Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep124: My personal story on Mother's Day

Episode Date: May 8, 2022

✅ Get My FREE '5-Day Career Growth' Guide + Training 👉 http://www.meiphing.com ✅ Grow your career in the 9-5 corporate world with clarity, confidence and opportunities! ⚡ 👋 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing — corporate career coach, ex-corporate leader who has led multimillion-dollar projects across 43 countries and creator of the ultimate career course for 9-5 professionals, The Corporate Survivor™. On this podcast, you'll learn how to grow your career in the corporate world without getting stuck with Mei Phing's 3-step framework to gain career clarity, improve work confidence and attract new job opportunities. ✅ WEBSITE ⮕ https://www.meiphing.com ✅ FREE GUIDE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/5days ✅ COURSE & COACHING ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co ⚡ 📌 ABOUT MEI PHING: Mei Phing Lim is a Professional Career Coach and former Corporate Leader in the financial services and consulting industries. Mei Phing went from a shy quiet introvert to leading multimillion-dollar projects with teams from over 43 countries as the Senior Director and Head of Governance at Standard Chartered, and now teaching 9-5 professionals how to navigate the corporate world and grow their careers with her career coaching course, The Corporate Survivor™. Mei Phing has been featured as a LinkedIn Top Voice 2023, sharing expert career advice in guiding young professionals to plan, navigate and grow their careers. Mei Phing is a keynote speaker on corporate culture, work performance and career growth, and sharing perspectives on what truly takes to build a strategic and successful career without getting stuck. ✅ LEARN MORE: https://www.meiphing.com

Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another day, another live stream that is part of my 30-day careers live stream series. So today is actually a really special episode because today is the 8th of May and that is also Mother's Day.

And also it is my father's birthday which yeah just happened to drop on the same day. So today's topic is just a general you know life talk around family relationships in conjunction with Mother's Day maybe not so much careers related but I also think that a lot of times, you know, careers are very related to our families as well, because professional life, personal life, sometimes it does get muddled. And I think that a lot of decisions that we make, you know, it's, yeah, it's interrelated in that sense. So, you know, before, you know, I start sharing, or we kind of talk a little bit more into it, I just want to be clear that today it's not a live coaching session.

It's not like a live mentoring session. I may not be the right person to tell you what to do in your life. And yeah, so we are where we are. And thank you so much for joining live. If you're watching or listening right now, thank you so much for joining. Today is actually day eight of my 30-day careers live stream and I wanted to pick a slightly different topic today because it's Mother's Day and it is also my father's birthday. So one thing I also felt over the years is that, you know, our parents, they gradually get older and, you know,

as we look at ourselves in the mirror, maybe day by day, like, you don't see yourself aging or you don't see yourself, you know, getting older, you know, getting wiser and more mature and everything. But you are, like, I am getting older. You are also getting older. And also don't forget that, like, your parents are also getting older at the same time. And I know that sometimes it's not very easy to think about

it right if you are very busy or you're just like really caught up with stuff and I think nowadays like a lot of people you know social media is a really noisy place and aside from that you may be really busy with your job and busy with like other life commitments and I think that sometimes like your parents are the ones that are how I always see is that your parents will always wait for you they will always um not want to disturb you right um but at the same time like they truly they truly care for you and you know if you're around like my generation and I'm a millennial or you are a gen z likely your parents are like boomers or you are a Gen Z, likely your parents are like boomers or, you know, at most, you know, Gen X. And I feel like a lot of, you know, in the older generation, and probably by older generation,

