#TheLearningPodcast

Big thanks to Andy for agreeing to start this informal podcast where we talk about anything and everything in our lives; self-improvement, investing, relationship, career tips etc. Here's 6 things we collectively wish we knew at 20! Hope its somehow useful to someone out there! :) TRY SKILLSHARE: https://www.skillshare.com/en/r/profile/Jiang-Jun-Tham/820009?gr_tch_ref=on&gr_trp=on INTERESTED IN INVESTING? USE INTERACTIVE BROKERS: https://ibkr.com/referral/jiangjun956 JJ LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thamjiangjun/JJ INSTAGRAM:https://www.instagram.com/jiang_juuun/ LEARNING PODCAST SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Cou8D3IK1iLFdctQ5XeRt The #Learning Podcast is a Singaporean Podcast dedicated to learning new from guests that comes on this show! If you're interested to join me, email me at thamjiangjun@gmail.com or reach me at any of my socials!

What is worth spending your entire life savings on? For epic entrepreneurs like Damian Chow, it was his company Had the privilege to catch-up with him over a podcast session, where he shares his entrepreneurship journey in starting several businesses, one of which was even acquired/sold off, even eventually creating The Gym Pod, Singapore's first 24 hours automated container smart gym which gives you an undisturbed and private workout at any time of your choosing. On a separate note, I've never seen any founders like him who managed to convince his employees to work more than a month without any pay; a true testament to exceptional EQ abilities - many crazy entrepreneurial stories in this podcast - WORTH A LISTEN! Damn I'm inspired, BACK TO WORK!

Questions are from a study by psychologist Arthur Aron (and others) that explores if intimacy between 2 strangers can be accelerated by having them ask each other a specific series of questions. There are a total of 36 questions in the study - this podcast only covers 12 out of the 36 questions. There may be a part II and III to this podcast series. Big thanks to Hazel for doing this podcast session with me :) https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/style/no-37-big-wedding-or-small.html

Had the biggest privilege to have Jansen Ko on a podcast session! He is the co-founder of Boulder Movement, a Singapore-based rock climbing gym that currently has 3 outlets around the island. He shares his journey during his junior college days being obsessed about rock climbing, being involved in several businesses as a franchisee, and eventually starting Boulder Movement - it is the best rock climbing gym I've ever been to. Jansen strikes me as a humble individual who is dedicated to perfecting his craft of managing a business - though it's not really part of the podcast (since he wrote it in his Medium article), my biggest takeaway is the following phrase from one of his articles; The first rule of CEO psychological meltdown is to not talk about CEO psychological meltdown. It is crazy to think that businesses can lose tens of thousands of dollars every single month when sports facilities were recently forced to close due to COVID-restrictions. While things are getting better now, I can't imagine how tough it is to swallow that loss of cash flow for consecutive months - this podcast gives a 0.01% peek into it is. Definitely check this podcast out! *On a separate note, go and check on their YouTube channel! It's awesome for anyone new to rock climbing!!

Big thanks to Xiao for sharing her experience about the sports franchise business at F45, WeChat marketing, and family in this podcast! It shares her journey of how she turned her hatred as an engineering student to being a self-taught piano tutor, doing husband-prospecting and starting a WeChat TikTok marketing agency. She also talks about how life is like being involved in the Sports Franchise Business at F45, a fitness training company. This is no doubt one of the most refreshing podcasts I've ever done. Most guests, including myself, tend to have a filter on podcasts as it's a fairly public forum to express one's opinion; Xiao doesn't hold back and it's so refreshing to hear someone speak authentically to what she truly believes in. She shares many crazy stories on using marketing tactics on WeChat, leveraging peculiar marketing messaging such as high divorce rates etc - I definitely took away the lesson of being more thick-skinned from her in being more upfront with what I want whether in relationships, sales or life :) If you're interested in the Sports Franchise Business, WeChat Marketing, or Sales, this podcast is definitely worth the listen!

Had the big privilege to have Rae on a podcast session - she's an entrepreneur, speaking coach, and emcee! Mentorship and coaching are the central themes of this podcast - I've always regarded market forces to be the best forms of mentorship when it comes to one's entrepreneurial endeavors but am usually skeptical when it comes to mentorship primarily because of the uneven value-exchange between the mentor and mentee - this podcast sheds more light on that and I definitely see the value in learning from people who're much more experienced in life. If you're ever interested to learn more about the coaching industry and perhaps engage one yourself, I'm sure this podcast will be helpful :)

Really enjoyed in conversation with Chela who's currently an undergraduate from the Nanyang Technological University Business School - was connected to her via an agency to share the impact of how important English is, on behalf of the Speak Good English Movement here in Singapore. She shares her story on how it's like growing up in Singapore as a Korean and how she utilized social media in helping her dad's hawker business during the circuit breaker period. The hawker business is something that I don't have a clear understanding of and this conversation definitely sheds more light on the realities of how tough it is to run an F&B business.

