The Kaizen Academy Podcast

Making friends at work, should you do it or is it cringe?

This episode we talk about our experiences when first entering the workforce, coffee culture and having fun at work.

Timestamps

0:00 - Justin tries Twitter

5:03 - Linkedin Procrastination

11:00 - Professional Friendships

13:26 - Justin's time as a lifeguard

19:00 - PEAK

20:52 - Cao's Startup Experience

23:00 - Graduate programs are awesome

25:53 - Corporate Coffee Culture

26:48 - Salesforce

31:23 - Making friends at work

32:44 - Cisco

37:40 - Cao Overcompensating

40:33 - Justin's work experiences

43:40 - Company Culture filters for people you'll get along with

46:25 - The difference between work and regular friends

52:19 - Utility of Professional Friendships

56:52 - Song Recommendations

Song Recommendations

Kanye West - Come to Life

Bruno Mars - Grenade

Major spoilers for "Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.0", "Bladerunner 2049" & "Hamilton".

This episode we take a Study Break and talk about the movies that have made the biggest impacts on us.

Timestamps

0:00 - Study Break!

4:44 - Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time [Spoilers]

27:00 - Daddy Issues

32:16 - Accepting Death

34:33 - Your Life isn't a Fairy Tale

38:10 - Main Character Syndrome

42:10 - Bladerunner 2049 [Spoilers]

47:43 - Hotel Rwanda [Spoilers]

5355: - Hamilton [Spoilers]

1:04:16 - Your Last Cup of Coffee

Song Recommendations

LilyPichu - Your Last Cup of Coffee

Hikaru Utada - One Last Kiss

This episode we dive into an often taboo topic among friends, Money!

We talk about our financial goals, how to make money and whether it can buy you happiness.

Timestamps

0:00 - Hair troubles

3:26 - Getting that Coin

5:18 - Unhealthy mindsets with money

9:10 - The Hedonic Treadmill

14:46 - Virtue Signalling

17:10 - Things Money Can't Buy

19:57 - Cao's Money Goals

21:53 - Being an Ethical Consumer

25:39 - Philanthropy

26:45 - Not Working Full Time

32:08 - Justin's Money Goals

37:29 - Being a Stay At Home Dad

39:02 - Working on Things You Love

41:38 - Net Worth Goal

44:50 - Cao's Plan of Attack

53:16 - Owning a Tutoring Centre

57:19 - Justin's Plan of Attack

59:09 - Finding Your Strengths

1:01:48 - Diminishing Returns on Salary

1:03:36 - Youtube Channel

1:05:39 - Startups

1:09:29 - Cao's Strengths

1:11:46 - How Anyone Can Become World Class

Song Recommendations

Olivia Rodrigo - Favourite Crime

Elaine - Wake Up

Chill episode this time where we talk about what we're currently focused on in our lives. We also check up on our productivity systems, workout routines and habits.

Timestamps

0:00 - Singing and dancing

3:08 - Cao returning to a regular schedule

9:50 - Current focuses

29:43 - Task management systems

39:40 - Note taking systems

48:54 - Skincare routines

55:15 - Fitness routines

1:01:40 - Finance systems

1:07:43 - Learning systems

Song Recommendations

Lisa - Gurenge

Tyler the Creator - Run it up

A life without problems, chasing happiness and facing your mortality. This episode we chit chat about the big ideas from a phenomenal book, "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck".

Timestamps

0:00 - Overthinking

1:59 - The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck

8:28 - Choosing Your Values

19:40 - Changing Your Values

22:53 - Embracing failure

26:50 - Facing negative emotions

29:50 - Playing the victim

33:49 - Fault Vs Responsibility

39:36 - Cheesy quotes

44:35 - You are not your thoughts

47:00 - Parallels between Buddhism and Stoicism

49:29 - A life without problems

54:20 - After ___ I'll be happy

59:30 - Justin rants about reddit

1:04:26 - Chasing happiness is unhappiness

1:09:40 - Recognising your mortality

Song Recommendation

Alcohol-Free - Twice

Satisfied - Hamilton

Being able to teach is an amazing skill no matter what you do. This episode we talk about how teaching relates to leadership, biggest mistakes people make when teaching and lessons we've learnt from teaching others.

Timestamps

0:00 - New Jobs!

3:28 - Everyone has to teach

4:53 - Our teaching experiences

15:00 - How teaching relates to other skills

21:00 - Biggest mistake people make

29:28 - Compassionate vs Strict Teaching

40:34 - Advice for our past selves

41:00 - Connecting with your students

1:02:04 - What's the story?

1:10:31 - Chronic Explainers

Song Recommendations

Usher - Hey Daddy

Usher Remix - IceBox

Taking notes for STEM subjects can be a bit tricky. How do you deal with diagrams and equations? Paper vs Digital?

This episode we take you through the best ways we've found to take notes for your Maths, Science and Engineering subjects.

Timestamps

0:00 - Cutting Weight

3:18 - Taking notes for Maths, Science and Engineering

8:11 - Why is it hard to take notes for these subjects?

14:27 - Handwritten vs Digital Notes

22:16 - The two goals of Notetaking

32:00 - Progressive Notetaking

36:48 - Notion

38:16 - Organising your folders

46:30 - How to type equations

51:33 - The best way to print out notes

57:00 - Flashcard Apps

Song Recommendations

Lorde - Everybody Wants To Rule The World

IU - Dear Name

Feeling overwhelmed? Having a quarter life crisis? Same. This episode we talk about some ways to find direction in life that have worked for us.

Timestamps

0:00 - IKEA is great

1:35 - Finding direction when you feel lost

6:54 - Justin's stories

10:04 - Cao's stories

14:06 - The small things matter

28:05 - A heaven worth striving for

45:00 - Cao's ideal career

59:25 - Focus on one thing at a time

1:09:18 - Existential dread

1:13:07 - Self Improvement Recommendations

1:27:09 - Journaling

1:31:43 - Meditation

1:32:28 - Doing something immediately

Song Recommendations

Offonoff - Cigarette

Lorde - Royals

Learning to code can be intimidating, so here's a down to Earth guide to help you pick up an extremely useful skill.

We talk about the best language to learn first, great online resources and our own journeys with programming.

Timestamps

0:00 - Introduction

8:26 - First programming language you should learn

16:00 - Cao's coding journey

21:18 - Justin's coding journey

28:00 - Self learning resources

30:10 - CS50

32:20 - Udemy

35:16 - Progamming elitists

45:45 - Educational games that are actually good

48:41 - Learning through projects

55:37 - Gushing over Rosé

Udemy courses we talked about

Jose Portilla - Python for Data Science and Machine Learning Bootcamp

Stephen Grider - Modern React with Redux

Song Recommendations

Rosé - Gone

Rosé - On The Ground

Love it or hate it, that time of year is coming... internship applications are OPENING!

Come along with us as we talk about the best extracurricular activities, improving your resume and smashing interviews to land an internship this year.

Timestamps

0:00 - Anime Chit Chat

2:28 - Our Internship Experiences

8:28 - 2 Steps To Land An Internship

11:46 - Tier List of Experiences

12:28 - General Extracurricular Activities

17:51 - Extracurricular Activities In Field

24:05 - Unpaid Internships

31:39 - Paid Internships

33:38 - Technical Skills

40:34 - Uni Marks

42:42 - Improving Your Resume

56:48 - Good Mindsets

1:05:30 - Online Assessments

1:06:50 - Behavioural Interviews

1:15:58 - Assessment Centre Power Move

Song Recommendations

Anna Kendrick - Cups (Senzawa Cover)

Shinee - Attention