Bonus Special - The mic flips. And so does the perspective. Karen Chong & Sai Ramachandran

Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of Mind Blend,

the broadcast about real experiences and meaningful

conversations usually hosted by the inimitable Karen Chong.

But today's episode is a little different.

It's an inside out, upside down episode.

Hunter becomes the haunted and the asker gets asked questions

is in this episode. We put Karen on the hot seat and

I, your host Sai Ramachandran, get to ask her questions.

But first, a bit about Karen. The frequent listeners of this

podcast may or may not already know Karen is a self-described

first born daughter and a third culture kid, which explains a

lot about what she excels at, which is to serve as connective

tissue between left brained engineers and right brained

creatives and strategists. She comfortably holds the big

picture in her head while being detail oriented.

And I have personal experience because I was a guest on the

podcast not so long ago. With that, welcome our guest for

the day. Also the host for all of the

episodes in Mind Blend, Karen, John.

Hi Sai, thank you so much for that intro.

All right. The question number one, you've

lived in multiple countries and cities and you're a third

culture kid. My question is basically from my

own ignorance, what does it mean to be 1/3 culture kid and what

can you tell us about being a third culture kid?

The quick answer is you're not attached to just one thing.

You don't really fit neatly into any box.

And the questions that I get asked a lot, where are you from?

I just came back from South Africa and people ask me where

are you from? I really don't know what to

answer 'cause I think the most relevant may be, oh, I came here

from London, 'cause they're probably asking about like, oh,

where's this visitor from? Like for example, if you're

taking a survey at the monument, for example, they have a survey.

They probably just want to know where are people visiting from?

They're not interested in my origin.

But then clearly I told them of London.

People may think more like, oh, where are.

You do they ask you anything? Sometimes, not all the time, not

so much anymore, but like, oh, you don't have a London accent?

And then I have to answer, OK, I moved to London from San

Francisco. If they're not really familiar

with how there's like generations of Asian people in

the US, maybe they'll ask another question.

So I really don't know what to tell them, 'cause it's like, do

you want to know where I'm born, where I grew up, what passports

I hold, what language I speak, where I'm living now?

So I think it's that that's my answer.

Alright, so so my question to you is that you say you're a

third culture kid. You have experiences from many

parts of the world. You don't know how to answer the

question of where you're really from.

Does that, how does it make you feel when you see someone who's

very comfortable in their own skin?

Does that first of all make you feel a little bit intimidated

when somebody super familiar, super grounded in where they're

from? Is that, is there anything which

comes to your mind when you when you meet someone who's like,

yeah, yeah, I'm from, I don't know, some part of London that

I've grown up there for the past.

My, my has been there for the past 100 years.

Does that make you feel it? Yes or no, let me let me tell

you about the when it doesn't intimidate me because I don't

see myself like permanently in one place.

And if I am living, working in the place that I was born and

have never left, and I'm not talking about just travelling,

if I've never left, I don't think I will feel very fulfilled

in my life because I do know people like that.

I knew them from school. They are still living in the

same area. They marry people from the same

school and their kids are now going to the same school.

So I don't feel like I'll be very fulfilled.

So this is when it doesn't intimidate me.

When it does and it's more like I, I'm envious of them is let's

say the tour guide in my trip recently, he's a local and he's

been there his whole life. He even showed us the house that

he grew up in. And I'm jealous because like, he

knows the city in and out, 'cause if I say, oh, I want to

be this local guide, where do I feel comfortable saying I am the

local 'cause I'm not really a local anywhere.

I've lived in San Francisco and Hong Kong the longest, but I

also don't feel 100% qualified to be the local guide like for

the time being, local guy, but it's not like I have 50 years

living in this place. So that's one career that you're

not going to get into, which is tour guide and moving people

around cities. So that's one career option off

your list. Yeah.

So Speaking of careers, you've been a project manager, you've

been a connective tissue, like you said, between the left brain

engineers and strategists. So what have you done?

Bring us to present day Kat, and how did it start?

How did it get here? Let me let me think.

I think all most of my jobs have been just being the one in the

middle coordinating different parties like my first like

relevant jobs to this. I was a product development

coordinator. So the company makes figurines

and they have factories in China.

And so I work with a product development people, the designer

in US time zone. And then that was many, many

years ago. And at the end of my day, I'll

have to send an e-mail of like all the developments.

So like, OK, for this product do this, this, this, this product

do that, people in China do that when they're sleeping next day,

come back, continue the development.

So it like this connective tissue started with that.

