The Life Brief: No Regrets Living with Bonnie Wan

• Disentangling identities (07:00) 
• The process of moving from corporate culture to solopreneurship (10:16)
• You can be transparent and vulnerable even in corporate settings (19:32)
• Pursuing personal fulfillment amidst societal metrics of success (32:42)

“I’ve been in the world of advertising, and the outcome and application of it has always been about purpose and how do I unlock the purpose and therefore power and agency and set of possibilities from the inside out for a company first for 30 years and now, and it’s actually probably been parallel to the corporate journey and doing it for companies and brands. But I have always been drawn and driven towards understanding how to redirect behavior, change, how to unlock purpose and possibility in people. It’s what’s driven me long before I even became, you know, officially a partner and an official leader and head of strategy. It’s always been the thing that has propelled me and what got me into strategy in the first place. So, yes, the whole idea of how do you unlock change?”

“Part one is about getting messy and coming eye to eye, face to face with what are the stories that we’ve adopted or collected along the way? Whose voices are informing us? And if we were to rewrite things from a deep seated set of values and beliefs, how would we rewrite or author our futures differently?”

“I took this terrifying step of opening up, and then there was a thirst for it in our own company, and that thirst grew to in our industry, and then that thirst grew to beyond our industry. So it’s really been this amazing dance with me and the audiences. And then I’ve had to navigate the personal challenges with being so open about my life, with my husband in particular, because I’m telling some really vulnerable and hard stories, not just about me, but about us and then about our family and then about other people.” 

“My mission is to be an open book, and hopefully by doing so, give other people permission to do it in small ways, small doses, in ways that feel comfortable and authentic to them. Maybe, you know, let me remove the word comfortable. It’s never comfortable. It’s always uncomfortable. But it is courageous to do it”

“If you simply want to live life of your authentic making, of your creation, it takes getting beyond what you’re supposed to. We’re going to all need to tap into our sense of creativity, our sense of self, and that’s going to be our compass in a more and more ambiguous, unpredictable and complicated world.

“Living an authentic life will never be completely easy. It will never be comfortable. But the more we stretch ourselves and tune into ourselves, the more we will navigate with more spontaneity and instinct and intuition.”

NICOLE

Hello, friends. Welcome back to the School of Self-Worth. I’m your host, Nicole Tsong. For today’s episode I have the privilege and honor of welcoming Bonnie Wan, an advertising and life strategist and the author of the brilliant, The Life Brief.  Her book is so simple and profound in its framework, to help you create a playbook for no regrets living. I loved reading it, and I really loved the conversation I got to have with Bonnie about what she shares in the book and how it can apply to your life. Bonnie shares some really personal stories about going through a crisis in her marriage while parenting four kids, and also about her evolution from when she was a kid, burying her Chinese culture and identity, and how to assimilate in the corporate world and then what that experience has been like for her now, as she peels back those layers. There is so much richness in our conversation and also in her book. This episode is a total must listen. So stay tuned for the goodness ahead. And also, if you’re an Asian American corporate leader who wants to discover how to embrace your cultural identity and still be seen and recognized at work, DM me ‘seen’ on Instagram @NicoleTsong – I’ve got something for you today.

Okay friends, let’s dig into this! Welcome to the School of Self-Worth, a podcast for ambitious women who know they are worthy of an astoundingly great life. Join us weekly, as we get on the right side of your intuition, redefine success, and reclaim your self-worth. I’m your host, Nicole Tsong, an award-winning journalist who left it all behind to become a bestselling author of three books and work/life balance expert, helping ambitious women unlock their intuition and step into a life of fulfillment and radical joy. Every single week, I will bring you diverse and meaningful conversations with successful women from all walks of life who share insight about what it takes to be brave, joyful, and authentic every day. Every episode is thoughtfully designed to leave you feeling empowered with tangible tips and advice that will lead you to your next breakthrough.

Well, Bonnie, I’m so excited to have you here on the School of Self-Worth. Welcome!

BONNIE WAN

Thank you, Nicole. It’s a joy to be here.

NICOLE

Well, I feel like I’ve been deep into Bonnie’s world, because I’ve been reading her amazing book, The Life Brief, a playbook for a no regrets living. It’s right here. I feel like I really have read so much about your journey. One of the big things, the question that came up about you, Bonnie, is, as someone who’s in advertising for so long, did you ever expect that you would write a self-help book?

