Adrian Tan: Laid-Off To HR Founder, Writing “No More Bosses” & Solopreneur Work-Life Challenges - E492

Adrian Tan, Author of “No More Bosses” & Chief Marketing Strategist at Marketing Sumo, and Jeremy Au discussed:

1. Laid-Off To HR Founder: Adrian’s career in HR began as he navigated the volatile job market of the early 2000s. After layoffs from tech companies during the dotcom bubble and another setback in 2003 with the SARS epidemic, he sought greater stability by starting his own recruitment business in 2004. Over the next 11 years, he grew this business through multiple economic cycles, worked hundred-hour weeks, and learned on the job. He reflected on a missed opportunity during a lucrative growth phase to scale his business, which he now views as a turning point that could have changed his career path. This built his resilience and industry insights, which later shaped his journey as an independent HR consultant.

2. Writing "No More Bosses": Adrian’s new book, No More Bosses: The Journey to Sustainable Self-Employment, draws from his own pivot to freelancing. He received a LinkedIn message from a Penguin editor, which he initially believed to be a scam. He wrote the book to inspire mid-career professionals, especially in high-cost cities like Singapore, to explore independence. Real-life case studies include Nancy Lai who launched a D2C baby products business, showing that solopreneurship can be successful with strategic planning.

3. Solopreneur Work-Life Challenges: Adrian shared the ups and downs of self-employment, noting that while independence provides autonomy, it demands discipline and structure. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he struggled with maintaining boundaries as he worked from his dining table, often working late into the evening. To maintain work-life balance, he set smartwatch reminders like “World’s Greatest Dad” at 7pm to ensure he prioritized family time. However, he stressed that the goal in self-employment is not just income, but optimizing time and flexibility, which he values more than the financial stability offered by corporate roles.

Jeremy and Adrian also talked about the importance of fully outlining chapters before beginning to write, the role of perseverance in professional development, and how personal branding landed him multiple opportunities.

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(01:14) Jeremy Au:

Hey Adrian, really excited to have you on the show. You just launched a new book and it's doing well. So I wanted to hear your thoughts on it.

(01:20) Adrian Tan:

Thanks Jeremy. Thanks for having me on the show. This book is a quite interesting journey for me. It's called "No More Bosses", the journey to self sustainable, employment. really happy to share more with your audience about the book, the journey and how it all come about.

(01:34) Jeremy Au:

Yeah. Could you share a little bit for yourself?

(01:36) Adrian Tan:

Yeah. so I have been in the HR industry for the longest time. I started my career in the recruitment business. I started in 2004. Maybe a bit of backstory behind it. It wasn't intentional, so I was in a couple of dotcom. So for the younger listeners, google what dotcom are so. I got fired in both of them due to the dotcom bubble burst. Then I went into a company that actually sell aircraft spare parts, so I thought I was safe. Unfortunately, it happened to be in 2003. 2003, SARS happened, which is like a minor version of COVID. People stopped flying and I was like, oh no, what the hell? Am I gonna score a hat trick in getting laid off? So, I was looking around, how could I make sure I don't get fired again? My friend, was running a business back then, and when you see things from the other side of the fence, it's always greener, right? only knowing that after you've crossed the fence, that the grass on the other side is greener because it's fertilized by bullshit.

But still, went in, started a recruitment business, and something I thought of doing for two years lasted for 11 years. Thereafter, still remain very much in that sector, servicing the HR department through various functions. I went into career coaching. I went into HR consultancy, HR tech certification. And of course, right now, I'm independent, doing more of marketing support for enterprise HR tech companies.

(02:50) Jeremy Au:

Great. So why did you start out in this early field career? What was your dream job when you were a kid or university student?

(02:57) Adrian Tan:

Well, honestly, I don't think I have grand dreams back then. I was never good academically. I just wanted to find something decent. For my generation, I'm 45 right now, I just want to look for a comfortable, cushy office job. And, there wasn't really much grand plans on what that could be but, I, I, I think it was just something that I hope I could contribute well, and I did study marketing during university, so something along that line would have been great. It never occurred to me that ultimately I was still lambda in marketing, but that foundation has really taught me well on what to look out for in that field and how to do it better.

