What I’m Doing Now Archive: December 2018

It’s been nearly two years since I moved back to my hometown, Sydney, and I am absolutely loving it here. I’ve been able to reconnect with the city, deepen relationships, explore our beautiful nature reserves and beaches, and build a business.

Here’s what I’ve been up to since my last update (a year ago, I’m ashamed to say)

Released the second season of my podcast interview series, A Life Less Ordinary. This year my business partner and co-producer Adam and I flew to Singapore where a new co-host, my dear friend and super talented musician Vanessa Fernandez, joined us for 14 incredibly insightful conversations that helped create an interesting cross-section of the Little Red Dot. We got to speak to people like Crazy Rich Asian’s actor Tan Kheng Hua, LGBT Paralympian Theresa Goh, opposition politician Adrian Sim, fashion legend Thomas Wee.

I helped create a cookbook with Macquarie University. The Sweetest Memory is a collection of recipes, artworks and personal memories, shared by members of the University community. The creative team included me and Adam, photographer Houman Katuzi, book designer and illustrator Nadia Hooton. All funds raised through the sale of The Sweetest Memory cookbook will go toward grants that support the financial hardship experienced by students studying at Macquarie University who are of refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds. 280 copies sold so far and counting!

Produced ‘Stopover’ with Nomads Bazaar, a travel web series that gives travellers inspiration for short and long layovers in cities around the world. Our first three episodes feature yours truly and Vanessa Fernandez as we explore Singapore and Changi Airport.

Helped intellectual events company This is 42 launch their brand. They recently brought down Dr. Michio Kaku to Sydney, who I was lucky enough to see at the Opera House in November!

Got accepted into Australia’s largest accelerator program, Slingshot, with a new project Adam and I are working on, and learning a lot from.

Finished 2.5 chapters of my novel. Much, much slower than I’d like but hey, life happens.

What I’m working on now

Continuing to build Nomads Bazaar, which produces socially and culturally impactful content like A Life Less Ordinary. This involves a mix of creating a content pipeline for the year and pre-producing each project for the year, and working on developing more commercial projects similar to The Cetaphil Experience.

Creating a new off-shoot of Nomads Bazaar to create affordable commercial content for small to medium businesses, because we have learned that socially and culturally impactful content does not consistently pay the bills, and that there is a demand for our work on low-cost, high-impact video content. If you’re interested in learning more and becoming a client, email me!

Any new entrepreneur or freelancer knows the anxiety of having to figure out how to make money. I’ve had my fair share of terribly scary months, and realised that I need basic cashflow covered while I build the businesses I’m working on. I’m now part-time marketing co-ordinator for Infocube, an accounting team that specialise in business analytics. I love the job and learning a lot about business analytics. Before I joined the team, I had no idea what a TM1 Cube was. Now I do, and it’s mind-blowing.

What I’ve read this year

I will be adding book notes for a few of these reads over the next few weeks. I’d highly recommend the one’s in bold.

1. Perennial Seller – Ryan Holiday 10/10
2. An artist of the floating world, Kazuo Ishiguro – 6/10
3. Losing my Virginity – Richard Branson 10/10
4. Dragons of Eden – Carl Sagan 7/10
5. Superhubs – Sandra Navidi 6/10
6. Wisdom of Sundays – Oprah Winfrey 7/10
7. Sam Walton – Made in America 8/10
8. Robert Kuok – A Memoir 9/10
9. Money – Yuval Noah Harari – 10/10
10. Audition – Barbara Walters – 8/10
11. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 7/10
12. If on a Winters Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino 10/10
13. Colpetty People – Ashok Ferrey 7/10 (listen to my interview with Ashok on A Life Less Ordinary)
14. Disrupted – Dan Lyons – 7/10
15. Keepers of the Golden Shore – Michael Quentin Morton – 7/10
16. Foundation – Isaac Asimov 7/10
17. The Laws of Human Nature – Robert Greene 7/10
18. Man’s Search for Meaning – Victor Frankl – 8/10

Podcast episodes I loved this year (besides my own!)

Making Obama (produced by the folks who created ‘Making Oprah’)
Tyra Banks interview on the James Altucher Show
Nigella Lawson interview on The Conversation Hour
Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario interviewed by Kara Swisher on Recode Decode
Ralph Lauren interview with Oprah Winfrey

Favourite tunes of 2018

This page was last updated on December 21, 2018