Actsplore This

David Yeung is the Founder & CEO of Green Monday, a multi-faceted social venture with the aim of taking on the world’s most pressing crises of climate change, food insecurity and public health.

To encourage conscious consumption, David spearheaded the global ‘Green Monday’ campaign campaign that encouraged people to go meat-free one day each week.

A few years after launching Green Monday, David founded Green Common, the retail and distribution platform promoting plant-based and sustainable food products, followed by the launch of Omnifoods, the innovative food tech company that is tackling environmental issues linked to meat production. 

In 2020, Green Monday raised US$70 million in its fourth fundraising round, the largest to date for an alt-protein startup in Asia. Green Monday has also received accolades such as ‘Company of the year 2019’ by PETA Asia, and a recognition from Fortune’s 2020 ‘Change the World’ list.

In this wide-ranging discussion, we discuss David’s entrepreneurial journey helming a plant-based business, how he empowers consumers to make sustainable food choices, his advice for budding entrepreneuers, and what failure has taught him.

If you’ve ever caught yourself asking questions like ‘Who am I?’ or struggled with answering the question “What do you do?”, this episode is just for you!

Today on the pod, we’re speaking to Dr. Sarabeth Berk on the topic of Hybrid Professionals and the role they play in our ever changing workforce today. 

After dealing with a professional identity crisis more than 10 years ago and feeling stuck and pigeonholed in her career path, Dr Sarabeth pioneered this new field of hybrid professional identity, who works at the intersection of career development, identity studies and personal branding.

In this chat, we unpack the difference between generalists, experts and hybrid professionals, and how we may identify and articulate the value of a hybrid professional to stand out in our competitive jobseekers market. 

What does it take to get you to your desired goals?

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems”.

We're sure you would have heard of this powerful quote by James Clear, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling book, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.

In this conversation, we geek out over our key takeaways from Atomic Habits and deep dive into the Habits strategies in the book that resonate most with us. We chat about our habit-building struggles, the importance of being aware of our personal tendencies, and key lessons from our own journey of building sustainable and meaningful habits in our lives. 

At the time that we are recording this episode (February 2022), many of our New Year resolutions and goals may have faltered during this period. So we decided that it would be a good time to #actsplore this topic on habits!

Leave us a comment on Instagram on how you’ve successfully sustained a habit - or even to hear about the struggles you’re currently facing in building ahabit, so we can help motivate and keep each other accountable! :)

Links to Four Tendancies Quiz: The Four Tendencies Quiz - The Four Tendencies Quiz (gretchenrubin.com)

Apps mentioned: HabitBull, Mealligram

How often do we get caught up in the web of self doubt and fear of judgment from other people and ourselves? (Very often, if we're being honest!)

The reality is, the biggest prison we can live in, is the fear of what other people think of us.

In this week's episode, we discuss how we can Overcome the Fear of Judgment and Imposter Syndrome, something that we're sure you would resonate with as we battle our own demons and imposter thoughts in both our personal and professional lives!

To help us unpack this, we speak to Aimee Bateman, a globally recognised entrepreneur, speaker and careers champion whose mission is to help people feel seen, heard and valued and is the Founder of Careercake.com, an award-winning learning and job seeking platform.

In 2014, Aimee shared her incredibly personal and vulnerable Tedx Talk in London titled: “Judgment. Don't let it frighten you!" and spoke about her experience growing up in the foster care system and how it has shaped her approach and view on life.

Aimee shares with us tangible ways to break out of the mental prison of fear of judgment, how we can manage the imposter syndrome thoughts that cripple us as well as how we can harness the ‘imposter syndrome’ to propel us forward at work.

The Apprentice: ONE Championship edition has been dubbed ‘the toughest Apprentice’ in the history of this legendary franchise.

This series is now the #2 most watched show on Netflix in Singapore and is trending worldwide. 16 participants from all over the world competed for the chance to win a US$250,000 contract and the once in a life time opportunity to be the protege and Chief of Staff of ONE Championship’s CEO and lifelong martial artist Chatri Sityodtong.

ONE Championship is the largest martial arts media property in Asia and so it’s no surprise that this TV series is a marriage of physical endurance and business acumen to find the ‘perfect professionally skilled corporate athlete’. 