(03:33) Jeremy Au:

And when you think about that side, how did you end up landing up in HR, in the whole space there?

(03:38) Adrian Tan:

Well, it really started from my first recruitment business because it's all dealing with HR and why recruitment business? Because I always enjoyed helping my friend to help them with the interview questions, help them to do up their resume and all that, which of course after I've gone into recruitment business, I realized it's a different ballgame altogether. Because recruitment business you are pantering to the employers, not so much the candidates, but still I've already gone headstrong into it. So just try to make it work. And I think entrepreneurship really changed a person. When I first started, I literally have to do everything. I remember this saying, from a friend, "You cannot work 40 hours for other people. You decide to work a hundred hours for yourself." So started working 9 to 11, Monday to Friday and 9 to 6 on Saturday. Picked up everything, learned from scratch, learned from doing stuff, from prospecting, writing emails, negotiation to cleaning toilet. That really changed a person and helped do things and look at things in a very different way. That was my entry point to the HR sector. Somehow, it never really occurred to me to move out of it. Over time, it just continued to build up.

(04:41) Jeremy Au:

And what's interesting is that, you went through these early success in terms of getting those jobs in technology companies and then you got laid off several times. What was the experience like?

(04:51) Adrian Tan:

I must say I was too young to internalize how painful it was. maybe because I was really young back then. I was in my early twenties and, when you're early twenties, no liabilities, no kids, no mortgage, staying with your parents. It's just, okay, I move on to something else. Of course the consolation is, you're not alone, I wasn't really fired. It was a retrenchment exercise where 75% of the companies got affected. I'm not sure if this is the right saying, but, the African proverb, "You want to go fast, go alone. You want to go far, go with others." And I did went with others. So it was still quite okay, but of course, when the second one came in and then the third one came in, you're like, wow, am I a jinx? Everywhere I go, I crash and burn. It does one's self esteem which boggles me when I look back. Lower self esteem yet still can run a business or consider running a business, but, that I guess is the beauty of youth naivety and it helps you to explore things and not overthink stuff. Nowadays, at my age, I tend to overthink too many stuff.

(05:49) Jeremy Au:

How did you pick yourself up?

(05:50) Adrian Tan:

I think the support from other people is very important. From friends who also wanted to get out of their corporate rat race. My girlfriend then, who is my wife now, was in the recruitment business. Her explanation of the industry gave us confidence on what is required and that it is actually very much doable. And I guess another thing, perhaps, which is a bonus for our generation back then, the cost of startup was extremely cheap. Our startup capital, four of us, $24,000, $6,000 each. My office, Trust Street, rental 1,005 per month. You cannot find that right now.

(06:26) Jeremy Au:

Well, those were a certain amount of times, but did you feel like it was a normal occurrence or because I think today, most people in technology world are like, hey, getting laid off, you know, the boom and bust cycle is predictable or known, but I guess back then it was more rare?

(06:41) Adrian Tan:

Oh yeah, it was rare and not just rare, but people tend to associate it with shame. So you would be very embarrassed to share it with other people. I experienced it through others' lens, around 2007, 2008, during the global financial crisis, I was still in recruitment and we started receiving so many resumes from people from banks, all around the island. When you ask them, why they got laid off and all that, why they left the bank. You can, you can really detect in their tone, in the things that they said, the stuttering, the mumbling start to occur. It's really hard for them to explain why it happened and try trying to internalize why the bank that I worked 35 years decided to lay me off. And right now, I have to start all over again. So, it's really a very painful patch for people to go through.

(07:28) Jeremy Au:

What's interesting is that, you went on to write this book about no more bosses, right? It talks about some of your experiences. Could you share a little bit more about why you decided to write this book?

