Embracing Human Design with Fiona Wong

Dusti Arab: All right. Welcome back to referral worthy today we have Fiona Wong, who is the founder of Wild Pixel, she specializes in human design. Thank you for being here today, Fiona. So tell me about when you first discovered human design.

Fiona Wong: Um, I, so I love this woman but I was a virtual assistant and I was working with a client and her and I were very we’re both very bullheaded, like on paper and our work output was incredible. But on the back end, the personality side it felt like, even though she was my client, both of us were always trying to take the lead because on a virtual assistant side, it’s, I have to be your backbone. You’re the front facing, but I am taking care of the back end. So we’re both like this. And back then instead of communicating, we decided that getting a human design reading about us would be the best course of action. So we did it. I hated human design. I think it made things worse. I felt a little bit patronized. Like granted, it wasn’t the readers fault at all. It was just when I discovered my type, and I had to like quote unquote, wait for invitations, I was like I’m a Capricorn just get out of my face. Like I am very, I want something, I’m going after it – don’t tell me about this waiting stuff. And after that, I abandoned human design. And I remember this one thing that stuck out to me and I learned that I’m actually designed to trial and error things. And I started exploring the rest of human design because of that one understanding and when I started doing Human Design readings, one of my friends said to me, “Fiona, you have started so many businesses in the last decade, and I think you found your thing. So please stop burning down your businesses.” And it was so validating that I am designed to trial and error things and it just like, something clicked. And I was like, Oh, wow, like this is my thing. Because I’ve been going through this process, I’ve been punishing myself for this process. Because I think 10 years ago what the 2010 quote unquote era of poaching, I guess, it was a lot of like MLM things going on. Like coaches teaching coaches teaching coaches. So for me to watch and read all these people on Instagram like encouraging going on Instagram every day. You gotta do this everyday, everyday every day and get your brand kit, get all this stuff together and that six figure buzzword right that big buzzword. So I would always feel like if I wasn’t successful in a business, and by successful I meant at least five figures. If I wasn’t successful then then I was a failure and I should move on and I spent almost like eight to 10 years doing that just because I ingested all this and human design was the first time I was like, okay, it’s okay that I’m a dumpster fire like I’m designed to do so.

Dusti: I’m designed to be a dumpster fire. It’s fine. I love that. Okay, so let’s back up for one second. For those folks who are new to human design. I’m realizing we should probably give them just like a really basic through line of like, kind of what human design is. Would you mind just like, giving the most bare bones explanation you’ve got?

Fiona: Yeah, um, what is this podcast rated? Like? Is it PG 13? Like

Dusti: I say fuck a lot.

Fiona: So. Okay, can I say orgy? I mean, I already said it.

Dusti: Yes.

Fiona: Okay. So if astrology and MBTI decided to have like, an affair, I guess and then like they raised and that child is human design. And then like they all lived in this like polycule, this circle where, you know, astrology and MBTI had orgies with enneagrams and all these other systems like, chakra does all of that. And they’re all raising baby human design together. That is what human design is. It is just this amalgamation, this appropriation of all of these systems and then it like, shot out this love child and everyone’s just taking care of this love child. And I also say that because human design has been kind of under the radar since like the 1990s, late 1980s And only now has it like really come out so I’m just like, oh, the little orgy baby is like coming out of its shell. A little bit. But human design is actually considered it’s considered a spiritual system, but the traditional way of describing it, it’s not spiritual. It is a quantum physics combined with several systems. Like for example, Chinese i ching is one of them. And we’ve been using this for thousands of years. It’s a very divination type of process where like, it’s very self reflective. It’s like pulling tarot cards. It’s you get this card, there’s no, yeah, there’s a meaning behind it. But it’s your relationship with the card. That gives it context. And it’s also related to the 64 codons of DNA. And that’s why human design is just once again, when I use the term dumpster fire, there’s just all this stuff that has already come together and popped out this incredible baby. So I hope that makes sense.

