The Decode Diary

It may be a stupid decision to some but personally, this is one of the boldest moves a young kid could make right out of high school. Puvan dropped his scholarship that he originally had in MCKL because he saw value in the Prefectorial Board of Methodist Boys' School. He never looked back since. Looking at his journey and comparing it to mine, I think there were countless points where we could hav...

If you are from Methodist Boys’ School, you are in for a treat. As an average student, I always wondered what sort of great things student leaders in my school would end up doing, whether they would be successful politicians or even tech billionaires. Of course, those were the questions when I was younger. Today, as I started this podcast, I went after a different set of questions.  In this episod...

I personally believe everything in life depends on how best we can stand back up whenever we face losses or failures. I've seen my loved ones being defeated again and again but never able to stand back up. I vow not to be like them. In this snippet, Joon Wei shared how being "defeated" in a relationship led him to start competitive gaming which eventually taught him everything about...

Relationships can teach us a lot of things, be it a bad breakup or an ongoing sweet one. Particularly in this case, Joon Wei learnt to read between the lines when it comes to understanding people. This took off especially when he tried to blend in with his e-sports teams. In this snippet, he shared with me how a bad breakup helped him understand people in general. By being able to read the tiny de...

The cafe business, according to him, was once a flourishing venture and of course, much of the success was attributed to the efforts of his team. Without his team, the outcome wouldn't have been positive. In this snippet, Joon Wei shared how he will always start something with a trusted and talented team, knowing he would limit the possibilities if he went alone. I share his view wholeheartedly as...

When we were playing basketball during high school, it didn’t occur to me that he was already morphing and shaping his character to a point he was ready to run a business right out of high school. Meanwhile I was a nerd studying the hard skills which can be obtained any time later in life. He comes off as a person who looks on the outside like he doesn’t care about the people and matters around hi...

In this last snippet for this episode this week, let's try to uncover the story behind why Dr. Bruce Lee became the man he is today - as a dentist. You might have known from the show notes in the episode that he plays badminton regularly. It turns out there is a lot of correlation between the two. If you can guess it, let me know in the comments! In this snippet, Dr. Bruce Lee shared how he got in...

When I was young, I looked into the mirror and saw my deciduous or baby teeth start yellowing. As a kid, I took in all kinds of food but never really took good care of my teeth. Growing up, being aware of my appearance made me pause for a while when standing in front of the mirror. Brushing as hard didn't help either. It turns out there are two categories of factors why our teeth yellow, even when...

I never thought I would care as much but after doing my own research and listening to Dr. Bruce's opinions as a dentist, our teeth, though tough on the outside, are very susceptible to attacks that may not stand in our favor of being healthy. In fact, there is a possibility an unhealthy set of teeth can lead to heart attacks. Think about it. Of course, there is always a step one. A step one that l...

I think we have all tried this when we were younger, brushing our teeth without toothpaste and thinking we did the right thing. Or did we? Dr. Bruce Lee shared with me how we can try to make up for cases where we might not have toothpaste with us, like at the airport! Remember, the whole goal is to make sure that the environment in our mouth has a balanced level of good and bad bacteria. If you're...

I’m going to come clean, literally. When I was young, I wasn’t paying enough attention to dental or oral hygiene as much as I do now, particularly because I never saw a dentist and I never needed one. And so I thought. It wasn’t until I came across this dentist on YouTube who said the bacteria in our mouth is enough to cause a heart attack that I started flossing and brushing with the correct meth...

Ever since I saw Edward post about the Black Mamba mindset on his social media, I started looking into this unique mentality. It wasn't until I talked to Edward that I find out his goals about embodying this mindset. You can tell when he's determined to achieve something. In this snippet, we talked about how he uses this mindset in his daily work as a financial planner as well as the diffe...

When one starts investing, the term that he/she might hear a lot is "dollar cost averaging". I didn't know about this term before, but because I wanted to improve my financial situation, and because rule #1 is to improve our financial literacy, understanding the different financial terms is imperative. In this snippet, we talked about how people are investing for the long term and it...

For anyone who is looking to improve their financial situation, I think this is a good first step - increasing your financial literacy. By knowing everything basic about financial planning, one can then go on and work on emergency funds. Once the fund is ready, I believe it enables a very different world view once blinded by the lack of preparation and planning. In this snippet, we talked about th...

Growing up, I experienced money anxiety where I felt uncomfortable talking about money with anyone. With friends and family, money is all about the things you do behind closed doors that eventually make you wealthy and rich. It turns out in this day and age, a 16-year-old kid knows more about financial knowledge than I did when I was 16. Having this open conversation with Edward, a financial plann...

I used to think people who travel a lot around the world and third culture individuals are as detached as they seem. They could be, but being able to detach from experiences, be it from your last Europe trip or the Thanksgiving meal with your family, allow you to enjoy the moment more. It does not preclude you from the delight of the situation. In this snippet, Johnny shares with me how life is im...

Habits are reflective of the plasticity of our minds. I learnt very early on that bad habits are easy to stick by. But this is all because we allow our minds to absorb everything around us unfiltered. Practicing mindfulness means being aware of our conduct BEFORE giving it thought. This simple hack can train our mind to become plastic and therefore pick up positive habits easily. In this snippet,...

We were not born with the ability to perceive things in life the way we do today. We were not born with the ability to think a barking dog is annoying. All these happened at some point in our life and our initial thoughts about these events morphed our mindset from then onwards. If only we could filter these thoughts with mindfulness, a lot of the preconceived notions of happenings around us would...

If you asked me if I would share my vulnerabilities and insecurities with a random stranger, I would have never thought of an occasion where I would sit down and talk about them for hours on end. But here I am, with Johnny, a fellow badminton player and also someone who recently got married. I sat down with him, with the intention of finding out how a relationship goes into marriage, and it turned...

In this snippet, Dilip shares with me the highlight of his journalism career and I truly felt his energy and passion when he told me in person. Think about the chain of events, beginning from the day his parents encouraged him to take on a totally different path, to him hating every single moment of it, and then finally doing something he loves in a way that he deems it the highlight of his career...

In this snippet, Dilip recalls what his parents wanted him to do as a profession. Little did they know Dilip was set to take on a totally different path and he loves what he is doing now. In many parts of Asia, the advice coming from parents has a huge relevance in kids growing up. While some may have changed the course of a kid's life, turning them into multi-billionaires, others may have unpredi...

In this snippet, we talked about the growing/shrinking gap between the rich and the poor. During my high school time, we learnt about life in India and the life of a rickshaw-wallah was what you would imagine if you were at the lowest of the caste system. Dilip who happens to have taken a ride from a rickshaw-wallah when he was younger recounts what it was like seeing the huge gap between the rich...

We’ve all been there. In many parts of Asia, our parents dictate our path in life. When Dilip did not know what he liked, he figured he would do one thing: To find out what he didn’t like.  In this episode, I sat down with Dilip, who had previously worked with me on a corporate video shoot, together with many other talented coworkers, and we talked about his journey into journalism. Now, journalis...

In this snippet, Dr Sarah who happens to be a lecturer in a local university in Pahang Malaysia, shares with me how the world today is equipped with AI and students everywhere are increasingly benefitted from it. However, the performance or quality of the graduates are questionable. Here, Dr Sarah shares how the university and private sectors out there should come hand in hand to produce the next...

In this snippet, Dr Sarah shares with me how young adults these days are less capable of coping with failures. She interacts with enough students to be able to say this, and this is worrying. However, she also willingly shared the ways we can better cope with failures should they come. As a starter, a lower expectation can help a long way. If you have encountered yourself even an occurrence of fai...