One life to the other - Tim Chong

00:00

I think oftentimes, we don't take a step back and think about the implications of our work on society. I think actually as a leader of a company, that's an important role that leaders have as well, is that classic story, whether it was correct or not, but it was a question of someone at NASA saying to a cleaner, "What's your job?" And the cleaner being like, "I'm helping get a man to the moon." I don't know whether that's true, but I think there's this idea that people seeing their work within the context of a greater goal, greater ambition that contributes next to society. I think you actually can find good work through any type of work.

00:43

What myths do you think need demystifying when it comes to finding work?

00:50

Yeah. I think there's a couple of myths from my perspective. I think one is just follow your passion. I think that's great to an extent, but I think you actually rightly pointed out where your interests meet the needs of the world. I think that's quite important, right? This is not a hobby. To the extent that actually your passion still needs to create some sort of value for society or for markets or anything, so you can generally get paid for it. I think that's actually still important, because I think oftentimes we say, "Just follow your passion." But being mindful of like, is that a passion that also has intersection with needs of the world? I think that's incredibly important. Otherwise, that's a hobby. Hobbies are great, and I actually don't think that's a bad thing, but sometimes mixing them up can be dangerous in a way, because you can often take you down to weird paths.

01:37

I think the second thought I had was also that you've made it sort of mountain. You journey there and then all of a sudden, you've made it. It's a very binary, you did or you didn't. But I think actually, to an extent, recognizing, it's a bit of a journey as well and each moment in the journey can actually be deeply satisfying as well. I think yeah, you've started a company, and I think one of the things I recognize is that as a startup, there's always more to do. There's always more growth. There's always more things that you should and could do. But oftentimes, I think I often describe it as when you're walking up the mountain, it's not the peak that's the most satisfying, but also just stopping along the way and looking down the mountain, you're like, "Wow. Look how far we've come." This is really deeply satisfying.

02:21

With passion, you've picked up on two really clear cliches, I guess, like follow your passion and focusing on the destination of where you're going next and not recognizing what's happening around you, but it's almost as if it's not that you're saying you shouldn't follow your passion. It's that that's not the only thing that you need to be thinking about. It's almost as if people can become religious about following your passion and say that actually you only need to do this one really click, clear hacky thing, which is just follow your passion when actually there's another part to it too. Why do you think that we miss that second part?

03:05

I think it just sounds a lot better on Twitter. As advice, you just say follow your passion. I think we like to make things in life very clear and binary versus... Actually, it's a lot more gray and nuanced. I think that when I was growing up, it wasn't really clear that this is my passion. Go follow that. This is my life's work. I think it was much more of a... I would discover. I was wondering the wilderness for while. I like those things and I like the elements of that. Actually, just recognizing that it's actually looking for the intersection of points versus just a simple follow your passion. I think that's really important to recognize because it is still work because I think sometimes there are moments where work is hard, but that doesn't mean it's not your passion. It can just be hard.

03:51

I think that's one... It's a slight tangential point, but I think oftentimes the founder story of a company is very much you're doing your best work. You're finding a company... That's like the pinnacle of finding fulfilling work, but there are times when I wake up and it's just a bit of a grind. It's not always exciting and feeling amazing. But when I take a step back, I definitely feel like I'm operating in my place of where I want to be, but it's definitely day-to-day, not always luck. Then, I think that's a thing that people often miss as well, being passionate about something or finding fulfilling doesn't mean every single day is going to be beautiful and riding rainbows and things like that.

04:33

Yeah. It's almost like the gaps being elongated. It's being made bigger if you have more and more people saying that all you need to do is to do the simple thing, which is follow your passion. But yet, the truth of the scenario is actually the opposite, which is that you're in the wilderness, that the gap between those two things getting bigger feels like a negative.