And my like, exposure to different culture helped me

because I'm able to just make it really simple for them in China,

like, you know, designers have like fluffy languages, but I

don't need the fluffy languages. I just need to tell them, OK,

make the hand like 2 centimetres shorter or something like that,

right? I don't need to tell them the

emotion this change needs to evoke, right?

And Fast forward, I did a lot of different things in between, but

Fast forward, when I moved back to Hong Kong in the late 2000,

can you even say late 2002 thousand, like 6:00-ish, seven

time frame, I got a job at an advertising agency.

So I was an account manager and it was like an international

advertising agency. So most of the clients, they're

based like they are physically in Hong Kong, but these are like

multinational companies. So it's again very international

like, well, the clients are local Hong Kong people.

Their counterparts are the English American, you name it.

And this is when like language in terms of just like Chinese,

English and language in terms of like pragmatic and visionary,

the evil bridge that is important because again, the

people we need to execute, like the designer, the web developer,

they just need to know like, OK, what do I need to change?

So I'm going to assume that the the translation was similar,

like move the hand to centimeters, make the hand to

centimeters shorter. I mean, I'm assuming that the

figurine makers and the ad creative designer needed that

level of detailing in both jobs. Would that be right?

For a very, very experienced, say, art director, I I didn't

need to give her that level of detail because she's not just an

execution person. She's the one who like bring

vision to art, like how it actually looks like.

But for anyone who's less experienced, yes I will.

I will need to tell them to change the color from this hex

code to another like something like that.

After that, basically all my jobs have been core.

Like the title is project management, program management,

and it's similar 'cause I have worked with people who are very

visionary, very creative and people who are engineers or

designers or they need to produce something they need like

really clear what do I need to do type instructions.

So, so I'm curious, OK, I'm I'm this, this is making really

curious. Do you have any grounding in art

for for you to be able to say I'm trying to evoke to to create

this feeling of awe in my audiences.

So for that to be translated into this person should look a

certain way of be positioned in a certain way that must be

needing some sort of training. So do you have any training in

arts? Do you have any training in

executing vision? How is it that you're able to

translate? Because that seems like it's a,

it's not an in it's skill. You have to be taught these

things. Yeah.

So even this, I'm sort of the in between because I have no formal

training in arts, I have no formal training in engineering,

but because I have worked with these people enough.

So if I think back on when I first started, of course, I

didn't start with knowing how to do these things, but I asked

questions like I asked the people who need to execute, what

kind of information will you need to know to be able to go to

the next step? And then for the visionary, like

I just try to listen to what they're saying because like for

the visionary, it's a little bit easier to understand because

it's not really engineering. You don't need a degree to

understand arts. And I don't do the art

direction, but I use what the client has said, what the

creative director is proposing, like see if there's any gaps in

between these because the clients are people, The clients

are like business people. So if I can bridge that gap and

by asking questions, you know what the people who execute me

to know, then that like kind of helped me stay afloat.

And over time, you just kind of know what the designers will

need to know in order for him or her to design something.

Now you ever tell me this, has it ever happened that the art

director or the person with the vision, I don't know what, what

term, what role they play, but that person said, do I want

this, this thing to be conveyed through the product?

The product final part should convey this emotion.

And you're like, this is not going to work.

Let me inject my own two cents or let me tweak it a little bit

so that it it so hasn't that happened that you had to give

some you added some your own some secret sauce from Karen

Chong's book of secrets so that the product became nicer, better

sold better, looked better. Is that did it ever happened

that you super you overrule the art director without them

knowing? I have definitely injected a

normal person's point of view. So, for example, this didn't

come from the creative director, but it came from the client.

We were making a billboard and the client wanted me to add a

paragraph to the Billboard. We're talking about a long

paragraph in a billboard that people would drive by.

Anyone will know it's not meaningful to add a paragraph on

the Billboard unless it's a disclaimer that you're forced to

put in there. And same thing for the creative.

Like I would tell them, OK, the client wants to achieve this

purpose. Can you explain to me how this

creative direction is achieving that?

So by asking these type of questions, I'm not over ruling

their creativity, creativity, but I am grounding them like,

yeah, matching them to what we're trying to achieve by

applying like thinking of how it's going to come across,

thinking of how it easily looks like in life and just making,

making sure that it's on the right track.

I think that's more of what I do.

So, So why podcasting? So you did all these things.

You were part of an advising agency.

You helped translate the vision into a product that sounds like,

you know, market focused B to C sort of work.

