First Blog Post of 2022

It’s the MID OF APRIL already!

Where did all that time go? I swear time moves so much faster when you’re running a business. It feels like a trap. But perhaps, it is the whole living life purposefully that makes time zoom past.

I remembered my life in NS, or when doing work that sucked. Time would go by so slowly the more you want it to pass. And when the evenings or weekends came, time would just dissolve and you’re back to 8 am on a Monday.

That said, even if you are waking up every day living your life with purpose, you are not immuned to shit like bad days, bouts of depression, anxiety, bad health, family issues and all kinds of negativity that will hit you like a ton of bricks all of a sudden. And on those days, you’d go “fuck it” and just curl up in bed. And that’s cool.

Life’s no walk in the park. Life… happens. And you just gotta go through those moments.

But I guess, when you’re clear about your sense of purpose — not just professionally, but deep down, on a personal and spiritual level as well… you can always find a slither of hope that you can use to pull yourself out of whatever rut you’re in.

Giving yourself enough time or talking it out with people you trust helps a hell of a lot too.

Branding, Business & Life

This rant is not pointless. You see, I’ve got the sudden urge to have a look at my super neglected website recently, and was pleasantly surprised at the steady flow of traffic. I logged in and began to see if I should update anything.

So on the home page — it used to say “branding & design” a lot. But I thought to myself, when was the last time I did any design work. I have designers & creatives who are way way way more talented than me. I even had my adobe account unsubscribed for a couple of months due to a terrible hacking incident last Christmas.

Now, I’ve updated everything to just focus on Branding, Business & Life.

My imposter syndrome has always left me thinking that I’m in no place to talk about business. Then it hit me that I have been running one for close to 8 years now, not to mention the hundreds of clients we have and a large number we advise on. Yeah we talk about branding a lot, but it always coincide with business problems.

And life? I’m pushing 40 soon man… I’m kidding myself if I think I’m still young. Yes I have so much more to learn, but before I go back to meet my maker, I gotta put in some good points for myself and try to benefit others as much as possible.

What’s been going on?

OK — this has so far been a spontaneous burst of writing. Oh, I remember my secondary school days when I truly fell in love with writing thanks to a little English class exercise called Journal Writing. And in that exercise, I think there was something called ‘spontaneous writing’. I found myself writing on and on, wishing I could write faster, at the speed of my thoughts.

Anyway, business has been good. It wasn’t always good, but the fact that we’re still alive, running and making impact… that says a lot.

People are great. I am seriously blessed with awesome people coming in and working together with me on this business. Again, it wasn’t always great. But overall, I think we are making it work just fine.

Life wise — I’ve kind of been a rather private person when it comes to family and personal life… but this area of life pretty much determines how every other aspect of one’s life is gonna turn out. So it’s pretty important to sort your shit out in this sector… and sort it out as soon as you see problems arising. But hey, I’m no life coach. I think I’m just really fortunate to be in current circumstances. I think the hard & soft skills you pick up from running businesses can really apply to your personal / family life as well.

So what’s happening tomorrow / next?

I recently did an interview with Razy, my friend and fellow agency owner… and the questions he asked really made me think about my life and role in the business. Here’s the youtube video if you wanna check out the interview.

Here’s the thing about starting and running a business. You don’t get the luxury of having a ‘career progression’. Let me explain.

When you are setting up, with 2 staff and a little tiny office space with no windows, you’re the founder.

When you’re at a size of 18 staff, spread across Singapore and 3 other cities, with hundreds of clients under your belt from all around the world… you’re still just the founder.

And what you get paid doesn’t even match the status and position of the business! This is the killer — and it has definitely given me some funny whispers as to why am I still bothering with this.

With all said and done, I guess I can say that I have to make a conscious decision when I wake up to continue to do this, because I believe in what we are trying to do, and why we are on this journey in the first place.

Purpose drives me, when passion, excitement, joy and ambition fails. It is what I cling on for dear life.

See you soon!

So there, my first blog post of the year 2022. I hope to do more, as I think I am most natural when I write. I still hate the sound of my own voice. I still think I suck at vlogging or doing videos. I think my design skills has taken a turn for the worse due to lack of practice.

But I’m going in to work daily for a reason. And I hope to share this experience while I still can… with you.

Thank you for reading this.