventually, I let go, I learned some salsa dancing, I played soccer, I ate chicharrones, and I started to speak the local language and their idioms, and they are like, “Dom, like you are a Tica now, like you are a Filipina Tica.” That is what they said. I really appreciated and they really brought me to their community, and it was the best experience ever. If anyone is tuning in and you want to do the Peace Corps, I think you could do it as long as you are healthy. I highly recommend it.
I love that. Thank you so much. That brings us into your expat life, and you have lived across six countries. Costa Rica, Venezuela, Indonesia, Peru, South Korea, and Australia. Where is one leap out of all those that maybe hits you the hardest and why?
It was Venezuela. Venezuela happened right after the Peace Corps, right after Costa Rica. It was the hardest because I went from, and this is where the identity piece comes in, I went from “I am serving my country, everyone in this community knows me, and they invite me to everything,” to living in an embassy structure, which is still super privileged. I recognize that. However, no one knew me in Venezuela. I did not have status because we were a same sex couple. Same sex marriage was still not legal in the United States federally.
I did not get jobs the way that other people did, even though I had Spanish and even though I had consular experience, I was always last on the totem pole. That was really hard. It is like, “I served my country, but in this capacity, I do not have that many opportunities.” It was really a struggle. That was the first time I was like, “I do not know how to achieve in this context, and I have no support.” That was the big crap moment. What am I going to do with my life if I want to be with Carol, my spouse?
It sounds like almost isolation there and some culture shock because you are going from one Latin American country to another, but it is a completely different experience for you. How did you deal with that? Ultimately, what was your coping mechanism, or what did you do with all of that?
One of the things that I have experienced just as an expat across all these different countries is that there is a moment where you are like, “Who am I now? What do I want?” I was not being defined by my career. I was being defined by the country I landed in. I did not really at that time know how to create an identity for myself every time we moved to any place. I was a young person. I was in my mid twenties.
Who in their mid-twenties really knows who they are yet? We have these decades to go through because the struggle shapes us. Just as much as the Peace Corps shaped who I am today in terms of being a servant leader, motherhood, and being overseas and being with Carol and struggling with identity all across these different stages and spaces of my life, that all fit into who I am today. What was the original question? I am getting lost in my own thoughts.
I think you answered that in terms of how you felt. I am just curious how you were able to overcome it, maybe.
This is great. Being a high achiever and also being very social, I lean on relationships. I built relationships with folks inside the embassy. There was an awesome neighbor of ours who worked in one of the offices, and she is like, “Dom, why don’t you just come in and volunteer in our office a few times a week, at least so that I can be with people.” At the time, Caracas was very dangerous. You do not want to take your family there. It was this wild, wild west of Latin America. You can imagine, from the recent news. I did what I knew how to do, which was to go connect with people. I found opportunities that matched my personality.
Before I could even get work in the embassy, there was an opportunity to be, there was this community helping hands committee and volunteer service for diplomats and family members. I am like, “I can lead that up. I will be the president.” That was my platform for doing outreach and connecting, getting more involved. Eventually, I did get a job with the embassy, but it was a super admin job, which I was really grateful for, but it was not intellectually stimulating for me, especially after having gone to college and having that Peace Corps experience.
The Leap To Entrepreneurship After Diplomatic Work
You worked in international aid work and for NGOs, and you are an admin for the embassies. How did you then make that leap to entrepreneurship?
Again, another great question. I had to experiment with different ways of working in different countries, spaces, and times of my life. In one moment, I am doing a consultancy with the UN. Another moment, I am like, “Let me try to be a consular officer.” I took this special family, like it is an eligible family test position to become a diplomat, to become a consular officer.
I went to that track, took all the classes, eventually became an official diplomat in Peru, and I was doing visa interviews for about a year and a half, all in Spanish. I experienced that. At that point, we had our third child, and I was like, “Do I want to continue doing this because this is not a 9:00 to 5:00 job?” There were so many VVIP visits, and you have to be available overseas, especially when you are working for an embassy. It is not a 9:00 to 5:00 job.