Why podcasting? Why a podcast like Mind Blend?

Let's transition to that and tell us more about Mind Blend as

a product, how it came about. What made you commit to this?

You've been doing this for how long now?

How many episodes? A.

Year. A year, yeah.

Like it's January 15th. Last year was when the first

episode came out. So.

So what brought you to podcasting and why you've done

it for a year? A year in podcasting is a lot.

There were a few things actually like there I am very much a

person who believes in teach people how to fish and given our

world now, the soft skills are very important.

And the soft skills that are important are the EQ like

reading the room, understanding your audience, being able to

communicate clearly and problem solving, like analyzing things

not, not just from like a scientific mathematical point of

view, but just don't take things at the surface level.

Like I think these are very important for anyone to live a

more fulfilling life or even just not go about life blindly

because that's something that I have been very against even from

a very young age. Like, OK, you're at this age,

you should be doing that. Like that life timeline.

There are many people who are just following the lifetimeline

and they don't really ask why, like ask themselves, do I want

to do this? Or yes, I'm at the age that I

should be doing this, but how does that align with what I

really want out of this life? So I think the fundamental

reason why I want to do, why I want to spread information is

that there's a lot of directions I was considering before, like

how to do right things right? It was one of them.

But what's right is very subjective.

And just because this person said it's right doesn't mean it

applies to other people. So I was like, OK, that's not

exactly what I want to do, but like, how can I equip people

with knowledge that kind of helps them think deeper or open

up their minds a little? I think that's why I eventually

landed with Mind Blend and then why I wanted to do a podcast.

It's because like I did an internal one at the company that

I was working at. It's not related to like Mind

Blend topics at all. It's just interviewing a few

members in the company employee network group and just

understanding their experience. It was an Asian American

employee network group. So like asking them about Asian

American experience in the States, things like that.

I was the one person doing everything, but I enjoyed the

process so much Like I, I thoroughly enjoyed.

I spent a lot of time that was my first time doing any sort of

like recording and then editing. I was doing everything.

But there's zero part of me that was complaining like why am I

doing? Like, why am I the only one

doing everything? No, like that did not come up at

all. And someone after I did the

internal podcast, I was talking to an ex Co worker and they

said, well, maybe that's your true calling.

So like that planted AC. So all these combined made me

wanted to do a podcast. And with the first episode I

used to work with that person, that guest Juan Silvera.

And then because he's a marketing guy, at first I was

just going to do an interview and post interview somewhere.

But because he saw like more potentials, like, oh, there are

more legs with this project, why don't we do more with it?

So that became the first episode.

So in the last one year, let's go back to the to the last one

and then we'll talk about the future.

What are the kind of guests you got?

Did you always get the kind of people you you were looking for?

Or did you have to say, you know, fish around among friends

and say, hey, man, can you do a episode with me?

Because I'm, I don't I can't find anyone this week or this

month. So how was it?

How's it been this been this year, this past year?

So thank God there are platforms that matches guests with shows.

So I have gotten a lot of guests from a platform that are used

for that purpose. In this coming year.

I have some topics that my friends and listeners have

requested and I was recommending another platform where you can

put a topic out there and then there can be people pitching to

answer like this call that source is giving me more

knowledgeable guests. But now like I think because I

want to go deeper, I want people who have like spent extensive

amount of time researching the topic or they have more

authority in whatever domain I want to talk about.

So finding guests hasn't been all that difficult thanks to the

platform. So can you give us the preview

of the kind of topics we can expect in the second year or is

that the secret? Is that a secret?

Like to summarize, like how can we let go of like, how can we

let go of our past self? People have been saying the

world is changing for many, many years, but the world is changing

very rapidly right now. No one is able to just carry on

their own self and keep going. So I think that's one big theme,

OK, and another one would be more.

I will continue on the like understanding yourself better

theme because I think there's a lot of value in that.

And of course, like a lot of brain, like how our brain works,

that will still be another theme that I keep exploring.

Now, if I was your friend and you would ask me, like, listen,

suggest some topics to me, I'd be like, you know what I want to

know about, you know, life after death or something like that,

like this. Talk about it is is there

anybody who's that like something?

Completely. Yeah.

I'm not surprised because I did have some like spiritual leaders

who approached me. So yeah, OK, I'll put that in my

list of ideas. All right, so, so in the last

year, most, most the guest you learnt the most from and the one

that you were most excited to have on the show.

And are they the same person in the past year?

You were definitely one of them because I have really wanted to

talk to comedians, like even from the beginning.

