EPISODE OVERVIEW:

Are you feeling stuck, wondering if there’s more to life than just going through the motions? What if you could design your life with the same strategic thinking used by the world’s most successful brands? In this illuminating episode of *Betty’s Smart Friends*, host Betty Wang sits down with Bonnie Wan, a woman who’s mastered both the corporate world as head of brand strategy at Goodby Silverstein & Partners and the art of personal transformation through her groundbreaking book “The Life Brief.” Drawing from decades of helping global brands find their purpose, Bonnie reveals how you can apply these same powerful techniques to your own life’s journey. 

Join Betty and Bonnie as they dive deep into the intersection of professional expertise and personal growth, sharing stories, strategies, and surprising insights that will transform how you think about your future. Get ready to discover why writing your own “Life Brief” might be the game-changing move you’ve been searching for.

Listen in to learn more from Bonnie Wan.

TIME STAMPS:

[04:56] Getting Messy 

• Before gaining clarity in the Life Brief process, you need to get messy
• Asking yourself what you truly want

[11:17] Confronting Limiting Beliefs 

• The impact of limiting beliefs on personal goals and desires
• Techniques for reframing negative stories 

[24:53] Identifying Core Issues 

• Discover deeper issues beyond your initial focus
• The need for personal time and investing in mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical health

[28:25] Romancing Rest 

• Bonnie’s her mantra of “romancing rest” and its deeper meaning beyond just taking a break
• How to keep mantras top of mind, especially during transitional life phases

[34:15] Doubt and Faith 

• Insights on navigating doubt and maintaining faith in pursuing one’s desires and goals
• Suggestions for using visual reminders, like post-it notes, to stay connected to personal briefs

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• From Dream to Reality: Discover how Bonnie Wan’s revolutionary Life Brief framework transforms vague wishes into actionable plans, helping you write the next chapter of your story with intention and purpose.
• Permission to Want What You Want: Why the simple question “What do you want?” can be the most powerful catalyst for change. The Three-Act Journey of Transformation:The three main steps of the Life Brief: getting messy, getting clear, and getting active.
• Your Success Squad: The Hidden Power of Community: Discover why sharing your Life Brief journey with others multiplies its impact in unexpected ways.
• The Revolutionary Act of Rest: Embracing rest as a vital component of a fulfilling life.

GUEST INFO: 

Bonnie Wan, The Life Brief

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

RESOURCES:

• Join Betty in a free consultation call for your financial goals
• Subscribe to the Betty’s Smart Friends YouTube Channel
• Follow us on Instagram
• Visit my website for more info
• Follow us on LinkedIn

TRANSCRIPTION:

Betty Wang 00:00:06 What do I want? When was the last time you really asked yourself this question? Many of us are so caught up with our kids, our careers that we lose track of what we want. And some of us even lose track of who we are. A few months ago, I was overwhelmed that my oldest son was heading off to college in a year and uncertain of the path forward for my business. I came across a book called The Life Brief A playbook for No Regrets Living. I figured, why not? I’d like to live a life without regrets. I started with the audio version to listen to when driving super low stakes. I very quickly realized that I must get the hard copy so I could really dive into the lessons. The book encouraged me to be honest about what I really want. And the truth was, I really didn’t know. The book gave me a framework and permission to explore the question. And since then, I’ve recommended the book to several clients and friends. It’s been especially relevant to clients who are retiring in the next few years.

Betty Wang 00:01:08 Today I’m so honored and thrilled to have the author of The Life Brief, Bonnie Wayne, here with us. Today we’re going to explore living with intention, creativity, and courage without regrets. I’m Betty Wang, the host of Betty Smart Friends. I’m a certified financial planner who helps women feel more empowered and less alone when it comes to their money. Now, let me tell you a little bit about Bonnie. She’s a partner and head of brand strategy at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners. Recognized as one of Fast Company’s most innovative companies. Bonnie has over three decades of experience in brand clarity and innovation and was awarded AD Age’s Leading Woman and Chief Strategy Officer of the year. In 2010, she created the Life Brief, a tool that saved her marriage and sparked a decade of personal and professional adventures. Her book The Life Brief is on Amazon’s list of best books of 2024. For business and leadership. Wow! Get ready for an inspiring conversation as we explore Bonnie’s journey and her insights on living boldly and how you can create your own life.

Betty Wang 00:02:16 Brief to unlock the life you truly desire. Welcome to Bonnie Wayne. Hi, Bonnie. Thanks so much for joining. Oh my.

Bonnie Wan 00:02:24 Gosh. Thanks, Betty, for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Betty Wang 00:02:27 I’m so excited to have you here. For those folks who don’t know about the life brief, can you explain a little bit of the framework to us? Yeah.