Extremely grateful to have Puvin on this podcast session! He is currently an Associate Director (Financial Technology & Data) at Datasearch Consulting and is a headhunter/recruiter for mid-senior executives in the fin-tech space. I've never really understood what it takes to be a headhunter & recruiter and Puvin shares a lot of how is life like as a recruiter - from sharpening one's ability to sell, identifying outstanding job candidates, and leveraging platforms like LinkedIn. He shares many holistic perspectives in the hiring process - what companies are looking out for, how should prospective employees package themselves, and common red-flags that people should avoid in any hiring process. He also shares the "dark-side" when it comes to the recruitment scene eye-opening stories on how manipulative people can be when it comes to the topic of salary and money.... This podcast is definitely useful for ANYONE looking for new opportunities in their careers, and probably EXTRA helpful for existing undergraduates. Really hope you guys find as much value in this podcast as much as I had :)

Had the BIGGEST EVER privilege to have the co-founders of The Woke Salaryman, Wei Choon, and Ruiming on this podcast session - if you aren't sure, The Woke Salaryman is Singapore's biggest personal finance webcomic with HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of followers across their social media channels. I ask them about their journey in starting the business, lessons learned along the way, and asking other random topics such as wage slavery and life principles. There is so much more than meets the eye and they break down the nitty-gritty details they consider when putting out online content in the world of personal finance - my favorite section of this podcast was definitely on their take on wage slavery, relationship advice, and why everyone should stop using the phrase "It's easier said than done!".

Really happy to have Anson on this podcast - I met him all the way back in 2014 where we actually joined a music competition together where we actually won first prize together in the National Arts Council Chinese Instrumental Ensemble Category. Really grateful to have Anson join me on this podcast session - he is an insanely talented yangqin musician who won several music competitions in the past few years. I first met Anson all the way back in 2014 where we joined the National Arts Council Chinese Instrumental Competition in the Ensemble Category where we won the 1st prize together!! What good memories... I've always been fascinated by how passionate and expressive he is when it comes to music + life - and always felt like a robot when I'm talking to him because I feel relatively emotionless to him Anson shares more about his journey in achieving the best balance between passion and profession where he currently works at Eason Music Store, a Chinese Music Instruments shop which sells music instruments and conduct lessons for Chinese instruments - his unique role as a content creator there is to spread the gospel of Chinese instruments to the world and he is obviously passionate about it. We talk about music competitions, life as a musician, and hustling as a Malaysian in Singapore - I'm starting to think that many Singaporeans, including myself, take for granted the blessings we have being born in this country - the drive to hustle it out is something that I really respect for anyone trying to make it in Singapore :)

Extremely grateful to have Alex on this podcast :) He is a consultant and coach in the fitness, health, and wellness space. The reason why I wanted to reach out to him was because of his unusual career path, form being a P.E (Physical Education) Teacher at Temasek Junior College in the public sector, all the way to working in Thailand as a General Manager/Managing Director at klapsons Group of Hotels and Residences. Alex shares his journey onto how he got to where he is right now spearheading his own consulting company - Aviary & Co, the lessons he learned from facing public backlash in organizing an event with over 15,000 + people (that is..a lot of people!!) as well as red flags to look out for in business partners and life partners. I've always been fascinated about the life purpose of people I meet in life and I'd definitely say that Alex clearly articulates what his life purpose is, and how he is working towards achieving it - I'm working hard to find mine!!! Hope I'll be clearer of it real soon! :)

Had the BIGGEST privilege to have Robert Lai on this podcast - he is the founder of Kaliber Performance Marketing and has quite a peculiar background, from running nightclubs in Australia all the way to working at Google TWICE at Australia and New York respectively. Aside from that, he is a true veteran in the media industry who had invested over US$400M in digital ad spend for his clients. We talk about his beginnings running nightclubs in Australia, the toxic truth about public media agencies and how they're the worst, nerdy talk about performance marketing (WHICH I LOVE), and general life principles and lessons for people young in their career and life :) While there are just so many lessons from this podcast, one of my biggest takeaways was to not be fixated on how much I was earning per hour, but instead looking at everything as a learning opportunity, and how such learnings will go a long way aside from just monetary compensations - one insecurity that I've always had was about how my salary as an entry-level employee in a media agency being significantly much lesser compared to my peers who were working in big tech companies, FMCG companies, and banking firms. And while the market is the market where I'm paid based on my contributions to the company (which is marginal to the scale of the business), I definitely fell short on looking at it from a learning perspective - or for the matter, seeing every opportunity that came in life as a chance to improve and grow.

