What Are You Meant to Do? Finding Purpose with Lan Phan

How do you build a life worth living?  In this latest episode of The Creator Effect podcast, Lan Phan shares with us her journey of overcoming adversity, finding purpose, and reclaiming her life. Lan built a community on LinkedIn and social media to be of service to others during the pandemic. 

Lan's NEW book, Daily Secrets to Finding Success, Happiness, and Purpose at Work and Life breaks down the secrets that will help you discover your core values, embrace change and see failure as part of the journey to find success. Lan's perspective is a game-changer for those seeking fulfillment and success. 

Episode highlights: 

• Insights on finding genuine success and happiness. 
• Lan shares her experience of finding her voice and building a community on LinkedIn during the pandemic, emphasizing the importance of consistency and authenticity in content creation.
• Creating a life worth living.
• The Four Secrets to Finding Success and Happiness
• Embracing Change and Self-Care: The significance of removing self-doubt, surrounding oneself with positive influences, and prioritizing health and well-being as an integral part of personal growth and success.
• Rethinking Failure and Taking Risks: Reframing failure as part of the journey to success, urging individuals to embrace risk-taking and innovation.

Key Links & Resources:
LinkedIn | YouTube | lanphan.co/

New Book - Release Date 4/2: Daily Secrets to Finding Success, Happiness, and Purpose at Work and Life

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

in our society we're taught to go big or go home, or that you have to be at a certain point in your life to be considered successful. Use each moment with as much passion and fervor as you can. Life's too short to kind of just let other people live or write your story for you.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Welcome back to the show. I can't tell you how excited I am to share this episode. I think if you are someone who has ever questioned am I in the right place? Am I doing the right thing? Am I spending my life and hours that I work? Am I spending it doing the things that I'm meant to do that are right for me, then this is the episode you're gonna wanna listen to. I had Lan Fanon.

Speaker 2: 0:56

Lan is someone who had what she calls her dream job at Fortune Magazine and then, at the beginning of COVID, she got laid off. Her husband also got laid off and she was left to figure out am I doing what I'm meant to do in life? What we talk about is the process she went through to get herself to determine what she was meant to do with her life, and she now is coming out with a book that helps other people figure out the same thing. The book will be out April 2nd. It's called Do this Daily the Secrets to Finding Success, happiness and Purpose at Work and Life. Lan shares the process she went through to determine what she was meant to do, and now she's built this amazing community, which is almost a half a million people, and helps them understand how to figure out their purpose and have the right mindset to achieve what they want to, and to feel good about themselves and feel like they are contributing. We talk about what she calls the Four Secrets, and that is part of the process to figuring out what you wanna be doing in life. It is never too late to figure this out and to make a change in your life.

Speaker 2: 2:13

I really hope you enjoy this conversation with Lan as much as I enjoyed having it. ["do this Daily the Secrets to Finding Success"]. So, lan, yes, you and I have known each other and been connected for a while. I have been down the rabbit hole on your content. You've built a very large following on LinkedIn and I think what I can tell is that it's been consistent, smart, relatable content. But how did you build this massive following on LinkedIn?

Speaker 1: 2:45

It was probably the beginning of the pandemic. I had just got laid off of Fortune magazine, fell into this depression and it was really my daughter just saying, mommy, I love you, even without a job. That brought me out of that deep depression and I realized I was playing the victim mode. What I ended up doing was starting my own company. I just woke up and I'm like let me post something on LinkedIn. I started posting as my company at Community of Seven.

Speaker 1: 3:15

I felt most comfortable on LinkedIn rather than other social platforms. I started with quotes in terms of and talking about specific things that I was kind of going through. I built that to over like 250,000. I always kind of identified that I don't like to be public facing more of the behind the scenes person creating companies, and so I started posting as myself Lant Van on LinkedIn and also Facebook, and I grew that to where it's at right now, which is close to 120,000. One of my core values is being a group of others and I helped others during this period where we're on lockdown and there's not a lot of positive resources for free training. Having climbed the corporate ladder, executive training is really expensive and eliminates a majority of people. So my aha moment was what if I can give thought leadership in these bite-size content pieces? I launched our micro-learning series, which is really corporate training but for the masses.