(07:36) Adrian Tan:

This came about because I got a LinkedIn email from the editor of Penguin. Initially, I thought it was a scam because there was no headshot, but I entertained the Zoom call and I realized he's a legit person. And then the conversation started. The original idea was to write a book around HR technology, but we realized the addressable market was too small. So the book will not sell. So we debated and then we landed up on this topic because I happened to be independent already at that point in time. So that's how it got started. And I guess because of the recency effect, I went into independence because I left my last job in a fit of anger. I told him I quit, and the snowball just started hence the title No More Bosses. that was the premise of the entire book. I always wanted to write another book, although it's one of those things that you constantly think about, but never do like, "Oh, I want to skydive," but I never skydive. Having Penguin reach out to me, was a huge motivation. the way they operate as a publisher is very different from the other publisher I have associated myself with before.

(08:35) Jeremy Au:

I think what's interesting is that, you wrote this book, was it hard to write a book? Was it easy to write a book? Was it like, flew off because it's all your experiences? How was the experience like for you?

(08:45) Adrian Tan:

Oh, it was so painful. And I am a natural born procrastinator. They gave me nine months to write the book. I sat on it for three months. So three months later, as I continue to look at the calendar, I'm like, Oh, okay. Let me try to write something. I was staring at a blank page for one full week. I don't know how to start. So one week later, I'm like, the hell am I going to do now? So I literally have to brute force myself every day, two, three hours in the morning, just have to write. But the good thing is this book, a lot of it actually comes from personal experience. So I basically just vomit whatever personal experience that I have.

And then you start to structure it around sections. The editor plays a big part in trying to make sense of the entire thing. And I also went out to speak with five of my friends. who happen to be independent as well. So their case study also helped to add more color to the book. So it's not just, from a single lens, but book writing can be quite challenging. Although I must say in today's context, if I have to write another book, probably it'll be easier because there are apps that can help you dictate and transcribe whatever you say, even Singapore accented English.

(09:50) Jeremy Au:

I think there's two parts, right? One part is you writing as a book as an author, and then the second part is about what's in your book for career advice. So why don't we just continue talking about the writing process because a lot of people feel like they would love to write a book one day, right? What has been some interesting learnings you've had along the way, any myths or misconceptions about writing a book, from your perspective?

(10:08) Adrian Tan:

I think most people, when they first started writing a book, they would just start from the beginning and then go all the way to the end, which, in a way, it is like going through a maze, right? You start from the entrance and then exit, but if you want to be efficient in writing a book, you have to zoom out. So imagine a top down perspective and you are able to see the entire maze. So it's like having a cheat code. So you know exactly where to turn left, where to turn right, where are all the dead ends, et cetera. Which also means you have to start with the outline, each of the chapter. And then the sub sections of each chapter, all those got to be laid out first.

You got to lay out the foundation before you start filling in the blank. That is very important. Instead of, oh, chapter 1 is this, let me just work on chapter 1, then I decide what is chapter 2, then I decide what is chapter 3. That is going to be very painful because once you read subsequent chapters, you may realize, chapter 1 doesn't make sense, then you have to go back. all this would be very painful for you to look at. people who write or maybe anyone who create tend to be very perfectionist in what they do. So they write and then they backspace, they write a little bit, then they edit. It never ends. So you have to accept, okay, my first draft is just a sketch. Yeah, just write it out, ignore all the typo that Microsoft or your Google Docs is going to tell you. Just keep going. No backspace. In fact, take out the backspace from your keyboard. Just keep going. Then, put it aside at every half section or one full chapter, put it aside, sleep on it, then come back to it because you need time to transition to the editor's lens. That will help you to see things from a different perspective as well.

I feel those are stuff that most beginner writers may tend to overlook, which, like me, I overlooked it when I did my first book. So, we took more than one year plus to edit the book. It was really painful. In this practice, I took another approach and I think it helped a lot.

(11:52) Jeremy Au:

Yeah. What's interesting is that, you've done this, and what do people feel like they get a benefit from writing, from your perspective? Does it help you with your personal brand? Does it help you with your leads? Does it help with putting your thoughts out there? How do you think about it?