I would have assumed it is just like nine to five, go home, and yeah.
I recognize, and Carol and I recognized, and thankfully we both had some maternity leave, and we were with our newborn Juliet overlooking the ocean in Peru, eating ceviche. It is so nice to be sitting here with a baby and getting paid for it. We asked ourselves this question, “What could we do differently?” That prompted me to think that Carol is four years ahead of me in terms of her career. I was like, “What if I tried something different in our next country, wherever that would be?” That is what really set the stage for me to pursue entrepreneurship after Peru, because I was driving myself. I knew if I wanted to go up in the embassy and that lifestyle, I would have to sacrifice family time.
Help explain, and certainly we do not want any state secrets, but when you go from country to country, do you automatically come back to the US for three months or six months, or do you move directly from Venezuela to Peru to wherever?
Generally, like with any expat families, military families, and embassy families, there is a time to reconnect with your home with your passport country, with your home country. We call it home leave. It is not really a moment to rest. It is a moment to connect with people, but after you have just moved a whole household. It is very stressful. In between countries and with kids, thank goodness the twins are now twelve, and the little one is nine. If you could just imagine, it is just like go, go, go, go times ten.
When life gets messy, throws curveballs, or demands a pivot, everything can feel overwhelming. Without grounding practices, it can lead to the breakdown of your body, mental health, relationships, marriage, and sense of self. Share on XI can imagine. I do not know that I would be able to do. I have moved with little kids before, but yeah.
Do you always have a place to live in the States?
No.
If you have home leave, where are you living?
I am calling up Victor and Raquel in California. I am like, “Mom, can you pick us up at the airport? We have 50 luggage.”
I know you do.
We stay with my parents. For me, that is a lot.
It is a lot of logistics. One thing that folks do not realize is that there is a lot of emotional baggage, literally, that you are taking from country to country if you do not process it. It is not like the new country is going to solve everything. You are just bringing all your stuff with you.
Tell us more about that, not necessarily specifics, but what do you mean by emotional baggage from country to country?
This is also anyone who is living life, right? When life is life-y, and things are a fan, or there is a curve ball, or you need a pivot. When you are bringing all of these unprocessed emotions with you, maybe you are feeling resentful, you are feeling angry, or maybe you have a fight with a family member, or you are upset that you did not get a promotion at work, or all of these different things, or maybe you were passed up for even a job because someone knows someone. When you are dealing with all of these thoughts and emotions, and then you are bringing the family with you, you are also dealing with your kids’ emotions and your spouse’s emotions. It just becomes a lot. If you are not able to ground yourself in good practices, it will lead to a breakdown of your body, a breakdown of your mental health, a breakdown of your marriage, a breakdown of your relationships, and a breakdown of the self. I have been through many of these transitions, and I have broken down many times, but I did it in isolation. I did not do it with help.
Shifting Your Mindset And Building An Adaptable Identity
That leads me to this question and kind what you are doing now in terms of mindset and in practice you talk about shifting your mindset, changing actions and building what you call an adaptable identity for someone that is standing at the edge of their own leap right now whatever that may be whether it is in travel expat or just in work and life and career in general what does that actually look like? What do you recommend on that?
Tell us about the book. What is your book’s name?
This is like my own process. It is called Live Your New Story. This was my personal process of how I went through not knowing who I was to really understanding who I am, beyond all of the titles, beyond all of the accolades. To answer your question, Angela, for someone who is at the edge of your identity and you are trying to adapt and evolve into that new space, there is this, and I did not have the language back then, but there is a moment of identity death. You have to grieve and process and know that it is a sort of death of who you were before to become your next self.
For the longest time, I held on to the identity of being UCLA grad, the Georgetown, the person that got all these achievements I held on to. When I was in the context of not being in the States, like no one cares. No one knows who you are. You could be whoever you want. That is part of the scariness of being an expat and being overseas, that you are with yourself no matter where you go. You cannot depend on people externally to define who you are. That is where people get “Who am I?” Especially for folks who have shifted from a law career to a creative career.
