“How do I know when I’m ready?” “You won’t. That’s all it is, a leap of faith.” Seated in the dark with popcorn in my hand, I was marvelled at the profundity of what I just heard in the Spiderman cartoon. I felt understood, moved, relieved that I’m not the only lunatic out there. Sometimes, I believe…
While planning a community meetup with the theme ‘turning struggles into strengths’, I got so confused in the middle of discussions when we were brainstorming the ‘transformation’ part. It’s easy to shine a light at struggle and invite people to talk about it, but how might we empower or enable the transformation into a strength…
“It’s only when we look back that we see a path, and it’s only there because we blazed it.” Twyla Tharp How have you been? An acquaintance whom I’ve never met in 3 years asked. While I blurted out ‘I’m good’, I wondered if there’s one word that could fully represent the path. Or a state…
When I knew that Dominique Crenn became the first female chef in The State to earned her third Michelin Star, it drove me to revisit an episode from Chef Table that features her life story. The 50-minute show went on like a breeze that made me feel, ponder and tear. When the screen darkened and…
The more I get lost in life, the more I realise that the act of creating helps me to discover my truth and gives me the courage to live my life. Many people relate creativity to subjects such as art and music, and they certainly don’t see themselves as ‘creative’ people. I get that. I…
“You change the world when you create something that never exists before.” — Srinivas Rao When Frankie and I started Own Your Story community event, we were not inspired by such a noble reason. We both spent a lot of time figuring out ourselves, went through 10-days of silence in Vipassana meditation, felt that something is missing in our society…
A couple months ago, I attended a 10-days Vipassana meditation course that changed me from the core of my being. It was profound and personal in a way that was hard to translate into a list of lessons learned. When I came across an article about ‘slowness’, it occurred to me that despite meditation technique,…
‘Never underestimate human stupidity. This is the most powerful force that shape the world history.’ — Yuvah Noah Harari I was aware of the magnitude of ‘Sapiens’ before I know the author, Yuvah Noah Harari. My first proper introduction happened when I came across his podcast interview on The James Altucher’s Show. Half way into the show, I was…
The first day I came back from the Everest Base Camp trek in Nepal, I was in a hot shower when a thought suddenly crossed my mind: I am so, so thankful to have what I have! For a few days, I walked around feeling immense gratitude and an urge to tear when I see…
When I entered the ‘real world’ with a degree in commerce, I never thought I would find myself in the creative industry one day. It happened after a few ups and downs, and someone took a big risk to give me a book project, giving me the confidence I needed to call myself a ‘writer’.…
I was recently engaged to conduct a sharing session with a group of design students about creativity and ‘owning my story’. The lecturer who invited me told me that some students are lost without a direction after college. I smiled, but I didn’t tell her that I feel the same sometimes. After 5 years of…
When I met a new client recently, I told him about my work in two different directions — writing for entrepreneurs or corporates and building a movement around ‘own your story’. Somewhere along the line, I mentioned my goal to empower people ‘to come alive doing what they love’. Hearing myself saying that, I thought…