mark, mm hmm. Okay, thank you for tuning your heart's in for another episode of the Hearts rise up podcast. I'm carol chapman, your host along with my co host and Siri and Concetta antonelli. We share our own personal experiences, tips and strategies along with powerful stories and compelling insights from guest interviews. We're here to inspire and empower your conscious evolution, help you tap into your inner wisdom and rise to your heart centered higher self. Together we can rise to a higher level of consciousness, an elevated state of being and experience more love, joy and freedom. Okay, yeah, I'm excited to introduce my featured guest today.

Godwin chan Godwin is a recent grad with over three years of experience in nonprofit organization management, event planning and molecular biology and bioinformatics research. He is currently the assistant event manager of discover your personal brand D. Y. P. B. A. Startup that offers personal branding, events, development training and resources to empower working professionals to kickstart and maintain their personal brand journey. Currently Godwin is writing his first book titled digital introverts. Why today's most successful individuals harness introversion to thrive, Which is slated for publishing in July of 2020. Godwin, I want to welcome you to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much. And just a little correction on the publishing date. It's been just been pushed back to december, but everything else is on order.

Thank you. Okay, Terrific. Sometimes you just need that little extra time. You don't know exactly what's involved in it, particularly your first book but I'd love to understand a little bit more about your background and where you got to where you are today because you've got an eclectic background and you and I have had some earlier discussions around your science background and you're now doing event planning. So you've done lots of different things. So I'd love to understand a little bit about your journey and how you got to where you are today. Perfect. Sounds good. And as you said, I do have an eclectic background in terms of the breath of things that I've done and the experiences I've had. So back in undergraduate studies when I was at the university here in Canada, the Singer. The goal of my life was to get into medical school. That was everything that I focused on. There was no, not necessarily a plan B in the sense that, oh, you know, I was very enthusiastic about pursuing anything else outside of medicine. That was it. That was the one profession that I sought after my entire life I was preparing for this moment.

So in my undergraduate studies I did everything to put myself in the best position to be accepted into medical school. And you know, as you know, here in North America getting in is not easy to say the least right. It's probably highly competitive. Yes and very much so, especially here in Canada because we have a very, very limited amount of schools and in spots to fill in those schools even compared to the US for example. And so, you know, I I took all the prerequisite courses, I wrote the m cat, you know, that's the medical exam for, you know, applying and then I applied For two application cycles and the closest I ever got to being accepted was that I was placed on the final waiting list at the University of Toronto here in Canada, which is no small feat and which is fine, but what ended up happening was that, you know, I was placed on the waiting list for a couple of weeks and then I was shortly put off that waiting list afterwards.

So, you know, so experiencing that and you know, for me that was pretty defining moment in terms of, oh, you know, applying for a couple of times and and not getting in and I even went to do a one year master's degree at the University of Montreal to pursue kind of my interest in this area a bit further, but also to buy me some time in applying for a second time, basically, I came back here to the greater Toronto area, which is where I'm from, and you know, after being rejected twice, I took a bit of time in introspective about, you know, is this something that I am truly passionate about or is this something that society has deemed to be a noble profession or is it because it's a high paying profession, you know, I went through all these different questions, you know, about career and purpose and my journey and my path in life and came to the conclusion, the ultimate conclusion that medicine no longer aligned with my interests for a variety of reasons, that so one would be just, you know, in incompatibility with the profession and my personality a couple of ways, in terms of, you know, first of all, I am absolutely terrible at working under pressure and that is something I am very self aware of and you know, the second aspect is that, you know, akin to that I may not be the best communicator under times address right, and, and so I may not be very well kind of aligned or perform as well, as, for example, some of my colleagues in, you know, the personality and in Congruence, you know, second of all, I was especially during my year in Montreal, I was so my interest in in healthcare, you know, in the healthcare professions, and or or just my interest in science really, and becoming dr were waning ah and there was a proportional increase in interest on my side in business and entrepreneurship and digital marketing and personal branding, all these different, you know, different areas.