It is like, “What is my law friend going to think about me?” There is that question of “Am I still going to belong?” After going through all of these transitions, it has forced me to ask the very deep question. “Who am I really?” I am still asking this question. It is not like the work is done once you have answered it once. Now that I have done all this stuff, who am I next? Who is coming, or what do I want?
In terms of your teaching and what you write about, do you have maybe the smallest first step that somebody could take? They are talking about it. They just tuned in to the episode this week. It might not be a massive overhaul and change in their identity. Just one thing, one first step in trying to gain this clarity.
I have this question that I asked myself when I was at the edge of my identity after becoming a mom, and Carol was in Pakistan. It was the question. “What does success mean to me today?”
What does success mean for you? And then can you have it all?
Yes. This is the caveat. We have to define what it is for you. It’s bits and pieces from what you see outside. Just because they are successful in their industry does not mean that that is your definition of success. The real work that we all go through in a human life is “How can I create and build and shape a lifestyle and life and identity that is truly authentic to the gifts I have to give the world?”
That can also take on many different forms. I do not have to be a coach, author, and speaker. I could be a doctor and still live in my purpose and live in that identity, or I could be something else. The big question is. “Are you being congruent?” That is the first question. That your external environment, the choices you make, match the inside. If I were to simplify all of it, it comes down to one decision. Are you going to change or not? That is the first step.
That is powerful. Can we just stop with that one? I think that is one of the hardest questions to answer.
Give it that space. Did you decide to change?
The real work of being human is learning how to build a life and identity that truly reflect the gifts you were meant to give the world. Share on XMaybe not right now or for some things, maybe it is never. How do you then pivot to deal with the fact that I am really not ready or willing or able to do the things that are necessary for me to change my mindset or my situation? That is hard.
It is very hard. The opposite of that, it is like, “If you are not ready, when will you be ready?” It is either you are going to change, or life is going to change for you. You are forced to change. What happens, what I have seen with a lot of folks in my space is that they wait for the thing to change before they change inside. They are like, “No, now it is urgent. I must change.”
That is how life works. Whether we like it or not, there is going to come a point where it is like, “I must change because if not, I am going to be a sad person. I am going to be a depressed person, angry person, frustrated.” List all of the negative emotions, but you have to keep choosing that. You can choose something else. I was there many times, feeling resentful, feeling frustrated.
This is the crux and purpose of the book is that we have a narrative that tells us who we are. That narrative is shaped by the external voices of our parents, our culture, our religion, wherever you are getting your identity. When you flip that on its head, and you say, “I want to be this kind of person,” and you start acting like that kind of person, suddenly the old narrative is not so great anymore. It is like, “I like how I feel here.” The hard part is that your people who knew you as this person.
They are upset now.
“Why are you doing that?” They want you to come back down to what they are comfortable with. The hardest part is bringing people along with who you are becoming. You have got to speak to folks and ask them to support you. “I want to do this thing.”
How important is that?
Incredibly important.
It is spending the effort to bring them along.
Not everybody can come.
Not everyone can come. It is your job to create the boundaries, especially for folks who say, “You cannot do that.” It is like, “I will put a boundary here. We do not have to talk about it. I am still going to move forward with what is going to make me happy.” It is hard because you become a mirror to others. When you are that mirror, and you are a loud mirror, and you are also a grounded mirror, it really makes people uncomfortable. It is either that they are comfortable, or they are like, “Give me some of your energy. I want to do what you are doing. What are you doing, though? What are you eating?”
They see me, they are like, “You’re vibrant. You have like zest for life.” I am like, “Yes.” I am not always happy because now I know how to feel my emotions, both the good and the bad. I have my North Star. I recognize what that is. Life is going to throw you off, and you can try to be steady like a tree. You are going to get swayed back and forth, but then come back to your center. Always know that there is always an opportunity or a choice to change if life is asking you to change.
You have the opportunity and the choice to change when life is calling you to change. Share on XAn opportunity or a choice to change. That is very powerful, and you are exactly right. Let us shift gears a little bit. Can you tell us about WE Corps Global and what gap you saw for purpose-driven entrepreneurs, and what does it mean to leap into building a truly portable business?
