Benjamin Loh: Lãnh đạo tư tưởng phân cực, Sự thật khó khăn của phương tiện truyền thông xã hội và Bài học về cam kết gia đình - E550
"And in this world we live in, the unfortunate thing is that these players get the unfair share—the lion's share—of attention. And again, by assumption, if they're getting all the attention while offering an average product and average service, they tend to win over someone who is softer, unseen, unknown, yet delivering an above-par service and product. So if you look at attention versus competency, they are going to win first. Versus a typical Southeast Asian professional founder—we might be 2 out of 10 in attention but overwork ourselves to be 9 out of 10 in competency. We put in the overtime, yet we don't get the opportunities. And the unfair thing is that if this group of people doesn’t get opportunities, those very opportunities are the fuel we need to get better. Without them, we don’t get the projects, the big gigs, or the sign-offs. And as a result, even if we are good now, we don’t get the chance to continue our greatness." - Benjamin Loh, Certified Speaking Professional
"And what creates that fuel in the vehicle on a social media platform—whether it's ads, Twitter, or TikTok—is the content we put out. That very content determines whether the vehicle drives at 100 kilometers an hour or just 20, depending on its efficacy and efficiency. If you recognize that this small piece of content directly impacts the outcome, then it begs the question: what should you say? What should you inject into your content to achieve the desired results? Some people intentionally play the game and stoke fame, but for most thought leaders—intentional or aspiring—it’s essential to sit down and critically assess what kind of thoughts they want to create. I usually take a structured, table-by-table approach, and on the second table, I intentionally frame questions that bring out strong positions, even for those who might be more neutral, like I am, to make this social media strategy truly work." - Benjamin Loh, Certified Speaking Professional
"So if they're giving you BS, just don’t take it. As long as it doesn’t get into your system, your learning is set, and it’s okay. Keep your eye on the ball, focus on the system. And then, thirdly, how do you make lemonade out of lemons? With that post, I could have spent my entire Sunday upset, but instead, I was actually really happy. First, I saved it into my teaching file as proof that I’m a practitioner-teacher, not just a theorist. With due respect to academics, I’m not just a lecturer teaching theory—I’m sharing real experiences that happened last week, last year. Second, I turned it into a strategic advantage. That post brought me more interesting followers, and I even received an invitation to speak at a social media conference because of it. So, it’s all about looking at it tactically as a game. It’s about having a healthy detachment—being engaged enough to know it benefits you, being intentional in your actions, but also recognizing that at the end of the day, you live a beautiful life offline." - Benjamin Loh, Certified Speaking Professional.
Benjamin Loh, Certified Speaking Professional and Jeremy Au discussed public speaking, thought leadership, and leadership growth. They reflected on Benjamin’s journey from public speaking to training financial advisors and running a thought leadership agency. They explored how social media amplifies voices, how leaders can shape industry narratives, and the challenges of managing perception online. Benjamin also shared personal reflections on balancing ambition with personal commitments and learning from past mistakes.
1. From speaker to trainer to agency leader: Benjamin started as a public speaker, transitioned into training financial advisors, and eventually launched a thought leadership agency to scale his impact.
2. The power of storytelling in leadership: He sees himself as a teacher, believing great speakers don’t just inform but create change through compelling narratives.
3. Public speaking and consulting have shared DNA: Both require deep understanding of people, but agency work demands managing teams, systems, and fast-changing industry trends.
4. Thought leadership must be polarizing: To stand out in a noisy world, leaders must take clear, sometimes divisive stances that attract their audience while pushing away others.
5. Social media rewards boldness, not neutrality: The best content sparks conversation, and platforms amplify strong opinions over safe, middle-ground messages.
6. Managing criticism is part of the game: Benjamin shares how he handles online negativity, including personal attacks, and reframes them as opportunities to engage and build credibility.
7. Balancing ambition and family is tough but necessary: He opens up about past mistakes in prioritizing work over family and the effort it takes to rebuild relationships.
(01:00) Jeremy Au: Hey, good to see you, Ben.
(01:02) Benjamin Loh: Hello, Jeremy. Good to see you. It's nice to see you in this is upsized, upgraded, like a upform studio as well.
(01:08) Jeremy Au: Yeah, it's been several years since our last recording and it was actually even like an audio only recording at that time but we covered a lot of interesting ground about how he got into public speaking and also about your worst ever speaking fail which was a really fun story. So check it out if you haven't. And I think what's interesting is I want to catch up with you over the past few years because you've made some big moves in the public comms and training space.
(01:28) Benjamin Loh: Yeah. So I think since then, it was pretty memorable as a conversation.
(01:32) And I did recall that I was sharing how I "bombed" in my first public speaking, and the long and short of that was that in the lift, I had some members of the audience saying in Mandarin, which is in English as that whole big conference presentation from the speaker was terrible. We shouldn't have wasted our time. I think since then, like I still have been doing what I've been doing. So the large part, the trajectory has always been there. I think at heart, in essence, I've always been, what I see as an educator, (02:00) I like to introduce myself as a teacher because I always believe that the words we use to describe the work that we do is a symbolism, is a value that we attach. Although I'm in a professional speaking scene, I always tell people that I'm a teacher because I never like, or again, that's my own judgments. I think as a speaker, you have to be under the limelight, you have to be center of attention and attraction. And I know functionally, that's that, but in essence, that's not what I associate with.