(12:06) Adrian Tan:

Personal branding, definitely. So my first book was actually a career guide, which I did with a friend. That helped us draw in engagements from E2I, WDA back then, to do group classes, et cetera, which was why I went into career coaching back then. And the way I look at it is imagine if I'm pitching my services with other fellow career coaches. Each of them give out name card, but when it reached my turn, I give a book. So the impression will be very, very different. And I've also seen cases, my friends who are also author, they are able to turn that book somewhat into a semi-textbook, and then that will lead them to corporate training and stuff, maybe mastermind, those kinds of things. So it could be very useful if you are able to angle it in such a way where your target audience would find appetizing.

(12:50) Jeremy Au:

So let's circle back to the lessons within the book. What's the conclusion that you would want for people to have? As you say, it's not the end in mind, right? what's the conclusion that you hope people will have with the book No More Bosses?

(13:01) Adrian Tan:

So, the subtitle of the book is "A Journey to Sustainable Self-Employment". Actually, there was a word or two words that was taken out by the editor. It's supposed to be, "A Journey to a Sustainable Mid-Career Pivot to Self-Employment because i'm writing it from my perspective. I'm 45. So I'm mid-career. My key purpose is to help people understand that it is possible to be independent. If you truly want to go independent in a city like Singapore where the cost of living is expensive, and of course, with all the other stuff coming your way, but it is possible. But, these are the things that you have to look out for. These are the things that you have to do, which of course I listed in my book. So there are possibilities out there because many people that I've seen and I've spoken with in a corporate world, they have a lot of baggage. They have a lot of concern.

I don't have a regular paycheck. Then, how? I'm already close to forties. I'm starting from zero, how? A lot of concern. And of course by the time they are 60, they look back, what the hell have I done with my life? So, I'm trying to, I hope that my book will allow more people to actually take the attempt and pursue their independence, their curiosity, their ambition, which they may have incurred because they are at a mid-career stage and to let them know that it is indeed possible. You don't have to think that, "Oh, if I were 25, I would do it now I'm 45, I don't do it." No, actually it's still very much possible. I'm a good example. The five case studies in my book are good examples as well that you can follow.

(14:24) Jeremy Au:

And so, from your perspective, were there any specific examples or case studies that really surprised you or that you felt were more striking of somebody who successfully did that?

(14:34) Adrian Tan:

So across all my examples in the book, one of them happened to be my previous business partner in consultancy and then a career coach trainer. There's this particular story that really hit out to me would be a lady called Nancy Lai. She's one of my case study and she actually started a business, basically she sells Two things, direct to consumer. One is a baby carrier kind of thing, in a form of a cloth. And then the other thing is a very, very "atas" play mat for kids. And she actually was very, she's a very conservative person in nature. She has done her own thing before in a startup, but that was when, again, no liabilities, no concern. And then she decided to go into it, despite the fact that, oh, already have two young kids, they're looking to upgrade their house, et cetera, et cetera. But something pushed her forward and she got the support from the husband, took the leap of faith and decided to put the house upgrade on hold.

And right now, I would say she's incredibly successful, given the parameters that she set for herself because she wants to maintain that she could do it on her own. Why I find it fascinating is because when I look at solopreneurship, back then, I always had the impression, "Ah, you'd be people like consultant. You're actor trainer." It's very limited to what you can do, at least in a white collar space, but you have proven me otherwise, Oh, e-commerce is possible.

She's doing direct to consumer. She's actually doing a distribution and all this is done with just a pair of hands, maybe with an intern support at most. So that opened up my eyes to help me understand. Yeah, these are things that one can do as well as someone going independent, as someone pursuing solopreneurship, not necessarily running a small business. Nothing wrong with running a small business or even a bigger business. It's just maybe more for me, not so much for the rest of them. I always feel that I can barely manage my own kids, let alone manage other people's kids. So I much prefer to do things on my own. So yeah, I think Nancy will be one of the key surprise insight for me that I have in my book as well.

(16:27) Jeremy Au:

I think from your perspective, you've obviously gone through these things. I'm wondering what parts of the book do you feel like you follow your own advice the most versus which parts you think that maybe you don't follow as much?