Had the privilege to have OKJ (Documentary Storyteller) or a podcast session - he is a self-taught documentary filmmaker and my senior from the NUS Business School!! If there's one big thing I took away from this podcast, it's the importance of clarity. I'm really envious of the clarity that he had about his life at just 18 years old, and how he consciously made calculated bets and decisions that would allow him to reach his end goal of pursuing what he wanted in life - it's something that I'm only beginning to understand and take time to prioritize right now. The beautiful thing about having a skillset like documentary filmmaking is that it literally provides you a passport to travel around the world to make videos and uncover interesting stories to be shared with the world - his goal of going to outer space to make a documentary about it blows my mind and showed me how small my own personal goals were...!! Hope this conversation would be useful to any potential documentary filmmakers out there in the future :) OKJ WEBSITE: https://okjworks.com/ OKJ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/okjworks/ OKJ LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/okj/ OKJ YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq6ByOjcr--6CcARUxx8cAQ OTHER PODCAST THAT OKJ WAS ON: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpDoaRy0MtI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFGsvzKRGU0 JJ LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thamjiangjun/JJ INSTAGRAM:https://www.instagram.com/jiang_juuun/

A BIG THANKS to Cindy for joining me on this podcast session - she is an Enneagram Personality Coach + Corporate Trainer at Relationship Studios, and the co-founder and Chief Dating Coach at Divine Connect, a premier date coaching, and matchmaking agency. She has already written a couple of books and is also a resident love expert on Class 95 FM!!! Relationships, be it romantic, platonic, or professional ones, is something that I've always struggled with and this conversation has definitely made me interested in utilizing frameworks such the Enneagram Personality Training to improve on developing it. The reason why this video would change your perspective on ALL relationships forever is that it provides a lens to be empathetic to why others behave so differently from us, and more importantly, for us to look inwards and self-reflect on what we could better do to improve ourselves; I think many people, including myself, fall into the pit trap of blaming why others are a certain way when the true problem really lies within myself - we are the common denominator across all our relationships. Cindy shares more about the story of how she got into what she does and also drops so MANY golden wisdom of nuggets when it comes to improving our relationships with loved ones, colleagues, family, friends...basically EVERYONE!

A big thanks to Huda for joining me on this podcast session Huda is the founder of Blissful Studios, a full-fledged corporate content marketing agency. She is also the founder of Fempreneur Secrets, where its mission is to empower women to start their own businesses and create a community of economically independent women entrepreneurs globally. She shares more about her journey in starting her companies and specifically the stories and motivations of why entrepreneurship was something that was born out of a necessity rather than a choice - one of the biggest takeaways that I had from this conversation is if there is anyone like you who had survived a great degree of adversity or tumultuous experience that you had (or worse), there is certainly no excuse that you can't succeed as well - with a computer and the internet, the possibilities of skills to acquire or career path to embark on are limitless - the stories of where she came from are really crazy and I have massive respect for her into how she carved out of career for herself into doing what she does now together with her husband. Hope this conversation would be useful to any entrepreneurs, specifically female entrepreneurs, in wanting to start something of their own. If anyone like you has made it, then you can too :)

Big thanks to Hao Yuan for joining me on this podcast session - I knew about Hao Yuan through the NUS Overseas College Programme where both of us actually worked in the same company - Xiaomi, though in different periods and departments; I'd say that he definitely has a list of dream internship companies that many university students may want and I hope there is a gem or two in this conversation that would be useful to university/tertiary school students wanting to intern in these interesting companies - this podcast would definitely serve as a superficial compression and summary of his experiences from working in these tech giants! :)

big THANKS to Elvia for joining me on this podcast session - the theme for this podcast is about the ARTS, something that I was previously insanely active in, where all my available time was only for music rehearsals, performances and practice (i'm not exaggerating..). Elvia's expertise is in arts management and she's currently the General Manager and Dingyi Music Company. She previously worked at the National Arts Council and graduated from the Singapore Management University - she also founded the Singapore Management University Chinese Orchestra during her undergraduate days! I feel that there's really a lot more awareness and appreciation that can be raised for arts managers because they play a very critical role into making arts happen - whether if its live performances, arts workshops or engagement programmes, no arts can survive without arts managers. This podcast is dedicated to raising that awareness, even if its just a little bit, to hopefully inspire those individuals who are interested in the arts and may not be artists themselves. On another note, Elvia has changed my life to a certain extent as it was in my first interactions with her that I found the joy of creating - the process of creating something out of nothing and the power of making ideas happen - whether that's in the form of writing proposals to organise concerts, all the way to just making ideas realities; I've been addicted to creating things since then, but yet fall-short on the ability to sustain ideas and it's definitely an important take away that I had from this podcast. Hope this podcast will be useful to all aspiring artists and arts managers :)

