Nancy Ho - The Professional Paradox

[00:00:03] Hi I'm Dr Russell Thackeray and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast with new ideas, new thoughts and new thinking about resilience. Guests with remarkable stories, products and services that can really power up your own mindset and resilience. You can also go to our site for more information, to ask questions or to access some of our resources at resilienceunravelled.com. Let's get started!

[00:00:32] Good morning all and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled. For those of us who are in the morning, that is where we are today. But my guest Nancy Ho I suspect is in the afternoon because for once we're interviewing someone who is east of us instead of west. So first of all, good morning Nancy, how are you? Very well and it's my honour to be invited Russell. Thank you very much. It's an absolute joy to see you. And where in the world are you? Singapore! Singapore!

[00:01:02] All right, now it's about 5pm here. And it's still having that sunny Singapore, it's still shining bright at 5pm. Yes, for sure. And warm. Yes, warm. Humid. Yes, I love Singapore actually. I've been there a few times. Yeah. I don't know anyone who doesn't like Singapore. It's a very interesting place. Absolutely. I always say that Singapore is heaven on earth. I'm very, it's good to disagree. Well, it's hard to disagree.

[00:01:31] Yeah. And I'm certainly not going to. Well look, thank you for spending time with us today. Tell us a little bit about yourself. What is it that you do? Okay. In the last 27 years, okay, coming to 27 years, I only focus on one thing, which is called, I'm in the people helping profession. Of course, you know, 27 years ago, I wasn't doing exactly what I'm doing now in the sense of the contents and the people that I work with.

[00:01:59] But in any case, I've always been with people. Okay. I started as a trainer in the soft skills, like communications, negotiation. And the earlier days in Singapore, one big thing was all about like, you know, personal grooming, business etiquette, you know, that add to my portfolio because part of my degree is in psychology. Then I went about, you know, becoming a hypnotherapist. I didn't want to do the conventional psychotherapy thing. All right.

[00:02:28] So from the physical to the mental, to the emotion, and even the spiritual aspects. So in this last 27 years, that's exactly what I've been doing to impact on people's life. And of course, to so-called turn them around. And they have this transformation in their life to live the life they truly want, or they live live by their own terms, rather by someone else's calling, so to speak. Yeah. And that's really important, isn't it?

[00:02:55] Because there are a lot of people who live a life that their parents wanted for them, or their partner wants, or they've chased money, or they've ended up not being very content somehow. They often find people who are, I know this is one of your themes, isn't it? People can have a form of success that's not actually, it doesn't feel like success. Maybe you could unpack that a bit for us. Sure.

[00:03:21] Success is because we live in a material world in any case, right? Having that material success, it's absolutely important. It's absolutely important. But then it becomes very lopsided when people just sort of so-called chase after that. So for example, even as a student, if a student all they chase after is their grades, right? You know, having that paper chase, right? At the end of the day, that's when they get burnout.

[00:03:47] They can have the grades, but then they're not actually happy having the grade at the end of the day. So we come out to this society, right? We climb the corporate ladder, or we become an entrepreneur. And of course, we want those success, obviously, right? Because we want to realize our fullest potential. But again, when that's only focus, okay, that's the only focus and nothing else. Then when we arrive, what does that mean? So what? You know?

[00:04:15] And of course, it becomes unbalanced. And like a lot of my clients, they will often say that to me, even before we meet, we talk on the phone and go like, I don't even know where to start. But I'm not feeling good. But it says, I should have, I should not have anything to complain about. Right?

[00:04:36] I mean, it's like their title, you know, what they make, you know, their annual income, their family, they have children and everything else. Sure. We all have our challenges, but nevertheless, it's all like pretty good. But they feel empty inside. This is somehow, this is void. And in fact, what is scary, they start to isolate themselves. Right? And then of course, in the workplace, in the office, they have to show up.

[00:05:01] But after office, you know, they isolate and some would then hit the bottles. They drink. Right? That's this thing called happy hours. Sometimes it's longer than an hour. Yeah, much more. Okay. So they hit the borders. And then, you know, of course, other people may use other distractors, but any case, okay to drink. But when they drink, to depend on it, to feel good. Mm. That's bad. Right?

[00:05:30] So it's interesting that you mentioned this, this idea of withdrawing. So can you tell me a bit about, a bit more about that? Because that's something that a lot of people possibly don't notice about themselves. It's like, it's like the first sign, isn't it? That something might be wrong. Yes. Yes. Correct. Sure. So I don't mean everybody should be a social butterfly. It's just own. There are some people that are more extroverted. There's some people more introverted. But besides, okay.