(02:24) So my long term direction has always been a teacher because a teacher is about being attentive to students, being clear of the needs of the students, being able to arrive with value, being able to create and engineer change and transformation. So in that line, I think from then, I still been doing a fair bit of communications work. I train clients in public speaking presentation skills to nail down any sort of like challenging high stakes, high intent presentation.
(02:48) Lastly, I think the past six to seven years, I've been working a lot with financial advisory firms, or we call this the life insurance firms. And my go-to-market is always helping them to, how do you take up your story offline (03:00) to allow your story, your value, your excellence to shine online, and thereby attracting more business opportunities, whether in recruitment or sales. So I've been pretty highly sought after. I work with the big three insurance corporations across Asia. And I, on top of that, past two years ago, as a result of the overwhelming demand, I realized what better ways to support them in content creation, social media, which is what we are doing right here. So I set up a purpose built outfit out of Philippines and Indonesia to support my clients as well. So that's the lowdown of what has happened for the past few years.
(03:31) Jeremy Au: Yeah. Fantastic. And I think what's interesting is that, in the past it was just public speaking. That's one thing. And of course now is this training side for insurance and agents, of course, that you've been building out like a thought leadership agency as well. So those the first question is what do you think are the similarities between those three businesses versus what are the differences?
(03:51) Benjamin Loh: Similarities across the three outfits are that you have to be comfortable with people and working with people. And one of the things I sometimes would share as well, like being (04:00) a trainer, speaker, sometimes it's like one to 20 people, one to 50. And my largest was one to 5,000 people in Jakarta, one to 22,000 people live and then hybrid like a teaching formats. I think one of the similarities is you have to like people on some level, and I say this out of a very general intent because sometimes if you prefer more process versus people, it's going to be very painful for you. And why do I say that is that you have to learn to look at the goodness of people.
(04:28) So case in point. I was doing more of the sell side as a corporate trainer, corporate consultant, and that was during the pandemic years. And I am a very methodical, very thorough kind of person. So it was doing, I used to call it Microsoft Teams call. I was running through, okay, they wanted me to run a series of webinars about the life insurance agents, financial advisors, transit from offline to online.
(04:51) We did a couple of shows really well. I think a third to fourth run. I think the sponsors or the corporate leaders, especially one of them, he was a bit ticked off. He was under a (05:00) lot of stress. So in my usual way of okay, what, why are we doing this? Asking a lot of questions. What's the goal? How do we do this with this topic work? In the midst of this Microsoft Teams meeting with about six to seven other people who say Ben, why do you ask such a stupid question? And for a moment, like if you could imagine, like it was literally quiet. Everyone was waiting for me to respond or for him to say anything else. And I just like very calmly, in my usual demeanor, I said David, that's not a stupid question. It's a necessary question I need to ask to make sure the program works and that's what you want, right? But what was the kicker was that after the whole comms call went off, obviously the key director left the call. I had the two client leads who were like helping me with the show and operations, definitely much more junior. They told me like, Ben, like how can you stay so calm? Like he just said, you're stupid or ask a stupid question. I said, first, no, he didn't call me stupid. So I take that as that. He asked why I asked a stupid question. And more importantly, I think, for me is that I see the good side of him as well. I see that, he's very intentional to make the whole process work. I see that he has also given (06:00) me a lot of opportunities to show up. So I think the value of the lesson I want to put forth here, whether in terms of being a consultant to large Fortune 500 companies or being a coach and trainer, or even running an agency as an agency owner, the tendency for us is sometimes to be very reactional. And I think for me, I do quite a fair bit of like meditation. I go to therapy as well. So again, liking people, giving people that benefit of doubt, but yet as a base, as a person, you learn not to allow your emotions to be riled unnecessarily. And that helps me. That's one big similarity.
(06:29) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And what are the differences? Because now you're running three businesses instead of one, right? So I'm just curious what are the differences from your perspective?
(06:36) Benjamin Loh: So differences between speaking, teaching, as well as consulting, quite similar, right? It's just the extent, the deal size, the outcomes. It's still largely a very similar service based business. The third one is also, so these two are more similar. It's very centered around me and it's more to the rich team. Yeah. Whereas I think agency, because I think the mechanics of agency as well as the processes that go, we're doing social media content, thought leadership building. We have (07:00) to be always very nimble and kept up to date. So there's a lot of trends watching. There's a lot of, "Oh, what happens in the scene?" So we had a chat about how it used to be a lot of long form thought leadership building. And then it went to very short form, but size, like people are so irate that if they're not interested or you don't get their attention in the first three to eight seconds, it's a boring video.
(07:19) So it's the study of for example, hooks, and then there's hooks, there's visual hooks, text hooks, sound hooks. So for me in that third leg, it's not just telling them what to do, but it's also making sure that I'm in the right direction to guide my team. So that takes me to be somewhat more, I would say, detached versus the first two is more involved in the trenches, because I think if I'm too in the trenches as well, then, I get lost.
(07:42)
(07:42) Jeremy Au: Yeah.
