Musings

It’s a little surreal as I type this but since February 2nd, I have recorded 100 episodes of my podcast.

I started the podcast in 2020 – yep, during the pandemic lockdown but the idea came to me much earlier. In fact, it came to me in 2019, a couple of weeks before I landed in Oahu, Hawaii for a life-changing programme. A programme that I still hold dear in my heart because it gave me the guts to embark on a project that sounded as audacious if not crazy.

I armed myself with my pitch deck and took a terribly long flight (with a transit in Narita Airport) to Oahu, Hawaii. Until then, I had no idea that the pitch deck would become a reality. I was just thinking, “Oh how nice if I could start a podcast!”

I don’t want to repeat myself – you can hear that story in this episode which is also Episode 100 of my Womenpreneur Asia where Padmaja Vaswani, my friend in Mumbai, interviewed me about my podcasting process including how it began.

The Changing Faces Women’s Leadership programme is back again this year and it is open for any woman in the US or Asia or Pacific to apply. The deadline is 8 March 2024.

Each cohort has about 16 to 18 spots (although funding is for 6 to 8 women). If you get in, you receive a fully funded scholarship that is worth US$3,250.

I was lucky and grateful to have received a full scholarship to attend this programme for 2 weeks. All other expenses were on my own such as the US visa, insurance, baggage fees and air tickets.

Some years ago, friends asked me about increasing their chances of getting into this programme.

At the top of their minds was this: what are the programme folks looking for in selecting programme applicants? And of course, the next question, how did I succeed in getting into the programme?

Here’s the answer that I have uncovered.

Your eclectic interests, passions, community projects, body of work. Something unusual, unique, titillating and provocative.

Something in your background that spells value and contribution.

Something in your work that shows you are a leader.

Something that they can pair you up with another participant. (They usually find matching pairs of participants from different countries so that both can share and exchange experiences.)

Something in your work or pitch that they can find you a mentor for (they paired me with a doctor who is also a Hawaii radio host, Dr Kathleen Kozak for an evening together where I watched her record her radio show at the Hawaii Public Radio studio).

Something in your project that would be impactful to your community.

I deduced all these because I was curious how I was selected among the hundreds of applicants from Malaysia.

I asked my programme coordinator, Liz, who remarked quite matter-of-fact that the selection panel saw something attractive in my book adoption centre project that another participant from Fiji could learn from. (My Fijian friend was leading a book community project – a literacy project for children – at that time and I managed to share some ideas and strategies with her during our two weeks in Hawaii.)

That really surprised me.

That also helped me unlock a little of what the selection panel was looking for.

Complementary peers from different countries to help speed up the exchange of ideas that are already working!

But what happens if you don’t make it into the programme?

Does it mean your work isn’t useful or exciting?

Actually, no.

Again, it seems that if the selection panel cannot find a complementary peer or a Hawaiian mentor for the participant, they probably wouldn’t be able to help the participant.

Does it mean you can’t apply again the following year? You are encouraged to apply because circumstances evolve and you might find yourself accepted.

So on that note, if you would like a life-changing experience and visit Hawaii even if it’s for a leadership programme, check out the programme and apply if you meet the criteria. Even if you don’t, share this with friends. Or share my post with friends. 😉

Check it out here: https://www.eastwestcenter.org/apply/2024-changing-faces-womens-leadership-seminar

The closing date for the programme application is 8 March 2024.

Sometimes women need a kick in the butt to get going because we can offer up many excuses why we cannot leave our business, why this is not the right time for us, who would take care of the family and what would we even pitch as a project and head off for 2 weeks to the sparkling islands of Hawaii.

But you can. You have to want to do this badly though.

You have to believe in yourself when you apply.

Here’s a secret: I didn’t even bring my laptop along for the 2 weeks. My Asia Pacific peers were flabbergasted. Almost everyone brought along their laptops. I didn’t think I would need it and I was right.

We had packed days of lectures starting at 8am till 5pm, site visits on Oahu and to Maui the other island, mentor high school girls, learning visits to local businesses, etc. All I wanted to do at the end of each day was to shower, grab dinner and head to bed. And I just borrowed my Sri Lankan friend’s laptop when I needed to fine-tune my Google Slides.

Curious about all the other stuff? Find out more about what I did there in these posts:

https://soupqueen.blogspot.com/2019/08/aloha-and-what-july.html

https://mayakirana.com/2019/04/east-west-centre-changing-faces-seminar-honolulu/

https://mayakirana.com/2022/03/your-chance-to-head-to-hawaii/

One piece of advice: if you do get into the programme, extend your stay and explore the islands. I have one regret that I didn’t do this and I wished I did. After all, I had travelled so many hours and hopped on and off a few planes so I might have made better use of my time there. Two friends from the programme did just this and I am so envious! (It didn’t help that I had to fly back for a conference in Singapore the week after!)