BONNIE WAN

No. Especially when you frame it that way, as a self-help book. No, I think I’ve always identified myself as a strategist. Even as I embarked on this journey of writing a book, I saw it as life strategy versus self-help. But of course, anything to do with life growth, expansion, change, navigating, transition, of course, would fall under that big, bad umbrella of self-help. And I don’t mean bad in a negative way, I just mean big, really.

NICOLE 

It is a big umbrella. Well, it was interesting, as I was reading about your journey and your story, because it was so immersed in what you were doing as an advertising strategist, and then what you started to do is teach what you do, in the book, to people in corporate environments and advertising. It was just a fascinating journey to me, because really what we do here on School of Self-Worth is, find out and learn about people’s self-worth journey. To me, Life Brief is completely just a big self-worth journey for you. Then coming to this place where you actually don’t write about advertising, although obviously advertising is a big part of, I would say the framework of what you talk about in Life Brief, but really, you’re helping people come into their lives in a totally different way and to address it a different way. I was just curious for you, in that journey, you would say, okay, I’m a strategist, and now I’m going to write about this, but doing it in a way to help people with their lives, not necessarily with anything related to advertising?

BONNIE WAN

Yeah. My mission as an advertising strategist, though, has been the outcome and application of it, and has always been about purpose and how do I unlock the purpose, and therefore power and agency and set of possibilities, the expanded set of possibilities from the inside out for a company first, for 30 years and now, and it’s actually probably been parallel to the corporate journey, and doing it for companies and brands. But I have always been drawn and driven towards understanding how to redirect behavior, change, how to unlock purpose and possibility in people. It’s what’s driven me long before I even became officially a partner and an official leader and head of strategy. It’s always been the thing that has propelled me and what got me into strategy in the first place. So, yes, the whole idea of how do you unlock change? And now I think what I’ve crystallized in the book, the journey experience and the life brief experience,  is how do you unlock people’s power within the power they have already? I think this is where self- worth comes into play, how do you fuel and feed someone’s sense of empowerment, their personal power and agency and possibility? Because we live in a culture that is really fixated on ‘power over’, and that’s why we see so much conflict around us.

NICOLE

I have so many questions for you based on that statement alone. But the one thing I really was curious about, reading your book, and then also when hearing you speak that way, when you talk about power, there’s this story where you talk a lot about how you kind of interpreted growing up Chinese American and having that cultural background, and then you compensated for it by being the most extroverted, outgoing person possible, which I’m sure helped you a lot in advertising as well. And then when you started to look at unlocking your own power, how did that change the dynamic of how you showed up and the kind of person you were, versus that way? You showed up because you thought what? What transitioned within you?

BONNIE WAN

If I were to be totally frank, I’m still in that process. So I’m deep in the messiness of that, the uncovering and the reconnecting back to who I am before I started to participate in this game of life, you know, this very different culture that I immigrated into. I’m still peeling back the layers of this practiced extroversion that I’ve been living since the 8th grade. As I tell in the book, I talk in the book (for those who haven’t read it), about the moment of clarity as an 8th grader, before I entered high school, that I didn’t want to be the shy, brown, buck tooth girl in the corner. I wanted to play at the center, because there was this longing for belonging that was driving me. In 8th grade, I had this flash lightning rod of clarity that I wanted a different existence. It was also the beginning of my road to assimilation. And I’m still peeling back the effects of that.

So I will say that I realized at an early stage that our culture of business, our western culture, really loves winners. We love outward achievers and winners. It’s very Asian as well, so it wasn’t completely devoid of the culture from which I came from. But there’s a way of winning in the west, in western culture, that is very individualistic. It is very, ‘see me roar’. We talk about the badasses in business, and it’s predominantly men that we celebrate in the world of business. Because they are loud, proud, bold, they have moxie. I felt a strong pull that I needed to behave that way in high school, in order to fit in and get this sense of belonging that I so craved. And in my adult life, achieve and make it, and it’s part of the ascension. Right? I think since 2020, I’ve really looked at who am I. Whose story am I living, and what system am I defending or passing down to my children, having four kids. So there’s been a lot of introspection. 

