The Power of the Ask

The Life Brief: Finding Clarity to Navigate Your Life Goal with Bonnie Wan

August 23, 2024 • Lisa Zeiderman, Savvy Ladies Board Chair, Managing Partner at Miller Zeiderman LLP, and Precious Williams, Savvy Ladies Board of Directors, CEO/Founder of Perfect Pitch Group • Season 1 • Episode 10

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This episode of the Power of the Ask podcast features Bonnie Wan, AdAge 2022 Chief Strategy Officer of the Year, partner and Head of Brand Strategy at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and the bestselling author of “The Life Brief.”

 An immigrant from Taiwan who lived in both Los Angeles and New York City, Bonnie has always been fascinated by human behavior, by what drives people, and by what fuels their purpose. That curiosity led to her transformative roles in branding and strategy and to develop the “Life Brief,” a creative brief that helps people find clarity about their life goals and navigate challenges with purpose.

 For many people, the idea of transformation brings images of giant leaps, but Bonnie suggests small changes that can be implemented every day to help create forward momentum. Bonnie has written briefs to fit all aspects of life, from marriage to leadership to finances. She notes that the practice of being very clear and connected to your innermost truth about what you want and what matters most at each stage of your life will help you navigate through that compass.

 In the financial realm, that means asking the right questions. As a strategist, Bonnie says questions are her best friends. Her first wealth brief question is, ‘What is enough?’ The second is, ‘What do you want to be rich in?’ Bonnie believes the power of the ask is important to women, especially financially. She declares, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” She concludes by saying women need to know what they’re worth, what’s sacred and what’s worth fighting for. That kind of clarity allows them to pivot their careers and their asks in different ways when the time calls.

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About Bonnie Wan:

Bonnie Wan is Partner and Head of Brand Strategy at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners  and the bestselling author of “The Life Brief.” AdAge named her the 2022 Chief Strategy Officer of the Year and a 2023 Leading Woman for reaching new heights in an ever-changing marketing landscape. A career brand strategist, Bonnie has spent more than 30 years working with companies to articulate the essence of who they are and has transformed this practice into a creative brief for her life and a personal development strategy for individuals — “The Life Brief.” Bonnie’s creative brief has grown from an agency talk into a workbook, keynote talks and workshops, and, in 2024, a book.

“The Life Brief: A Playbook for No-Regrets Living” is a USA Today bestseller and Amazon Best Book of the Year 2024. Modeled after the creative brief, a tool used by many innovative companies to unlock clarity and unleash action, The Life Brief carves a path for living with intention and imagination.

Today, Bonnie teaches others how to get clear, get creative, and get courageous about living without regret through her keynote talks, workshops and retreats. And thanks to the clarity she found in her own Life Brief, Bonnie answered her desire to spend more time with her husband, four kids and dog Charlie.

Important Links:
Savvy Ladies
Precious Williams' LinkedIn
Lisa Zeiderman's LinkedIn
Bonnie Wan's LinkedIn

Lisa Zeiderman (00:06.463)

Hello everyone, welcome to the power of the Ask Podcast, the podcast that helps you get what you need financially and personally. We are so glad you're here today. My name is Lisa Ziderman. I am managing partner of Miller Ziderman and I'm one of the co -hosts with my dear friend,

Precious LaTonia Williams (00:24.761)

And I'm Precious Williams, the killer pitch master and proud founder and CEO of The Perfect Pitch Group. And welcome back. This week, we are so excited to introduce you to Bonnie Wan. I'm sorry. Let me go


And I'm Precious Williams, the killer pitch master and proud founder and CEO of the Perfect Pitch Group. And welcome back. This week, we're excited to introduce you to Bonnie Wan, partner and head of brand strategy at Goodby. At age is 2022 chief strategy officer of the year, Bonnie Wan is a partner and head of brand strategy at Goodby.


Precious LaTonia Williams (01:06.459)

what's happening today. Okay. Bonnie, I'm usually not like this,


Bonnie Wan (01:10.762)

Don't worry about


Lisa Zeiderman (01:11.551)

You're good, you're good.


Precious LaTonia Williams (01:14.875)

At ages 20 to 22, Chief Strategy Officer of the Year, Bonnie Wan is a partner and head of brand strategy at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners. Over three decades, she's guided iconic brands with creative briefs. In 2010, Bonnie created the Life Brief, a profound practice that transformed her life and marriage. Okay!


