Ep625: Adrian Choo and Sze-Yen Chee – The Great Career Paradox

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning in our community. We know that to win in investing, you must take risks, but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. And that's what this podcast is all about. I want to go back in time to Episode 495, where I interviewed Adrian Choo and Adrian's here, Adrian, good to see you.

Adrian Choo 00:32
Great to be back here. Andrew. It's always a wonderful experience speaking with you. Yeah. And

Andrew Stotz 00:37
I've really enjoyed our discussion and just for the audience there what I titled that one was get business expertise before starting your own. And you've got a special guest with you, maybe, Adrian, why don't you introduce your fantastic guests.

Adrian Choo 00:53
Okay, she's more than a guest. She's my executive director and co-founder and business partner Sze-Yen Chee. She is, she's been advised along the journey of career agility international accompany which we started back in 2017. And the past five years has been a ridiculously exciting journey, where we've grown from strength to strength and Yen's background has been in headhunting as well as in career coaching. So yeah, and you want to do a quick intro on yourself as well.

Sze-Yen Chee 01:22
I think you've done it for me. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew, for having us today. So a very quick intro, I've been coaching now for over 1718 years, I had hunted for about eight years and started my career a long time ago in sales. And I'm very excited to be here today.

Andrew Stotz 01:42
Well, I'm happy to meet you. And also happy to see you, Adrian again. And maybe the first thing to kick off is just let's just discuss, what is your business? Who is the type of person that you serve? What type of, you know, what do you bring to your clients? Before we get into the topic of today's your latest book, so but before we do that, let's talk about your business what you guys are doing.

Adrian Choo 02:06
Fantastic. Thanks a lot, Andrew. So well, no, in my years of headhunting, what I found out was there were a lot of people who have career questions, and they had no way to return to. And as a result, no, they went to places like YouTube, or they ask friends about it. And these were not the most reliable sources of information for career advice or strategy. So that's when I decided way back to pivot from headhunting itself into the career strategy consulting piece. And that's where we started creativity International. And we aim to help individuals like many of our listeners here today, to be able to get the Career Clarity needed for them to enjoy their careers and to achieve a meaningful career success that matters to them. So over the years, we've been have running this practice, and Yan has been instrumental in the growth along this journey as well. And because of your extensive experience in career coaching, the two of us have been growing this practice. And we're the only ones in Asia, if not the world, to be running a career strategy consulting practice that there so we don't look, we don't help people to look for jobs. Right? Yeah,

Sze-Yen Chee 03:14
we don't just help them look for jobs. And the metaphor I like to use quite frequently is that our clients need to understand our audience needs to understand that the career is a very long journey. And to many individuals, myopia in the sense that they just prepare for the wedding. And they forget to plan for the marriage, which is, which is a very, very long, and not necessarily others, but it is something that requires, you know, looking after and nurturing and so a lot of what we do is to help individuals manage the career ups and downs, little things that can the changes that are uncomfortable. We give them some clarity, we give them some scaffolding, you give them some support, to understand that it's a safe place for them, and they don't have to journey alone.

Andrew Stotz 04:07
I was thinking about when I started my career, I graduated with a bachelor's degree in financing from Cal State Long Beach. And they Pepsi came on campus and interviewed by chance I got a job with them to work in the factory, and which was fantastic in Los Angeles. And I did my MBA while I was working there because I just got to get this done. And then and then but you know, all along, I kind of enjoyed what I was doing, but I just knew there was more. I wanted more out of my life and out of my career. So I was just exploring, which I'm sure a lot of young people are doing and then I got an offer. I I traveled around Asia, I came to Thailand, and I thought well, this would be interesting. So I applied for a job teaching finance. I taught finance for one year and I just realized no this is not really for me for full time. I'm not gonna make any money. And it's just like, if you get through in the politics in, in a university, it's like, disaster, you know? Yes. So I applied for a job, I became an analyst and I was 28 years old, I sat down at that desk, and I can remember feeling like, like the heavens open, the light shine down on my desk. And I realized like this, being an analyst is what I was made for. That was 30 years ago. And to this day, I'm still charged up about analyzing and thinking about things. And I'm just curious, like, that was kind of my journey. And many people are surprised that it took two out of 28 to kind of find what I love. Um, but I'm just curious, like, what is it typical experiences that you're seeing people face these days in their journey?

