The Exchanges

Q extremely important. You, you've hit on something very, very important there. Um, So because these executives and these founders are so busy, how do you get them to commit besides obviously paying, you know, having, having a yearly fee, they're going to take it more seriously, but how do you get them to actually commit And how much time do they usually have to commit to in a given week?

A It's a yearly membership and it's six sessions in a year for four hours. So that's half a day. And we block these in the calendar one year in advance. So the key here is that it's challenged. It's booked in a year in advance and shared with everyone so you can block it in advance. And if you think about it, it's three full days a year. And these are very important sessions. And we always asking them, Is this a membership that you sponsor yourself? Is your company sponsoring it? If you're paying for it by yourself, then make sure that you take annual leaves so that no one touch. This is your product because you want to have this for yourself to grow your network, to grow yourself. If the company have asked, if your boss have asked you to join here, then it should be easier to manage it because then just make sure you block the slots and tell your boss that you're going there to these sessions. Make sure that you really protect it in the calendar. That's the first thing to do. And then we send out the invitation for each session six weeks before, and it's normally some pre readings and some engagement leading up to the session. And we always try to have also one member every time in what we call a hot seat or to get use of the advisory board where you really lay out an issue that is happening in your business, something that's happening. It could even be if you're in a founders g…

AI assessment note: “It's a yearly membership and it's six sessions in a year for four hours.”

Q to do my ads for this business. Or, uh, does anyone know about, um, you know, selling a SaaS business? I need to sell my business. So, so those are, I think, Like extremely, extremely valuable is that networking, that, that ability to network daily for sure. What told you that that was something important? You know, what, what gave you that idea to do that part, that additional part?

A It's our partners at EGN in Europe who developed an app over many years, and they've done it by questioning and asking the members, what is it that they want to communicate about? And we create also a lot of sub Uh, groups inside here. We have, for example, for the ones who are interested in ESG environment, we have diversity and inclusion groups. We have a lot of social groups, food lovers, wine lovers where they can have wine tastings. We have a cycling group. We have a running group and so on. And we're gonna run Singapore marathon together. And what's happening then Sean is, uh, while we have 20 peer groups in Singapore now, a lot of this is also cross group activities. Uh, because it doesn't have to be a confidential event when you go and run a marathon, so we can mix and, and the groups come together and you meet from, uh, other networks as well. So that's the beautiful part of this.

AI assessment note: “It's our partners at EGN in Europe who developed an app over many years”

Q sign at all. And, um, it's really destroyed his family. And, uh, that's, that's been very difficult to watch because they, they're very sweet people and very loving. Um, so if someone were to feel this way, what's something that they can do, assuming they're not in Singapore and have access to This agency, like what's something that they could do to try to alleviate those symptoms, those, those feelings?

A There's so many beautiful anonymous and volunteer organizations there. There's always a hotline for everything. It doesn't matter what challenge or issue there is. And there's so many community services, so many wonderful charities and organizations that are there to help each other. So my first message is that if someone feeling Not right. You know, first think of is there someone in my family, a friend, a colleague I can share this with. Otherwise, just go into Google and look up. They will be in every country, every community, something, someone would be there or find a coach, find a mentor or find a therapist. The worst thing is to go to bed at night with that feeling of not feeling well and not sharing it with someone. What I found through my whole journey here is that Basically, the problem is halved once you shared it with someone, and it doesn't matter normally who it is. It's just by the fact you vocalize it to another human being.

AI assessment note: “first think of is there someone in my family, a friend, a colleague”

Q how, how are you possibly able to handle all of the crap that you're telling me about? And it's, it's almost like we, we blow their minds away with like how many problems we're juggling. Um, and I'm glad that you said it's like a mastermind because I was going to ask is, you know, what's the difference? So what made you want to get involved with something like this?

A You know, there's so many mastermind groups happening in this, but what happens, it tends to be on an ad hoc basis that someone is excited. They get together a few people and they have a great first session. Then the next session comes along and then only half show up and then it never happens again. So the whole thing here is that it's about making it happen. And in order to do that, you need a team, you need a structure in place. And these need CRM system and need a mobile app in this case where members can sign up and, you know, they can post queries to each other between sessions. There's follow ups. There's people who are responsible because we're talking here about a senior executives or we have group for business owners and founders, and everyone is too busy. Someone needs to be in charge of this and making sure that it's an ongoing program. And that's why there's a place for someone like us to do that. And there's many more organizations out there now and Peer groups is becoming sort of the new way to network because I'm sure, Sean, you have been to some like Chamber of Commerce events, other networking events, and what is happening there is that you have all these salespeople instead. You have the insurance salespeople, even recruiters running around trying to sell the services, and people get so turned off by this. So in EGN and then here in this peer groups, it's all…

AI assessment note: “And that's why there's a place for someone like us to do that.”

Q any trends or things that you're hearing people talking about within your, your community that are interesting at a geopolitical level or in some way, you know, like, so I know like there, people are talking about recessions and, and depressions in, in the West. Right. Is there this concept in Asia right now? Are they thinking about recession and depression? Like what kind of things are they talking about?

A Well, I would say clearly the biggest challenge is the talent, hiring the right talent. And even if you find them to getting the right work permits, you know, not only in Singapore, but in all the countries around it, it's obviously protecting the local talent. So it's quite challenging to hire the talent you want and perhaps import them. Can you get the work permits and passes for them and so on? Uh, so that's a challenge and getting the talent locally up at the skills level. Do you want it? That's a big challenge. So it's a lot of recruitment and placing people all over the world, scattered all over the world. People are working online. Uh, that is the new world we are seeing. We know that, for example, areas like Bali and Phuket are booming now. Many people are relocating there if they can, because it's cheaper rent. It's easier perhaps to set up a company. Uh, Bali has launched a five year Working visa for people that can easily get the work permit and visa to live there. We hear from countries like Estonia, where you now can live anywhere in the world and become a resident in Estonia anyway and pay tax there. That's the new world we're seeing in a lot of communication and talks all around that. We hear companies now who say that, well, we still have our office in Singapore, but if someone resigns, we're not going to replace them there. We replace this person working remote…

AI assessment note: “clearly the biggest challenge is the talent, hiring the right talent.”

Q What did you expect about the race? That you had totally wrong that you discovered on the day of.

A I've done some races in the past years and I learned a lot from those failures. And one failure in the past was that I didn't have a coach. I mean, we get coaches in business. We get coaches when we need something. I also realized I needed a coach here and I hired a coach for this particular race who trained me since January. So I had for the first time in my life this last week, then my perfect race, it was just Wonderful. He trained me so well, and otherwise I would have had so much stumble, so much fall. Uh, yeah, finally the perfect day. So they say that an Ironman event, you know, it's a, it's such a full race, full race. They take 16 plus hours for many people. I had my personal best before was 12, 28. I now did it in 10 hours and 41 minutes. So that's for me is a perfect race.

AI assessment note: “I had for the first time in my life this last week, then my perfect race”