Dusti: I think that is the best description of human design I’ve ever heard. Because like, when I mean, I think for anyone who’s not familiar with human design, the first time you see your chart, you look at it and you’re like, fuck is that? Like? There’s just, there’s a lot of numbers. I mean, for me, like I’m neuro spicy, too. And like I, as soon as I saw all the numbers on the side and the little things, I was just like, I don’t know if I’m cut out for this, to be honest. But that’s so useful because it really is like the amalgam of everything there. And that’s part of why I love it so much too. And I was actually introduced to human design via you via somebody else’s program. So I had gone into a branding program and part of it was we got our human design charts. And I remember the first time I looked at it and I had the exact same reaction you did to that whole waiting for the invitation thing. So I’m a projector as well. I have to wait for the invitation. And at first, I was just like, Well fuck that like, and I wonder how many people have that, that reaction? You know, just you know, and I’m sure that it happens in different ways for different types. Like everybody’s probably got their one thing and they’re like, Well, I’m not doing that. But so you discovered human design. You started getting into it, you started exploring it and eventually you stepped into that as a business – what did that look like?

Fiona: I made a I was taking some I was reading somebody’s like website and I got this strange inspiration. They were like, you can get 100 subscribers by giving something, really giving your service away for free, but a little bit. So I went on Reddit and I said the first 100 people to DM me with their birth info in one question, I will read your human design chart. So I speed read 100 human design charts over the span of two weeks because I told them I might get back to them within five days. And that’s how I got my first 100 subscribers and I was like, well, if people you know testimonials, too, so I was like, Okay, well, time to charge people. So now I went on Facebook because Reddit is anonymous. So now I went on Facebook and I was like, so I’m starting to do human design readings. Here’s my price. Here’s the link to buy from me. And because back then like five years ago human design was still really like unknown, but people were kind of like obsessing over it a little bit. Everyone on my friends list which, let me back up, most of those people are people who randomly added me and people I randomly added because that’s how we did business in the 2009 tents. And that’s how I got a bunch of clients. They’re all like, oh my gosh, Human Design and I booked a hotel like one of those small hotels for two days and I just knocked out once again, like a crap ton of charts. And then I burned out. I cried and was like, Yeah, I could do this again. Just maybe not at this speed. But right cool. It makes money. It puts people on my subscriber list. It is pretty new. I wrote a blog post about how human design is also cultural appropriation. I went viral. And here we are.

Dusti: That was, Oh my god. There’s so many cool things in there. Like, first of all, I love the way that you started with an experiment like that. Like okay, if I’m going to do this, like, here’s how I’m going to do it. And here’s how I’m going to start and here’s how I’m going to become an expert. Because I feel like in so many different spaces, you know, people want to skip that part because it’s hard. Like it’s fucking hard to get in there. And like, I mean, even if you’re doing speed reads like that’s still, like, you’re getting a lot of people’s information you’re having to, I mean, there’s just so much nuance to human design. Like, that’s trial by fire in a way that like, I feel like not enough people like are willing to go into, like, intentionally.

Fiona: Yeah, as feedback to that was the most important thing because it’s one thing for me to just repeat stuff to parrot things out of a textbook might as well not even, you know, do get reading with me if I’m doing that. So when I use like, for that thing I mentioned the beginning like waiting for an invitation. I’m just like, Okay, well just put me in a garbage bag because I’m never going to do that. Getting that feedback helps me realize and people telling me their stories because that’s usually the feedback. They tell me their life stories like it’s just the thing. And it helped me realize the different ways people experienced that and it’s not this whole like I’m sitting here like, you know, there’s like old 80s Like album covers where it’s just like, here’s the rain and we’re all just like sad. Like, it’s like that’s how I envisioned it, but it is the feedback and I find that so important. Even if you’re like a designer, you could have taken a designer course but until you’ve worked with, like, several clients and gotten their feedback, and I always recommend people you don’t know, because they tend to be more honest, I feel like or at least they give decent feedback. I really feel like that was the most important thing because it’s not just, okay here’s my skill set. I have to enjoy it. And I have to like the type of people – it’s a service. We’re all service providers, like when it comes to things like this. And that feedback part was just so crucial to my growth and it’s always even now it is the feedback of my clients that is what dictates the way I phrase human design and I get to refine every single year and my clients like I like I’m not going to do this because it’s a business but I should be paying my clients for their feedback. That is stuff that you can’t read out of a book. You can’t get that out. Of course you only get that from that interaction with someone who genuinely cares about what you’re giving them.

