The Randal Osché Podcast: Season 1 | Episode 14
Join us on The Randall Osché Podcast as we talk with Felix Lee, co-founder and CEO of ADPList. Hear how his military service transformed his personality and how he leveraged personal challenges to his benefit by spending all his free time working on freelance design projects. Learn how this pivotal experience shaped his entrepreneurial spirit and his views on the role of mentorship in fostering professional growth and connection.
What You'll Learn:
The importance of mentorship in driving professional growth.
How resilience and perseverance can lead to entrepreneurial success.
Strategies for building a global community and unlocking human potential.
Insights on energy, intelligence, and integrity in team-building.
Felix offers practical advice for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, mentorship, or personal development. His emphasis on commitment and passion provides valuable lessons for realizing your full potential.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, Podcast Index, Podcasts Addict, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Find Felix Lee:
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Highlights
Entrepreneurial Journey and Resilience
Felix has been an entrepreneur since 17, balancing school, military, and startups, now leading ADP List.
Building a Global Community
ADP List has 500,000 users and 30,000 mentors, fostering a supportive community where everyone opts into mentorship.
Vision and Problem-Solving
The vision for ADP List is to unlock human potential through shared knowledge and conversations.
Lessons from Experience and Mentorship
Conversations and mentorship provide valuable insights. Felix emphasizes passion, high standards, energy, intelligence, and integrity.
SHOW NOTES
Questions this conversation has Randall Pondering
"What actions can you take that go beyond your best efforts to achieve success?
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments!
And that's it for today's conversation here on the Randall Osché podcast. Thank you so much for joining us and we hope that you've enjoyed listening as much as we've enjoyed recording it.
Many many thanks to our guests today for sharing their knowledge, their experience and their life lessons. If you found today's conversation insightful, interesting, inspiring, please join our growing community by subscribing. Randall Osché podcast on your favorite podcast platform, and never ever miss another episode.
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The Randall Osché Podcast - Felix Lee (Episode 14)
[00:00:00] Randall: Felix Lee, welcome to the show. For the people that don't know you yet, why don't you go ahead and take a quick moment and introduce yourself.
[00:00:06] Felix: Thanks for having me here, Randall . My name is Felix. I am born and raised in Singapore, uh, entrepreneur, and I have been entrepreneuring and starting my company since I was 17 years old.
[00:00:18] Felix: And I'm 27 right now. It's been the past 10 years of my life has been in school, military and spending most of that in startups. And I'm now the co founder and CEO at ADP list. And we're on the mission to help every person unlock their human potential. And we do that by bringing shared knowledge and inspiration to the world where we connect, mentors and people who want to learn from them together through our platform.
[00:00:43] Felix: So, I've been doing that for the past three and a half years now. We've grown to over half a million users around the world. We've over 30, 000 verified mentors across the globe. And so we're really proud of the progress that we have, we have accomplished, but obviously it's a long way. And, so yeah, that's, that's a little bit about myself and glad to be here.
[00:01:01] Randall: Yeah, no, I really appreciate you being on appreciate you making the time. This is My Friday evening. So it's your Saturday morning. So you're taking time from your, your weekend to spend time with me. And I, I really appreciate that. Thank you. You're welcome. So I'm a big fan of ADP list. I actually came across it because a client of mine had, I recommended to her that she network more.
[00:01:25] Randall: And then she took that upon herself and then she landed. I think she networked in person and then somebody who she met in person recommended that she try out ADP list. She came back to a meeting that we had and she told me about ADP list. I was like, Oh, that sounds pretty cool. Let me check it out. So then I signed up for ADP list and I've been a big fan of it since.
[00:01:48] Randall: So over half a million users, 30, 000 mentors now. Yeah, I think there's a lot of potential. Like, whatever you're trying to accomplish as an individual. More than likely, unless you're trying to, invent the lightbulb, or the next lightbulb, somebody has done that before you, right?
[00:02:04] Randall: Other people have started startups, so if you want to start a startup, or if you want to be an entrepreneur, go connect with other entrepreneurs, go connect with other people that have started organizations. And ADP list, I love it because unlike other platforms that we won't mention here, everybody on ADP list has opted into talking to strangers.
