We’re both:
🍗 storytellers
🍗 love food
🍗 a talent in media
🍗 world travellers

I may be at the start of my journey but I can see the direction that I’m going. I have similar goals to what Bourdain had achieved — the man is an aspiration to me and this is how I feel.

I’m angry that he wasted his life and talent like that. I’m sad to lose an amazing storyteller. I’m scared that I will end up like him.

I understand he isn’t perfect and he had his own demons to face, I cannot gauge what went through his mind. Yet, he inspired and touched the lives of many — inspired us to travel and try new food. He brought the culture to our doorstep.

I jumped on Instagram LIVE to share my thoughts about it. The response has been positive and thoughtful. Many of the offline conversations were with my circle of friends. They shared how they dealt with stress, anxiety and how they grow as a person. I’d like to share some of the key points that I learned from my chats with others:

Mental health is a hard topic — people fear being judged by society. They see it as a weakness. We have to realise something — everyone has been affected by depression — whether it’s your friend or you suffering from it. It’s a global epidemic.

Heck, I’ve gone through depression — it hit me when my brother and childhood friend died. Not by suicide, but they were a consequence of a speed racing incident. I had to organise my brother’s funeral and I avoided seeing my brother’s body during the process. I knew that if I saw it, I wouldn’t have the capacity to do anything. I was 20.

It took me a while to shake the dark, heavy cloud and see the light. I felt so alone, and I struggled to understand why. Now, I’m in the middle of picking projects and one of them is about mental health. It’s important that we have an ongoing conversation about this issue…

I’m still finding ways on how to deal with the ongoing stress and I find that a core understanding of one’s self is required.

The ones who have high self-worth and appreciation for themselves tend to have a higher threshold of enduring stress.

🍗 When faced with demons, they don’t run away — they face it.
🍗 When shit hits the fan, they use the resources around them to deal with it.
🍗 They enjoy the presence of being in the now.
🍗 They build networks of support.
🍗 They practice gratitude.
🍗 They meditate and reflect often.
🍗 They develop self-awareness.
🍗 They understand what triggers the onset of stress.

It’s takes years of discipline and practice.
It’s a process of what it means to be human.

When I travel, I find that I will always visit at least one key anchor — my friends who provide the support to make me feel at home.

What we require is a routine that we can do anywhere and everywhere — like meditation in the morning, exercising, seeing an art exhibition.

After my brother’s death and even an emotionally abusive relationship — I decided that I no longer wanted to be in that situation. At the time I didn’t have the right emotional supports either.

When I think about life, it’s a journey and we can define it by creating any kind of impact. With Bourdain, he may never have had any intention to inspire the world — but he did. Every interaction we make adds to the knots of string we entwine our lives with.

Make those interactions of knots count.

Death has a funny way of waking us up and I’m as motivated as ever to realise my vision of adding more creativity to this world.

Take care of yourself.

— —

Articles of entrepreneurs dealing with depression

“I should not be here today…” Tara Hunt @missrogue shares her story

The Psychological price of entrepreneurship

Tim Ferriss: How to Beat Depression & Stress as an Entrepreneur

When people ask you “what your story?” it roughly translates to:

“I like to know more about you and how you started”.

I realised that people want to hear things to help them motivate and find ways to kickstart their own dreams. They want to be inspired. They want to know how you overcome challenges and succeeded.

String’s Theory of Storytelling:

🍗 make it relatable
🍗 reproduce the epiphany aka the “Eureka” moment
🍗 mention the low points in life
🍗 detail the turning points
🍗 become vulnerable and open
🍗 be inspiring

The stories that captivate people tend to show that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Hope exists in the world. And this one has it in spades.

Telling your respective story allows the audience to connect with you. A great story will draw interest and attract your tribe. They will want to witness your growth and as such, they’ll find you as a source of inspiration.

I will hang out with founders and CEOs, and structure their stories for themselves.