Bonnie Wan 00:02:36 So it’s inspired by my work as a brand strategist that I’ve been doing, as you said, for the last three decades. I help companies get really clear about who they are at their essence, and then match that to their biggest, greatest, boldest ambitions for what’s next. And it’s in that intersection. That brand strategy lives. So the tool that we use as strategists in business is what’s called a brief. Or in the creative businesses, a creative brief, which is a really sharply distilled and sticky expression of where we’re all going. So what helps with that is it centers everyone inside a company and outside a company to know what makes it distinct, unique, and where it’s going in the world.

Bonnie Wan 00:03:28 And it’s all summarized in this single page, single minded strategy. And that is the framework for the Life Brief, which I discovered in 2010 when I hit a big ditch in my marriage and in my darkest hour, felt really desperate about where do I go with this? Because what was looming ahead of us was separation, divorce, all the things with three young kids, and that felt like doomsday for me. I felt desperate, and what I did instead, probably as a last ditch effort, was to reflexively go to what I do as a brand strategist, which is look at the data, look at the research. But the data was about me, and the research was about what was going on inside of me. And I collected all that. And that was the first step in. Now what has become the life brief framework, which is about getting messy, getting messy, giving yourself permission to ask, meet and answer questions that you might have been avoiding. And then the second part of the framework is getting clear, and it’s very hard to get clear whether it’s for businesses or people, if you haven’t allowed yourself to get messy first, meaning doing the research, Search, letting the ingredients come up from inside you.

Bonnie Wan 00:04:56 And only when we get clear and I mean sharp, sticky, I call it. Fuck, yes. Clear. I hope it’s okay to press on your podcast.

Betty Wang 00:05:09 Absolutely. Please.

Bonnie Wan 00:05:11 But when you reach that level of clarity, where you feel it in your bones and all the cells in your body, then action, which is the last step. You know, getting active becomes almost natural and organic.

Betty Wang 00:05:25 And let’s talk about a little bit about the getting messy part right I think. What does that actually mean in relation to the life brief. How do we get there. How do we do that? What is the roadmap?

Bonnie Wan 00:05:41 Well, we start with questions just like the one you open this podcast with and that I open the book with. But that’s not the only question, but it is one of the driving questions. What do you really, really want? And it’s not about what are you in the mood for? What do you feel like it’s about? In your heart of heart. What do you really, really want that you haven’t even allowed yourself to admit to yourself? And that is a hard question.

Bonnie Wan 00:06:09 It stumps a lot of people. You are not alone. When you said, I don’t know. You know, because we’re out of practice and especially as women, we are not asked, what do we want? And you and I share the background of being Asian women from Taiwan and in our culture. And I think it goes well beyond Asia. There’s a culture that women we’re conditioned to put other people first, whether it’s people at work, definitely our families. Right. Friends, society. We are the last people who get to answer the question, what do we want? And a lot of other cultures, I think, breed the same thinking that it’s a selfish thing to ask for what you want. And because we’re out of practice, it takes time to let the question drop in. Stir. It’s not going to come up all in one sitting. We can’t will it to come up. We have to kind of let it steep like a tea. And then we collect the answers little by little as they come up.

Bonnie Wan 00:07:16 But collect them in writing because it’s hard to remember. And I don’t know what age you’re at, but I’m at the menopause age, and so I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning, much less. The big lightning rod flash or what I want, you know. So capturing it either on your phone if you’re driving or, you know, in a little recording or I, I really encourage 5 to 10 minutes of writing just where you can aim your attention at the question and allow whatever comes up to up to come out onto the page. And that’s the permission part. And we also have a hard time. There’s a lot of nuances to what we have difficulty with. The first is asking the question and aiming our attention at it at all. That’s hard. That’s a that takes a level of permission. The second layer of permission is letting whatever is coming up inside us to come out onto the page, because we want to edit it out, we want to judge it. We want to say, no, that’s not okay.

Bonnie Wan 00:08:15 That’s not realistic. Why? That’s absurd. I’m not writing that down. What if someone sees this? Right. So that’s another layer of permission and practice. Permission and practice. Go hand in hand and little by little. What we’re really doing is allowing our own truth and our own inner voices to be heard and acknowledged and embraced by us, ourselves. Because this is a private practice. This is not one that you’re going to sit down and share with your kids. Maybe not yet. Maybe not ever. It’s a private practice. But what’s really important and at the heart of getting messy, is giving yourself permission to be nakedly honest with yourself without judging, suppressing. Batting it away and stuffing it. Because that’s where the pain and suffering comes from.