Today, Bonnie shares the life breakthrough keynote talks, workshops, and retreats in events like South by Southwest, y already know she's a baddie, and in Goop Health. She works with top organizations such as Accenture, Apple, and Google. Outside of her professional life, Bonnie explores nature with her family and her dog, Charlie. I love the name Charlie.


Welcome back, Bonnie. We're so happy to have you here today to share your journey and to teach our listeners about the power behind the ask. Bonnie, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?


Bonnie Wan (02:07.336)

my gosh, it's an honor to be here. Thank you for having me, the two of you, three badass ladies. I don't know, you've said it all, precious. I am an immigrant from Taipei, Taiwan. I grew up in Los Angeles. I went to university in New York, and that's where I started my advertising career. And I don't know, I've always been driven by a fascination, fixation on human behavior. What drives people?


and especially what drives people in the face of turbulence, turmoil, life or death situations. Amelia Earhart was my first heroine at second grade, I think. That was my first biography. And Martin Luther King, Helen Keller. I've always been fascinated by what propels someone to face


to be fueled by purpose, even in life or death situations.


Lisa Zeiderman (03:14.805)

Wow, that is quite amazing. And you've named some people who certainly have faced a lot of risk and adversity and certainly made their name out there nonetheless. So good for you. You have been recognized as Ad Ages 2022 Chief Strategy Officer of the Year. What does that achievement mean to you, Bonnie? And how has it impacted your career?


Bonnie Wan (03:42.522)

Mmm, it's such an honor. I think it's meaningful for me to hold that honor, to have held that honor because I don't think I'm the archetypal chief strategy officer in advertising, or at least in my three decades in the business. It's always been British men and I've never felt that I fit that mold.


I'm certainly not British. I'm certainly not a man. But I think as someone who embodies a lot of traits and qualities and even value systems and beliefs that are counter to those I have been raised by in the industry, it was a surprise and an honor and maybe to me an evident point of evidence or signal.


Precious LaTonia Williams (04:15.247)

You


Bonnie Wan (04:41.65)

that the industry is changing and that business is changing and that we are starting to embrace some new archetypes in the world of business. And I will say that I've always been someone who puts people first. As a strategist, I've always looked for the answer among the room, work to make the whole room smarter rather than to take up the air and oxygen.


These are not necessarily the traits I grew up with in terms of my predecessors or the leaders before me. I've had the privilege of working under some amazing British men and American men, all men, all men though. And I think I really questioned myself in taking on the leadership role, you know, as the lead strategist, as the head of the department.


In fact, I resisted it for many years because I didn't believe I had the qualities and the traits. I couldn't mirror the men before me. And even in my first 18 months in the role, I tried to mimic others that I thought, I tried to mirror the standards of excellence that I had grown up with. And it wasn't until I released all of that and surrendered to my own way of leadership.


that I found my rhythm and I found my strengths and to be honored in that role, you know, for Chief Strategy Officer of the Year, it was, I think it said a lot for how far we've come as an industry.


Precious LaTonia Williams (06:23.841)

You brought up Amelia Earhart and dare I say she was probably one of your first sheroes and you're a shero. sure. Bonnie, Queen Bonnie, you brought up Amelia Earhart as your first shero that you that you read about when you were in the second grade.


Bonnie Wan (06:31.764)

Mm -hmm.


Precious LaTonia Williams (06:49.839)

Do you see yourself as a shero? Because I can tell you, we see you as a shero and as a visionary. What did it take to actually get you here? What experiences, what life experiences, what things did you go through to actually become a shero to us?


Bonnie Wan (07:09.16)

Thank you for that. I don't see myself as a shero.


Precious LaTonia Williams (07:12.099)

I didn't think you did, but it's time you see yourself like that or we wouldn't have you here.


Bonnie Wan (07:18.592)

Thank you, I'm gonna receive that and I'm going to sit with it and chew on it and embrace it because that's a practice that I'm actively practicing right now. What got me here? I think Amelia, Helen, Keller, sheroes like that have always reminded me that when I lack confidence, do it anyways.