These days I try to keep an open mind about the stuff around me. And yes, today I tried TikTok. I downloaded the app some weeks ago, checked out what videos are on the platform and initially I wasn’t impressed as I was shown a lot of Malaysian videos. I didn’t like those videos because they bordered on trashiness. Yes, I said it. Some of the videos are time-wasters.

Then I searched for people I know from other platforms and luckily I found a few familiar faces.

I followed them and then the videos on my page began to improve. TikTok probably learned that I didn’t care too much for tabloid videos. I started following some communicators, entrepreneurs and social media folks so my video feed improved. (I saw one Malaysian girl with 2 million followers on the platform and I didn’t like her videos at all! Was it funny? Supposedly. Was it useful? No. I felt I had wasted my time scrolling through her silly antics.)

I started asking myself why I was resistant to TikTok and I figured out that I don’t want to waste time. I like making the most out of my time as I am involved in my own business a lot. I like being effective.

I don’t like doing challenges or dance videos or lip-syncing. Trying to get attention for attention’s sake is not what I’m after.

But I do like to try and get a feel of how different this platform is compared to Instagram. And I like being my own guinea pig and figuring things out as I go along. So today I uploaded my first TikTok video.

So what tilted the balance for me?

Exploration and discovery. I don’t know this platform at all and going in with a newbie’s eyes can be thrilling. I have no expectations but I think I can give myself this opportunity to learn and see if it fits me and my personality. I want to use this to market my podcast – I already have audiograms so let’s see if this platform helps with the listens and downloads.

And anyway, I can always use my experience to help my clients because a lot of us are in our 30s and 40s and while I may not always understand the millennials today, I can try checking things out for myself and see if I like it.

Why do people have to be rude? Do they get some secret thrill in being obnoxious and mean to others?

I was thinking about this over breakfast because a friend working at this week’s WCIT 2022 (the World Congress on Innovation and Technology) that’s happening in my part of the world texted me in a huff today.

She is in events and speaker support and part of her role include keeping panellists and speakers taken care of. One particular speaker, a Malaysian woman no less, was utterly rude and “bitchy-faced” to her.

I know this friend and she has been in the events management space for 18 years and has handled all kinds of people from dignitaries to celebrities in all sizes of conferences. She is no newbie to the job.

And that’s why I felt sorry for my friend. It’s the first day of the three-day conference and I’d be upset too if I got such a meanie in my face early in the morning.

What is it in people who can act all uppity and mean and think it’s OK? Are these people lacking a kindness gene or a be-nice gene? What kick do they get out of acting like a prima donna and having their bad reputation get all over the place? Is it a fun thing to do early in the morning?

I had my fair share of meanies too. Once I was recommended by a university friend to contact her long-time friend, A. My friend said A would be perfect for my podcast. I decided to call A after texting her and we agreed to speak.

On the phone, A sounded OK except that she started acting bitchy about 5 minutes into the call. She said she was already widely featured in the media and in no uncertain terms seemed to say, “So how big is your podcast again?”

I told her my podcast wasn’t big – I had just begun in 2020 and I was looking for exciting women in business to spotlight.

She scoffed in my face.

Yes, this Malaysian woman who thought so highly of herself was utterly rude. When she realized she was rude, she tried to backpedal but I said, it’s OK, we don’t have to do anything together.

When I got off the call, I asked myself, what is it with some women who won’t help other women? I was trying to explain to her about my podcast and its purpose but she didn’t think it was big enough for her.

I never give rude people second chances. I swore to myself that I will NEVER invite her to be on my podcast. I have interviewed many women in business and many are just regular women who have no airs. They’re down-to-earth, humble and happy to share their stories. Even the ones who have been interviewed a gazillion times by other media.

But I take the rejection as a lesson for me to be smarter in choosing who I wish to interview and spotlight. Why should I give the spotlight to someone who doesn’t deserve it? Someone who thinks she is better than all of us?

I reminded myself that for that one bitchy woman who derided my request that there are hundreds of other women who will be supportive and even grateful.

Why do some women have to be bitchy to one another when we know how tough it is to do what we each do?

Why do some women compete when they can collaborate?

Why do some women feel compelled to show off and act like the queen when it’s not warranted?

Are these women insecure?

So if you’ve had experiences like mine, I need to know, how do you handle rude people?

When things get to busy, I try to take a pause and recollect and reflect. This is how I attain some form of peace in my life and also check myself, to see if I’ve been doing too much or “running” too fast.

Many friends I know often exclaim that I do a lot.

And yesterday, I started to believe it when I had to write and submit a profile of community work I had done to someone who was nominating me for something. The fact that she said she wanted to nominate me was itself an honour.