It’s what the practice of The Life Brief invites. Part one is about getting messy and coming eye-to-eye, face-to-face with the stories that we’ve adopted or collected along the way? Whose voices are informing us? And if we were to rewrite things from a deep seated set of values and beliefs, how would we rewrite or author our futures differently?

NICOLE

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I relate to a lot of what you’re saying,  especially just going back even to what you were saying about achievement in western culture and in corporate culture. I actually find a lot of times I’m also Taiwanese Chinese –  that achievement culture there. It’s weird because they are so similar and yet they’re really distinct in how they can show up, but then you can get confused by, is it actually the corporate culture doing that? Or is this ingrained in me that I have to just achieve all the time? And I know a lot of the women listening, are definitely high-achieving women. Then you start to think, how do you disentangle those identities to be able to value who you are and where you come from, and not get sucked into this culture of achievement just for the sake of it, because you do it for long enough, and I’ve done this too. You do it long enough, and then you ask, “is this it?”

NICOLE

This is what?  This is all you get,  just a house?

BONNIE WAN

Exactly. That’s exactly the sensation at the top of the mountain. And in the book, I talk about David Brooks, The Second Mountain, and it is a concept that comes up again and again. Even since launching my book, and in the period of launching my book and the run up to it, I’ve won even more awards and gotten more accolades. So it’s ironic that the book is really talking about or asking of people, what do you really want? What really feeds and fuels you? What nourishes and nurtures you beyond the accolades? And the whole example of the first mountain, is it’s the first mountain that we’ve set up and set off to climb, but it’s based on society’s metrics of success versus our own metrics.

The second mountain is when we actually embark on a new climb where there is no roadmap and it’s deeply personal to us, and up to us to carve for our own making. And it’s one that is as exhausting, because both are exhausting, right? There’s no easy path. There’s no easy mountain. But it’s one, hopefully, that has a deep sense of meaning, fulfillment, aliveness and personal satisfaction. I’m so on that second mountain journey, even as I let go of the first mountain accolades, and the first mountain achievements. It’s funny, because the more I let go of it, I’m finding the more I’m getting. So when we surrender to the fact of not needing it for our self-worth, not needing it for our identity, that’s when it’s all of a sudden hitting me. Which is ironic, you know, there’s a dissonance to this timing.

NICOLE

It is funny, because I’ve actually been talking a lot to my clients recently about the two types of pressure. And the first mountain is like the first type of pressure, right? It’s that pressure to achieve the perfectionism, like worrying about what everyone else is thinking about you. So you climb that first mountain because you’ve got to follow the pathway that’s been laid out in front of me. It’s very set. This is the only way to do it. Then you start to recognize that that pressure doesn’t make you happy, it doesn’t give you any fulfillment, so you start to release it. But then you release it and recognize there’s a different kind of pressure, which is actually to be in the life that is fulfilling for you, but it is not actually pressure free. I always think that this is something people don’t understand. A life of fulfillment and joy and purpose is not pressure free. It’s just a different kind of pressure. It’s taking you somewhere you’ve never been, and that is its own pressure, “I’ve never been here before. There is no pathway up the mountain. I am bushwhacking my way through this and I’m trying to sort it out”, and it can feel very stressful. But if you have done your work, you can navigate, right? It’s a different kind of navigation, and I’m curious because you told me before we got onto this, that you are in the first day of your new life brief. Could you share with us a little bit more about where you are on that journey?

BONNIE WAN

Yes. Happy to. But first, you talk about pressure, and that’s one word for it. I call it discomfort. I think there’s a lack of orientation when you set off on your own journey and you decide to off-road from this in the first mountain, because the first mountain is lived through the validation of those around us, by society at large, by our families, people who love us, but have expectations for us out of their desire for our happiness. But it is almost like the adolescent breaking free. You know, I have three teens right now, so I’m seeing the natural course of the life stage of breaking out and kicking away from family and staking out life on our own as an adult. I think the shift from first mountain to second mountain living, is very much that, and it’s disorienting, especially at first. And right now, I’m tactically stepping out of a corporate culture that has structured my life. It has been the structure and scaffolding of my life and I my identity for 30 years. And today is the first day that I am a solopreneur, really.