So, you know, at the end of the day, I just chose to to walk away from pursuing medicine um and that's not to say, you know, that is the right decision for for everyone, because I know there are many cases of individuals who would, who would also, you know pursue a PhD and also and then applied to medical school afterwards as well or people who Apply for 3, 4 or five times and and even more because they're so they're very hell bent on pursuing medicine right now. I'm not, I don't know what their motivations are for becoming a physician, but it's something that is very desirable and that's why you see that the bottleneck is so tight for this profession. So afterwards I started doing a lot of exploring a lot of experimentation with income generation in terms of joining a digital health startup in the boston area, it's called cuba health and they were they're developing an app that will help asthma patients manage their care and which was interesting.

I was helping to really kick start their social media presence, their their digital marketing, right in that sense, I was helping them manage their their facebook twitter, instagram linkedin and linkedin accounts, which is interesting and I did it for a few months just to get my feet wet in terms of you know that and then I left that just because I was, it was essentially a volunteer position, I want to say that I think it's commendable for you to take at least explore that and take that leap and recognize as you were kind of pursuing the medical career that you recognize a couple of important qualities that were probably essential to that to being really successful in that profession and was able to really kind of take that that on board as soon as you recognized it? You know, the working under pressure and the communication skills, has that, has that been part of the learning experience for you going forward?

In terms of the things that you've been exploring since that time and what you're doing today? Yes, that's the journey of self awareness, that's what I'd like to call it. And I think that is very crucial in terms of finding your or crafting really your ideal career right? Or how you would like to work right? And the second part is are you good at it right or do you have the technical technical competencies to do your job? Well, when you can find a career that satisfies both requirements, that's the best possible outcome. At what point did you recognize that? Those two important are two really important things in career success or at least advancing your success of your career? I came up with it or I became aware of it kind of, it was very, it was a very gradual process obviously of trial and error, you know, in coming to, to the things I'm doing today with the, with the podcasting with the, with the book and I'm going to continue exploring even blogging and starting a youtube channel, things like that in terms of the future projects and it's still very much a work in progress as well.

And even the second point about the, are you good at it? This can also change over time as you gain proficiency in, in a few areas, for example, even four or five years ago when I was still in undergraduate students looking to pursue medicine, I had barely any experience in digital marketing. I, I taught myself a lot of those, those skills, mainly from trial and error really of managing my own social accounts to managing other organizations accounts as well. And I've had, you know, varying levels of success and failure with that and I've made every single social media gaffe you can think of, is there a particular challenge or failure that has taught you the most about yourself? I mean I can think of a kind of few instances with companies that I've tried starting up actually for a period of time within the past couple of years, I've been really interested in pursuing a startup in terms of, you know, let's create a company that can scale and grow very quickly.

Of course, that kind of bought into the ethos of Silicon Valley and how people can become quote quote successful that way. And so for a time I was very, I was experimenting with that, you know, after for example leaving the nonprofit, I helped to start during my undergraduate studies, that experience has taught me kind of a lot about how to scale an organization and how to manage and deal with people and after that I tried for example starting a jam company of all things, the company jams making making jams and marvelous, yes, that was it. It does sound like out of left field, right, but that's okay, that's okay. You're still not entrepreneur, right? You're still an entrepreneur for a time. I was, yeah, I tried, it was, it was, it was really interesting process, I mean I learned, I learned from scratch how to make jams and bottle them up or put them into the jars and sealing them and and things like that.

It was interesting little project and you know actually made a sale, I made one sale out of that. However, the problem became the business model, how was I going to be different from smokers for example, why was I even going to be different from all the other vendors at my local farmer's market because the one big advantage they have over me is that they produce the fruits themselves. Right. And so its entire vertical integration. Well, whereas I had to go to my local metro and buy them. So at the end it just became a little passion project of mine over the summer. And in terms of the second project, I tried starting a software as a service company called motif insights and this was with you know, one of my friends who is a designer herself and she has a full time job, you know, we tried a lot of ways to, you know, see how we can help other startups or other new companies do beta testing essentially or test the first versions of their products, right? So it was very, very meta in that sense, so we suffered a few different problems with that 1st.

