The Woke Salaryman Podcast

We recorded this chat when we visited Ruiming's house in Japan. Hope y'all enjoy. 0:00 Intro 1:20 Why are we here? 2:28 Why did RM get a house in rural Japan? 7:28 How do we like rural Japan? 12:18 The rural Japan dream 21:28 City vs village spirit 29:04 The Singapore obsession with Japan 32:21 What Singapore can learn from Japan CREDITS: Check out Ryunohara experiences: https://www.ryunohara.com/ Music by Kevin McLeod/incompetech Sound effects by otologic.jp

Hi everyone, this is a casual chat we had over tea time. We hope you will enjoy chilling with us. We talk about fresh grads feeling lost and depressed after experiencing work for the first time and discuss whether work is "supposed to suck". Then we meander all over the place. Chapters so you can decide if the meandering will be worth your time: 0:00 Which came first? Mew or Mewtwo 6:16 Young people disliking first job 15:25 Why do we become more conservative with age 21:30 Socialising with people who disagree with you 27:00 COVID was a weird time and set weird expectations 29:32 Fresh grads expecting WFH as a norm 34:03 Business and management experience will change your perspective

*THIS PODCAST EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY UOB* We sit down with Bernard Tay from Jinjja Chicken and Paul Kan from UOB to talk about the challenges facing SMEs and FnBs post-COVID. Specifically, about inflation, digitalization, and overseas expansion! The insights discussed in this video can be found in greatest detail in the UOB Business Outlook Study 2024, which you can check out here: https://go.uob.com/3TT7si8 0:00 Intro 2:48 Life after COVID, not all smooth sailing 4:21 Inflation! 7:03 Hiring Singaporeans for F&B 11:07 Digitalisation for SMEs! 18:52 Difficulties in digitalisation 22:25 Costs of NOT digitalising 26:44 Overseas expansion! 28:54 Unique challenges of Southeast Asia 35:00 Advice for SME operators

We've been away for a while travelling Southeast Asia promoting our books. 0:00 Intro 3:36 Traffic in Jakarta, KL VS Singapore 8:45 City planning is tough 15:13 Vietnam's growth since the 80s 17:43 Would we migrate somewhere else in SEA? 20:14 Retirement village business overseas? 26:05 Book recommendation: Public subsidy, private accumulation 29:33 Book recommendation: Blue Period 31:55 OUR BOOK More on our book and where to get it: https://readtws.com/book

We talk about the trade-offs for the creative soul who wants to run a creative business. 0:00 Intro 0:50 More about our business and me 1:36 Creative VS Business owner 4:15 Delegate to people who like it more, or are better than you 6:42 Consider input, not just output 10:10 Being creative is good for business 11:36 Take creative risks as a part of business 13:21 Unproductivity is part of productivity 16:25 Mistakes are part of the plan 17:47 Give yourself due credit

Juliana Chan is a scientist and scholar turned business owner. Today, she runs Wildtype Media Group, managing a 20-member team — based in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and India — with 30 to 40 regular freelancers around the world. In this episode, we talk to her about how she took her company remote, and the impact it has had on morale and productivity. 0:00 Intro: The road to 100% remote 5:00 Productivity will suffer 14:14 The types of employees that are suitable for remote work 18:58 How do you know everyone is working? 27:26 What about hiring locals and protecting local jobs? 31:36 Where in the world are her colleagues working from? 35:55 What's the competitive advantage of someone from Singapore? 41:37 Singapore's a great place to start a business 46:00 How you can keep Gen Zs 51:14 Concluding plugs

Is overtime ever justified? Why do good employees leave? Do you have to worry about your own job being irrelevant? This episode, we get the whole TWS team to have an open conversation on these hard topics. We hope you enjoy it. Also, this is our first sponsored podcast - a shoutout to Workforce Singapore for sponsoring this conversation. To find out more about what grants and tools are available to kickstart your company’s job redesign initiatives, visit https://go.gov.sg/tws-jobredesign Featuring (from left to right): Wei Choon (Co-founder) Ruiming (Co-founder) Vivienne (Account Manager) Wen Xin (Artist) 0:00 Intro 2:08 Why do good employees leave? 3:51 What is a good employee? 7:45 What is job redesign? 14:18 Have you had a job redesign? 20:58 Do all jobs need to be redesigned for relevance? 29:35 Should all employers job redesign? 38:15 Approaching job redesign with limited resources? 47:41 Who should initiate job redesign? 52:27 Is it fair to have employees OT for job redesign? 59:10 Job redesign VS find new job

