Juliana Chan, PhD

Please give me a refund now.

Nobody told me how hard the 40s would be.

I entered my 40s with excitement: 40s is the new 30s!💥

40 things I've learnt now that I'm 40! 💥

Write a book! Travel! FIRE (financial independence, retire early)! 💥

And then reality hit me like a brick:
- My dad passed away last year
- More bad news than good news daily
- My long-time editor passed away in January
- Serious health diagnoses and mental illnesses
- Bankruptcies, retrenchments, business closures

Whoever said the 40s were the new 30s? 🥹

I want my money back now.

Anyway, here is my playbook for my 40s:

🙏 I will do what I need to do for my family and kids. A mama bear will do what a mama bear has to do.

🙏 I will not scale for the sake of scaling, leverage for the sake of leveraging. A self-funded, profitable business with a small footprint is your best bet in an era where anyone can start a digital business with zero investment and zero coding experience.

🙏 Finally, I will live life like it is my last year, and my last decade. I've seen friends die in their 40s. There is no assurance we'll live a long and healthy life.

To anyone reading this in their 40s:

If you have been shackled by golden handcuffs and "what ifs," now is the time to find that backbone and pursue the life and career you always wanted. You still have plenty of time and energy.

If you've been living your parents' dream, remember they had their life to live out their dream. It is your life, your dream.

Finally, if you've been saving your money and telling yourself, "I'll enjoy myself when I make X amount of dollars or when my kids are 21..." forget it. Do it now.

Life is for living.
Money is for spending.
Time is for creating memories.

Join me in writing your bucket list down and start ticking it off one by one.

📸 Photo: creating memories with my daughter in Kyoto, Japan last week. Photos by my daughter.

If I were GenZ I'd start a company immediately 🙏

While working my day job. While studying.

Whatever I'm doing.

Here's why: the barriers have never been lower. AI assistants, Canva, Shopify, no-code tools that didn't exist when I was starting out. You can test dozens of ideas until one hits.

If you are a poker player, it is basically a free roll with the dice.

Sure, you'd lose some free time. But you have more time to lose (no kids, no mortgage noose around your neck) and way more energy to burn. 🔥

You have superpowers we didn't have.

You're digital natives. Creative. Purpose-driven.

You challenge the status quo instead of keeping your head down like my generation was taught to do.

Use that fire in your belly to launch companies, create intellectual property, start movements.

Why the urgency?

The AI era will be extremely tough on individual contributors, content creators, creatives, and a whole swathe of white-collar employees.

But it's a goldmine for entrepreneurs who can adapt.

Bootstrapping has never been easier. You don't even need to hire anyone at first; learn to build AI agents and customGPTs.

My advice: combine your existing skills with AI knowledge.
- Art training + AI = turbo-charged creativity.
- Writing skills + AI = content at scale.
- Business model + AI = sell 24-7 to a global audience.

You were born into this digital world.

That's your edge.

Use it.

This auntie is rooting for you. ❤️


PS: Let's debate this further at my flagship Find Your Superpower Summit on 31 October 2025. See you on Halloween! 🎃

"Virtual communities don't work." 👎

That's what someone told me when I was launching my flagship 12-month Brand Builder Mastermind in 2024.

"I think there should be weekly meetups."

"Weekly?" But I don't even meet my best friends every month! 😱

I decided to stick to my instincts, which have gotten stronger over the years.

🤚 When someone suggested that my Mastermind promise a fixed number of in-person meetups: I said no, that would make my non-Singapore members second-class citizens. We currently have 240+ members from ~20 cities worldwide.

🤚 When someone said physical communities are better than virtual communities: I remembered my four 2024 LinkedIn bootcamps where I trained 160 people virtually. Many of them are still BFFs. I believe that like-minded people will connect offline on their own.

My instincts told me that it would be more productive to channel all of my team's energy into one annual flagship Find Your Superpower Summit.

I was right. 🥳

95% of our tickets have been sold with two weeks to go till 31 October.

Our tickets cost 2x of last year but we have had no problems selling them.

The pent-up anticipation is electrifying my community. People are flying in from Sydney, Melbourne, Switzerland, Dubai, Hong Kong, Bangkok etc.

Self-professed introverts in my community have told me, "Juliana, I'm showing up for you on the 31st. For one day only."

So yes, my Brand Builder Mastermind is a virtual community. We meet up once a year, and spontaneously when the opportunity beckons.

To the person who says virtual communities don't work:

They do. They really do. 🙏

#findyoursuperpower #FYSSummit2025 #brandbuildermastermind

Yes the new LinkedIn algorithm hates you. 🤯

It hates you so much that your impressions have dropped in the past 6-12 months.

I remember when I first started posting on LinkedIn in January 2020 while speaking at Davos. I would get 500-1000 likes on my posts before noon.

Impressions were sky high. Frankly, I don't think I even tried very hard to write each post carefully.

Then the pandemic hit. Millions flocked to LinkedIn as brick-and-mortar businesses shut down and events went virtual.

Today there are one billion users on LinkedIn. Still less than Instagram and Facebook, but a lot of executives and decision makers in one place.

With a billion users come incredible writers and communicators, but also many more bad actors creating fake engagement through bots and pods.

LinkedIn is far more crowded today and it is harder and harder to stand out.

But here's what really matters: why are you here? 🙏

May I introduce you to something I call the "LinkedIn success mindset"?

I even wrote an e-book with this title.

💜 The law of abundance: Are you on LinkedIn to share priceless industry knowledge that others cannot find elsewhere? Or are you on LinkedIn to discuss industry gossip, complain about something that affected you, and announce how "humbled and delighted" you are about your latest award and promotion? People can see through your intentions very quickly.

💜 The law of reciprocity: Are you commenting and liking on posts from industry peers? If you aren't, then why should they reciprocate? Remember, LinkedIn is just networking in a digital space. Imagine going to a conference and sitting down in a corner, waiting for people to approach you. Why not go over and say hello instead?

💜 The law of attraction: I see an increasing amount of generic AI-slop and faceless content on LinkedIn. How am I supposed to know who you are and to leave you a like because I want to support you? Some of you are against putting your photo in your post. But what about a professionally relevant, work-appropriate, context-relevant photo, such as of you speaking on stage or attending an industry event? Combine that with signature content only you can write and you have an absolute winner.

---

The algorithm has indeed changed every 6 months or so since I started posting on LinkedIn five years ago.

But rain or shine, I am still here.

Why? Because every time I post, I earn money. 💰

I make new friends and connections. I promote my business.

I share my ideas and knowledge.

With the right mindset, you'll succeed regardless of algorithm changes.

I have found 100K of my people this way.

I would love to show you how to do that too. 🙏



📸 Photo from when I gave a keynote for LinkedIn's enterprise clients in Singapore.

PS: My flagship Brand Builder Mastermind is fully booked for 2025. But enrollment reopens in two weeks for our January 2026 cohort. Get waitlisted!