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LIFT Newsletter 029 Read Time: 5 mins Content; Critical thinking, success in 2026 Last week in Jakarta, I stood in front of the top private university lecturers and asked a simple question: "In the age of AI, what's the one thing your students need most from you?" The room went quiet. Then one professor raised her hand: "To think for themselves. But honestly, I don't know how to teach that anymore." That moment? It crystallized everything I've been thinking about as we close

LIFT Newsletter 028 Read Time: 5 mins Content; Accelerated performance, executive presence, strategic influence Last week, we explored how your emotional brain determines whether stakeholders feel confident trusting you. But even with emotional steadiness, there's one final brain that decides whether you advance or plateau. Your executive brain. It's the part that turns calm into clarity, and clarity into credibility. The executive brain or the neocortex is the newest, most

LIFT Newsletter 027 Read Time: 5 minutes Content: Performance review, seize the promotion, score the performance appraisal Last week, we covered how your survival brain hijacks performance reviews — turning executives into defenders instead of demonstrators of value. But here's what most professionals miss: even when you manage your survival response, there's another layer that determines whether stakeholders see you as promotion-ready. Your emotional brain. It's the bridge b

LIFT Newsletter 026 Read Time: 5 minutes Content: Performance review, 3 brains trap, 2026 proactive wins Your heart races before you even walk into the room. You know your work is solid. Your results speak for themselves. But something happens the moment that meeting starts, you rush to justify instead of confidently present. You over-explain when you should pause. You defend when you should lead. Sound familiar? It's not imposter syndrome. It's not lack of preparation. It's

LIFT Newsletter 025 Read Time: 3 minutes Content: Strategic review, advantageous actions, 2026 proactive wins November is your secret advantage. While everyone else will scramble through December's budget shifts, priority changes, and year-end panic, you can consolidate now before the chaos hits. Most professionals wait until January to "get organized." But the ones who actually get ahead do something quieter in November: they take stock of what worked, accept what changed, a

LIFT Newsletter 024 Read Time: 3 minutes Content: Strategic clarity, career advancement, overlooked oportunities Year-end pressure is building: performance reviews, budget shifts, and the familiar urge to add more goals, more courses, more activity to stay competitive. Here's what we've learned from 200+ professionals in our programs: the ones who truly advance don't do more - they choose better. Strategic clarity isn't about productivity hacks. It's about seeing what other

LIFT Newsletter 023 Read Time: 3 minutes Content: Strategic positioning, career relevance You do great work. Your boss knows it. Your team knows it. YOU KNOW IT. But somehow, other people are getting the opportunities, the recognition, the roles you thought you'd be perfect for. And you're wondering: What am I missing? Here's what I've noticed working with hundreds of professionals: The gap isn't in your performance. It's in your positioning. You're solving today's problems w

LIFT Newsletter 022 Read Time: 2 minutes Content: panic, lost and anxious, responding better Your job search is making you crazy. You're sending applications into the void. Refreshing your email every ten minutes. Applying to anything that remotely fits. And despite all this activity, nothing's happening. This isn't about your qualifications or the market. It's about your brain. When your career feels threatened, your brain defaults to survival mode. It screams "DO SOMETHING

LIFT Newsletter 021 Read Time: 3 minutes Content: Professional identity, transition, career planning I've been thinking about professional identity lately. Not because of some dramatic story, but because I keep seeing the same pattern: accomplished professionals who feel completely lost the moment their role changes. It turns out there's research behind this. Harvard Business Review recently explored how professionals tied too closely to their roles suffer disproportionately

LIFT Newsletter 020 Read Time: 3 minutes Content: prices for reacting, transition, neuroscience A few weeks ago, I spoke with a senior executive who had just lost his job. Twenty years of experience, gone overnight. His response? Panic mode. He sent out 200+ applications in 48 hours, rewrote his CV four times, and cold-messaged every connection on LinkedIn. Within days, he was exhausted. Within weeks, he felt hopeless. And worst of all, he was getting terrible responses becau