So you were definitely one of them because I personally love

comedy and I do think there's a lot, there's a lot of like

science and EQ involved in being a comedian.

So you were definitely one of them.

And I learned a lot in the brain wiring episode with Doctor

Loretta Bruning. And also I talked to a chef that

was the second episode about Nissan Plas because Nissan Plas

is another concept that I really like.

What is Nissan Plas? It's basically a French kitchen

term. It means like having things in

place. So if you're going to make a

dish, the chef is not going to do everything as he's going down

the cooking process, right? The things are already prepped

there, like all the work is done before, but you got your chopped

vegetables, you have your sauces, you have your pans and

pots, those type of things. And that concept can be applied

to daily life too. Because I read a book that talks

about exactly that, how to apply me some pots in everyone's daily

work day. And it makes people like you

don't just go through your day like rushing from one thing to

another, but you have control over your day.

But wouldn't that mean having like 20 people in your

employment or doing things for you just to get you to a place

where you can put things together and execute?

Not literally, but you yourself have to do more prep work so

that your day can be less chaotic.

So for example, if I were to apply means on pause in my day,

it would be like starting the day, looking at what you need to

achieve and say you have a morning meeting that's more like

progress, stand up type meetings.

And then the next thing you have is like maybe leadership facing

meeting. And then you have one hour,

maybe you can have for lunch or something.

And then you have to go, you have to run errands and you have

to go out tonight, for example, But you have a proposal due

tomorrow. So looking at what you need to

do. So this is sort of like thinking

of the dish you need to make and how, what, what can I do before

and after enduring that can help me achieve all of these and

achieve all of these with standards.

So like maybe instead of just starting the day with that

progress meeting, maybe even start yourself earlier.

Like look at look at the progress, think about the

questions that people are going to ask during this meeting and

then doing some studying or research or like get your

information together. The leadership basic one also

like mentally preparing what you need to answer or like think,

think ahead. I think that probably would be

the closest is think about what the outcome needs to be.

And when you're doing this, you are already thinking of the how

the final product should be. So yeah.

Something similar when it comes to say working out and running.

Also because I've, what I've, what people tell me is that if

you want to go running in the morning, the first thing you

should do is put your running gear at least within reach or

you should be. You should go to bed wearing

your running gear so that when you wake up you have no excuse

not to go running. So it's something.

Like that? Yeah.

So you just have one step ahead and push, you keep pushing

yourself towards where you need to be.

That's great. That's.

Yeah, and not being reactive. Right.

So last year was the chef, then the doctor, you said, and myself

and a few other guests of yours fighting to you.

So what about the coming? Is that like if you had if you

picked a name out of a hat, you had a hat full of people that

you could have called who who you will call in the future.

And you said, I'm going to wave a magic wand and call this one

person. Who would that be?

You have only one name to pick. You can you cannot say I'm going

to pick these five different people, just one person who if

you could get them on the show, you'd get them on your show in a

heartbeat. Who would that be?

That's very difficult because I do plan on reaching out to both

of them. I'll pick this author.

She's a psychoanalyst turned author.

Her name is Philippa Perry. So I read her book, the book you

want everyone you love to read and maybe a few you don't.

I think she had a column in a newspaper and then she receives

readers letters and her she helped them, she answers their

questions. But she also goes into a lot of

the deeper like psychology type things and everything she said

in the book. I'm like, that's what I've been

saying for years. I'm not saying like I'm as good

at her, but these are a lot of these are common sense things

that people don't think about. And I think one reason why I

want to equip people with knowledge so they can go about

life better is a lot of things are common sense like you,

because everyone is in their situation.

You're blinded by the situation. And then when you're the

outsider, it's crystal clear what this person is doing is

maybe not the best thing for them.

So Philippa Perry would be the person.

I have two questions. Do you genuinely think you,

you've said it twice already that you wanted to equip people

with enough knowledge to help them live their lives better?

Do you genuinely feel that teaching someone how to live,

teaching someone anything is even possible?

I mean, I know you can teach people ABC because we all went

through school and learnt ABC and maths and all that, but

stuff like how to live life better.

Is it even possible? Do you genuinely believe that?

Or you at least want to create the knowledge and let them find

it whenever they're ready? I'm I'm always conflicted by

this. How?

How much can you teach someone, especially as an adult?

How much can you teach someone how to live their life better?

Teaching people? Absolutely possible.

Changing people is not possible because a person will change

only if they want to change. If they're changing because

someone else told them to, eventually they're going to

break the rule or go back to their own self.