(07:43) Benjamin Loh: So the third part is a lot more like strategic. It's a lot more directional. It's a bit more mentoring. It's a bit more even like managing different people expectations. Whereas here it's just teaching them whole conversations and narratives.
(07:55) Jeremy Au: And I think it makes sense because obviously you're doing public speaking and after that, for the insurance (08:00) industry, I'm sure other industries have a lot of speaking engagements and sales.
(08:04) They will just naturally just ask you to say, "Hey, you're doing public speaking training. Can you do sales training?" And that sounds right. So I think, I guess that makes very sense for organic expansion of you as a consultant or advisor or trainer is having a natural expansion, but I think making the jump to it's an agency is a big jump. And I'm curious, why did you decide to do that? Because like you said, it's a different skill set, different set of deliverables, a different audience as well.
(08:27) Benjamin Loh: I think I've gotten like to a little bit of success being a speaker, trainer, consultant, getting to speak across 20 plus cities, in Saudi Arabia, Chicago, Sydney. I've gotten somewhere. And I could literally just do this to my fifties and sixties, but I think as a founder of a solo practice, I asked myself, how would it be like if I could be a founder of a team? And I think it's in this season of like maybe being a father as well. I realized that there's a lot of joy in helping people. I think the rewards and the return, it's more aggregated, it's larger as well. And you start to see like team (09:00) experiences. People's memories being created concurrently with you. So if that makes sense, I think the agency part, while it's really out of my comfort zone as a solo by going to a team leadership context it gives me a lot of like tremendous joy to see people doing tough things, difficult things and that's the whole kind of narrative behind it.
(09:18) Jeremy Au: And I think it's interesting because a lot of people have that journey, right? Where they're like a subject matter expert. And then the question is, do you build a team and business around it? What were some behaviors that you had to unlearn or that you had to change in order to be successful?
(09:31) Benjamin Loh: That's a great question. I think sometimes we ask ourselves what we need to learn. But I think a lot of things that we need to unlearn as well. So like from a, being a solo individual contributor, being excellent at what you're doing and typically, the more you do, the better you get to now realizing that I'm not just managing myself. I have to manage a group of people. I think a few things I have had to unlearn. I think one is I've had to unlearn the sense of like just being detached and just like shucking things off. In my usual, like personal outfit, (10:00) I could just say, okay, this is not important.
(10:01) But I realized that there is also a cost to saying no to certain things in the team context. So for example, if my team members would say, "Hey, I have an issue and I have a challenge. I have something as an ongoing concern." And if I say, no, I cannot tend to this like now or in the short term, there is always a cost to that. And I realized that it's a lot more extensive as well. For me, if I say no to a client opportunity, I'll just go to the next one. But if I say no to an ongoing concern on the team level, then it would mean that they would have to either struggle internally. They'll find a solution internally or externally, but the question is what if they don't? So I realized that as a team, like a managing director or director of company, your decisions or the lack thereof, have a very downstream and ongoing kind of impact. And sometimes, until I managed to sit down and say, Hey, like, why did this happen? They told me like, Ben, because we tried to get you like three months ago, you're so busy. One of the big things I need to unlearn is that, I cannot be so selfish about my time. No, I just make unilateral decisions about and around myself. It has to be bigger as a context.
(10:59) So there's a lot of (11:00) innate rules. So like over the past two to three years, I got involved in this organization called Entrepreneur's Organization, EO as well. So they for really like fledglings companies to, to scale towards at least us one to two mil recurring revenue a year. And I've learned so much about that because in the past it's just personal individual excellence, but this part is building a vehicle that is purpose built to help people to shine in their respective roles. This part of things, because I haven't worked a single day in a corporation, this is totally outer world, like outer space knowledge for me. But I think when you really put the rigor to like cadences, templates, systems, SOPs, this was something that I only appreciated in this season of my life. But I'm thankful. I finally did. I didn't resist it and say, "Hey, no, I just stick to what I'm usually doing because obviously that would also be a limitation in formal vehicles as well."
(11:48) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And I think what's interesting is that, what is your style you think as a boss? Because in my head, I'm like, if my boss was a public speaker, do I get like an inspirational speech every morning, like for (12:00) five minutes, is that like the best one-on-ones? What do you think is your style now as a boss?
(12:05) Benjamin Loh: Yeah. I think for me, I am tending to be a bit more of a stern and yet loving father. If that makes some sense. So I think for me, because I tend to be able to, at least in my personal reflection and also team review, I tend to be a bit compartmentalize. So my stage persona is quite dramatically different. A bit more like a storyteller, A bit more no. Yeah. You have to be as big as the room. So if it's like 5,000 people, I have to uplift, upsize my energy versus it's just like five people in a zoom meeting. No, doing that would be an overkill and they'll be like, don't feel like quitting and quitting on me the next day.
