The Decode Diary

I never had the chance to speak to a makeup artist, let alone the chance to know what a day in the life of a makeup artist is like. It seems there is a lot more than I expect, from having to wash and dry a HUNDRED over brushes in a night to being treated unfairly despite being a junior in the industry. The pressure and suppression a makeup artist has to endure is probably one of the most understat...

41 conversations in a year! I want to do this again, but my gut tells me to have more in-depth conversations to maximize my learning out of each story. Let me know what story you wish I would tell or make! "Resisting judgements" is a line I came up with that I think fits The Decode Diary very well. There may or may not be an agenda with a story, but it remains the top priority to let the story flo...

As far as I can remember, I have never spoken to a nurse before, of course excluding the times I woke up in the middle of the night to get my blood drawn when I was at the hospital. But I didn’t speak to the nurses either, it wasn’t a conversation. In this episode, I sat down with Farah to learn the stories behind a nurse and all the kindness a nurse would offer to any random stranger, something e...

This is my first time recording the episode very, very close to nature. As a nature lover and a scout during my high school days, camping is one of the most common activities we would do and being outdoors just makes sense to me. But not to many kids and parents. GreenLife Project is a green project started by TuMa, whom unfortunately wasn’t available on the recording day, with the ultimate missio...

As someone who has family members diagnosed with cancer, I am deeply concerned about this topic. For whatever reason, the idea of sticking to a healthy diet, having a fixed sleep routine and working out to keep my joints and muscles active have appealed largely in the past year for me. 10 months have passed, I’m not entirely sure about the results, and talking to a dietician/nutritionist is the on...

When I first heard of this new startup which has only been around for 8 months since the start of 2024, I had a lot of skepticism. Particularly, the way it solves the plastic problem because it actually introduces more plastic into the ecosystem. Sure, they could have introduced another material and still call it a green company, but I think the problem of single-use plastics is still there. The i...

I’ve known Xin Hui since young and witnessing this journey of her life is just heartwarming. It takes not only courage but also strategic thinking, commitment and the undying fire in her to start Tiny Pockets, an online bakery business during the Covid period. Many would have said it was easy to start back then, but it is a whole different story to persist till today.  Xin Hui’s unique approach to...

The story that you are going to hear is a story that reminded me of how lucky I am today in terms of what I have and what I do. That is a luxury some of these Bajau people will never get to enjoy because of the environment they grow up in. But Zul vows to help lift them out of poverty and provide proper education to them. In fact, he and his team have set up a 10-year plan to, quoting his own word...

Listening to Stephen’s journey of starting his business helped me gain a tremendous amount of insight into a founder’s mind as we all try to grasp what actually goes on in one. The startup founders we know from the Silicon Valley may be raking in millions of dollars while delivering superb value to customers, FireJet is a business from which Stephen and his co-founder stumbled upon a problem while...

I, for one, couldn’t stand the idea of listening to just one side of the story when Sha came onto the show and talked about her entrepreneurial journey with Isya. I had to get Isya on. Just like I thought, their stories are aligned! One would be extra motivated listening to both their stories of how they set out to start a business of their own. One would be even deeply touched to hear how they st...

I first met Daren at Google Singapore back in 2019 and he was already a great storyteller. Never would I have imagined that he would become a creator on the sister company of Google, YouTube and I was one of the early audiences watching his videos for investment advice and car reviews. Not that I would buy a car in Singapore. He has since posted consistently for 3 years and has grown a substantial...

When we first met, Ashvin was telling me about his recent trip to Alaska on a cruise. Little did I know he runs a bar business and more shockingly, he was kicked out of school multiple times when he was younger. The days of being in school for him were more for entertainment. To him, some rules are never meant to be followed and he stood by his own opinions. Today, he runs his family business, pic...

