Dear Once Upon A Human reader,
For a long time, I genuinely believed visibility was something you get after building credibility.
You work hard. You earn your stripes.
Eventually, someone senior — or prestigious — invites you onto a bigger stage.
It feels orderly. Meritocratic, even.
But when I left my enviable past employers and the very recognisable halos that came with being associated them, I realised something slightly uncomfortable:
A lot of that “platform” hadn’t been mine. It had been institutional.
And without it, I had a choice:
Wait to be re-legitimised by another big title and employer.
Or, build something that doesn't depend on one. Especially in this volatile business climate, where you could wake up one day and realise you no longer have a job.
That decision has been something I had been pondering for the past year.
It is also why I’ve just launched Atypical Asia, a podcast featuring leaders in this region who don’t fit neat archetypes.
But this newsletter isn’t really about promoting my podcast. I wanted to share with you the profound shift I’ve made from waiting to building.
Because if you’ve been circling an idea — a newsletter, a roundtable, a series, a community — here’s what I’ve learned about how to build a platform that feels grounded and sustainable.
1. Start with the question that bothers you most.
If you want to build a platform that lasts, don’t just build to chase trends, build it based on tension.
For me, the tension was this: why are so many nuanced Asian leaders flattened into caricatures or silenced on global stages — while recently arrived expats speak about the region on their behalf?
That question lingered, and bothered me greatly. I kept noticing it in headlines and conference line-ups. I couldn’t unsee it everywhere I looked.
If a question follows you around long enough, it probably has enough energy to power something bigger. You’ll need that energy — because building anything consistently requires more than ambition. It requires genuine curiosity, and sometimes well-meaning annoyance, as I addressed in my previous newsletter.
2. Design for sustainability, not spectacle.
When people think “platform,” they imagine scale.
A splashy launch. Big names. Big numbers.
But what you actually need first is repeatability.
Before recording Atypical Asia, I asked myself a very unglamorous question: Can I have this conversation fifty times without getting bored?
Do I have a team around me to support its execution? Or at least an accountability partner to keep me on track?
If the answer had been no, the concept wasn’t ready. (And yes, after six months of being disappointed by freelancers and external agencies, my first full-time hire at Atypical Media is a wonderful video editor, KZ, to uphold our publishing schedule, in addition to V, a lovely graphic designer and social media manager I already have.)
Your format should feel like a practice you can return to — not a tedious performance you have to regularly psych yourself up for.
3. Treat visibility as service.
This was the biggest mindset shift for me.
A platform cannot just be “Here are my thoughts” or “Here’s who I want to talk to.”
It has to begin with: What does my audience need articulated — but rarely hears?
When shaping Atypical Asia, I stopped asking, “Who would impress people if I interviewed them?”
And started asking, “What conversations would actually help founders and leaders in this region feel less alone? More nuanced? More understood?”
Sometimes the most powerful move isn’t to centre yourself as the expert. It’s to become the curator.
Someone who brings the right guests into the room.
Someone who asks the questions your audience does not dare articulate.
Someone who surfaces stories that feel recognisable, not aspirational in a distant, glossy way.
Visibility framed as ego is fragile. Visibility framed as service becomes magnetic.
4. Expect to cringe. Keep going anyway.
Your early outputs will not match your taste level.
Your voice will wobble. (Mine did, many times!)
Your framing will evolve.
You will overthink — but still hit publish anyway.
That discomfort is merely evidence that you are stretching into something larger than your previous identity.
The only way to hone your voice is to keep speaking.
In a world where AI can generate infinite content on demand, you need to develop a lens that is unmistakably yours — and use it in service of others.
Because guess what? No one is coming to formally declare you ready.
So yes, Atypical Asia is now live.
But more importantly, I’ll leave you with this thought:
💡 What does your audience need to hear, that only you could uniquely help surface?
💡 And what would it look when you stop waiting for permission to go ahead?
Yours, with courage (and a podcast microphone),
Debbie
P.S. If you’d prefer these conversations in 3D: on 9 March, I’m hosting a live founder fireside chat in Singapore with Sid Kim — Korean-American founder of Vatos Urban Kitchen and now CEO of Sage Partners, where he advises companies on cross-border expansion between Singapore, South Korea and the United States.
We’ll be recording it as an upcoming episode of Atypical Asia. And if you join us in-person, you’ll get to help me shape the podcast by asking your question for Sid in real-time.
Entry is free. And if you’d like to linger (because the best conversations usually happen after the official ones), you can sign up to join us for dinner too. RSVP details here.