Speaker 2: 4:25

Being able to take what you know and the insights that you've gathered over time and through your experiences and making that available to people broadly. It's just, it's in service to others and it's filling a need that people have because they cannot, if they either can't afford or they can't find one-on-one support. And now you've got a new book coming out. Do this talk about a book? Do this daily Secrets to Finding Success, happiness and Purpose at Work and Life. So what is the book about?

Speaker 1: 5:04

So it's really the core secrets to finding success, happiness and purpose in life. I'm actually releasing it on April 2nd, which is a very important day for me because it was four years when I got laid off from Fortune Magazine and I got four Four years to the day yes, four years.

Speaker 1: 5:24

I wanted to reclaim that day because that day was probably one of the most painful days of my adult life and it was one of those moments where I wanted to reclaim it, to make it something that was positive and uplifting. And I don't want to think about the fact that I got laid off. I want to think about the fact that I released this book and I hopefully can help people who end up reading it. But the story behind it was I've been trying to search for meaning and my reason for being in purpose. So, even though I was, as I kind of climbed the corporate ladder, I had all of the trappings of what success looked like. I had the title, I had the pay, but concealed all of this was the ugly truth that I was unhappy, and so you know, I was working from like till 10, 11 o'clock at night. Every night I said my family was the most important thing to me, but I barely saw them. I would maybe saw them on the weekends, and on the weekends I was too tired to be present for them and I was, like I said, I was traveling 85% of the time. I was barely home. I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes because I was not taking care of my health. I was sleeping maybe four or five hours a night.

Speaker 1: 6:46

When I got laid off I had to actually stop and pause and I started asking myself questions. I'd never asked before. What mattered most to me? I think I was living other people's definition of success, other people's definition of happiness, and in the past I would find a profession because it had a specific title or a specific pay and my ego was tied to it and I would build that profession and hopefully build my life around it. But what inevitably happened is that my life would be kind of pushed outside because work would kind of consume everything. And so I decided to make that shift when the layoff happened, to create a life that was worth living first my profession around it. And it seems like such a difficult paradigm shift, but it made a difference.

Speaker 1: 7:42

And so when I first started Communive 7, I really wasn't sure what I was building. I was just posting every day and I grew that community there and like in total now between Communive 7 and me we reach about 500,000 people. So when I wrote the book, when I first started Community of 7, it was really a group of masterminds that I would have, like CEO executives, thought leaders together, and we would go through this whole kind of one year journey in terms of really finding their purpose, building their business, what are the values they're trying to bring into work. And so I did that for probably over a year, going on two years, and it was successful. But I realized it wasn't what I wanted to focus on. I wanted to focus on helping more people. I basically took those ideas in that training for those that I had regularly charged thousands of dollars for, and I started doing these free micro learnings and let's talks.

Speaker 2: 8:42

And then this book is that culmination of what those four secrets are in terms of how to build a life worth living, and I can't tell you how many women tell me that they just they start a career and then they look back 10, 15 plus years later and they're like I'm here, but am I happy? And I think this idea of creating a life worth living we don't get taught that in school. Nowhere along the way do they teach you the skills required to think about what it is that is meaning and just that way of thinking. How do I find something that supports my values? What are my values? How do I support something that is consistent with those values and then go and pursue it If you're not?

Speaker 1: 9:37

able to ask yourself or answer that question of what brings you joy. How do you expect to get there? No one teaches you how to be happy. No one teaches you how to love. Here's the thing. Those are all actions. We think that love will come to us, happiness will come to us, that amazing career will come to us if we work hard and do these things that people tell us will lead to success. But what we need to do is we need to become, and I wanna read you one page from the book. Fake it to you. Make it as empty advice. Instead, we become by doing. Becoming requires that we start before we are ready. That's how we become. Don't fake it till you make it. Do it daily until you become it. And that notion of action is so important.