Sze-Yen Chee 05:49
Can I just address a little bit on your story of your history and your background? When you describe the generic wisdom, I think of being told, in fact, from a young age, study hard, get a degree, get a master's degree, and then the heavens will open up right there. And then. And that's not necessarily true. And that's a myth that we've been working to address. And then your journey of self discovery of exploring, I think that's very common for a lot of people. And this is to answer your question in their 20s, to want to explore, but what you were already doing was to instinctively gravitate towards the things that interested you. And that's what a lot of us do anyway, we gravitate towards the things we like, because we you know, the things we don't and we're gonna be repelled by it via numbers, we just don't get along. I knew from day one that I was never going to be an accountant or a finance in any form. There's no way because I can't math. And so instinctively, I gravitated towards the human element. And then that's when I did sales, and I'm doing the consulting, I'm doing the helping bits. So quick answer to your question is that your journey is very typical of everyone's journey. It's sometimes we need to go out into the world to explore it a little bit before we kind of settle into a sweet spot of sorts. And that's okay. And so yeah, it's very common. Yeah.

Andrew Stotz 07:25
I was also thinking about, you know, there's some people that they don't, they advise you, like, don't change jobs. And you know, and there's a lot of people that are looking for a job to just lock into that security. And when people asked me, What's your advice for having a happy career? And I always say, quit a lot. Because, because the one thing you don't know, what's out there, you know, what opportunities are out there, it's hard to understand or feel whether those things are right or wrong, but what you're in right now, today, you understand well, and if it's not something that you enjoy, and it's not getting the best out of you, then I had the guts to quit many times, you know, at different times in my life to say, Okay, I don't know where I'm going, necessarily, but I know, this isn't where I want to be. What is your thought about that process? I mean, not telling people to quit sounds like a pretty

Adrian Choo 08:29
I wouldn't, we don't recommend quitting as your first option in any in whenever you encounter difficulties or any situation, which is, which puts you in a tight spot, because sometimes the discomfort causes growth. But there are situations where if you look at it, and in the bigger scheme of things, it doesn't tie up with your grand with your grand career strategy, then if it doesn't fit in with your value system, or if it's if the situation is unfixable and unwinnable okay? Or you just had enough of it, and it's affecting your health, your mental wellness and your emotional well being, then maybe it's time for you to quit. But the big question is, quitting is easy. Okay, I have a friend who is a chain smoker, and he says, quitting is easy. I quit five times a day, you know. It's, it's, it's what do you do next? Where do you go for next, because it's not just about looking for a job if you're not too happy in your role. And if you jumped in another job, you might be getting into more of something that you don't like. So that's why we always believe in Career Clarity, and yen. Any thoughts about explaining a bit more about Career Clarity?

Sze-Yen Chee 09:40
I was thinking about Andrews phrase, quit a lot, or at least have the courage to quit. I think a lot of our listeners and a lot of the clients that we speak to are paralyzed by fear. And so the courage aspect, absolutely. But I think what Andrew meant about quitting a lot is at least Understanding that he's got a curiosity about the world and wanting to go out and find out, find something. So don't just quit as if it's a push factor, but to look for the pool factor to look for, what is it that will help hopefully help make your soul sing a little bit. And so coming back to the point about Career Clarity, is that sometimes when our clients are very emotional, about something that's making them unhappy, they're unable to pin down rationally, because they're emotional. They just say things like, I want a better job, I want a better boss, I want a better company. I want to be happy. I want a good job, where are the good employers? And then we have to sit them down, and I guess peel back the layers and help them understand what they mean by better. Is it money? Or is it something else? Most of the time, it's not money,