But by teaching them, you at least expose them to the

information. And it all depends on that

person. If the person him or herself

have no desire to even take in the information or they're

completely closed minded and don't even, it's like a like

nothing penetrates. There's something you can do.

But if the world is already filled with negative fake media,

why not spread like more accurate factual information?

And in what I'm doing, I'm training AI to spread factual

information as well. So teaching absolutely what how

effective it is. It depends on the person.

And also a lot of the episodes, it's not so much like it's not

black and white and only black is the way you should go.

It's not like that. It is.

These are the colours. This is how your eye will react

to this colour. And in this situation, like when

you're about to go to bed, a white light will affect your

sleep quality. Yellow light will help.

So it's more like that. I'm not saying red is better

than yellow. So yeah.

So the, the other question that I wanted to ask was why Philippa

and you sort of answered it then, But beyond that, like what

were like, what are the some specifics that she was talking

about that he thought was really important for more people to

hear about? Like maybe one or two things

from that book, if you could share that.

She talks a lot about the things that are related to her

psychoanalysis work, and because a lot of the things that we are

struggling to make a decision on, you actually do know what

the decision should be. I remember one of the letters

that she received from her readers.

It seems like I'm really attracted to this person at

work. But I have a loving family.

My wife is caring, things like that.

But I'm like, we haven't done anything yet, but like, we're

just close to doing something. Like what should I do?

And then she kind of reframes like she's not saying adultery

is wrong, but like she's reframing.

But do you want a life partnership?

And by committing anything with this other person at work, what

you have at risk? And so she's not saying you

should not cheat. That should not cheat.

But like, think about what you want, because if you ask that

question, if this person still carry on doing what the animal

instinct drove him to, then you know it's your choice and you're

putting your partner, you're putting your marriage at risk.

If you're willing to do that. Well, maybe some there's

something about the marriage, maybe you are not really

committed to this marriage anyway and it may fail

eventually down the road. But I think this aspect of how

she analysis the situation and give people advice I that

resonates with me a lot. OK, so now the your choice was a

person who I'm, I'm not sure many people know about Doctor

Philippa, right. I was expecting you to say

Barack Obama or someone like like a global person like that.

Is, is, is that a reflection of how you are as a person?

You, you look for mentors and, and sources of knowledge more

accessible to the regular people.

Or are you like, what's your social media consumption like

what, what, what, what do you look for when you're thinking

about what to talk about next? Or I mean, I know you talk to

your friends, but like, how do you, how do you inspire

yourself? How do you Orient yourself in

life? Those are a few questions in

there. I think I am very like

educational, like deep down I'm a nerd Right now there's this

one social, one Instagram account that I recently

discovered. I love it.

So it's animation, but it's animation of simple things in

life like the tips and not even hacks, just like tips.

So it's like if you have a super hot pan, don't put it in like

cold water or like when or don't put onion next to avocado or

something. So it's I, I want people to know

to navigate life and to live a more fulfilling life.

If you can understand yourself, if you can apply the same

psychoanalysis to yourself, it helps you avoid a lot of like

confusion. Confusion is one of the emotions

that I hate the most. I want people to stop being

confused with life. And one way to not be confused

with life is like, have a very clear vision ahead, at least for

yourself. Like you can't control anything

around you, but if you know what you want you will pave the way

for yourself to get to where you want to go.

But but you lived in say 5 or 6 different cultures, different

cities, and you have had to deal with not knowing anything about

a new place you moved to, You moved from London, from San

Francisco to London, London to Hong Kong.

I, I know you've been to Japan, you've lived in Japan, even in

South Africa. And also long ago you are

intentionally putting yourself in places.

But confusion is your state of being.

But now you're like confusion. You need to reconcile this for

me. So confusion and uncertainty are

different. OK, Confusion and unknowns are

different. So let's say before I move to

any country or before I go on a trip, I research everything I

can. Like I research the basic things

like the voltage, what adapts are I need to bring currency,

it's credit card accepted like the things that will keep me

alive there. And with Internet nowadays our

smartphones so much easier. I just need to know like the

major things like, you know, get my SIM card type thing.

So I prepare. The unknown would be how is it

actually like when I'm there? Like it's crossing the road

exactly like how it like the Internet says, like when you're

in Rome, just follow the Romans. Otherwise you would never be

able to cross the road. You know, things like that.

You don't know until you're there, but at least you have an

idea of this may come up and language, like maybe you learn a

few phrases here and there or get the translation app with the

local language downloaded already.

