ABOUT JIGGY
I LEARNED HOW TO KEEP GOING. THEN I LEARNED THAT WASN’T ENOUGH.
For most of my life, resilience meant enduring whatever life asked of me. Today, my work is about helping others build a way forward that doesn’t cost them their health, relationships, or sense of self.
BEFORE THE STAGE
MY NAME IS
NA EUN YOON.
I’m a keynote speaker, facilitator, and founder — and before any of those titles, I’m a human being shaped by many beginnings.
I was born in Seoul, South Korea, and moved to the United States at 10 years old without knowing English. At 12, I began coming into my queer identity while learning to navigate a new language, culture, and understanding of who I was allowed to be.
Long before I had language for resilience, I learned how to adapt, achieve, and read the room. I became very good at showing up. But I was much less practiced at asking what showing up was costing me.
AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND AGAIN.
LIFE KEPT ASKING ME TO BEGIN AGAIN.
AT 17, I LOST MY HOME.
A five-alarm fire destroyed our apartment in Queens. In the months before I left for college, I moved through temporary places to stay, including shelters and strangers’ basements. By the time I arrived at Penn State, I was carrying far more than a freshman suitcase… I mean… there was barely anything in the suitcase anyway, thanks to the fire.
AT 18, I WAS DIAGNOSED WITH TYPE 1 DIABETES.
During my first year at Penn State, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness I would have to manage for the rest of my life. It was another major disruption, and I learned quickly how to keep up with school, responsibilities, and my health all at once. It definitely was not fun being 18 trying to call insurance companies and make doctors’ appointments.
AT 20, I LOST MY MOM.
My mom had been diagnosed with cancer during my second year of college. In my third year, I lost her. Grief entered my life while I was still figuring out who I was becoming.
TWO MONTHS LATER, I SHOWED UP ANYWAY.
Two months after my mom died, I performed at Penn State THON — one of the largest student-run philanthropic events in the world — in front of thousands of people in person and online. I was the president of my dance crew, and my team was counting on me, so I showed up.
At the time, that was what resilience meant to me: keep moving, keep performing, keep being useful, no matter what was happening inside me.
WHAT I HAD TO UNLEARN
I THOUGHT RESILIENCE MEANT NEVER STOPPING.
Survival taught me how to keep moving. Healing taught me that movement and well-being are not the same. Resilience should help us grow — not cost us our health, relationships, joy, or sense of self.
BEGINNING AGAIN, ON PURPOSE
After graduating, I followed the expected path into a full-time job. Two and a half years later, I left to pursue speaking. In 2017, I packed my car and drove across the country to begin again in California.
I wasn’t escaping my story. I was learning how to turn what I had lived into something other people could use.
At 29, I lost my dad — nine years after losing my mom. But this time, I knew I didn’t want to grieve the same way.
When my mom died, I kept moving because I thought resilience meant powering through. When my dad died, I tried to slow down. I let people support me. I made more room for grief, rest, my health, my relationships, and the parts of life that don’t show up on a résumé.
I still had responsibilities. I still had to keep living. But I was beginning to understand that resilience wasn’t about proving how much I could withstand.
It was about learning how to keep going without losing myself in the process.
That shift changed my work, too. Speaking became less about proving that I had survived and more about helping others build the tools, language, and relationships they deserve before challenges become crises.
I STOPPED TRYING TO LEAVE MY STORY BEHIND.
WHY I SPEAK
BECAUSE BEING HUMAN IS PART OF BEING SUCCESSFUL.
Today, I deliver research-backed keynotes for students, educators, and early-career professionals facing pressure, change, grief, leadership, and the complicated work of becoming.
I combine lived experience, practical tools, research, and high-energy storytelling to help people build greater self-trust, self-compassion, resilience, and connection — especially when the path forward isn’t clear.
My goal is not to teach people how to endure more. It is to help them keep growing without sacrificing their health, relationships, or sense of self, so they can perform, lead, and move through hard seasons with greater confidence, capacity, and care.
IN THEIR HONOR
THE LESSONS I CARRY FORWARD.