The more I dive into how other people keep to a fitness routine, the more interesting insights I uncover. A simple conversation with Noel revealed how I am lacking a proper program for essential strength training that will actually help me get bigger. As simple as a 4-week program, it includes a deload week to ensure we don’t drive ourselves to the point of fatigue.  Listen on as I discuss the unh...

Shen Yi and Ameerul are both brilliant dieticians who clearly know what they are doing. If there is one thing that I learnt from them, it is that healthy means differently to everyone. However, outside of that definition, they are strict that one should consume food with the right portion. I'm not sure how other dieticians would advise their clients, but I'm glad to have learnt dieting the...

Aside from keto diet, many women practice intermittent fasting because they want to get into the "best" shape of their body. To fully grasp the idea of intermittent fasting, it does not mean we can eat anything or everything when it comes time to feast. The 16-8 fasting framework is still one of the popular frameworks for guiding how to fast, but managing your portion of food intake is e...

Did you know ketogenic diets were originally designed mainly for children with epilepsy? Keto diets are also now for people with diabetes and heart diseases but not for people having problems with their pancreas, liver or thyroid. I've heard many around me practicing keto diet not fully grasping the benefits and impacts to their health, both mentally and physically. It will only invoke a push...

Our diet these days seems to rely on whether we have time in our busy daily schedule for a proper meal plan. Cheap food and quick service restaurants make it almost impossible for us to follow a strict and healthy diet. With family members having health issues, I can’t help but want to understand the definition of a healthy diet and how we can achieve it, for my family and myself. In this episode,...

After touring a few of the properties in KL, we sat down in a cafe and Ganesha told me to look up this apartment called Kudalari Apartment. Full of curiosity, I typed in the name and hit enter. On the map, this apartment sits right smack in the middle of KL, right next to KLCC, the iconic twin towers in the city. When it was built, KLCC did not exist. Today, we can imagine the rent or even sale pr...

Ganesha was supposed to take me to a property he think is non-investable. For many reasons, that property is a bad purchase if one is aiming to invest for profit. Long story short, we didn't make it to the property. But we have Ganesha on the podcast to tell us what it means to invest in a non-investable property. When I heard it, though short and simple, the advice applies to many other areas...

When Ganesha first told me about the different tier areas in Kuala Lumpur, a city so close to me and a city I grew up in, I wanted to know what the different tier areas mean. Trust me, you have to see it for yourself because if you are in the market for a new home or a rental property, this is the prime piece of information you cannot afford to miss. Knowing the different tiers means you have the...

It is not entrepreneurship if there isn't any hardship along the journey. For Sha, a podcast hosted by three ladies quickly brewed into something they never would have expected. But Sha kind of saw it coming. She knew the importance of having contracts between the three of them in order to protect themselves. And I think by reading this you would know what had caused the fallout. Listen to the...

When the wave of podcasting hit Singapore shores, Sha was totally not adamant about the idea of riding it. Her relentless entrepreneurial spirit helped her brave through the ups and downs of the businesses and she knew pivoting was essential at one point. Say What SG is a podcast based in Singapore and she has her own fair share of guests who talk about life's lessons in a touching way that an...

One thing I learnt from this conversation is that our friends may not be the best business partners, but business partners can turn out to be the best friends in our lives. Sha and her business partner made this sound simple when her business partner decided to step in and hold the fort for her when she was ill. Listen to the entire episode on how the business relationship blossomed into a friends...

If there is one thing I learnt from Sha about starting a business, it is to start it properly with legal contracts. The contracts are there to protect us during tough times. It was a conversation I needed to really get The Decode Diary up to speed and a legal business. This conversation came in at the right time. Sha is such a kind and lovely nanny, as she calls herself, but also a wonderful frien...

For Prateep, staying in an industry for 6-7 years is a long time and if he didn't make the jump to quit, he would stay in the same role in the same company forever. I think this speaks for most working class. But there has to be a push factor for him to throw in the letter. Or a pull factor. I asked Prateep out of curiosity. Listen to the full conversation to find out: https://open.spotify.com/epi...