Right? Because I think I struggle like many women I meet and work with now through the life brief with a lack of confidence or self -doubt or inner critics or all the things, right, that hamper us. And I don't see this in a lot of men, although I'm starting to also.


in my own son and in men who are vulnerable and open to sharing their own inner experience. But for many, many years, I did not experience this in men, what we call imposter syndrome or all the self doubt. And I've realized that if you are a marginalized person or you belong to a marginalized group or you've experienced personal trauma, you meet the world.


with doubt because I think there is a protectiveness or a fear as you enter any situation of, I safe? It is the question that precedes you. And I think when I look at those shiros of my past or my childhood, they remind me that confidence is overrated. We're not all born.


confident, we're not all raised confident because in the face of trauma, right, power. I like to study power. And when you are marginalized, what we're really saying is you are under the thumb of power and power has abused you in some way. And that removes our confidence. And so I like to talk about courage instead because courage


Bonnie Wan (09:38.411)

is the ability to keep acting, acting on your conviction even when you lack confidence.


Lisa Zeiderman (09:47.923)

So I'm going to ask you before I delve into what role finances play in the journey of your self -discovery and clarity, I'm going to ask you first to just tell us about Lifebrief and what was the turning point that led you to develop Lifebrief and how did it overcome your own dissatisfaction or doubt if that is true. But first, can you just tell us what Lifebrief is?


Bonnie Wan (10:17.238)

Yeah. So I've been a strategist for 30 years. hard to admit. Hard to admit. Yeah. 30 years. And it's a creative brief. The life brief is a creative brief for your life because I've been, I spent three decades writing creative briefs. And at the essence of a creative brief, it's clarity. It's sharp, sticky clarity that drives action.


Precious LaTonia Williams (10:22.267)

You look a day in the 30, what you mean?


Bonnie Wan (10:46.698)

The act of living different parts of your life because there's not one life brief. You can life brief any and all parts of your life. So I many life briefs, but it is the practice of getting crystal clear about what you want in any part of your life. So I've written a marriage brief, a leadership brief, a wealth brief, a parenting brief, and they are ever evolving.


But it is the practice of being very clear and connected to my innermost truth about what I want, what matters most in this part of my life, so that it can help me navigate turbulence, navigate unpredictability, complexity, ambiguity through that compass.


Precious LaTonia Williams (11:38.587)

I am loving the life brief. As a 45 -year -old woman, I feel like there have been different preciouses along the way. And so the life brief would have gave me clarity. I didn't know the right questions to even ask to understand how to get to clarity.


And a lot of the queens that watch this, watch, watch or listen to our podcast, they're maybe struggling in a lot of areas of their life and trying to figure out what truly matters at this stage. If it was never a priority before, how, how does a life brief address that? And also we're living in difficult financial times, whether the news wants to say it, how does a life brief even deal with that?


Bonnie Wan (12:10.026)

Yes.


Bonnie Wan (12:24.64)

Well, you said the words, right? Questions. How do I ask the right questions? So as a strategist, questions are my best friend. And the practice of the life brief is starting with penetrating or driving questions. And not all questions are created equal. Some questions drop you deeper, faster, and get right in there in the


and others just stay on the surface and leave you chasing your tail, running in circles, right? My favorite wealth brief questions are, what is enough?


And can you translate enough into tangible financial terms? When my husband actually asked that question in the kitchen in 2021, I believe we were making lunch together and he said, do we know what enough is? And I thought, that's a juicy question. And then we defined it together tangibly.


And as the single and sole breadwinner of our family, as soon as we were able to answer that, two things happened. One, the monkey came off my back. The infinite striving, know, the keeping up with the Joneses or the Kardashians, whoever you want to keep up with, right? On social media, who are you following? That just just slipped right off my back because we had a tangible definition for what enough looked like.


Precious LaTonia Williams (13:51.985)

Yeah.


Bonnie Wan (14:01.012)

And the second thing that happened is we realized we have more than


And that opened up and allowed me to take our scarcest resources, which is my time and my attention, and redirect them in other ways than making money. And I am now actively working to get down out of hustle culture because I know what enough looks like. I know that it's right there at our fingertips.


And yes, it will take a little bit more work, but I don't have to give all my attention to the financial treadmill that we were on before. And then the second question was, if we could be rich in only one way, what do we want to be rich in? What's our true wealth brief? And my wealth brief is to be rich in relationships.


Lisa Zeiderman (15:05.141)

So you know that Savvy Ladies is really about financial empowerment. And so you said a whole lot of things that are so interesting, right? What is enough? And I'm going to ask you first, as you went through this journey, essentially, of self -discovery about what is enough, how did you make the determination of what enough was?


