591: Big Person With Linh Dao

Linh Dao was born and raised in Vietnam until she was 8 years old. Her family moved to Washington DC in 2001. English is her second language. She went to college in Richmond, Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University with a background in finance, risk & management and insurance. Linh moved to Los Angeles three years ago to pursue her dreams. She works an 8-5 day job doing entertainment insurance and outside of her day job, she is an influencer, in other words a Blogger. Her blog called XcapewithLinh which is a blog covering fashion, lifestyle, travel and motivational topics. Xcapewithlinh is based out of Los Angeles, CA and it was created as an outlet generated from her desire and passion for fashion and creativity. XcapewithLinh is a “no judgment zone” for her viewers, a place that she shares her personal style with meaningful, honest, truthful opinion and high quality contents. XcapewithLinh promotes viewers to be comfortable in their own skin, staying true to themselves, empower one another and finding their own voice.

Linh shares that her petite frame doesn’t define her and that she is a big person with big confidence that speaks her mind and loves herself unconditionally. Check out her episode to listen to her story.

Bio

Linh is a blogger.

Cultural Background

Linh is of Vietnamese descent.

Favorite Self Confidence Quote

Though she be but little, she is fierce!

Definition of Self Confidence

Self confidence is being comfortable in your own skin inside and out along with accepting the good and the bad. It’s embracing who you are without a care of what others may say and think. Love yourself the most when you are low. Staying true to yourself and be no one else but yourself!

Her Life Before the Discovery of Self Confidence

When Linh was younger, kids made fun of her for being so little and having freckles. Another thing, growing up in a new country and looking different made her feel out of place. She didn’t know where she belongs and who she was supposed to be. Sbe was made fun of being Asian, having “chinky eyes” and people calling her random names like “ping, pong, chang, etc” which didn’t make it easy and resulted in her lack of self- confidence about her appearance and as a person. She is sure the kids at her school didn’t mean anything by that because they didn’t know any better. She was very shy, very timid, and barely ever smiled.

The “AHA” Moment

Linh joined lots of curricular activities when she was in middle school and through college. She was a cheerleader, a JROTC Captain/Cadet, a lacrosse player and she had many leadership roles for academics throughout school. Everything she did had taught her so much about herself. For cheering and being in JROTC, it taught her to not be shy. In cheerleading, she was flyer so she could not get away from being the center of attention even if she wanted to! It taught her to embrace it and be confident in her performance during competitions or just performing in front of thousands of people at football games. Same with JROTC, her sergeant taught her to embrace her petite figure. It takes a lot of discipline being a cadet and captain. Her sergeant calls her “Big Person” because she can get pretty loud with her voice and he showed her that her size got nothing on her! She was in charge of a team where she had to call out commands in a huge stadium. So she made sure everyone heard me. That taught her to trust herself so that she can lead others. Being a lacrosse player, no one ever expected her to be quick and fast because they underestimate her size. She always heard other girls say “guard her, she’s little” and she takes that as a compliment and a challenge at the same time. So with every game she played, she showed them that being small doesn’t make her any less of a person. If anything, it makes her unique.

Her Life After the Discovery of Self Confidence

Linh is so much happier with myself even if life isn’t perfect and she does have ups and downs just like everyone else. She learned to not take herself so seriously and that life is too short to not enjoy it with your loved ones. She loves to laugh, eat delicious food and travel as much as she possibly can. She is no longer shy, timid and quiet. She is very outgoing, she speaks her mind on what she likes and doesn’t like. As time goes by, she just learned to love herself and give herself the self-respect she deserves.

The One Self Confidence Tip For the Listener

Be selfish with yourself and selfless with others and that means doing what you love, putting yourself first when it comes to doing things that makes you happy. Don’t pay attention to the noise because everyone is on his or her own journey through life. Help others, celebrate and empower others to be their better self. At the end of the day, it is your life, so be whom you want, do what you want as long as there’s respect all around. Surround yourself with positive vibes. Be kind to your mind, body and soul because that is all you have. Be you and no one else!