Adrian Choo 10:54
in fact, just to share an idea with you, which is an extension of what you just said, you know, we had a client once said, I am not happy in my job. And we are saying and when you asked her why. And she said, because I'm not being paid enough for this. So what happened is that no, then we said, How much more do you want to be paid for it? And she said, No, I should deserve at least a 30-40% pay. Because of the increased workload. Everything I'm doing now in I'm always almost doing two persons work. So you know, if I got, I'm not being paid enough, and that was her pain point where she felt. But then we asked her a hypothetical question. If you were given that race 50% event? Would you be happy? If you say, of course, I'd be happy. But for how long? Can she possibly say, you know, two or three months, because it's this, you realize it's not the money, that's the problem or not, it's not not enough money, it's just the workloads untenable in the long run. So sometimes you feel that it's a pain, the pain that you feel outside is like, ouch, it's like, No, you go to a doctor, you know, I got a pain in my wrist. And then you think that it's just something else. But it could be something else that's causing that pain that's doing so we need them to clarity to find out. And that's why our clients come to us to, to get a bit of that therapy, we wouldn't think about it. Okay, the clarity. Now we peel away the onion layers. And, and you know, whenever we use the onion, the onion metaphors, because when you peel away the onion, onion, layer by layer, right? You cry a lot. So it's, it's a painful process, but it's something which you sometimes need to do it because you have to uncover what is the source of your discomfort, it could be a trigger, it could be a cost. And until you identify what's bugging you, really, it's not going to help you to jump into another job that directly address you're going to be having more of the same.

Andrew Stotz 12:38
Yeah, I mean, it makes sense to go down to the core, you know, I mean, ultimately, all we have is ourselves in this world, you know, like if, if we can't go deeper into ourselves and ask why and how are we feeling and that type of stuff, then, you know, what is there. So I think that self discovery is such a valuable process, I was just teaching a short class on ethics, in finance, in for about 50 students in India. And what I was telling them is that, you know, first of all, I have a job that I love, and I've enjoyed all my life, I've done it at different companies. And now I have my own company. But ultimately, I'm an analyst. And the second thing is that I have lived in ethical life, and I never had any complaints against me from the regulator here in the financial industry. I was a leader in CFA society for Chartered Financial Analysts without any problems or complaints. And I've never had any big issues like that. And so I try to explain to the students that if you, I have a lecture I called 10 ways ethics adds value to you. And I just talked about different words, like being confidential, being trustworthy, being diligent, you know, these types of words. And the point that I was trying to get across to them is that you can build a happy and ethical career that you can have for the rest of your life. And I'm just wondering, from your experience, you see a lot of different people. Are people happy? Are people, you know, able to live this ethical life and career or are they under all kinds of different pressures that they don't know how to deal with?

Sze-Yen Chee 14:12
I know, I see a lot of individuals who are currently under a lot of mental pressure. The world is very different. In fact, I was just talking to my kids at lunch, that we were just talking about a specific video that came up in YouTube. It was something that we enjoyed, and when was this and we said I think it's pre COVID. So what we might time today is like a before and after COVID and how certain things or amplify certain stresses and so painful. I think the wall that defines us today at work is extremely tough. It's so different. It's so different than what it used to be so What hasn't changed, though? Is that at the crux of it, what's the common denominator here? What are we all here to do, we're all here to do something meaningful. And we want to find, I guess, some level of satisfaction and contentment, whether or not you do it through ethics, or through giving of yourself through something that makes you happy, doing a job that's very challenging or doing something that gives you the job title, the gravitas, the levels, the respect, every one of us, are driven by different things. So I recognize that and I'm learning very hard not to judge

Adrian Choo 15:45
the answer discussion a step further. Because when it comes to ethics, a lot of times there's a fine line drawing drawn between what's ethical and what's not, you know, do I cheat a customer? Do I not cheat the customer Do I like? So it's, there's normally a fine line drawn, and not always, but usually, there is the downside, you know, it is I think, what's more important is, however, the small fudgy is this idea of values, your own personal values. And a lot of times, what we see is that some of the people in their careers that really speak to the work they do, that's not aligned with their own values. And that causes dissonance within themselves. For and I'm not just talking about whether I don't smoke, but I joined a tobacco company, I mean, that's quite clear cut that that would, that would cause a lot of dissonance in your own in the first week, you would probably want to work there in the first place. But values in terms of like, you know, I value work life balance, but my boss doesn't. And then I bend over to accommodate him or a company's culture. And then there's love dissonance and I'm unhappy. And then it causes stresses, not just to your emotional well being, it spills over to the family, it spills over to your physical and into your family, then the own personal life. So a lot of times we talk about values, what are your values that are important to you, you're having you're having autonomy, that's a value, being able to me on decisions. But you know, if the values of your bosses or the people around you doesn't gel, that is a bit more painful. So we walked through and we asked them, you know, what are your values? Are they congruent, your organization's values congruent to yours. And if it's something that causes a lot of dissonance, then you might want to once again, quit and look for something better.