Here’s my process:
I would record responses on video and observe how they perform. It’s interesting that people will be self-conscious of the camera. One must keep doing multiple takes, they will forget the camera exists. The secret is to not be discouraged and behave as if you’re simply engaging with your best friend. This approach is effective because our best friends tend to know our deepest secrets. We let our guard down when we’re around them, hence it can grant a more authentic performance for the camera.

I then make them watch their videos as I point out what aspects that they can improve on. I often use Donald Trump as an example of a good communicator. I actually a few messages saying I shouldn’t use him as an example, but being disliked is also weird approach to personal branding.

🍗 He uses simple language.
🍗 He uses short sentences.
🍗 He repeats key messages
🍗 He recaps

When you’re communicating, they are two main modes of contact and delivery. If you do compose a written script, read it out loud.

Record yourself on your smartphone and see how it turns out.

Telling your own story is going to be your biggest asset when meeting others. They will want to know your characteristics and see what you’re made of. When you tell your story, they’ll be thinking “Can I hang or like this person?” forming a mental image and you will ask yourself: “Do I want to hang-out or even like this person?”

Personally, I’m still refining my story. Every time I talk about it, I find that I’m always giving it a polish with each recital. I retain a few versions and each of these narratives reveal subtle nuances depending on whom I’m chatting with.

Here are some things to note when telling your personal/own story:
🍗 where to start your story — usually at the low point
🍗 when/ was the turning point
🍗 how did you overcome it
🍗 what are you doing next

If you want homework, start analyzing Disney stories and role models. YouTube pinpoints any correlations that resonates with your story. Then try to weave some of that magic into an anecdote of your own.

I look forward to meeting you in person and hearing your stories.

🍗 String

Other experiments and thoughts:
I’m doing a 30-day experiment to see how to get more viral views. My Instagram Stories are getting epic engagement and views. You can follow my documentation here.

Also, my first LinkedIn Video went viral with Mehak Vohra, and this is another video to share our thoughts about LinkedIn Video, Personal Branding and how to trigger the

Your Story is a Million Dollar Investment was originally published in ART + marketing on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By now you’ve heard that hiring remote workers is vital to outsourcing processes that you don’t enjoy or don’t have the skills to complete. Books like The 4-Hour Workweek make it sound simple. Stuff your work off to a virtual assistant and kick back on the beach! But if you’ve ever tried to give a task to a virtual assistant, you know that it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Perfectionism is a problem for many entrepreneurs, so delegating tasks to anyone else, let alone a new remote worker, is hard. Furthermore, finding someone whose talents and communication skills mesh with your own is even harder still.

I’ve done a lot of outsourcing over the last few years and would like to share some tips with you about how to do it properly — without losing your shirt!

Always have a trial run

The first stage in hiring a remote worker is to give them actual, usable, paid tasks. Hire them and use their work. Don’t give them a test task, just be honest and tell them that it’s a limited engagement but that their work will be customer-facing.

During the test run, you’ll have a few goals. The first is to see if your communication styles are compatible. You’ll also want to show them how to use your tools and see how they set (or don’t set!) processes in place. Finally, you’ll want to gauge the quality of their output.

When you give that first job, be sure to think up several useable outputs typical of work they’d be doing in the future. So, for example, if you were hiring a video editor you might ask for:

• A video introduction suitable for YouTube, and provide some necessary digital assets
• Cut a video to a certain length, add subtitles, and create a style guide for future use

Always be sure to give more than one task, so that you can see the scope of their talent.

Step 1: The Video Call

During the first stage of the trial run, you’ll want to set a date to have a Zeen video call. Do your best to convey the job tasks in clear, concise language. You aren’t testing them; you’re giving them a real job, so be sure to give thorough instructions as you would for any employee.

Listen carefully. You want them to ask questions when you aren’t clear, but not the same questions over and over. So be sure to take note of what you have and haven’t had to clarify.

You’ll also want to assess how comfortable you feel working with the remote worker. If you’re getting alarm bells just because you feel like the other person is making you uncomfortable, don’t be afraid to listen to your inner voice. You’re looking for someone with whom you can have a comfortable working relationship.

