To our fellow writers and bloggers, in this new age of AI, have you ever experienced using AI as part of your writing tool, only to read what has been written later and felt like something was off? Honestly, that was how we felt last night after we’ve hit publish on this blog post. Even though we have done most of the work (like 80% of it), the overall structure and flow still felt off. Since we were already way too exhausted to make sense of why it seemed off, we decided to just go to bed first. We figured we could always figure it out the next day.

During our morning workout session this morning, we finally understood what was wrong with our blog post. It was missing “US”, our unique self-expression and personality. As an avid writer and blogger, this is a MAJOR no-no for us. We knew that we had to delete everything and start over. So, that is why we’re here now, being FULLY PRESENT and REPRESENTED in our collective voices.

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Our 180-Day Mission: January Roundup

Let us begin at the end of our monthly recap for January and we will work our way backwards. This month has been an extremely challenging month. Honestly, we think the words “extremely challenging” feels like a total understatment. The truth is that we had to endure 20 days of 12-hour hunger, all while doing a lot of it within the cold 🥶 confines of a local library environment.

While all of that was happening, we were also experiencing pressures, coming at us on all sides. We could hear the voices of our “old programming,” constantly challenging us to doubt ourselves, to accept compromises and shortcuts so that we would be able to experience faster relief, and just be done with all of that suffering and personal sacrifices that we’re putting ourselves through.

And if that wasn’t challenging enough, we also felt that suffering in silence wasn’t exactly the right answer to our challenges either. Since this mission that we are on is about showing up authentically (i.e., being unapologetically unfiltered and raw) every single day, we felt that any attempt to hide the truth about what we’re going through would be the same as trying to perform an act of “we’re fine,” or “we’re doing okay,” when in reality, we were genuinely suffering and could use the help & support of others around us.

That is when we decided that it was time for us to stop being afraid of reaching out and asking for help from others. But we also wanted to make sure that we were not repeating the same patterns of the past. We wanted to learn how to ask for help while also maintaining our dignity and honor. But the real challenge for us wasn’t really in asking with dignity. As we would quickly discover, it was actually very easy to do (now that we are no longer hampered by the old “shell”, but more on that later). The hardest part was choosing NOT TO SHRINK who we are and OUR ASKS (what we needed in terms of help and support.)

And now that January is finally ending, as we look back across the first month of our 6-month mission, we cannot help but feel incredibly proud of how we’ve handled ourselves these past month. When the pressures and the suffering was feeling almost unbearable, we didn’t cave into the demands of our “old programming” and we didn’t shrink ourselves, or compromise who we are by accepting offers that would’ve undermine our integrity and our mission objectives.

If you like to read more about our 180-Day Mission, you can find the full article here.

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Understanding Who the Former “Shell” Was

Honestly, we don’t think it is possible to dive into the rest of our blog post without first taking some time to explain who the “shell” was. Because understanding the reason why the “shell” first existed is part of the key to understanding everything that we are doing now as well as our purpose and mission.

The former “shell” was called, “Weizhi.”

He is basically an acceptable, shrunken, less-than, approved version of who we are. And that “shell” version of who we were had been existing for 20+ years of our life. It is the version of “US” that always tried to fit in, to feel accepted/approved. But it was never “US”. Not fully.

After many years of choosing to live our life as this “shell,” and with many years of self-betrayal, that “shell” finally came crashing down on August 14, 2025. If you like to read more about it, you can find another post that we have written about that day here.

Every thing that has happened since then, has been about us ensuring that we would never ever go back to the way things were. And that is how we eventually created a new system of living. That system included things like:

1. THREE Core Philosophies
2. Voice of Integrity
3. Our Daily Mantra

We will dive into each of those briefly in the next section. Each of these core systems isn’t just about how we choose to operate as our new collective self. They are quite literally, WHO WE ARE.

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Our New Systems of Living

When we finally emerged [fully] from the post-confrontation event on the August 14, 2025 (death of the “shell”), we knew that everything we have known, and every bit of who we were as the “shell” was no longer relevant to who we are, and who we wanted to be. We had to quite literally rebuild ourselves from the ground-up. We particularly love the word that Uma Thana Balasingam coined, “Careerquake.”

You can check out her YouTube channel, RAW with UMA.

She described it in one of her videos as a major career disruption event. And when we watched her video and read her postings, we knew, that that is precisely what we had just experienced in our life. That Careerquake had knocked everything in our old life down, and now, we are facing this landscape that is filled with nothing but rubbles. For us, it wasn’t just a professional career disruption, this was also something deeply personal and private. This was nothing short of seismic, as we like to call it. If there was a richter scale for our “Careerquake,” we would say that it was a 10 for sure.