Andrew Stotz 17:29
Yeah, I mean, I just the exercise of clarifying your values, I'm sure is very powerful for your clients. You know, this, this gives a great background on kind of what you guys do and what you're about, but not to get you on the show, because you recently published a book, and I wanted you to talk a little bit about it. Yeah, we've got. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about why you publish, tell us the book, why you've published it. We'll have links in the show notes and all that so that people can follow up and check it out. But give us a little background on what the book is why you did it, you know, and that type of thing.

Adrian Choo 18:09
Well, the book was written, it's a joint authorship between Indian and myself. Because for the longest time, especially over COVID, know, we noticed that once again, the values changed. The old values of let's work hard, let's get lots of money. And let's focus on building our careers. Pre COVID, what I always call BC, before COVID, not five BC means five years before COVID. So BC, it was all about that. But we noticed a shift during COVID itself, and now post COVID. Okay, what we're seeing is that there's a shift in values. And that shift in values is right now manifesting itself in the form of quiet quitting, manifesting itself in terms of the great resignation. And now there's a new term I'm learning, it's called about wanting to go after the soft life, which is taking things easier. So it's all manifesting itself in this fashion. And a lot of people are still coming to terms with that. And that's why you wanted to write a book to amalgamate and put together all the ideas that we've seen the career concepts, and a lot of it, a lot of these ideas are counter to what we were taught as kids. Okay. So, in fact, one of the reasons why we named the book The Great career paradox, is because we noticed some very interesting trend, in that a lot of people I mean, there are people out there who believe that in order to achieve personal happiness, I must have career success. And they drive their career success so hard, you know, you work so hard for it. They don't care about other things in their life or their health, their family, other things that are equally important, and they achieve their success. And yet they feel empty inside. And they say, oh, to fill up that gap. I'm going to work harder in my career to get even more successful. So the more successful they become, the happier they become. And hence A Korea paradox that you cannot achieve happiness through just your career alone. And that's why we want to shift the thinking for you to for our readers to break out their career paradox. And then how then why? Right then.

Sze-Yen Chee 20:14
So to add on to that, the point I'm trying to make is that this book is to put together all of the wisdom that we have in helping our readers to manage these little speed bumps in this very bumpy thing called career journey. And so if we can help you take care of the career path aspects of your life, or at least be aware of what you can do to manage your career a lot better. That gives you a lot more bandwidth and time and attention and mind space for the things that really matter. And that includes your family, or your hobbies, or your health and other things. So let us help you, you know, figure out the strategies and give you that clarity a little bit in the book, the scaffolding the frameworks, and the logic and the points of view different points of view,

Adrian Choo 21:05
to shift your thinking,

Sze-Yen Chee 21:06
right, to help you take care of the career so that you've got buying space for everything else,

Adrian Choo 21:11
if you want, one of the big things that we want to dispel is that it's that your career is everything, okay? A job, just a job, honestly, and you're more than your career, you know, you can fail in your career, but you haven't failed in life. And if you feel in your career, it's just one episode of your career, just a job, you know, you can recover, you can try something else. And it's okay, you're still you'll still come out on top, okay. But if you are successful in your career, but if you fail in your health, that sucks that that is a bit tougher, or if you're if you fail in a family matter, or whatever it is, okay, that's even more important in your career, then that's been hard to get out of. So that's why we believe that you know, you're more than your career. And that's why we get a bit upset. Whenever we hear people giving advice, so called Career gurus ago, you must find a job you're passionate about. Because if you're passionate about your job, you will never have worked a single day in your life. And we disagree with that. I mean, it's nice to have if you have and most of these people have already made like a bazillion dollars, and then they're doing the stuff which they like. But what about mere mortals and normal people who are struggling, right? You want me to get purpose and function of purpose and passion and fulfillment in my job? Yeah. But then it may not pay me as much and I got bills to pay. Right. So. So we want to shift the thinking into Yeah, okay, the career, our job is just one angle. One is a source of us, for us to get resources for us to do the other stuff that we love, like podcast, doing a podcast, you