NICOLE

Congratulations. That’s huge.

BONNIE WAN

Thank you. I’ve been spiritually and emotionally prepared for this for a really long time. But tactically, it’s wobbly as heck, you know? And now I’m starting to feel the finer nuances of what that means for my daily schedule, from my support systems, from the new muscles I have to work out, and I have to hold grace as I do it, because I’m the breadwinner for four kids. We are shepherding and sending our second one off to college, and we all know as parents what that means, financially and emotionally, and all those things. Then I have two others coming up in the wings, so this is not a conventionally good time to make a transition and step off that ledge. But what I’ve learned in living the life brief for 15 years, is that the second mountain doesn’t follow cultural convention, and it does take some courage to do it, but it also is paved with surprise, serendipity and rewards that you couldn’t imagine on the conventional path.

NICOLE

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve been on that pathway for a long time myself as well. It is challenging when you take that actual leap, and then you’re like, “Oh, it’s actually okay over here”. But when you’re about to do it, it’s really a terrifying moment. And then what I find is, over time, you keep asking, “Are there more second mountains?” I don’t know if there are, but there’s more things on the second mountain to keep taking those leaps, and it’s always interesting every time you do it.

BONNIE WAN

It is, it is. This is the first big career leap of this kind that I’ve taken in a very long time. I flirted with it back in the 2000’s, but I have moved my family several times, and I experienced the same thing in those transitions. When you’re on one side of it, before you’ve physically leapt, you’re so steeped in the mourning of it, what you’re going to lose, what you’re letting go of, and that’s hard. It’s emotional. And I found that it’s important to acknowledge it, to name it, to make space for it, even though it’s uncomfortable, even though the grief can be overwhelming. But once you are on the other side, and I’m talking about physical relocation, right? Then, wow, there’s this world of new people, new community, new connections, new discoveries awaiting you, and then it slowly starts to pick up in excitement and fuel.

NICOLE

Totally. Yeah. I think you are obviously on the beginning of a super exciting new shift for yourself as well. I wanted to go back to one piece of the book that was really interesting to me, because when you started to share The Life Brief, you had to be a lot more vulnerable in what you were sharing in the corporate world, in that corporate environment. I know for a lot of the women listening, that can feel really scary to start to share from a much deeper place. A lot of people tend to compartmentalize. Like, my personal life is not really part of my work. I’m not going to really share my emotional state. I’m not going to really share what’s going on. And I’m curious both how you did it, and if you also have any suggestions for women who are considering it, the advantages of it? Because I think sometimes we can’t even consider what would be the advantage of doing something so courageous, as sharing yourself in a more personal way in your workplace.

BONNIE WAN

First of all, I want to say that it’s going to be different for everyone. Everyone’s comfort level and journeys are different, so mine does not mark everyone else’s. I find personally, when I see women who are very compartmentalized and they have very strong boundaries about not bringing the personal into work, I respect that, and I wholeheartedly support that. So, by the way, I’m not inviting everyone to open their personal chests up in the ways that I have in my corporate setting. It was nerve wracking, and I chronicle this in the book. The first time, I paced, I was really nervous. It actually feels like the wobbliness I feel right now in the transition, because there was a lot of anxiety and fear wracked with it. How will people receive this? Will this knock me off my career? You know, because I think up until that first moment where I revealed the stories and the challenges of my marriage, the hurdles of holding a career, an ascending career, and a big family, a young family, multiple kids, and to hold a healthy relationship with a partner. I had only known women and leaders who were very polished, who were very protected of their image, and very strategic about what they projected and what they allowed to be shown. I think that was a very specific time and place, because I grew up in a business culture of scarcity for women. There weren’t many spots, if there were any at all. And it made a whole lot of sense to protect what you gave up, because trust was not open or widespread, you had to navigate things very strategically in order to get maybe the one opportunity for you to rise up. Luckily, we’re in a business culture that is opening. It’s still rough, it’s still deeply challenging, and the data still stands against us. But as we collectively organize and the more we share – and this gets to my real answer to your question –  it was important for me in that moment, personally, to stick with my biggest personal value, which is transparency. I cannot operate in a world where I am protected or I’m protecting myself wholly. I step into it. I get too messy, too open a lot of times, but it was impossible for me not to share. Then also, what I’ve learned is that in being a very open book, in being very transparent about my journey, it has allowed other women in the middle ranks, in the junior ranks, in the upcoming generations to say, “Hey, wow, I don’t see myself perfect and polished, but here’s a leader who has made it. And, wow, she’s open and transparent about her challenges. So maybe I can be up there, too.” So I have seen it serve the women behind me or alongside me, for us to get real and have real talk about what it’s like to be a woman in a system that’s been designed largely for men.