WE Corps Global And Leaping Into A Truly Portable Business
I was a Peace Corps volunteer. I worked in international affairs. I worked in international aid. I wanted to find a way to bridge that gap with the coaching, speaking, and entrepreneurial world. When I stepped into the entrepreneurial world, there was really no talk about “How are we helping people? How are we serving others?” For me, I could not just be one. I needed to combine it. The We Corps, the Women’s Entrepreneurial Corps, is really a space for me to create community with others who are service-oriented, who want to make a social impact, who want to use coaching, speaking, and writing as a force for good, versus just a force for making profit.
If you can think about it, it is like, “How can I bring people together? WE.” Let us do it together because it is hard to do alone. Support each other in each other’s small business ecosystems because the way I am doing business is going to be very different from a bro marketer who is doing business. I am not planning to scale to a million gazillion people. That is not my plan. I want hyper-intentional relationships with my clients and with the people who I serve because that is the impact that I can make, and it can go deep.
That is the reason why I started the WE Corps, because I find a lot of entrepreneurs, especially coming from corporate or government, when you make that leap, it is a different mindset. You have to be different. You cannot wait for someone to tell you what to do. You have got to go figure out what to do and then be discerning in terms of who you are choosing as mentors, because not every person who is successful is your mentor. That is a mistake that I made. We are learning.
Tell us a little bit more about WE Corps. Who is part of it? How does someone become involved? Are you chosen? I am just interested in whether I fit the mode? Do you need to travel globally? What exactly?
I love this. You are already part of the club. There is no permission granted. I did a beta test of the WE Corps for 2023-2024 to see what the real need is here in terms of marketing and business for women entrepreneurs who are purpose-driven. What I found was that there is a big gap in the money mindset. I want to teach folks and also put them around other people who are growing in this space because biologically, you are all the experts. We are social beings, and we grow based on the other people around us. That is why you have got to have your tribe.
I am like, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a tribe of women who are also going through this process of building a coaching, speaking, writing business that you can take anywhere in the world?” You are also learning how to receive support. That is important. How to open yourself up to receiving more resources. Resources are monetary resources, relationship resources, and all the resources that you need to be successful as an entrepreneur in a different way. I have had to fight for resources and fight for support.
Were talking about learning how to receive support and then also being open to receiving more resources.
One of the things I am trying to test within the WE Corps is “What does it mean as a high achiever to start asking for help?” This was one of the challenges that I faced. I always did things by myself. How can I teach in the context of this community, other high-achieving women who are crazy accomplished, to be okay with letting the guard down to feel vulnerable and to truly ask for sisterhood?
I have been in spaces with other women who are highly competitive. They are trying to fight me for something, even though I am not fighting them. It is like they are fighting their fight. I do not want to partake in those types of environments if I know how to create a different space. That is like the vision for the We Corps is always what can I do to create more safety for women to rise and for women to make more money? In other spaces, you are always getting torn down.
Like, “Why do you want to do that? Shouldn’t you be taking care of your kids?” We get all these narratives that tell us not to do something, even though it is for our own benefit and for the benefit of society. Philosophically, the WE Corps is really a community that I started. I meet amazing people all over the world. I am like, “What can we do?” It is almost like the Davos or the World Economic Forum, but for a mission, your seniors and the like, “What can we do together?” because all I need to do is gather the right people. That is it.
Good things happen.
It is like, you know it because you feel it, the energy vibe. It is just so good. I am really good at doing that. Within the WE Corps, I started teaching other entrepreneurs. This is how you market because I think the marketing landscape and the education out there, it is either hyper crazy, like market a million times a day. What I am doing right now with Diary of a Trailing Spouse, let me do like 30-second little clips. Like “This is how I am feeling today.”
It is not pushy. It is not like, “I want you to buy something from me now, download this guy.” I do not want everything to be a commercial. We bring the essence of these women entrepreneurs into their business. It is not really about the business, although it is the business. The business provides a vehicle for elevating your voice, your true voice. The business provides a vehicle for elevating your purpose and giving you a platform to be the main event.