Sze-Yen Chee 22:41
know, we're not we're not saying that you shouldn't strike? No, obviously, you shouldn't drive your career you should. But we're saying don't kill yourself. Because it's all about balance. Remember that phrase, right? I mean, no one's ever at this deathbed saying, I wish I'd spent more time I

Andrew Stotz 22:59
wish I had answered those emails.

Sze-Yen Chee 23:04
Need me? It's critical, and I helped them save another 5%. And then, but if you're not there, they just replace you. So you know, we're not saying the opposite, you know, because sometimes the message gets a little bit garbled, and people interpret it differently. Because when you say chasing success, it's not everything. Oh, I quit. No, that's not that's not what we're saying, either. You know, they just say you should drive. And I think in different decades of your growth in your 20s, you do want to accumulate more funds, because then you can do the fire, which is financial independence, retire, financial, or whatever it is that drives you, right? So do it, the total,

Andrew Stotz 23:45
I'm thinking when I'm listening to you guys talk, I'm thinking like a bell curve, or a normal distribution, the people out on one end of that bell curves are gonna be happy and passionate and crazy and excited and like that. And then you've got a people out on the other side that is going to always be unhappy and no passion and no matter what. And a lot of times the advice that people give is for people that are in the middle to start to become the extreme like, and that's not necessarily what suits them. And that's what I'm hearing when I'm hearing the way you guys are describing what you're talking about.

Sze-Yen Chee 24:23
Yeah, just okay. I'm very philosophical about this because we get all sorts of messages online and everywhere. We're in and data, it's just coming at us from all shapes and sizes, and everyone's saying whatever it is that they feel is important to them. I think that as listeners or as seekers of the truth, you have to find the truth that is that that fits you. And sometimes we beat ourselves up for not having found our career passion, or we wish we found a career purpose and that's okay if you don't because your career is a means to an end. You find your purpose elsewhere. It's okay to. And we all wear multiple hats. Yeah, multiple identities. You're not, you're not two dimensional.

Adrian Choo 25:08
Yeah, or one dimension.

Andrew Stotz 25:12
It's interesting, because I think when we're young, I was just starting with a very young student of mine, who was just saying, I want to go into maybe investment banking. But when I hear about how hard you got to work in there, I'm wondering about that. And we were talking about that a little bit. And then I also look at myself, I mean, I've always worked pretty hard, for sure. But, um, there was a time, I'm also working hard for freedom. So part of one of my values now that you guys started, you got me thinking about values, one of my values is the ability to have some freedom in my life. So when I set up my own business, after working very hard for many years, one of the things I did is I went to live with my mom and dad, one month, every six months. So I would leave Thailand and I would fly to North Carolina, set up in the guest room at my parents house. And I would spend one month working from there. So I was still working. But I was able to be with my mom and dad in the last three years of my dad's life. I was there

Adrian Choo 26:14
every six months. That's priceless, right?

Andrew Stotz 26:16
Yeah. And so that's. So all the hard work I did before was worth it for what I valued. And now, my mother lives with me here since my dad passed away. And you know, what, the way I work from home and my office is nearby, so I go to the office sometimes, but most of time I'm at home, because I start very early and all of that. But basically, every single morning, I have coffee with my mom, and I wow, breakfast with my mom, I have lunch with my mom and I have dinner with my mom. And I just think that, you know that again, it comes back to values. And I think most people that know me know, yeah, I'm working pretty hard and all that but in able to spend that time with my mom. Yeah.