Big thanks to Vishnu for joining me on this podcast session! We were batch mates in the National University of Singapore Overseas College programme where university graduates are sent to various parts of the world to work in start-ups ; Vishnu is also the CEO and founder of Invigilo Technologies which is a video analytics platform that ensures high standards of safety and productivity at construction sites. e shares about his entrepreneurship journey thus far - the process, the challenges and perhaps most importantly the realities of how it is like running a startup, and how it has forced him to be introspective in discovering more about himself - all too often in start-up competitions there's so much emphasis on the idea and the validation of product-market fit, and a complete absence of the well-being and mental stress that it takes to run a startup - I hope this conversation would help someone out there ever thinking of creating something of their own and keep in-view of their state of mind :)

Big thanks to Xuan Kai for joining me on this podcast session - I've always been interested in the thought processes of creative people - he's currently working as an assistant producer in mm2 Entertainment and shares a lot of insights how is life in Singapore's Film & Production/Television Industry - working in the agency space myself, I see lots of creative ideation on exciting marketing campaigns and wondered how it's like in the television industry - where and how do the ideation of television series gets created from? He also shares his journey into this industry as a fresh graduate from the National University of Singapore studying Theatre Studies and Film Production - the challenges that he has faced in what I feel to be a fairly traditional industry, and shares his goals on creating his own documentaries, as well as life principles learned along the way :)

A big THANKS to Xiaohan Cai for joining me on a podcast session - I haven't got the slightest idea of what lawyers do on a daily basis and wanted to learn from her POV on the realities as a young lawyer in Singapore - the challenges, the realities and journey of becoming one - she also volunteered in the SAF Volunteer corps which allows Singaporeans/PRs to have a taste what it's like in the Singapore army; I don't know anyone who else volunteered in this programme and was fascinated on why she made such a decision - funny story.. I actually met her in camp when I was charged by the army for not taking my fitness test....if you've ever wondered how it's like volunteering in the SAF corps or life as a lawyer in Singapore, this podcast will probably give a sneak peak onto how these experiences are like :) Disclaimer: All topics discussed here by Xiaohan and I are personal opinions and are not representative of any company views nor are they legal advice.

a BIG THANK YOU to Jian Yong for joining me on this podcast session - I'm extremely grateful and humbled for the opportunity to have a deeper conversation onto the principals and motivations that drives him as an individual. He is the entrepreneur, speaker, CEO, and founder of Happy Fish Swimming School, and shares his journey in building this multi-million dollar swimming empire where its vision is to equip the skill of swimming to everyone in Asia - I ask him to share the story about his humble beginnings, how he got involved in internet marketing, dominating SEO, running the company itself, and all the way to eventually stepping down as CEO from the company this year to tackle one gigantic problem; to revolutionize the way children learn and perhaps change the education system for the better.. I'm floored and stunned by how BIG he thinks and this conversation has really made me think much more critically about the things I want to act and most importantly take action on into contributing what I can to the world - this is definitely the most mind-blowing podcast session I've ever had so far....WOW!

Disclaimer: This podcast and myself do not support and endorse any political party in Singapore. Had the privilege to have Terence Soon on the podcast - Terence is an SIA (Singapore Airlines) Pilot and a candidate with the Progress Singapore Party (PSP). I don't really know much about politics but I'm just fascinated and interested to learn from his perspective in terms of politics in Singapore and am extremely grateful that he took the time from his busy schedule to have this conversation - all too often I feel that it's so difficult to really know someone through click-bait social media articles, clipped videos, 1-2 sentence in blog posts/articles, and I feel that a better way would be to simply sit down and have a podcast session. I ask him about his motivations in joining this political movement this election as well as how his journey has been like running as a candidate with the Progress Singapore Party - I was curious to also know about his interactions with notable Singaporean figures including Dr Tan Cheng Bock as well as Lee Hsien Yang and asked his POV on it.

a BIG privilege to host the branding beardos on the podcast- they're a podcast duo focused on providing an Asian perspective when it comes to a massive topic - branding - Big John and Kenneth! This podcast is definitely for people who're interested in learning about branding within Asia and its little nuances - we go on to rant about insecurity stabbing digital ads (life courses, Amazon FBA ads etc) all the way to attempting to understanding the root causes of insecurity in Singapore SMEs. I ask a lot of questions pertaining to client management as well as interesting stories from their experience being consultants for companies - the importance of communication and honesty when it comes to addressing the root problems in companies.