Bonnie Wan (15:33.342)

Well, lots of life brief practice, you know. There's an exercise, my favorite one in the book, the life brief, which is writing our eulogy. When you write your eulogy, you begin with the end. And when you begin with the end, now you can play your life backwards, right? And say what really matters. The eulogy brings out...


what you really want to be remembered for. And there's Tom DeLong, who's a Harvard Business School professor, talks about the tension between our eulogy values and our resume values. Our eulogy values are what we want to be remembered for at the end of our lives. Our resume values are what we want the outside world to see us at in the moment. It's all these achievements. Neither are better or right.


It's the tension between the two that acts as the fuel that propels us forward. And we need that tension because we are managing both in our lives. so having done that practice, it made answering the question, what is enough, easier than most. But I work with a lot of people on these same questions. So I recently worked with a VC founder around his money brief.


And that was very interesting because he's in the business of money. His whole life is around money. But he came from a really modest Midwest background. Auto worker dad, I think a lawyer or a teacher mom, know, just really a different set of values. And now he lives in a whole different lifestyle, highly urban, around a lot of money. He has a family.


And he said he wakes up with anxiety all the time about money. And so we're trying to pinpoint where's the tension point, what's happening. And after just a few minutes of conversation, he said, in the last few years, or every year in the last few years, I've realized that I need less money to be genuinely happy.


Bonnie Wan (17:52.238)

interesting. Okay. So what's happening in the recent years? And he said, well, we've moved neighborhoods. We now live around multimillionaires. We have dinner and we go to, you know, vacations with these people. My kids are in really Tony schools, you know, we're buying them. So I realized, I see. You are learning that you need less to be genuine and happy.


but your bills are going up and up. bingo, tension point. There's the tension. Now, if you want to now aim your curiosity into that tension point and start to get clear about what shift do you wanna make within that space of tension that would help alleviate this anxiety? And that's where his money brief started.


Precious LaTonia Williams (18:55.001)

You have truly, I feel like my mind is going off in my mind right now. So I wanna ask you this question.


So many of us are defined as women, by our achievements, by our accomplishments, who our friends are, all those sort of things. What do you want to be defined by? And what's the question you wish people asked you and they never do?


Bonnie Wan (19:32.4)

I'll speak to the second question first. I find people ask very few questions these days on a whole. I'm not even, I'm not sure which question I'd like to be asked. I just like to be asked some questions other than podcast interviews where you ask very good, it's your business to ask good questions. But I find, you know, at cocktail parties, we're in a social media culture where everyone is about what they want to say.


Precious LaTonia Williams (19:38.477)

Mm -hmm.


Precious LaTonia Williams (19:59.877)

Yeah.


Bonnie Wan (20:00.224)

what they want to post, what they want to stand for. And I find the more successful, the higher level success I'm surrounded by, the fewer questions I get, the fewer genuine question, because people all want a platform from which they speak. I, the dearth of curiosity is a problem for me.


But I try to enter conversations with a lot of questions. It's part of my natural curiosity, but I also find that it is what creates community and richness of relationship. Tell me your first question again. What was the first


Precious LaTonia Williams (20:46.639)

The first question kind of leans into that. We are often defined by the resume, the bio, the reading of that. that's supposed to tell so much. How do you want people to see you beyond all of that? That's a question that I've been dealing with for the last few years, is to not allow the bio to be all there is of me when there's so many things I'd rather be defined


Bonnie Wan (20:52.946)

yes.


Bonnie Wan (21:13.512)

Integrity is my... Integrity and humanity is my... are the two that come to mind. I find that very hard to...


Bonnie Wan (21:28.374)

to lead with those traits first, and I would add generosity in there. I think we live in a business culture that too often uses the excuse that it's just the cost of business. And I think that that is a permission slip for leaders to get away from their values.


and especially the values of humanity, integrity, generosity. It has become the permission slip across business to do some really inhumane things, to not put people first. And I think we accept it in our business culture, that that's okay. Yes, yes, because we're feeding the shareholders,


Precious LaTonia Williams (22:15.737)

or to make everything transactional instead of relational.


Bonnie Wan (22:24.352)

feeding the bottom line, there's growth expectations and I have led long enough to know that you can do good business and be good to people at the same time. That's not to say that contractions don't happen, that we have to do hard things, but you can do hard things with humanity first. I know that to be true and I'm not buying the bullshit that it's just in the name of business.


Lisa Zeiderman (22:55.487)

So Bonnie, can you share how your tool, the Creative Brief, has helped iconic brands align with their essential virtues?