Adrian Choo 27:01
A lot of times you can take that back. Yeah. And a lot of times No, you do if we have to ask ourselves, what are we working too hard for? You know, sometimes we hear people will busy professionals and they got no time for their family. They're traveling all the time. And you ask why are you doing it for and they say, I'm doing it for my kids? And we go Are you sure you're doing heavy check with your kids that they want you to come back at 11? Every night? No travel for four weeks in a month? How is that? Have you checked your kids? are usually really doing for your kids? Or is it just an excuse to see, so we have to remember our if anyone wants to talk about the purpose of their life? You know, that's the real purpose. What's the purpose of you working? You know, it's not just about your job? Is your purpose? What's your purpose that the job is fulfilling? It's not the other way around. So,

Andrew Stotz 27:48
you know, when you describe that situation, I'm sure that a lot of people feel like, Yeah, but if I let off the gas, and I stopped working all that time, you know, things are gonna fall apart, I'm not going to have, I'm not going to do as well on my job, I'm not going to make the money, how do you help people to let off that gas a little bit to you know, take their foot off the gas a bit and start to get more out of their life.

Sze-Yen Chee 28:11
I think our job is not to help them take the foot off the gas pedal is to help them understand when, why and what for. Once they do that, I think it would happen. The thing is, if we tell them what to do, that's not going to happen. And that's us imposing our values on them. And maybe for them, it's seasonal, just like you. You worked really hard in the early stages, so that you can have the autonomy later. But maybe for some of us, we don't want to have that. We don't want to give it up at all. So we will just strive for something in a happy no gear gear for we don't have to be on gear seven, you know, and so everyone's different, because they've all got different, I guess, levels of motivators, and drivers

Adrian Choo 29:00
and different stages of their life and everything, right? So. So, you know, it's all about knowing what you want, knowing what's important for you at that phase in life. And you don't know what the answer is no, you don't have to drive on a high gear all the time. It's, you're going to spoil that gear if you drive on all the time, if you go on, you know what I mean, right? If you go all the way all the way in. So the whole idea is this. It's about knowing about seasons, like what Dan said, Okay, it's about knowing when to pull back because otherwise you're gonna burn out. And if you're, if you're burnt out, you're absolutely no use to anyone around you until you recover. So it's like the same way right now our approach to our fault or to our clients and their careers. We tell our clients that you should approach your career like athlete like a professional athlete approaches that spots on their chosen of their chosen field. You know, you never see these athletes training and training and working so hard all the way until the injury or break a bone or something right you know when to pull back in How do you know which muscle to work which muscle to rest, they need to know which skills they can pick up from what what, who to observe what mentors to have what coaches to do employ, so they can be better at their jobs. And, and they treat it like a skill, like a craft, like a science. And that's how we should all approach our careers.

Andrew Stotz 30:18
You, you both actually, I think mentioned seasons. And I'm also thinking that what you're talking about can help us become better bosses to, to understand to two things that I'm learning from you. Number one is that not everybody is driven by the goal of you know, I want to, you know, achieve all of this stuff, you know, they just, they want to have a happy job, and they don't want to push everything to the limit. And if as a boss, you understand the different motivations of the different people. That's a valuable lesson that you're sharing. The second thing that I was thinking about is that things go in seasons. And I remember when, you know, when my father passed away when my sister passed away many years ago, yeah, I was just depressed. I mean, I wasn't able to produce at the same level that I was before. And I think that as a boss, you got to understand that there's all kinds of seasons that people are going through. And so having the ability to understand that seems like you get more out of your workforce, if you are good at that.

Sze-Yen Chee 31:25
Yeah, so one of the things that we're getting a lot of traction is with our corporate clients, in helping their leaders understand this new skill called Career jewelry coaching. We help them with the frameworks to have these career conversations. So that they can motivate their people and optimize I guess, their productivity, but also to help their indiv. Their team members learn to be agile themselves. Because the idea being that we are the drivers of our career, we should not relinquish control of our careers to the company, we should help ourselves and we are in the driver's seat, we manage our careers. And so if there's some level of understanding, and on top of that, it's a quick segue, we have a tool that helps our clients, you know, have the data so that they can have more productive conversations. I think that's getting a lot of traction. And just to share with you very quickly, my husband has a job that travels fairly, fairly often, I have three kids. And as they were growing up, I had to be at least the one to manage the household. And I knew I couldn't stray too far. I mean, it's I think, not very pleasant to have to schedule each other's time and decide when are we going to meet at some airport somewhere, as he's flying off to somewhere and I'm coming back from somewhere, I don't think that's going to be very healthy. So we made a decision that I would downshift a little bit. So I've been downshifting. For the longest time in the world that I do, and having taken control of my career, made a decision and found the gigs, that would keep me going at a happy clip. And it's an ongoing engine that hasn't slowed down since but it's not the engine that would take me out of the country. And I'm very, very happy to say to report that I've been present for my children as much as I can. One thing that's very important for me. So that's, that's just a quick peek into the career agility part of it, and how our b2b clients and corporate clients very interested in this in this part of it,

