Misfits: Wisdom from Unconventional Individuals

Steve Schlafman ( @schlaf ) is a work-life transition coach. He’s certified with various coaching and therapeutic schools and programs including (but not limited to) The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, Coaching for Transformation, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Nonviolent Communication (NVC), Men’s Emotional Leadership (MELT) and Enneagram. Previously, Steve was a partner at a multi-billio...

Seth Godin  ( @thisissethsblog ) is the author of 21 bestsellers book. That includes  Tribes ,  Purple Cow ,  Linchpin ,  The Dip , and  This Is Marketing . His blog  (which you can find by typing “Seth” into Google) is one of the most popular in the world. In 2013, Godin was inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. Two of his TED talks are among the most...

Chris Lee ( @chrisasylum ) is the founder of Asylum Creative , since 1999. His client list includes Aesop , Johnie Walker , Sony , Hublot , Harley-Davidson and more. The cross-disciplinary studio design logo, website to entire hotel and cafe interior. Most notably, The Warehouse Hotel , 4fingers and Tangs . His works can be found around Singapore, Shanghai, Chengdu, Beijing, Paris, Bali, Los Angel...

Lin Tan, MCC is an executive and mentor coach and also a founder of Collective Change Institute (CCI) . She is the youngest Master Certified Coach (ICF) in Singapore, making her 1 of 6 Master Coaches in Singapore. Lin also served as the president of ICF Singapore in 2020. Her clients include DHL, Royal Bank of Scotland, Burberry, Discovery Channel, and diverse agencies of the Singapore government....

“You don’t want to do what they do, you want to see how they see”. – Nate Green Nate Green , is an author of multiple books, marketing strategist at Precision Nutrition and a recovering fitness junkie. Nate barely graduated high school with 1.7 GPA. Despite all odds, he became one of the most sought after writers and strategists in the fitness industry.  He wrote one of the most popular blog...

Tynan, is an entrepreneur, personal coach and minimalist nomad. He is the author of best-selling books, Superhuman by Habit and Forever Nomad .  Tynan also pioneered the idea of Empire housing, to share homeownership with friends. With this, he brought an island in Canada and homes in Hawaii, Budapest, Tokyo and Vegas. In his former life, he is a pickup artist and instructor, best known as He...

Nina Barber, is an executive and CEO coach & matchmaker. In 2 years, she is billing $2,500 - $10,000/month per client for her coaching services.  She is also the founder of Prismaticco , a matchmaking service for startup executives to find coaches. Nina has also co-founded a social enterprise, Nika that brings clean water to more than 40,000 people every day. In this conversation, we spoke about:...

Dr Stephen Snyder is a sex and couple therapist for over 30 years. His goal, to help you have great sex.  He is also the author of Love Worth Making: How to Have Ridiculously Great Sex in a Long-Lasting Relationship . Stephen is an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine. In this conversation, we spoke about: Why you should be sexually selfish How the idea of “de...

Derek Sivers, is a kind of a reluctant entrepreneur, circus-clown musician turned author. In 1998, Derek created CD Baby by helping his friends sell their CDs. It became the largest seller of independent music online, with $100 million in sales for 150,000 musicians. In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby for $22 million, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. He went to speak at the...

Ali Abdaal, is a YouTuber and junior doctor in the UK. His YouTube channel has more than 30 millions view and 500K subscribers.  He is also the founder of 6med , the largest medical exam preparation crash course in the world.  Ali holds a doctorate from Cambridge University. In this conversation, we spoke about: Ali's battle-tested learning techniques How to choose your doctors  How to grow a YouT...

Michelle Florendo, is a coach for Type-A professionals and executives. She has served on the inaugural coaching team for  Seth Godin’s altMBA , guest-taught on Stanford’s famous  Design Your Life course , and is a founding member of the  Forbes Coaches Council . Michelle is also a mother of 2, admits these achievements. Her coaching philosophy is a blend of decision engineering, design thinking, a...

Steph Smith (@stephsmithio), 25 is a senior analyst working on  Trends , tracking up-and-coming trends.  After less than a year of learning to code (while having a full-time job), she has won the Golden Kitty  award  for inclusion, on Product Hunt.  Steph writes a  blog  about remote work, women in tech and learning to code.  These days when she is not at work, she is building  Upread , a tool con...