(12:39) So for me, I think that, that context switching is truly important. So I have had business mentors tell me what's your key executive role as a founder and I always reflect and say, okay, my key executive role is making decisions. And I also to read and study a lot. So the Latin root word of decision, rather the Latin root word of decide is "decidere". And "decidere" means (13:00) to "cut off". So like modern day, when we talk about decision making, "Oh, we're deciding on A, B and C." So unless, A, B and C can be complimentary or supporting, usually when we say decide, we have to pick A and we cut off everything else. So it's the kind of, like I say, the energy and intent behind that, that really matters for me. So for me, when I ask myself, "What do I need to decide this meeting? What am I steering the team towards this conversation?" So at least for me, the self management piece is something I'm learning much better. Like I would probably have a lot more like self time to reflect. So I'm an introvert is also that's helpful. So when I step into conversations as a boss, as a manager, they know that I'm typically very purpose and outcome driven for one. But yet at the same time, I infuse my conversations with a bit more stories. Say, "Hey, could I tell you a story of like how I was so like truly effed up at this task? Hey, you screwed up at this. This is something I like to address. Is this a time and context of it?"
(13:51) Jeremy Au: Yeah.
(13:52) Benjamin Loh: And people say, okay, then with the permission lab, then I will share a story because, I think facts tell, but stories sell a lot more. And I think the stories (14:00) also inherently give me a lot more credence as well as vulnerability because it's a very Asian thing to sometimes just do this because it's like this. Whereas I think when I use stories, although it takes a bit more time, it's a lot more nuance. People get to see and sense the vulnerability within me and also know that I struggled like them. So I think I want to try to, is this element of empathy that like, whatever you're doing is tough. I've done it before and that's why all the more because I've grown, I can see that you are capable. So that's been my style and it's becoming a lot more predictable. And I think the people start to get this level of consistency and constancy, which is also what I hope to get.
(14:37) Jeremy Au: And I think what's interesting is that, you're making all these decisions at, level A, level B, level C, what are the common challenges that you find that your clients today who are thinking about thought leadership, what are common challenges that they are grappling with?
(14:49) Benjamin Loh: I think if you take one step backward, the whole thought leadership space, we never used two words thought leadership, 10, 20 years ago, 20 years ago, like, how do I get famous? How do I get (15:00) on papers and radio? now it's a lot more nuance. People think of thought leadership as, first, which domain are we talking about, which is in the realm of thoughts. And that's important because if we start to realize that a lot of our decisions today are a result a lot of thoughts that's either explicitly or subliminally introduced, so we start to realize that, if we want to win in a market space, we ought to be a lot more proactive as well as intentional, how we shape the thoughts of our buyers, our influencers, our sponsors in our decision making space, our industry as well. So that's one. We are a lot more present, we are a lot more focused and smarter about how we do it.
(15:37) Then as a result, leadership comes about because when you control the thoughts, the frames of mind, the decision making criteria and processes, then you start to be able to lead market. So I think we had a little quick gap, but I truly want to confess, I'm not an expert in that.
(15:50) Like the US presidential elections, Donald Trump could just do his thing and he has been doing his thing, but why did he spend three good hours on Joe Rogan's podcast? A (16:00) lot of time. And he also spent money, not just time, but resources is PRT as well as investment to be on that show. Why? Because again, the whole genesis of that is if he gets people to binge watch him, to listen to his thoughts, to hear his thought processes, his assumptions, his big beliefs, it's going to create a lot more polarization and that's the whole intent, right? Thought leadership should be polarizing. If you're too plain vanilla, you're too center, people don't know what you stand for. So like the Elon Musk, the Donald Trump, that's so loud, that's so extreme because they want people to be divided. Again, to the levels of the division and the success of them dividing people, then they can lead the market space and whether in business and politics in geopolitics whatsoever.
(16:41) So I think back to the question, what kind of challenges a few no, the whole upstream to downstream, upstream is where do I stand in the market? How do I be distinctive, unique, and different? How would my decisions today be strategically aligned to my firm's mission or vision (17:00) or go-to-market goals tomorrow, the next year? Then down to the execution part. Which platform should I be on? Should I be on X, on Twitter, on LinkedIn? How do the platforms work?
(17:09) Jeremy Au: I love the phrase thought leadership should be polarizing. That feels, at some level, intuitive also counterintuitive, right? Because when you think about being famous, like you want everybody to like you. Perhaps. So can you share more about what you mean by that?
(17:25) Benjamin Loh: I think for me, at least these days, first and foremost to qualify as well, you shouldn't be polarizing or contrarian for the purpose of doing so. So for me, a few assumptions. One, you shouldn't be contrarian or polarizing for the purpose of doing so. And especially if you're not. So for me, I tend to be a very chill guy off screen, offline, in person as well. But I know for the purposes of making your content work, if you are too central and middle ground. So for example, your choice of content, your ticks, are they hot ticks or just neutral or cold ticks? Your stances in your content, because each and every time when we are doing thought leadership, thought leadership is (18:00) the intent, the outcome, but the vehicle that gets us there or get us on route towards that big goal is social media. And what creates that fuel in the vehicle on the social media platform, whether it's X, Twitter, TikTok is the content we put. So the very content, whether it actually drives the vehicle at a hundred kilometers an hour versus 20 kilometers an hour is really the efficacy, the efficiency of content. You realize that if that's the outcome of that small content piece in itself, then it begets the question, what should you say? What should you look at to inject into this content to make it to have that kind of outcomes. I think for most thought leaders, intentional or aspiring thought leaders, really sit down and have a very clear, concrete, critical check as to what is that thoughts that you want to create.