Adrian Choo 33:41
and that's why, you know, I knew we were talking about your purpose in life, you know, it's not just about can this job fulfill my purpose, but now it's this job in line with my in line with my purpose, not to fulfill my purpose. So like for yours case, the whole purpose is I want to be there for a family and that's unshakable. Therefore, let's choose the career options that fit that for myself, you know, besides also being very family oriented. One of my biggest fears in life since I was a young kid, okay. has always been a financial insecurity. Class. I didn't grow up rich. Yeah, I grew up. I wouldn't say I grew up poor either. What I always joke is they are always in one. Never in need, but always in one. Okay. But then I grew up in that situation where I was always financially insecure. And that's why even in my secondary school I was doing I was running small little businesses here selling comics, I was always hustling as a kid. As I grew older, my first job in Shell, I had this concept suddenly of job security, but in 97, and yet, that's about the same time you went to Thailand. There was when a crisis hit and shallowest divorce was retrenching people for the first time and I looked and I said, Look, there's no such thing as job security anymore. You have to figure out a way to move away from job security because Job security just means that you're hoping the company doesn't fire you. For me, it's more about career security. Can I have A set of skills where I don't have to be completely dependent. And for me, I chose the path of headhunting as the career skill that I had, which was company independent, you know, I could start my own company, I could do whatever it was the same, I guess a similar reason why you did what you did right? independently. So it's about career security. And for me, that has been my driving force, even starting, when I started here, hunting was on the decline back in 2020. In the mid 2015 60s, I pivoted into career coaching. And that's why, once again, it's about career security. So that's what we're saying is this. You need to know the purpose in your life? And how do we then plot your career strategy around that purpose, but you must have the clarity or what's what's important to you. You know, why

Andrew Stotz 35:47
you use the word paradox in your title. And I thought about a paradox that I was thinking about as, as I was preparing for this, and that is, I was asked to go speak to the regulators in Thailand and the Securities and Exchange Commission A while ago, and they were trying to think about the problem that Thailand is facing is that people are getting old before they're accumulating, you know, the society is getting all before it's accumulated a lot of wealth. So people don't have much to retire on. And so they're trying to figure out how to get people to see more invest more in America, of course, we have 401, k's and all these different things that they're trying to do. So they wanted to talk to me about that. And so I went to talk to them, I said, but I said, you know, don't forget, in Thailand, you have the most successful retirement scheme in the history of time. And they're like, What, and I said, it's called family. And when I was out, when I go out and speak and do stuff, a lot of my Thai friends say to me, you know, I see how much time you spend with your mom. And I feel like I don't spend enough time with my mom. And, you know, like, my family and all that. And I always tell my Thai friends, I learned this from you. I learned this from you 30 years here, observing the way that people in Asia, connect with their family and stay connected with their family. And so one of the things that I wanted to think what I was thinking about is this paradox, here's this western guy, you know, somehow showing an example of taking care of their family. And it's not that common, you know, and I think if I hadn't been, if I hadn't had spent the last 30 years in Thailand, I probably wouldn't have done it this way. So my challenge that I was thinking about to the listeners, and the viewers is, also don't get sucked into the western idea of, you know, working so hard, and putting everything else aside and achievement and all of that, you know, also don't hesitate to go back to the core values and the core principles of societies in Asia, which may not necessarily deliver the same thing. So I just felt like that's something I wanted to share in my Oh, that's