[00:02:25] Randall: And that's the thing I love about it is everybody is there to meet and help one another, go further, faster on their journey. It's not just a site where you, post career successes or pictures or, or, you know, witty comments. It's a platform where everybody on there has opted in to talk and help with strangers.
[00:02:45] Randall: So I really appreciate that about what you guys are doing there.
[00:02:49] Felix: Thanks so much for being a part of this community, Randall. And I'm so glad that you joined in you know, because we need people like you who are opening the conversations. It doesn't matter if it's 15 minutes or 30 minutes.
[00:03:00] Felix: I think just being able to exchange something with someone you know, I think you and I, we have done that a couple of times now. And I learned so much from you about journaling. I saw the template you sent over as well. So it's moments like this that, that really makes me, grateful for the things that we have built you know, for the world, not just between us.
[00:03:18] Felix: And, and I think it goes so much further as well for everyone. So thanks for saying that.
[00:03:22] Randall: Yeah, no problem. My first mentee. Like mentor mentee session. So I signed up for ADP list as a mentor. And the first person I mentored was Felix.
[00:03:31] Randall: Cause I got a, welcome email from ADP list and Felix must have been like his email address attached to it somehow. So I just took a shot in the dark and I was like, Hey, this is actually Felix. You know, let's have a quick meeting. And he actually responded. I was like, Oh, dang.
[00:03:47] Randall: First meeting on the ADP list is going to be with the Co founder Felix Lee. So I was pretty pretty happy about that. So I appreciate you taking the time and meeting with me because like you said, I've learned a lot from you as well. And one of the things that sticks out to me about that too is, I think it's one of the founders of Airbnb, I forget his name.
[00:04:06] Randall: But he always talks about doing things that aren't scalable and I think doing that, especially when you're early on in your entrepreneurial journey or your startup journey can be quite valuable, just like it was for Airbnb. And I think what you did like with me, I'm assuming that I wasn't the only person that I know, actually, I actually know that I'm not the only person that you've met, because I can see the numbers on the site.
[00:04:30] Randall: But like, that's doing something that's not scalable. And I think that creates something in people and builds a culture where they want to be a part of this more and more. Whereas you're not saying I'm Felix Lee. I'm the co founder of ADP list. I'm not going to take time to meet with the people, but you do the opposite and say, I am going to meet with the people.
[00:04:48] Felix: Oh yeah, a hundred percent. You know, I agree with what you say. And by the way, the co founder of Airbnb who said this a lot is Brian Chesky and you know, Brian talks about this at Y Combinator and it's famously sort of passed down from Y Combinator. Um, You should do things that don't scale. I love that concept ever since I heard it, a couple of years ago.
[00:05:08] Felix: And the reason why that resonated so much with me was because there are things where humans share intrinsically and there are things where humans are unique. And so when you do things, don't scale, I think one, you discover what is unique. And you discover what is the pattern of similarities.
[00:05:26] Felix: And when you discover the patterns of similarity, it becomes easier for you to make a hypothesis when it comes to product, when it comes to marketing. It becomes easier for you to relate to your audience as well, because you know the similarities between all of them. They might be here for a purpose.
[00:05:41] Felix: They might be, you know, looking to improve themselves, or they might be looking for portfolio review or so on. So, there's always something similar across a very big group of people. And when you do things on scale, I think what it allows you is to be able to look at that closer and be able to find that pattern.
[00:05:57] Felix: And I always think that pattern is such a valuable part of building any companies or any product because those are going to be your insights to build something that that I think no one has ever done before. And so, if you look at ADP lists as you say, what you love is really people opening up their conversations to strangers.
[00:06:15] Felix: I mean, we have sort of other platforms competitors that does that, but they do it with a price. And for the very first time in history in this industry, someone came out and took off the price tag and it somehow worked even better. And everyone's assumption before that was, Oh, the mentors require a price tag.
[00:06:33] Felix: I mean, yeah, sure they do, but if you kind of look a little bit closer, a lot of humans actually look for something else, which is, I just love quality conversations. I love the human connection and the quality conversation. So if you can give me that in 30 minutes, I'm open to just spend the 30 minutes for a very high quality conversation.