This episode, we talk to the founders of The Black Hole Group; a collective of lifestyle and F&B concepts. They started out in 2012 with a backpacker's hostel, and now they own about 13 F&B and lifestyle concepts and are still going strong. More importantly, they are friends who started a business together, and we are super excited to talk to them because The Woke Salaryman was also started by two friends who met in school. They met in JC; while we met in Poly, so we have so many things to ask. We will ask them about what it's like starting a business with a close friend, how to maintain or balance being friends and business partners, and their journey from plucky 26-year-olds running around putting our fires in a backpackers hostel to essentially, F & B moguls. 0:00 Intro 1:16 Why are they called The Black Hole Group 10:05 Starting a hostel in their 20s 15:17 The margins of running a hostel 21:08 Scaling the business 24:02 Do you hang out as friends now? 28:58 Working together as friends/cofounders 37:15 Growing a business = compounding learning 41:00 COVID as a wake-up call 48:20 Co-founders with different lifestyles 54:21 Would you recommend starting a business with a close friend

Jeremy Tan is a professional magician who does a lot of work on cruise ships! We talk to him about the pros and cons of working in such a unique job, what it takes to succeed as a magician, balancing artistry and corporate crowd pleaser, adapting to COVID, and more. 0:00 Intro 1:23 How he started magicking 7:19 Becoming a cruise ship magician 15:31 Adapting to COVID 22:17 Revealing magic tricks to the public 33:50 Crowd pleasers OR artistry

We respond to some spicy comments on Reddit about the fact that we have sponsors, and talk about how we approach sponsored content, what we say no to, and whether we think we've sold out, and whether we can sleep at night. The Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/askSingapore/comments/15c2suy/is_the_wokesalaryman_just_sponsored_nonsense/ READ OUR COMICS: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewokesalaryman/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewokesalaryman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thewokesalaryman/posts/ Our website: https://thewokesalaryman.com/ Timestamps: 0:48 Is TWS sponsored nonsense? 4:38 When we reject clients 9:52 Do sponsors make content bad? 13:06 Fluffy centrist content VS taking a stand 15:18 Have we run out of topics? 18:14 Choosing tone, raw vs empathic 23:02 We make readers feel unambitious :( 24:17 Limitations of content formats 27:26 TWS is self-righteous 32:00 OP elaborated more 35:03 Bye bye :(

Watch this to understand how your financial agent is actually being paid, and what your options are. We also talk about parenthood and why Asian parents find it so hard to be emotionally vulnerable with their kids. ⁠0:00⁠ Intro ⁠1:24⁠ Convo starts ⁠12:06⁠ Flashy agents and flashy wealth ⁠20:56⁠ Chris' childhood ⁠25:39⁠ Being caught in the wealth trap ⁠30:14⁠ Working hard VS Time with family ⁠38:00⁠ Asian parents and affection ⁠43:22⁠ Fresh grads, do this now ⁠46:50⁠ What are rich people like? ⁠50:27⁠ Financial freedom as a MINDSET Providend's Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Z3FcQx5rHHFx8Fd2gLhOl?si=98960dbb5db54a2c

Meet Vivienne, she's the first person we hired since we went full-time with The Woke Salaryman. 2.5 years ago, Viv left an amazing job at a very esteemed bank to join our humble little rickety company. 2.5 years on, our company is still rickety; but she has become indispensable. We interview Viv in this podcast about what it's like to go from a huge, highly regarded MNC to a tiny SME, whether she has any regrets, and what we do well and not so well.

At The Woke Salaryman, we create content by writing and drawing. A.I. solutions for these 2 functions are getting really really good. Are we at risk? In this podcast, we discuss specific short and long-term worries we have about A.I. We also talk about what we'll do if we are fresh grads entering the market now.

