2012 – Hellagood, marked my first foray into doing creative projects, one blog post at a time. I was incredibly lucky to have met Linda and Philipp, who loved this blog into existence. With penned up creative tension, I cooked, I crafted, I took photos and most importantly, I published. Unbeknownst to me, my life was on a trajectory.

2013 – A one-way ticket to the US. I began a year of solo travelling and exploring. I met my wedding heroes – Troy, Heather, Rani, Joy, Tiffany, Christine, Mary, Kate, Caroline and Audrey. Despite being a Chinese boy from an unknown country, I was welcomed with utmost generosity. It opened my eyes and my heart. On a tight budget, I slept on couches, living rooms and buses. It cemented how little I need and how much I can create. More blog posts and craft projects were done.

2014 – Little Free Library, was an idea I saw in Berkeley. Gathering help from Yadin and Rafie, it got planted outside the house (still standing). Wander is a folded map of my favourite spots in Chinatown, hand-painted by Peixuan. It failed in crowd-funding and taught me about product-market fit. I printed it anyway and gave it as gifts.

I had no luck landing a wedding internship in Singapore. I forged ahead.

2015 – Beautiful Gatherings, a wedding planning and design studio. My first business. Felt like such a fraud, I did it anyway and left the goatee to look older. The styled shoot was a hit and couples took a chance. Many weddings are planned. I got on the list of top 10 wedding stylists in Singapore.

2016 – Misfits, the interview series launched. An effort to capture stories of possibilities, challenges and lessons along the journey. It hit the ground running with 12 interviews from Netflix comedians to the Number 1 beatboxer in the world.

Dinner at 335, a Supperclub where strangers gathered and cooked. I was grateful to have been invited to co-host with Norman. Those were lovely evenings.

2017 – Nudged by the remote lifestyle, Sage Animation, a 2D animation studio was launched. I learned an enormous amount about lean startups, working online and the good kind of sales. 18 Misfit interviews shipped.

2018 – Sage Animation took off, new logo and website. I made videos for Scoot, SPH, UOB and others. I gifted my wedding studio (for free) to Wan Qi. From the Nevada desert, I converted a camper van and drove it to California. It should have been delightful to live my dream life, but wasn’t. Betting on retirement was a bad idea. 4 Misfits interviews published.

2019 – Curious Cargo, a bi-weekly newsletter launched. I took on a weekly publishing practice, 38 articles ship. I took Sage Animation off of the growth trap. I learned about hiring, partnership and firing. Misfits entered the fourth year— more than 38 interviews.

2020 – In the pandemic, the blog got re-designed. 52 articles ship. Interviewed Derek Sivers along with 5 other Misfits. Newsletter continues. Sage Animation continues to provide.

2021 – Took a leap making a documentary podcast (Good Advice) to share my journey of coaching, healing, and therapy. I was more ambitious than I could juggle. Failed and learned.

I hacked together a coaching curriculum, with no formal training or certification. Free coaching conversation turned paid.

2022 – I help the family facilitate inheritance division conversations and got burnout.

David took a leap with me through burnout. He paid me handsomely and saw value. My coaching career took off.

2023 – Interviewed Seth Godin, and did not fall off the chair. Podcast continues. Volunteer consult for AWARE gala and broke their 11 years fundraising record.

2024 – A mysterious fatigue almost did me in. Live and learn.

[Updating this it goes…]

Looking back, I realised that most people think of their careers in terms of industry or professions. “I’m going to be a creative director.” or “I’m going to be in finance.”

Somehow, my career has never been that. It is a series of projects… things to be invented, built and delivered. Things I think can be done better, or things that should have existed. Sometimes they took on a life on their own and lasted, other times, they flare and fade.

The stages of a project — an idea, sharing a vision, being stuck, seeing a path, committing, finding a home, building it, launching it, editing it—I’m grateful it’s a cycle I’ve been able to repeat over the years. There’s a thrill in each of them and something to learn.

The hard part used to be gaining skills or resources. Over time, I took on bigger and more complex projects. At the same time, information became abundant, the tools got cheaper and distribution got easier. Instead of being limited by scarcity, it became a paradox of choice. The hard part has shifted internally, to dig in and to find a compass. To figure out the projects that combine my idiosyncrasy with generosity.

Here are a handful of the projects I’ve created over the years – not my favourites, necessarily, or the biggest, but ones that indicate where I was when I was doing them. Thanks for letting me create.

What an opportunity for us now to create a project that we are proud of.

It has been 3 years, I went from smoking to completely not smoking. I couldn’t believe how simple it could be. I’ll tell you the main tricks here so you won’t have to waste your time.

If I were to do it again, here’s what I’d do.

1) Have a plan. There is no point starting until you do this. Prepare to throw everything at it for 6 months. False starts can slide you back into the habit. You will start having negative self-talk and then it’s turtles all the way down.

2) Do a stocktake of your smoker friends. You need to leave them for 3 months. Let them know this beforehand. Tell them that you’re going to die soon if you don’t quit smoking and they’ll usually understand. If they don’t, you might want to reconsider your friends.

3) Spend a week to find out where and when you are triggered to smoke. Take notes. For me, it was due to stress and availability. Availability is when you are in situations where smoking is abundant, like a bar. Stress is when you are doing something hard, then you need to take a break, then you go to smoking.

Availability is easy. Stop going to those places for a while. The problem is staying at home is boring and going to a bar is fun.

The more interesting question is why am I doing it? For me, that basically boils down to I was doing it to survive longer in a social environment that I wasn’t particularly happy in. While I’m bored, I had to find activities to do and essentially stun my brain into submission. There are better ways to do that. One of those is to do things or hang around people that I enjoy and I don’t have to smoke to be around them.