Betty Wang 00:09:15 I thought that point in your book was really, really helpful because it is true. I found myself thinking something, but then really having to force myself almost to write it down because everything you said happens where that’s not realistic. What would you know? That’s not what my parents want me to do, right? I mean, I’m almost 50, and I still it’s it’s still kind of seeps in there like, oh, would that be.

Betty Wang 00:09:45 Is that attainable? How does that affect everything else? Is it silly? So I think the permission and the practice and I’m still I still struggle with it. But you’re right, it does get a little easier. I almost felt like I wanted a diary. Like when I was a little kid that had a lock. I mean, the truth is, nobody wants to read what I’m writing. But it felt. It felt. And it feels very vulnerable.

Bonnie Wan 00:10:10 It is vulnerable. But that is the beginning of being more courageous. You know, in your life and courage in this case, meaning more true to who you are and you just already in being vulnerable and sharing your experience with it. You name the thing that starts to come up very readily when we start this getting messy practice, which is the stories we carry in our heads about what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s acceptable. As soon as you start getting messy, you’re going to be confronted with all the stories you hold about what’s attainable. You know, you and I talked before we started recording about limiting beliefs, right? Our stories around money, which I, I talk about in the book that I was raised to see how money could really unravel my father and my family when it became such a definition and measurement of his success.

Bonnie Wan 00:11:17 You said, you know, it feels uncomfortable to say, I want more. I’m doing fine. But to earn more. That feels wrong for some reason. And I think part of the process that is so beneficial is to see those stories, face those stories, name those stories, write them down, and then sit with the stories that hold us back or make us place small in our lives, and to ask more questions around those stories. Is that really true? What evidence do I have that that story is true? And what would my life be without that story? If I just eradicated that story, got rid of it altogether? How would I show up differently in my work, or in my marriage, or in my parenting? But we have again been conditioned to believe that we can’t ask these questions, that it’s dangerous to ask these questions or selfish. I had a woman at my 2020 January 2020 Costa Rica retreat, and the first day she said, oh no. My parents taught me never to ask that question.

Bonnie Wan 00:12:34 What do I really want? It will always lead to disappointment. So we’re all embedded with some deep tattooed stories about what we can or cannot do, what we can or cannot ask for. And many of them were given to us by well-intentioned people who love us. But those are the stories holding us back.

Betty Wang 00:13:02 And what have you seen? Or how have you seen your clients, your readers, move past these stories just by continuously revisiting them? Or what have you seen being the most helpful?

Bonnie Wan 00:13:16 There’s a couple of chapters in the middle of the book, in the middle of Get Messy, which asks you to notice and then name and write down what are the stories coming up for you, and then to reframe those stories. So the act of rewriting those stories in a different way. So if money feels greedy, selfish, debilitating, you know, requires sacrifice of the things that are really important. How would you reframe that? Well, money is self-sufficiency. Money is fuel for doing more. Good money keeps my family healthy, thriving.

Bonnie Wan 00:13:59 And you know, when my husband and I had to write a wealth brief, the penetrating question was, what is enough? Do we know what enough looks like? Down to dollars and cents, down to very tangible forms. And that got us in a real deep conversation about what are we making money for? You know why? Why does money exist in our lives? And more importantly, what role does it play? And our kids education came right up to the top, you know. And we realized we actually need very little. The longer I live, the more simple I want to live. So really, education just kept coming up as one of the things. And then when we kept talking about it, putting in tangible forms, we realize we probably have more than enough. And that gave me so much relief as the sole breadwinner of our family of six. And then we had another question, which is if we could only be rich in one area of our lives, if you took everything else off the table, what would it be? And we realized we want to be rich in relationships.

Bonnie Wan 00:15:15 And time was not far after that. And creativity was also not far after that. And so we realized, wow, money is really important. Money matters. To fuel and fund the things that are really important to us. But it wasn’t the end goal, and that allowed us to strive maybe a little less and realize we didn’t have to hustle as hard.

Betty Wang 00:15:45 Yeah. I mean, you bring up an interesting point, not only from the wealth perspective, but also doing these life breathes with your partner. I would imagine getting very vulnerable. Me and my little diary is very vulnerable, but doing that with another person must bring a whole different level to the brief. And also, I mean, you’ve mentioned that you can do a brief about any piece of your life, and do you suggest focusing on one brief for each part of your life versus one overarching brief, or.

Bonnie Wan 00:16:24 Yes, I think you can get sharper and more crystal clear if you’re really aiming your attention, because our lives are huge and, you know, they’re really full.

