Stories are powerful.
Stories are the most perennial, persuasive, and powerful form of communication. It is indescribable, the exact moment when audience ‘lock in’ to a story. You see it in their eyes, you feel it in their spirit. Science confirms this – our brain waves ‘sync up’ when we listen to a story: You are in sync with other listeners, and everyone is in sync with the storyteller.
I’ve been to over 50 schools and spoken to students of different ages and backgrounds. What fascinates me is this – regardless of differences, the time where they pay the most attention is 1) When I’m talking about failure, and 2) When I tell a story.
This was one of the reasons the podcast was born. We face a crisis in resilience. Students (and everyone really) personalize failure and it is painful to see. One way to help them? Stories.
I’ve been blessed to host 15 guests so far. Each story unique, and precious. To commemorate this, I’ve compiled a list of their backgrounds and the most striking lessons I’ve learnt from each one. Stories leave clues, and I hope this compilation gives you clues to build your own resilience 😊
(Subscribe here to the podcast if you haven’t!)
1. Rae Fung - Overcome Insecurity By Finding Your identity and Owning Your Voice.
Rae is a fresh graduate, a freelance emcee of 7 years, and a communications coach. She shares her insecurity in her looks and body, and how that affected her resilience: “Insecurity is allowing what others think of you to affect how you think of yourself”. Drawing reference to the past where she sought solace in nightlife and casual dates, she shares
“The root cause is that I didn’t know who Rae was, I wasn’t clear of my identity. That’s why I tried to seek it in all those things.”
She goes on to share what helped her: “Once I got clear of what I stood for, my identity, then then insecurity went away and I was able to own my voice. Owning your voice means to understand your inner voice - what you stand for and your message, and then using your physical voice to express that”.
I absolutely love the last line.
The most persuasive communicators don’t just know how to pitch, pace and pause, they know what ignites their pulse.
2. Steve Tee - What are you hungry for?
Steve Tee is a speaker and Team Singapore athlete. He has won a bronze medal for the ASEAN Paragames, and will be competing in the 2021 Paralympic Games in Tandem Cycling. Due to an eye condition, he lost his sight in his early 20s. Yet, he refused to let his disability limit his abilities.
He tells a striking story: “I isolated myself. I was tired of the abuse and frustration. One day, I was awakened by the sound of thunder. It was raining heavily. I was hungry, but there was no food at home. I took an umbrella and went out. On my way to get my food, I tripped and fell onto the hard concrete ground. Blood was flowing down my shin, but I endured the pain.
I successfully bought my food walked back home. It was then I realised something:
If you are hungry, you will find a way to get your food.
If you are hungry, you will find a way to prevent yourself from getting wet by the rain.
If you are hungry enough, you will find a way to overcome your pain and adversities.
It was then when I realised that I lost my hunger for my life, being isolated and stuck at home. It was at that moment I decided to be hungry again.”
Steve went on to complete his degree, work in a call center (where he got promoted to team leader), become a public speaker, and now a Team Singapore athlete competing in the 2021 Paralympic Games .
When the chips are down, ask yourself: ‘What are you hungry for?’
Links to full podcast: Youtube/Spotify
Steve and me speaking at a school assembly talk
3. Jeven Lim– Hunger is good, but let’s not play the Hunger Games.
Jeven is a secondary 4 student and also the captain of his school’s floorball team. He recounts a time in primary 5 where he was verbally and cyberbullied almost everyday. Why? Because he placed last in grades in a competitive class. He states:
“It was like the hunger games. People started calling me names, giving me labels. They would sometimes leave comments in my FB inbox, telling me that I wont make it, and not to try at all. I tried to ignore it, but it felt like 39 against 1.”
As we heard from Steve, hunger is good, but only when married with good intentions. In our emphasis on economic and technical progress, we must not forget progressing our hearts.
Also, we must move students from scarcity to abundance. When we pit them against each other, it’s not a surprise that they subconsciously believe that the only way for them to win is for their classmate to lose. (Or to borrow Jeven’s reference – to shoot an arrow straight through the chest of your competitor). We need to think win-win, not win-lose. Collective resilience can be achieved no other way.
Links to Full Podcast: Youtube/Spotify
4. Tiara Yap – How to Follow Your Heart? Flip a coin.
Tiara Yap is a familiar face and content strategist at SGAG, one of Singapore’s best known content marketing agencies. She directs, writes and acts in many videos, which bring hearty laughs and lift spirits of many Singaporeans. She loves her work, but she would have never found it if she didn’t follow her heart. We hear this cliché so often, but Tiara shares a story of her audition in JC where she first truly understood what it meant:
“It was for a play. I couldn’t decide whether to audition or not. So I flipped a coin, and it landed on tails. The moment it landed, my heart sank. At the moment, I was like ‘Oh, I knew what I had to do’. Looking back, all along I had a passion for performing, but I rationalized it away. You know you have this cliché battle between the head and heart. The whole time is was just head head head…like ‘your performing will not get your anywhere, focus on your studies, etc’
She did follow her heart, and it led her to an amazing company and love and gratitude for her work. Catch her in SGAGS’ videos!
5. Brian Poh – Stress is necessary to build resilience, but ensure it’s eustress (good stress)
Brian Poh is a senior psychologist at a hospital. He mainly counsels adolescents between 13-18 to help them overcome mental health challenges and cope with stress more effectively. We discuss raising resilient kids and stress management.
Brian shares about the nature of resilience - it is the ability to adapt to stressors. Hence, without stress, it is impossible to develop resilience. When parents shelter or protect their kids too much (helicopter parenting), they unknowingly reduce their resilience.