A big THANK YOU to Dr. Nisha Kohli for joining me on this podcast session. I initially thought that this conversion would be centered more around the thought process of becoming an academician, but Dr Nisha’s journey into getting her PHD is definitely an unconventional one, and if I may say, an outcome forced out of circumstance from the environment that she was in – being in India, raising her children and surrounding herself with the right mentors at the right time in New Delhi. I truly empathize with the key lessons that Dr Nisha shared in working with start-ups as a consultant, particularly her challenges when it comes to convincing entrepreneurs on the right strategies to take. When it comes to how startups prioritize their businesses, it seems that valuations and customer acquisition are big major factors of what is focused on, but no one really talks about customers’ satisfaction nor retention – this point definitely strongly resonated with me...!!

This podcast is mostly for people interested in data-analytics! Vincent currently works at Google as a data analyst and specializes in detecting phishing cases and builds models that prevent people from being scammed or cheated from a macro level. I ask him about his journey on how he got into Google, as well as the core fundamentals that it takes to be a solid data analyst. We talk about investing, consulting, his university life at the Singapore Management University, and how he deals with imposter syndrome. I love his perspective on how he emphasizes that it's the impact of our work that makes a difference in the business, more so than the hard/tangible skill that we acquire, regardless of whether if it's in the field of data analytics of any expertise!

Once in while I must admit that I get quite stressed talking to people who, by objective terms, have achieved a lot more than I have, and I tend to beat myself up in that way – but if there’s one thing I realize when talking to them, is that they are genuine, humble and go out-of-their way in being helpful. A big thanks to Eugene Cheng for joining me on this podcast in sharing his story of how he became one of Forbes 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs (Media, Marketing and Advertising Category) from his polytechnic days in being the founder of his agencies, High Sparks and Motion Sauce – past clients that he worked with include VISA, Mastercard, Oracle, Dentsu and Panasonic! There is a TONNE of content from Eugene about his origin story about how he came to do what he does, as well as tips & tricks on making winning high-stakes’ presentations. Most part of this podcast is more-so from my selfish interest of wanting to know what it takes to best serve clients in the agency world and his process on choosing who to work alongside with as business partners

One of the challenges I had faced was to grow this podcast - a big thanks to Nicholas for joining me in sharing his experience on how to start a podcast in this podcast session...podcastception..get it??? haha On another note, I've learned a great deal of the small little things one should take note in when podcasting - how to ask guests who are often 'bigger' and more 'successful' than you, as well as little technical tips that you should watch out if you're ever thinking of creating your own podcast - I ask Nicholas his motivations of starting his own podcast, as well as where his overall macro strategy lies for the future.

BIG THANKS to Jeremiah for joining me on this podcast session – it was a really a privilege for me to dive a little deeper into asking about his POV onto the video production agency landscape in Singapore, as well as his thoughts on what it takes to build meaningful relationships with clients in a sustainable manner. Videography is something that I’m extremely passionate of but I’m really more interested in the working dynamics with business clients; it has always been a fascinating one for me, particularly how one works well with each other to achieve the desired end goal. Jeremiah shares more about his journey in starting his own video production agency – Cinema Verite Group, as well lessons learned along the way as the founder of this company – his company had previously worked with many notable brands, including HSBC, Foodpanda, Lazada, Circles.Life, Harvey Davidson, DBS Bank, UOB, Standard Charted Bank, Siemens, Huawei and Simmons – this is probably a list of dream clients to work with and I’m simply in awe of the work that they do.

A BIG THANKS to Mitch for joining me on this podcast session - we briefly worked with each other in the Nas Daily Media Company and as soon as I knew he was in Singapore (only temporarily for a month!!), I wanted to catch up with him over a podcast session where I could learn a thing or 2 when it comes to being a influencer/content creator on social media platforms - Mitch mostly publishes his videos on Facebook, where he has over 160,000 + followers and had amassed over 50 + million views of his videos on his Facebook Page, Mitch Summers. He shares about how he transitioned from working in the traditional tech & software industry to being a social media content creator (crazy story....!!), tips for content creators who are starting out on their journey, as well as his thoughts on quality vs quantity content creation - I ask him about the little nuances between making videos on Facebook and YouTube, and his content strategy for the future :) I hope this conversion will be helpful to future content creators out there!!

a big THANK YOU to Sherrine for joining me on this podcast! If you're ever a student intending to go to any type of Singapore-based business schools, this conversation is mainly centered around how exactly life is like in NUS Business School - Sherrine and I were groupmates back there and I had learned a great deal from her perspective in how life was like for her at NUS Business School. We talk about our experiences in university (her experience in joining case competitions organised by Unilever/P&G, how to be a dean's lister haha), as well as how she went around pursuing a career in FMCG at Mondelez International, where she's currently under the graduate trainee programme. I hope this conversation will be helpful to young Singaporeans interested in studying in business schools as well as existing undergraduates who are in a similar position to where Sherrine & I was (in finding a job and our career routes)

