2-3-4 Friday 

What this newsletter is about

For those who have just joined this newsletter, we want to share 2 things that will shape this newsletter moving forward.

Let’s first start with what this newsletter is not.

1. Whilst we will share tips you can try, this is not a self-help newsletter. And if we’re honest, remember the last self-help book you read? What did you apply from that?
2. Whilst it’s written by a social worker, the focus will not be entirely on social work. It will share perspectives that may be useful to social workers but also workers in other fields.

Why you might want to read this

1. We believe in
   1. Imperfect living
      1. We confess that we know little about the world, and that we all live in different contexts. That’s why what we share would simply be food for thought, and not ideas that profess to tell you what you should do in your life.
   2. Seeing, before being, before doing
      1. We share stories, so that you see what’s happening. How you choose to show up, remains up to you. What you choose to do remains up to you.
2. We are highly focused on Singaporean (and more widely Southeast Asian) stories. We do believe there’s much good in the West, but Southeast Asia in particular suffers a chronic lack of light upon its stories.

Let’s hop back in. Here’s 1 thought, 1 talk, and 1 tip.

1 thought

You may have once felt the feeling of banging your head against the wall, and feeling like no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to get anywhere.

• It may be a career decision you’ve made, where you’ve entered a competitive company, and you find yourself not making much headway.
• You may find yourself racing to join a new industry, after seeing the threat to your current industry.

Before we get there, let’s first talk about supermarkets. Yes, you didn’t read that wrong.

A boring supermarket.

At this year’s 2024 Annual General Meeting of Sheng Siong, a supermarket chain in Singapore, I asked the CEO why he wasn’t exploring having shops in shopping malls, where most Singaporeans were shopping for groceries.

It would seem like a natural next step to grow the business.

Sheng Siong has a unique operating model, where they open supermarkets in the heartlands. In Singapore, a capital city, most people congregate around shopping malls, eating, working, and playing in that central location.

Sheng Siong decided to operate within the heartlands. The CEO’s reply as to why he didn’t target shopping malls?

We need to know who the big brother is.

And we don’t fight where the big brother is playing. But where the big brother is not fighting, there are still places and opportunities to survive.

The big brother there is NTUC FairPrice, which is linked to Singapore’s government.

And Sheng Siong has succeeded by fighting in the proverbial ‘blue ocean’, rather than the bloodied red ocean, stained by the blood of competitors.

It holds lessons for those of us who are looking to turn around our careers, or to decide how best to grow our careers.

Firstly, it’s about accepting that we might not be as big as what we hope to be, yet. The beauty of Sheng Siong’s strategy was that they recognised they might not be able to compete in a mall where they would be massacred by the bigger grocery chains.

It’s the same for us, in our careers. Whatever job we choose, it might be useful to recognise that we don’t have the skills yet to thrive in a global MNC or large organisation, where we become a small fish in a big pond.

In those times, I think it might be more useful to recognise that you might be better as a big fish in a small pond, where you get the most opportunities, and where you become someone known for being the best at what you do.

Because if you’re looking across the road at the organisation with the swanky building, mind you, you might be overcrowded by all the talent there.

First try to survive, before trying to thrive.

1 talk

It’s not about being the big fish in a small pond, but first surviving as the fish in the pond.

1 tip

Later when I asked them why they had $324 million in the bank, and didn’t seem to be deploying it for acquisitions, he said that the cash on hand helped them to pay off suppliers. He didn’t want to risk going bust like others.

He’s not the first to display this balance between optimism and pessimism.

From the day (Bill Gates) started Microsoft, he insisted on always having enough cash in the bank to keep the company alive for 12 months with no revenue coming in.

In 1995, he was asked by Charlie Rose why he kept so much cash on hand. Things change so fast in technology that the next year’s business wasn’t guaranteed, he said — “including Microsoft’s.”

Morgan Housel, author of “Same As Ever”

If you’re feeling stuck in your career, it may be a signal of things that need changing. But the problem often is that we can’t afford to quit our jobs - not with a mortgage, kids, and diapers to buy.

Short of asking your kids to stop wasting diapers, a better option is building up a ‘career buffer’. It’s where you leave cash on the table, that is undeployed, so that you have options. To quit. Learn something new. Spend time with your kids.

We live in a world today where having a buffer is seen as the worst possible thing. The phone has taken the usual buffers we have in the in-between moments, where we quickly flip out our phones at the slightest sign of boredom.

Cash on hand, also seems wasted, especially when there’s the new holiday, iPhone, or restaurant to go to.

But what does cash on hand give us that no other thing can?

Yes, it gives us freedom, flexibility. But most importantly, it gives us independence. Independence to make the choices we want, and not those that we have to.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

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