Yes, some stress is good. He states “With some stress, you force yourself to do something about it. It will lead to an increase in performance. We call this eustress”. However, we must be careful. He gives me a challenge, to take a rubber band and stretch it to the maximum before breaking. What would you do? My answer: “I will stretch till I feel the maximum tension, take the risk”. To which he replied: “but you won’t know where is the breaking point”
The breaking point is bad stress, distress, or a mental breakdown. His point is we need to respect stress, and manage it carefully.
Links to full podcast: Youtube/Spotify
6. Melodee Tan – Finding Drive From Discrimination and Despair
Melodee Tan is an entrepreneur with infectious enthusiasm and undying passion for animals and raising awareness of pet responsibility. She runs a non-profit community (Hope for Animals) and Singapore's first pet related social enterprise (Bark A Tree) that helps pet shelters raise funds and visibility through creative events in the community.
Part of a drive came from being discriminated. She did well in ITE, with a GPA that entitled her to enter a poly. She shared a shocking recount: “During the open house, I spoke to the head of design school for a specific poly. I asked her about the aggregate score to get in. I remember her very clearly looking at me, scanning my ITE uniform, and saying “sorry, we don’t really take ITE students”.
I was really astounded. I was like ‘wow, this is coming from a head lecturer. I felt embarrassed and vulnerable, like I was stripped off everything. It really broke me down because that was the first school I wanted to go to”
You’re likely equally shocked reading this as I was I hearing it. Thankfully, Melodee used the pain to drive her. I quote her: “I told myself as I grow older and accumulate enough experiences, my end goal is to become a lecturer or teacher. I’m going to make sure no one else felt the way I felt. No student should be ever in the position that I was.” Well, Melodee is well on her way. Having also lost her dogs to disease, she harnessed her pain and tuned it into a cause. Her company is the first of its kind, raising thousands of dollars for pet shelters, and leading to many adoptions. She even goes to schools and organizations to give awareness talks.
Unfortunately, discrimination exists, not just in education but in life as well. Let’s do our best to stand up against it, and if we’ve ever on the receiving end, use it to the drive you forward.
7. Gerrard Lin (‘Ah Siao’ the Ultramarathon Runner)
Gerrard Lin, a.k.a 'Ah Siao' is an ultramarathon runner, avid fundraiser and entrepreneur. His "crazy" stunts and capacity to transcend pain and stretch his limits is quite incredible. His persona 'Ah Siao' (a goodhearted ex-hooligan raising money for charity) first gained traction in the 2012 Stan Chart marathon, where he dragged a 14kg tire throughout the race, raising close to $100,000 for the bone marrow doner programme. 'Ah Siao' has since gone on to accomplish feats like running 50km a day for 50 days, completing 10km dragging a tire on clutches, and most recently, birthing the idea for 'Relay Majulah', a relay with 200 runners to celebrate Singapore's bicentennial, in which more than a $1 mill was raised for the President's Star Charity. Links to full podcast here: Youtube/Spotfy
The most impactful lesson I learnt from him comes from a reply to my question: “HOW do you do all those insane stunts and deal with the pain?”. I tried to summarize it, but I couldn’t, it’s better to watch his response here:
Here are some of his other quotable quotes on resilience. I hope it inspires the ‘Ah Siao’ in you to transcend your circumstances too.
“The thousand km journeys, not giving up, that isn’t done during the race itself. That is done from little steps, practices that you take every day on the track”
“Resilience is a state of mind. It knowing that if you’ve a problem, there’s nothing to fear. It’s not just in the big stories. Everyone likes those stories, but resilience is a daily habit. When you’re met with a stimulus, how do you deal with it? Do you exhibit emotions that will inhibit or enable you to solve the problem? Everyday is a day to practice resilience”
Dragging a 14KG tire on clutches for 10km
“Why did I complete the race on clutches? First, because I made a promise to my sponsors. Second, the people at the finish line will forever remember this moment. It will inspire them to believe in their own resiliency. The greatest real estate you can own is in the corner of someone’s mind.”
8. Alvin Yong – Live by Design, and not by Default
Alvin Yong is a modern day Renaissance man (a person of vast skills and knowledge). At a young age, he lost his Mum to cancer, which led him to understand the fragility of life and the need treasure every moment. Citing Leonardo Da Vinci as a major influence, he is a firm believer in designing your life, having unquenchable curiosity, and living life to its full expression. He runs businesses in multiple countries, including social entrepreneurship projects in developing nations like Thailand, India and Kenya, where he works with the locals to co-create solutions and initiatives to better the lives of communities
Alvin and his daughter with children in Kenya
In response to my question “What does it mean to design your life?”, he replies:
“It’s a fundamental question we need to ask ourselves. In the animal kingdom, we are the only animal capable of making conscious choices. That’s a divine gift.
We are not ants. Its either you’re born as a Queen or a worker ant. They’re defined by a role. They live by instinct, by default.
So the key question to ask ourselves is ‘Are we living consciously? Are we designing our life? Or are we handing over that design to someone else?”
His words really struck me. So often we get caught in unconscious unhelpful routines and ruminations, or become defined by a specific role or societal measures of worth. It helps to remember that our worth is for us to define, and our lives are for us to create.
So live by DESIGN, and not by default!
Links to full podcast: Yotube / Spotify
THATS THE END OF PART 1 ! I decided to split this article into two parts as it’s really long haha. Check part 2 out HERE