A big thanks to Daryn for joining me on this podcast sessions - I'm really fascinated by crypto though I'm not a part of this industry but learning more about it through talking with people in the industry has been definitely exciting. We talk more about the truths about NUS Business School in terms of environment, curriculum and advice that current undergraduate/ new freshmen can take from this conversion - Daryn shares a lot more how life is like working as a trader at QCP Capital which is in the Fin-Tech Crypto space. If you're ever interested in going into this industry, I'm sure that this conversion would be helpful to someone out there :) We go into option future trading principles which are additional tools to play in the crypto space, as well as general investing principles that Daryn believes. We end off talking about random topics - books that we read, our opinions on spirituality as well as dabbling into the topic of psychedelic, Life & Death, racism between Asians, politics and a THEORETICAL discussion on loosely held opinions if drugs and LGBT rights will ever be legalised during our lifetimes. We made a few factual errors pertaining to books read haha but the jist of it is definitely still there!

A big thanks to Daryn for joining me on this podcast sessions - I'm really fascinated by crypto though I'm not a part of this industry but learning more about it through talking with people in the industry has been definitely exciting. We talk more about the truths about NUS Business School in terms of environment, curriculum and advice that current undergraduate/ new freshmen can take from this conversion - Daryn shares a lot more how life is like working as a trader at QCP Capital which is in the Fin-Tech Crypto space. If you're ever interested in going into this industry, I'm sure that this conversion would be helpful to someone out there :) We go into option future trading principles which are additional tools to play in the crypto space, as well as general investing principles that Daryn believes. We end off talking about random topics - books that we read, our opinions on spirituality as well as dabbling into the topic of psychedelic, Life & Death, racism between Asians, politics and a THEORETICAL discussion on loosely held opinions if drugs and LGBT rights will ever be legalised during our lifetimes. We made a few factual errors pertaining to books read haha but the jist of it is definitely still there!

I apologize in advance for the title - these questions are deep and I feel that answers to them are really unique to who you are and your circumstance. Thanks so much to Khye for joining me on this podcast - we talk about his journey in how he landed up in Singapore from Melecca as a scholar and his career journey from working in a recruitment company to being in the insurance field. He shares challenges and struggles in his career and how he turned to find answers with online mentors via YouTube where he discovered answers that reframed his macro-perspective onto how he could be fulfilled in his career. I believe this conversation will be helpful mostly for youth adults like me early in their career when we are so full of zest ready to take on the world - perhaps we could take some time to prioritize what matters to us - whether if its monetary, relationships, community goals, I think its important to take some time to reflect on what makes us tick in a way which makes us feel excited in a sustainable manner.

I wanna thank Andy Ang for taking the time to join me on this podcast session - he shares his initial enrollment into a polytechnic course which wasn't suited for him, and the pros & cons when it came to changing his career direction in becoming a marketer instead. He also shares CRAZY entrepreneurial stories where he started an e-commerce shop selling army-related products to NSFs - one thing I learned from our conversations is probably to take action on business idea jamming ideas; Andy had discussed MANY great business ideas back in his schooling days and predicated several business ideas that came to fruition in the past few years - fingerprint payments, shared-driving economy, and mobile payment services We talk about his involvement as an undergraduate at the Singapore Management University; I found out it's compulsory for undergraduates to do community service which is fascinating and Andy shares his extensive experience in leading community-service projects during his university days, learning lessons from it and how it made him fond of children and him now being a father!! Lastly, he talks about how traveling changes one's perspective and how it may be necessary for one to be more open-minded in general. I hope it's useful to someone out there!!

A huge thanks to Leslie Koh for joining me on this podcast session – his expertise revolves around the insurance space and he is well-versed with almost 10 years of experience in this field. We mostly talk about the insurance industry and I believe this podcast would be helpful to those ever thinking of becoming a financial advisor – while the commissions and paychecks that come with it are huge, to say the least, therein lies great responsibility onto the type of products that you choose to sell to your clients. Leslie shares his inception journey on why he chose to become a financial advisor and the stories of the common pitfalls and mistakes that junior financial advisors make – money, convince, confusing, conning or coping with a multitude amount of rejections. On a second note, I do believe it's important to get yourself covered at every step of the way, particularly those that relate to hospitalization or clinical bills. We talk about macro-marketing concepts that financial advisors should embark on and how they can go about marketing themselves to potential clients – lastly, he ends up sharing the best and worst advice he’d ever received, as well as the goals he’d like to achieve this year. Do check out Leslie’s content – he provides much useful content when it comes to protecting yourself