04:57

Yeah, I think so. I think it can often lead people to just feel very dissatisfied with their work today, because they're like, "There's this oasis or magical Nirvana of work that if I get there, work will become fulfilling." I don't think that's ever the case. I think for many founders I've even spoken to the idea of taking a company public or getting a great exit from M&A can sound like the pinnacle, but actually then you're like, "Well now, what would I do?" Right? Then actually, I think a better way of thinking about is how do you appreciate the moments of work today for what it is as well, and actually appreciate the day-to-day work and be like, "Actually, how can I enjoy those moments as well?"

05:40

Sounds like the two are related. What's underneath that?

05:47

I think that my view is a common misconception that finding good work will mean every part of your life will now be fine, especially in a very career-driven society now where career's a big part of your life. You move city for career, things like that. I think it's a really important part of your life, but it isn't your life as well. I think if you try and find life fulfillment in work alone, you'll always be lived a little bit empty. You'll always be like... You always meet people like this. It's like, "If I just get that next job, that next title, the next salary, that next opportunity, then everything will be fine."

06:22

Actually, I think finding good work is actually... Obviously, finding work that has a bit of an overlap with passion, what the world needs and then just enjoying it for that moment as well and just appreciating that as well, almost smell the roses today rather than thinking about just the future. I think there's a healthy tension in both of those, but I think there's misconception that I'll just spend my entire life finding the perfect job or the perfect role, I think will always leave you feeling a little bit empty. I think about good work. I think a good work paying an important part of my life, but not being the thing in life as well.

06:56

It feels like there's maybe a difference between those who are doing a job and then want to be doing the next thing versus those who are sharing their gift with the world because they love doing it. If you can get to the point where you are not too bothered about the more senior job than you, but instead you feel like through the day-to-day, you're able to contribute to society through the work that you do. It almost feels like they're two different things in a way.

07:33

Yeah. Actually, I think it's a good distinction. I think oftentimes, we forget about our work as an important contribution to society. I think in that way, that it's actually quite a fulfilling feeling as well. Making coffee for people in the morning is actually contributing to the needs of these customers in the morning to have a great coffee, to have a great chat with someone. I think we often ignore those, actually, that work in itself should contribute to the needs society. Good work does contribute to... I would describe it as like the flourishing of society. I spent a bunch of time living in Kenya, which is often place where there's a lot of international development and aid. If you take a step back, a lot of the aid work shouldn't need to exist if there's a functioning ecosystem of good work happening.

08:26

If you think about just something like roads or water supply, it's actually provided in markets like the UK through companies like Thames Water, where people who work there, and sometimes you might not think about your work in the context of actually, if Thames Water perks aren't doing their good work, we're not getting fresh water in our pipes. It seems a bit weird because we take it for granted every morning that we just open our tap and fresh water comes out. But actually, the work that people are doing is actually incredibly good work because without that work, we wouldn't have that. I think it's actually something that's really special about appreciating the work that you do and how it contributes to the greater societal needs.

09:03

It's a wonderful analogy with Thames Water. That makes complete sense, but yet day-to-day and really don't think about it like that.

09:14

Yeah. I think oftentimes, we don't take a step back and think about the implications of our work on society. I think actually as a leader of a company, that's an important role that you just have as well, is that classic story, whether it was correct or not, but it was a question of someone at NASA saying to a cleaner, "What's your job?" And the cleaner being like, "I'm helping get a man to the moon." I don't know whether that's true, but I think there's this idea that people seeing their work within the context of a greater goal, greater ambition that contributes next to society. I think you actually can find good work through any type of work. I think there is, I guess a general kind of misconception that good work needs to be in a professional work, being a software engineer or working as a founder or being a revolutionary visionary of a company.

10:13

But actually, I think good work can be found through any type of work and to an extent instead of the posture you take towards that work that can make that work good work as well. My father-in-law and mother-in-law, they work at a factory and they don't necessarily feel like this must be fulfilling work, but for them they see their work as a provision towards the family. For them, that's good work. Good work for them is providing things like that. I think actually at times, we can think about good work has to be fulfilling for myself personally, but actually fulfilling to family needs, fulfilling to societal needs. In my mind, those are good work as well. I think my view is that you can think about good work through many lenses, not just self-satisfaction.

10:57

How did you develop this view? Where did it come from?