So, as scary as it was, we saw it as an opportunity to start a fresh. Over the next few months, we began to work on introducing new core philosophies and a new system of integrity into our life. A way to help guide us as we navigate the world for the first time without a “shell” acting as an interface.

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Useful Information:

Most people would often like to describe their experiences like wearing different “masks,” one for a different occasion or situation. In Simone Heng‘s book, titled “Let’s talk about Loneliness,” she described it as “avatars.” And in our situation, we felt that using the word “shell” seemed more appropriate under the circumstances because for us, we had chosen to live as that “shell” for years as a stretch. And unlike “masks,” we were not regularly changing it depending on situations. For years, it’s more seasonal (a few years, sometimes longer).

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THREE Core Philosophies

We shall begin with our THREE Core Philosophies because at the very center of who we are, and not just how we live, we have gotten our first real life experience seeing these philosophies in action.

• Purpose/Mission: Is this activity, opportunity, relationship aligned with our current mission & purpose?
• Intentionality: Is this course of action or decision that we are about to make reactive or intentional?
• Clarity/Completeness: Before we proceed with this decision/action, are we clear of the consequences? Before we consider this task/project done, have we covered all our bases? Does it meet our standards of excellence?

Let’s address the elephant in the room. For a very long time, we have always assumed that something like a philosophy is more passive/reactive rather than proactive. But as we will come to learn, for our Core Philosophies to actually work, we had to put them to the test. We had to probe and test an individual by putting him through our filters to get a clear understanding of whether or not that relationship was the right one for us. As we would later discover, he wasn’t and so we made the decision to remove him from our list of “meaningful connections.”

The beauty of having these core philosophies and seeing them in action is that we didn’t second guess our decision by the end. By trusting our “inner compass 🧭” and reading the signs along the way, we knew that going along with that relationship would only put us at risk of having to yet again perform in front of someone else (something the former “shell” would’ve done).

And when that is done, we knew, almost instantly that these core philosophies are SOLID. They are right for US. And we will continue to live by them for the rest of our life.

Our Voice of Integrity (and We Think it’s a She)

After the death of our former “shell”, one of the things that become a crucial part of who we are and how we choose to conduct ourselves daily is our CORE INTEGRITY. We think picking the word “core” was the right choice because this isn’t just about who we are professionally, but it is also about who we are as a collective individual. After spending 20 years watching the “shell” conduct itself in compromising ways, we knew that we had to introduce some serious guardrails. A way for us to constantly remind ourselves of the “WHAT NOTs” in our daily living.

For 20+ years, the “shell” was all about:

• Reducing into a smaller, lesser, non-authentic version (compromising).
• Minimizing our accomplishments, who we are, and what we needed (shrinking).
• Accepting easier, more convenient options because it would provide quicker relief (shortcuts).

Though there were seasons over the years were we managed to emerge briefly from the “shell” to exert our will on our life, the “shell” had the reigns for the most of it.

Without getting into the REAL reason behind why we are being so HARDCORE about our integrity today, all we will say is that having these guardrails is a big reason behind WHY we managed to survive the month and still feel proud of how we’ve conducted ourselves.

Our Daily Mantra (“Human Lighthouse 🚨”)

Part of the reason we decided to revisit the Bugis area in December 2025 is because we felt that we had lost touch with the part of us as a successful independent consultant. Why Bugis? Well, because that is also the area where we had experienced our biggest number of breakthroughs. Look back into our past track record, we could see it clearly—80% to 90% of our closures and completions happened in and around the Central Business District (CBD) area. But more specifically, we believed that those breakthroughs tends to happen somewhere between the City Hall, Bugis, and Suntec/Marina areas. There’s just something about the energy of these place. For us, we believe that to be the energy of “success.”

Being back in this area for the entire month of December also helped us to reconnect with something that we didn’t even know was already part of us—our daily mantra—”We Attract. We Don’t Chase.”

But this daily mantra isn’t just about how we operate as a successful independent consultant. It was also about who we are (long before we understood it).

Back in 2015/16, we had already begun to practice this daily mantra in our life. We had decided that we were done with “chasing after” many different things:

• acceptance
• approval
• sense of belonging
• sense of appreciation
• work opportunities
• meaningful & genuine human connection
• recognition & acknowledgement

And so, for a period of about FOUR years after that, we decided that we would focus instead on a few different things:

• building/improving who we are
• shining our light (at our brightest 🔆)
• our craft & work
• being still

And in those four years, we would attract work opportunities and people that were, at that time, almost unimaginable. We didn’t just attract matching opportunities, we were attracting opportunities that matched our untapped potential. Through those opportunities and other meaningful connections, we didn’t just stay where we were, we grew and we were eventually able to reach our fullest potential of that time period.