And yeah, so the unknown makes life a little interesting, first

of all. And it's not my first time going

to his destination that I don't know of because I've done enough

of that. I kind of know how I should

prepare. And like, what are some like

safe moves universally? Like universally there's some

safe moves and just be safe. I err on the safer side of

things when I'm travelling or when I'm in unknown situation

just to like keep myself alive. So yeah, does that answer your

question? Confusion and unknowns are

different. I what I'm hearing from you is

that you don't actually give too much space for not knowing

what's going to happen to develop.

You do your research, you sort of get your apps downloaded, you

have your currency in your pocket, you make sure your phone

SIM is enabled and data roaming is turned on or whatever those

things are supposed to be. You, you do everything possible

to keep yourself alive and safe. So it's like, it's essentially

like you're going to Six Flags and you're on this roller

coaster, but you you make sure you're strapped in, make sure

that that steel cage you're inside is not defective.

I don't think I. Think and then you need.

To make sure it's not defective. I'm at the mercy of the people

there. We.

Just hope that you know, it's been inspected recently and you

know, steel cage that the one they put you inside the harness

and everything it's all done. That sounds like this that your

life is also like that. You're not really really, really

going completely off the off the reservation and doing something

crazy. Just doing enough to get that

sense of going going to any place.

I understand. So OK, cool.

So now the question about podcasting, your domain right

now, apart from your work is podcasting and you're trying to

share knowledge. But what kind of podcasts do you

listen to? What kind of people do you

admire? Like specifically podcasting?

Do you listen to other podcasters?

Do you listen to other? Do you look at them and say, oh,

you know what, this is really cool.

I should I should try this on mine?

Yes, hidden brain is when I listen a lot.

I think mind blind is influenced by hidden brain.

I really like what they dive into and there's a lot about

like how your brain works, how emotions work and things like

that too. The hidden brain, which is like,

that's why I said I'm a nerd 'cause I love listening to

things, that I am gaining something, I'm learning

something. So hidden brain is one of them.

I'm trying to think if there's any.

I listen for fun. There is, but there's also this

underlying learning. So two other ones are related to

Japan. One is called Abroad in Japan,

so Chris Broad is the person, and I've read his book too.

So basically he taught English in Japan and just stayed there.

He didn't come back to England and he started a podcast.

The podcast is for people who are interested in life in Japan

without living in Japan. So I listened to that one so I

can kind of keep in touch with what's happening to Japan

because I lived in Japan a long time ago.

I still go there. I still talk to my friends, but

new things come up right. So I don't want to be like super

outdated people know exactly like, oh, you were here in the

2000, early 2000 type things. They'll kind of to keep me in

touch with Japan. The other one is a Japanese

podcast in Japanese. So this person, he lives in

Mexico, he teaches Japanese in Mexico, but the podcast is not

like language podcast. It's just him talking about

various things. But I can practice listening so

and his topics are actually really fun as well because it's

day-to-day things, but there's like cultural involved there.

There's, you know, life in Mexico.

He even shared an episode like how to be efficient in taking a

shower in Mexico because you only get water for three minutes

and it's not 3 minutes of hot water too.

So like stuff like that. I learned vocabulary.

I learned because he talks about things in Japan too, when he

goes back home. So.

So these two are also like Japan related.

I feel like if I'm not learning something and I'm just listening

to something for fun, that's the minority of my media

consumption. Yeah.

You're doing podcasting. It's been starting in second

year. Is this going to be podcasting?

And then you're going to become a build a media empire around

it. You're going to have book coming

out of it. I where do you see this?

Where do you see this going after, say, five years?

If I want to be useful to society, then I do want to

publish a book based on the things that were talked about on

the episode. And because right now it's just

year 1. So I have many different facets

of information. Not really something that has a

clear direction yet, but I do want to use the content to

publish a book of sorts down the road.

And media in part, I don't know, because with great power comes

the great responsibility and. You're choosing to teach people

how to live life. That's that's the, that's the

maximum thing already. Yeah, I I do want to be

eventually like yourself, be on Ted X or Ted.

Speaker That was actually something that I thought about

before the podcast, but I was thinking, yes, I'd have

knowledge of many different topics.

Do I have in depth knowledge about any topic that I can give

a speech about? Maybe not yet.

So that's why I didn't pursue that road.

And so where does the audience come from for your podcast,

Nick? Is it all the UK or is it

global? If it's global, which other

countries do your listeners come from?