Speaker 1: 10:27

And so, to kind of break it down, the book is divided into four pivotal chapters. I call them secrets. They're not secrets, because you should all know this. I'm here to remind you of these things that are already in your heart. But the first one is really about being able to answer what matters most to you and really creating your core values that are guiding you as your North Star, because it's not just important to know what's important to you, what you value. It's important to actually live it. The second part is really about that. Our mindset creates our destiny, and I always think of Henry Ford's quote whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. It's this notion of the belief, of the belief in yourself, the belief that you can accomplish everything that you want through skill, through time, and it's really about betting on yourself. Number three is really about change requires consistency and it's not about systems. No one is born confident. We gain confidence through mastery, by doing, by starting before we were ready, by feeling over and over again.

Speaker 1: 11:48

We're in this society where people are afraid to fail. And because they're afraid to fail, they don't grow.

Speaker 2: 11:56

Right. Well, and I just wanna say I think our organizations, the corporate organizations, like the big companies, and they really feed into that because you don't wanna be seen as something that you've done is a failure, because that is a mark on your record, right. So even if something fails, you have to kinda spin it so that it's not a failure. So I think between that and then how we grow up in school, where failure is seen as this horrible thing, right.

Speaker 2: 12:28

Think about it. We you know, until you get dumped out into the working world, you have learned all throughout that time in your education that failure is terrible. Failure is fatal right. The way we are taught through our education system is not consistent with the reality of living a life that allows you to take risks and allows you to find those things that really will fulfill you.

Speaker 1: 12:57

Yeah, and I think it definitely is changing, which is in a positive way. And you know the HP study we've all heard of it where women or men will apply for a job if they have 60% of the qualifications, but women wait till they have 100%. And the thing is, if you wait till you have 100%, you're probably overqualified for that job, right, Right, right. So it's like that whole stretch goal, so this whole notion of like how do we kind of raise our children, our daughters, to be more brave rather than perfect? And I think of also Sarah Blakely's example that she always talks about the founder of Spanx, about how her father would have all of the kids around the dining room table and have them each talk about their daily failure and they applaud them. Yeah, and she had this mindset of she never was afraid of failure because she realized that that was part of growing and learning.

Speaker 1: 13:54

Yes, we think we need to kind of instill that in our kids. But also in the corporate world, innovation requires that you take risks. Innovate requires that you constantly move beyond your comfort zone and that you move into the growth zone, and that requires failing. So failure is not an endpoint. Failure is a process that's required in order to innovate.

Speaker 2: 14:23

I think too, though, that what's happening is that we are seeing people are seeing that failure is part of the process. One of the things, though, that I wanted to touch upon that you said with point number one, secret number one, which is about really determining what matters to you. I was thinking about the fact that we frequently are so focused on the goal and the outcome that we forget to take in and enjoy the journey. I think these two things are somewhat connected, because I think that's why, sometimes we get to that goal. Even if we got the goal that we wanted, we're like what just happened? You don't focus on that journey. I do think that that's shifting. I think there's a lot more conversation, too, around enjoying that journey as you go. If there's a failure, you incorporate that as part of the journey and you move forward Some of the best things that we all learn, and even if it takes you 10 or 15 times, okay, that's part of the process. I know I cut you off before the fourth. What is the fourth?

Speaker 1: 15:53

The fourth is really about changing ourselves. When I always say it, I'm always like duh, of course. I think we make change so complicated. I always say change is simple. It's not necessarily easy. There's only two ways to change, and it's what you add in your life and what you take away. I think the goal in life is to chisel away what we are not. It's a way to self-doubt, the imposter syndrome, the doubt, the surrounding yourself with toxic people, working for toxic leaders or toxic environments, and then adding in.