I mean the boomers, I find that most of the, in the boomers generation, like if they want something, they normally don't really tell you what they want or rather maybe it's an Asian thing or maybe it's just my parents. I don't know. They don't really tell you what they want. So there's a lot of, it's like you need to figure it out, which may not be as comfortable for a lot of people as well. But I think what I noticed over the years is, yeah, parents really only want time from you. They don't really want a lot of your money because at the end of the day,

that physical presence is something that money cannot buy. So yeah, so thank you everybody for joining. Hi, Michael. Good to see you again. And hi, James. Good to see you. Where is your ship right now? In Melbourne or sort of where you are right now? So yeah. Yeah, see some comment here um and as i mentioned earlier you know today is not going to be like a live coaching session it's not going to be like a live mentoring session i will not be giving advice on how you're going to live your life and how you're going to be with your family because that's like i'm not a relationship expert so just wanted to come online share a bit of my story and maybe just like my personal experience my um relationship with my parents and yeah i just i guess some some lessons learned along the way

so if you miss sort of like the live stream series from since day one in may um you can find it the replays on youtube as well as on on spotify as well so personally me, I feel like as an Asian, we normally don't grow up, I'd say particularly close with our parents because I find that a lot of Asian parents are very strict in general and normally not so, maybe not so expressive.

And I'm not even sure if I'm using the right word, but like that's just like my personal experience, like maybe not very expressive. So a lot of societal norms, a lot of, like, you know, doing it because, like, everyone else is doing it, that sort of thing. So, I find that, like, as I was growing up, there was a lot of finding my own way as well.

And I think I was also very thankful to be able to live outside of my home and, like, you know and overseas and so forth. But I think sometimes when you move overseas, that's when you truly miss what you have. You don't have those situations where at home, your parents will do stuff for you, your parents will cook or buy lunch for you and really take care of you.

I think a lot of it is, if you don't see, you don't appreciate sometimes. And I think that, you know, from my many experiences, and I've lived overseas for a very long time. And one thing is that I always made sure

to return home to Penang, Malaysia, at least once a month, even if it's like just two days. And that was something that I did like for like more than 10 years of living in Singapore, or even when I was like traveling overseas

a lot, I always made sure that at least once a month, at least two to three days, I will always come back. And there was one comment I remembered from one of my colleagues. She told me that, Mei-Ping, why are you spending so much money flying back to Penang every single month? It's such a waste of money, and you're only back for 48 hours. So what's the point? And you should be saving all this money. Maybe you can just go back like you know twice a year but you can go back longer yeah yeah yeah so again you know this is not a life coaching session i am not the right person to tell you what to do but i also believe that like you should not be advising how other people um manage their relationship with your family their families unless you really know

their situation and um you are you're're some sort of family relationship expert or something. Because I completely disagreed with her at that time because I felt that it's your choice how often you want to go back and see your parents. Up to you. But for me, I know that my parents are retired. They don't really have like something going on. Like for, you know,

that for a lot of parents, right? Like their kids is that thing in their life that's like going on. The something in their life are their kids and their kids, that's you and me. That's you and me. So I fully recognize that. So I felt that, okay,

even though like, you know, I've spent a bit of money, but it's really important to important for me to go back. I actually used to take the last flight out of Singapore that is at 10.10 or 10.40, fly back to Penang. So I'll reach around midnight. Then Sunday, I will also take the last flight back, which is around 9 nine plus um back to

Singapore so a lot of people like this is crazy like every Friday you're rushing to the airport and like what's the point blah blah blah but I just took it as like well you're not living my life so like you don't know how to understand you don't understand how I feel about things and like you don't have my parents and you don't understand how I see how my parents see this as important so so anyway the point I'm trying to get here is like, there will be a lot of people who want to offer their opinions and their advice. But you should learn and recognize that, you know, when people give advice and they tell you something,

a lot of it is based on their personal experiences or maybe professional experiences if we're talking about careers, right? so somebody can only advise you based on like things that they have experienced before whether it's good or bad and they are they are good their opinion on good or bad also most of the time comes from their own experiences unless you know that person's very objective or it's like an expert or something but what i'm trying to say here is that like you are living your life, right? Your relationship and your dynamic with your family, right, your siblings or, like, you know, important people in your life, I think that that's only, like, you can, like, you are the only person who understands it best, right?

