“Are you a masochist?”

“Do you love books that much?”

If you want to be a bookseller, than those are the questions you need to ask yourself - according to Kenny Chan, the former Senior Director at Kinokuniya Book Stores (Asia Pacific) - he spent ~20 years of his career there prior to his retirement!

But prior to bookseller, Kenny was a foreign diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Singapore, where he was posted to London as their Trade and Culture Attache.

He then switched to bookselling, first at Popular Holdings Limited, then MPH Bookstores Sdn Bhd, and back again at Popular when they launched their IPO!

And finally interviewed for a position at Kinokuniya.

The President & Chairman of Kinokuniya flew from Japan to Singapore to conduct the interview and asked Kenny just one question:

“Do you love books?”

As it turns out, Kenny gave me the exact answer he was looking for!

And even after retirement, Kenny remains deep in the bookselling world.

If you haven’t already guessed it, Kenny is the latest guest on STIMY!

And we dive deep into all things books & the art of evangelising.

❓Why does Kenny not judge people by their educational level?

❓Why did he initially become a foreign diplomat?

❓What was it like opening bookstores throughout Asia Pacific, Dubai and New York?

❓What was it like working at his dream company?

❓What is the secret to buying books & why is bookselling a spiritual experience?

❓How can aspiring authors can get Kenny’s attention?

Are you intrigued yet?

The YouTube version is out now too. 😎

Highlights:

• 1:01 The Punisher
• 1:50 Don’t judge people by their level of education
• 2:59 Do your best in everything that you touch
• 3:58 My education was a roller-coaster
• 5:31 Didn't want to be a bookseller!
• 7:56 Getting into foreign affairs
• 9:51 Hunted down a book for Lee Kuan Yew & the power of connections
• 11:35 Lee Kuan Yew was a hard task master
• 14:54 Life isn't fair
• 18:32 How to get rid of inventory/books for bookstores
• 20:21 Leaving Popular for MPH
• 21:00 Introducing comics & Sanrio (Hello Popular) to Singapore
• 22:12 How Kenny knew it was time to bring Hello Kitty in
• 24:07 Memorable stories
• 26:43 What was it like working in his dream company?
• 27:46 Becoming store manager of the MPH Stamford Bookstore
• 28:22 You need to be a dictator
• 32:22 A great success
• 36:23 The IPO
• 37:11 The secret behind buying books & working at Popular
• 41:29 Moving to Kinokuniya
• 43:03 Meeting
• 43:30 The 1 question asked by the President & Chairman of Kinokuniya from Japan
• 44:44 Working with someone who doesn’t understand English
• 46:09 The spiritual aspect of book selling
• 47:01 Opening a store in Dubai
• 48:16 Love of books
• 49:13 The Kinovirus & training to become a great bookseller
• 50:45 The Speech
• 52:05 Biggest achievements while at Kinokuniya
• 54:44 Kinokuniya isn’t a bookstore. It’s a lifestyle choice
• 56:15 The importance of building a brand
• 58:51 The Twin Lemons Act
• 59:50 Getting Kenny’s attention
• 1:00:25 Ask a bookseller, what questions should you ask yourself?

🙊 Like STIMY? Buy us a ☕️?: https://beacons.ai/sothisismywhy

🍿 YouTube: https://youtu.be/1uCeI8LOI5Y

📍Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/145

💌 Weekly STIMY Newsletter on the art of storytelling + building your personal brand (+snippets of STIMY behind-the-scenes): https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/acd5bd1062

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Gero DiMaria knows what it means to go truly viral.

He's an Italian chef & owner of Kucina - Singapore's first authentic halal food restaurant.

But he's also a bona fide Italian culinary superstar with over 500k followers on social media - 256k on Instagram & 252.6k on TikTok!

He took the world by storm with his recent series of viral reels on choosing the best pasta/cheeses in grocery stores, and that had a real trickle down effect on his business.

So we dig into all the juicy stuff, including:

❓ What does it mean to actually go ‘viral’?

❓ What kind of measurable impact has social media had on his business?

❓ What is his advice for leveraging social media for businesses?

❓ What have his toughest moments been?

❓ And who exactly is Gero?!

The goal: To understand the role of social media today, what it really means to go viral & how one can leverage on that social media reach to build your own business.