Hawker culture is very important to Singapore culture. Central to the definition of HAWKER is the idea that hawker food should be CHEAP and GOOD; but are hawkers still financially sustainable in a world with aggressive inflation? Can hawker prices keep up with inflation and still satisfy customer expectations of low prices? We talk about this and more with Faye Sai, one of the three siblings that run Coffee Break: a third-generation hawker store at Amoy Street Food Center. They took over the stall from their father, and they serve traditional-style coffee in a hawker setting.

We talk about this infographic that compares the cost of retiring around the world. Singapore is the most expensive country apparently. We discuss why this is so and what Singaporeans can do. Source: https://theindependent.sg/singapore-allegedly-the-most-expensive-country-for-americans-to-comfortably-retire-in/ Original source: https://www.netcredit.com/blog/cost-of-retirement/ (The link to the original source article doesn't seem to be working anymore but you can still find the infographic if you google 'Netcredit cost of retiring around the world'.) Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 2:18 Reasons why Singapore is the most expensive country to retire in 2:24 Singapore's unique position as a city-state 3:22 Retiring in Malaysia? 6:16 Retiring in Australia? 9:09 Retiring in Japan? 11:14 Prices of retiring at different countries 11:49 Pros and cons of retiring overseas 11:56 The value of the Singapore dollar 13:24 Size of the country where you retire 14:36 Pace of life 17:10 Leaving your relationships 18:42 Giving up local identity 20:01 Learning new language nd culture 20:43 Raising kids 24:14 Giving up safety 24:50 Economic mobility 28:00 is it wrong to leave your country of birth to retire? 32:00 Looking at Southeast Asia as a whole 34:34 Does the productivity of residents matter to governments? 36:52 Attestupa 39:17 Elderly people retiring 42:13 Should Singaporeans consider retiring overseas?

It may be hard to believe but we used to be very left-leaning when we were younger. This is us reacting to a short clip of an older fellow with a nice voice talking about how his political leanings shifted as he grew older. Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS4UT_t73b0 (This is purely anecdotal and qualitative of course, we know plenty of people who stayed left, or became MORE left with age.)

We react to a report summarizing how Singaporeans are doing when it comes to financial wellness in the past year. Read the report here: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/close-to-half-of-singaporeans-dont-have-enough-savings-to-tide-through-an-emergency-survey

We react to a recent post that went viral, where a Singaporean plumber relocated to Australia because they would be paid far better there. We talk about the trade-offs for both Singapore and Australia; and discuss topics like arbitrage, opportunities, talent drain, and moving up the value chain.

(Sry there was an issue with the export so some parts were muted. We've fixed it) This is a bit late but we intended not to publish this for audio initially. But I think we will just drop it anyway because it's quite a good discussion. Hope y'all enjoy! The original clip can be found on YouTube if you just search for 'The Peter Principle'.

Yip Pin Xiu is a professional swimmer who has won gold at the Paralympics 5 times. She is Singapore's most decorated Paralympian. This podcast was very informal because despite her achievements, Pin Xiu is very down-to-earth and quite goofy and fun to be with. We had a blast and hope you enjoy this podcast as well. Sorry, we started eating halfway through the podcast because Pin Xiu had to go after the recording and she didn't have time to eat. We apologize if the occasional eating sound is disturbing and do not blame anyone if they stop listening as a result <3 But anyway even though this episode is very chaotic it's one of our favorite ones we've done yet because Pin Xiu is hilarious.

A simple, yet though-provoking parable we found. How do we take care of the poor? Does progressive tax work? What are the trade-offs when you tax the rich too much? Do we even need rich people for a city to prosper? Read the parable here: https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/arid-20108946.html

We talk about the recent crypto cataclysm and the pushback against content creators who plugged it. (Sorry for the thumps we bought a new mic stand and it stands on the table so when we whack the table we'd be able to hear it. We will whack the table less in future.)