1st of all, is a business model problem. Again, more fundamentally, it was what it was our solution, right? And we weren't exactly also clear on what our problem was. Beta testing can be expensive, it, you know, there's no kind of one, you know, one stop shop for everything that you need in terms of, you know, looking for participants or onboarding participants getting their feedback and conducting the actual test, things like that, companies usually have to resort to using a conglomerate of different tools and different software tools essentially to help conduct that. And so what we thought was, let's, well let's try building a platform to an online platform to help facilitate that. The only problem was we didn't have a technical person on the team or someone who can help program it or code it right, and to make it into actual existence and of course we considered outsourcing that to someone else or to get a freelancer to help us build the first version of that and there are companies who have succeeded by doing that or by outsourcing the the technical components, but it was just, we weren't very clear on what exactly our problem was, what exactly are pain point was and we didn't exactly have an idea of how, you know, we can solve it if we don't even know what's wrong and then how can we solve it.

And so, you know, with these different failures of trying to build in scale companies for now, I've taken a backseat on on this, on these aspirations that that does not mean though, that I won't, you know, wouldn't like to pursue that someday. It's just that I've yeah, I've just put, you know, some of my other projects in the forefront and maybe, you know, in the future I can potentially make company under my own name as a as a personal brand or pursue that, that elusive startup ideal or or that kind of company that can grow quickly. And if I was going to inside note if I was going to do that or you know, in the future probably be in the biotech space, mm hmm. And why is that? I have that type of background and preexisting relationships with a lot of key stakeholders in that area, especially in on the on the R. And D. Side. So, the research and development side because a lot of my friends and also people I knew from from the academic world, right? They do a lot of that research and then I also have quite a few contacts in the pharmaceutical space as well.

So, would you say that that um area you would have a natural interest in and because you have that natural interest in it, you have a sort of a passion for it and your your background in science that you'd probably be good at it. And the fact that you have had some entrepreneurial experience and learn from your failures that that could very possibly equip you going forward. Yes, I believe that you know there is potential there right with with the understanding of both actually the scientific world as well as the as the business world as well. I think that that would be a good asset in making a successful venture and you know in this area now the issue is that you know, first is what you know kinds of areas would I want to pursue, right, what kind of problem would I want to tackle? Right, and the second is is actually how to hire or or how to assemble the founding team and to and to actually put it into reality for its one thing that I'm very interested in is actually the pharmaceutical space just because that is that is actually what I what I studied in undergrad, right?

And that was and we basically looked at the scientific and the business aspects of how to make drugs from conception to on your pharmacy shelf and and everything that's involved within that process and more specifically actually the pharmaceutical supply chain in the sense that you know, it's it's quite convoluted, I would say in terms of there are, you know, kind of multiple players, right? In terms of you have the manufacturers of the of the medications, whether you know, whether it's faster or GSK or you name it, there are a lot of these pharmaceutical companies out there and then you have the wholesalers or the distributors like, you know, like your moccasins and and things like that, who would, you know, bought by these these drugs from the manufacturers? And then, you know, there's also the pharmacy benefit managers, there's it's a very convoluted system is, you know, I'm sure, you know, whenever you step into your local pharmacy to get medications, there's there are many players in the space, you know, especially when you try to claim, you know, medications for under under your health insurance, that is that is the whole entire world unto itself.

Even, I don't know all of it because it's just, it's such a, it's such a very, very confusing system. Well, I know, even as a consumer, it's pretty confusing. It depends, it's like, you know, you have all your different health insurance plans, it's like, oh, is this medication covered? How much does it cover? How much am I going to pay out of pocket today, how is the government going to cover this medication? Right? Why doesn't it cover this? Right? And it's a whole big mess? And for me it's like, why does it have to be this complicated, why can't we just make it simpler or why can't we just buy directly from the manufacturer? Right. Of course, there are lots and lots of regulations in place. I know it's a have of course health care is a very regulated industry simplifying that supply chain I think well, at least you've noticed there's a gap in the marketplace and that's a pain point for a lot of different people. So that could be something that, you know, some sort of future endeavor for you to to tackle. There's there's a potential, I mean, there are there are actually a lot of online pharmacy startups now nowadays which does help.

