Hey sonya and welcome back to another episode of Men explain now we have a super special guest here today and he wears many hats by the way, I'm super impressed. He is not just an economist, a professor, a husband, a father, he's James lim. Welcome.
Thank you, thank you for having me. I'm not so sure if I deserve that extensive introduction. But yes, I wear many hats but I think many of us do these days.
Tell us more about yourself. I mean aside from all this stuff that we already know
these days, I like to think of myself primarily as a father rather than anything else. And I see that as my main contribution to the extension of some, some legacy if you will of course I also am a representative in so that's a big part of my duties and I'm also a teacher and educator at the university.
How do you do all that man? Seriously?
You don't get as much sleep as you
like.
You asked for indulgence especially from family. So thankfully my daughter, she's 2.5 so she doesn't quite understand the idea of compromise quite yet. So I take advantage of that. Well while she isn't always as demanding of time.
Fantastic. Well I'm sure you get to spend a little bit more time with her like on the weekends, especially like how do you juggle? Yeah,
so this is quite a bit of trying to integrate activities that I have to do both for my official duties as well as just spending time with the family. So one of the things for instance, last weekend, one of the things that we do is we walk around the estate and we just make sure that everything is in order. So last week I was able to bring my family with me and so she got to play at the playground, inspect the playground while I went about doing my regular day.
It's important inspecting the playground. It's a key.
Yeah, yeah, so it's a proof of concept and make my money is literally where my mouth is. So we've got to make sure that things are, you know, in shape and safe, more importantly,
look, you know, being a politician that entails a lot, I'm sure and you know, it's almost like a 24 7 sort of job for you as well as we were talking about earlier. Tell us a fun fact about yourself, like maybe from the past, you know, tell us a bit more before you became who you are right now,
people who know me think of myself as rather boring. I like to do very boring professor, real things.
Okay, what is that? What's the definition of boring things?
Well, I like to read. I, and, and unfortunately I don't have as much of a fascinating kind of literary diet. I just end up reading more Economics and finance, which is what I do professionally and I think that's interesting because when I was younger it wasn't the case.
I think people change over time as I got into a profession that was a little bit more introverted and I became more introverted prior to that, I was very much an outdoor person, I was in the uniform group, I was I played sports, so those were definitely more extroverted kind of activities. And it was only much more recently when I started becoming an academic quintessential solo activity where even the nature of sports I started to do
became a lot more solitary. So I picked up hiking a lot more um I became very comfortable hiking by myself in the mountains, I think it speaks to the capacity of people to adapt and change. And I think it's important because we bucket ourselves into one particular category and I think it's important for us to actually look beyond that and and be comfortable pushing the boundaries of what you might
have kind of pigeonholed yourself into. So it started that way as an adaptation, but then I started opening up a lot more to just enjoying, just appreciating what I was doing, being present. I think sometimes we forget that um and being present, it doesn't come as naturally these days because you find that sometimes you are being inefficient with your time when you're not actively doing something good, but what are we doing most of the time we are scrolling through an endless feed and that's
not
that's not entirely efficient, right? So being able to be present just to appreciate what's going on around you. There's value in that that we sometimes have forgotten. I
totally agree. I mean with the mindfulness practice with being present. So just a side track. I spent a couple of weeks in the US just for vacation. I went on sabbatical. I decided to just take a break from social media and I was like you know what, I'm not going to post anything, I'm not going to report what I've been doing or like the fun stuff that I'm up to. I did take like 500,000 pictures but I didn't really post much and as a result my followers like are
you okay? Like you haven't posted in a very long time like are you alive? What's going on? I'm like I don't need to validate that all the time. So I see where you're coming from. But on that note of traveling, I mean you spend a lot of time overseas as well, right? A big bulk of your time prior to being more based here in Singapore, you were overseas. So how did you sort of manage that? You know juggling between career personal relationships. Like can we really have it all? But I don't
know about having it all. I think if you're obsessed about that then you may be putting quite a bit of stress on yourself. I think the idea is to set goals aspirations and then just go ahead and do it. I left after N. S. And so I probably spent about the same number of years outside of Singapore as I have in Singapore. But of course I'm a creature of what I was while I was here. So my formative
years were all here. I think like a Singaporean and yet being away from home makes you embrace a little bit more who you are and and builds a certain kind of understanding of what it is to be, who you are. You need to find a level of comfort with yourself being by yourself. So Singaporeans records social creatures. So up till the time I was away I would never do social activities. Like watching a movie or going to a restaurant by myself. You always did it
with friends right? Even if it was dragging someone like a colleague with you for lunch
at
the very least do that. You will never have lunch by yourself. And so I learned how to be a bit more introspective, bit more reflective about just being comfortable with who I was. And I think that was valuable because it allows me to understand full well what my limits are my what I'm comfortable doing what I'm not comfortable doing if I decided to go beyond my usual comfort level what I could achieve.