11:03

I think there was a couple of points in my career journey where I think actually funny enough, I started a very classical job in consulting and then after spending a couple of years there, I disappeared in a solution and decided to become a volunteer. I moved to Cambodia and quit my job, or best, took a leave of absence with the goal of maybe I'll find good work volunteering in Cambodia, becoming a missionary. All the glamorous things you can think about is you're doing good for the world.

11:34

I spent a couple of months there and I actually found myself feeling a bit empty being like, "Is this it?" This is meant to be the pinnacle of some actualization, giving your time and life to helping other people. I think I was quite bored. I was actually very bored. It was really not mentally stimulating. It was doing mentoring for university students in Phnom Penh, which is city in Cambodia., but actually found the problem solving and things like that of just working on tough problems I didn't really have there. They're more like people problems. I actually came back to consulting, which is very bizarre because no one ever does that sort of leave to volunteer...

12:08

It's like from one life to the other.

12:09

Exactly. But I found that actually I wasn't very fulfilled doing that. I think fast forward, even then, I spent a couple years of consulting. I then did a year living in Kenya, working at international development consuming arm, which again, should feel like the most good work to do. It's international development. It's aid work. It's all things that people aspire to do. Once I leave my corporate job, I'll go and work in the not-for-profit sector. Funny enough, I found that day-to-day, the work was pretty much the same. I was in meetings. I was still writing reports. I was still doing presentations. There was still a lot of the same things I was still doing day-to-day.

12:48

I think the realization that it's less about just picking the perfect job, but actually your posture towards that job, that actually is much more important than just finding good work through, "Oh, I'm going to work in aid. Tick, everything's now going to be fulfilling and perfect," because I actually found actually... I wouldn't say I became solution, but I think I realized that just trying to solve this by ticking what society calls good work is actually probably not the right way of doing it.

13:19

It's interesting that your definition of work there was defined by something outside of you that was the society's definition of best work rather than your own in a way.

13:33

Yeah, I think so. I think as always, I came to the conclusion after all that, that was like, "Maybe I need a new definition for myself." I think, for me, good work is... I love building. Building company is a core part of that, something I genuinely enjoy and could be building a product, could be building a company. But just the sense of building, for me, is very exciting, starting from almost creating nothing... From getting something from nothing, sort of very idea that I really, really enjoy. But I think it was this path of just of again, seven, eight years of just in the wilderness, try that, see how I feel about it. Try that, see how I feel about that. Try that, see how I feel about that. I think even now that I'm building, I absolutely love what I'm doing.

14:19

There are definitely times when I'm like, "Oh, I'm not waking up with this balance my step every day." That would be a lie. There are some days that are hard, some days that are great. I'd say on net, I'm definitely in my sweet spot. If I actually have to graph it, it would be always be like, "Life is like this and it's kind of like this," and hopefully you're trending up towards something that you really enjoy, but it's not like this straight linear line. It's more like the try that, try that, try that. I think that's the way, I think about what good work looks like is actually almost the journey itself is just as important as the end point.

14:56

How have your parents and your upbringing affected your choice of work?

15:04

My parents were immigrants from Malaysia. They were about 30 years old when they moved to Australia. They basically took a reset on their career. My dad was an engineer and my mom was a pharmacist and it was quite difficult for her to basically work as a pharmacist. She practiced in the UK and Malaysia, but couldn't easily practice a pharmacist. She basically took a step back to then become the full-time carer for me and my sister and my dad basically had to restart his career at Hewlett Packard, essentially joining pretty much after that, even though seven, eight years career had to start again, essentially as an immigrant starting again. I think one of the things I recognized was for them, good work was actually providing for family. It was we're starting our life with scratch and we need to do good work to provide.

15:53

I think for them, their context of work has always been around doing interesting work, but actually primarily provision, which I think is a really interesting idea because I don't think our generation think often bad about that. We have to say, "How do I find good work that's fulfilling for myself?" Whilst I've been really fortunate enough to find good work that I find personally fulfilling, I guess to recognize that's not always the case for everyone and that's okay as well. I think actually for them, good work's provision for other people is still good work. I was fortunate enough to spend almost 25 years at Hewlett Packard, which is a great tech company. I landed in that, but it wasn't always easy. But I think for him, we always looked at it with the context of provision for family.