(16:39) Adrian Tan:

Oh, that's a great question. I think the mindfulness part can be tricky to follow, as much as I know what should be done, detaching yourself from work and all that can be quite hard to instinctively remember when you are really deep in the weeds. You really require constant reminder and all that. I'll give you an example. During COVID, every one of us was working at home, right? For me, working from home means working at a dining table because I don't have a dedicated study room. And I'll be there the whole day. I would only leave when I get chased away because they need to set up dinner. If there's no dinner, if somehow, everyone in the family eat outside, then I will still continue to be at the dining table until the sun sets, until I realized, Oh, I need to turn on the light. Then I come back and continue. So that really could defeat the purpose of self-employment or solopreneurship, because one of the things that I'm trying to optimize for is time, autonomy and flexibility.

A common question I get is, how to make more money as a solopreneur? I don't have an answer because I optimize for time. It's really not about making more money. I make most money, go and join a startup, get ESOP, whatever, kill yourself with a hundred hours a week. They want to have most money, which you can bring to the grave. So I feel it's a very different thing, which of course I also have trouble trying to reconcile with, but I realized you just need something to remind you. I also mentioned this in the book. There's a executive coach called Eric Partaker. He wrote a book called "Three Alarms". It's free. You can go and download it, but the premise is basically set three alarms for yourself and one of the alarm is shut down. So I have it in my Apple watch. 4:30, shut down. If I'm still somewhere there, okay, at least I know, okay, let me finish up this email, then I shut down. Yeah, and then there's also an alarm, at 7 o'clock, that goes "World's Greatest Dad." So it reminds me, okay, really stop thinking about work, take off my working hat, put on my father's hat, and just spend that time with my kids. So that is something which I think even with the alarm, sometimes it can be tricky to follow, but I still try to remind myself why I set it up to begin with? So that I think is the hardest advice to try to remember, especially when one is deep in the weeds.

The one that I constantly follow, I guess would be toolkit that I mentioned in the later chapters. Being a solopreneur, it require one to do everything on his or her own. And without the tech tools out there, thank God for ChatGPT, it would be very painful and very time consuming. So a lot of tools really helped me to do things much faster, more efficiently, and sometimes even a better job than myself.

(19:03) Jeremy Au:

I think the question I have for you is, you ran this by people and other people have read the book. I'm curious, what do you think have people resonated with?

(19:12) Adrian Tan:

The common feedback that I've gotten was the fact that I shared both sides of the story. There are definitely ups in this kind of journey, but there's also a lot of downs that you have to accept. No journey is perfect. We see a lot of glorification of personality on the internet. Only the good side of stuff, but actually behind it, there's a lot of bad stuff. We all glorify Elon Musk, right? Gazillionaire, Tesla. Then, nobody talked about the fact that he's a four time divorcee. And one of them even the same wife, kids, no relationship, kids and all that. I'm not going to, I'm not judging here, but you have to ask yourself, if you want to be Elon Musk, you've got to accept his good, and also his bad.

I think it was Morgan Housel who said this sentence, "As much as people admire Charlie Munger when Charlie Munger was still alive, nobody would want to trade place with him because he already, back then, one foot in the coffin." So again, I think that is one thing people have to be mindful of, which I try my best to do a good job to share both sides of the coin. Yes, these are the good things but also bear in mind, these are the bad things that you have to accept. Are you willing to accept all these challenges that will come on the journey? If so, then you can consider pursuing this craft.

(20:21) Jeremy Au:

When you think about going from point A to point B, you've now obviously become somebody without a boss. Two books now. I'm kind of curious, what's next for you from your perspective?

(20:31) Adrian Tan:

I honestly don't have a great answer. Someone asked me about this before as well. Unfortunately, due to the theme of my book, I can't turn it into a corporate training kind of thing. No boss in the right mind would ask me to train their employee to be no more bosses. So, I just hope to continue to spread the word out there and hopefully organically through word of mouth, people will get to know more about this and hopefully it will help people to realize there are more options out there. And for some of the folks who may be inspired to start something on their own, it may lead to a bigger thing. Maybe, Oh, I don't want to be stuck at being a solopreneur. I want to start a small business. And, it's a starfish effect. And hopefully over time, people can realize, hey, Singapore is not a place where you must work for Ang Mo Mnc, it is actually a place where you can build your own thing in how you want to build it, and to build it with confidence and perhaps it could lead to even bigger stuff.