A business is a vehicle for elevating your true voice, amplifying your purpose, and giving you a platform to step into the spotlight as the main event. Share on XWe have so much to talk about in terms of WE Corps global. If someone was interested in learning more, we would put all these things in our show notes, but I just think it is pertinent to stop and say, How would we find you?”
Currently, I am not accepting anyone into the WE Corps because I am moving, but I am opening up enrollment in September. I am still planning in terms of what that looks like. If you are interested, I do have a Facebook group. That is the WE Corps Facebook group. It is for expats, coaches, and speakers. I am combining the trailing spouses, diplomats, and expats with coaching and speaking. Folks who need community as they are shifting their identity come into my space, and I will support you. I will help you all connect you with amazing people. That is where I am building that community right now on Facebook.
Thank you.
Diary Of A Trailing Spouse And Owning The Term
I will confess, I had been following you on Instagram, The Diary of a Trailing Spouse. I love it. I think what resonates the most is just a little teaser that you give us every time, it is quick. Can you talk about how that evolved and what maybe your intention is around that?
This term, trailing spouse, I have always hated it. I did not like it. I am like, “I do not like this term trailing spouse because I am not just a spouse following behind.” That is like where people’s heads go, like, “Yes, you’re the second person.” I wanted to take that term instead of getting mad at it. I am like, “What if I owned it? What if I claimed it and used it not as a source of weakness, but as a source of strength?” When you say “I am a trailing spouse,” you come with so many different skills that someone who has never left the country does not have the same sense of. You are adaptable. You can learn a language.
You can think on your feet. In terms of being innovative, you are going to be innovative when you are overseas. The trailing spouse came about because I am like, “You know what? I need to grow my platform.” I have all of these ideas repatriating back to the States. I realize that this is my edge. I have been through all of these different experiences. This is what I can bring that is going to be unique and different to the marketplace, where I do not have to compete with anyone. There is no one else like me. I know.
It is very niche.
In this moment in time. How can I share this journey for those who are thinking about an international move, or what does it really take to go from one place to another and bring your identity with you? People just see the glamour of moving overseas. You do not see it like, “This is the emotional journey that one goes through.” Even for me, who has trained myself to go through these things, it is still hard. It is not easy.
I wanted to give a voice to all of the trailing spouses out there and all the folks who move overseas because it is not easy. There is a lot of shame around being a trailing spouse. I want to show, like, I am really proud of it. How can I create that voice for others? It is so crazy because everyone is sharing. People from the woodwork. They are totally engaging with this content. I am really glad that I get to show it, share it, and also document it for myself. I am like, “I am not feeling good today.”
Core Message In Speaking: Be Yourself Unapologetically
You have talked about the WE Corps and that platform and that community that you have built and continue to build. Just now, the social media with a trailing spouse. You are a speaker, and clearly you have had a lot of audiences alongside the US embassy. The list was so long, the UN Women, Georgetown Executive MBA program. What message do you find yourself coming back to on each of these stages? What is it that fuels your leap forward?
It is the purpose. It is like, “How can I wake people up to who they are?” One of the greatest things about being a speaker that I love, it’s almost like someone else is talking. When I get on that stage, it is like I feel the flow, I feel the energy. I know that I am really good, or whatever is coming through me is amazing. You can pin-drop into the speech because I get so embodied in the message. The message is, “Be yourself unapologetically. Express who you are.”
Be yourself unapologetically. Express who you are. It truly is the gift of life. Share on XAs cliché as that sounds, it really is the gift of life. We need you because you are the only one. We need you to be happy. We need you to be connected. We need you to be creating the contribution only you can make in the world, whether that is for one person or a million people, it does not matter. Speaking has been such a gift, and I never thought that I would be a speaker, let alone get paid for it.
Thanks to the pandemic, that is how I got started in speaking. The embassy came to me and said, “We saw your videos and are you willing to speak to frontline workers in Daegu?” I am like, “Yes. Me?” That was what I was thinking in my head, like imposter syndrome times a hundred. You know, I can come to the office, and I started speaking online. That is how I got my first in. I kept asking for more opportunity, and the powers that be said, “Give me more stages. I want them.”