Understands it best. And anyway, back to that story, um you know when that colleague told me that um i actually didn't really reply her i didn't try to justify and tell her that hey you know like blah blah because i felt that like well it's none of your business and um like if you have a certain certain way of like you know um you know taking care of your parents or like seeing your parents only twice a year like i mean if you're cool with that then like cool right like who am i to tell you that it's wrong but at the same time i also felt that like um why why should i listen to you so i just said that oh yeah you know i mean it's fine like i i want to go back every month so just like kill it off because i think like sometimes

some things are quite personal like there is no need like just because somebody's asking a question like you you feel 100 obligated to like tell them your entire life story, which probably is getting very popular nowadays, like, telling your life story online and stuff. But personally, for me, I do think that there are some things that it's okay to keep private, just because everybody's sharing their personal story online should not pressure you. Yeah, maybe the word is pressure. Shouldn't pressure you to also do the same just because you want to get some clout, you want to get some likes and shares and all those things.

So I think it's probably a decision that you make for yourself because at the end of the day, like after the likes, you know, the shares and the social media instant gratification pass at the end of the day, like it's just you.

And one thing that I personally hate, and again, my personal opinion, this is not life coaching, this is not life mentoring or whatever, but personally, I feel like every day should be Mother's Day. Every day should be Father's Day if you truly care.

Every day should be Valentine's Day. Like if it's like, you need to wait till that day, right? To do something special then that but but all the other days like you don't you don't really care like you don't give an f so like to me i think that that says even more like a person that specifically makes like a big a big fuss or like a big um celebration but disappears most of you know it's like 365 days right one day is like oh wow blah wow, blah, blah, blah.

I'm going to spend a lot of money here. I'm going to do this, do that. And then most of the other days, the 364 days, nothing happens. So anyway, personal opinion. Personally for me, I think consistency in your attitude and the consistency in your actions,

like to me, that's integrity and i personally really hate when i see people um like like make a big fuss on special days spending a lot of money trying to like do big things but i'm like but like most of the time like you're like not around like your parents can't even find you half the time and your parents are constantly complaining like they can't reach you and stuff like that. I mean, like, is that good? I mean, I don't know. Like, again, I don't know about different people's situation to comment. But I guess just as an observer, I've always been very curious of, like, oh, okay, so, like, is that okay?

And then these people are, like, trying to teach me how to live my life, which is even more confusing. But anyway, a little bit off track here. But yeah, today is Mother's Day. So if you guys are watching live right now, have you spent time with your parents today, like your mom and everything? Or what are you guys up to? What are you guys up to? What are you guys up to? All right. Anyway, I think that, yeah, so I think for a lot of you who have been following me for a very long time,

I think you also know that obviously, you know, the main reason why I returned back to Malaysia was to care for my mom. And unfortunately, she has passed on for almost two years. So today, even though it's Mother's Day, and I see a lot of celebration here and there, but unfortunately, I was actually at the prayer place today, which is kind of a bit somber and everything else,

which is quite a little bit down, I'd say. But anyway, I think it's also a good opportunity to sort of reflect on good memories as well and a lot of other good memories. But even though I think the person has passed, that doesn't also mean that the memories can be forgotten also. So, if you're watching live right now, drop a comment and let me know what have you been up to. Did you spend some time with your mom today

and um what did you all do was it a good gathering was it a productive time or did it did it feel quite standard of like um having to having to just like spend time because, you know, having to buy a gift or buy flowers or anything just because, like, there's a lot of advertising on social media. Yeah, so what have you guys been up to and so forth? Yeah, feel free to share, you know, let me know. Hi, Ali. Good to see you here. I think it's been a while. Hopefully, you had a really, really good Hari Raya.

So, Ali is saying, no matter what happens, I call my mom every day because I know her importance and you never know what happens to her. Yeah, exactly. I think that's truly how I feel as well. I mean, obviously, you know, before my mom passed away, I wouldn't say it's every day because, you know, we all have our lives too and I used to work

really late so it's pretty crazy. But I'd say every other day I do drop her a WhatsApp as well and again right you know sometimes like these conversations do not have to be like some bombastic idea or stuff like that but most of the time your parents just care that you know you're eating well you're doing well like you know you're sleeping and they just want to hear from you and i think that that's sometimes like way more valuable than money it's its presence because like like i said right the 365 days of i mean the one day of like the big celebration versus 364 days i think the 364 days is is truly what what matters right because like if like like ali for yourself like if you are texting your mom every day i think that is probably a lot more meaningful to your mom than like you

know trying to send a huge gift but then disappearing for the rest of like the 364 days so i think sometimes that is a matter of like context as well like just because you know somebody else is doing something fancy i think a lot of people are posting on social media today which i can understand right i think it's a good celebration and everything and today is also my father's birthday coincidentally. So we sort of like went out for lunch and like got him a really simple cake. But I think that, yeah, I mean, social media is social media.

