Taylor Swift, Homemade Boba and Why to Your How
A random hodgepodge of learning and creating experiences this week.
Taylor Swift’s New Album is Singing My Life
The 1 - Someone from my past keeps popping back up into my life. 2 years gone by. There’s no bad feelings, just a faded spot of sadness on the end of my ripped sleeve. I lay there before I sleep sometimes, thinking of everything in our relationship that happened two years ago and why it didn’t work, and once processed, I come back to the same resolution that I’ve moved on with my own life. I almost view my past self as a third person and my now self maturely understands why things didn’t work out, and that this part of my life happened and made me stronger.
Isn’t that strange? Relationships with people are so...cyclical and change.
And the only thing that is constant is change.
Yes, I Did Attempt to Make Boba from Scratch with my Bare Hands
My friend Halynne and I made boba from scratch with flour, molasses, tea, and milk. It took us close to 3 hours, but I realized how fun it was to create something with my hands. In most days, I am sitting in my chair with eyes glued to the laptop screen. It was nice to catch up with her, laugh over our failed first attempt, and then successfully make our own boba from scratch—not a lot of people can live to say they did it. The trick is to slowly add the flour into the molasses, without burning the flour because it cooks very quickly. The above photo served roughly four drinks!
Boba made. Bucket list, checked off. You can call us the Asian Barefoot Contessas. Peek the receipe here.
The Why to Your How
I received some feedback recently and took it to heart. Being at a startup means executing all the time to move the needle. It means making sure things are moving along, things are running on its own, and just making shit happen. But when I focus too much on execution, I forget about the why and the strategy that could make it better. So I was told to do less execution, and more strategy planning. I think it was eye-opening because in some ways, maybe I don’t like focusing on the strategy because it’s boring or it’s forward thinking, but I realize I need to be more thoughtful in my approaches and be able to explain the reasons for it. She told me to also work the end goal backwards in some ways, and break it down in specifics to see if it makes sense.
An example could be: we want 100 new subscribers end of this month. How do we get new subscribers and through which channels? What do we need to do to make sure our channels are utilized best? What collateral will we need for these channels? Etc.
These are things I appreciate when given constructive feedback; these are things that will help elevate me in my career, rather than just be someone who does what they’re told. There are so many things to learn and do.
Events that Caught My Eye
Passive to Active: How to Activate Your Virtual Attendees to Contribute - As one of the CMX Connect Singapore leads, I invite you to attend our event (shameless plug). Kevon Cheong, CEO of Toasty, will show community builders how to turn disengaged virtual meeting attendees into highly involved participants, share tips on how to facilitate virtual gatherings so that your meetings or workshops are collaborative and purposeful.
👋 Want to chat or talk projects? Email me at emilyifang@gmail.com.
I've been told I have excellent music taste—listen to my new playlist of good bops.