(18:45) Then again, usually I'll do a table by table approach. And I'll say, okay, on the second table, this is where I intentionally for the purposes of this social media thing to work, ask them a few things that would bring that up, even if they are a bit more neutral like I am. So for example, in your (19:00) industry and space, what are two to three things that you typically don't agree with? Okay. In your space, what are two to three things that you do differently in spite of knowing that the way you do may incur the wrath or disagreement of your peers? And generally speaking, if you look at how good businesses are run, they normally would have to be a bit bolder and slightly different approach.
(19:20) So these questions are engineered to really just bring out what they are already doing. So I'm not trying to make you like, no, like a Donald Trump overnight, right? I'm just trying to ask yourself as a founder, as a business professional executive in your day to day work, how are you doing things differently? Yet, and encumbering a bit of risk that if this race doesn't get managed or contained well, there'll be a bit of consequences, right? Or how are you looking at the firm, which is slightly different. So it's all about if it makes sense, just framing and skewing the perspective. So the first thing polarizing is that if it's polarizing, it's already divisive. If it's divisive, it means there is a line that you draw. So I'm just asking them, don't be just plain vanilla, draw a line (20:00) somewhere. And in you drawing the line somewhere, you're going to be pissing people off, ticking people off. It's not going to be fully, it will be contextually wrong, but that's the purpose. You've got to be comfortable with that.
(20:10) Jeremy Au: That sounds scary, right? Because, sure, the content can be the fuel, but it feels like the engine that's new is the algorithm.
(20:17) Benjamin Loh: Algorithm and social media platforms.
(20:18) Jeremy Au: Yeah, because, exactly, because, when you're in a small room of, let's say, 10 people, whatever you say has to make sense for 10 people. And you can, sure, there's an average point of view and they can make them step one, step forward or to the right, whatever that, that dimension is. But it feels if you had this very crazy statement that you would never say in front of 10 people, but if you say online, the algorithm will carry that and find you 10 people, a hundred people, a thousand people that believe that online, right? Because that's the, the reddits, your algorithm targeting. You could say something very crazy in real life that would, I think, piss off your real friends, but you can probably find something who agrees with you. For example, you said the world is flat. All 10 people would just bully (21:00) you. But if I go on YouTube and I say "the world's flat," then I can get millions of views. I can get a business going. So I'm just curious how you?
(21:07) Benjamin Loh: Yeah, it's actually a lot more nuanced and complex that I think I would do injustice to the bigger agencies and the bigger market because I think it's all down to the playbook. If you look at like the whole thought leadership is under the domain of marketing and branding, which is a necessary business activity anyway, right? So it's just that if a business wants to be prominent and ongoingly relevant to your marketplace, you need to do this. So it's how do you do this in your hopes, labor, activities. So I think you're right in that sometimes you, you are carrying a lot of risks if you are trying to intentionally be controversial or say, the earth is round and then people would say, "Oh, you're stupid. This is uninformed. This guy must be living under a rock." But the thing is tactically as well as functionally, you've gotten attention.
(21:46) So I would say, like first, if we realize that there's a flow of attention, there's generation of attention, but attention is not like a given as well as ongoing currency. So what if people say you're stupid for that first five, 10 seconds, but the whole game is okay, (22:00) like he's stupid. So I watch a lot of TikTok shorts as well. Yeah, so like TikTok short videos and this, like a politician called Charlie Kirk, but I like him because he's very controversial. And I think it's like the whole content is engineered towards getting a lot of hooks and eyeballs. So he has a lot of unique takes towards the DEI conversation. And after that, as you scroll through, so the whole game is first you hook people first, get to get people to know who is Jeremy Au, who is Benjamin Loh to get the existence first. So I think in that first round of attention building, yes, controversial hooks are one thing, but I also use AI to prepare for this interview, I would ask myself, what is usually things I say or believe, but it's a bit too plain vanilla. So I'll ask AI to stress test this to say, okay, this is my purpose. This is the podcast. This is the outcomes. Can you help me to say this in a different way? Because again, it's an intentional thing, because what doesn't generate attention, no matter how good you are, your product, your service, your delivery is, you don't win at the upfront. So a lot of the game is also one in the upfront versus trying to (23:00) struggle for what the scraps of attention done downstream. So I do that.
(23:03) Then the second part is then after you've gotten attention, how do you nurture that as an ongoing kind of activity? So that's where, people who, okay, they're more tuned into your vibe, like your podcast is southeast Asian podcast, founders podcast for founders in Southeast Asia. So speaking, if I'm not based in Southeast Asia, I'm not a founder or don't plan to be going to that space, Jeremy is not my cup of tea, but if I am, then, okay, I've gotten your attention while he's been, Jeremy has been tipping a lot of good people and getting that value. So you can't escape from the second pie, which is what we usually call as middle funnel, where you have to give overwhelmingly and ongoing content. So this part, I think it's very safe. You don't have to be controversial, but a lot of people just play safe. So top line, they don't have the eyeballs, the attention bringers, then the middle part, they overload this and become somewhat of a, like I like you, but it's very overwhelming. And then downstream, the bottom funnel is getting people to take action, join me, recruit me.
