GREAT MINDS NEVER THINK ALIKE
This is a compendium of recipes for how some people work. The routines, habits, hacks, gadgets and escapes to consistently live their best life at work and at play. While high performance is the common thread, the personalities couldn’t be more diverse, and the gems we found couldn’t be more timely and inspiring.
This interview series is brought by The Great Room Singapore.
Teh Hua Fung
Group President, ONE Championship
“To do big business, you need to have the guts to take risks, sometimes big ones. No point dreaming about doing big things if you can’t roll the dice.”
Anna Vanessa Haotanto
CMO, Gourmet Food Holdings
Founder, The New Savvy
“A morning routine: I meditate, centre my thoughts and visualise how I want my day to be. A nightcap: I have an irrational love for meaningful conversations over whiskey.”
Rosaline Koo
Founder, CXA
“My key takeaway was to have a fulfilling purpose-filled life and to live long, you need to not just exercise or sleep but you have to have this social community where you feel like you belong.”
Kenneth Goh
Editor, Harper’s Bazaar
“Diana Vreeland: The Modern Woman. As one of the pioneering editors at Harper’s Bazaar, she really brought a team that curated and created some of the most arresting images that we still use as style references today.”
Janice Koh
Actress, Wild Rice
Social Entrepreneur, Pasar Glamour
“The last piece of fiction I read was Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
There’s a quote in the book which I like: “Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time, it will”. I see it as a good reminder to regularly reflect on what we consider ‘ordinary’ or normal in our lives. For instance, if we begin to willingly accept trespasses into what we consider our rights or privileges, one day, those compromises will become the norm. It’s like being in a bath and having the temperature rise so gradually that you don’t even realise it.”
Andrew Li
CEO, Zouk Group
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” This relates to me on many levels. I do triathlons and Ironman competitions, and going through it is tough, but if you just push yourself to keep going, there will always be an end in sight. It’s the same on the business front, no matter how tough it is, we’ll get there.”
Arissa Cheo
Founder, Arissa X
“It contrasts life & mortality with death & immortality— and that in life, it is necessary for us to identify with ourselves so “passionately to the point of life and death. Because only in this way can we regard ourselves not merely as a variant of a human prototype but as a being with its own irreplaceable essence”— and that illustrates the profound issues of self-identity and what sort of a legacy we wish to leave behind after death.”
Maria Li,
COO, Tech in Asia
“Exhalations” is an incredible set of short stories that take well-known concepts within tech and expands/stretches/inverts them in ways that again, make you question how tech factors into our daily lives. There are stories about time travel, robots, and parrots that are like funhouse mirrors to fundamental moral and philosophical questions about technology. It questions where the line is drawn between humans and technology and how much power we let tech have in our lives.”
Christopher Chan
Legal Counsel, Lazada & Redmart
“A modern-day lawyer needs to understand their business and other disciplines; one cannot survive solely with the law. Lawyers are expected to and must create multidisciplinary solutions to novel problems, especially in e-commerce.”
Dione Song
CCO, Love Bonito
“So, I’m actually not entirely at ease when it comes to public speaking, so before every big pitch meeting, I do this pose. It’s essentially just you standing tall, with your chest up and with both arms on your waist. I do this while picturing the meeting in my head and then take a few deep and long breaths and it helps centre me before I enter the room.”
Nellie Wartoft
Founder, Tigerhall
“Motivation comes and goes, discipline is what will get you through the lows.”
