Misfits: Wisdom from Unconventional Individuals

Wayne Cheong is the head writer for Esquire Singapore. He is a two-time recipient of the MPAS (Media Publishers Association of Singapore) "Journalist of The Year”, for both 2014 and 2015. He has interviewed numerous iconic personalities, including Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Dev Patel, Colin Schooling, "The SMRT Vigilanteh" and Eric Bana, amongst others. On the side, Wayne performs standup comedy regular...

Aaron Maniam is the Director (Industry Division) of the Ministry of Trade and Industry Singapore. He has received numerous awards including (but not limited to), Asia Society’s “Asia 21 Young Leaders’ (2006), Singapore Youth Award (2012), and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2013). Aaron's poems have won many awards including the National Arts Council’s Golden Point Award  (2003). His poe...

Benny Se Teo is the co-founder of Eighteen Chefs . Benny spent 10 years getting in and out of prison. At the age of 45 in 2005, he opened Goshen and started cooking professionally. Benny is also the author of Honest Good Food  - a book where he shares his collection of comfort food recipes that are inspired by his childhood memories and personal experiences. In this conversation, we spoke about Be...

Richard Chong retired from the Australian Army at the peak of his military career as a Paratrooper after more than 13 years of service, serving in multiple deployments at several theatres of conflict around the globe. He is also a practitioner of several martial arts codes including Krav Maga , Silat, Filipino Martial Arts, slacklining and body flying. In 2010, Richard was my first Couchsurfing ho...

Violet Lim is the co-founder and CEO of Lunch Actually , the largest dating company in South East Asia, which started humbly in Singapore. Since 2004, Lunch Actually has acquired 5 companies and now have offices in Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Hong Kong, Jakarta and Bangkok. She is also the CEO of  esync , an online-to-offline dating platform and LunchClick , a dating app that prides itself on disallowin...

Gina Tow is the founder and owner of Happy Rollies . Happy Rollies was started in 2015 and has since grown from a humble flea market stall selling ice cream at Geylang Serai market to having 20 ice-cream carts and 2 mini-vans now. Gina Tow has since developed other food items such as Churros, Watermelon Volcano, Toasted Smores and Cheese Chicken Cubes. If you are heading down to Geylang Serai Baza...

"Success is a satisfying state of the mind, failure is when you stop trying." - Koh Seng Choon Koh Seng Choon is the founder and managing director of Dignity Kitchen , Singapore's first hawker training centre for people with disabilities and the disadvantaged. Dignity Kitchen has trained over 400 individuals and successfully given job placements to all of them. Project Dignity's mission is to buil...

Adrian Pang is an artistic director, actor and host. He is also the co-founder of Pangdemonium Theatre Company with his wife, Tracie Pang. He has won “Best Actor” award at the national Life! Theatre Awards and the 14th Asian Television Awards (ATA). Adrian has appeared in numerous local and international films including Forever Fever ,  The Carrot Cake Conversations ,  Unlucky Plaza and  Blackhat...

“Chefs need arrogance, business that wants to build a brand needs arrogance” – Bjorn Shen Bjorn Shen (IG: @bjornshen ) is the chef-owner of Artichoke , Bird Bird and an ice-cream brand, Neh Neh Pop  - their Instagram feed make my stomach growl. Bjorn Shen is also the author of the Artichoke cookbook and writes a monthly column titled “Bjorn says” for Time Out Magazine . On the side, he also is a l...

Kuik Shiao-Yin is the co-founder and creative director of The Thought Collective . It is comprised of various companies – School of Thought , which offers tuition for General Paper and Language Arts; Food for Thought , a socially ethical restaurant chain and  Think Tank , a branding and content curation agency. She is also a two-term Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP). Hosted on Acast. See acast...

Jack Sim is the founder of the World Toilet Organization  (WTO), Base of Pyramid Hub ( BoP Hub ), World Toilet College (WTC) and the  Restroom Association of Singapore .   At the age of 40, he attained financial independence after creating a series of 16 successful businesses. Thereafter, he decided to retire and devote his life to social work.   Jack has been named the  Schwab Foundation Social E...

Adrian Tan is the author of The Teenage Textbook and The Teenage Workbook which were both national bestsellers. The two books sold over 50,000 copies. The books were made into a film - The Teenage Textbook Movie, which topped the box office in Singapore for four weeks. In 2015, The Teenage Textbook was selected by The Business Times as one of the Top 10 English Singapore books from 1965–2015. Adri...

Loh Lik Peng is the owner and director of Unlisted Collection . His career began as a litigator during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. He mainly dealt with company bankruptcy. His transition to hospitality occurred in 2000 when he bought a property, now known as Hotel 1929, on a bargain and treated it as a passion project. Today, he owns several boutique hotels and restaurants in Singapore, Lo...

Dharni Ng (@dharniofficial) started beatboxing at age 15.He studied at Temasek Polytechnic Singapore. In 2011, he won Emperor of the The Mic in Canada. He is the first person in history to win The Grand Beatbox Battle Championship twice in a row. He has also has opened for artistes like Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West, Lady Gaga and performed during Mariah Carey's concert. Hosted on Acast. See acast.c...

Daniel Ong is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of  Twelve Cupcakes , with more than 40 stores around the region. He was a well-loved radio deejay from Singapore's  MediaCorp Radio   987FM  and won the most popular radio personality awards in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Daniel also managed the radio station for 15 months. In 2010, he announced that he was leaving the radio industry at large. In 2011,...

The 21 Year Old Founders of Staple Magazine, Emily Tay and Clara Lee. Their pilot issue is themed Dizziness of Youth, whereby the notion of “arriving to an age” or the awkward manoeuvre between childhood to adulthood is the topic of interest.   We dived into topics including: - The world of publishing; finding contents, curating and marketing the magazine - How they started a magazine at the age o...

Rafie Chua is the founder and creator behind custom furniture studio,  Plane and Bevel . In a fast paced consumerism society that demands for cheap and the good, he left banking and dived into this sunset industry of woodworking. He has since created a sustainable business. Rafie's creation can found in restaurant, cafes such as  Odette ,  Merely Ice Cream  and  Choice Cuts . He has most recently...

Fakkah Fuzz is undoubtedly one of the funniest man in Singapore. I first saw him years ago in a Freestyle Rap Battle where he is “ Eminem – Roasting ” the opposing rappers. I was cheering. Fuzz, unlike any of us, he DID not do well in school in Malacca. After coming back to Singapore, he took whatever jobs that were available. If that means being a security guard or a waiter, he took it. Fast forw...

Calvin Soh is one of the most sought after admen in Singapore. He entered the advertising industry at the bottom of the rung as a traffic and worked his way up to becoming the vice chairman and later chief creative officer for  Publicis Asia . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

George Cherian Abhishek is the owner of The Spiffy Dapper, the WORST bar in the world and Dapper Coffee that created the Unicorn Tears and Merlion Blood.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the young age of 60 years old, Betty Lee packed her bag, sealed away her belongings and embarked on the next chapter of her life – travelling solo for the next 400 days of her life! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy Tong is a traveller, adventurer and mountaineer. He has conquered many mountains throughout his 12 years of climbing. Some of these mountains include Mera Peak in Nepal, Aconcagua in Argentina and Lenin peak at Kyrgyzstan. He currently plotting his way to the highest mountain in the world, Mt Everest next year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Loretta Chen is a person with the most extensive range of life experiences I’ve ever met. You might know Loretta as a consultant for Bhutan or the director of thought-provoking theatre shows, but that’s a tiny piece of the story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the intro music created by Stew Bamrah. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.