NICOLE

Thank you for sharing that. I came from journalism, and that was not the model. It was always like, you’re hard charging, you’re strong, you’re smart, you’ve got your shit together, and then that’s it. You didn’t have any space for vulnerability or for challenge. And it can be so, so tough when you’re in that environment. Right. But I’m curious for you, then you felt like, what? To make sure I got this right, that you really felt what it did was it opened the door for other women who were coming up, for that to happen. What was your experience doing that? Did you just get comfortable doing it? Because obviously you led The Life Brief workshop in lots of different ways. I’m sure you shared stories about your marriage and other experiences you had throughout all of those workshops. Did this become a practice that was like, “I can just tell the story about my family, no big deal.” How did you start to experience that?

BONNIE WAN

I like to say that life is a dance, right? It wasn’t pre-planned. It wasn’t something that I had envisioned and then made happen. It really was this intersecting dance. So that very first vulnerable workshop where I opened the chest to my challenges outside of work, beyond business, and I allowed everyone in my agency to see me as a human, not as a leader, a rising star in the business. It was standing room only, and then the word spread. And immediately I was asked, “Can you give that same talk again?” Because so many people missed it and want to be a part of it. So it was this dance of taking this terrifying step of opening up, and then the receptivity was there, a thirst for it in our own company, and that thirst grew into our industry, and then that thirst grew to beyond our industry.

So it’s really been this amazing dance with me and the audiences. I’ve had to navigate the personal challenges with being so open about my life, with my husband in particular, because I’m telling some really vulnerable and hard stories, not just about me, but about us, and then about our family and other people. So as the stories have expanded their reach, I’ve had to also navigate that sense of allowance from people in my life, particularly my husband. He is so on board with this mission, and in the book, I thank him. I say he’s the strongest man I know. And it’s true. I don’t know many men or partners, of any gender, who would allow their partner to openly display their bumpiness, you know, their darker sides of the story, so publicly.

NICOLE

Yeah, publicly. Also in professional environments, in particular, right? To be able to share that. I think what you’re speaking to is that people do crave that, because a lot of times it can, especially in the corporate world, be so polished, and you don’t get that sense of the human beyond what they’re really good at, what their competencies are. Sometimes I explore this, especially with Asian American women, that you were trained as a child almost to kind of keep that stuff behind closed doors. So did you feel like you had to really work to break through being able to share such personal things in a very public way?

BONNIE WAN

I have always been trained, or I guess the culture has always nurtured me, to keep things behind closed doors. I remember a conversation with my mother as a teenager. She said, we all have skeletons in our closet, and that’s the way it should be sometimes.  And I knew in that moment, I knew more than she realized. I knew about her own skeletons that were hanging there, and I didn’t give off. But I understood what she meant for the greater good, that some things are meant to be behind lock and key, but it’s not my nature. So I think this is part of the practice of The Life Brief. It’s really understanding whose story you are living or whose story have you been raised by, or inherited, or adopted? And what story is you? Your nature, or based on your experiences, your beliefs and your values? For me, my nature is transparent, and it aligns with my deep belief that being more real, more honest, more authentic, is going to serve us all. The hiding costs us. Talk about getting real, on the podcast. We need to sneeze. We need to cough. I think it costs us so much, the pretending, or the masking, as I call it. And we see it now in the amazing rise of burnout in our culture today, across corporate culture.

I was just talking to a lead nurse practitioner of Hartford, and she was saying that the burnout is skyrocketing. And we’re seeing it also in the media, all the conversations around burnout. But so much of that is hiding, pretending, projecting, or masking to be someone, which takes such enormous energy. I think there’s a real cost. So my existence, my mission, is to be an open book, and hopefully by doing so, gives other people permission to do it in small ways, small doses, in ways that feel comfortable and authentic to them. Rather, let me remove the word comfortable. It’s never comfortable. It’s always uncomfortable. But it is courageous to do it. And I will tell you, it has ripples in your life that can be deeply positive. Iit starts internally with our experiences, when we can come out and be real about who we are, what we question, what we wonder about, what we’re challenged by. It’s a real shedding and release internally, that then has an external ripple.