Khailee Ng is a managing partner of  500 Startups , a venture capital firm. He has led more than 180 startup investments, with a few “unicorn” successes such as  Grab  and  Bukalapa . Khailee has previously founded Groupsmore which got acquired by  Groupon  and  Says.com,  which got subsequently acquired by  Media Prima , Malaysia’s largest online media company. BUT, even if you have  zero  intere...

Alvin Poh is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Vodien, a cloud hosting company. Vodien was founded in 2002. It was later acquired by Dreamscape in 2017, and was valued for S$ 30million. Shortly after being a millionaire at 33 years old, he sold most of his belongings (including his Lamborghini) and embraced minimalism. Alvin holds a masters in Information Systems from Carnegie Mellon. He is now tr...

JR Hinds is the owner of Hinds and Associates, specialising in employer-sponsored health insurance plans. Today, over 90% of his business is developed through referrals. He has a private pilot’s license and flies a Cessna 172. He also jumped out of an airplane twice (but never one that he was flying). JR rappelled down the building the day before his wedding day and threw a surprise wedding for hi...

“I don't think we ask deep enough questions and give young people enough credit for being able to have those answer within themselves.”– Michelle Jones Michelle Jones is the founder of a higher education institution, Wayfinding Academy. It is a new 2-year college aiming to revolutionize higher education. They have been approved to offer Associate’s degrees by Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating...

“It is not a failure if there are lessons to be learnt from it.” – Daniel Lim Daniel Lim is an entrepreneur and business coach. His coaching and training practice aims to help people to redefine success, build businesses and do work which is aligned with their values and purpose. Daniel's former design studio, Studio MDS work with clients such as Capella Hotels, Singapore Flyer and National Herita...

Annabelle Kwok, 25 is the founder of NeuralBay , an Artificial Intelligence company that specialises in vision analytics. She consults with companies on A.I. driven solutions and was previously the founding CEO of SmartCow. At 20, she travelled alone for 6 weeks to Togo, West Africa. She has witness people fainting from malaria, getting robbed at knife-point, and balanced buckets of water on her h...

"No one says that decided to start drinking because my ambition in life is to be an alcoholic. It’s rubbish.” – Dr Munidasa Winslow Munidasa Winslow is a psychiatrist and the executive director of Promises Healthcare. He has been practising psychiatry since 1988 and is known for his work in addiction medicine and impulse control disorders. He was also responsible for the setting up the Addiction M...

Lim Der Shing is currently a private investor, Venture Advisor with Jungle Seedplus and board member with several organizations. Huang Shao-Ning is the Managing Partner of Hub Ventures Fund and a Partner at Entrepreneur First, the world’s leading company builder. Together, they are the co-founders of JobsCentral Group and manage a regional portfolio of over 17 angel investments in startups. JobCen...

Peter Ho is the CEO of HOPE Technik , an engineering company specializing in Unmanned systems, Defence, Bio-medical, Smart Logistics and Special Vehicles. The company has delivered over 400 projects across 18 countries to date and projects included (but not limited to) the last 4 versions of  Red Rhino for the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF). HOPE Technik was awarded the Most Technologically...

Michael Sng is the principal designer of Machination Studio . He is the creator of the Codename Colossus - a Walking War Machine with 435 individually 3D-printed parts. Michael is the first Singaporean who spoke on the main stage at the TED Conference (2016) in Vancouver. He holds a Bachelor of Graphic Design (Advertising) from the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (2000). In this co...

“If you allow all these barriers and challenges around you to impact you, you’ll never walk out of the house and have terrible mental health. So, get over it.” – Claire Chiang Claire Chiang is the co-founder of Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts . She was the Singapore's Woman of the Year (1999). She was the first of two women who to break the long-standing tradition of an all-male member of  Singapore...

Pek Jin Shen, 25, better known by his stage name ShiGGa Shay is a Singaporean hip-hop artist, songwriter, director, and music producer. In 2012, ShiGGa was named the "Unsigned Talent of The Week" by WorldStarHipHop . He was the first Singaporean hip-hop Artist that made it to iTunes top chart with his song, LimPeh . In 2016, ShiGGa Shay was invited by the US Ambassador to perform at the White Hous...

Tay Kheng Soon is the founder and principal partner of the architect firm, Akitek Tenggara. In the span of his career, he was responsible for many iconic buildings around Singapore. Some of these include (but not limited to) People's park Complex, Golden Mile Complex and KK Woman's and Children hospital. He was president of the Singapore Institute of Architects (1991-1993); the founding member and...