Our guest Wey Fook is the Chief Investment Officer at DBS Bank. btw THIS VIDEO IS NOT SPONSORED BY DBS. WE HAVE DONE SPONSORED WORK WITH THEM ON OUR WEBSITE BUT THIS VIDEO IS NOT. WE JUST ASKED IF WE COULD INTERVIEW WEY FOOK AND THEY SAID OKAY. IF OUR VIDEO IS EVER SPONSORED WE WILL TELL Y'ALL. Timestamps: 00:00 - 00:53 Intro 00:54: Wey Fook's journey from engineer to CIO 5:20 How Singapore has moved up the value chain 7:32 What exactly does a Chief Investment Officer do? 10:00 Wey Fook's career before being a CIO 10:30 what separates a CIO from a middle-management portfolio manager? 11:50 The importance of a bottom-up view of the market 12:50 Don't write off a whole investment class forever 14:37 Understanding the Margin of safety in investments 15:11 The democratisation of investment insights 16:23 Be disciplined, and make money slowly 17:10 Have a long-term view of your investments 18:27 Wealth is like a bar of soap - the more you touch it, the less it becomes 19:06 Views on the US stock market 21:05 What would happen if the S&P 500 falls to zero? 22:05 Crashes are driven by greed and fear 23:10 Are there any signs of a bubble that people can spot? 26:10 Thoughts on buying the S&P 500 27:56 Thoughts on the STI-ETF, Russell 1000 32:10 Indexes that haven't outperformed the bond market? 33:14 Do my investments contribute to society? 37:24 Understanding a stock's price discovery 38:28 Tying a company's share price to CEO performance 39:11 Shareholder vs stakeholder capitalism 43:23 ESG investing 45:14 Singapore Real Estate 47:33 What if you just don't invest? 49:18 What if you can't handle volatility 50:11 What are the options if you can't take any market volatility 52:05 Understanding portfolio construction 53:03 Don't buy individual stocks or bonds. Buy funds. 57:02 Importance of staying in the game to ride through volatility 58:04 There will always be bubbles 1:01:17 What if my projected return on investments do not beat inflation?

(NOTE: In case y'all are interested, the OP recently posted a more serious reply to the story that you can check out on his FB wall.)

We talk to our first guest ever on the podcast about how he grew up poor in Singapore and how he broke the cycle. Thomas is an investor and writer who founded steady compounding, a stock analysis blog that focuses on discovering and analysing 'investing concepts, business models, and timeless lessons from super investors. We'll talk about Thomas' insights on investing, and also how he recently quit his iron rice bowl government job to run Steady Compounding full time. We also talk about what it was like growing up in a lower-income household, getting into fights in school and much more.

Setting healthy boundaries with work, measuring productivity, attendance vs work done. Time stamps: 0:00 What is quiet quitting and our thoughts on this 3:45 Is quiet quitting just setting healthy boundaries and pushing back against hustle culture? 8:45 Make productivity part of the negotiation with your boss 9:00 How quiet quitting might be damaging for your career long term 11:42 How companies manage employees out in response to quiet quitting 13:54 Comparing this with hikikomori and the lie flat movement 15:54 What will we do if our employees are quiet quitting? 19:15 Our thoughts on companies managing people out 21:08 What will we do if we're thinking of quiet quitting 26:05 Understanding markers of productivity as a response to the quiet quitting culture 28:03 The top 1% of workforce talent and the benefits that come with it

Would you spend all your money if you became rich? Is the point of life to spend the money you earn? Is it possible/fulfilling to have a lot of money but spend very little of it? Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 3:20 - TWS in the future - rich but miserable? 4:35: Do we have a fair snapshot of the uncle’s life? 6:58 How having more money and financial security can change your mindset towards life 7:10 Dying with zero movement, passing down wealth? 11:50 Is the uncle gaming the system by renting a government-subsidized rental flat? 20:40 The quiet pride in living below your means, and the importance of values 24:48 How your choice of hobbies matter 36:40 The importance of a lasting power of attorney, and how it’ll affect your loved ones

Is it wrong to be unambitious? What's with the anti-work, lie flat, 'hikikomori' movements popping up all around the world? Is this a sign of things to come? Is this an old thing with new names? How do close relationships work when ambition levels are not aligned? We discuss these topics and more.

