We recently connected with Xiaojing Lan and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Xiaojing thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
True success, I’ve realized, isn’t measured by accumulated knowledge, overtime hours at work, or even promotions. My early career at prominent tech companies revealed a harsh truth: systemic structures often undervalue creators’ long-term growth. This epiphany led me to redefine success through three non-negotiable elements: physical health, quality sleep, and family support. For instance, while working 14-hour days on templated video edits left me burned out, adopting this new framework allowed me to transition into meaningful animation work — all while maintaining energy for gym sessions with my daughters. The real breakthrough came when I declined a high-pressure leadership role to prioritize my autoimmune condition recovery.
Paradoxically, that “step back” marked my first genuine professional breakthrough.
Xiaojing, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
As a self-taught creative technologist, my career has been shaped by reinvention. With formal training in visual design, I began as a video editor but grew disillusioned with template-based workflows. When our team’s animator resigned unexpectedly, I seized the opportunity — teaching myself motion graphics through nights of YouTube tutorials until my demos surpassed agency standards. This pattern defines my ethos: whether mastering Unity to create China’s first AR-enabled graduation project, becoming a top podcast editor via Audition self-training, or recently designing AI-powered tarot app animations that secured A16Z’s inaugural divination tech investment. What sets me apart isn’t raw talent, but the discipline to transform curiosity into polished expertise.
My proudest achievement? Building a 10,000-member creator community where neurodivergent professionals like myself exchange survival tactics in rigid corporate systems.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
As a 5’2″ Asian woman with defined musculature, I’ve always defied stereotypes. During COVID lockdowns, I channeled isolation into crafting home workouts so effective that 23 neighbors joined my balcony HIIT sessions. This evolved into becoming my university’s first Asian female ACE-certified trainer — a role demanding radical vulnerability. Though naturally introverted, coaching 150+ clients taught me to decode unspoken needs: the overwhelmed PhD student needing stress-release drills, the breast cancer survivor reclaiming bodily autonomy. Fitness became my language for human connection. Ironically, the certification exam I aced through self-study now informs how I train AI fitness assistants — proving that human-centered design begins with lived experience.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
Joss Fong, Vox media’s senior producer, revolutionized how I communicate complexity. Her explainer “The Secret Lives of Fonts” demonstrated masterful abstraction-breaking — translating typeface psychology into cookie-baking analogies with kinetic typography. This philosophy permeates my AI education series where blockchain becomes “digital rice sacks” and machine learning mirrors “tea-leaf reading patterns”. Beyond technical inspiration, her career path taught me creative longevity: she spent 18 months developing Vox’s signature style through 47 discarded prototypes. That persistence informs my current moonshot project — an open-source tool converting academic papers into interactive comic narratives, already adopted by UNESCO for climate literacy initiatives.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://effylans.com/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xiaojinglan/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@riven-qm7kv?si=-xsh_TQ4SBJTQtJU