On today’s episode, we speak to Jessica Ramella, the inaugural grand winner (spoiler alert, whoops!) of The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition on her surreal experience winning the Apprentice, navigating internal and external pressure, how her Sales experience catapulted her career and she even spilt the beans on some behind-the-scenes Apprentice stories..exclusively on the Actsplore This Podcast!

Having to negotiate for what you want can feel like getting a root canal. You'd rather not do it, but sometimes it's necessary.

That's especially the case when it comes to negotiating on salary, job promotions, you name it.

On today's episode, we speak to Fotini Iconomopoulos, an award-winning negotiation consultant and the author of Say Less, Get More: Unconventional Negotiation Techniques to Get What You Want.

Nicknamed “the negotiator” as a child, Fotini has always channeled her energy into a passion by empowering her clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small business entrepreneurs to help them achieve their goals through her expertise in negotiation, communication and persuasion.

We talk to Fotini about the power of the mental pause, how we can take control of negotiation anxiety and exercise our negotiation muscles as well as how to navigate the fine line between being assertive and aggressive.

Trust us when we say you're going to want a paper and pen handy for this episode - cuz there's so much to take away!

What does it look like to choose courage over comfort and to embark on the road less taken? Amber Leong is the first Malaysian entrepreneur who pitched her light therapy lamp business on Shark Tank, a reality TV show where inventors and entrepreneurs pitch their products to real-life investors. 

Her moving and impactful pitch left the judges teary-eyed and she walked away with an impressive USD750,000 investment for a 20 percent stake in her company, Circadian Optics. 

While her success story seems like a fairy tale today, she navigated a lot of hardships and obstacles along the way. In today’s episode, we hear Amber’s fight for survival as she battled a life-threatening illness, the lightbulb moment that led her to leave her corporate job to start Circadian Optics, how she prepared for this pitch, and the lessons she learnt working with her investors, Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner

In a world where change is the only constant, how do we reshape our relationship with change to be fit for a world in flux? 

April Rinne is a “change navigator,” speaker, investor, and adventurer whose work and travels in more than 100 countries have given her a front-row seat to a world in flux. 

She is one of the 50 leading female futurists in the world, a Harvard Law School graduate, a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, and is a trusted advisor to well-known startups and companies such as Airbnb and Nike.

She is also the author of Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change. 

From her varied and vast experiences, April developed the concept of a 'Flux Mindset' - how to see and embrace change consistently as an opportunity, not a threat, by being clear and grounded in our values. 

In this episode, we dive into one of the 8 superpowers to thrive in a world of flux, on how and why we should build our Career Portfolios as a never-ending source of discovery and fulfillment to thrive at work. 

Link to HBR Article: https://hbr.org/2021/10/why-you-should-build-a-career-portfolio-not-a-career-path

We've all heard the phrase 'Beauty is only skin deep.' But what does that truly mean?

Rocyie Wong is the embodiment of that phrase. At age 14, she discovered that she was diagnosed with psoriasis, a painful, genetic skin disease that manifests itself through red and scaly patches that itch and bleed.

Since that, she's been through a rollercoaster journey navigating life with this incurable chronic skin disease, with no clear cause or cure. She's taken it upon herself to champion and advocate for this cause which is so close to her heart with courage and zeal. 

But she wasn't always this courageous about it. There was a point in her life where she hid this side of her life from her friends and social circle for more than 10 years. 

In today's episode, Rocyie unpeels the hidden layers behind the physical, psychological, mental and emotional challenges of her very personal journey as she finds purpose and self acceptance in pain as a Psoriasis Advocate and the Founder of Safe Space.

Let’s be real. Any money talk is not easy. Add relationships into the mix and boy oh boy, can it get real complicated! 

High chances that you and your partner would have different personalities, outlooks and approaches to finances. 

While not everyone may find discussing 'money talk' sexy, one thing we can't deny: it is a necessary conversation to have with our significant other to build successful relationships. 

In conjunction with Valentine's Day, we speak to Suraya Zainudin, a Personal Finance Blogger and Founder of the Ringgit oh Ringgit blog, to help us untangle some awkward money conversations that you and your current/future partner may have sometime in the future!

We also chat about : 

- At what stage of the relationship should you ask about your partner's finances?

- What happens if both parties have fundamentally different money beliefs?

- What approach to take in the case of couples where one party is earning a lot more than the other?