LIFT Newsletter 019 Read Time: 2 minutes Content: birthday and gratitude Yesterday, I turned 51. We kept it simple, just a quiet dinner with my family. This year felt different. I was deeply grateful, perhaps more than ever, yet the joy I usually feel wasn't quite there. And I know why. It's the first year without my Mum's birthday call. Every year, she would call to bless me, wishing me health and happiness. She passed away last December. A few days ago, while praying, it st

LIFT Newsletter 018 Read Time: 3 minutes Content: staying competitive, promotion, job security, soft power skills The half-life of professional skills is now 2.5 years. What you learned five years ago? Half of it is already obsolete. Yet most professionals are still betting their careers on technical expertise alone. Here's what the research reveals: 90% of top performers share one trait that has nothing to do with their diploma or years of experience. High emotional intelli

LIFT Newsletter 017 Read Time: 3 minutes Content: job lost, transition, clarity, taking charge "I sent out 47 applications this week. Zero responses." If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. In the last year, thousands of professionals have faced retrenchments, hiring freezes, or roles disappearing overnight. And what most people do next actually makes everything harder. They panic. They spray résumés everywhere. They apply to anything that sounds remotely close to their e

LIFT Newsletter 016 Read Time: 5 minutes Content: Courage, stigma, mental well-being, leadership “I need you to be our rock” How many times have you heard this as a leader? How many times have you said it to yourself? For all our progress in leadership development, one truth remains stubborn: we still expect leaders to be unbreakable. We expect leaders to inspire, motivate, and carry the weight of uncertainty. But when they are the ones who need help? Silence often feels saf

LIFT Newsletter 015 Read Time: 5 minutes Content: Identity, resilience, breakdown, leadership from within When Titles Fall, What Remains of You? Imagine this: the company you co-founded, poured your life into, and built from scratch… is suddenly no longer yours to lead. That was the reality for Derek Tan, Co-Founder of Viddsee. Stepping down wasn’t just a career change. It was an identity shift. For years, his title and role were inseparable from who he thought he was. Losin

LIFT Newsletter 014 Read time: 3 mins Content includes: Business, profit, growth, leadership In times like these with wars, economic uncertainty, and fractures in trust everywhere, I keep asking myself: What really anchors leadership? Strategies shift. Markets change. Technology disrupts. But what holds steady? The answer, I’ve found, is values. A Different Kind of Leadership Many companies chase quarterly results at the expense of people. Growth is prioritized even when it

LIFT Newsletter 013 Read time : 5 mins Content includes: Honesty, uncertainty, cultural integration, USP, active strategy The Four Self-Awareness Shifts That Build A Nation in 50 years Yesterday, Singapore celebrated its 60th National Day. In just over five decades, this small island leapt from third-world uncertainty to first-world stability and prosperity without oil, gas, or vast land. This transformation didn't happen by chance. It began with self-awareness; the kind that

LIFT Newsletter 012 Read time: 2 Minutes Content included: Self-Awareness You can't shift your mindset if you don't know what's shaping it. That's the blindspot self-awareness reveals. Last week, we explored how mindset can anchor us in chaos. But mindset doesn't stand alone. It's shaped by what we fear, what we assume, what we inherited—silently. In a world moving faster by the minute, here's the hard truth: It's not a lack of skill that's holding many professionals back.

LIFT: ElevateX newsletter 011 Read time: 2 Minutes Content included: Mindset shift The world is shifting. Will you shift with it? In a world where nothing is certain, your mindset is everything. I don’t know about you, but lately it feels like the ground beneath us keeps shifting. New technologies emerge overnight. Conflicts in distant places suddenly affect the job market here.AI tools are accelerating, and with them, the speed of change. In the past, we relied on experien

LIFT Newsletter 038 Why AI makes human networks your ultimate competitive advantage. January 2026 feels different. AI can now write reports, analyze data, and generate presentations in minutes. Economic uncertainties loom. Industry shifts accelerate. Many professionals are holding their breath, wondering what skills will still matter. Here's the paradox: As AI handles more technical tasks, human connections become more valuable, not less. McKinsey's latest research shows that