Highlights:

• 1:55 Italian childhood
• 4:11 What do Italians eat every day?
• 5:38 People in Asia aren’t taught to think?!
• 10:58 Entering the food industry
• 12:13 Work hard to earn your money
• 13:33 Your first job sets the bar
• 14:49 That English breakfast shift
• 16:52 Knowing that the F&B world was for him
• 17:33 How to cook the perfect pasta
• 20:04 Moving from London to Singapore
• 21:58 First job at Pasta Fresca
• 23:19 What’s an authentic halal Italian restaurant?
• 25:59 Chefs can only be chefs, they can’t run a business
• 29:43 Going into marketing & the lost $3000
• 31:22 The turning point
• 32:39 Content strategy
• 35:14 Going truly viral
• 36:18 Acting debut
• 37:58 Why accept collaborations?
• 40:00 Separating his personal brand from his Kucina restaurant
• 41:24 The content creation team
• 42:48 Advice for entrepreneurs
• 44:06 Do you feel like you’ve found your why?
• 45:25 What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?
• 46:15 What do you think are the most important qualities of a successful person?

📍Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/144

💌 Weekly STIMY Newsletter on the art of storytelling + building your personal brand (+snippets of STIMY behind-the-scenes): https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/acd5bd1062

✍🏻 Leave a review on STIMY: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/so-this-is-my-why/id1521191442

Would you die for your passion?

Most wouldn’t but for 58-year-old Swee Chiow, Singapore’s first professional adventurer, it’s a question he must face every day.

And it all began when he caught a glimpse of Mount Everest from a plane.

He was working in IT (Singapore Airlines) then, but he decided from that one glimpse that he wanted to climb Mount Everest - a dream that took him a mere 10 years to achieve!

The journey was hard.

He knew nothing. So he read many books & even went on a 10-day mountaineering course at Mt Cook that he flunked because he wasn’t fit enough!

In 1998, he joined Singapore’s first Mount Everest expedition. It was a disaster at first because:

❌ Their tent collapsed during a freak storm

❌ Their first attempt at the South Pole failed as they didn’t have enough rope - the Singapore media hounded them & issued headlines declaring that the expedition had failed

But they didn’t give up.

Their second attempt was a success!

But an exhausting one.

In the midst of the media glory, Swee Chiow knew he had to take advantage of it so he immediately launched Singapore's first Antarctic expedition.

Since then, he has:

• Climbed Everest x3 and K2
• 8,000km cycle from SG → Beijing (China) = 2003
• Swam 40 km across Malacca Straits
• Kayaked 3,000km across Philippines
• Broke his first Guinness World Records for the longest scuba submergence (220 hours)
• Rollerbladed 6,000km from Hanoi SG in 94 days (and broke the Guinness World Records in 2008)

Highlights:

• 3:34 Why Why Why?!
• 4:12 Fear of heights
• 5:00 Computer science in Kansas
• 6:11 Saw Mount Everest from a plane
• 6:51 Not giving up after 10 years
• 7:24 The mountain is magical & spiritual?!
• 9:06 Lessons learned
• 10:27 Altitude sickness / AMS
• 12:04 Pulling Singapore’s first Everest expedition together
• 13:25 You can’t fail!
• 14:19 What should people know about Everest?
• 16:45 Quitting his day job
• 17:45 Antarctica
• 19:38 Commercialising his adventure business
• 20:32 Swee Chiow’s value proposition?
• 22:02 How he builds trust with his clients
• 24:11 Risks & death
• 25:11 Any trick to staying calm?
• 25:24 Drifting to Taiwan & near certain death
• 27:37 Never let your ego take over
• 29:28 Dealing with the media
• 30:55 Never doing K2 again
• 32:19 The ghosts at Tibet’s Xishapengma
• 36:12 Adventurers hogging the limelight
• 37:04 Collaborating with AirAsia X
• 40:16 How Swee Chiow decides on his adventures
• 41:43 Advice for those in their 30s
• 45:28 What’s next?
• 46:26 The second act of his career?
• 47:36 Leadership principles to be an effective guide for his team
• 49:15 What drives you to push yourself to the extreme each time?
• 50:23 Do you feel like you’ve found your why?
• 51:06 What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?
• 51:27 What are the most important qualities of a successful person?

Special thanks to Limpeh Studios (Hepmil Media) for the studio!

🙊 Like STIMY? Buy us a ☕️?: https://beacons.ai/sothisismywhy

📍Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/143

💌 STIMY Newsletter on the art of storytelling + building your personal brand (+snippets of STIMY behind-the-scenes): https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/acd5bd1062

✍🏻 Leave a review on STIMY: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/so-this-is-my-why/id1521191442