[00:05:57] Of course we do our eight hours, maybe 10 hours for some of us. All right. The obvious, you know, work and all that. But what else do you do? And again, besides the obvious, the family, the weekend, what else do you do? What else do you serve? What is your life purpose? What's your higher purpose? And I've often asked this question and I have a lot of C-suites that come to me and they cannot answer the question.

[00:06:22] And the question will, I mean, sorry, the answer will always about, oh, their achievement or they want to provide well for the family. You know, they want to make sure their family is happy. I said, wait a minute. That cannot be a life purpose. That is your responsibility. I do get that. But it cannot be your life purpose. So. And that's interesting because people, there's a lot of people who don't understand this idea of a higher purpose, isn't there?

[00:06:48] It's, it sort of sounds a bit modern, hippy dippy, woo woo sort of stuff. But, but understanding your actual purpose is something that's really important, isn't it? We talk a lot about resilience about knowing what, who you are, where, what you're for, where you're going. Sure. Because that sense of purpose is really important, isn't it? It gives you, it gives you a place to win and an idea of who you are. And I said, what do you wake up for? What do you wake up to? What do you do? All right.

[00:07:18] We do not just wake up because we have, we have to go to the office and we have got the meetings and we have this core and that core, right? Again, these are all the part and parcel of the responsibility that we need to fulfill and show all of us are happy to do that. So what do you wake up to? That's your higher purpose. I just came from lunch early on with this group called International Justice Mission. Hmm. Wow.

[00:07:45] They're doing fantastic work, but primarily in Southeast Asia, whereby they actually save people from modern slavery. Oh. Yes. And sex exploitation. Right. Yeah. In fact, I was with them two Saturdays ago when they do their fundraising and then just, you know, I don't mention country, just a particular, country itself. They have saved 500,000 children. Wow. And it got to be ongoing process.

[00:08:15] It's not just save one time and that's it, you know? Yeah. So I now volunteer. Of course, I told them, I said, all being great, that we need the fund to save them, the task force, you know, they work with the local government, you know, and so on and so forth. But I said, what happened after that for them? Okay. You give them the shelter, you give them the food, you give them all that, maybe education and even a job. But the person is wounded. Yeah. Right. Just like we heard of some military veterans, right?

[00:08:46] The PDS, they're wounded. So if we talk about resilience, much as we want to pick ourselves up and, you know, forge forward. But then if there's something that is so, you know, traumatic, that it got to be healed. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it's not just like, oh, a failed business. You know, I made some mistakes and I just pick myself up and motivate myself. But this is not real. And some of them are so real because, you know, they're hurt by their loved ones.

[00:09:15] I mean, people, they trusted in their life. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's big time betrayer. However, you're going to look at it. Yeah. So I actually told them that I said, besides me, I also have my, I call them my tribe. Okay. I said, we would love to volunteer our time and effort in training them on their life skills. Yeah. They did life skills to move on. And if they're still in school, maybe some kind of tuition, you know, so they can do better in school and so on and so forth.

[00:09:45] And of course the healing work because I do healing work too. So this is my higher purpose. So that makes sense. And it makes sense that if you're in work and you can volunteer in a cause or a passion, and I do something similar actually, and I get, I often find that I'm working for money, which is fine because actually I know that I will, I'll balance the equation as a sort of an idea. And I like the fact that you talked about these people who don't understand motivation

[00:10:14] and purpose because you have to learn these things, don't you? And if you've been in a situation where you've been without agency, without power, how would you know how to develop a sense of purpose? How would you know how to develop motivation, resilience and things? Because these are all things to be learned. Well, one of the things I was thinking about when you were talking there was, when you're talking about this feeling of having everything but being empty, do you think it's a generational thing? Do you think it's an age thing?

[00:10:41] Are you finding younger people who are, you know, who are in their twenties and such like who are in a similar place? Yeah. Why I love it. You go like the age thing. Right. I'm 60. All right. So I get it where you're coming from. Yeah. I really don't think so, but it's just disguised in a different way. I don't think so. Okay. Of course, for the younger generation, what do you call that? You know, generation X, generation Y, you know, because they are provided for. So unlike like our times, right.

[00:11:11] I always said, I'm already very blessed that I belong to the so-called have and have not. So that means it's not served on the platter for me. Yeah. So I didn't have to suffer or I have, you know, I've got more than I can imagine seriously. I mean, more than I can ask for, but also it's not served on the platter. So I call it have and have not. But it's my sister, which is ten years, my senior. She started with no have.

