What made me weird as a kid brought a new vision and mission

As young as five, I knew I wanted to be a news anchor. Every evening after our family dinner, I would watch the Chinese language news with my family. I would play pretend to be a news reporter, even set up my own anchor desk with scribbles as notes (not realising that they are using the tele-prompter) with my sister. The news - I'm not sure what I reported. 

So, during this pause, I shared with my mother that I want to start my own podcast (播客) series. She smiled and understood immediately without me over-explaining. Deep down, I wanted to have a voice. In an article titled "7 smarter questions to help you find direction" in the Pink Report by Daniel Pink, this one question made me stopped in my tracks: 

"What made me weird as a kid?"

Unanimously, my parents were told at every Parents-Teacher Meeting that I was too talkative and I asked too many questions. While I may not be as talkative now, I continue to ask many, many questions. 

Suzy Welch's book, "Becoming You" and the values bridge test sealed the deal for me. I found out that having a voice is one of my core values. Since then, I never looked back. In fact, I've decided to make it my new world. A world where I will hear my voice literally (*cringe*) and add my voice to stories that matter (No, I do not have a radio voice). 

After years of telling stories for companies and leaders, it's time to tell stories of people like you and me. Ordinary people with extraordinary lives. I want relatable. I want rawness. I want unheard. Well, many of us found it too hard to tell our own stories - especially here in Asia. We don't wear our vulnerabilities on our sleeves. We don't even want to deal with these 'little' problems of ours - maybe it's not worthy of other people's time. We are sometimes expected to stay positive and happy but we may not be. We are also never ready to tell our stories - it's not the right time. 

Maybe I'm just describing all of me - I'm taking my time during this pause journey to tell my story one at a time. So this is the first story - To new beginnings...

Semicolon Spaces: A brand new vision and mission 

Semicolon is the mark (;) used to separate the parts of a complicated sentence or items in a detailed list, showing a pause that is longer than a comma but shorter than a period. Life is complicated. We can get lost in the details. We all need pauses - intentional or not, long or short. 

Semicolon Spaces feature pause makers - anyone can be one. People like you and me. A pause can be a daily routine. A pause can be a break in life, at work or a transition, a redirection.

Our long term vision is to be the punctuation in a fast-paced world - cultivating intelligent pauses, where every pause is an opportunity for intentional living. 

While we are starting small with this podcast - Our mission is to create a media and lifestyle house curating real stories, solutions and style for modern seekers. We advocate and design intelligent pauses to restore, refresh and recharge. What I'm building is larger than myself. My goal is to build a community who are contributing, shaping and normalising pauses in every way. 

Little did I know a values test and a simple question led me here. Perhaps it was always there. A pause and some courage did it.