But, you know, like I said earlier in this live stream, you know, at the end of the day, no one can tell you what is right, the right thing to do for yourself, your family, because nobody really understands like, you know, your relationship and your family dynamic as well. And therefore, I don't think anybody should really be in a position to, like, tell you what to do unless, of course,

if you reach out to, like, a, I don't know, family or relationship expert, probably they can give a little bit more insight. So, and I also strongly believe that, like, you know, some things are, like are better left private. Just because everybody's sharing everything on social media, I think you should be obligated to share everything. And everything may include vulnerable stories, personal memories, or maybe some down times that you feel like it's better worth keeping it to yourself

or keeping it to yourself or like keeping it to your close friends or keeping it um just within your family or at least that's that's you know my my opinion um because i have i don't know i'm on multiple social media right now and i think sometimes like it kind of messes up with your mind a little bit when you see like all the happy stories but i think that um yeah just remember that you know with every high there's also lows and people are always posting on the high nobody's posting on the lows everybody talks about the highlights um but nobody talks about the low lights and i think that's probably the attitude um to approach um to approach social media as well

to put social media as well all right right. So spending time with multiple generations, which I think is great. Mom as well as grandma. So that's really awesome. But yeah, I mean, other than that, how is your Sunday? I know today's live stream, like there's a bit of a lack of a direction

as compared to the past seven days where we really kind of focus more on careers and job search topics. But I think because today's Sunday, it's Mother's Day Day and everything I just wanted to keep it a little bit lighter but how has your Sunday been are you guys like getting back on like your career planning because what I noticed very interestingly and of course you know if you have been like I think a lot of my followers are based in Malaysia and Singapore as well So if you have been like taken the long break, right, during Hari Raya and Mubarak and so forth,

what I noticed actually surprisingly is somehow after the Hari Raya holiday, on Thursday and Friday, a lot of people actually texted me DM asking for career help. And so I've been having

multiple sessions on Friday and Saturday particularly for all these like multiple sessions on like friday and saturday particularly for like all these last minute sessions and one thing very interesting they told me is that oh may ping like now all the hot all the big holidays are done right so the chinese new year the easter um easter day high raya is off so now they're like okay now um kind of need to get back to my career because they've been on a vacation or rather on a holiday for the past three months, really the first four months of the year. So the common questions I got from a lot of the clients who are booking consultation sessions, at least for the last-minute

consultation sessions, they're saying that, hey, I think I need to get back on my career right now. I've been on a bit of a holiday and festive mood for the past four months, but it's already May. And before you know it, it's going to be June. And that would mean that you have already, you know, wasted half year, wasted six months, and probably not exactly progressing towards your career goal. So if you are in this current situation right now, today is Sunday, today is like probably the last day of that extended festive season holiday.

Whether you're celebrating Haya Raya or you're celebrating Haya Raya with your friends, it's probably the end of that extended holiday. So tomorrow is the 9th of May. It's a Monday. So I think that if you are kind of slowing down from all your celebrations, probably it's time to start thinking about your career again. I think that, you know, if you are kind of, you know, slowing down from all your celebrations,

probably it's time to start thinking about your career again because right now you have eight more months to move towards the career goal that you have set up for yourself. So it's not saying that obviously, you know, you need to spend like all your weekends, you know, working, studying or like learning something, not necessarily so. But I think that probably now it's early May. It's a good juncture if you have been like you know been on a bit of a festive mode for the past few months maybe right now is

the time to slow down and say that okay what do i want the next eight months to be what actions do i need to take to solve a problem in my career or to really move forward um in your career as well so what are some of the tangible things that you want to take because usually you know what's really funny what's really funny usually because you know i sell i sell an online course right because you know aside from one-on-one coaching i also have an online course um called the corporate survivor where i help um i help nine to five working professionals to upskill you know getting clear on the corporate world and people as getting confident by building skills as well as getting visible

personal branding at their workplace as well as on LinkedIn. So I actually host this course. This course is actually fully online. The information page and everything else is all online. And for me,