Stress is harder. You basically need to re-learn new habits for dealing with stress. There are a whole bunch of things like sports, meditation or orgasm. The easiest way is to predict stressful situations, plan ahead and avoid them.

4) Travel. Go somewhere new for 2 weeks. Better, 4 weeks. A nice beach or somewhere with nature. I find travelling to be the best way to change the environment. When you are in a new place, you are hyper-aware of your surroundings. You actively choose things to do. Instead of working to break the habit, you are working not to start it. And not starting a habit is much easier than breaking one.

After being away, coming back have the same effect as going somewhere new. The same benefit follows.

5) Tell everyone you’ve already quit smoking. Use consistency bais to work for you. Then if you smoke, your friend will look at you all weird “Didn’t you already quit smoking?” Then you are forced to be consistent with your words. Then you become what you say.

6) Use the carrot and the stick. Create a punishment for yourself. I have a friend, Spencer who cuts a $50 note as a punishment. Another friend, Gun who cuts his top-of-the-line Bose noise-cancellation headphones. It needs to be painful.

On the flip side, reward yourself. I don’t think I need to give examples in that department.

7) Find an exercise that you enjoy. What you do it’s not as important that you just do it. Do something every day and make that a habit. Do it with a group of good looking healthy people. Use peer influence.

When you exercise, your body will tell you what it needs. Chances are, it wouldn’t be to smoke more.

8) This is a little extreme. So, use it at your own risk. Smoke a ton, like 3 packets in a day and get really sick. Nothing will give you a bigger push for a new habit than your body screaming at you.

All of that said, quitting smoking is breaking a habit that has been hammered for many years. You need to be prepared to throw everything at it. You decide it’s important to you and you work at it. You create a plan. You prioritize it above everything else. It’s just like learning calculus. It’s just like losing weight. It’s just like succeeding at your job. It’s a skill that you develop and a choice you make.

Once you master how to break the smoking habits, you are free to smoke again. And you would know how to break the habit again. Smoking would not have a grip on you. That is the day that you too, am a master of smoking, not the other way around.

Turned out to be a more complicated question than it seems. 

Seth Godin describes himself as a teacher. He’s also an entrepreneur, non-profit school builder, best-selling author, vegetarian and father. 

Aaron Maniam might be a civil servant. He’s also a poet, a scholar,  documentary producer, researcher and leads the SG birthday book (a great project).

Chris Guilbeau likes to be cheeky. His email sign off is “founder and janitor”. He produces a world-class event (WDS), is a best-seller author and probably have more projects up his sleeves. 

It’s no surprise when we try to answer this innocent question, we stumble. On one hand, we want to encapsulate all that we do into three succinct sentences. On the other side, the CEO of Nike is waiting for your elevator pitch. You don’t want to blow it up. 

So, Emily Wapnick cleverly coined the word multipotentialite. It rhymes with generalist, polymath, mutli-hypnate, renaissance man and multi passionate. The thing is when you introduce yourself as that, most people would look at you, confused. And as you explain the term and list out all your passions and vocations, you miss an opportunity to connect. 

It’s tempting to advocate for your mission, sound smart, explain the truth and nuance of who you are, and at the same time, connect with someone.

That rarely works. 

The realisation is that you don’t need to share everything, in one instance. What if instead, we begin with two, just two of the most interesting things about you. Explain with words that a twelve years old could understand. Start a conversation. 

You might find out that it is a more enjoyable (and probably the most effective) way to achieve all of the above.

Goals are a pain.

If you have goals (fitness goals, financial goals, career goals, or impact goals) and achieve them, you’ll be happy for a while, until you get used to it. Then you’ll set a new one and you’re back at a state of dissatisfaction.

Conversely, if you don’t have a goal, you can just do your best. You can take what comes. You can reprioritize on a regular basis. You never have to worry about missing it.

Not having a goal lets you have more fun, or spend time doing what matters right now, which is, after all, the moment in which you are living.

Living without goals is a lot more fun, in the short run.

And as James Clear points out, it’s really systems and habits that help us achieve our goals anyway.

But guess what, it’s also goals that give meaning to systems and habits. Goal sets the destination. The goals of health, financial resilience, peace of mind or a house full of love. Those are goals.

In fact, goals and happiness are not exclusive. It can add to happiness. One trick is simply to prevent negative self-talk and see failure as learning opportunities. Creating a practice of self-acceptance (while striving for goals).

The way I see it, there are 2 options. One option is to set meaningful goals, get more tension, achieve them (or maybe not), and die. The other option is to go with the flow, achieve what you achieve, and die.

It seems to me, though, that the people who are doing work they are proud of, who lead, and who make an impact (and have fun)… those people have goals.

[Ali Abdaal video on goals inspired this post]

But what if the…
Clothes you buy
Food you eat
Jobs you take
Money you earn
Freedom that you designed
Games you play
Exercise you do
Habits you change
Cities you visit
People you surround yourself with
Goals you set
Boundaries you draw
Books you read
Meditations you ponder upon
Love you give
Legacies you leave behind
Meaning you assign

It’s all about emotions, long-term sustainable positive emotions. Your emotions.

What if time, options, love, learning, growing, living to your potential is all in support of emotions.

Of course,
Some of them are in conflict (because of colliding desires)
Some of them cause short-term pain (in flavour for long-term happiness)
Some of them you’re running away from (pain or fear or uncertainty)
And others you’re working towards (love, play or flow)

How would you choose what you do differently?