Bonnie Wan 00:16:34 And I invite people to write a brief about something that’s gripping them right now. Super top of mind. It’s just, you know, you can’t. You think about it even when you’re not trying. And that’s our body. And our mind signals that, hey, pay attention here. More time and attention over here, you know, and we we tend to be so busy doing our to do list, you know, getting everything done. And you know, as working parents that busyness is real. It’s not fake. But yet the answers we seek lie behind the questions we avoid. So again, small bites, just little moments, little a few bucket of minutes a day, but aiming your attention there so that you can marinate on it and then inviting others into that process is an incredibly connective and bonding and revealing experience. Yes. It’s vulnerable. I teach classes and workshops, and what I find that’s that’s one type of community. When people get vulnerable with each other, it’s amazing how much, how much further people get in their own briefs.

Bonnie Wan 00:17:47 Because when you see someone bravely start and share something very open one, what they’re sharing tends to unlock an idea for yourself because you see yourself reflected in the other people too. It inspires you and gives you permission to meet and match their vulnerability, so it feels safer and braver at the same time. When couples do it or friends do it, or even parents and adult children do it, even if they don’t get to the final output, which is a brief right? They really deepen their understanding of each other because it creates a container of meaningful conversation. You’re really learning about each other and parts of each other that otherwise wouldn’t come out in conversation. When you’re cooking dinner or doing the laundry or playing basketball together. It’s a great conversation starter for creating deeper connective tissue between people.

Betty Wang 00:18:58 Hi there! Hope you’re enjoying this episode of Betty’s Smart Friends. I wanted to share a quick money tip with you. The tip give each dollar a job. Give every dollar you earn a job. Some dollars will have the job of paying your taxes.

Betty Wang 00:19:15 Some dollars will have the job of paying your mortgage, others saving for retirement. But don’t forget that fun self-care or buying your precious time back are valid and important jobs for your money. The key here isn’t to judge the job or how much goes there. It’s to be mindful of where your hard earned money is going and to make adjustments. If you discover it doesn’t align with your values and your goals. Hope you enjoy the rest of the episode. And remember, you’re not alone. Now back to the show. I’ve shared that before. You get the the steps or the the way the book is organized is to get messy, get clear, and then get active. And before you move to the get active part. I mean, I’ve read past that, but I’m still stuck. And I get clear where it says, you know, until you get to a fork. Yes. Feeling. Don’t move on. Do you see that the workshops speed up those getting clear pieces? Because I think I’m about six months and I’m still just kind of fluttering around and get clear.

Betty Wang 00:20:34 And then I get back to going, getting messy. I know that everyone’s on a different time frame, but how does that. Is this something that maybe I’m just one of those people that’ll never get past the. Get clear.

Bonnie Wan 00:20:47 No, you’re not at all. In community, it is faster because you have a lot of sounding boards in community saying, oh, I really felt it when you said that. So you’re getting feedback, right? And so there’s there’s something abundant and energizing and vigorous about having other people be witness to your process. So in the workshops, we can play with a lot more a lot of modalities, like I can interview you and take notes on behalf so you can speak out your brief, and then I can read your body language, the tone of voice, so I can feel sometimes the fuck yes. Before you feel the fuck yes. Because you’re so in your head. This work is not just about intellect. This is accessing other parts of ourselves like our gut, our heart, our intuition.

Bonnie Wan 00:21:41 Right? But our culture is so intellect driven. And as a strategist, I know very well that my biggest Achilles heel and many strategists is overthinking. Well, is that a fuck. Yes. I don’t know. Is that clearly a fuck. Yes. You know. And fascia shows up really differently for each of us. Some of us will get goosebumps, others will feel nervous butterflies right. Others will just feel fire in the belly like fuck yes. But it’s really getting to know how that shows up to you. Is it just a little bit of excitement? Yeah. Or I can’t stop thinking about that line I wrote. Yeah, it really resonates. It’s already sticking. That might be the quiet fuck yes for you, right? The key is not to overthink it. Not to need it to be perfectly right. Whatever that means. And I know a lot of people read it and think, Bonnie, is that a fuck? Yes. It’s really getting in touch with. How are you feeling with it? Every time you look at what you’ve written, you know that whether it’s a line or five declarations, when you read it to yourself, you think, yes, that is still true.

Bonnie Wan 00:23:03 Yes, I still feel conviction for it. That’s enough to start walking the path of the brief, right? Start acting on it, and then you will feel the call to evolve it or iterate if it’s not quite there.

Betty Wang 00:23:23 You’ve talked about your workshops that you put on. Can you share some memorable moments or feedback that you’ve received from participants? Yes.