A huge THANKS to Lauren for joining me on this podcast session - I reached out to her via LinkedIn and was mostly interested in learning more about what HR is - it's not exactly the most enticing thing for undergraduates to major in Human Resource, and I think there's a quite a big difference when it comes to being taught HR in schools and actually implementing HR policies that make a tangible difference in businesses. Lauren runs her own business, (Transform.Recreate) that caters to helping SMEs create better HR foundations according to their business needs and shares her story of how she got into this business - coming from a corporate background, it equipped her with an in-depth and yet wide-ranging experience of what it takes to have good HR for companies of all sizes. She is also the co-founder of GotKimZua (gotkimzua.com), an e-commerce Singapore-based joss paper store incepted in May 2017. She also has her own podcast, #tryeverything, where she shares stories of people who had overcome their failures to become successful in their own ways. Definitely go check it out and have a listen! We mostly talk about the importance of HR, common misconceptions about it, Lauren's accidental story into HR consulting and role models that we look up to!

Had the biggest privilege of having Mr Zainal on the podcast – if you aren’t sure, he is a Member of the 12th Parliament of Singapore for the Pasir Ris East Constituency which is part of the Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC. He is a politician from Singapore’s main governing political party, the People’s Action Party and is also currently serving in the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) as the Assistant Secretary-General. Zainal is a graduate of Nanyang Technological University with a Master of Arts in Educational Management, through which he has served for 20 years in the education service before embarking on his political career. In this episode, we primarily talked about how Singaporean youths can better prepare themselves for the working world, red flags that they need to look out for, and lastly his work in representing the people of Pasir Ris Punggol GRC – the challenges he faces being on the ground as well as the immense satisfaction he gets from making real macro impact onto the lives of Singaporeans.

I had the privilege to host a great friend I met at the NUS Business School, Zhi Rong! I've had the opportunity to work with him for 2 semesters and I must say that his ability to think outside of the box is quite fascinating. We even won first prize for a class-project together! haha...good old days Zhi Rong is from Johor, Malaysia, and has been traveling to Singapore almost every single day since his primary school days - the hustle that he exhibits is something i'm extremely impressed by and i think its definitely something worth highlighting to Singaporeans, who may at times take the opportunities here foregranted (this includes me mysefl!! and this serves as a reminder) He just graduated this year from NUS Business School and he shares more about his experience as a performance marketer, internships in Silicon Valley and his priorities as a fresh university graduate. He also shares the interview processes he gone through in some of the top-consulting companies that most business students aspire to go to - definitely worth watching/hearing this if you're a business student!!

This is by far the longest podcast I've ever recorded, not for the sake of achieving long durations but more so learning so much from Royal, who is currently a portfolio manager at Queens Investment Group. His expertise revolves around blockchain, trading, and cryptocurrency - if you've no idea about blockchain, I think this podcast episode serves as a wholesome introduction to what this technology can do. We talk about why people might want to invest in themselves, by themselves and reasons why they should. Royal himself also owns a series of food stalls - RiceBowlGold, as he shares his vision & goals in what he wants to achieve while dropping business lessons along the way. We end off by talking about books he reads as well as our general perspective of life in general :)

A huge THANK YOU for Gao Fei in joining me on this podcast session - he is the founder and CEO of Learnseeker. I talk with him about his beginnings as an entrepreneur who started out selling cards Yu-Gi-Oh game cards since primary school days, his multiple business ventures during his secondary & junior college days as well as his 6 failed business attempts. He shares crazy stories on utilizing a school's email list for his business ventures, creating hundreds of Google accounts for free advertising credits on Google Adwords, as well as the humbling experience he had from learning from veteran and well-seasoned entrepreneurs. I had the privilege to meet Gao Fei when I was studying at the National University of Singapore and we met through the NUS Overseas College Programme - both of us could probably be termed as fans of NUS, as he shares how NUS played a critical role in shaping who he is as the CEO of his company. If you ever had the slightest tendency in wanting to start your business, this is definitely a podcast worth listening too. *he shares his experience on raising money too!