None of us become who we are alone. My mom, my dad, and Doc are no longer here in the way I wish they were — but I hear them in the questions I ask, the choices I make, and every room I’m trusted to lead.
MY MOM
SHE TAUGHT ME TO WORK HARD—AND MAKE IT MATTER.
My mom was a professor in Korea. She left behind the career she had built to raise our family and begin again in America. She knew what it meant to work hard, take risks, make sacrifices, and use what she knew to help others.
From her, I learned that perseverance is not passive. It’s a decision to keep moving toward something meaningful, even when the outcome is uncertain.
I recognize now that my willingness to begin again, bet on a different future, and build something from uncertainty probably comes from her. So does my instinct to show up fully for others.
She taught me the power of sacrifice. My own life has taught me that sacrifice should serve what matters — not erase the person making it.
Her work ethic lives in how I prepare. Her courage lives in the risks I take. And her generosity remains at the heart of why I teach.
MY DAD
HE TAUGHT ME TO TAKE PRIDE IN THE WORK—AND HAVE JOY IN IT.
My dad was a journalist, a gifted writer, and a natural public speaker. He had a deep curiosity about philosophy, human nature, and the inner life — how we think, how we make meaning, and what it takes to live with integrity.
It wasn’t until he passed away I discovered that my desire to understand human beings — their stories, emotions, choices, and inner worlds — came from him.
He instilled in me a respect for principle, manners, tradition, and honor, while teaching me to respect the individual journey each person must take. He believed that how we do our work matters: that we should take pride in the effort we give, create something we can stand behind, and find happiness in doing it.
His love of storytelling lives in how I speak. His curiosity lives in the questions I ask. And his pride in meaningful work lives in the care I bring to every room.
DR. CHRISTOPHER UHL
HE IS STILL TEACHING ME.
I met Dr. Christopher Uhl—aka “Doc,” aka “Uhchill”—at Penn State when I was 18. On the first day of class, he burned a dollar bill in front of more than 500 students, and asked the class what this meant for each of us. I knew immediately that this would not be an ordinary college class. What I didn’t know was how profoundly this man would change my life — or how much he would help guide me toward the person I was becoming… not just for 1 semester, nor 4 years, nor 15. But forever.
Doc introduced me to self-awareness, emotional intelligence, meditation, vulnerability, and a deeper relationship with the Earth. He taught me to slow down long enough to notice—to walk, eat, breathe, observe, receive, process, feel, and connect with greater intention.
He literally had us walking barefoot around campus, hugging trees, and chewing our food slowly with our eyes closed. As a girl from the city, I needed this.
When my mom died, I didn’t have a therapist. I had Doc. I cried in his office more times than I can count. He never tried to fix my grief or hand me answers “because he was the adult”. Instead, he always gave me questions — and trusted me enough to sit with them. He gifted me curiosity.
From him, I learned that teaching is not a performance of certainty. Teaching is the practice of planting seeds. It requires mutual trust, vulnerability, curiosity, and the humility to admit that teachers are still learning, too. Transformation becomes possible when both teacher and student feel safe enough to be uncertain, make mistakes, and discover what emerges.
In 2016, I emailed Doc asking for his blessing to quit my job and become a motivational speaker. He hadn’t just given me his blessing. He gave me my first paid speaking opportunity.
I would not be the speaker, leader, or human being I am without him. Whatever wisdom, vulnerability, experience I offer the world carries something he first planted in me.
Every time I slow a room down, make space for someone’s humanity, or offer a question instead of an answer, Doc’s legacy is there.
He is still teaching me. Every single day.
Thank you, Doc. I miss you terribly.
Phew. That was a lot. You good? Please drink some water.
If you made it this far, thank you for spending a little time with my story. The work I do now is shaped by all of it — the hard parts, the funny parts, the people I’ve loved, and everything I’ve had to learn and unlearn.
Whether you’re supporting students, educators, or early-career talent, let’s create an experience that strengthens resilience, deepens connection, and helps people keep growing long after the event ends.