And it's a lot of self discovery as well which
in turn affects your relationships. I don't know in the future but you know when it comes down to career and relationships, do you think they directly affect each other because I personally feel when I was, you know, doing badly in my personal life, for example, like you know, just not with the right person in the right place fighting a lot, it kind of affected my productivity of my focus at work and stuff, you know, So in that sense it kind of did have a reaction in both ways.
So what do you think about this relationship between your career and your personal life? Are they directly intertwined?
Inevitably? We are humans are social creatures with emotions and in fact if something were not to be all right at home, whether it is with my immediate family, my wife, my daughter, or even if you extended family, if you know that you have a family member that is ill or going through a difficult time, it will always hang at the back of your mind and it will always
have an effect. We are professionals in many things that we do, so you often have to just get on with the job, but I think to the extent that it is something you can control or manage, you try to make sure that those things are taken care of and I think the way to make sure that they are taking care of is to ensure that you schedule and devote time to taking
care of those things. So as I mentioned weekends, often a fair chunk of that time is spent with family and and making sure that they get their dedicated time because during the week, especially weeknights, so much of what I do have to do with being in sync gang. So when I make sure that things are taken care of at home, then I feel much more comfortable discharging my other responsibilities and
duties in the past maybe when you were younger as a student or anything. Have you ever found yourself in a place where you felt you had to decide between a relationship and work? Have you ever been in that dilemma
before? As you know, I left um Singapore and I went to pursue my studies abroad and during one of those periods I was in a relationship prior to leaving and we had a long distance relationship for five years,
five years, it was
a long time for much of the time. We, we kind of made it work. She herself was going through her undergraduate studies, so she went abroad and so we met up, we were a bit too young to confess that we were supposed to meet up or not, so we may or may not have met
up in
between. So, but in any case we would commit to meeting up, say every three months or so, three or four months just because the physical connection, especially if you're in a relationship is important as it turns out that that relationship didn't endure, but people make these kind of decisions all the time prior to my first job out of grad school.
I was in a small liberal arts college and there I was also in a relationship with someone there and then an opportunity came up to go to Washington D. C. To work. And it was a difficult decision. I spent a lot of time mulling over it because it was about giving up a relationship but at the same time taking on an exciting and interesting opportunity. So you know everyone makes their own calculations and then you
make that decision. You try of course to make one thing work out the other in the end that one that relationship didn't work either. But again I think you don't make that decision flippantly right? You make that decision with consideration and then you commit to it and you try your level best to make sure that both sides of that decision are
taken care of. But You know I was in my early 30s and Like many people in the early 30s you tend to prioritize career and and and professional goals a little bit more because you feel that that's your time to make a mark. And so yeah unfortunately that relationship ended up being the casualties.
Do you think it's like really related to the phase of your life. Like right now in this point in time if you were to be asked to relocate overseas or you know go work there for six months to a year I don't know would that be something that you're comfortable with or how you're going to have that conversation.
So I'm stuck here until until the next election.
I suppose you're not going anywhere. I'm not going
anywhere for now. But when when you say phase of life it's not a function of age is a function of where you are in your life right? So if you are in your early twenties but you have settled down you have a marriage, you have a kid and you have an apartment then that you are in that phase of life and it becomes a joint decision. You can't see him going to spend a few years chasing professional goals to the detriment
of what you had already previously committed to. Then you know when you make a decision on where to go It becomes a joint decision. So before leaving D. C. or 700. And the offer was to go to abu Dhabi to spend some time there and at that time I was already married and so in a committed relationship with my wife. So I couldn't just say well look this thing doubles
my salary. So let me just let me go and you stay here in D. C. And enjoy your time and you know it was a joint decision and when my wife was open to that possibility then it opened that possibility everyone I think when they are in a certain phase of their life make decisions that have to do with the people that depend on them and that matter to them. My father, he had a tremendous opportunity When he was in his 30 when um the studio that he was working for in
Singapore closed down. And at the time the Singapore music scene wasn't as developed. And so he received an offer to go to Taiwan to continue pursuing his career and it was a great opportunity. But at that time I was already born and he made that decision that he wanted me to be educated within the Singapore system to have english as my primary language. And and so he gave that up. So I think different
people will have to weigh what matters to them. But ultimately, as I suggested it is it becomes a joint decision.