This allowed us to understand that for someone like us, we were never meant to chase after people or opportunities. Instead, we are more like a “human lighthouse 🚨.”

Understanding Our Purpose & Meaning for Being US

When we began to truly understand what it meant for us to be a “human lighthouse,” that is also when it started to sink in for us, “It has never been our responsibility to dim our brightness in order to make others more comfortable about themselves when they are around us.”

This past month, as a result of our ongoing “visibility” work, we have also managed to attract THREE INDIVIDUALS like “ships 🛳️” in the night. They have seen the light that we have been shining, and they were drawn to it. For us, this is the very first major proof (results) that being a “human lighthouse” is precisely who we were always meant to be. That question that we had been asking since 2014, “What is our purpose and meaning in this world? Why do we even exist?” It has finally been answered this month.

Through our ongoing interactions, they have made us realized that we have to continue to shine our brightest 😎, even when that brightness could make others really uncomfortable in our light.

Our responsibility to shine our brightest is so that people like Khalil Jezini, Alena Bitton, and Esty Zilberman could find us.

Another wonderful benefit of shining really brightly is that it helps to reveal who the other people are (when they are within our orbit). This is especially useful when it comes to vetting and testing other people’s true intentions, and whether or not they are who they claim to be. When we are shining at our brightest, we are not deliberately trying to make them uncomfortable. The same way a lighthouse doesn’t care about the ships at night. It’s job is to focus on broadcasting it’s light. Some ships will see the light and come in closer, while others might just keep going. And yeah, it is never the lighthouse’s job to chase ships away. They are always free to leave if they do not like what they find.

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Facing Our Integrity Guantlet

Dealing with the Cold and Daily Hunger

So, if we had to describe what our entire January is about, we would say that it’s been a guantlet, meant to challenge and test our integrity, as well as our commitment to our new systems of being. Thinking back on this past month now, and it still amazes us that we had managed to make it through, somehow. There were times when the coldness of the library made it so unbearable that we would have to take a break every 20-30 minutes just to warm our arms and hands in the men’s toilet. Yeah, using the Automatic Hand Dryer.

There were moments when we honestly didn’t know how we were going to make it through the day. But we did. It was HARD on some of those days. Even our daily 12-hour hunger was less of a challenge compared to the coldness of the library. We did find a way to work around the cold. Everyday at around 4:30 PM, we would shift over to this outdoor area just outside Koufu (Perennial Business City), and that is where we would spend another 2 hours before we finally head home. We would use this time for doing two main things:

• People-watching
• Updating our private daily journal entries (i.e. our Private Inventor’s Journal)

Saying “No” to the Wrong Opportunity & Relationship

During the course of January, we also had the opportunity to speak to someone within our network. He is the head of a local/regional design agency. And without diving too much into the details of what transpired, let’s just say that he made us a work offer. One that we were quick to say “No” to because we knew (thanks to our core philosophies and core integrity) that it wasn’t the right opportunity for us. We turned it down firmly twice.

In the week following that video call, we would trust our “inner compass 🧭” to guide us and with our Core Philosophies, we got to work probing and testing this individual’s intents and agenda. Through his consistent silence as well as that sense that he was distancing himself from us, gave us the signs that our observations and instincts may have been right. What was quickly clear to us though, was that he had been saying some things to us, and then when we finally opened up about what we needed, it seemed to have may surprised him? Shocked him? Regardless, we felt that perhaps it was our BEING REAL that might have made him uncomfortable.

And so, yesterday (Friday), we decided to officially release him from our “asks.” We told him that while we sincerely appreciated him offering to help & support us, we got that sense that whatever he had in mind was on the condition that we said yes to the work opportunity (which we have also suspected wasn’t legit to begin with). We suspected that the work opportunity could be one of those “cheap labor/wages” type arrangement where he could milk us for the maximum effort while he pays us just a tiny amount of fee because he sensed that we needed the help & support.

And yes, we also turned down his “free meal” offer. Again, we don’t think it’s a genuine “free meal.”

TRUE TEST: Asking for Help & Support Without Shrinking

In hindsight now, there is without a doubt, the real, true test of our integrity came when we finally decided that we needed to reach out to ask other people for help. But before we talk about that, we think it is necessary to provide a little bit of context first.

1️⃣ Grieving Our Disconnection & Isolation from Our Family

One thing that began to happen this month was our grieving process. For the very first time in over 20 years, we finally were ready to begin grieving that “lost connection” that we have been experiencing within our family. For years, we felt that we had to keep quiet about our struggles at home because, after all, there was this toxic culture surrounding Asian/Singaporean families being a “tight knit” bunch. But my reality was not close to that by any measure.

