“When people say it’s ok, I don’t need a family, I don’t need a partner, I say bullshit.”

Woon Tai Ho is most known for being the founder of Channel News Asia & author of prolific books like the trilogy by George Yeo (Singapore’s former foreign minister).

But has the success been worth it?

What are some of his biggest regrets in life?

In Part 1 (which you should listen to if you haven’t), we explored all of his big career achievements and the challenges that came with it, including being summoned by China to answer for their coverage of Falun Gong.

But today, we cover something very different.

Deeper.

More personal.

Starting with Tai Ho’s major pivot from broadcasting to author.

Because nowadays, it’s common to make career pivots. It’s hard enough when it’s just jumping from one company to the next in the same industry, but Tai Ho has made that huge jump so…

❓ How did he do it?

❓ How does he think about the ‘Second Act’ of his career?

❓ How should people plan for their own Second, Third or even Fourth Act, especially when it comes to retirement?

And is there such a thing as living for too long and just ‘waiting to die’?

We also talk about some of his deepest regrets, his relationship with success and thoughts on relationships.

His advice to people: Go marry, have kids, then go back to your career.

We don’t have to be that woke. 😅

Do you agree?

Time to hear from Tai Ho again in the latest episode from STIMY!

Highlights:

• 3:14 Becoming a biographer by accident
• 5:29 What makes George Yeo (Singapore’s ex-foreign minister) so special?
• 6:56 Transparency & Lee Kuan Yew
• 7:53 Is living to age 102 a blessing or a curse?
• 9:35 “If I don’t have my second act, I don’t know what to do with my time”
• 12:36 Is all of Tai Ho’s success worth it?
• 15:40 Tai Ho’s biggest regret
• 19:31 His biggest advice for people
• 23:02 Why does Tai Ho collect bunnies?
• 25:57 Do you feel like you’ve found your why?
• 26:51 What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind
• 27:05 What do you think are the most important qualities of a successful person?

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📍Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/146

🍿 YouTube: https://youtu.be/U0_pVl_RsGM

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Growing up, Woon Tai Ho - Channel NewsAsia founder & Bestselling Author of books like the George Yeo trilogy, Soul of Ink, Riot Green- didn’t know he was poor.

Until he invited his friends over and was asked questions like:

❓ Where’s your phone?

❓ Where’s your sofa?

None of which he had.

Which made him realise that actually, he was pretty poor. 😅

But he was never ashamed of it.

When his sister invited him to stay at the house she was working at as a domestic helper, that changed his world.

“I couldn’t believe it, the way they stayed… these people had a dimension of luxury that I didn’t know about. So I told myself, I need to work very hard.”

And work very hard he did.

We know Channel News Asia as one of the preeminent TV news channels in Asia, but that wasn’t always the case. As Tai Ho shares, the earliest days of CNA was very much a ‘wait and see’ game.

It was hardly easy too.

“Television is a very, very hungry animal. A news channel is a very, very hungry animal. Every hour, every minute, every second needs content. Otherwise it's black.”

❓So how did Tai Ho build CNA from the ground up?

❓Position CNA amidst other giants like CNN & the BBC?

❓ Gain support from the likes of former Singapore foreign minister, George Yeo?

❓Handle challenges like when he was summoned to China for their coverage of Falun Gong?

You’ll have to listen to Part 1 of this STIMY episode to find out. 😉

Part 2 will come out next Sunday!

Highlights:

• 3:00 Would you consider yourself successful?
• 6:34 Family
• 8:27 Becoming a chef?
• 11:00 Singapore is a pretty good place!
• 13:29 “I never thought about being the best”
• 14:20 “When I was a kid, I didn’t know I was poor”
• 15:50 Mediacorp
• 16:53 Founding Channel News Asia
• 20:48 The reality of founding a news channel (that most people don’t know)
• 23:09 How do you define “quality content”?
• 24:28 Establishing the boundaries for quality
• 26:01 Looking at competitors to figure out CNA’s value proposition
• 28:33 No government support?!
• 31:14 Pushing the Singapore government’s perspective?
• 34:32 Getting into trouble with the Chinese government
• 37:56 Knowing which stories and perspective to put forward
• 40:51 Time to move on?

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📍Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/146

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

“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?

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

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

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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

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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

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Meet Lucas Lu - Head of Zoom Asia.

And also a fellow Sarawakian!

Lucas has had an illustrious career going from GM of Systems Technology Group at IBM Malaysia where they closed large deals within the first 6 months, leading to Lucas winning ASEAN Rookie of the Year - his first big recognition.

