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Michael Lim

šŸ† x 5 Award-Winning Social Entrepreneur. Sold my first one-person business at 28. Currently traveling Southeast Asia.

I'm a wee-bit exhausted lad 😓

I’ve spent the last week at the ASEAN Business Conference. ASEAN = Association of SouthEast Asian Nations. It brings together the 10 nations that make up ASEAN: Laos Brunei Malaysia Singapore Cambodia Thailand Vietnam Indonesia Philipines Myanmar With Timor-Leste joining later this year. This year the conference was held in Singapore. (yes, the land of durians) While I love these events, I’m absolutely exhausted. I fell off writing my daily emails. I also didn’t publish on Medium. Soz for the...

I’ve been keeping a dark secret 🤫

Many people don’t know this. But I was born in Singapore. I was even raised in the Durian Capital till I was 5. And then grew up in Melbourne’s mighty west But I’ve got more family in Singapore than I do in Australia. While I love Australia, I always felt disconnected from my cultural heritage. I often feel too Asian to be Australian. And too Australian to be considered Asian. My dark secret? I’m a grandma's boy. One of my grandmothers is 87 and the other is 91. My 91-year-old grandmother...

The man who destroyed my life šŸ’„

Naval Ravikant destroyed my life. His advice about 'building leverage' broke my reality. Back when I had a 9-5 job, I binged his content. He once said, "It doesn't take money to make money, it takes leverage to make money." Back then, I didn’t fully get it. Leverage is a word everyone uses. But few people understood (including me). But I kept reading to understand leverage. I consumed everything Naval has ever published. Something about that quote stuck with me. The only problem? I didn’t...

I'm going all-in on THIS šŸˆ

Hey friend, I took a break from my emails while in Beijing. To be honest, I've been feeling a wee-bit burned out. Since the end of May, I've been non-stop travelling. Singapore. Osaka. Tokyo. Beijing. I'm now back in Singapore again. That's five cities in five weeks. While I love to travel, this schedule is exhausting. So, I took a break. Lately, I've been feeling like my business is running me. I couldn't seem to figure out what was going on. During this time off, I had some space to think....

I was lied to 😔

After I left my 9-5 job, I started a government procurement consultancy. I would help construction and infrastructure companies win government contracts. In 2023, I sold that business. I was stoked. It felt amazing. My first business win. I was only 28 years old. But it was a lie. I was misled on: The health of the business. The abilities of one of the co-founders. The vision and direction of the business. The worst part? The business only worked because I did. Neither of my business partners...

Writing = business class baby šŸ›©ļø

I’m at Haneda airport in Tokyo. Today, I’m flying to Beijing, China. Despite being ethnically Chinese, I’ve never actually been to China before. I’m excited. But also slightly scared. Besides a poorly pronounced Ni Hįŗ£o, I can’t speak a word of Chinese. And I’ve heard how closed the tech ecosystem is in China. But this is why I travel. To push myself into environments I feel completely uncomfortable in. I can do nothing but surrender to the experience. To feel what comes up. To ride the lows....

Build time under attention šŸ’Ŗ

When I started going to the gym, I always dreamed of doing a muscle-up. That’s where you do a regular pull-up, But you pull to your belly button and then do a chest dip at the top. Sounds complicated, I know. It’s an even harder movement to execute. One of my gym mentors taught me the concept of ā€œtime under tensionā€. It’s where you want to build up time for your muscles to contract under movement. He told me to do a regular pull-up, but do it very slowly. Explode during the pull. Pause at the...

Long-form writing is king kong šŸ«…

Yesterday, I had a friend say, ā€œShort-form writing is easier to execute.ā€ I disagreed. When I spend 1–2 hours writing a long-form piece of content, I can repurpose it into: Emails Newsletters Digital products Course modules YouTube video scripts So, is short-form writing really easier for a solopreneur? Most people can't write long-form. AI can't do long-form without hallucinating. Long-form writing helps build your belief and philosophical system. You create a base of loyal fans who...

My sales team never sleeps 😓

I make money from articles I wrote years ago. Not just from platform payouts or ad revenue. But from clients who discovered me through something I wrote in 2022… Read it in 2024… And then hire me in 2025. My long-form articles are a personal army of salespeople. They work 24/7. They never ask for time off. They never get tired, hungry, or burned out. And they never complain. Each article… Functions as a sales page Positions me as an authority Solves problems my ideal clients already have And...

Writing pays my mortgage šŸ”

My house was finished building in May 2023. I was stoked. I was 28 and owned a house. What was even cooler? Over the last 2 years, my long-form articles have been paying my mortgage. I didn’t have to get half-naked and dance on TikTok. Or post 7x per day on Instagram. Instead, I did this: One long-form article. Solving one painful problem. Publishing on one long-form platform. Takes me roughly 2 hours to write one article. But you only need to write once per week. Far easier than making...

šŸ† x 5 Award-Winning Social Entrepreneur. Sold my first one-person business at 28. Currently traveling Southeast Asia.