Bonnie Wan 00:23:32 You know, I named that first one, which sticks in my head about, you know, the danger of the question. A lot of times people come into the workshop saying, I want to life brief my work, and then they end up with a life brief for themselves. Because what we realize is the urgency or the anxiety we might be feeling in one part of our lives is actually a symptom of another part of our lives that is much more core or at the root of the issue. So there are people who come into the workshops and they pivot, you know, they get messy and they realize, oh, it’s not actually about my job.

Bonnie Wan 00:24:16 My job and my unhappiness at my job is just a symptom That I’m not acknowledging something about myself, and I’m not nourishing and feeding and fueling myself in the ways that I want to or that I need to. And so they discover in they get messy that I, they actually need to write a brief about something different than what they initially came in to write.

Betty Wang 00:24:45 I mean, that makes a lot of sense, right? Because we spend most of our time at work or as adults.

Bonnie Wan 00:24:53 We do over identify with our work. That is the society and the container we live in culturally. And so many people are discovering that they want to put their health over their hustle. That’s one of the briefs that have come out from, you know, someone I’ve worked with. I love that brief. I’ve borrowed it for myself. You know, I think people are very much realizing that there’s a difference between giving my best at work and giving my all.

Betty Wang 00:25:28 Yes.

Bonnie Wan 00:25:30 And I think people are waking up everywhere saying, I will continue to give my best, but I no longer want to give my all because at the end of the day, that means trading out the relationships.

Bonnie Wan 00:25:46 Time with my family vacations for me to recuperate and reset. You know ways that I need to invest in myself, whether it’s my mental health, my spiritual health, or my emotional health, and definitely my physical health. So I think that is something that is rolling through, if not ripping through the currents, not just here, but also in Europe, where people are rethinking this, giving it all to work.

Betty Wang 00:26:13 And that comes to the point of one of your suggestions in the book is to give your brief a mantra or a name. And I think I’ve shared with you that that is hard for somebody who’s not marketing focused, like the health over hustle. I would never would have come up with that. I didn’t. I know that you continuously create new breeds for yourselves. Do you have any personal mantras or philosophies that you’re currently using?

Bonnie Wan 00:26:45 Yes. My my favorite briefs are take our time. That was our original brief, which I adapted at one point to take my time because I had to disconnect from my family at times, you know, and just have space to myself, which as a mom and as a woman, it was very hard to admit ready to receive.

Bonnie Wan 00:27:06 That’s one of my latest self briefs, because as an Asian woman who has worked so hard to the grind my whole life. I had a real deep story. I still have it, so I can’t say that I’ve successfully eradicated it or anything like that. But I have a story that I have to go at it alone. I can’t ask for help. I can’t lean on others because that would be a sign of weakness or that would be true vulnerability. I can talk about all my vulnerability, but to actually lean on someone else would be, oh no, I can’t go there. This is my self-belief for this year is I am ready to receive.

Betty Wang 00:27:55 That’s amazing because it is very true. It’s something that I know that we are not alone, but it is so hard to ask for help. We’re all very good helpers. I’m much more comfortable in that role of helping, but to actually accept, Act. Ask. Accept. Receive. Is. Is not something that I’m comfortable with at all.

Betty Wang 00:28:22 So maybe I will steal that. Yeah.

Bonnie Wan 00:28:25 Well, you and I share that. Yes, yes. And the other one I use this year because I hit burnout, launching my book and leading the agency. It was the best recipe for burnout. And so my my brief coming out of that, I’m still coming out of that, I’m still healing was to romance my rest. And here’s the thing. It’s not about getting clever about your mantra or your handle for your brief. Other word for it is your name, the name for your brief. And the reason you have a name is because it’s hard to remember all your declarative statements and all the things you want. And but it’s nice to wrap it up in something. But it doesn’t have to be clever. It just has to be sticky for you. So if you have to borrow a song, you know, a lyric from a song or or just words that really penetrate for you, that you can remember time and again, and it can tattoo into your mind and into your heart to reminder.

Bonnie Wan 00:29:25 Right? When I think romance, the rest, I’m like, okay. And it’s what I like about it is not that it uses hours, you know? And not that it sounds sticky. It’s bold. It’s not just take a break. It’s not just, hey, drink that glass of water. It’s saying romance. The rest. Take it all the way. Like you would take a lover. You know. So the invitation I have in the book is. Don’t just have a brief. A yes, brief is bold. It tests you to go further than you’re comfortable with. Because that’s how we live a life of aliveness. So my marriage brief is not. I want to get along with my husband. I want to be good partners, or I even want to be co-creators of life or co-pilots. It’s. I want mad love. And after all these years of marriage, 2324 and counting. Four kids, lots of moves, lots of stress. Is mad love even possible? But that’s what I want.

