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Tag: Mental Health

  • Angela Lee on Retiring from Fighting, Losing Her Sister, and Who She Became After

    Angela Lee on Retiring from Fighting, Losing Her Sister, and Who She Became After

    Intro

    Angela Lee spent almost her whole life as a fighter. She won a world title as a teenager, held it for years, and walked away from the sport in 2023, not long after losing her sister Victoria. What looked from the outside like a champion retiring on her own terms was, for her, the start of an identity crisis. Fighting was the only thing she had ever done and the only way she had ever made money, and without it she did not know who she was.

    In this episode we get into what came after. Speaking openly about her mental health and starting her nonprofit Fight Story, and how choosing that path left her feeling like the black sheep, with her world shrinking to her husband Bruno and their daughter Ava. How she learned to advocate for herself by treating it the way she would stand up for the people she loves. And how she found new people, at the gym and around the work, who became a second family. She is not looking for a way back to the cage. She is building a life on the other side of it.

    Story Highlights

    • Winning a world title as a teenager and building her entire identity around being a fighter, until she could not separate who she was from what she did.
    • The trap she describes at the top: once you are champion, you cannot lose, because losing means the title, the paycheck, and everything that comes with it, all at once.
    • The goalpost that kept moving, telling herself she would feel safe at 10 and 0, then 20 and 0, and never getting there.
    • Retiring in 2023 with no hesitation and no love left for the sport, then realizing fighting was the only way she knew how to make money.
    • The identity crisis after she laid the belt down, sitting up late asking herself what she was even good at other than fighting.
    • Losing her sister Victoria, and how it froze everything and made her ask what she was actually doing with her life.
    • Coming up in a fighting culture that shut her down when she tried to voice what she was going through, and why she is now adamant about building something safer.
    • Starting Fight Story, opening up about her own mental health for the first time, and becoming the black sheep for it.
    • Learning to advocate for herself by thinking of it as standing up for Victoria and for Ava.
    • Being let down by the people closest to her, and watching others step up to fill those spaces.
    • Writing United We Rise with Bruno, and what they want it to be for Ava.
    • The everyday fighter idea she is building her next chapter around, and finally being in a good season.

    Quote

    “I’m getting to introduce myself in a new way, as a person who, yes, has also won championships, but is now so much more than that.”

    About Angela Lee

    Angela Lee is a retired mixed martial artist and a six-time world champion who competed at atomweight before stepping away from the sport in 2023. She is the founder of Fight Story, a nonprofit focused on mental health in and around combat sports, and the co-author, with her husband Bruno Pucci, of United We Rise. She lives in Hawaii, where she trains and coaches, and is the mother of daughter Ava. These days she describes herself as an everyday fighter, carrying what the sport taught her into a life beyond it. Find her at @angelaleemma.

    Why This Conversation Matters

    Most people know how Angela’s fighting career went. The world title, the reign, the retirement. This conversation is the part that came after the cameras left. She talks about not knowing who she was once the fighting stopped, about the years of grief and rebuilding, and about the cost of speaking honestly when the people around you are not ready to hear it. It is not a comeback story. It is a person figuring out who she is when the thing she built her whole identity on is gone, and deciding to keep fighting for different things.

    Turning Points

    • Realizing after retirement that she had built her entire identity around being a fighter, and had no idea who she was without it.
    • Losing Victoria, and the moment everything else stopped mattering and she had to ask what kind of life she actually wanted.
    • Choosing to start Fight Story and speak openly about her mental health, knowing it would set her apart from the people closest to her.
    • Learning to stand up for herself by framing it as standing up for the people she loves, which she calls the beginning of finding her voice.

    Key Lessons

    • The hardest part of winning is what it does to losing. Once she was champion, every fight became something she could only lose, never win, and that pressure took the joy out of it.
    • Retiring is not the end of the crisis, it is the start of one. Walking away meant losing not just the sport but the identity, the income, and the structure built around it, all at once.
    • Speaking honestly has a cost, and it is worth paying anyway. Opening up about her mental health made her the black sheep, but she knew it mattered and did it regardless.
    • You can learn to advocate for yourself through the people you love. She could not stand up for herself directly, so she did it by imagining she was standing up for Victoria and Ava.
    • When some people fall away, others step in. The support she expected did not always come from where she thought, and the community she built became a second family.

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  • Alyssa Lie on Going Viral, Burning Out, and Being Told Her Personality Was Fake

    Alyssa Lie on Going Viral, Burning Out, and Being Told Her Personality Was Fake

    Intro

    Alyssa Lie skipped university at 18 and auditioned her way into musical theater at LaSalle with almost no training. Ten years later she is a singer, a content creator, and her own manager, and she has spent most of that time working out which parts of the person people love online actually belong to her.

    In this episode we get into what happens when the thing that made you go viral is also the thing making you miserable. Alyssa talks about choosing plan A when the adults at the dinner table were split, being told in her first year of school that she did not deserve to be there, and the slow slide from posting for joy to posting for the algorithm. She walks through a burnout that arrived while every metric was still going up, the comments accusing her of faking her own positivity, and a lunch in Bali that cracked something open. This is a conversation about getting very good at performing a version of yourself, and what is left when you stop.