[00:11:40] I call it no have, no have, no have. They do not have. So they suffer differently. So the younger generation now, I call it, they have it all. Right. In fact, in Singapore, for example, it's easy to get domestic help. So nearly like, I don't have the statistics, but I would say easily 70%. Of the household would have a helper. So, so they grew up having a helper to do everything for them.

[00:12:09] They don't have to do their own beds. You know what I'm saying? Their breakfast is there, you know, and it's not served to them by a helper. So of course, it's not their fault that they have it all. But they also, okay, could so-called suffer from some kind of lack. Yes. In fact, not so long ago, Warren Buffer actually wrote about this thing that I said, what? He said that? He said, love.

[00:12:38] Warren Buffer, talk about love. Right. Right. Which is true. The center of it or is all about love. So like I talk about the IJM, right? So I told him, I said, you know, it's difficult. They call them the survivors. Okay. I said, it's difficult for those survivors to understand what love is. Yeah. And we are not talking about the intimacy, love. I'm talking about this very positive energy called love. Yeah.

[00:13:07] So without love, we don't have anything. Yeah. Right. And that's interesting because in the modern world, it seems to be that we spend a lot of time hating, isn't it? Sure. There's a lot of hatred around the world. Yeah. The social media makes it easier. But they always say that the opposite of love is hate. So hate is a form of love, but it's just expressed in a very odd way.

[00:13:31] So it shows the capacities there, but it's been misaligned or misguided, perhaps. I don't know if I want to agree the opposite of love is hate. No, I'm saying it's said that. I mean, I don't think it is. Yeah, exactly. But I think it's part of it, isn't it? I look at it this way that how do we use our emotions not met?

[00:13:59] So when our emotions not met, that means like I do not feel loved. Then I have this strong reaction and I start to make up stories. And these stories, let's say, become extreme and call hatred for someone. But it isn't like it appears like you just said, people tend to say that opposite love is hatred. It's not. In fact, at the center of it all, we all have love. That's why I look at children. We look at them.

[00:14:28] Okay, look at babies and toddlers. We will go up to them, right? Oh God, how lovely they are. No matter what shape or what color. Right. But we will never go up to an adult and to every adult and feel the same way. Because fortunately and unfortunately, as we grow up, as we know more, we start to analyze and we start to make up stories. And these are the stories that work against our emotions not met. Right.

[00:14:58] Yeah. So then people conjure up stories. And then after that, of course, they get divided. So one thing I love of Singapore is like, you know, it's inclusive, inclusive. And we look around the whole world. This is not often, let's use the word, promoted. No.

[00:15:19] And I'm wondering, it's interesting, reflecting on what you're saying is there are significant cultural differences between your country and ours, Australia, America, and such like. So would you say that this inclusivity thing is different in your world from what you observe that's going on elsewhere? Absolutely. Racist harmony is not natural, is it? Racist harmony. Yeah.

[00:15:47] That means having all Singapore are four races. Yeah. We do a lot of inter-worship, you know, that means interfaith worship. I see. Yeah. Interfaith worship. So whether you're Muslim, whether you're Buddhist or Taris and all the different faiths. Okay. Time and again, you have this interfaith worship.

[00:16:10] And one of the things that say in our apartment, I mean, of course, we talk about public housing here, not private housing. There is a quota. The quota means they would not want to have the same majority or the same race or up into one block. Right. So the quota is like, of course, majority in Singapore tend to be Chinese, 75%.

[00:16:33] But then they will ensure that in this block, okay, there are Chinese and there are Malays and there are Indians and, you know, so you'll live together in harmony. Yes. So, yeah. This has been like a build up since like in the 70s. So, but do people live in harmony or is there a sort of, does tensions break out? Because some of the different religions have very different ways of looking at the world, don't they? Not that.

[00:17:00] So, for example, in our country, we have different forms of religions which are diametrically opposed to each other. And I, but, but I guess what you just said there is key is that you've been doing this since the 70s. So that's what, that's, you know, that's 50, 50 years it's taken to make this sort of multiculturalism work. And also, and also, also Singapore has a quite a strong government. It's very, it's quite, you know, it, it, it says this is, this is how it's going to be. And it is.

[00:17:28] And, you know, I see what you see is that fruits of quite an, I don't, I'm trying to pick the right word. And I don't want to say the word I've got in my head, but it's, it prescribes what has to be happening. And therefore that allows things to happen. Sure. Because, of course, you know, it all started with our late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. You know, he's really a figure, not for him. He wouldn't be where we are today. I mean, I'm, I'm referring to Singapore. So there was, there were riots in the 60s. It was tough.