(23:55) It's meant to be misunderstood, misheard, taken out of context, (24:00) getting attention to help you to watch the whole thing. So that's what I see as the whole big playbook. So you appreciate the whole thing better. If you start to not see this hooks for the hooks, but hooks for leading them down the whole decision making journey.
(24:12) Jeremy Au: So at this rate, I guess what is we should say the earth is flat. UFOs are real. Lizard people are our kings.
(24:19) Benjamin Loh: Startups are stupid. Startups are overvalued. Whatever your beliefs are.
(24:24) Jeremy Au: That's controversial. People say Singaporean food is better than Malaysian food.
(24:27) Benjamin Loh: Yes, Singaporean food is much better.
(24:29) Jeremy Au: I'm just curious, speaking about that, what are your controversial statements? What would be the things that you believe that are contrarian?
(24:35) Benjamin Loh: I think I work a lot with the introverts, the more thoughtful, the more pensive people. But they are also the very people that hold social media thought leadership in disdain. They don't think that they have anything useful or loud to say. I wouldn't say it's like controversial per se, but I think you don't have to be loud and obnoxious to be famous. And I really believe that you don't have to be loud first, you don't have to be like strutting and always be a 24/7 kind of thing and be like hyper (25:00) energetic and you don't have to be obnoxious.
(25:01) So some people are, again I hate to say this, on social media, they are purposefully contrarian. So they take very specific and very hard line hot takes against topic X or topic Y and that's their playbook for virality. That's the playbook for resonance and relevance. You can be still very relevant as well as resonant to people, even if you're a very somewhat of a neutral person, right? But it's about your neutrality. How do you find strength in the communications? And I think that's the, it's a bit like that. Something I take as a mission, right? Because a lot of us, I think, especially in Asia, we are not taught to talk about ourselves, talk about the ideas, talk about our constructs and vision and mission from school. So this is what I usually teach in my offline communications class. So for example, if I am coming back to home with my math result, right? And Jeremy's my daddy. Let's do a bit of role play. Daddy, I got back my math score. What would you usually say?
(25:55) Jeremy Au: Congratulations.
(25:56) Benjamin Loh: Yeah. Congratulations.
(25:57) Jeremy Au: How much do you get?
(25:58) Benjamin Loh: How much do you get? So if you're a (26:00) typical tiger dad or tiger mom, then it's like, "Ben, you only got 85. Oh, next door, like Catherine, she got 92, and she didn't get tuition." So it's a bit like, where the point I'm trying to extract here is that the way we communicate is also one part. A function of how we're being brought up culturally, family wise, and most of us are not taught to talk about ourselves, what we think, because we literally, I would say this is a huge generalization, even in Asia, but most of us, or quite a good portion of us, we get shot down. Ideas get shot down. Our beliefs get reduced.
(26:29) If I say that, as a 10, 12-year-old to my dad back then to say, "Hey I want to start a business. "My dad, because of his preconceived notions about what business is or not, he hasn't run a business. They will say why do you want to do this? It's we're going to waste a lot of money. So you see, as a result of that, I think the way we then carry ourselves in our professional role is somewhat, in my opinion, at least Asians, introverts, not training and willing to talk about self, we don't bring our very thing to the true shine, the true brilliance of that. And that's somewhat for me, like somewhat infuriating because the loud (27:00) actors, the actors from, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't even name cultures or countries. But some cultures and countries, they are trained to be very expressive and individualistic. So that is within their ballpark to be loud, maybe not obnoxious, but loud and resonant and in your face all the time. And in this world we live in, the unfortunate thing is these players get the unfair share, the lion's share of attention.
(27:20) And again, if by assumption, if they're getting all the attention and yet they are also having an average product, average service, they tend to win someone who is softer, unseen unknown, but yet with a above par service and product. So if you take a look, attention versus competency. If they may maybe eight, nine of ten of attention, but competency, maybe they are like just four or five and just like getting by their client satisfaction, their service, the products in there, right? They're going to win first, whether retentions, lifetime values are nothing, but at least they're going to win first versus like typically Southeast Asian professional founder. We are maybe two of ten attention, but competency we overwork on our competency. We do our overtime. We are nine out (28:00) of ten. We're not going to get opportunities. And the unfair thing is that, if this group of people don't get opportunities, opportunities are the very few of us to get better as well. So you don't get the projects, you don't get the big gigs, you don't get the this time off. And as a result, even you may be good now, you don't get a chance to continue your greatness. And then over time, you decline.
(28:18) So that's why I also believe, or we see this in the news, like why do Asians, even in a corporate sense, like very Singapore, very few Singaporeans become a CEO of a global company as well. Maybe one of the hypothesis that I believe is in Singapore, we're just thought to be one of the many, rather one of one. So that's the challenging downside,
(28:37) Jeremy Au: this is actually a really good point, right? Because, personally speaking, for example, I've enjoyed doing the podcast, right? And I just do it because, I enjoy it. It's a nice way for me to spend my weekends talking to people I like. Also, I think I get to learn, for example, I just learned that thought leadership should be polarizing. I think that's a great statement. So I'm learning from you. And also it's a great way just to share your point of view.