That's a great example to be honest. So when I when I was in L. A. I had this conversation with my friends because, you know, the media scene in L. A. Is so popping right, like there's literally so much going on there. The support that is tremendous. Even though it's quite saturated, you know, everybody goes to L. A. Because you want to achieve a dream or you want to pursue something that maybe you didn't get a chance to back in
your country. So my friends were asking me, they were like, hey, have you ever considered working in L. A. Or pursuing something overseas doesn't have to be L. A. Could be anywhere.
And to the people that I met in L. A. I started to kind of think of that possibility and it was just like kind of nagging at me at the back of my head but likewise I'm also in a relationship, it's been a few years already and we also had this conversation because he said you know you you never got a chance to do that overseas right?
And you know it could be the kind of thing where you don't want to resent not being able to have that opportunity to potentially pursue like something big in L. A. But to us I don't know whether it might be
a deal breaker at this point in time. Um And I don't know if you are tuning in right now, any young couples tuning in whether this could be a deal breaker if your partner not married yet goes here, I want to spend six months to a year working overseas, but I know that you have a job in Singapore. So what kind of advice would you then give us in this position more and more by the way, Millennials and gen Z is um I don't know whether it's related to the pandemic as well
want to pursue something overseas. In fact we have a crew member who is pursuing something in Korea like right now what kind of advice do you have for us?
Well, so as I mentioned earlier on, one of the key things is to make sure that you and this is purely on a practical basis to make sure that you physically get together every now and then. So I think that's crucial, I think to manage one's expectations if you're going to say okay, I want to spend some time overseas. What is that? Is that six months, is that a year? Um is that several years? And what is the comfort level for each of you to spend that amount of time?
Your partner may say, okay, this is a tremendous opportunity. I want to support you in this. You should go ahead, but I don't think we can be apart for three years then it becomes well, would you be willing to do it for a shorter period of time? So that's why it's a joint decision, you should definitely talk things through, but more generally, I mean I hope one day we will develop ourselves and Singapore. That is as a place where we no longer have to feel the need two
go overseas necessarily just to get good opportunities. So that was the case certainly when I was younger, if you wanted to be a professional economist in say the front office of an investment bank, that was very challenging at the time when I first graduated. And so it was natural for me to pursue those opportunities abroad.
But we have since developed as a financial center and the wealth management center and that has meant that it's become at least for my profession a lot easier to make that decision that you know, maybe the very best opportunities may still be in new york or London, but
nevertheless we can hold our own. So the same for the media landscape for you guys, if we can make ourselves much more attractive, media hub, creative arts hub, that itself will ensure that we remain enticing enough to have here as a base. You might still want to spend some time abroad just to gain experience gained exposure, but you don't feel that you have let something pass you by the way that my father had just because you are based in Singapore all
fair points and I think, you know, it's the kind of thing where you have to revisit every once in a while in a different phase of your life. It changes also like what you want to do, sometimes I don't even know what I want to do like in my current phase of life, I still question that every
once in a while. But on that note obviously, you know, you touched on the long distance relationships, you touched on a lot of sacrifice and stuff like with the example of your debt to what would you say was your biggest sacrifice, having to travel around for work juggling all this, would you be able to identify the biggest sacrifice you've had to make
keeping in mind that there's a little bit of recency bias in all this, it's not so much a sacrifice for myself, but it's a sacrifice that of course my family has had to make, which is that after having been elected it became such that a lot of my evenings could no longer be spent with my family. So and that could be in just very what may seem like fairly minor things. So when my daughter was first born, we were all still in lockdown and so it was very easy to spend
extended period of time. We went for walks every day. In fact everyone was going for walks every day if you recall because that's
the only way
you could get out of the house.