Bonnie Wan 00:30:34 I’m too young. Even at in my 50s. Early 50s. I’m too young not to feel the fire of desire. And it mad. Love isn’t just about sex or intimacy in those physical ways. It’s about just having that excitement of being with one another. The fact that I can look at him and say, yes, I still choose you. There’s a mad love surge in that. And so the boldest expression for my marriage brief is mad love. To be madly in love with him and see him as, yes, the ultimate partner. And wake up committed to that partnership every day in a way that isn’t, you know. Or. Yes, here we go again. And it feels like that many days out of the year. Anyone who’s been in a long term relationship knows that you don’t have mad love every day. But the brief keeps me looking for the opportunities to create that search again. And small moments. So romancing the rest takes rests even further than just a break. Mad love takes our marriage further than just being co-producers of a big life.

Betty Wang 00:31:51 This sort of dovetails wonderfully into, as I’ve said, that I’ve. I’ve recommended your books to clients, and especially ones who are going through or looking to retire in the next couple of years, and their careers were a big part of their identity. What’s next? I told the client that you were coming on the podcast and she had a question for you. I’m just going to read it. It’s how do you stay present with your brief or slogan over time? For me, it can be out of sight, out of mind. So I wonder how she keeps it top of mind so that she can prioritize actions that support the goal. As I’ve lived with, her mantra is big love, full life. I find my old fears creeping back in, and sometimes it takes me a minute to circle back to what I’m calling my anthem and letting go of the old fears. Any tips for staying present with their slogan?

Bonnie Wan 00:32:50 Yeah, such a good question. Thank you for it. And I love. Can you read that again?

Betty Wang 00:32:56 Her brief is big love, full life.

Bonnie Wan 00:32:59 Oh, I can feel that so viscerally. Big love, full life. And hopefully What’s underneath that? If that’s the summation, right? The the mantra and anthem. I love that she calls it the anthem, that she’s defined what big love and a full life means to her, because it’s going to be different when if I took a declaration around that right, wrote my manifesto around Big Love, Full Life, but there is going to be doubt. That is part of our experience, and especially when we put out a vision that is big, that is bold, that is challenging us to go further towards it. And just for everyone out there, bold does not always mean bigger. It can and it often does. Bold often means also to rest. Like what we were just talking about. But there are absolutely moments of doubt. Something I just learned recently, which probably sums it up even better than I would have summed it up myself, is that the opposite of faith is not doubt, because doubt is so human.

Bonnie Wan 00:34:15 The opposite of faith is certainty. I’m just going to pause and let that sink in a little bit, because certainty is a blind adherence to something. Blind faith. Almost. Right. But to have true faith in what you want require some doubt, because the Dow is asking you every day. Is this still what you really want? How bad do you want it? What are you willing to risk and trade off in order to have it right? Are you willing to get out of your comfort zone today? Okay. You don’t feel it. You don’t feel it today. But what are you willing to do? What’s one thing you want to do? What tiny thing you’re willing to do to live that full life? Big love today. So it’s always this invitation. It’s a reminder. It’s beckoning you and pulling you through the doubt. So it’s not wrong or bad or even unnatural to have the doubt. It’s how do you use your brief to inspire you to come through the doubt and commit again? I keep my brief always on me.

Bonnie Wan 00:35:29 So I have it on my phone, you know, and. And I have it in my head. And then it’s it’s love language between my me and my husband. If if he says mad love, he’s not saying, hey, let’s go up to the bedroom. That’s not what you do. But he’s like, hey, have we lost our connection? You know, why did you get angry like that? That’s not mad, love. And it just becomes an anchor back or a springboard forward to a new idea. Wait a second. No, no, I’m romancing the rest. Today. I’m gonna turn off that phone and I’m going to take a bath and I’m going to have my favorite beverage, whatever that is, and I’m going to give myself an hour to romance the rest. No interruptions, no questions, no doubting about it. Right? Because in getting active, it’s all about what are the tiniest, most inexcusable and irresistible ways that you can live your brief every day. It doesn’t have to be giant leaps.

Betty Wang 00:36:35 Have you had readers or workshop participants say that they put post-it notes on their fridge? Or. I mean, I’m just if there’s something visual that you recommend sometimes just to remember.

Bonnie Wan 00:36:51 Yes, I love you know, I have a new friend, Shelly Paxton. She’s the author of Soul Radical. She used to be the CMO of Harley-Davidson, and she she got off the hustle and grind. Herself and took a sabbatical, which she called a soul radical. But she gives herself post-it permission slips and she tapes them everywhere. So permission to do X, permission to do Y, and she sticks them everywhere. I keep it always with me and just the unfortunately, my phone is my other companion. It’s my sidekick. And so I have it in big letters, in all caps in my notes. And then I tell everyone in my family so that they can remind me. Part of it is enlisting the people who are going to support you and help you push through that doubt. You know, I have a good friend who’s been journeying with me for a long time, and she knew that my wealth brief was rich in relationships.