NICOLE

Yeah, I mean, one of the things I love that you share in the book is talking about outside in living, versus inside out living. What you’re talking about to me is very much right, that inside out living. My question for you, how is your family feeling about you sharing that way? Talking about your marriage and all its challenges, not only at work, but now you’ve written a whole book about it. Were they supportive? Were they kind of like, what are you doing? I know, especially for a lot of Asian women, they feel it can be nerve wracking to be like, “I’m putting my life out there, and my parents are going to be like, what are you talking about? What’s happening?”  I’m curious what your experience was like with that?

BONNIE WAN

Well, we already talked about my experience with my husband. We had a lot of negotiation, and he had a lot of time to come around. Time is such a wonderful thing. And publishing is a slow act. So over the 10 to 15 years that I’ve been sharing these stories publicly, he’s had some time to sit with them and create distance and also develop his own sense of mission and purpose around it. Also, the book writing was many years for my father, which is the other relationship that I go into real detail around, in the book. It was really hard. But my father had died. He’d already passed, so I didn’t have to contend with that in the way that you would expect. But I still had to really walk a fine line in honoring his experience of my story.

So the challenge in writing those stories was to sit with, is this what I experienced? Is this being framed also in the most respectful way to his experience? And so that was the line I walked with every story that had to do with me. In particular, I did write a chapter that had my son at the center of it. It wasn’t about my son, really. It was about my experience, experience of parenting. But I removed that chapter because he was at an age that it just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t of integrity to bring him in until he’s a consenting adult.

NICOLE

Yeah. And I feel that’s something people don’t always like navigating. It can be challenging. I also think you can make new choices around it, you can choose to share, or you can choose not to share. I think sometimes people mistake being vulnerable, like you have to share everything all the time, but no, you can be super respectful of your family and other people, and share very vulnerably, without giving everybody all the details. So I love what you’re sharing about your son, in particular.

BONNIE WAN

That’s beautifully summarized. Yes. Letting drips come out that serve the situation, serve the moment, serve the person. I think those are valid and valuable, but otherwise, you don’t have to spill it all.

NICOLE

Absolutely. Thank you for that. I’m curious for you about the other piece, saying you’re in the self-help category is different, and you are a woman of color in the self-help category. What has your experience been like with that, because I feel like that’s just a different one. There’s not a ton of women of color there. I don’t know if there’s an experience to share around that or just what is it like to step into that world?

BONNIE WAN

I can’t say that I’ve really connected with that world in a deep way. It’s been kind of a fury. But what I have noticed is that men dominate that world, and there are so many wonderful women practitioners, women’s voices, and it’s very different to a male approach, or a male take on the world. So for anyone out there that wants to support women, women of color having more voice and more influence, I think the key to it is, and I’m just going to butcher the title, but it’s about women’s invisibility. How every single sector of business has been designed around men. From safety in automobiles, right? Male dummies. And just treating women as small versions of men into the medical field, throughout healthcare. All the tests designed around male bodies, but not women. Self-help, too. Women navigate the world differently. We see it differently. We are biologically different, and we are emotionally different. And because we have been a minority for most of history in corporate culture, we’re going to navigate the landscape of business differently, and we’re going to have different senses of mission and vision and purpose as we navigate it.

So we need more female voices out there. We need more underrepresented voices of all kinds. Because you cannot have a man, especially a white man, tell us how we need to navigate this world, and especially a system which, and I’ve said it again, I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, wasn’t designed for us. So it’s imperative that we raise and lift and elevate more women, more women of color, more people of color. It’s not even just women, right? It’s all the voices that are not represented. Until we can do that, we’re not going to create strong, proven roadmaps.

NICOLE

What would you recommend then, as sort of like a final tip for a woman of color in a corporate environment to be the most powerful version of herself? What would you say for her to start to look at doing that? Because I think for a lot of women, they feel like they do everything they’re supposed to, but they still feel like they’re struggling a little bit there in that work environment. What would you offer to them to start to make that shift?