While the topic of anxiety, depression and mental well-being may still be considered as a taboo topic in Singapore, I definitely think its things that should be talked about, and I'm very grateful for Kevin for being willing to share his story of how he overcame anxiety attacks he faced, along with depression and its consequences. We talked in-depth about the state of mental well-being and its importance, how he landed up in Singapore's top junior college - Raffles Junior College, how it was like studying there and its perceived stress that the Singapore education has on students. He subsequently garnered his experiences into starting his own company - Rebound With Resilience, dedicated to helping people to cope with such issues, about how he is constantly trying to reframe ingrained perspectives and most Singaporean kids have - some examples include how school grades may mean everything to a primary school child, and failure is deemed as a negative event to avoid at all cost - its terrifying to see how such limiting beliefs would manifest when they grow up into adults. Lastly, we ended off talking about books that inspired us, and Kevin shares a crazy story of this navy-seal that inspired him :)

I have many architecture undergraduate friends and I can confirm my hypothesis that they really look at the world with a very different lens!! Thanks so much to Gabriel for taking the time to share his experience studying at one of Singapore's newest universities - SUTD (Singapore University of Technology & Design) as he shares more about the curriculum at SUTD, programmes that architecture students learn, what architecture is all about, his side-hustle, buildings that he loves & working in Sembcorp Architects & Engineers Pte Ltd. We also discuss on books that we've read, our mentors, creating habits and dissolving the ego. Lastly, Gabriel shares about his upbringing, where his childhood consisted of living in 4 different parts of Singapore - and what blows my mind is how he felt there is a significant difference when living in different parts of Singapore!!

A huge thanks to Danial Arun for joining me on this podcast session. He's a great friend I met in Beijing through the NUS Overseas College Programme, where undergraduates from the National University of Singapore are sent to various parts of the world to work in startups - Danial and I share about our experiences of working in Beijing! Danial freshly graduated as a Real Estate Major from NUS this year and he shares a little bit about his work here. We talk about our time in Beijing as well as the differences between China universities and Singapore universities - Danial studied at the Peking University for a semester while I was at the TsingHua University for 2 semesters - he shares an interesting perspective of how China students won't ever give up! We also talked about random stuff such as learning videography online and how YouTube had changed our lives - or at least it definitely has for me :)

On this episode, I talk with Tony about how it was like participating in the NUS Overseas College Programme, where undergraduates from the National University of Singapore are sent to various parts of the world to intern at startups - Tony had the privilege to go to Silicon Valley to work as a data analyst at The League, a dating app primarily for singles driven in their professional careers. He also shares more about his side-hustle, Bruce, a gamified CRM for your social circles as well as books that he read - he definitely shares very insightful lessons from books such as Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss and When by Daniel H. Pink - he also answers the long-dreaded question of how to negotiate for your salary!!

Had a great podcast session with Haris, where he shares his journey on how he became a software developer via a Software Bootcamp he joined within 90 days, his experience of working in a Singaporean startup -pslove, and his story of what led to him to quit his full-time job in founding his company -Zukunf - Haris shares how taking the Enneagram of Personality test changed his mindset entirely on pursuing his startup! Definitely a podcast session worth listening to :)

Had the greatest privilege to have Peter all the way from the United States on this podcast! If there's one word I can use to describe Peter, it'll be HUSTLE. This guy quit his well-paying job in the States and of all places, came to Singapore without a job, hustled his way through and landed himself a full-time position in a Singaporean Startup - he worked for free, mimicked the company's website and got his job in an unconventional manner relative to the norm of submitting resumes. Peter talks about being an expat in Singaporean, his story of landing a job at Gym Pod, as well as sharing his side-hustle, Green Guards. I had the chance to share with him in great detail what's my purpose of doing this podcast and learned a great deal about the books that have blown Peter's mind - after all, I LOVE reading books so much! LINK TO GYM POD: https://www.thegympod.com/ LINK TO GREEN GUARDS:https://www.ecogreenguards.com/ PETER'S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/peterlam_17/ PETER'S LINKEDIN PROFILE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterlam94/ MY INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jiang_juuun/ MY LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thamjiangjun/ MY FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/jiangjun.tham PURNAMA BRACELET: https://shoppurnama.com/collections/bracelet The #Learning Podcast is a Singaporean Podcast dedicated to learning new from guests that comes on this show! If you're interested to join me, email me at thamjiangjun@gmail.com or reach me at any of my socials!

Getting an internship with Unilever, 3M and finally getting into the Mondelēz International Commercial Graduate Trainee Programme may probably be a dream for some business students! Thanks so much, Leonard Yap for accompanying me on this podcast session, where he shares his passion for the FMCG industry - we go into great detail discussing the job application process & tips, taking on loans for university, as well as an in-depth discussion on the Commercial Trainee Programme at Mondelēz International. If you're ever interested to apply for it, you should watch this podcast session! I'm only beginning to appreciate how interesting the FMCG industry is... LEONARD INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/leonardero/ LEONARD'S LINKEDIN PROFILE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardyap123/ MY INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jiang_juuun/ MY LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thamjiangjun/ MY FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/jiangjun.tham The #Learning Podcast is a Singaporean Podcast dedicated to learning new from guests that comes on this show! If you're interested to join me, email me at thamjiangjun@gmail.com or reach me at any of my socials!