All the bicycles sold out everywhere.
Exactly. So so we we spend an extended period of time and during that phase I would read to her every night and of course she was too young to struggle on my arms. So she had no choice but to what
were you not,
not, not exactly age appropriate stuff. So I was reading, you know, stuff that was meant for four or five year olds, but I didn't care. It was a way for me. It was like, well every new word is a new word after all. So might as well expose her to that anyhow. Then after the election, it turns out that I was no longer able to do that. And interestingly recently she has
started to bring books to me and say daddy can you? Well, she doesn't say daddy can because she's not quite verbal yet, but she gets
the book and she gives it to me.
And and so more recently she started to rekindle that before there was a period of time before she turned to um when she just was really resistant, she would struggle on my arms and I felt that I lost
something there. So it's it's the thing that the kind of little sacrifices that add up and make you realize that well, I need to make sure that I see the big picture all the time and I keep the priorities where they really should be, as we discussed earlier, you know, if you make sure that things are good and working out at home, then everything else will fall into place and if things are not in equilibrium at home, then you know that no matter how much
you are killing it in the office, something will still be missing and it's important to recognize that.
So, are you trying to fit in more reading schedules in between now that you know that you're busier and you know, you've got things to do during that particular time. How are you going to fit that in more then? So yeah,
we try, I tried my level best to spend time reading to her, but again, it's not just reading. Reading is just one example, it is being able to spend quality time with them, you know, at every age before you have a kid, you always hear this, they grow up so fast and once that time goes by it's gone.
It's
never real until it is and when it is, you might be so busy that you don't recognize it. And I think it's important to pause and take a deep breath and to recognize that these things are real and that you really shouldn't give up what may seem trivial, just a couple of minutes here and there, just an hour. So it they are valuable and once they're gone, you can never recover them.
That's an interesting thing because due to the nature of my job, I also work very odd hours and sometimes I don't have weekends to myself or you know, with my family and stuff and also dinner, I usually don't have it with my family because I finished work at like and work at maybe nine every day And during my sabbatical of two months I hung out more with my parents and I realized how much they aged, it's not just about kids growing up was also our parents and our folks and grandparents
or whoever aging and it became so obvious to me when I managed to spend a little bit more time with them. So yeah, a little bit of a side track, but I think that is definitely something, I don't know, that's too, yeah,
absolutely. So my mother lives with us and um, she's a great cook, but she cooks mostly Eastern cuisine, but she really loves pasta for instance and I think it's quite straightforward, but she finds it she has this mental block, right? She just cannot cook anything that isn't from the east. So she has cravings and the thing is that she tries to be understanding and not.
So I've tried to impress on her that, you know, sometimes you should just ask and when she does, it triggers something in me that says, oh, you know, I really haven't cooked forever. And so in fact last night, so I ended up cooking last night and that was in part because she does this kind of, I wouldn't say it's passive aggressive, but this is, you
can do it
indirectly. Oh, I haven't had pasta a
lot like him. You
have to recognize that
as a
scream for help to for me to actually provide that. And so, so I've learned that she's too old to kind of expect her to be a lot more direct. So that's just her style. And so when you recognize that in your parents, their little idiosyncrasies for how they are expressing what they what they really would like, then you try to satisfy that. So yeah, I end up cooking last night and she enjoyed it and you make a big batch and she can have leftovers
as well. So I mean on that note, obviously, you know, you've been back in Singapore for a bit now. Um and I'm sure you're enjoying, you know, the local food and everything. Was it a tough decision for you to move back to Singapore and decide this is going to be like my base?
Well, if it was just a food. No.
Yeah, that's a no brainer.
So like most Singaporeans who are based abroad, you come back every number of years, right? In fact I came back at least once a year during which I would stuff my face for that 1.5 weeks put on a few kilos, but it was by and large. You you you do have to make choices about what the opportunities are and so on and where you as we were discussing what phase you are in your life and what what you'd like to do. A big
part of coming back was family. So my mother was getting older and so it was something where I felt an extended period of time spent with her was valuable. Of course it's a bit trickier in in my case because my wife her mother is based in the US. So being closer to my mother inevitably means she's further from hers. We had spent quite a bit of time in the U. S. Already. So it was a little bit of a compromise for her to come over on this part.