(21:20) Jeremy Au:

Actually, it's a fair point, right? The book that you should have written for corporate training should be " How to Be a Great Employee", right?

(21:26) Adrian Tan:

Exactly.

(21:26) Jeremy Au:

“How to Stay Forever.”

(21:28) Adrian Tan:

"How Not to Anger Your Boss," "How to Make Your Boss Happy"

(21:30) Jeremy Au:

I think there's a good point. I never thought of it that way. So when you think about this, I'm curious, any other books that are inside you?

(21:36) Adrian Tan:

I don't think so. I do feel that there might be, something, but writing a book is a very time-consuming and painful process. I need a lot of motivation. So if my editor comes back and try to convince me multiple times, I might consider, but I guess that also very much depend on the book sale for this particular book, which until today, I have no idea. It's only after the book went live then I realized, Oh, I only get updated once a year. Okay. So I only know how many books I've sold July next year. So we shall see what they say. And maybe there could be something else I could share with the audience.

(22:15) Jeremy Au:

I think what I'm curious about is that, when you look back at your career, kind of like A, B, C book, then using the own lessons of this book, any advice that you would give your younger self?

(22:25) Adrian Tan:

To give my younger self. One thing I did regret, and I think I mentioned this before on some of the podcasts, is the fact that I was actually in a very good opportunity to scale my recruitment business back then. Jeremy, you probably would know, having seen the cycle of businesses. There are certain period of time where it's much easier to scale. It's much easier to maybe get access to capital for example, I give a personal, a more non business related example. There was an era where in Singapore, you can flip property. A lot of people made a lot of money by flipping property. That era will never come back. So it's the same thing. I was in the era of starting a business when I could flip property but I never really capitalized on it. I was just coasting along and realized, I actually don't enjoy running this recruitment business.

Recruitment business is basically a sales business and salespeople are very prima donna. So it's very painful. It's very painful. So I was just coasting along and I never really, compared to some other people that I know, who started their business at the same time, recruitment business at the same time and exited double digit, million dollar kind of deal. So I didn't really capitalize on that. And that would probably have set me on a different path altogether. but having said that, I guess I also have to be mindful what the good things that I have right now also come from the fact that I did not capitalize on that. So it's, again, situation of accepting the good together with the bad.

(23:47) Jeremy Au:

Could you share about a time that you personally have been brave?

(23:49) Adrian Tan:

So I think the time i've been brave maybe more foolishly brave was starting on this self employment journey. It wasn't really calculated. As I shared with you and also in my book, I argued with my boss and decided to leave. I wouldn't say I was in a state of good financial runway to begin with. So, in all practicality, painful for me to pursue something from there. And, but yet I do have the realization at that point that I'm unemployable because, even the job prior, I found it to be so hard to acclimatize myself into the system. And then last job I get with my boss and all that, so I decided to pursue this. Initially I was thinking, okay, should I go into adjunct teaching? Should I maybe supplement this by driving Grab or something just to make it work? But fortunately, because of the goodwill I've built up to personal branding, when I put up a LinkedIn post that I'm going independent, I think almost, almost overnight, I got reached out by three different companies. Two weeks later, I have all three assignments plus the two teaching assignments that I picked up.

So I was honestly busier than when I was working. And, it also helped at an income level, which gave me the realization, Hey, maybe this is something that I could continue and see how long it stretch. Teaching assignments are over. I realized I hate teaching, but I still have other assignments on hand, which is fantastic. So those are the brave moment that led me to where I am right now.

(25:06) Jeremy Au:

When you think about this, it's kind of scary to no longer be employable. Maybe as a parent, I should not give your book to my kid, for example, right? So how do you respond to that?