Singapore is a small country with declining fertility rates. How should we keep up internationally amidst local resistance to immigration? We discuss this frankly. Our credentials: Ruiming: Born and bred Singaporean. IC color: Pink. Wei Choon: Born in Malaysia, studied in Singapore since he was 7 years old. Currently a permanent resident in Singapore. IC color: Blue

The first podcast we're doing in our new office. It's a significant upgrade in terms of working conditions, accessibility, presentability, and of course, COST. So we are naturally wary. In this podcast, we talk about these insecurities and how our perspectives have changed since we became employers of a small team. This podcast is best experienced in video form. Watch it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/MJljGVPgbP0 Follow us on Instagram (@thewokesalaryman)

The last podcast we will do from our very first office! We are moving to a bigger (and more expensive 😱 office) which will only be ready in 2 months so we will be working completely remotely for a while. We talk about what we've learnt from the past year, the courage to be disliked, Ruiming's experience getting COVID and holidaying in Europe, Wei Choon's difficulty in going home to Malaysia, as well as our thoughts on crypto and NFTs. *This episode is best experienced on YouTube. Check it out at: https://readtws.com/podcastep5

We talk about Netflix's hit series Squid Game. How accurate is the show as an analogy to real life? How far would we personally go to preserve our lives? Is Sang Woo evil? How can Gi-hun better manage his money better for season 2? All these and more in this week's episode of our TWS Podcast. 0:49 Pre-spoiler convo/ Similar shows 1:40 What Squid Game is about 2:15 SPOILER MARKER 2:26 Our reading to responses to the show 3:34 The agency of the players 7:21 Sang Woon vs Gi Hun disagreement 9:58 Wei Choon’s biggest heartbreak about the show 11:58 What makes people bad/guilt/good 20:00 Squid game is hell on earth? 21:39 Ruiming choosing the type of deaths 22:43 Why people chose to join squid game 24:48 The Concept of Hell being a state of mind 25:27 Sad scenes in the show 26:33 Thoughts and disappointment about Player 001 31:57 Are the squid games and modern society fair? 41:27 Financial Advice for Gi-Hun 46:14 We are observers, like the V.I.Ps 48:04 Do the ultra rich play with our lives 49:27 How do ultra rich provide value 50:08 Random discussion about Parasite 52:46 What should the more privileged do for the less privileged? 53:32 Who’s the true hero of the story?

Are young people pressured to find success in life too early? We talk about the definitions of success at different milestones, how we view our own ‘success', and the importance of walking your own path. 00:00 Intro 02:16 The average age of startup founders? A whopping 45. 07:20 How lists like 30 under 30 are designed to be newsworthy, and how that affects your view on success 09:00 The qualities that define a successful person in school is different from that in the business world 12:58 Does Ruiming think he’s successful for his age? 14:12: Our metric of success - Ikigai 17:05 When we felt like we were “too late to things” 23:40 A caveat - how “money can earn back” is a dangerous mindset 34:00 The importance of saving up so that you have the resources ready when the opportunity comes 42:00 Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results 46:40 Final thoughts Follow us at our handles and check out our articles at www.thewokesalaryman.com Instagram (@thewokesalaryman) Spotify Podcasts (http://bit.ly/spotifytwspodcast) Apple Podcasts (http://bit.ly/appletwspodcast)

We’re huge fans of Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin). In this 2nd episode of our podcast, we talk about the life lessons we learned that relate to personal finance and leadership, the importance of trade-offs, and why we must have a WHY in life. Watch this podcast on our Youtube channel (The Woke Salaryman) and follow us on Instagram (@thewokesalaryman)

Hi, we’re Ruiming and Wei Choon, co-founders of a webcomic called "The Woke Salaryman". Our mission is to make personal finance easier and more entertaining for everyone. In this first episode, we're talking about the F.I.R.E. Movement. F.I.R.E. stands for “Financial Independence, Retire Early.” The goal is to save and invest very aggressively—somewhere between 50–75% of your income—so you can retire sometime in your 30s or 40s. Follow us on Instagram (@thewokesalaryman) or check out our articles at www.thewokesalaryman.com