BONNIE WAN

I think you said something in asking the question. You’ve done everything you’re supposed to. That’s not going to help because the playbook isn’t out there. You’re going to have to get creative, and you’re going to have to use yourself as a compass for creating a new set of rules for how to navigate. The gift and the curse of being a pioneer, is there is no roadmap before you. And doing what you’re supposed to is not going to be enough. If you’re driven to change the system, if you’re driven to model a new way, or if simply you’re driven to live out your way. So forget about changing the world, changing the system for others, that feels very big and daunting.

But if you simply want to live life of your authentic making, of your creation, it takes getting beyond what you’re supposed to. We’re going to all need to tap into our sense of creativity, our sense of self, and that’s going to be our compass in a more and more ambiguous, unpredictable and complicated world. The change is only going to speed up even more. And the more we practice, and I use the word practice very intentionally, practice because it gets easier the more you do it. It will never be completely easy. It will never be comfortable. But the more we stretch ourselves and tune into ourselves, the more we will navigate with more spontaneity and instinct and intuition.

NICOLE

Beautifully said. I love that. Thank you, Bonnie. Well, it is time for our rapid fire questions. Are you ready for this?  So what was the last thing that you watched on television?

BONNIE WAN

Oh, my gosh, I haven’t watched tv in so long, I can’t remember. I’m sure I binge watched a show. My gosh, this is where menopause brain is now kicking in. I honestly can’t remember. But I did binge watch ‘Wednesday’, with my now eleven year old.

NICOLE

Oh, I loved Wednesday. That was so fun.

BONNI WAN

Oh, I know. Only murders in the building. So much of my television watching is through my daughter Mabel’s eyes.

NICOLE

That was good. Okay, great. I’m not a huge tv watcher either, but I always like to know what other people are watching. Okay, great. Second question is, what is on your nightstand?

BONNIE WAN

Financial Fearless by Katie Song. It’s a tiny little sliver of a book by my financial advisor, who is about to blow up in a really big way. But it was written for women in tech business leaders. And I also love the psychology of money. So I’m really kind of taking the reins of my financial health and life so that I can be rich in relationships. Because what I’ve realized is, if I can set a solid financial foundation for myself, then it opens me up to invest in the things I really want to invest in, which are the health of my relationships.

NICOLE

Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you. Okay, our next question is, what is the last new thing that you did?

BONNIE WAN

Today’s my new thing. Taking back my own time.

NICOLE

Taking back your own time. Being a solopreneur, having a schedule that’s all your own? Yeah.

BONNIE WAN

Yes, taking on new clients in the life strategy world, not the brand strategy world, although I’m still doing brand strategy with the agency for eight days a month.

NICOLE

Okay, awesome. So fun. I love that. Lots of new things in your life. Okay, and then what are your favorite emojis on your phone, or that you use in general?

BONNIE WAN

Oh, definitely so common. The heart, the prayer and the kiss.

NICOLE

Beautiful. Classic. Well Bonnie, it was such a joy to have you here with us. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and speaking to so many complex topics in a really beautiful, succinct way. What’s the best way to reach you and to find out more about you?

BONNIE WAN

Reach me by email, the traditional way, bonniethelifebrief.com or on Instagram @ BonnieWan and then also @thelifebrief.com, that’s where I will have all the news, events, updates and podcast.

NICOLE

Yes, and I definitely recommend everyone check out the book. It’s brilliantly done. I love the way you laid it out and ask the questions, and were able to get people to go deeper, simply through the way you structured the book. So it’s really beautiful. And thank you so much for being on the School of Self-Worth.

BONNIE WAN

Oh my gosh, Nicole, thank you for having me. This was just a joyful conversation, through and through.

NICOLE

Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. Before you go, don’t forget, if you are a high-achieving woman who wants to uncover your biggest blind spots preventing fast intuitive decisions, I’ve got a 72-second assessment for you, so make sure to DM me quiz @ NicoleTsong on Instagram and thank you for being here and for listening. We read every note that we get from you about how the podcast is making a difference in your life. Please know how much we appreciate each and every one of you. Until next time, I’m Nicole Tsong and this is the School of Self-Worth.