16:40

I think when we started with work, it was really about this idea of finding a stable job that provides. Oftentimes, when you marry to Asian families or ethnic families, the first question is how will you provide for my daughter? The question is what kind of work do you do? All of a sudden, I'm like, "Well, I'm going to quit my job to start a company," which is a bit of a crazy idea, but having to recognize that that's an important part of how I form my view on work as well, which is actually for my family's view, which is actually provision is a key part of that as well. Starting a company wasn't something that I took really lightly. As a family, my wife and I, it was something that we still have to think about provision and things like that, and not just about finding work that I enjoy doing.

17:26

Your story is one that bucks the trend, and it makes me reflect on all the other people who may be in a similar circumstance where they've grown up in a culture that incentivizes and celebrates the avoidance of risk in some ways and for good and for bad reasons. How did you overcome that?

17:55

I think it's quite funny. Because I think there's, again, this conception of being a founder, which is just, "Close your eyes, just jump into the water. Don't even think about anything," but for my wife and I, it was thinking really about what are the level risk that we can tolerate? We don't have kids. We can tolerate more risks. What is the absolute... We always joke what is the absolute worst case scenario? Well, we can just move back with our family. There's no situation where we can't provide food on the table and provide for family. Actually, that was a level of risk tolerance that we could accept. I think the framework of... Actually, I think being husband has this... Come to think of ABC planning, which is this idea of what is the plan Z, which is what is the absolute worst case. I was like, "It's actually helpful for us to go there and go, 'What is the absolute worst?'" The absolute worst case is... Gosh, I can go back to the job in consulting.

18:50

That's the worst case. I'm going to be fine. I think actually that was a really helpful framework as well, even communicating to the family who are obviously initially quite concerned about, "What are you doing?" We started Yonder quite literally in the middle COVID, in the middle of a deep recession and this feeling of like, "What are you doing? You should be staying in a stable job right now." I think explaining about, "Look, we're very qualified. We have a lot of opportunity, career wise. There is always a plan Z, so don't worry about that. We've always got plan Z." I think we couldn't ignore communicating that to our family as an important aspect in a decision making. I think it would actually be quite selfish for us to be like, "Don't worry about it. We'll be fine. We ignore it." I should take them through the thought process and explain it to them. Because again, for them providing stability, family is a really important part of the culture. It's something that we want to respect despite taking much higher risk than they would typically want to do.

19:45

It's so difficult to know what parts of that respect in the way that you have, but also buck and challenge and change. It almost feels like a mind field in a way.

20:02

Yeah. I think ultimately, there's an extent of, "Just trust me to make good decisions." It's like, "Trust us. We can make great decisions." I think ultimately, the way I thought about it was, do we do need to take risks in life?" That's a level of risk tolerance that I'm very happy to take and not everyone have to take it and that's each to their own, but I think ultimately, we have to carve our own journey. I think I even saw that across the MBA cohort I graduated with when I started MBA a couple of years ago. People had different risk tolerance. Some people wanted to join the safe, McKinsey, Goldman investment banking or consulting track. There were a small subset that were like, "I want to go and do my own startup," and it's definitely not life for everyone, but I think actually just choosing your own path is so important.

20:57

It seems obvious, but actually just going, "Who am I and what do I want to do? What's the risk tolerance I'm happy to take?" Because I actually think being clear on the risks to yourself is actually still an important aspect of it. Just being like, "I can afford to take that risk and I will take that risk." Because I think now, I'll probably strongly recommend against putting your personal assets on the line to start a startup because I think that's actually a really dangerous decision to make and it could be risk that you might be willing to take, but that's something that I always reckon if people starting companies out, look, just be smart about your personal assets as well. No one talks about it. It's weird. It should always be, "Give it all. Ignore your personal side," and, "Hey, just keep that in mind. Don't ignore it." People don't talk about that, I think.