Dusti: Absolutely, absolutely. There is no substitute for getting that feedback and really listening to it and putting it into practice. And again, that is a, I mean, with service based businesses, I feel like that is such an important part that so many people struggle with because it feels like, especially if you’re in some sort of a creative profession, it can feel like an attack when you’re first starting because you’re like, ah, you know, I’ve worked so hard on this. I’m trying to, you know, do these things and now they’re saying they hate it. I know like when I started as a copywriter that was probably like the biggest first lesson that I had to learn. Is that like, it’s never personal. Like it’s not like it’s not about you like it’s a reflection. So I would love to know, though, out of those first 100 sessions, what do you feel like was your biggest takeaway?

Fiona: That I can do it and that was like a huge thing for me. It was just the validation part. And I’ve never considered myself a people person. And what I learned was I didn’t have to be palatable. There were people who messaged me just because they realized I was Asian and they’re just like, I don’t see people who look like me doing things like this. And I didn’t know that was a thing. I didn’t know people cared about stuff like that. I had single parents reach out to me I had like, just a short intro Hi, my name is Fiona. Like, this is what I do, and I want to give you a reading and that type of identification, Once again, like we’re talking about what niching we’re talking about, like what’s your client avatar? And for me, I realized I could never put that back down on paper because my avatar are usually people who identify with something that I went through, or something that I identify with. It’s that relatability and that has dictated every way I have marketed. I think I am five years into human design and we are just now starting to put like an actual logo instead of me just you know, pooping in Canva and being like, this color palette looks good. Like we’re just now doing all of these things. And I think that’s been a testament to how all I had to do was write, all I had to do was share. I’m like I am not on Instagram. Much. I’m not on social media much. And I realized all the stuff I learned being on social media every day, all of that stuff. It was just noise. So I think I went on a tangent but it’s just the people and like the lessons they taught that it’s about me that they’re choosing me it’s not because of my, I don’t know whatever, avatar I wanted to shove them into. We actually just finished something like that. We’re like, well, what is our target audience. We were doing compatibility readings or something and I was like, you know, women just recently divorced, maybe middle aged trying to get back into dating. Maybe they just swiped on someone. I got a bunch of people, primarily the bulk of it people over the age of 55 who are in long term relationships or marriages at least 10 years, and they just want to hear the story of why their relationship worked out. And we’re just like that client avatar that I wrote for – out the window, like, okay.

Dusti: And I think that, I mean, a couple of things. One, when you do show up on social media, I always pay attention because it’s always something interesting and it’s always something worth reading. So the like, I remember when you made a big change because like, like it felt like the difference between like somebody who is on social media every day and like regularly engaging to a lot more targeted content. Like not in a way of like this person this niche, but you do readings of like famous people and things like that. And whenever I see one of those, like, it’s like the story is built into it. It’s always like, I don’t care if I have anything in common with the people who like you’re doing this chart for like I know that you’re going to tell a fucking banger of a story. And as a result of the banger story, I’m going to end up understanding human design a little bit better. And maybe that means I engage in some of my relationships a little bit differently. So the way that you’re approaching it now is, it’s working.

Fiona: Yeah, I just did Bonnie and Clyde. My partner invited me to do it and he gave me a list of people because I was just like, Who can I do charts for? Besides, you know, I’ll be honest, I did Taylor Swift and Mr. Kelce, just because I ranked I think number one or number two for Taylor Swift’s chart because I was one of the first to do it. So we’re just like, well, Super Bowl’s coming up. Let’s just snag that SEO and I didn’t have a whole lot of passion in it, but I know people cared. But Bonnie and Clyde. I read so much. I’ve read stuff from their families. perspective, the stories that their mothers wrote stuff like that, like I took two weeks. I’ve never done a chart that in depth but combining Bonnie and Clyde’s charts and knowing what happened to them and how young they were when it all happened, it really made me see the larger picture. It’s not all about alignment. It’s not all about Manifestation. Human Design is very two sides of the same coin. Someone who is very leadership oriented could be the leader of a gang – the Barrow gang like Clyde. They can also be a CEO, business owner. So being able to show people that it’s not just sunshine you’re not guaranteed money. You’re not guaranteed anything. This is someone, Clyde, I didn’t even, I don’t guess people’s design. I read three chapters into one of the books. I put the book down and I was just like, I will bet like so much money that Clyde is this specific type because he was a textbook of whatever the description was, and I generate his chart and sure enough, there it was. So just seeing how someone with that element in their chart and how they navigated it in their lifetime. I really wanted to show people that this is human, humans make mistakes, human beings get 150 bullets put into their body because of what they’ve done. And that is something I really want people to understand about human design. It’s not just this alignment thing.