US is the biggest market and I think it's because I started it

on more LinkedIn, like I started promoting it more on LinkedIn

because it was set up to be more professional career related.

So because if you look at user base, of course US is the

biggest user base of many, many different platforms.

The US, the second one is UK. India is actually up there too.

And Hong Kong. So mostly because of my

connections. And then I have like a lot of

other countries, Germany, Japan. What is the strangest one?

I, I have some, I think Estonia was one of them too.

So brand like very geographically dispersed.

I think South Africa was another one, but that was probably my

friend when she was visiting South Africa.

Australia. Like countries that can

understand English at least. Yeah.

And then like, guests come from everywhere too.

So where the guests are from, there will be some listenership.

So which is the most out there country from where you've got a

guest? From where I got a guest, let me

think Mexico. But she's just living in Mexico

though. Yeah, I would say Mexico, but

something, something else may come up.

Right. So if there's one country that

you'd want a guest from, like if I was doing a podcast on thing

I'd like Afghanistan, that'd be a country like you'd never

expect a podcast guest from Afghanistan saying here's what

you can learn about life in Afghanistan.

I'd love something. Is there any country like that

in your mind that I wish I could get a person from there?

Right now, probably Greenland, Right now, probably Greenland,

because it'll be interesting to hear their perspective.

I don't. Think you need to go to a

podcast? You have to know.

Because what we see in media is filtered by the media, right?

So either Denmark or Greenland. That's that's a good one.

That's a good one. That's like.

Unexpected there because I did hear different perspective, like

like how Danish people think about the situation, how

Greenland people think about the situation.

So yeah. Like they're not the same.

I'm I'm assuming when you said that the they're not the same.

So the, what we see on media, but what I, what do we see in

media is a Greenland people are saying like we are our own

country, like, you know, we need to decide.

And then for Denmark, we see the perspective of Danish

government, right? But whatever the person in the

South Africa trip, she lives in Denmark right now.

And then she said, if you ask any Danish, they'll just say

take it because they're paying taxes to support Greenland.

So for a Danish citizen. They're just spending money on

this place that they they're not gaining anything from.

But from the government's point of view, there's like natural

resources, but of course, citizens, that's like when

they're removed from citizens. We have never heard this

perspective before, right? So that's why.

So maybe your your next niche could be correspondence from

troubled spots in the world. I don't know, like things that

people didn't know, but uncovering things that people

don't know. OK, so now one last question

about podcast business. There is a lot of stuff that is

not English. Like there are a lot of, there's

a lot of intrinsic knowledge in for for example, the Amazonian

people and the Greenland people were not maybe conversant in

English. Do you worry that, you know,

there's some stuff I'm not able to expose to the world because I

don't speak the language? Do you have any such ideas and

how to bring that knowledge out? 100% because it being an English

podcast, my guests and I are limited to certain world views.

Because if you think about all the English speaking, not even

just English speaking countries, like English speaking countries

will be Australia, New Zealand, India, USUK, Canada.

Those are the ones that I can think of.

We're already self selected. So I thought about doing

something in Cantonese and Japanese, but I would have to

kind of segment out the episodes because it's difficult for it to

be multi language in that way because like not all my

listeners speak all three. So I did think about that.

I don't know, I haven't really thought about how I can bring

the information out. But one way would be eventually

opening up a channel for people to write to me.

And then I look at this topic and find out as much as I can.

And maybe instead of conversing with her, this person, because

they don't speak English, maybe some other way like Britain, or

by that time the live translation will be more

advanced. So that would be possible, yeah.

Have you had a moment when you're like, you know, I'm

actually arrived this Has there ever been a moment in the last

one year where someone like. Oh, you.

You. Karen, I I listen to the

episodes all the time. Or do you want that to happen?

Yeah, this moment when you're like.

Yes, like it was provoked. So one of my top, top fans,

'cause I had a poster printed and then he said something like,

oh, I'm like, I, I'm waiting for that signed poster of yours.

So I did send it to him, and then he framed it and sent me a

picture and said, like, I'm waiting for the day where

someone sees this in my house. I go, oh, that's a great show.

I listen to it all the time. So that made me want it.

Yeah, Yeah, of course. And do do your friends look up

to you as this Yoda kind of like a super wise person who knows

everything because she she to so many people do they come to you

for advice? Like how do you deal with this?

Yeah, they come to me to like just have someone to talk to.

Usually it's to have someone to talk to and they because I'm I'm

impartial when they are just looking for someone to listen to

and they think I am like there's this type of TV programs like

science program or health program.

So and then it I think it was my sister.