21:53

It must be a real challenge to decipher between cultural differences and personal and practical differences and the specific scenario of your family and making sure that you are doing the right thing by your culture and by your family. There's certainly a part to a parent and a parent psychology that finds it. Typically, parents find it difficult to accept their children far out doing their success. There's a challenge there where... Likewise, we as children, for example, find it more challenging to be ambitious if it means that we surpass the success of our parents, because we don't want to rock the boat in that scenario or make the situation difficult and create those conflicts. It's hard to know in that circumstance, where do you respect the culture and embrace it? On the other hand, where do you also recognize the personal circumstances between you and your parents and whereabouts the lines are?

23:26

Yeah. I think I'd say it's less about surpassing or not. I think there's actually generally happiness to see the next generation do better. I think it's actually more around the risk side that's more of a factor. It's like, "What are you risking?" I think that's probably more important rather than surpassing. I think actually, there's a general sentiment of actually, "I want you to do better than we did." We had to struggle as immigrants moving over. We had to start from scratch. You don't have a platform to build even bigger and things like that. I think it's, "What level of risk are you taking?" I think actually what they're more worried about is actually you being worse off than them, because we've worked so hard to get you here. Don't get worse off.

24:09

That's such a difficult decision to make because ultimately, the root to success is usually through some kind of trepidation. In your circumstance, where you are making that decision to go on the adventure that is more risky, how can you communicate that in order to do better, you have to take that risk?

24:29

Yeah. Honestly, it's a really difficult one to explain because I think there's an argument that you could take the safe route, which you just take a great job in consulting or corporate job and I will end up just doing better just by pure, "If you stayed in the job long enough, you would just do better." But quite frankly, I wasn't interested in doing that. I think actually the motivation is important. Because I think for me personally, it wasn't about this level of achievement. That was not the end goal. It was to do things that I genuinely love, genuinely passionate about and genuinely proud to do less so about doing better than my family's generation because I think actually, the fact that my wife is one of the first to be potentially educated in her family. It's like she's already made it. She's already made it. It's less about that, but more about actually... I think what we always say to them is, "We're taking the risk, because you gave us the opportunity to take the risk."

25:31

It would almost be a waste to not take the risk because actually, the platform we've been given gives us the capacity to take the risk because we're not worrying about, "Can we pay rent this month?" We're not worrying about, "Can we put food on the table?" We are so fortunate enough to be born in Australia or the UK for many people where you can take the risk, right? There is a pretty good cushion. If you're a smart, ambitious person, there is a cushion available for you. Actually, to not take the risk is a waste. Now, I would say it's not going to be like that in every country though, where you grow up and I recognize that. I was speaking from a lot of privilege.

26:13

The very natural question, I'm sure they ask is why? You then move into a kind of, how have you worked out why? How did you answer that question?

26:28

I think it's a combination of, "I wouldn't do this if I didn't feel conviction that this is the right thing to do." Secondly, "I've thought this through. Just trust me." It was a weird feeling of actually just letting go being like, "Just trust me. We thought this through." I have conviction over it. "We thought this through."

26:51

For you, how have you gone about working out why? It sounded like the kind of top of your pyramid was less about achievement and more about some kind of actualization in a way. How have you gone about working out what it is that you really want to do and defining why you're making these big life decisions?

27:14

I think the way I describe it is this niggling feeling, which is a very weird... I don't know how to describe it. I'm sure when you started cord there was just this niggling feeling that just eats at you for just so long that you're like, "I can't not do it." It actually honestly get to the point where it was like, "I can't not do it." That's actually honestly the conclusion I came to. I got into fintech in 2016, not through the classical fintech that actually... I was living in Kenya and I met with the team who started in M-Pesa, which is a mobile payments product and completely revolutionized how the country moved money, spent. I think 1.5 the GDP of Kenya floats to M-Pesa. I was just like... I honestly felt like I was on the road to Damascus, I was like, "Holy cow, this is incredible."