That means someone you’d feel comfortable cracking a joke around. Also be sure that they don’t interrupt you. That gets old, fast.

Step 2: Tools, Tasks, and Processes

After you’ve introduced the task, it’s time to rope your remote worker into your toolset and work process.

For my projects, the toolset that I tend to use is:

• Toggl — for recording time worked
• Zeen — for video conferencing and recording audio
• Trello — for project management and keeping notes
• Google Drive — for keeping a shared folder of documents and research

It’s okay if your remote worker hasn’t used your toolset in the past. They should, however, be willing to try your system out. Just the same, if the toolset doesn’t work for your remote worker, but their product is stellar, you should be open to change as well.

I like using Zeen, as it allows you to set the agenda. After the meeting, an audio recording is sent to your email that tracks your audio. There have another feature that allows you to have a to-do list and create action items.

One important thing to watch for is whether your remote worker is starting to develop a process for future tasks. If they cannot reuse any of the work they’ve done at the end of your project, it’s a warning sign.

Step 3: Evaluating The Product

When you evaluate the product, don’t only look at the quality of the output. You also want to be sure that the process is something that can be done again, faster the second time.

Also think back on your communication throughout the task. Were there any questions that they didn’t ask in light of the final product? Did they ask the same question multiple times and still get something wrong?

Finally, did they follow up? Was the product delivered on time? Did they take ownership throughout the project?

There’s a lot more to finding a good remote worker than finding someone with talent.

Personality Traits to Seek in a Remote Worker

Open-minded — You want a remote worker that listens to your suggestions. Of course, if they give honest feedback on those suggestions, that’s even better, but they should at least consider your input.

Curious — A remote worker who is always looking for a better solution, trying new tools, and learning new things is a gem to treasure!

Efficient — You want to find someone who has a system, uses processes to complete even small tasks, and keeps track of time well.

Proud — Your remote worker should have pride in their work and be an up-and-comer in their field.

One Final Note for Entrepreneurs

If you’re having trouble finding a remote worker, don’t necessarily despair. Usually, I go through 3–5 remote worker trials before settling on one.

However, if you are not able to find someone within that number of trials the problem could be you!

Like I said earlier, entrepreneurs, especially freelancers and solopreneurs, tend to be perfectionists. You’re looking for someone to take ownership of your tasks, so be sure to look back at the tasks you’ve assigned to see if you were micro-managing.

Do not micro-manage.

Micro-managing your remote workers is the number one reason that entrepreneurs screw up their remote worker relationship. Be sure to grant your remote worker creative control.

Signs you might be micro-managing:

• You ask for a minor switch in the font, for something to move up 10 pixels, or for a color to be slightly darker
• You ask why they did it how they did it more than once, or after they’ve established a process
• You check-in more than once a day

I hope that this has given you a good idea of how to hire remote workers. Please let me know if you have any questions! I’m a tweet away with “@stringstory”

http://eepurl.com/dkqpm9

String’s Guide to Hiring Remote Workers was originally published in ART + marketing on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve been there. I didn’t like the camera — I didn’t like how I sounded until I realised that to the rest of the world my Aussie accent is pleasing to the ears. Now, I’m scared of losing that accent through excessive traveling. When I first started, video made me self-conscious of how I look. So, I began to study body language and to use fashion to help visually present myself. Even my glasses are a contributing factor for people to watch my videos on LinkedIn’s newsfeed.

But even with those insecurities, I never questioned my knowledge or my skills as a communicator. 4 years ago, I first began my hyper-focus on video — because I realised it was the future of marketing (and I was right). Video is a scalable way of amplifying and sharing your message. Since then my confidence has grown, and I have become a better presenter and communicator. I gained business because of my video communication skills.

I became even more fearless when I began to believe in myself. Sounds super corny, right?