[00:17:56] So he saw the picture that this cannot go on. Something has to change in order, you know, that this riot would not continue in, in the future. Yeah. So that's why that was prescribed since, you know, in fact, late 60, if I could remember that, you know, early 70s. And it's been that way and it built up. And if there's anyone that is racist as like publicly, right. Want to protest. It's not allowed. They are behind bars. Yeah.

[00:18:23] Not allowed is that behind bars, strict laws against it. You know, I mean, sure in your own house and you want to say what you want. Of course, nobody, I mean, other than the people that we do find, but if it's a public thing. No, it's very strict. It's very strict. I like that. If not, it'd be chaotic. I mean, we've seen in some parts of the world that are like that. Yeah. But we talk about resilience. I look at that also, you know, part of the resilience is tolerance. Right.

[00:18:53] If you do not have tolerance, you do not have resilience. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, something doesn't go your way and then you blow up. Yeah. Right. And the thing is, if you're blowing up and blaming other people who are, especially who are different to you, that's the root of what a lot of problems are in the world, isn't it? It's that, you know, this person is different color, different shape, different religion, different process, different food, whatever it might be. Yeah. And therefore there's a sense of my ills or something to do with them.

[00:19:20] And so, and so your systems of inclusivity have, have, have worked to smooth that over or, I mean, does, does, is everything included? Can anybody be who they are and what they want to be? Of course, there's always some odd balls. You know, there'll always be, right? There are always some black sheep and hot balls, but I would say in general, that's why there's no protest. There's no, it's safe. It's so safe. I mean, being to Singapore, you know that it's so safe.

[00:19:47] Even as a woman, I can walk to in a, on the street at 3am. There's no problem. Uh, I cannot say zero crime, but it's so low. I mean, you know, it's just, it's just unlucky. Somebody gets into that, you know, otherwise, uh, it's all good. I mean, um, whether it is in a tube like you guys have to London, right? Uh, whatever, everybody said side by side, nobody's angry. Anybody, nobody does like get pissed off. Like why are you a different color from me? No.

[00:20:16] In fact, um, I like to believe is this way, at least from my perspective, I don't even see that they are of a different race. A person, a person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. I mean, just like I look at you now, right? It's like you're a person. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, which is the point, isn't it? And, and, um, and I think that's important, isn't it? So, so going back to these people who've, who have this void, uh, what you're advocating is this sense of inclusivity.

[00:20:45] You're talking about having for some form of purpose. In other words, what it is that you wake up to, which I like. And, and this idea that you're talking about what are the emotions that you have that are unmet. So, so that's quite interesting. I wonder you see today, cause what you described earlier was really interesting. You talked about either we have this academic route to success with our grades and our exams and such like, or a corporate route to success, which was going and joining an organization.

[00:21:11] But certainly in the UK, we have all these different ways. I mean, I mean, I love him. I hate him. You know, that it is possible to carve a career on YouTube at 16 and, you know, uh, have financial security by a certain sort of age, not for everybody. Cause that's the nature of these things. They are exclusive, aren't they? But what's interesting now is we do have these, we do have the ability at a much younger age to learn what you might be interested in. And actually if you do it for a few years and it's doesn't work out, you can change.

[00:21:41] And I think, and I think actually we can be more tolerant of people who don't want to follow the traditional route, but, um, but of course it's hardwired into our nature, isn't it? To follow the ways that we did ourselves when we were younger. So, I mean, that involves training, but also involves a degree of courage, doesn't it? And I wonder whether we have enough courage in the world.

[00:22:03] I think whether we have enough courage, I like to say that first, do you know what you really want? Referring to every single person. Right. If I'm pretty clear about what I want. So you talk about resilience. I'll do whatever it takes to make it happen. So even I do not hit the 100 points. I'll be somewhere. You know, I'll be somewhere.

[00:22:33] I cannot fail if I do whatever it takes to make it happen. Yeah. Right. And I advocate all the time. Why be number one? Why be the best? Be yourself. Be yourself. Because, you know, if you're the best, that's a ceiling. And when you become the best, I know what happened. Nothing else. Right. Then you give up. You retire. Is it? No, we still have to go on. Right. Yeah. You have to do something else. So why? I mean, number one.

[00:23:03] I mean, can you stay number one all your life? And again, after number one, right, you're the first number one. And then what? Yeah. But being number one, is that really what you want? Yeah. Or did somebody push you to be number one? Did somebody push you to get, you know, all the A's in school and, you know, going into the Ivy League school? You know, is that really what you want? Yeah. And is it what you want now? Because actually the point is, you can change as well, can't you?