28:02

"I want to do something in this space." This is feeling like I want to do something in this space. That was actually the reason why we moved to London. That was a big factor of moving to London, one of the best places to build a fintech. It's this niggling feeling of like, "I can't not do it now." I can't." It's just there and it's niggling there. A lot of people have always... As people said, "I just grew up knowing I wanted to start this company." I would say, "That was not true for me." I didn't wake up out of my mother's womb being like, "I want to start a company doing X." It was definitely a gradual thing over many years being like, "I see this problem. I see this problem. I see this problem. I see this problem. Why hasn't anyone fixed it? Why hasn't anyone done anything about it?"

28:44

That realization, I'm like, "Why don't you go do it?" Like, Tim, why don't you go do it? This is a niggling feeling you've had for so many years now. Go and solve that problem." It does sound a bit cliche, but it's genuinely true. It was definitely... What it wasn't though was I woke up one morning and boom. It happened. It was definitely this process of years thinking about it. I always joke to the team that when people ask, "When did the company start?" I'm like, "Well, the question is are you asking when I put on company's house? One, we've got funding. Or when the first seeds started?" And I'd say, "The seeds started five years ago, five, six years ago." But the seed needed a bit of watering over many, many years. I think for me, the seed had to be water sufficiently enough to have enough conviction to then say, "Okay. Let's go and do it now." I would say five years ago, I've had enough conviction.

29:33

Do you get niggling feelings in other parts of your life?

29:40

Probably not. No, which is a bit of a strange one. I think that's probably why when people said, "Isn't it hard to do it?" I'm like, "It wasn't." It always became so obvious by the time I got there.

29:55

It's funny that-

30:00

There was no single moment.

30:01

Yeah. I wonder why that niggling. Because also, what is that niggling feeling? What is it? Is it dissatisfaction? Are you always dissatisfied? You hear Steve Jobs being in his house or not buying any furniture because he just hates anything, but something absolutely beautiful. It's like clearly, he's got niggles all over the place that are surrounding him. It's fascinating that there's just that one drip from that experience in Kenya that's just gnawing.

30:37

Yeah. No. There are probably other niggling, but I think the niggling went enough for me to go and say, "Let's build a business out of it." That is probably my distinction. I don't know whether that was a conscious way of thinking or a unconscious.

30:52

Yeah. Do you put any proactive effort into listening to whatever... You could call it a niggle. Maybe you could call it an inclination. You could call it the seeds of a passion even. It's something at trying to take root. I guess you've got this choice if your conscious about it, to listen to it. Somehow some people are better at listening to these things than others. Do you have a way of listening to it?

31:26

I think I made an effort to notice it and write it down. I just feel like I did. A lot of things, I just start writing it down, which sounds very trivial, but you just don't know how you could build off it. I always joke that you just understand it from literally a note on Evernote with some just scattered thoughts and eventually, it took you many years to give me what it is now, but it was literally just some thoughts at Evernote being like, "What if we could solve this problem? That would be fun. That'd be really important to solve. That was sort of it."

31:59

Yeah, I think you are completely right. I think as you say it, there's an element of just noticing it. I think the difference between... I think most people experience some level just like, "This is annoying. This doesn't work." I think that the difference between people who start a company and not is really, do they notice it? Do they do something about it and then make it happen? But I think oftentimes perceived as this linear like it all happens in one go, but I think it happens over a long period of time. Well, for me, in any way, many years.

32:31

I think what might be helpful to know is that... Tell me if I'm wrong here. It feels like that inclination that you've got to source company is no different to someone's curiosity and their inclination to just follow something that they're passionate about. In some ways, you turn your passions into your company in a way. It's more that niggling, that inclination, that's the thing that kind of... It's not just about starting companies. It's about understanding yourself, I guess and figuring out how you can take those things that are popping up from underneath you that you can't really control or understand. When so many people say like, "I don't know what I'm passionate about or I don't know what I want to do." It's almost as if those inclinations, those seeds, those nags, they're just not taking root in the same way that they could.