They're like talking to you. It's always like watching those

programs. It's never just chit chatting.

There's always something like factual that you could tell them

or like if we're talking about coffee and then I may say, Oh,

you know what, like say Ethiopia or like the least developed the

country. It's the more organic it

naturally is something like that.

So, so you're saying like if people come to me for advice,

yes, all the time because I I give them what they need to know

to make their own decision. Your friends was like, wow,

talking to her like it's, it's it's like like it's just said

watching that educational program.

So do you feel, do you feel constrained in the amount of

small talk you can make? Do you feel that maybe if I, if

I could just lose that nerdiness of mine and become good at small

things, have been better? But do you, do you feel that?

So I don't think I'm bad at small talk.

Like I it's not in my nature to do small talks for 30 minutes

and do serious stuff for 10. Like I will do 5 minutes of

small talk and then get into business.

So I don't think I'm limited per SE.

I don't always try to teach people things because that will

come across as mansplaining. I, I'm sorry you're a man, but

it's just, it will undoubtedly become that.

So I also don't want to be that person.

So I kind of like limit how much I teach when I'm talking to that

person. But yeah, like I feel like more

like a therapist 'cause they don't really answer you right.

They just ask you a bunch of questions.

Yeah. So I think it's that.

But do you think, I mean, again, back to the podcasting, do you

think that is the right thing to do to just create the atmosphere

when you're in within which your guest is able to completely

answer the question to the fullest extent possible?

Or do you feel this urge to direct them in a certain way or

any of those things? Like there is a lot to be taken

in and then we as the listeners have to filter out some of the

stuff that we don't want and say, you know, I'm going to

focus on the stuff that I do want, which is a little bit like

a, you're not boiling it down to that little nugget of stuff that

I can use because I have to listen to a lot of get rid of

some stuff. So I'm just thinking about

that's how it's going to be that you have all this other stuff

that I need to listen to just to figure out the stuff I do want

to hear. So because every episode,

because I'm not, I don't know what the situation of the

listener is, right? So every topic, every episode

talk about stuff with the guests, but I usually have

questions like, OK, in real life, how does that look like

for someone who's not in this field at all?

How can they apply it? So at least there's a little bit

more practical how this information is useful to me

because like, it's really easy to lose people if they think,

oh, I'm not in leadership. So this episode about

leadership, not relevant. But there's also things that

they can take away from what we talk about when it comes to

leadership. Maybe it's not about how you

yourself be a better leader, but how you can look out for bad

leaders and try to find better ones to follow, you know, things

like that. So I try to make, I try to add

practical aspects to it. Yeah.

Cool. So I think we've spoken for what

for about an hour and it's been leading conversation.

We've learned so much about Karen, the person who was

helming Mind Then for one year and now she's just for this one

episode. She agreed to be on the other

side of the table and answer questions for us.

You've learnt about her journey as a child in various cultures,

as an adult experiencing different cultures, how she

thinks about experiencing different cultures, how she

appears to a sister who thinks that she appears like ATV Show.

That's interesting and the kind of stuff that inspires her, the

stuff that she likes to listen to.

So this was an an exceptional conversation with you, Karen.

I'm so glad we had the opportunity to actually do this

and put you on the hot seats. How?

How does it feel to answer questions and not keep asking

questions? Oh, like it.

I have to dig deep. I have to dig really deep

because I feel like my thinking like even though I'm my job is

to organize information, right? But when it comes to my own

things, the thinking is like very jumbled there.

It's never black and white. It always depends on something.

And then I know I want this, but maybe instead of just going one

straight Rd. it's like this. And then I get there like when

it comes to my own things. So it's kind of interesting.

I'm not a Gemini, but I feel like I'm Gemini in certain ways.

So yeah, are. Are you, were you born in some

sometime in May or something? Is that why you're saying I'm

Gemini? No July.

So I'm a cancer. This is the most animated you

waving your hand around. That's the first time I've seen

you so animated about in. Oh really?

I do that a lot actually. It's nice.

So it feels energetic to be in the hot seat.

Thank you. Thank you for this idea.

OK. Cool.

So I think thank you. You want to stop recording?

So that was me, your host of Mind Blend, Karen Chong.

Thank you for listening to this Inside Out Upside Down episode

with Sai Ramachandran. I hope you enjoy this one today

too. And if you do, follow Mind Blend

and spread the words. Bye for now.

Bonus Special - The mic flips. And so does the perspective. Karen Chong & Sai Ramachandran

About This Episode

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