Hey Guys
Hope you have had a good week!
Last week, before watching the latest James Bond movie I started writing about the idea of embracing loneliness, and over the weekend finished that piece with a quote from the American entrepreneur, Naval Ravikant:
It’s important as you get older to figure out how to build your tribe that is always around you. And actually, the more they’re in your business, the better.
Naval Ravikant - Excerpt from Episode #97 of The Tim Ferriss Show (“The Evolutionary Angel, Naval Ravikant”)
You can read that issue in full here.
In finishing I said that I would do a self-assessment this weekend of how I am “building [my] tribe”. So, sitting at home at my desk with my trusty Nescafe Gold cup of morning coffee this Saturday in Singapore, let’s explore!
Building My Tribe
As I’ve gotten older I have found that it has become harder to build my tribe.
Maybe harder isn’t the correct word, but rather it has become easier for the changing circumstances in my life to distract me from that goal, and plans more generally.
Why?
For me, the short answer is money.
As a student, I didn’t really have much disposable income to choose whether or not to do things, and for the most part needed my parents’ permission to do or not do things (especially given the $$$ in school fees they were paying each year!!).
I knew back then that I felt the most comfortable and confident when I really excelled at, or at least tried to give 100% in (or more as my Mum can attest), whatever I was doing. Faced with a limited ability to choose, I found comfort in starting and, for the most part, seeing through tasks to the end.
As an adult (questionable at times!), I now have sufficient disposable income from my day job to make choices for myself, and the only person I really need to ask permission of about these choices is me.
Nowadays, if I want to merely feel comfortable, I can easily go out across the street for a cheeky late night durian snack, buy a beer from the downstairs pub, start a newsletter, watch a movie….you get the drift…a lot of things in what is really a permission-less environment, but none of which really builds lasting confidence.
I have more options now than ever before to try new things and, equally, more options to extract myself from seeing these things through to the end.
If I don’t enjoy something, if I am scared of doing something or I am just downright lazy about it, I have the option to simply not do it.
In effect, with money I have a greater ability to choose comfort or discomfort, to build confidence or shy away from that process. While it’s incredibly liberating having this greater independence, it’s also incredibly lonely having these choices.
As odd as that sounds to me as I type this, it actually makes perfect sense when I take a step back and think about it. Just like my near-daily predicament of working out how to extract the most bang for my buck when ordering caifan (rice with dishes which is very popular and inexpensive in Singapore), how do I know how if my choice A is better than my choice B in my professional and personal life decisions day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year?
The truth is, obviously, I don’t.
COVID-19 threw all of this for me under a bus for me. When it hit in around March 2020, suddenly I didn’t have to choose comfort or discomfort. For a number of weeks back then, I was UNCOMFORTABLE ALL THE TIME.
Back then, I didn’t know if I’d have a job for much longer, I didn’t know how long I could stay in Singapore if I was to lose my job, and I was having cold sweats at night just thinking about these issues and more.
But out of that stressful period emerged my case for needing to “build my tribe”. I remember thinking that in the worst case scenario if I lost my job, what would my response be to someone who asked “Who is David Foong?”?
Before COVID, it probably would have been something along the lines of “Some corporate lawyer, working at X Firm, doing ABC, fullstop”.
That’s pretty much it.
That is, I didn’t really have much to show for stuff outside of my job. I only had my work identity. But COVID gave me the reset button I secretly needed to get cracking on building my tribe outside of it, even if for no other reason than simply to have a more interesting response to someone who was to ask me what do I do (or as a friend once asked differently, what is your secret power?)
So a year and a half after COVID started, my response to that question would now be “David is a corporate lawyer, working at Y company, doing ABC, and also has interests in DEF, with AABBCC as examples”.
At the root of why I think having examples to show for your interests is important is summarised best by the following quote from Austin Kleon:
Be on the lookout for voids that you can fill with your own efforts, no matter how bad they are at first.
Don’t worry, for now, about how you’ll make money or a career off it. Forget about being an expert or a professional, and wear your amateurism (your heart, your love) on your sleeve.
Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.
Austin Kleon - Show Your Work! (Chapter 1. You Don’t Have To Be A Genius)
One of my interests is piano and by sharing it online via YouTube and Instagram starting in April 2020, I have been able to meet people who similarly enjoy piano, and who in all likelihood I would not have otherwise had the chance to meet.
I’d like to share some past exchanges to show this and, in some instances, what came out of them:
The first is an Instagram conversation with Shirley from the US back in November 2020…
…which led to a podcast episode (my first!):
Tuesday Conversation with Friends: Shirley Wang and David Foong
The second is with Aletheia from Singapore in January this year…
…which led to playing a small part one of her many great arrangements:
A third is with Janice in May…
which led to this recent collaboration on CATS the Musical:
A fourth is an invitation to play at a wedding last month!
…which, as it turned out, live music was (and still is) not permitted at weddings and as a result this never went ahead.
And finally, with the Lang Lang Foundation (yes, THE Lang Lang!):
…for which nothing to date has happened but at least there was something!
By “showing my work”, to borrow the term from Austin Kleon, over the past year I have been building my tribe in a way that I truly enjoy - over a shared hobby and interest.
Looking through some of those past conversations not only gives me a great deal of satisfaction, but also a renewed sense of what it means to be alive, and even a renewed energy to tackle the day job!
Of course, showing my work takes (and is still taking) a large degree of getting over things like imposter syndrome and the fear of imperfection, but as Kleon goes on to advise, when faced with fear just think about death:
It’s for this reason that I read the obituaries every morning.
Obituaries are like near-death experiences for cowards. Reading them is a way for me to think about death while also keeping it at arm’s length.
Obituaries aren’t really about death; they’re about life. “The sum of every obituary is how heroic people are, and how noble,” writes artist Maira Kalman.
Reading about people who are dead now and did things with their lives makes me want to get up and do something decent with mine. Thinking about death every morning makes me want to live.
…Take inspiration FROM THE PEOPLE WHO MUDDLED THROUGH LIFE before you - they all started out as amateurs, and they got where they were going by making do with what they were given, and having the guts to put themselves out there. Follow their example.
Austin Kleon - Show Your Work! (Chapter 1. You Don’t Have To Be A Genius)
So, with all that have a great week ahead and good luck in building your tribe!
Also, if you enjoyed reading this, it would mean a lot if you could take a few seconds to input your email by hitting subscribe:
That way, you’ll get these delivered every week straight to your inbox and it definitely gives me a huge boost to see new readers each week!
Yours in muddling through life,
David
So good! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I really have learnt a lot from your recent newsletters and always look forward to reading them each weekend. Chelsea
Thought provoking David 👍 Not to trust or rely on oneself too much but trust in God. He created Eve for Adam. He wants us to share our life with someone. Go find your Eve and build your own tribe just like your mum and dad did, aunty Beverley and I did and many of your other uncles and aunties did too. God bless and have a wonderful week ahead 🙏