[00:23:33] The idea of what and who you are kind of should change. Well, not we should, but and change through the course of your life. It's okay to be, to change your mind, isn't it? Sure. So just like tomorrow, I have my group coaching. All right. It's this group that created. And tomorrow I'm going to go on a topic on, of course, goal setting for 2025. But I'm not going to do the norm of like, okay, what do you want for 2025?

[00:24:00] I will first make them reflect. What are they dissatisfied about in 2024? Hmm. Whatever they are dissatisfied. All right. What went wrong? Yeah. Right. If you don't know what went wrong, how do you correct? Yeah. True. And then after that, all right, you then think about what, what does 2025 looks like for you at the end of 2025? Okay.

[00:24:29] Then you got a question, why do you want that? Hmm. So the why is solid. So if someone cannot understand not articulate their why. So even they set goals and they achieve it, it not, it may not be what they want because they don't have a why. Yeah. Just like, why do you do what you do? Why do I do what I do? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:56] That's why at the end of the day, even we achieve that, we have that void. We have the unfulfillment. Yes. Yes. And that's really important, isn't it? And sometimes you need a coach to tease that out of you because sometimes it is actually quite hard to do all this stuff on your own. Yes. Because it is hard to reflect, isn't it, on your own. Sometimes it is useful to have that other person asking the questions and spotting out the inconsistencies and holding you to account a little bit. So, and I know you do a lot of coaching as do I, so I think that's what's important.

[00:25:26] Right. But before we started, you were telling me about a book that you'd also been part of writing. And could you tell me a bit about that? Because of course, I'm guessing in this chapter is this book that part of the part of the book you contributed to that a lot of these things are covered off. Is that the point? Okay. The title of this book is Success Redefined. Okay. With Jack Canfield, the legendary Jack Canfield, the chicken soup for the soul. All right. In the 80s was big in the 90s. You know, it was a whole series.

[00:25:55] It's so God knows how many millions of books and translated. All right. So it was great when I saw the opportunity and it's called success redefine. Rather conventional success that we grew up with, or even whatever people think conventionally is what success is. So then I said, okay, I want to do this, you know, the gap between professional achievement and personal dissatisfaction. Right. There's always there.

[00:26:21] So the title that was called the paradox of success. Okay. The paradox of success. Yeah. The hidden struggles of high performing professionals. So the one thing that's very important is that we have to do this self reflection, introspection, especially, right. The high performing professionals are usually not young anymore. They come a long way. Right. Resilience.

[00:26:52] Fantastic. Right. That's why they are where they are now. So they need to have this introspection and they need to be very authentic. Or I have also coached people that like I said, is it time for your second life? Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Or third. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Today, I just had somebody who's 57, very successful, family business. All right. All well, right. He got everything.

[00:27:20] But then he says that this is not right doing the same thing for so long. Yeah, I said, I think so. So I'm creating the second life for him. And of course, the second life. All right. Dan becomes like, because now you don't need to fire fight anymore. Right. I mean, maybe a much younger. Right. We want to come climb the corporate ladder. We need the success. You want to bring up the children. You want to provide them, you know, the best that you can. I get it. Now you don't need to. Dan, what is important?

[00:27:50] What is truly important? And that's where the life purpose and the higher purpose comes in. Yes. Then the achievement and the personal satisfaction of fulfillment will then naturally morph together. Yes. Fascinating. The, and where can I get hold of the book? And how can I find out more about you as well? Sure. The book you can get in Amazon. Okay. So that's redefined. All right. And you can find me at Nancy Ho.net.

[00:28:20] That's my website. Right. Or you could actually just search life coach Nancy Ho Singapore in LinkedIn. Yeah. All the different platforms I am there. Yes. Thank you. Fantastic. Well, look, thank you so much for spending time with us today. It's really interesting to hear, to hear a different perspective on the, on the same sort of issues that we often talk about. And it's interesting to see how much, how much we are similar rather than different as well. I think that's really important. Right.

[00:28:50] Absolutely. Thank you very much. Well, it's a pleasure. Thank you for spending time with us today. Take care. Hi, I hope you found that episode useful and entertaining. If you want to support our work, please go to resilienceunravel.com and you can become a member there as well. You can also send us a question there and even apply to do a podcast. You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts or any of the other podcast hosts of your

[00:29:19] choice, as well as getting hold of some useful resources about resilience and a whole lot more. Join us next time on the next edition of Resilience Unraveled.