It's like, it's it's like the amazon for pharmacies and even even amazon's working on the pharmaceutical space as well. But obviously there are still a lot of regulatory loopholes to go through, right to kind of establish this type of operations. And for sure there are, you know, of course there's, you know, a lot of these companies who are doing this right now, but you know, of course there are a lot of limitations to it. It's more like, oh, you know, we can only sell like ibuprofen or Tylenol right to, you know, to patients or even just chronic medications like for diabetes or hypertension or things like that, right? And 11 particular hurdle is whether these online pharmacies can actually selling narcotics, especially with with the opioid crisis being as huge as it as it is. And that's you know, a huge problem of course, by enabling that that would make it much easier to to source and to abuse as well.

So there it's it's very multifaceted and it's very it's very interesting, at least for me, I bet it is for a lot of people, but I'd love to shift gears a little bit here and talk about some of your current initiatives and particularly this book that you're working on digital introvert, share a little bit more about the story behind what triggered the the idea behind the book. For sure. So I like a lot of people have always, I wanted to write a book right? I had that conception of, oh I'm going to be a published author one day. Right. And of course my love of writing came from, you know, just naturally came when I was very young, you know, loved to write uh stories and it's it's really embarrassing looking back at my grade four stories that I wrote on my Microsoft where 2003, I still have those files. And even in high school I actually began setting up a couple of blogs and just learning how to make a website, things like that, albeit it's from preset Wordpress templates.

But still it was you know, I learned that process got a sense of how to publish online and then in university, I stopped writing for a bit, although I did get a poem that I wrote published in a local anthology, so that was very interesting. Oh wow. Yeah, you know, I dabbled in poetry writing as well, and then after undergrad experimented with writing on linkedin and then now on medium blogging website and then very soon I will be setting up a personal website of my own which I've been putting off for years, I don't know why, but I think now is a good time to do it just to host my original content right on there because you actually don't own your own content on medium. It's more like a social network. The actual topic came about because I always wanted to share my story of how I overcame shyness and social anxiety, low self esteem, low self image, you know, these types of challenges, Let's talk about that, how that affected you overcoming those challenges When I was young.

I had many instances, of course my parents have shared you know this with me in terms of very, very shy to the point that extremely difficult for me to make friends when I was little and all I really wanted to do was of course I would be, I would go to school and then all I did afterwards was no, not, you know, not go play on the playground with friends and it was rather you know, come back home and then just play a lot of video games, right? and do my homework as well, but that, you know, for a long period of time, you know, while growing up that was my existence, you know, I just go to school to study. I remember during recess, I wouldn't say I completely, you know, didn't play with anyone else, but it was more often than not, you can find me just wandering about the playground by myself, a very natural thing for me to do, and I didn't think it was weird or out of the ordinary, it was actually cherished those times because I would have the time to be by myself and to think and to, you know, pick up grasshopper and you know, all the little things I did when I was younger, the one thing that I dreaded always doing in school was making presentations or during presentations to me, it was scarier than death, to be very honest to me at the time, right?

It was just that was the scariest thing I could ever do, you know, I remember absolutely refusing to do presentations when I was younger and my teachers tried every trick in the book, it was like, okay, class, everyone turned around so everyone would turn around and I would be speaking to the back of everyone's heads, but I knew that everyone was listening and so kind of more extreme example of that was okay class, everyone leave the room, so everyone physically got up left the classroom and I was just speaking to an empty room. But that was not as effective as well because I knew that people were still listening because they were just outside the door. Right? That was it didn't help because it wasn't necessarily the eye contact problem. That was the problem. It was rather fear of judgment of what I had to say in any case. You know I got much better at it over time. And in high school I was actually placed on a special education plan when I was younger. I was identified as being a gifted student in terms of oh I took an I took an I.

Q. Test in grade four and it identified me as such. I don't place particular significance onto that. But in high school because I had this designation I was able to enter what is known as the enhanced learning program at my high school which is kind of a specialized curriculum for individuals who have higher than average I. Q. Scores right? As based on that test or similar versions of that. And so for the first time I was much easier for me to befriend others and to really be an active participant in all matters of school life. Not just the academic portion was that because you were feeling included and you're associating with others that were kind of in for lack of a better term the same category as you in terms of higher I. Q. And the enhanced learning opportunity. Yes. I absolutely hate to kind of exclude you know others who weren't part of the program. But it was more of a feeling of inclusion and not familiarity at the start but rather they're more relatable right?