I read through what I submitted to her and realized I have been contributing in my own way to the development of women through WomenBizSENSE and then through the Penang State via Penang Women’s Development Corporation (PWDC).

Granted, I do sit on the board of PWDC as a director (I’d rather just call it committee member) but unlike most directorships where it’s clear who calls the shots and who does the work, the board of directors at PWDC is very much hands-on. I’m truly proud to be with some of the smartest women in Penang on this board.

I was nominated to sit on the board sometime in 2018 and I have taken my role quite seriously because I have come to realize too that women in decision-making roles can impact other women. I never take the role lightly as I know what I say or do can help a woman in Penang (PWDC runs many women-focused programmes as part of their goal to transform Penang into a more gender-inclusive community).

When friends tell me that I’m doing a lot, I believe them. I do quite a fair bit BUT and here’s the disclaimer, I am having fun!

I’ve always reiterated this be it to my mentees or friends; you always need to have fun at whatever you’re doing, pro bono or paid.

Paid is where business is and that’s where I also take it that I must have fun. If I am not having fun, it is time to change up the business or find a new focus or a new angle.

In pro bono work, I must always know that I am enjoying it. If I am not, something is seriously wrong and I could be the wrong one for the role. And yes, if it is not the right role, I will these days leave or at least let others take the helm.

In the community work that I do, I always remember why I am doing it. Fiscally it won’t make the money that can be made through commerce. But if I look at it non-fiscally, I know that the rewards are greater than the physical money. I’ve been amply rewarded with the kindness of friends and people I associate with and with it, a lot of trust.

One mentee told me recently that she was absolutely delighted to find out that I was her mentor in the Penang Women Entrepreneurship Mentoring Programme (that will end after 6 months this 31 March). She had heard of me and known my work way before she applied to be a mentee.

I spent every Saturday afternoon, 4 to 5 hours, virtually with my group of mentees together with a co-mentor Dr Intan beginning last October to coach and guide these fledgeling entrepreneurs. It wasn’t my first mentoring experience but it was interesting to guide 6 women. In the past, I’ve had at most 2 mentees maximum and our engagement was about a few hours a month.

I could’ve done a lot of things every Saturday from 1.30pm to 5.30pm but I chose to dedicate and give my time to help 6 women understand the foundation of business from crafting their mission and vision to building up their Business Model Canvas to figuring out how they would price their products, to developing their marketing channels and more. It has been intensely rewarding as I see them gain confidence not only in business but also in their presentation skills.

Helping people has always been in me. When I was 8 years old, my late mum used to berate me as I was on the phone helping a classmate, A, with her homework. A was rather lazy and never did her homework but at the last minute she’d phone me to ask for answers. In those days, the phone was a bulky, black device. I felt bad and wondered why my mum didn’t like me helping A. I guess my mum saw through A and wanted to prevent A from taking advantage of me.

But I constantly remind myself, that whether I am helping people or not, I have to take care of the rocks, pebbles, sand and water of life. Remembering this aligns me to what I need to focus on the most. Rocks represent the important things in life – family, health, spirituality and friends.

Pebbles are things like job, car, business and home while sand is just everything else that fills up the day. Finally water? That’s the recreation part of life. So if you’ve seen the video of how a jar can be filled up with all these four things, you’d understand how we need to take care of the big things in our lives first. That’s where the importance lies.

Many people take care of the pebbles and wonder they need to work so hard or fear so much (the fear of losing something and usually it is material). Many forget the rocks and later come to regret why they’re lonely or are ill or again, purpose-less.

I believe we need to strike a healthy balance between the rocks, pebbles and sand.

One of the most life-changing books I read just out of university was Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad but unlike many, I didn’t rush out to grab the real estate so that I could rent them out to others. His book taught me about doodads – those useless things we think we need but really don’t. Many people honestly have too many doodads in their lives which sometimes can be those pesky pebbles that start to run our lives.

I have friends who bought into the real estate idea with so much enthusiasm that later on, they got into trouble as they feared not being able to pay for 4 mortgages (yes, I have friends with not one but 4 mortgages plus a growing family). I have a friend who tells me he wants to retire at 40 and run a non-profit (he’s sick of his job). I have another friend who wants to dispose of her KL apartments cheaply (as she can’t juggle the mortgages anymore).

See what I mean by taking on too many doodads? If you take on doodads and can handle them all, more power to you. But most people can’t and we wonder why all those “make money in your pajamas” or “make passive income” courses get so popular?

To complement that book, I also read Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which set the tone for who I wanted to be in my life. I believe I am an effective person because I chose to do what I believe makes me happy and fulfilled. These 2 books should be required reading for anyone who is fresh out of university.

These books helped me think smarter about the world at large and helped me see where I should place my focus on.

What about you? What has helped you become who you are today?

How have you grown since this covid-19 quarantine or lockdown? I saw so many friends sharing their cooking and finished dishes; some went full force into baking while others discovered newer recipes.