Adrian Choo 38:03
nice. Yeah, that's true. And also on that note, as well, you know, for our listeners out there, I'm gonna be very unpopular for saying this. But don't Don't be, likewise, don't follow the trends on Tik Tok. And whatever it is, is here, love is coming from the west as well, about taking it easy, no, the soft life, you got to enjoy yourself, you know, don't have to work hard, you still need to drive yourself. I mean, especially if you're in the front end of your career, you got to drive yourself, strive for excellence put in, put in your work and everything and effort, you know, learn as much as you can make as much as you can. Of course, not at the expense of your health and everything else. But yeah, then you can get to enjoy. But once again, like what we've been saying, it's all about seasons. You know, you start your career, you start your life, your career, you start your career working career, focused on the season of work, and accumulation. You accumulate knowledge, you accumulate money later on in life, then maybe you can start thinking, okay, maybe I should take a step back and have a season of discovery, rest, and whatever is important to you, but you need to pay the bills to pay and there's a lot of adulting. To do.

Sze-Yen Chee 39:06
I just want to add one more thing I wrote on my notes, as I was listening to Andrew tell his story. It was this thing. I wrote growth mindset. So even though there are seasons that you never stopped growing, because we're always going to be changing and growing. And so in the end, the front end of your career, you're you're you're accumulating skills, you're probably trying to accumulate sponsors and mentors, you're gaining all these experiences. And even as you decide that you want to slow down on the career a little bit, but that's what it's self actualization. There's other trends that you should be keeping up with because the world is changing at a pace. That's unbelievable. So I think that that future oriented nurse, that growth mindset that it should never change. I think that that's going to help keep us going and keep us young. If anything. I try new things. You look at us and we're doing this on Zoom where we've never Use this prior to COVID. Right?

Andrew Stotz 40:03
You both look very young. So congratulations. Maybe in wrapping up, I just want to wrap up by saying by asking the question to, let's define the ideal person, the person who's listening, that type of person that's going to benefit from this book, you know, what are the challenges that they're facing? And why would they go to this book, and then the second thing, where to get it, and also, we'll have links in the show notes, and then maybe some final parting words from the both of you.

Sze-Yen Chee 40:34
I think this is where we're doing the tai chi, the appropriate political tone is delegation.

Adrian Choo 40:41
To get a CEO, I'm delegating.

Sze-Yen Chee 40:47
I think the typical reader would benefit from this book with age from 25, to whenever there is there's experiences and stories and real stories. And this is something that as career strategies, as career coaches, we see the same themes over and over again. So there are a lot of case studies there, of individuals facing such career issues that are not unique. And if our readers can just read some of these stories and realize they don't have to reinvent the wheel, they're gonna realize they're not going to, they're going to realize they're not alone in facing such situations, and that there's held, that there's the people who will go through it, there are ways to figure it out. There are ways to make plans. It's all in the book. So there's no, I think everyone's gonna benefit from it. I think as long as they're working adults.

Adrian Choo 41:48
Yeah. And even if you're at the tail end of your career, where you're about to, or if everything is going right and fantastic for you know, we are so happy for you. It's still a great book to have, because when you read it, it gives you a different perspective. And when you coach your juniors, when you coach your staff, when they come to you for your career advice, you have the language, you got the concepts, the frameworks and the vocabulary to ask them, you know, what, what's your career velocity, you know, what do you want to do today? What are your adjacencies? What do you know what your skill adjacencies? are? Are you able to do upskill, down upskilling or deep skill? So these very technical terms, which we have created for assess our own vernacular, for this very new field of what we like to call career dynamics. So it's a new field, people haven't? People haven't asked to be very honest, people haven't really been looking at it since Richard Bowles. What color's your parachute from 1974. And it's every year just updated. And that's about it. But you know, this, this book aims to shift and shake the tree. We want to push people out of their comfort zones thinking, is that purpose in my career? No. Am I on the right track? And if you aren't good for you, then how do I help other people who may need my help? And my counsel, because I've been doing so well?

Andrew Stotz 43:00
Well, I think I appreciate you know, getting a chance to talk to you guys. And I want to congratulate you on getting that done and out there to the world. I know it's not easy. And I know that there's a lot of value in what we've talked about today. And I just want to encourage all the listeners and viewers to go out and grab a book and learn and get even more out of your life, not just your career. So thank you both yen and Adrian for coming on the show. And to everybody who's listened. I want to say this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.