There’s a reason I say that.. conviction comes from confidence. It shows on camera, we sparkle when we’re talking about the things we’re passionate about. In the B2B world, professionals care about the numbers and the value you provide. Your knowledge and how you can help improve their business is what they want to hear. They want to listen to domain experts.

Link to full LinkedIn post here

It’s true, people need to realise that the problem isn’t with the camera or lack of skills, it’s with themselves. I must confess, I don’t have a degree in video. Instead I have mad skills in being creative and I do love telling stories. I want to share the latest cool geeky stuff about the future of tech and marketing.

Video is a great amplifier, it amplifies when it comes to people who utterly believes in what they do. I look at Oprah and Tony Robbins and I’m inspired by them.

You’re expecting how to develop your video skillset. Instead, I’m going to give you life skills on developing your confidence and self-esteem.Video skills is something that comes later, you should focus on You.

Here is a list of tactics that will help YOU build your camera presence:

• Be part of the #wakeupchallenge: it started off as a dare during a LinkedIn Local meetup at San Diego. I said “First thing in the morning, make a video. Anything after that will always be better”.
• Write a list of what you’re strengths are — what’s awesome about you?
• Use the list above and give yourself a morning mirror pep talk. Say to yourself “You have amazing skills in eating fried chicken”.
• Stop listening to NAYsayers, by the way, we actually have internal naysayer in us. Stop listening to them. Publicly, we’re not meant to be popular with everyone. Be okay with being likable to a few key people that care about you and what you have to say. Does it matter if only 10 or 1million will listen?
• Dance silently in the middle of the street, if you can do this — camera is even less scary. Join #DancingDiana and create a dance with her.
• Go out and present, what the difference between public speaking and video speaking?
• When someone compliments you: smile and accept it gracefully. It’s okay to say “thank you”
• If you’re starting out, then do the Gary Vee thing, and document your learning and failings.
• Go on Instagram Stories and create short daily vlogs, you can follow my American journey here (instagram.com/stringstory)
• Don’t stop with one video — a personal brand is a daily grind. I create content every day. I did this for 4 years. Practice makes perfect.

Every day, my LinkedIn inbox gets filled with messages about how to start with video. I’m going to send this very link — and ask them: “Do you believe in yourself and what you do?”

The goal is to wake yourself up, go deeper, question yourself; why do you want to do video? Are you ready to level up and share a part of yourself to the world? Do you love yourself.

It’s not about being egotistical. I’m not saying to cultivate your ego and develop arrogance. I want to see a confidence that comes from within and hear what you have to say about business and your life. LinkedIn is all about personal development and business chat.

I’m looking forward to hearing your stories about dancing, and how you’re singing serenades to yourself. Or share your lists of awesomeness with me.

It’s a process and part of your journey to be the best version of you.I know I’m a working progress and every day, I think about how to contribute back.

Love from SF,
String

The best chicken this month was in San Mateo, a place called Three.

🍗 Subscribe to String’s Fried Chicken Club here

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Owning Your Own Video Confidence was originally published in Marketing And Growth Hacking on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m visiting North America for the very first time and I’m combining my two love interests together: Fried Chicken + Tech

My goal is to eat Fried Chicken all around the world

Originally, I wanted to geek out on tech, and I realised that my peeps want to hang and geek’out with me — so I thought I organise this instead: For every city that I’m visiting, I will be arranging a fried chicken party. And while I visit these cities, I will be interviewing innovators and startups for “My Geek Out TV Series”

Dates For String’s Fried Chicken Party

Australia
12 Apr — Melbourne, AU
19 Apr — Sydney, AU (maybe)

North America
21 Apr — SF
25 Apr — NYC
1 May — Chicago (speaking gig thanks to Jeannette Bridoux)
4 May — LA
15 to 17 May — Boulder (speaking gig at Boulder Startup Week)
30 May — Washington D.C (super tentative)
27 June — Toronto (super tentative)

If you’re in any of these cities, email me at suzanne(at)stringstory(dot)co for an invite.