I always notice that people tend to buy the course at the end of the month. This is something that I really started noticing very recently. And I think it's because every time it moves to the next month, a lot of people start to panic. They're like, oh my God, I wasted another month. So what should I do now?

And okay, maybe right now I should actually invest and really start the first of the month in a much more productive way. Maybe let like in a much more like productive way. Yeah, maybe let's put it this way, productive way. So this is something that I've noticed. Yeah, I mean, interesting. I'll probably start observing it a little bit more and see whether like, you know,

what's really the motivation. So not, because normally there are like two kinds of people who will sign up for the course, right? First are the people who are starting a new job or they're preparing to start a new job. So they wanna, you know, after, you know, getting the job offer, getting the salary increment, getting like the extra, you know, money, then they want to make sure that they are really maximizing the opportunity

so that they go in and set themselves up for success. So that is actually the first group of people who actually sign up for the course because this course is designed for 90 days and will kind of help you with starting your job and like getting visible by the third month and getting more opportunities then the second group of people are the people who are kind of like neutral at their job or that like they're not doing the best right so they're either like you know i'm kind of like bored i think that i could do more but i don't know what to do or they think that they're not doing that well and they want to do better but these people like i feel like there is no urgency because they're talking about the problem again and again

and again um maybe over drinks on friday but they don't actually take action and one thing i noticed is that like these group of people like group two of people tend to take action at the end of the month because i think like when it reaches the 30th of the month is again like oh i wasted another month i thought i was gonna get a job i thought i was gonna month. I thought I was going to get a job. I thought I was going to do this. I thought I was going to talk to my boss. And again, it's like every month continues to pass. So this is just a trend that I noticed. So yeah, maybe reflect for you as well, right? When do you actually make career decisions

and when do you actually commit to like career improvement if there's like a specific timing? Because this is just something I noticed. I'll probably observe it a little bit more and share an update with you guys sometimes soon as well so for those of you guys who are asking and asking me about like career planning and all those things normally is something that I cover in a one-on-one career consultation session if you guys like one personalized advice but this is the free training that you can join for the six-step career planning www.growacorporatecareer.com. So I'll walk you

through the steps and if you're more focused on like doing better at your existing job or your new job, a really signed job offer, then it's the other half of the training where I actually go into a little bit more detail on how you get clear on the corporate world, how do you get confident and with the top skills that you need to master, as well as how do you get visible at your workplace, as well as on LinkedIn. So free training is here. But if you've been sending me messages and you want more personalized advice, you probably have to book

a one-on-one session with me so that I can be also fair to my clients who are also investing in their career. Okay. Anyway, thank you so much for joining. I know today's live stream is lacking in direction a little bit. That's because I wanted to keep it a little bit lighter.

I just wanted to hear from you guys who are watching and just share something personal as well. So, if you have missed any of the previous live streams, I guarantee that for the last seven days, the topics are way more interesting than the ones today. So, if this is the first time you're catching the 30-day careers live stream, do stick around.

Stick around for the upcoming live streams for the next, you know, every day until the end of the year. Not end of the year, sorry. End of the month. End of the month of May. And if you miss any of the earlier live streams, you can watch the replay on YouTube

or listen to it on Spotify as well. So I'll be uploading it on those two platforms also. So thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate it. And thank you so much for being part of my LinkedIn family. I hope you guys have a good day with your family, with your friends, and more importantly, you are spending time with yourself

because that's very important too. Time with yourself is really the time where you self-reflect, you self-assess, and you come up with the best decisions or the best action plan on what you want to do next, only if you spend time with yourself. So do that and make sure that you also build strong relationships with people

in your life as well. So with that, I'll see you guys tomorrow. Bye.