Dusti: Very cool and I don’t want to skip over what you said earlier too about the article that went viral talking about human design as cultural appropriation. Like, tell me about like, what that experience has been like. And I mean, and I’d love just for everybody listening, if you haven’t read it, just to summarize the article.

Fiona: Hmm. I actually rewrote it three different times. It’s as a human design reader. I think anyone in the service based business especially if it’s something considered like really, really personal I think like as a copywriter, you have to almost ask them a lot of uncomfortable questions to get to that core of who that person is. And I totally forgot the question. What was the question?

Dusti: Oh it’s okay. It was just about the cultural appropriation article.

Fiona: Yeah. So I try so hard when I’m writing things to be objective. Like, you know, when I wrote about Bonnie and Clyde, Yes, they did terrible things, but I had to be objective just to tell their story. So when it came to appropriation, just telling the story of where a lot of these things came from, telling the story about the history of human design. It was literally like put together by someone who believed he saw light beings in a yard in Ibiza, and honestly, I think in the 1980s, if someone who looked like me or even looked like you said something like that, we’d be put in a mental institution. We would, that’s our experience, we would not be able to say things like that. And then there’s all these cultures that are part of human design, and we don’t get credit for things like that. They have, there’s official Human Design certifications, and I always refused to take any of them because I feel that since it borrows from my culture, it is my birthright to use a system as I pleased, with or without certification. And that’s a lot of what I spoke about when it came to human design. It actually resulted in a book and I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about this, but other readers created this. Yeah. It is a book on human design through the bipoc experience. And how we see human design, how human design, that some of the history of the perspectives of people that look like us, and I contributed to that book. I think I have a couple of quotes in there. And that is just, I liked the fact that more people are waking up to it. It is one thing to say like, oh, yeah, it’s like, I’m joining a system that’s like appropriated, but it’s something else when people approach me with respect. When people honor and recognize this is what I’m doing. They are a guest. And that’s not what happened with human design. It was just someone tripped out, which I’m not going to judge him for. Now. He even talks about like, I did some LSD and then I drove around, and this human design information came out. Cool, like, I love mushrooms too. So cool, whatever. But let’s honor the people it came from and I’m gonna say shit like that. And people are gonna get upset about it. And I’m just gonna go about my day and watch Netflix. So that’s how that happened.

Dusti: Yeah, and I mean, anytime there’s a certification involved, regardless of what the practice is, I’m, I don’t know, I’ve always got an eyebrow right. So I’m like, who’s profiting, who’s benefiting from being the gatekeeper? And that for me is always like whether, you know, if you’re a doctor or a lawyer, yeah, you need to, you need to have that certification, so that you’re not like actively hurting people, but I feel like so many of those institutions are exactly that and institutions hurt people.

Fiona: Oh, yeah, MLM type of thing. And if MLMs work, I’ve seen people be successful. It is the pressure of, it is the whole like, you’re not legit unless you do this. Like, I have never had a client in five years say like, Do you have a certification? but I’ve had a lot of I, I definitely wrote a blog post saying like, should you get, you know, certified in human design? And I broke down a lot of things I went through. I took an official course. I have taken certification courses and I made it clear to the instructors, I don’t plan on certification. I just want the knowledge. And I’ve I’ve written about you know, stuff like that I get more people coming up to me saying that like I appreciate like the fact that you’re not certified and you’re doing your own thing. No one has ever asked me, so what are your certifications? And I put on my about page now like, What are my certifications? Well, I don’t have any. I’m just a human being talking to another human being really about a system that is, it’s very intimate to give someone your birth info, time of birth, date of birth, there is so much abuse that can happen with that. So for someone to come up to me and give me that information, knowing I have no certification in any of this, that is gold. That is something that I can never pay for. That is something that no one can certify me in to get that experience.

Dusti: Ah, so good. So good. Okay, so now that you’re at the stage in business that you’re at, where do you get your clients from?

Fiona: I don’t know. And we put a “Where did you find us from?” on the bottom of some of our forms, and a lot of it says, I have no idea, I Googled human design. I ended up here I had people where they purchase a $300 reading and we’re like, where did you find us? “Well, I was Googling Human Design at three o’clock in the morning. So you had openings so I purchased and here we are two days later.” Like okay, terrific.

