Choosing Your Career Path and the Tradeoffs You Must Be Aware Of - E699
episode
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
9 min
1 speaker
3 chapters
transcribed 20 days ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why is most self‑help career advice misleading?
Most self-help advice is self-serving. If you read some business leaders' autobiography versus their biography, they are totally different. The story that you tell yourself can be a very different story from the story you tell other people, and it can be very different from what other people say is your story. When you look at powerful people, you have to be mindful about what they do versus what they say. Waking up early, exercising three times a day, having time with their kids, and somehow killing it at work. that's really not possible because everybody knows at some level that sacrifices have to be made.
There are trade-offs that have to be made. So it's important for you to observe what powerful people do, not what they say. There's often a very large gap between what is said versus what is unsaid. There's a very big difference between what people say in public versus what they say in private one-on-one conversations with you without a recording device or camera on. With that knowledge, I want you to own your own power. I would love for you that as you become more powerful in whatever it is, do not be afraid about it. If you're charming, don't be afraid to be charming. If you're good looking, Don't be afraid to be good looking. If you're good at it, own it. If you want to get good at it because you like it, own it.
And if you're not good at it, own it. If you are good at business, be good at business. Get out of your own way. Don't disqualify yourself. Don't say you can't do it. Don't miss the class or miss the social. Own your own power and don't be ashamed. I had to go to Switzerland for a nice think tank in Austria. It was a ski resort, and the reason why I was there was. Because people want to go there to discuss business, geopolitics, innovate, network, socialize, and also go skiing. The truth is I didn't ski. I just went there and I said, you know what? As the only guy from Asia in the entire European think tank, I'm just gonna own the fact that I'm the only Asian guy there. And yeah, it's weird. It's isolating to be a minority.
But it's okay. I own it, I talk about it, I discuss it, I make jokes about it, you laugh about it. I didn't ski. Because I was too busy having fun and we went to the saunas, we had dinner conversations, and we became friends. You need to own whatever it is. Own what you're good at, own what you're bad at, own your discomfort. But don't be afraid of it. Don't be afraid of the strengths. Don't be afraid of your passions. Don't be afraid of your weaknesses. Don't try to be that jack of all traits who gets hopefully an A minus and everything because that's what school wants you to do. I want you to be thoughtful about your career because sometimes you'll be a small fish. In a big pond, and sometimes you'll be a big fish in a small pond, and you're gonna feel that in many ways.
You might be an intern in a large multinational corporation. And yes, we've talked about how a lot of these multinational corporations are being attacked by startups, but there are benefits for being a small fish in a big pond. You get to enjoy life a bit, you get to relax, you get absorbed. There's lots of mentors, you get paid decently well. There's lots of ways for you to benefit from it. Or you can be a big fish in a small pond, you can be doing something. Very different from everybody else.
How can I own my power and embrace my quirks at work?
Why not? In that case, you dominate, you show your stuff, people respect you for who you are, but you know that you're in a small pond. For myself, I've been both. I've been a small fish, I've been a founder that has never been hurt, and people ignore me because they don't know who I am, they don't care who I am, and I look young. So I've been a small fish in a big pond. But because I was there, I could learn from all of them and I get to observe and remember what's like. And today I'm back in Singapore. I would say I'm a big fish in a small pond. I can I walked into meetings and over the past week I've gone to two meetings where the other side said, Hey, by the way, I really enjoy your podcast.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
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