(25:15) Adrian Tan:

Well, that is true, but I think you are quite well-connected and very aware of the startup space made many of such founders that you've met probably collectively are more intelligent and both of us combine higher IQ and all that. Those people, from your former RI, scholars, they could easily have gone to a cushy job, but yet they decided to do something on their own. And it reminded me of a friend that I cited in chapter two, he was in a cushy job. He was a regional director for assessment company, but he decided to drop it all, and start a HR tech business. He had three kids back then. So he then scooped me on why he decided to do it. Well, of course he has a financial runway to prepare for worst situation.

But then he told me about this thing called regret minimization framework. I haven't heard of it until then. Basically, from Jeff Bezos, he applied this when he was thinking, should he start Amazon or not? My friend applied the same thing and he told himself, okay, I do not want to be in my sixties, seventies, look back and then realize, Hey, I should have started a company. That is something people would want to think about because ultimately we only live once. There's actually one more case study in my book, which didn't make it. This case study belonged to a lady who left corporate, started her own thing, but then she went back to corporate. My intention was to show people that even if you try and it doesn't work out, that is still another path for you to go back to, but unfortunately the editor feel otherwise, so that chapter got taken out. So, it's not the end of the world, even if you try and it doesn't work. I think Seinfeld has said this before, on why he micromanaged his series so much, and took so much time and toll on himself because he wants to succeed or fail on his own term. And he find that to be very important in any life that you want to live.

(26:53) Jeremy Au:

I know you have kids and family. What advice do you give your kids? Do you tell them to become a doctor or do you tell them to have no more boss? I'm just kind of curious.

(27:01) Adrian Tan:

The good thing for my kids, honestly, is I don't really focus so much on them academically. I mean, I personally repeated my secondary three. So I always tell my kids, don't repeat. I think you are already much better. And I feel in today's context, schooling is just one aspect of stuff and because I've done out placement before I've also seen people, for a one Victoria JC, and then Dean's list university struggle to find a job because super low EQ. So it's a balance of stuff and I realize you just need to strike a balance across everything, but of course, importantly, you have to find what really interests because once you're interested in something, you don't really see it as work. I remember this story, this journalist asked Andy Lau, "Hey, you're already so successful. Why do you one day work 20 hours?" And this is Andy Lau turn around and ask the journalist, do you like Andy Lau? Yeah. Would you follow Andy Lau 20 hours a day? So he's basically trying to impress when he enjoys something, time is immaterial. And over time you would automatically get your 10,000 hours. And also you would just continue to do it better. And that is how you can then excel and really make a mark in this world. And that is how I believe in things and that is how I would tell my family members as well.

(28:08) Jeremy Au:

When you look at the future, what is a big word or concept that you're looking to work on right?

(28:14) Adrian Tan:

I think if I have to squeeze something out, it would really be like the quote that Bruce Lee is famous for, "be like water," because we are constantly in a situation that we have no control over. We can blame everything around us and be resistant or we could be like water and try to fit in, be the best version of water that you can be and continue to be the best version as you mind your craft and try to acclimatize and. Roll with whatever punches that comes your way.

(28:44) Jeremy Au:

On that note, thank you so much for sharing. I'd like to summarize the three big takeaways I got from this conversation. First of all, Adrian, thanks so much for sharing about your early career and being laid off, which I think a lot of people are going through right now in tech. It's just good to hear about how you went through that in your own set of experiences.

Secondly, thanks so much for sharing about your own experience and advice for people who are struggling through this timeframe. I thought it was fascinating to hear about "No More Bosses", but also, you know, kind of like being thoughtful about what employability means, that you can actually still go back to employment, but in the meantime, it's worth a shot to explore what it's like to be your own boss and get things done.

And lastly, thanks so much for sharing about your personal approach in your career. I thought it was just fascinating to hear about your practice and craft of being an author and writing this book, but also some of the learnings you had about this book, which is that this is not a good book for corporate training, but this is a good book for people to read, maybe outside work or during lunch break. On that note, thank you so much Adrian for sharing.

(29:35) Adrian Tan:

Thank you, Jeremy.