Bonnie Wan 00:37:57 And this year Here. I have been making some real restructures to my career since the book launched, and so I’m stepping in. I say I’m stepping out of selling, which is advertising, and into serving, which is the life brief, and that we’ve really flipped our financial life. In order to do that, we move back to Portland, Oregon from the Bay area for the second time. My mom is moving in with us. We’re simplifying our lives so that I can bet on myself and almost treat it like a startup. But I was lamenting on what a drastic pay cut I’ve taken. And she said to me, yes, but you’ve really nailed your wealth brief. Look at this. You’re moving in with your mom. You have more time with your kids now because you’re at home more than ever. You kind of nailed that rich in relationships brief. So, you know, so there are people that we surround Around ourselves that can hold us accountable for those beliefs. And I say actively enlist them to remind you even when your other values perk up or, you know, you start thinking, wow, that other person’s life feels right.

Bonnie Wan 00:39:15 You know, really good. Or wow, my past life had all these things that now I’ve let go of. Have those people who, you know, keep you strong.

Betty Wang 00:39:24 The yeah the check right. Someone to keep you in check the accountability and the asking for help. It all circles together. Yeah. I have so many questions that I want to ask you, but. And I want to be mindful of your time. No, I.

Bonnie Wan 00:39:39 Just want to say one thing about the help I learned this year that people in our lives are dying to help. They’ve been waiting to help, but they they have been wondering when I’m going to allow them in. And so one of the beautiful gifts, Bountiful gifts of this year for me in having the brief I’m ready to receive is seeing how much people want to give and how much that gives back to them to be able to gift you. And it really broke a limiting belief for me around transactional ism. I thought that, you know, oh my gosh, if they give to me, I need to give back to them something.

Bonnie Wan 00:40:20 The fact is, is that so many of the best relationships we have go long and deep, and they are not at all transactional. In fact, the well of the giving is so deep that it blew my mind this year.

Betty Wang 00:40:35 That’s great. And I agree, I think it’s opening myself up for help. I know how much I enjoy helping people, and especially those who I care about. It does it. I want to, and I’m trying to receive. I don’t know better by remembering that they feel the same way about me. That’s what I just keep trying to remind myself. But I will have to use the ready to receive brief. Do it. Thank you. There’s.

Bonnie Wan 00:41:08 I’m not there’s not. Nobody has any ownership. Right. And that’s why the community, when we get together with each other, people see sparks and other people like, oh, I’m going to steal or borrow that. I say, yeah, steal it, borrow it, use it.

Betty Wang 00:41:21 Well, where can people find you, your website and LinkedIn? What’s the best way to contact you? Or obviously buy your book on Amazon, but you also have workshops that you put on.

Betty Wang 00:41:35 Yeah.

Bonnie Wan 00:41:35 Well, this is life briefing season. Life briefing is timeless, but at the beginning of the year is usually the season where everyone gets really invigorated. So definitely my website, the Life Brief. I’m teaching a four class course starting February 7th, and I’m really excited about that one. It’s going to be online, but live two hours every Friday in February, and we’re going to really go deep and play with technology and community, harness community and inspire each other through the process. Because January is usually when the resolutions wear off and fade, and we need something that’s going to be longer lasting and hopefully a yes. And LinkedIn. I’m running a fun 12 Days of Clarity campaign right now where I’m just kind of getting in there and inviting people to share their limiting beliefs, share their mess, and also share their clarity and their tips for action. So lots of places.

Betty Wang 00:42:40 And is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you think it’s important to share about the life brief and the work you do? Yes.

Bonnie Wan 00:42:47 It’s the one thing that we talked about you and I before we got on, which is about creative living. And you said, well, when I think about the word creative or creativity, I think of artists or people who are creative professionals. They do it for a living and even marketing. And you and I talked about finance and marketing. There’s so much more clever creative. And it’s not that for me, creativity is a mindset, and it’s a mindset rooted in the understanding that we always have more choice and agency than we are conditioned to believe we have. We live in a culture that is very binary. You either have a yes or you have a no. You have to choose this or that. You either stay here or go there. You know, when we think about our jobs or our relationships, but the fact is, is there’s so many more ways that we can slice it, ways that we can put it together. You know, I never imagined that my agency would allow me to be the first remote employee so that I could be the parent I needed to be.

