Many things have changed, and I feel strangely out of place. — I’ve spent the entire pandemic outside in Japan and outside of the country where I was born — Singapore. And if you’ve ever moved abroad, some of these things might resonate with you. Or maybe they might not. This August, I had an opportunity to work from my home in…

Branding does not come before marketing, it’s the other way around. — I was proposing a marketing plan to my boss sometime in 2013. It was my first marketing job, and I had airy-fairy ideas about how to do marketing. Start with branding, right? That’s what all the books said. I had read the branding books written by brand experts. “We need…

It changes your life trajectory completely. — I pulled two pieces of trolley luggage — one black and one red, and a tan leather weekender bag — up to the front desk at the hotel. “Four nights. I think my company has reserved it for me,” I said to the hotel receptionist. The date was September 4…

Where do we go from here? What do we do with all the orphaned stories? — One of the things I discovered about Medium is that although individual publications are autonomous entities, Medium.com itself is one giant community. Medium, like any other community, has its own rules, norms, and values. And like any other society— as dead-for-a-century French sociologist Émile Durkheim might have said— when a…

There is no escaping the webs of significance that we ourselves have spun. — When I was growing up, I used to think that society was mostly b*llshit. None of it made any logical sense to me. Why did we have to work a job and get tired at work? And then to alleviate the tiredness of commuting, buy a car, and end up…

The notion of the self in the Japanese worldview differs from that of the Western view. — One of the first words you learn to say in a new language is the word for “I.” And for good reason. Cogito, ergo sum — “I think, therefore I am,” so declared René Descartes in his writings. Philosophy aside, from a practical standpoint, you do need to learn how…

The earlier you learn what makes people (including yourself) tick, the more you make your life richer too. — A world where people are 100% driven only by logic has never existed. Never will. Don’t believe me? I have scientific proof. The sooner we can accept the irrationality of people, the better all of us can accept and come to terms with the demands and expectations of life in…