In terms of things that we were interested in speaking about and and sometimes that's what it takes to get us out of our comfort zone, you know into our comfort zone. But that can eventually pull us out of our comfort zone and operate in a world that is so well for lack of better term externally focused and energized. Right? Exactly. And so you know I was I took a lot of risks right? You know in high school in terms of joining a lot of clubs and after school activities, things like that and that of course helped me build stronger bonds with some of my classmates right as well who are also participated in this. And at the end of the high school I know I tell the story a lot but at the end of high school I decided to try out for the position of valedictorian which is an interesting concept because majority of high schools actually it is an important position right? But my high school was a little different in that it was more so an election process and like it was more democratic in that way to defeat my fear of public speaking once overall.

You know after preparing the speech actually doing the speech, you know, now public speaking is a breeze right in terms of me actually wanting to do it and to, you know, enjoying that process, even though I may still have those nerves when I I am just about to speak, but you're able to face your fear these days, whereas at one point, you know, you couldn't face your fear, but now you can face your fear and you face it bravely. Exactly now, it's no longer a fear. That's right, right. And so, and what also really helped was um when I entered the university, I was of course living away from home for the first time in my life. And so, you know, I continued to cultivate a social life in terms of outside of academics as well, because you're surrounded by your peers Basically 24 7 and not sense, right? Because I was living near campus at the time and so I would, you know, go hang out with my friends any time of day, literally.

I remember having, you know, staying up an entire night to talk to some of my closest friends now that I would not recommend you do actually, no matter how compelling the conversation is because my sleep schedule was ruined for the rest of that week. You know, all the culmination of all these experiences I really wanted to share in the form of a memoir, that was my original conception of the book. And what happened was that a mutual friend actually introduced Professor eric coaster and I on Lincoln and eric actually runs a book writing course. So he's a professor at Georgetown University. He runs a book writers course online actually. Mm hmm. So we had our introductory call for it and I mentioned that I wanted to write a memoir and and he said basically was into paraphrase, you know, no one really wants to read a memoir unless it's Michelle Obama. Which which and I mean it's true really because, you know, the only thing memoirs that people will gravitate gravitate towards is one If you're already famous or two if you have an incredible story like Malala Yousafzai, Right?

So, you know, I fit into another of those categories. And so what he suggested was to make it a non fiction book and to interview a bunch of other introverts on their stories and their journey fulfillment and self improvement and you know, and and I thought to myself that is actually a better idea just because you know, I don't have to you know, try to make my life more interesting than it actually is. And you know, it's a way it's a good marketing tactic too because then you can spread it to everyone's collective networks, right? With that with every guest with every person you interview. And so, you know, that's how the the interviewing started. And of course, you know, we did our interview courtesy of jazz. Right? So, and I and I enjoyed that. That was a really interesting interview, right. You know, that's how the that's how everything for the book came about. And so obviously, you know, I've had to delay the publishing for a bit just because I don't want to rush the process.

And of course, there needs to be a balance between having, you know, producing a perfect book versus actually publishing that perfect. Or that's sad book, Right? Right. Because you can you can edit a book indefinitely and not never release it. And that's called the Journal, right? You know, there comes a point where you just have to release it to the world and live with it. And so that is the balance I'm trying to strike right with with my book. And even, you know, it's a it's a it's an interesting process, right? For me doing the book writers course, it helps with inspiration, right? And helps with I do have, kind of, editing help through that process, right? With with with the program. But also it's an accountability measure as well. Because if I know for myself that if I didn't have the book writers course, I would not publish my book for the until like 15 years later. I know that as a fact.

So my my last big question here is what and rather than to ask you, what's your goal for the book, what's your vision for it? My vision really is very simple. If I can impact or change one person's life or at least one person's life for the better through my book. That means I've achieve Michael right. All I'm looking for is to help others to gain confidence, gain self esteem, be be very well aware, uh that introversion is should be seen as a source of strength and not a weakness and that you know, you can find success or whatever that definition of success may be to you without compromising your true self. I think I think it's important for people to have their own definition of success. And I think that's so key that you brought that up because so many times people look to others for you know, what society indicates is the or dictates as a definition of success.