I plan to have a maximum of 20 awesome peeps come together in each city and we can geek’out on startups, tech and marketing over fried chicken. It will be highly curated! I just want to hang out with fun and interesting peeps.

Boulder Bonanza

Though for Boulder, it makes more sense to have a fried chicken bonanza and make it into a fundraising event. (Let’s see if we can create some magic and make this happen, Miles Matthias)

How Am I Funding This:

I am drawing funds from my own hip pocket, I mean travel and accommodation ain’t that cheap yo. If you wish to see me get fat, and be part of my fried chicken (and very global) Feel free to chip in and support:

Patreon.com/StringStory

I‘m planning to document my fried chicken adventure and geek out on tech and chicken while I’m at it. Patreon is a great place to be accountability. I will be creating a fried chicken doco-series and talk about the chicken scene and startup culture for each of the cities I visit.

Support and be part of the String's Secret Fried Chicken Club. $5 per month, allows you have VIP experience and first right access to the series before I launch it to the public.

String’s Fried Chicken T-Series

Click here if you like any of the tees above. My favourite is obviously the “Feed String” one. :P

Suzanne Nguyen aka String is a curious geek of the future, that loves tech and fried chicken. One of her goals is to peck all the fried chicken in the world.

Snapchat: StringStory
Twitter: StringStory
Facebook: StringStory

I’m on a phone with a coach for speakers and within 5 minutes of listening to his sale pitch, I asked him: “Within your lineup of clients, are there any who are non-white speakers?”

And this is how he responded: “how is that even relevant?!!!!”

This year, I made an conscious effort to share my core values with people who I care about and to others who I wish to work with. My values are:

Family, I love my mum and wish to take care of her. She gave me the gift of grit. Doing what I’m doing now, I found that I am reenergised kicking back with my best friend’s living room floor.

Creativity, I am and always will be an artist and a storyteller.

Innovation, this is where I get to geek out about the future and which is why I hang out with startups and tech, they are always innovating. It’s why I’m always experimenting with communication platforms.

Diversity, I used to run away from this and I realised it’s a part of whom I am. I cannot hide that I am a female Asian. Now, I choose to celebrate my identity and help others who believe in this too.

We only to look into Maslow’s law to understand about the basic driving needs of humanity.

Our limited time in this world.
Understanding our values is being aware of what drives us to do certain things.

Say yes to the projects that makes you sing.
Say no to the projects that doesn’t add value.
By saying no, you leave the door open to yes’.

After sharing my values to the world, I found clarity. I noticed a shift in the way I engaged in the world, a law of attraction and flow has come my way. I am more aware and more focused. I noticed that certain patterns of people are coming my way and opportunities are continually rising.

This framework allows me to quickly to say no to projects and allows me to focus on what’s important.

So, back to my phone call, we ended it within a minute because, I knew based on my value systems that I couldn’t work with him, he didn’t even acknowledge what I believe in. Instead of opening up a conversation or see it as an opportunity, he saw it as a hinderance.

Diversity is important to me.
Diversity is not important or relevant for him.

On another tangent, he made a comment about “just because you’re beautiful, doesn’t mean you should bring that issue up”. Another red flag comes up and I laughed and thought “how is that relevant?!” — alas that’s another story of nuance in itself.

When someone asks me “what’s my purpose or vision, I share with them my 4 core values”.

I’m String from the future, and I look forward to sharing more stories about tech and social. Oh, I’m on my way to creating my business because I realised that I wish to maintain my voice in this weird and wonderful world.

You can find me on Snapchat or on Twitter. I’m StringStory everywhere.

I am lucky.

Fuck Friday the 13th.

Today I lost my wallet and found it.

*

I am lucky that I made a new friend who works at the Town Hall.

I reached out to him and asked if he could help.

*

I am lucky because the location would have been closed for the weekend, but my new friend opens the door during closing hours.

*

I am lucky and thankful.

*

🍗 stringstory

Mid this year, I wrote about how Snapchat was like an interactive TV channel. Now we see a major push from IG being a multi-media platform.