Initially, I was all gung-ho but then I realized that I’d rather spend my time elsewhere! I think I worked more during the lockdown and I have never been more productive business-wise!

So here’s a secret: I prefer working, strategising, thinking of what delicious projects I want to create rather than working up a sweat in the kitchen. It is also not a very good ROI for me as there’s only me and Nic. There’s so much of cake and muffins I can eat in a day. Hence, I’d rather support some local business and buy cakes from them!

I also conquered some of my fears – I went on FB Live so many times (the last I counted, I was on 9 FB Live sessions, 1 webinar of my own and 3 closed-door Zoom meetings where I had to present, host or moderate).

I never thought I’d be saying that I actually enjoyed doing the FB Live sessions. I enjoyed talking to my guests – many of whom are clients and friends. (And the results have been incredible for some of them – Dr Somas immediately got swamped with appointments. But this was my intention anyway – to help our clients get some spotlight during this quiet time.)

When I first conceived of the idea, I pitched Vimi and immediately she said yes. We both can talk for hours so it was no surprise that our first FB Live garnered a bit of attention and eyeballs.

If you want to watch all the FB Live sessions, head on over to our Youtube channel. I’ve posted all the videos in Youtube as FB has this annoying way of burying all the good stuff under the more recent posts.

The lockdown enabled me to work on what truly mattered – my own projects. Over the years, I’ve struggled with this prioritisation. I had so many interesting projects on the side. But we also had to manage website projects for clients.

So this time, I put myself first. I started working on my own podcast while I was working on contacting people for FB Live. I tend to work on parallel mode now which means 2 projects can be running side-by-side especially if they share similar characteristics.

The podcast and FB Live share many similarities in terms of processes – contacting people, talking to them (prepping them before the recording or the Live session) and ensuring I have the questions ready days before. There’s this peculiarity among all my interviewees (even the seasoned ones) that they want to know what questions are coming at them even though they know how to answer them spontaneously!

I discovered this parallel method by accident. But it works for me as I get double the amount of work done, and double the results (or maybe even more). This is similar to batch processing which I also use when I schedule interviews to record. I aim for 2 interviewees in a day if I am doing interviewees that day (for my podcast). This gets me in the mindset of interviews and keeps the momentum going.

I discovered this method during my language learning with Duolingo. I’ve been a fan of using Duolingo to help me learn small chunks of language daily. I find that switching my brain to something non-business helps me relax and learning a foreign language is even more relaxing.

I was using the app to learn Spanish (have been doing so for more than 2 years now) until I realise I could add another language while I’m inside the app. I decided to add Mandarin. I speak it but I want to recognise the characters. Definitely my Mandarin is much better than my Spanish but I spend at least 10-15 minutes nightly learning both languages. There’s something about switching from “Yo no tengo vestidos verdes” to “Wo he lao shi zuo tian qu ta lan qiu” that makes my brain more alert. The patterns are different and that’s what invigorates mine.

One day I thought if I could learn 2 languages at the same time without missing a beat, what about doing 2 similar projects? Of course in business, we often handle multiple web design projects at a time but that’s something familiar that I’ve been doing for a long time (16 years to be exact).

As a result, I looked at my FB Live and podcast as learning projects. I am learning as I go. I am not completely familiar with each one but as Marie Forleo says, everything is figureoutable.

One of my proudest moments was editing my own podcast and through that process, I now know how to use Garageband! I literally recorded, produced and combined everything in Garageband so I was pretty pleased with myself. One achievement unlocked.

My podcast is in the process of being created as I am going to record all 13 episodes before launching it. This was the project that I presented in Hawaii last year during the Changing Faces programme. (I have recorded the episode where I explain the genesis of this podcast and what it means to me and why so you just have to wait and listen to it.)

A year ago in Hawaii when I was presenting this project to my peers and to Liz of the East-West Center, I had no freaking idea how I was going to make it happen. I knew how to communicate but that was about all I know. I had no idea what it took to make it happen technically. I had no idea what kinds of equipment/software I needed to do all this. I had planned to buy a mic but then COVID happened and I just made do with my earbuds and the mic that came with it. Just shows that it was never about the equipment. It was about me and my readiness to jump into it.

The figuring things out, the initial frustration, the technical setup – learning all these in the past 3 months is far more enriching than baking a cake. I still enjoy cooking and all but I believe my skills are far more useful in other matters – interviewing, researching, learning and pushing myself so far out that I’m hanging by the skin of my nails.

If you’ve never felt nervous doing something, it means what you’re doing is already bordering routine. It signals that you’re ready for something new, unexplored and nerve-wracking. What is that nerve-wracking thing to you? Go and make that happen. And when you made that happen, come back here and leave me a comment! Or email me.