But it really needs to be what is success? What does success mean for for you individually based on your unique qualities, your unique interests, who you are, the type of person you are, your personality. It needs to feel right for you as opposed to feeling like you're trying to fit into some box, basically. So I love the the vision that you have for the for the book, if there was a piece of advice that you would offer to others that that something that you have learned along the way that you think would help others who have experienced similar challenges that you have, what would that offer of advice be? I I love that question and my piece of advice really comes from my friend brian Almeida actually and he hosts a podcast called vulnerable with Abel and capital letters and so I I adopted his philosophy uh just start and I think that you know these two words are while you know, it makes sense, you know, at at face value, there is a lot of depth that you can subscribe to it in terms of just starting, what, what, how and you can go through each cycle through all those um you know, the five Ws and the one H right, in terms of how you can go about it to me, you know, just start is essentially where you know, you acknowledge your fears, you know, your limitations right as to what you can do.

I mean Yes, yeah, I mean obviously, you know, if you want to just start uh you know, flying yourself to mars, I'm sure go go start a company like SpaceX, but um you know, all joking aside, right? If the way to challenge yourself and to challenge yourself, lim limiting beliefs um and to, you know, ensure that you will not remain the same person year after year, but rather change and grow and adapt as as you know, as you craft your ideal version of your life is to just start, I mean for me like, you know, the the book, the podcast, these were just ideas at one point and now you know, they're very close, you know kind of close to to fruition right? And you know and uh you know a lot of the things that I've done throughout my life have been experiments, right? To really take a page out of my scientific background, right?

That experimentation and to not see failure as a failure, you know, as an abject failure really or as a failure on your yourself or your own values, right? Rather see it as a learning experience but rather but also you know, as a chance to to iterate to change some things, to tweak some things two to which intuitively improve on yourself and everyone, you know and the and everyone around you and so you know just start literally you can uh you know commit to something. It just started just put it out there no matter how how good or bad it is. I mean to to a point where I don't want to put put out something that that you're not particularly proud of but mm hmm ideas at one point and now you know, they're very close you know kind of close to ah to fruition, you know, put out something that is good enough and then go from there, give it your best, give it your best and I think that's great advice because if you don't just start but you never know where it might lead to you or what you will accomplish and I love the fact that you said it is an iterative process, an iterative experiment.

I mean I think life is a bit of an experiment so I think this is just the perfect ending to a wonderful discussion here and I'm just so delighted to had the opportunity to have you on the podcast and I would love to also know if you could um share where people can reach out to you and connect with you and learn more about you. Perfect sounds good. So there are two types of introverts in this world, one where there are nowhere nowhere to be found on social media. The second type of introvert is there everywhere on social media and so I fall in the latter camp actually um so so you can actually find me on twitter linkedin and medium at Godwin chan 37 so it's lower case G O D W I N C H A N 37 on facebook, I am Godwin Hs chan and on instagram it is G underscore protein Now I have a story on that because back in the second year of undergraduate studies um I was taking a cell biology course and so the topic of the day was G proteins and G protein coupled receptors.

Yes there are, there are real things they're there in your body and so you know my friend started just calling me a lot off the cuff, it was hey G protein, How's it going? And for me. And so I naturally just, you know, kind of adopted it, you know, for myself. And then I just made my instagram handle like that and you know, it's, it's better, it's, it's better than Commissioner Gordon or is it, I don't know. I don't know. Well at least it's got a story behind it and I think that's a fabulous story. I love it. And we'll be sure to include all of these links and um, the details in our show notes so that everyone can, can reach out to you. And I just want to thank you so much Godwin for just sharing with us today. Just your, you know, your life experience to this point and just what you're doing. And I know that the things that we've talked about will certainly help others um, rise up to their best and highest self. Very fantastic. You know, thank you again for for hosting the show and uh, thank you so much.

Thanks again. Okay, mm hmm. We hope today's show helped to bring a bit more joy and happiness into your heart. We hope it inspired you to unleash your inner power and rise up to your best and loving heart centered highest self. We'd be grateful if you'd leave us a review on itunes. Those reviews are important to spreading this valuable message. We'd love for you to subscribe to our podcast and share the show with others, visit Hearts rise up dot com for heart centered courses, guided meditations and are popular notes from your higher self until next time. Keep rising up and may all that you love thrive.