Then Zuck finally admits that Facebook is a media company. Especially since they are thinking about putting original content on Facebook, ha, does that mean they are going to pay and respect content makers?

Suzanne Nguyen on Twitter

Finally, Zuck admits Facebook is a media company #tech https://t.co/jZ5UtTEfYN

Both Snap Inc and Facebook are trying to make you stay longer and longer inside their platforms, and they plan to build more tools and more content for you to consume. Think WeChat, a Chinese messaging ecosystem, as a glimpse of our direction for messaging apps of the future. WeChat combines ecommerce and communications well together.

On a tangent note, expect more amazing and annoying bots to come out.

This is a good time to jump on and think about setting your own TV show. It’s cheap — all you need is:

• The willingness to be a dag, you don’t need to be a tv star to tell YOUR story
• Buy a BIG mobile data/internet pack,
• A portable battery pack,
• and have a good mobile phone that has HD video capabilities.

Still, don’t underestimate the social. The audience you connect with on a human/social level is made while engaging in a conversation. Make your STORY super engaging that people are compelled to reach out to you.

I’m looking forward to helping other produce their own shows on various mediums.

On another second tangent note, I’ve been thinking more about what’s more important — the message or the medium?

Suzanne Nguyen thinks about the future of communication and tech. She also has a Snapchat course for marketing and business.

Suzanne is “stringstory” online:
Snapchat
Twitter
Instagram

2017 Will Be The Year Of Television was originally published in ART + marketing on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I understand that cryptocurrency isn’t for everyone neither does it suit everyone’s taste, but my experience has always been positive. I’ve been fortunate with my dealings, I cultivated a network that enriched my experience and knowledge. Still, it’s good to be aware about the shady stories that does happen. My current favourite shady deal is OneCoin.

6 months later, it got a little closer to home, my cousin mentions that my aunt is interested in Bitcoin. I caught up with them over barbecue, it wasn’t even about Bitcoin. It was about OneCoin. A bunch of people (self-invited) themselves and said this like a mantra:

“OneCoin is the future of payments”,

I love fintech and the future, but seriously, this was the biggest load of shit I ever smelled.

The men did the presentation and the women act as support encouraging me to come and listen. I advised my aunt and cousin, don’t bother.

A few days ago, my best friend called me and shares this story with me; she was organising her father-in-law’s birthday dinner for a close intimate party of 25, when her father-in-law mentions that there will be two more guests attending. No biggie, being the cautious person and an excellent caterer she is, she had an extra 3–5 serves of food. So she asks one of her staff to go out and for a final count of heads. The staff comes back with, “hey, there’s 32 heads”.

By now, I had a sense of dread and deja vu.

You guessed it, it’s OneCoin again! They hijacked a party for their own selfish needs to sell. In a middle of a party, they set up a presentation and happily ate their lobster and Wagyu steak.

I share all these stories because I recognise patterns and OneCoin is becoming a pattern. OneCoin is known to use a Ponzi multi-level-marketing scheme and leverage people’s ignorance.

Basically, OneCoin is a scam.

Suzanne Nguyen on Twitter

Checking out onecoin? Is it a scam?

Suzanne Nguyen on Twitter

@juscamarena my aunty has been approached my others and want her to be part of it (I'm super suspicious)

Justin Camarena on Twitter

@StringStory Here's a run through. https://t.co/ze3X4KsceN

Just listen to Andreas, run away!!

Andreas on Twitter

@StringStory Scam, Ponzi, pyramid. Run away

On a side note, how awesome is my network and community :P

Suzanne Nguyen is a curious geek of the future that dreams of buying fried chicken with Bitcoin (apparently you can, but not in Australia).

OneCoin = A Ponzi Scam was originally published in String’s Geekout on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When you invest in yourself, the world invests in you.

When you believe in yourself, the world believes you.

When you love your uniqueness, the world loves you too.

Suzanne Nguyen: Sometimes I write. Snapchat likes me. Follow my snaps 👻stringstory