He ended up staying at IBM for 10 years and won 2 Global Golden Circle Award before moving on to become:

• General Manager, Astro
• GM (Tech Sales Malaysia), Oracle
• Senior Director (APAC Enterprise Commercial Sales & Industry), Microsoft

Prior to his current role heading the Asian arm of Zoom, covering ASEAN, South Korea, Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan.

While at first glance, Lucas appears to have had a very varied career, he has also been very intentional about every career move he’s made.

And has had no zero regrets with how it has turned out.

So we dive deep into this episode into all things career development:

❓ How has Lucas chosen the roles that he has?

❓ What is his secret sauce to climbing the corporate ladder?

❓ How should one find mentors/career sponsors?

❓ How does he plan his career & life (he has a plan for everything, including for his family members!!)?

Please do listen & leave a rating & review!

Highlights:

• 1:50 My first 15 years
• 2:27 Shell City
• 4:22 No one leaves Shell, but I did…
• 5:26 Getting the call from IBM
• 6:05 Switching to tech
• 6:59 Lucas’ unfair advantage over other people
• 7:50 Lots of planning & reflections
• 11:55 What should you do when you first take on a regional role?
• 14:06 Career sponsors
• 14:41 Secret to landing career sponsors
• 15:22 The first time doors opened for Lucas?
• 16:15 Moving on after 10 years
• 17:14 Bringing a corporate mindset to the startup world?
• 19:09 Measuring returns for media projects
• 19:41 Moving to Oracle
• 21:01 Kilimanjaro
• 22:55 Element of luck
• 24:16 Dealing with failure
• 25:55 No regrets?
• 27:37 Moving to Microsoft
• 29:14 Takeaways from being fully immersed in a country
• 32:00 Did hiking change how he approaches sales and work?
• 32:25 Why Zoom?
• 33:43 Checklist for Lucas’ next career move (no compromise)
• 34:24 How to determine if someone is the right person to work for?
• 35:33 Most influential person in Lucas’ career
• 37:28 Managing the strawberry generation
• 39:15 What Lucas hopes to achieve at Zoom
• 43:58 The second act in Lucas’ career
• 46:45 What STIMY listeners can help Lucas with

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

📍Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/142

💌 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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This episode is a compilation of 6 of the most powerful women featured on the So This Is My Why podcast, discussing the milestones that led them on their journey to success

Ep 124: Jacqueline Novogratz

Jacqueline is the founder & CEO of Acumen - a non-profit global venture capital fund that aims to use entrepreneurial approaches to address global poverty. As the OG of impact investing, she shares her experience in Rwanda and learning that the most important thing is to build something where you leave no footprint behind.

And how there is no such thing as black & white. Everyone has an angel and demon within them that comes out at different times.

📍 Listen to Jacqueline's full episode: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/124

Ep 115: Lydia Fenet

Lydia is the former Executive Director of Christie's New York and for 10 years, she thought it was a privilege to be working at Christie's. She never asked for more.

Until she realised that you are just a number in the P&L, and you have to fight for what your worth. In one conversation, she managed to x3 her salary, obtain an international director designation and start a new department on strategic partnerships.

📍 Listen to Lydia's full episode: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/115

Ep 125: Tanya Zakowich

Tanya has worked at NASA, Boeing and Hyperloop and shares her journey in making big career pivots which led to the creation of Pink Pencil Math with 2 million TikTok followers, 507k Instagram Followers & 99k YouTube followers.

📍 Listen to Tanya's full episode: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/125

Ep 79: Nicole Quinn

Nicole is a General Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. She's known as the celebrity whisperer who's worked with the likes of Lady Gaga, Tom Brady, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jessica Alba.

📍 Listen to Nicole's full episode: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/79

Ep 77: Lily Wu

Lily is a two-time 7 figure business founder who shares how she got started on her entrepreneurial journey in Australia as a teenager

📍 Listen to Lily's full episode: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/77

Ep 56: Lauren Hom

Lauren is a California-born designer, illustrator & hand lettering artist with a 250k strong following on Instagram. She is known for her use of bright colour palettes & playful letterings and has worked for clients such as Starbucks, YouTube, TIME Magazine, Google and AT&T. She has also been recognised by Communications Arts, the Art Directors Club, the One Club, the Type Directors Club and the Webby Awards

She shares how she's built her enviable artistic career including with Daily Dishonesty.

📍 Listen to Lauren's full episode: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/56

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