Bonnie Wan (23:06.844)

Yeah, companies have to move fast, right? We all know that it's peak volatility. Lots of disruptive competitors coming into the market. Leaders are in high stakes situations all the time. Clarity is the thing that allows you to pivot and flex in uncertain times and to know what you stand for and where to act from. However, in many organizations, there is not


clarity, one, nor alignment through the organization around the clarity. So I lead a service, an offering in our agency called Brandcamp, which is a brand accelerator. It's a brand strategy accelerator that helps companies get to the essence of their purpose and act on that through any part of their organization. But what it requires is not


You know, a lot of companies offer brand strategy. That's a universal output, you know, of great strategic partners. The key though to me is alignment. The magic sauce to actionable strategy is alignment. And alignment requires a sense of authorship and ownership among the leaders. So the C -suite, not just the marketers, not just the CMO.


But you need leaders, and this is again, time and attention are our scarcest resources. And leaders do not come together to actually debate out the real issues, to share their hot takes, to give spaciousness, to work out those hot takes, and to come to alignment. So it's not just about getting to great output from a brand strategy standpoint, because you could have great output, but if no one's aligned around it, it becomes what I call shelf strategy.


It exists in a deck, in a laptop, in the system. Nobody refers to it. But when leaders come around the table together and feel a sense of authorship, ownership, and alignment, then action happens as soon as they leave the room. And that action cascades through the organization very fast when you have leadership who believes in, owns the strategy.


Precious LaTonia Williams (25:31.683)

You know what Queen Bonnie?


This is why I love co -hosting the Power to Ask podcast powered by savvy ladies with Lisa. Number one, we're not afraid to test things. We're not afraid to ask certain questions because we don't want this podcast to sound like everybody else. And we also want the Queens and the Kings who watched, cause listen, we just had a King who watched our last episode, who put something in the chat and I thought it was the most beautiful thing because he was listening intently for


that he doesn't usually get to hear from queens like you. I love the fact that you talked about alignment and asking questions and understanding this is a process and it takes work. If you've been doing this 30 years, there's no way you knew this at year one or year five or year 10. Just like I didn't know about speaking I feel like until my 20th year. I was doing it but I don't know if I really grasped it. As a final question that we ask our power of the ask guests.


We want to know why is the power of the ask so important to women, especially financially, and why is it even more critical today?


Bonnie Wan (26:46.432)

Well, if you don't ask, you don't get. that's, that's the first thing. It's the guarantee that you're not going to get what you want. Asking is a practice. I invite all of my employees, my strategists to ask. I say, come in and negotiate with me and know that you have more than two cards to play. You have a full deck and practice getting to know which cards in the deck.


are most important to you. Which ones matter most and get creative about it. We always think that the only bargaining chips are money and title. Not true. Not true. As someone who has four kids, I have had different chapters in my career where, again, time was of essence, right? Living in a different city that was more


cost effective to our big family was important. Having flexibility was important. There were many different cards that played in different chapters. know what you're worth, know what's sacred and what's non -negotiable, know what's worth fighting for, and know what you're willing to trade off in order to get it. And


That kind of clarity allows you to pivot your own career, your own asks, in different ways when the time calls


Precious LaTonia Williams (28:25.445)

When I tell y 'all the Power of the Ask podcast powered by savvy ladies, this, these are the type of interviews that really break open a lot for our queens that are watching. So you keep coming back y 'all. It gets better and better. Do you notice between different episodes, certain things are stressed more than others. We're hearing more about lives. We're hearing more about decisions that really transform businesses and lives and that there are certain questions that we love to just pull


out of the hat because it takes the conversation in totally different direction. As the co -host of the Power of the Ask podcast, we want you to truly understand that we want you to ask the right questions, to have clarity, and to put yourself first and to put your needs.


first and to ask those questions and to sit down and really start testing different ideas, whether you're in business, in your career, in your life, in your relationships. So I'll tell you Betty one, you have to check out the life brief, check out all of those different briefs, check out her book. And most importantly, keep coming back, subscribe, tell a friend to tell a what friend to tell a what friend and keep coming back to the power to ask podcast powered by savvy ladies. And we're here to make sure that you're financially empowered.

Take care, everyone.


Lisa Zeiderman (29:44.905)

Bye, everyone. Thank you. Thanks so much, Bonnie. And thank you, Precious.


Bonnie Wan (29:47.69)

Thanks for having me.