Again sacrifices on both sides. But then inevitably you have to recognize that in this case I have been the big beneficiary of my wife's generosity. But at other times you have to recognize that she is far from her family. So when she is when she really needs to visit her family, you have to make it happen. It happens.
Yeah. I mean what obviously what we are collecting here all the information that we've been talking about today. The sacrifice. You know the compromise communication is so key. I mean I know we always talk about this communicating it but I think some people don't communicate enough and that's how we get into tiffs and fights and it becomes a deal breaker when it doesn't actually have to be right.
I learned very early on. And again this is not unique to me. It's this wise words from from generations before that you never let well this was in the bible. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. It's ah you you don't have an argument that you think you will sleep on it and everything will be fine in the morning. Um you resolve it and you don't allow that to fester. So I think since my relationship began with I wasn't always like this
by the way when I was a teenager. Like most teenagers you had these massive slammed down the phone kind of fights when you could still slam down phones. But yeah, I think it's important not to allow disagreements and sometimes it's not comfortable, right? You would rather not talk it through. But I think that is crucial to just swallow your pride and not think about the last time I was the one that that broke
the silence. No, no, you don't do that. You just say no, we don't want to have this silence between us. We let's talk it out and it may not be easy breaking this, this cold war if you will. But I think when you do you approach it with generosity. What you'll find is that you don't have these kind of long extended arguments
and that overall makes for a much healthier relationship. So I am happy to say that in general with my wife, it's not that we don't have disagreements is that we do not allow these disagreements too to festival over time.
Yeah, no, I totally agree because obviously we've matured over the years and you know, we grow into a different phase as well and we become a little bit more developed in terms of how we think and like how we deal with our emotions and all that. I used to be so hotheaded in relationships sometimes when I look back, I'm like who is that? Like it's such an ugly person, you know in terms of behavior but we all grow out of it somehow, right? You know in a lot of ways. So to wrap things up,
do you have any other final advice for? I know this is always like a daunting question because you've experienced quite a lot in terms of, you know, the long distance relationships, you've had to you know, go through lots of compromise as well to get to where you are today. Anything else that you would like to share with our audience? I think we've learned so much today from your stories as well.
Perhaps I would say it's and again, this is a bit cliche. It is about seizing the moment when opportunities present themselves. Sometimes we feel that we are not up to it. We we face a sense of what's sometimes referred to as imposter syndrome. Like we aren't prepared to take those things on if an opportunity presents itself almost always, it isn't just purely by chance, you are often in a position where you are good enough to do it.
Um you may not be as confident that you will be able to do it, but the trick is to go ahead and embrace that, give it your very best shot, right? And if if it's not good enough then the universe will work itself out and you will no longer be doing that
for very long. But it to the extent that you decide not to pass it up to seize the opportunities that come along, of course, subject to all the things that we discuss, which is, you know, you have to make these decisions jointly if there's a significant other or others in your life. And once you have decided to embrace it, then just go ahead and do it and do it to the very best of your ability so that you never look back there after and say, well, I wish I
had done it better. I wish I had put in a little bit more effort you put in your very best. And if it wasn't good enough, then used to say, well, I was not suited for that, but I have no regrets whatsoever doing that because I chose to seize those opportunities to seize the day. So that that's again dead Poets Society. I suppose I am an educator. So copy DM There you go.
You know, I I would say the one thing that I picked up that I will keep with me is are you saying that we need to manage each other's expectations when it comes to like, your significant other or your partner, right? Because if I'm going to be like, oh, I'm gonna be here for a year, but it becomes like 34 or five years, then that's going to be an issue. So, I think that's my main takeaway from it, as well as managing expectation
and make sure that you're not always managing there's and expecting them not to manage yours, right? So you should also be entirely cognizant of what you are asking from the other person.
Yeah, 100%. Thank you so much for sharing all your thoughts with us. You know, that was really cool to also see you in a different lights and a different way sitting down chatting with us. It was pretty surreal I think for the entire team as well to be here chatting with you. Well, I think you know
who I am. So thank you for having me.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Men explain now. If you liked it, please hit the follow button. We drop new episodes every alternate Tuesday on Spotify, apple podcasts and we listen also if you haven't already done so why haven't you please follow us at its clarity dot co on instagram and Tiktok. For more content like this. See you next episode.
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Bye.