Bonnie Wan 00:43:55 So many years ago, and I was able to do that for six years before they promoted me to a partner and head of strategy. I never imagined in my binary thinking. I always thought no, in order to put my family first, I have to leave my job and I have to then find another form of income. But there it was an option that we were going to experiment with together and very successfully for many, many years. Way before the pandemic. And I found that in so many different parts of not only my life, but in the, you know, lives of people who have gone through the process, is that when we can open ourselves up to other possibilities and ask ourselves, well, what if this or what if that has nothing to do with artistic talent? It does have everything to do with opening our minds up and playing with possibilities.

Betty Wang 00:44:52 I think that’s beautifully said. Playing with possibilities. Right. It’s. You’re right. It’s it’s again the permission. It’s the permission to play.

Betty Wang 00:45:01 And the permission to ask yourself these questions. I asked a couple of closing questions to every guest. And one of them is, how do you maintain your own balance and peace?

Bonnie Wan 00:45:14 This year I’ve really doubled down on my spiritual practice. I’m not religious. I don’t want that to be confusing. But really deepening my belief that things will unfold as they’re meant to. And that has really helped me lift out of doubt, fears, and especially fears of uncertainty. As I kind of walk a path, I leave a 30 year well carved To pack into a whole new terrain where every step feels foreign. That is very wobbly for me. And so my spiritual practice is really centering before I do anything. Before I start anything at any given day that I really center in myself and I envision what’s coming. And what I want. What does success look like today? What is going to feel powerful today? And I really keep it at that because one step at a time in a whole new foreign terrain.

Betty Wang 00:46:25 Well, I think you’ve proven that good things keep coming for you.

Betty Wang 00:46:29 I just think it’s amazing that there.

Bonnie Wan 00:46:31 Are days when we stop believing. Just like your client. Right. There are days that we doubt. Yeah. And the darker thoughts come in.

Betty Wang 00:46:39 Right. Yes.

Bonnie Wan 00:46:40 And then something comes in to prove us wrong. So having the faith that we can’t see that something we can’t plan for that something, but that it is out there.

Betty Wang 00:46:50 And what hobbies or interests do you maintain outside of work? Again, I a lot of my clients are looking toward retirement, and studies show that people in retirement who have hobbies or interests have a much richer life in retirement. And I mean arguably always, right?

Bonnie Wan 00:47:11 Yes, yes, I love sleeping under the stars. So if I can go some travel somewhere where it’s warm enough, it doesn’t have to be super warm. But in the desert where I can sleep outside, I love tapping into the awe of nature. It just reminds me not to overthink that I’m not in control, that there are still things that are so much bigger and beyond ourselves.

Bonnie Wan 00:47:36 There’s nothing better than that feeling of awe and wonder, oh.

Betty Wang 00:47:40 I love that. I’m gonna steal that too, To believe me.

Bonnie Wan 00:47:44 You do it once and it is just game changing. Mind blowing.

Betty Wang 00:47:49 Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today. I really think we’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot, and I appreciate your time from your busy schedule. Thank you so much for joining us.

Bonnie Wan 00:48:00 Ready? Thank you for creating the podcast and putting everything out there and shining light on the life Brief.

Betty Wang 00:48:07 Well, you were a big part of I’m still in the getting clear, but this the podcast is definitely a product of some of the things I discovered while doing the lessons in your book. So thank you.

Bonnie Wan 00:48:21 Clarity. Not perfection though.

Betty Wang 00:48:24 Yes, I wrote down. Stop practicing. Stop planning. That’s a quote in your book that it’s it’s true. We just have to baby. Baby steps.

Bonnie Wan 00:48:34 Just start acting. Yes. And as soon as you start acting, clarity will find you.

Betty Wang 00:48:40 Yes. And I have faith that that will happen. Not there yet, though.

Bonnie Wan 00:48:44 Amen.

Betty Wang 00:48:44 Thank you.

Bonnie Wan 00:48:45 Thank you.

Betty Wang 00:48:49 Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Betty Smart Friends. I hope you enjoyed today’s conversation and that you learn something new. You can connect with us on social media to stay updated on future episodes. Share your thoughts and join our community of smart friends. You can find us on Instagram at Betty Financial, and don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! If you are feeling ready to be more empowered and less alone in your financial life, please schedule a complimentary 15 minutes with me. The link is in the show notes. Please see the show notes for important disclosures regarding BW financial planning and this episode. Until next time, remember you are not alone. We got you.

Betty Wang is an investment adviser representative of BW Financial LLC, a registered investment adviser registered in the State of Colorado. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. The views and opinions expressed are as of the date of publication and are subject to change. The content is for informational or educational purposes only, and is not intended as individualized investment advice. This information should not be relied upon as the sole factor in an investment-making decision. You are encouraged to consult with a financial professional to address your specific needs and circumstances.