(28:56) That being said, I've also gotten people who don't like me. And it is really weird (29:00) because I literally have gotten feedback from mentor and he was like, Jeremy, this person really doesn't like you. And I'm like, why? And it's this person just really dislikes who you are as a person. I was like, have I met this person? And he's no, this person has never met you. And I was like, what happened?
(29:14) Benjamin Loh: Did you manage to get any insight?
(29:15) Jeremy Au: I never got much about it, but I think it was basically the whole idea. Like you said, I think the crux of it was just like, this person doesn't have the credibility to talk about X. And I was like, whoa this person is trying to climb and I think there's an interesting feedback that I got. And I was just like, okay, I don't know what to do about that.
(29:34) Benjamin Loh: So you talk about challenges. This is one of the very real challenges which is in the realm of getting feedback, criticisms, as well as the upfront kind of challenges. Like before even I put out content, what if I put out the content and I don't feel like maybe qualified enough. I'm being judged. Even if the more experienced practitioners, they're not even like voicing and talking about who am I? So I think it's very real. But I actually do see that, if you have the courage to take first few steps out, the upside is much, (30:00) much higher than the downside. And what do I say that it's like, the way I look at it is if someone can't even tolerate watching you for three minutes or listening to a 30 minutes podcast, why would they want to spend three hours in a sales meeting with you or three months in a work project with you or three years working in your company? So I think that's one thing that, I would say in response to your mentors, it's meant to be, right. If people are not meant to be with us and are not meant to be our people, then that very tool and podcast has done its job, the whole job of being divisive, pushing people away who are not in alignment with you, your intent, your goal.
(30:33) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And, I think it's interesting because you use the word bullying, right? Because I think that's a big part, which is that people are afraid to communicate share who they are because they are worried about being bullied because if you stay low and keep your head low, then you won't get bullied.
(30:45) Benjamin Loh: I think it's a lot of like upfront kind of alignment and management and expectations. I think it's helpful usually when people engage me as a coach and consultant, I'm in the trenches and I'm still in the trenches now for as long as I'm in this business, because I never want to be like a bit of armchair theories to (31:00) say that's okay. So I feel the heat all the time. So I even check on my LinkedIn. sometimes I share about me and my son, and I use this as a teaching aid to teach my insurance clients. I posted a photo of me and my son doing an evening walk. And this is like what I do as the dadpreneur on dad in business. The next day I woke up on a Sunday morning with a comment, "Two ugly people. What's the point of this post?" I kid you not, it was happening all of a sudden. Okay, now we're getting it. It's a bit like Deja Vu, right? So I think my gut reaction is that I don't get so offended already. Like, viscerally, I don't want to get punched, etc. But then I calmed myself down. I realized, okay, so what's the strategic value of this? Since he has responded this way, this is like digitally captured there, why don't I make something out of it? So I took a screenshot of my photo with me and my son and the comment, but I was very intentional to just block out the space too, because what's the point of driving attention to him? True story.
(31:54) I didn't quit LinkedIn. I'm still, using LinkedIn a lot but I didn't talk about that the whole belief about putting yourself (32:00) out there is scary. Like I'm based in Singapore, this dude from Australia with no context whatsoever, just say "two ugly people." I don't know. Where was that coming from? So I could feel very hurt. You're putting your son, right? Your daughter. And that's also, there's another conversation about whether you should put your children's photos. That's another conversation for privacy, for safety, for deep fake. I get that. But for me, my intent is I that's the line I draw, but when you put your loved ones, especially your own photos up there and you get such a harsh, like two ugly people, what's the point of this post for me then? I've learned how to process this better and then I saved this and the second post actually got more attention. And this is a reality that you have to face in a sense that we all want or trying to be personalities, but there is a downside race of creating and being a personality, but it's upside gain in terms of what you can do for your business and being able for you to play to your mission and vision to help more people.
(32:50) So you just have to be very commensurate with the risk and then go into it. So how I help my clients with case studies like this, we also letting them know very (33:00) important perspectives and frames. Like for example, being a bully victim, I know that hurt people, hurt people. So it's also letting them know that sometimes people are just projecting hurt, disagreement, they throw on you. So it's for example, if someone arrives to your house and in this box it's a box of poop. Would you take it? The answer is no. So if they're giving you BS, just don't take it. So long as it's not going to your system, you're learning to set it aside. It's okay. Have your eye on the ball, have your eye on the system.
(33:28) And then thirdly, it's like, how do we make lemonade out of lemons? So it's like with that post, I could just be upset for the entire Sunday, but I was actually pretty happy. So one, I could save it into my teaching file as a way to let them know I'm a practitioner teacher, not just a theorist teacher. I'm not just a, again, with due respect to academics, I'm not just a lecturer who just teaches out theory. I'm teaching this very thing that happened last week, last year. And then number two, you can even create a more strategic value of this. So with that, I gained a lot more interesting followers as well. I even had someone who invited me to speak on a social media conference because of (34:00) that post. So it's just looking at it technically as a game. So it's that healthy detachment. You should be attached enough to know that it's going to help you. You need to be intentional, but yet you need to have this sense of detachment as well to let you know that you live a beautiful life offline.
(34:14) Jeremy Au: Yeah. For the record you're not ugly and I appreciate your kid.