33:35

Yeah. I think that's definitely a good observation. Because I think for some, it might be to start a company, but another might be to join one or to change direction or stay at the course. I think a lot of the questions I get often get is, "How do you know what your passion is?" I'm just like, "I just get started somewhere." Then, you discover along the way in the same way if you're looking in the wilderness and you're looking from outside, you're like, "Where should I go?" Well, just go in and start to explore. I think this idea of exploring is actually a great thing. There's a lot of people my age now in the late 20s, early 30s have noticed making pretty big career changes. Some people are like, "Well, their first 10 years is a waste?"

34:21

I was like, "Well, probably not, because they needed those couple of years to figure out what they want to do." I think it's pretty naive to ask someone after finishing high school or college or university to be able to know exactly what they want to do. It is quite an overwhelming idea, but actually just going and starting and to your point, listen to the niggles and just taking small steps can often be the seeds for something that you really are passionate about as well, but I think being patient is actually an important thing. You don't need to find it straight away. Taking your time, allowing it to take root, using the analogy of seed language to take root. You almost don't want to force it. I think just letting it take root, starting to use the analogy of seed, water it by exploring it more, but I think it's a really helpful metaphor for how to think about finding good work or finding your passion and things like that.

35:18

It does come back to what you started with. Actually, you don't have to say that you are going to outright follow your passion and forget everything else, but instead you should, in some way, find the space to explore what passions are available to you and see the reality and the practical reality of those passions once you've understood them in some way.

35:50

Yeah. Exactly. I remember when I was much younger, my goal was to become a pilot. Then, I realize I feel sick and I'd get actually sick. If I was to fly in the army or something, I'd probably get sick doing that. Most at the time, I didn't want to move overseas. There wasn't a lot going on in Australia there. It's like, "Well, that's great though." I don't think I did not find a passion. I just had to explore it a little bit more and then, "It's maybe not for me." That's one thing I think is actually, in my mind, really healthy to go and try things and see if it's for you or not. I think I made a conscious choice, especially in very structured jobs like consulting where you know what you need to do.

36:37

If you do this, you get the next level. If you do this, you get to the next level. Actually, I think I would find the most interesting work by just always playing. I think someone described to me like your 20s is almost like your playpen. Just have fun. Just go and have fun and explore things, because the best way to discover what you're really passionate about is to just go and explore and then learn a whole bunch. Actually, for me, evaluating success as discovery and learning rather than linear progression was a helpful framework to think about my 20s of career, where oftentimes people say, "You need to use 20s to establish yourself and things like that." I was like, "I use my 20s to just explore and have fun."

37:19

I think what I've enjoyed most from our conversation is how, on the one hand, you have a very practical approach to both sides of finding work. It's almost as if on the passion side, it makes a lot of sense to be practical, to write things down, to explore things whilst you can to use the 20s as your chance to go through that experience. But then, on the other hand, once you have discovered those passions, there's no need to then pursue those passions doggedly and religiously. You can instead take them and see where they fit with the needs of the world.

38:01

Yeah. 100%. I think there's a period of time where I thought my passion in fintech would be in emerging markets in Southeast Asia. That was one thesis. Then, I got there like, "Maybe not," but you need to step into it to then get, "Maybe not right now." I think there's an element of just go and do it or start to just take a few steps in. You don't need to have it all thought through and planned out. I think actually just getting going. I think probably just this idea of just get going.

38:36

People are like, "Oh, I want to learn. I want to consider to become a software engineer." I'm like, "Well, just get going and just start." You'll find pretty quickly if you don't like it or not. You don't need to commit a five-year commitment to it. You could just do something on the weekend, give it a test, see whether you like it. Then, all of a sudden, you go, "You know what? I love it or I don't love it." I take that approach of anything in life. I was like, "Just give it a go. You just don't know until you try it basically."

39:02

Thank you so much for sharing how you've navigated it. I've really valued listening to it and feel like I will adopt more practical approach perhaps in some of the ways that I see things too. Yeah. I've really enjoyed it.

39:22

Awesome. Thanks, Ben. That's great to talk to you and explore this topic with you as well.

39:27

Cool. All right, man. Take it easy.