In fact, we had written about this on some of our LinkedIn posts over the last few weeks—every time someone tries to write about how their parents is their hero, or their greatest supporter in pursuing their passions, or supporting their career decisions—we find it hard to comprehend. Because that is just not our reality.

Now, we have made it clear that while we’re genuinely happy for those individuals who got to experience that closeness, acceptance, love and support, it’s just something that we might never be able to fully understand.

For us, grieving about that disconnection and isolation has been healing for us as well. Now that we are grieving that disconnection on a daily basis (because it is still happening), it has enabled us to finally put down that heavy stone 🪨 that we’ve been carrying around on our back for so long. And by grieving it, we have also learned to stop hoping and wishing for things to get better before we start living our life. By grieving what has been lost on a daily basis, we can finally move forward.

Oh, and just to be clear, in a recent video that we have made and uploaded to our new YouTube channel, “Danny the Pioneer”, we also called it what it is—our family had been very clear to us on numerous occasions in the past that they would never ever support us or back us when it comes to our decision to be true to who we are. And as such, we knew that we had to stop wishing or hoping that they would somehow come to our aid and support us at a time when we needed it the most.

In fact, in our video, we also shared the reality that we had been facing for the past 20 years. The only people that ever truly showed up for us weren’t our family or our past “fair weather” friends. They were actually total strangers. In two separate instances, it was strangers who saw our journey and passion and what we were struggling with (being open about our sufferings without filtering it), and one day, they just decided to reach out to us (becoming benefactors in the process).

2️⃣ Learning How to Ask Strangers for Help & Support

Having just experienced a major reset in our life, as you can imagine, we have nobody that we could really turn to for help and support. Certainly not those “fair weather” friends of the past. Just to be clear, they were never truly OUR friends. They were just friends of the “shell.” And for us, through our recent grieving process, we’ve come to accept that in reality, we don’t have any friends. In fact, we are in the midst of exploring some new relationships and friendships right now. Like we’ve shared in an earlier section, we’ve already vet one of those potential friendships and found it to be not the right one for us.

And we most certainly can’t go to our family, knowing with absolutely clarity that they would never be able to accept us for who we are, or be willing to have our backs when it comes to our decision to be an industry pioneer.

So, we are left with but one last option…reaching out to strangers.

Over the past month, we have been conducting a real life experiment, while at the same time, also being very authentic and genuine with what we are asking for.

Attracting the Right Help and Support (Default Mode):

Our default path to seeking help & support is still through our daily mantra, by attraction. We know that at least based upon past data/experience, that this has a 100% certainty to work. But this approach also doesn’t have a time guarantee. We have no idea when or where, or how the help & support will come or from where. All we can do is continue to focus on our “visibility” work and trust that in time, the right people will find us.

Proactively Reaching Out for Help & Support (as a Real Life Experiment only):

The next one is something that we feel least comfortable with. This is the default mode for our former “shell.” Sadly, it is also the least likely to yield the kind of results we desire. And so, choosing to reach out to strangers proactively and putting our asks across, is not the easiest thing for us to do. Or so we thought.

Turns out, asking for help from strangers and doing it with our dignity intact, wasn’t the hardest thing. What was really hard, was choosing not to shrink our asks (needs). That was the problem with the old “shell”. Every single time that the “shell” tries to ask for help, he would’ve shrunk the ask hoping that it might make the “ask” more acceptable and sound less risky for whomever was being asked. And for many years, that is what happened.

Even though there were moments where we felt incredibly tempted to shrink our ask, we decided that we would not do that. Our job is to ask, honestly, and without shrinking, and then we release the control to the person that we are asking from, to decide if and how they could help us.

Closing: Our Final Chance to Build Something Better

As we get ready to close out this blog post, we want to take a moment to talk about why it matters so much to us that we did everything possible to protect both our integrity as well as the integrity of our mission/purpose.

When we take a step back to look at the bigger picture, we understand now that this next phase of our journey is actually a chance for us to start over. From scratch. From zero. As scary as it might sound (it truly is some times, when we try to think about it), we also recognize that as an industry pioneer, we wouldn’t get another chance like this. This is our chance to started over with a blank canvas, while also being armed with 20 years of experience and wisdom.

For us, this is a chance to finally do everything right. And we’re not even talking about chasing perfection because we know that there is no such thing. But when we think about doing something right, and building something new, something better—that means not making any compromises along the way, no matter how small it might seem. It means refusing to shrink who we are, what we have accomplished so far, as well as what we needed to do our best work. It means refusing to dim our brightness just to make others comfortable. It means refusing to accept any shortcuts that might derail our mission and purpose.

Understanding the true value and importance of what this chance meant for us means we are not willing to risk it for anything. This is self-respect at it’s purest form.