Dusti: So you’re killing the SEO game right now is what I’m hearing.

Fiona: Probably. So thank you for the $10,000 I spent on copywriting courses that I never actually used.

Dusti: Amazing. Okay. And if you were going to start from scratch today, how would you find your first 10 clients?

Fiona: I mean, the same thing. I’d just make a post somewhere and be like listen like anyone wants something, it doesn’t matter if I’m charging like $5 $50 whatever. Because yeah, cash is nice but the feedback in the beginning is so much better. Last you snag all this, I learned this from my copywriting course, you snag all of that stuff. And then you use it for copywriting right, you use it right when you search, you use it to connect and you use it to understand so that’s how I would do it. I would set that foundation. And I would also give myself a lot of grace, and just be like yeah, you’re gonna make a lot of mistakes. There’s going to be a lot of projects that fall apart. Like go smoke a joint and like, just carry on, take a nap, get back up the next day. Like you’re not done until you’re dead. That’s really what I would have told myself because I’m 33 now so five years younger, what 27, 28 years old. I think all she needed was like a little bop on the head. Little mindset, like just get back out tomorrow, like you’ve been doing the same thing your whole life. Just get back up and go get your 100 people on Reddit.

Dusti: Go get your 100 people on Reddit. Okay, so, last two questions, and I ask everybody who comes on the show this. So, one, how can human design make your business a referral magnet?

Fiona: Um, like the practice itself or the way like it works for me?

Dusti: Either, whatever, whatever you feel compelled to share.

Fiona: Mm hmm. Um, I’m gonna be honest, I have no idea and most people like, there is no like, oh, yeah, there’s a referral here or referral there. But when it comes to, I learned through I think we took the same I guess like mastermind, I’ll call it or group program. What I’ve learned is to overlap with people who are not in the same industry. So obviously, you got a human design reader because I overlapped with a creative director. You know, designers. A lot of, actually okay, I’m gonna backtrack. I guess I do get referrals but there are a lot more like direct rather than, this is an old client, so you know, I found you through another client. It’s a lot of people who are in branding and copywriting will say like, “My client’s pretty much having a meltdown. Will you just like human design my client?” Because now you have something tangible now you’re looking at a chart like, “wow, this is me” and it helps them validate like, you’re not insane. You’re not losing it. You are who you are. Let me validate that for you. They don’t tell me much about themselves either. I just start rattling off what I see. And that is one way we do referrals. And then sometimes, like I don’t do certain types of readings. So I’m just like, go to this reader that I have never spoken to but their Instagram makes them look legit. What they’re talking about sounds legit to me. Head over there. So it’s a very, I don’t know who any of these people are. I don’t think they know me, but we somehow just find each other.

Dusti: I love that. Okay, and what makes a business referral worthy to you?

Fiona: Um, like if I was to refer people to another business? Oh man, integrity. I will never refer someone to a person who has incredible work for one client and then another client they like come back and they just hate that like hate the whole experience. I’ve been on the other end of that where I put 1000s of dollars down on a referral and I was sorely disappointed. I am going to gripe with the whole coaching industry where someone was just like, wow, I made six figures and like, here’s all the people that helped me do it. Okay, let me hire the same person. Okay, and I don’t know if I like this whole experience, which is right, a learning experience. So consistency, integrity, and honestly, I have to like you as a person I have to. Yeah, I have to vibe with you. Like, I don’t know, if someone is asking me for a referral, obviously, they vibed with me, so I gotta make sure that the connection is good. I care a lot about my reputation in terms of that. I’m never going to ask someone to invest time and money into someone that I wouldn’t invest in, that I wouldn’t trust. If I don’t put, if I wouldn’t put my business in your beautiful hands then I’m not going to put any of my clients’ businesses in your beautiful hands, right.

Dusti: Yep, absolutely. Ah, amazing. Fiona, thank you so, so much for coming on the show and taking the time today. This was such a pleasure for me. And for anybody who wants to get their chart read or go and engage with Fiona, where can they find you?

Fiona: On thewildpixel.com.

Dusti: That’s amazing. And we’ll make sure that that is underneath in our show notes here. Thank you again for listening. Have a great day.

Fiona: Thank you for having me.