Has the audience ever surprised you in any way, like maybe a reaction that you did not expect or something that just stayed with you? Maybe it was one individual.
I have not had any negative experiences, but what I do recognize is that regardless of who I am speaking to, whether it is a Korean audience, an Australian audience, a mixed audience, corporate or government, or stay-at-home moms and dads, every human wants one thing. They want to be seen. When I speak, I see them, even if it is a group of 400 or a group of one, I see them, I feel them, I sense into them, and they feel that connection. That is great.
For that audience who is a trailing spouse, and if you want to give me a new phrase for that, I will happily accept that and use that, but they are unsure of who they are outside of their partner’s career. What would you say to them to help them make that first leap?
Follow your joy. There is a question I ask most of my clients. “What is the thing that you have always wanted to do that you never did?” Go do that. Go do that and let your creative side, your joyful side, and your expressive side start playing because in that process, you are going to discover what it is you like and what the world wants. What the universe wants is for us to be happy and to be joyful. Follow your joy. If that is having a coffee with a friend, go have coffee with a friend. If that is reading a book, read a book. Just take the steps to feed your soul.
You just said so many pearls in that feeding my soul, following my joy, and most importantly, the universe wants us to be happy.
What would you say to the version of yourself who was not sure she deserved more? Maybe, I do not know at what stage that might have been, but it sounds like there may have been a point in time. What would you say to her?
Going to make me cry. Not trying to. I get this question, and it is such a good question. I would say it is going to be okay. Forgive yourself, follow your joy, be around more people, and ask for help. I think that is the big one. Ask for help. I wish I had done that. I just did not know that that was an option. I would tell her, “Ask for help. Let people know that you are struggling.”
I love that advice.
Self-Care Practices And Routines Learned Overseas
You are talking about asking for help, which is critical, and that is hard for us to learn, especially when you talk about high-achieving women. I really appreciate your sharing that and reminding us to be vulnerable because we do, we all need help. We do not get through this life by ourselves. You have lived on multiple continents. Are there any self-care practices or routines that you have learned outside the United States that you want to share with our audience? I am asking for a friend.
Self-care routines. Are you talking about something specific to South Korea or Australia that is different?
However, you want to answer it.
For me, it has always been meditation. One. Number two is to go out in nature. In Australia, it was amazing because there are kangaroos and like literally there are kangaroos.
Where were you in Australia?
I was in Canberra. I was south of Sydney, and where we live, literally like heaps of kangaroos, like not just one, but like fifteen. They are like your size or bigger. It is like, “Are they going to like touch me?”
They just out there?
They are just lying down, they are eating, they are just hanging out, and you are just so close to them. It is like the joy of that and the joy of being in nature and appreciating it. In Virginia, I go outside, and there is like a woodpecker, and I am just like staring at it, and all the kids stared at it too. I am like, “Girls, look at this amazing animal,” just to be in the presence of Mother Nature. I am Filipino, and I am a big foodie. Food is self-care. You are not eating something delicious that makes you go, “That’s so good.” I do not know, find friends.
What is the thing you miss, one food that you miss the most when you are living outside of the United States, whether it is convenience, process, or your go-to snack? What do you pack with you or have people bring when they visit you?
Sylvia, you are going to love this. I love an In-N-Out Burger. You cannot get that anywhere. Actually, did I ask someone to bring it? The flight is too long, so it is not the same. I do not even ask for an In-N-Out Burger. That is one. In terms of another, I actually posted this on my LinkedIn. There are these cookies by Keebler. They are called EL Fudge. I ate those growing up as a kid. They are like little elves with chocolate in the middle.
Those cookies and they remind me of my childhood, and they make me happy. Everywhere I have been in the world, I remember Carol sent me a box when I was in Costa Rica. I am like opening up, like in the middle of the jungle. I am like, “My goodness.” Every time he goes to the States, like, “Dom, what do you want? I am going to go to Trader Joe’s.” I am like, “No, do not want that. I want EL Fudge cookies.”
