May 14, 2025. Xing Jian joins Ben to share his journey becoming a life coach. We also discuss ways to raise personal awareness, become better friends to others, and toss some possible answers to the point of human existence (wouldn’t we all like to know?).

Content warning: brief mention of suicide

Xing Jian (he/him) is the principal coach at STRANGERINABAR and a Master Certified Coach (MCC) with over 17 years of experience in executive and life coaching. His work is grounded in a deep understanding of communication, self-expression, and human dynamics—skills he’s honed through careers in publishing, PR, marketing, and co-founding a boutique agency. Find out more at strangerinabar.com Follow on IG: @tanxingjian

Ben talks about movies on his film podcast at deepcutpod.com, and writes about film at thekinetoscope.com. He lived a past life working in film production. Find him online at benjaminyap.me 

The Space

This episode was recorded in a Public Living Room, a crowd-funded community space in 195 Pearl Hills Terrace. If you enjoyed this conversation and would like to help us keep recording, please support the Stranger Conversations crowdfund. This supports their mission to build a third place at the intersection of self-exploration and collective good. You can follow them on Instagram @strangerconvos or go to linktr.ee/strangerconvos where you can find links to the crowdfund and find out more about what they do. 

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:28 Relationship to the space

05:35 Men’s mental health

08:26 Life-coaching journey

15:06 Coming out and personal development

17:49 Male friendships

20:56 Triggers for personal growth

24:39 Raising personal awareness

33:35 Point to human existence

36:32 Trauma and the future

42:03 Role of a life coach

51:05 How to be better friends

56:00 Iron ricebowl question

April 16, 2025. On the first episode of Public Conversations, Ben chats with Shu about career breaks, generalisation versus specialisation, and finding one’s own identity outside of a career.  We also talk about the impetus behind the podcast, and what we’re trying to do here (in this room, and on Earth).

Shu once taught at a university—until he took a career break. What began as a conventional pause to rest and recharge gradually turned into something deeper: a break not just from work, but from long-held ideas about career, identity, and self-worth. It became an unexpected unraveling of income from purpose, productivity from value. Follow him on Instagram @theshulution

Ben talks about movies on his film podcast at https://deepcutpod.com, and writes about film at https://thekinetoscope.com. He lived a past life working in film production. Find him online at https://benjaminyap.me 

Links:

https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/identity-transitions-accepting-that-you-are-not-just-what-you-do 

https://www.ricemedia.co/ashish-kumar-was-singapore-top-psle-scorer-now-retiree/ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPQdFWCHDPA 

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/farming-volunteering-dancing-why-some-employees-are-micro-retiring-in-their-20s 

The Space

This episode was recorded in a Public Living Room, a crowd-funded community space in 195 Pearl Hills Terrace. If you enjoyed this conversation and would like to help us keep recording, please support the Stranger Conversations crowdfund. This supports their mission to build a third place at the intersection of self-exploration and collective good. You can follow them on Instagram @strangerconvos or go to linktr.ee/strangerconvos where you can find links to the crowdfund and find out more about what they do.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro

2:13 - Shu’s relationship to the space

7:32 - Out of office

12:23 - Shu's career break

22:51 - Career and identity

26:59 - Specialisation vs generalisation

37:32- The value of learning about others

41:51 - Fear of failure

48:46 - Making his career break work

55:12 - Early retirement

58:24 - Who are you outside work?

1:04:04 - Iron ricebowl of questions