Speaker 1: 16:43

For me, I'm a giver. I always say there's givers and takers in the world. What's the big shift for me was surrounding myself with givers. I don't round myself with takers. If I have a taker in my life, sometimes they're there, but they're in the backseat, chiseling things and then adding things.

Speaker 1: 17:04

You know I didn't have health or well-being as one of my top values, but my family is the most important thing to me. My daughter is going to be turning 10 this year. I want to be there for her wedding. I want to be there when she becomes a mother and I want to become a grandmother. In order for me to do that, I have to take care of my health. It's not one of my values. But I wake up, then I exercise and I try to sleep enough, I try to eat healthy. Those were practices that I thought were selfish. Well, I don't have time for that. I don't have time for it. My thing is if you are not there physically and mentally, if your cup does not run its over, how can you expect to help other people? You need to make sure that you put your oxygen mass on first before you can help anyone else. Why? Because you can't help anyone if you're not breathing.

Speaker 2: 18:07

Yeah, you know, what you're saying resonates so much with me, laila, because I had an aha moment a few years ago related to taking care of myself, and I thought, you know, and also speaking not as positively about myself as I could Well, I have two daughters I realized that what I was doing was teaching them that it was unimportant to take care of yourself and that it's OK to speak badly about yourself. And the second I had that realization that this wasn't just about what I was doing to myself which, of course, is not a positive thing but that it was going to be a legacy that I was leaving to my daughters. I literally, I remember having a conversation with someone and the realization washed over me and I was like that's what I needed. I needed to understand it in that context that I was going to be basically creating another generation of women that have that same loop. That is not productive.

Speaker 1: 19:24

You needed to break generational curses right, and part of that is you realized that your daughters are watching you, everything you do and say. And I remember this time I was in the breakfast table with my daughter, morgan, and I was just kind of looking absently just out the door and she was like mom, I know what you're thinking. I was like what am I thinking? And I was kind of thinking, oh, maybe she's going to say something really nice, like I'm tired, I'm exhausted. And it made me realize that I just I was constantly exhausted and tired, and that's what she saw as a mother. That's not something to be proud of. And I realized that I was just always just so focused on working and not taking care of my health that it impacted me being present for my daughter, and so I realized that I had to change that A small change, but that you do kind of seeing progress over time compounds, and it really does.

Speaker 2: 20:37

I mean you don't even need a year. I know that some people are to say that you can change a habit in 30 eights and if you think about that, that's not a long time horizon. Yeah, I'm just about doing something slightly different and making that change and seeing progress. I think progress is that that key Over time seeing progress.

Speaker 1: 21:02

Change doesn't happen in these like once in a lifetime, you know, go big, go home kind of moments. It happens in the daily decisions that we make every day, the decision to live authentically, to live our values, to be kind, yeah, and eventually those add up to those life transformations. But I think that the problem is that in our society we're taught to go big or go home, or that you have to be at a certain point in your life to be considered successful.

Speaker 2: 21:37

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:38

And I say your life is too short. The average person lives 77 years. Of that, we spend maybe 26 years sleeping. We spend 10 years at work, 11 years on social media and you know that leaves just really 22 years to live our lives and to change dreams. And not all of us are even afforded those 22 years right. Use each moment with as much passion and fervor as you can. Life's too short to kind of just let other people live or, you know, write your story for you.

Speaker 2: 22:20

That's such great insight and it's a great place to add LAN. If people want to follow you and learn more about the book which is coming out of April 2nd, what is the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 1: 22:32

So my book website is lanphancoco, and they can find me on communityof7.com. Also, follow me on LinkedIn and also Instagram it's lanfanc7. I'm also on Facebook as well, so you can find me anywhere. Oh, and also my YouTube channel. Well.

Speaker 2: 22:50

Lan, thank you so much for spending this time with us. I learned so much, I took so many notes, so I'm hopeful that people will take so much away from this conversation as I did. Thank you.