This has been so fantastic. Thank you for shedding light on your life, your perspective, certainly an absolutely unique one. We know that it is a privilege for us to have you here, being a mother of three, a wife, and certainly an accomplished writer and entrepreneur, all of the things. We would love to give you just this opportunity. If there is anything that we missed or anything that you want to share with our audiences to take them into this week, please feel free.
Just keep learning and keep staying curious with your life. There are so many gems that you have, they are unexplored. It is like, if you have had a nudge to go take a painting class, if you have had a nudge to go call someone whom you have not spoken to in years, follow that. That is your intuition speaking. That is your higher self speaking. I have learned to just listen and not resist it. Be open, go out there, stay curious, have conversations. Angela, when I met you at the conference, I was like, “Cool. I am going to talk to her” because you have the aura. You have that energy, and I can recognize. Now, who are the people who are aligned with what they are doing? You feel it from across the room.
Keep learning and stay curious about your life. There are so many hidden gems within you that are still waiting to be discovered. Share on XI feel the same way. Thank you.
It is just such an honor to meet people, continue to meet people, and share your story.
Feel with your community. I kind of grew up with this notion of “Once I still have my best friend from high school, and then Sylvia is part of my crew from medical school.” You think as an adult woman that you do not continue to build that. You can, you just have to be intentional about that. When you find your purpose and your passion, and you are aligned, and your life is kind of your choosing, things that are aligned with that, then you can still bring people into your community. I am grateful that you are now in ours. I cannot wait to hear more about what you are doing and look more into your book from last time.
Where can we buy Live Your New Story? It is available on Amazon, and it is a quick read. It is 96 pages, but it is packed with so much wisdom. Whoever gets the book, read it and answer the questions because you are going to find something out about yourself that you never knew.
This conversation has absolutely been everything to us, and you have given our audiences so much. Your truth, your tools, and honesty, definitely. It sounds like very much in your heart. We are grateful that you leapt into this seat with us.
Truly, if you are tuning in and you feel a nudge during this episode, that is your intuition calling.
Go grab Dom’s book, Live Your New Story. Certainly, if you are a purpose-driven entrepreneur ready to build something portable and powerful, look up WE Corps Global. The link is waiting for you.
Dom, please share again with our audiences where they can find you and follow you.
I am very active on LinkedIn and Instagram. If you would like to support me in my goal to get up to a thousand subscribers on YouTube, I am also on YouTube at Dom Narciso Kim.
Go follow her now, and we will wait. If this episode moved you, share it with one woman in your life who needs to hear it. One share can change someone’s whole trajectory.
Until next time, keep leaping. Keep building, growing, and stay curious. This is the life that you were given, the only one, and you were meant to live it.
May you be well.
May you be well.
Important Links
- Dom Narciso Kim
- Live Your New Story: Discover Your Best Self and Live Your Best Life
- Dom Narciso Kim on YouTube
- Dom Narciso Kim on LinkedIn
- Dom Narciso Kim on Instagram
- WE Corps Global
About Dom Narciso Kim
Dominique Narciso Kim is an LGBT Filipina American Entrepreneur. She serves as a a Global Purpose and Business Coach, guiding trailing spouses, diplomats, and expats in transition. She is a 6x expat with experience across Latin America, Asia, and Australia. She helps globally mobile professionals clarify their purpose abroad and build a portable business.
Dom is the author of Live Your New Story: Discover Your Best Self and Live Your Best Life, host of the WE Corps Podcast: Global Reinvention for Trailing Spouses, Diplomats, and Expats, and a keynote speaker. She has spoken for the US Embassy in South Korea and Australia, UN Women Canberra, the US Peace Corps, McKinsey and Company, and Georgetown University. She will be transitioning to Fiji this summer with her wife, three daughters, and goldendoodle.
WEBSITE: https://domnarciso.mykajabi.com/
BOOK: https://domnarciso.mykajabi.com/book
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@domnarcisokim
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/domnarcisokim/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/domnarcisokim/