    Story Highlights

    • Choosing musical theater at LaSalle over university at 18, with two or three singing lessons, one monologue coaching session, and no dance preparation before the audition.
    • Learning years later that most of the audition panel thought she was too young and too inexperienced, and that one teacher pushed for her anyway.
    • Surviving a first year where a classmate told her repeatedly that she did not belong, while she was already carrying her own imposter syndrome.
    • Leaving school with the craft and none of the business, and realizing the gatekeepers she had been trained to wait for no longer held the gate.
    • Going viral on TikTok in 2020 with accents, skits, and comedy, then watching joy turn into a formula she had to keep feeding.
    • Burning out while the metrics, the money, and the campaigns were all working, and having no explanation for why.
    • Reading comments that said her positive energy was an act, and starting to wonder if the commenters were right.
    • A lunch in Bali with someone she hoped would be further along than she was, who told her she was hiding something and offered to put her in denim.
    • Splitting the work in two so music never has to pay the bills, and building the business around it instead.

    Quote

    “As the algorithm gives you this dopamine hit, and, like, this feedback loop, you start forgetting what actually brings you joy, and you start thinking what brings the algorithm joy.”

    About Alyssa Lie

    Alyssa Lie is a Singapore-based singer, content creator, and her own manager. She trained in musical theater at LaSalle after choosing performance over a university degree at 18, and has spent the decade since running every part of her career herself: the branding, the packaging, the pitching, the back end. She built an audience on TikTok through comedy, accents, and voiceovers, then rebuilt it around mental health, creative work, and what it actually takes to manage yourself as an artist. She still releases music, organizes her own concerts and shoots, and is now building a community and working toward a book. You can find her as Alyssa Lie on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Spotify, and Apple Music.

    Why This Conversation Matters

    Most stories about burnout come with a visible cause. Alyssa’s came while everything was working, which made it harder to name and much harder to explain to anyone else. What she eventually traced it back to was not the workload. It was how much room she had given other people to decide what was real about her, and how well the thing they liked most had been paying.

    Turning Points

    • Sitting at the dinner table at 18 while her aunt and uncle argued over plan A and plan B, and deciding she had never lived with a plan B.
    • Calling her former counselor at the end of her first year to ask whether to drop out, and working through what she stood to lose in each direction.
    • Noticing that she felt angry while making content, and still making it anyway because it was easy.
    • The lunch in Bali, the drive home, and the five phone calls after it.
    • Letting go of the content identity that worked, and posting the deeper material knowing the audience did not ask for it.

    Key Lessons

    • One person seeing something in you can be the whole difference. Alyssa got into the course on a single teacher’s insistence.
    • The people who take shots at you are usually telling you about themselves. Getting to indifference took her two years and an instruction from her teacher she did not want to hear.
    • Craft is not a career. Nobody taught her the business side, and the ceiling she kept hitting turned out to be a branding problem, not a talent problem.
    • Never make your art carry the money. Once music had to fund everything, every creative decision became a commercial one.
    • Nobody else gets to certify what is real about you, including the people who look healed.

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  • Kenneth Tay on Fighting, Failure, and Finding Balance

    Kenneth Tay on Fighting, Failure, and Finding Balance

    Intro

    Kenneth Tay is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, coach, and co-founder of Trinity Combat Sports in Suzhou, China. He’s spent the past fifteen years teaching, training, and building communities through martial arts across Asia — from Australia to Shanghai and now Singapore.

    In this conversation, we talk about how Kenneth rebuilt his life through sport, the lessons he’s learned from depression and discipline, and what it means to start over when things fall apart. He shares the story of founding Suzhou’s first Jiu-Jitsu gym, why he once worked for free to learn from mentors, and how martial arts taught him that growth is about showing up even when you don’t feel like it.

    Story Highlights

    • Growing up between Singapore, China, and Australia
    • How depression led him back to sport and structure
    • Starting Suzhou’s first Jiu-Jitsu gym with a handful of friends and no mats
    • What running a business in China taught him about loyalty and trust
    • The decision to coach full-time in Singapore after the pandemic

    Quote

    “When I was back in Singapore, I happened to be lucky to go to a high school in Singapore which was very strong on sports. And I was always into sports. I was never particularly good at it, but I enjoyed the grind of training and playing sports. And it always kept me grounded and disciplined.”

    About Kenneth Tay

    Kenneth Tay is a Singaporean martial artist, BJJ black belt, and co-founder of Trinity Combat Sports in Suzhou, China. After years of training and coaching across Asia, he now teaches at Field Assembly in Singapore. Kenneth’s journey from depression to discipline through martial arts has inspired students across two countries. He continues to promote community, mental health, and resilience through Jiu-Jitsu.

    Why This Conversation Matters

    Kenneth’s story is about more than sport — it’s about rebuilding confidence, structure, and identity through challenge. His journey shows that discipline isn’t punishment, it’s a form of self-respect. From living abroad to starting over, he reminds us that growth comes from the mats, but it applies everywhere else too.

    Turning Points

    Kenneth’s time in Australia began as freedom but spiraled into burnout and self-doubt. Rediscovering sport became his way out. Starting Muay Thai led him to Jiu-Jitsu — a discipline that became therapy, teacher, and anchor. When he moved to China, he co-founded Suzhou’s first BJJ club, training in borrowed dance studios before building it into a full academy. Later, COVID brought him back to Singapore, where he transitioned into full-time coaching. Through it all, his focus stayed the same: use sport to grow stronger — mentally, physically, and emotionally.

    Key Lessons

    • Discipline heals. Structure provides stability when everything else is uncertain.
    • Build from the ground up. Great things often start small — even on borrowed mats.
    • Community sustains growth. Shared purpose turns struggle into support.
    • Adaptation matters. Every move, every country, every failure refines your focus.
    • Stay humble. True progress comes from consistency, not titles.

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