(34:17) Benjamin Loh: Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're handsome, like you're more handsome than I am. So I think he's going to be more successful with girls than I am.
(34:24) Jeremy Au: Yeah, yeah, Yeah. So on that note, I'm just curious, over the past few years, have you seen a time that you've been brave?
(34:30) Benjamin Loh: I want to say for example, that case of ,being like described as, like two ugly people, what's the point of this post was a little act of braveness, but I think in coming to this podcast, I think what was brave was maybe on a personal front, if I could share. I think there was a part we started out saying, "Hey as you ran the agency what kind of like trade offs and decisions?"
(34:50) So I think as a result of that, like trying to chew off more than I could at back then, my, my then season of life was very challenging. And I think very (35:00) few people talk about spousal, family support, as the entrepreneur goes to entrepreneurial pursuits. And what was really one of the challenging things or first, what was the problem back then was that I started to sideline and cut off a lot of my family, so I tended to see myself as a father in a very typically Asian context was to provide. An act of provision means that, I'm paying the bills, I'm paying the bills and more, what more do you need to ask for? And my partner was also equally in a very happy and challenging job. And I wasn't that most aware or in tune with her like, you know, the postpartum, the zero to two years, three years. A lot of times now Singapore is getting us to have more babies. It's the emotional, psychological support is sometimes, in my opinion, very lacking, like people don't know what they're signing up for, especially a first time parent.
(35:42) So then what happened was that I felt that I have hurt my partner. I was being unfair in terms of my expectations to her. I said very mean things to her, and I drew the line in a way that was really grossly unfair for her. And I think what I then took to really salvage our (36:00) relationship and marriage was I took the act of just really cleaning up my act and I apologized to her. And I told her that, "Hey, at the end of the day, whether the business works, the agency takes off or not, you chose me and you created this family with me and I chose you as well. And this is my prerogative. This is my priority. And it will be untoward for me to think that, just because I'm getting a bit of wins professionally to think that, Oh I'm there and I created this on my own is because of your quiet support."
(36:26) So again, not the whole totality of that conversation, but I think for me it was really that moment of awakening that happened last year for me to realize that it'll be cowardly for me to just take things for granted, but it'll be much braver, and not just braver, but necessary for me to realize that as the entrepreneur takes the limelight of the headline, the attention whatsoever, but behind the doors, behind the scenes, off the entrepreneur head, off the entrepreneur's cloak, you're just a person, right? And it's that core, like unchangeable rules. Like businesses will come and go, valuations will go higher, lower. You can get sell (37:00) off the company, but at the end of the day, when we return to home, I think for me, at least in my values and beliefs, family is a constant, right? It's something that, I will still be with this partner till 50, 60, still all the way I die so if that's the constancy and that's the permanence, then entrepreneurial pursuits or entrepreneurship is just the vehicle. And I'm going to leave the vehicle, but the companionship is always there for me.
(37:19) So that was something brave I did, to apologize to her, to reinstate our commitments towards our relationship and our child. And also realizing that, how I should be running in more sustainable fashion, how I should be more disciplined, more structured, more intentional about how I run my business versus how I run my family as well.
(37:36) Jeremy Au: If you could go back in a time machine to say, four years ago and that would be, I guess when your kid just came out as well, roughly. Any advice that you would give yourself at that point in time?
(37:47) Benjamin Loh: I love this kind of questions because it's always like that with all f ups that you make and as well as the wins that you make, you are a lot assumingly more wise, but for me if I had gone back to four years ago I would still choose the same path because I need (38:00) to make all these mistakes for me to wake up. But if I had to answer your questions squarely, I think maybe on two notes, like one really be kinder. Be kinder to the people around you and be kinder to yourself. Nobody ever has this pass to you to say, how do you parent? Because from what I read on social media, like parenting is so adulting in disguise. Like you're trying to learn yourself and manage your own temperaments, trying to manage my ego, my identity. Trying to get affirmation and validation from my investors, my clients, et cetera. But yet at home, I'm trying to shape and teach someone, right? And that's where the balance, that's how you draw the middle line, middle ground. So you are going to make a lot of mistakes, especially for founders who are newborn, like parents to newborns, first, second time parents. You're checking so many things at home and to a certain extent, balls are going to drop and when balls do drop on the ground, emotions get a bit brittle and volatile. Things get broken. Relationships gets a bit strained. I think that's the part whereby I think going back four years later is brace, be brave and be kind to yourself (39:00) because you're just learning and I think we could do a lot more with kindness to ourselves as well.
(39:04) Jeremy Au: All right. Thank you so much. I think first of all, thanks so much for sharing about your professional growth for the past few years in terms of expanding towards being as also an industry trainer as well as a agency builder. And so I think it's fascinating to hear your personal and professional changes that you make.
(39:19) Secondly, thanks so much for sharing about how the landscape has changed for I think thought leadership and authority building and communications and discussing some of the parts about algorithm versus content.
(39:29) And lastly, thanks so much for sharing about your personal life, about how you've changed as a person because of the new seasons of your life, in terms of being busy as a agency builder, but also in terms of being a dad as well as dealing with, like how people think about you.
(39:42) On that note, thank you so much for sharing.
(39:43) Benjamin Loh: Thanks for having me.