[00:06:52] Felix: And so that is really an insight that I gained while doing things that are not scalable. And that to me is obviously a great, great mantra for anyone looking to design or build something.
[00:07:03] Randall: So I was going to ask, what was maybe the biggest insight that you've observed while meeting with members of ADPList?
[00:07:12] Felix: You know, I think one of the biggest insight, I mean, there's a surprising insight again, is that mentors as much as they want to be paid. So we have this paid program called 80 plus advance, where if you're qualified, and if you're from a certain set of countries like the U S Canada, Singapore, if you're qualified and you belong to part of these countries, we open up the monetization option for you on the platform. So you could do it free and, and also you could do it for paid.
[00:07:37] Felix: So we do have that option. Now, what is surprising to me is that while people are open to that and they want that, you know, there's a majority of people on the platform, mentors, who are, you know, still open to say, I'm going to do 100 percent for free.
[00:07:54] Felix: And I think that always is a, You know, as much as I believe that humans are good and, and, you know, they want high quality conversations. I always have a part of me that says, Oh, maybe at the end of the day, they just want money, but they're just not telling me. And so, I mean, there's some truth to that, to be honest, I had some conversations that there was some truth to that.
[00:08:13] Felix: For the most part of it, I continue to discover that, wow, they are not asking for that because if they could do a 30 minutes coffee chat, a high quality coffee chat in their own convenience, they might not be active this month because they might be busy in their work that is paying them, but they would come back the next month and continue their conversations or continue mentoring people.
[00:08:35] Felix: They don't have to be active every day. That's not what we require of them. And so it surprises me because it's somehow. You know, it doesn't come back to, Hey, pay me. It somehow just comes back to, Hey, I just want good quality conversations and I want to do it whenever I'm available. And ADP list, you know, becomes a place for them, that avenue for them to have these conversations with someone who they want to mentor.
[00:08:57] Felix: And so to me, that was surprising just because, growing up and being brought up in a world where everything is a transaction. This feels a little bit too genuine to me, even as a founder. So, so I think that to me, has still not, frankly, I don't think he has sunk in yet a hundred percent.
[00:09:13] Felix: I think maybe 80 percent of that has sunk in. So. I'm still, for the 20 percent part of me, I'm still not convinced, but then the data tells me otherwise. So I have to trust that.
[00:09:22] Randall: Yeah. Another data point for you. If I was independently wealthy, I would do it more often and for free in perpetuity, right?
[00:09:30] Randall: These are, I reflect a lot on. The type of work I do and whether it energizes me or depletes me and having conversations like the one we're having now or having a mentor mentee conversation, regardless of what side of the coin am on that, those are conversations that really fill me up. And so I can have conversations like that with people all day long and still have energy to go work out and do whatever I want to do after putting in eight hours a day.
[00:09:56] Randall: But, if I'm doing something that I don't enjoy. Then at the end of the day, I'm beat, I don't want to go work out, but yeah, meeting with people, mentoring them, sharing with them, information I've learned over my career I would do that all day long and I would do it for free if I could.
[00:10:13] Felix: You know, your case is one of those cases where I'm like, it surprises me and I'll tell you why.
[00:10:18] Felix: In all the good ways. And, you know, this is a compliment as well to you in all the good ways is because your profile and your line of work as a coach, as someone who takes quality conversation as a business and as a transaction, I would never expect you to do almost or somewhat the same thing on ADP list, but for free.
[00:10:37] Felix: Well, even though it is a lesser frequency or a lesser timing, whatever it is, but just the action of that kind of goes against sort of like your day to day business and stuff like that. And to me, it's surprising. But it's also something that I'm learning to kind of say, wow, there are people like that out there.
[00:10:54] Felix: And while I grew up in Singapore and, just seeing a lot of people who are just capitalists, but there are people like you out there who are like, yeah, well, this is my job. I could do the same on a pro bono basis and I don't mind that. And so, yeah, it is, it is surprising for me.
[00:11:07] Felix: And thanks for, thanks for sharing that, with me. This is so important. Yeah.
[00:11:11] Randall: Yeah. You're welcome. I mean, I think the thing that I think about I've worked with some clients for free as well for various reasons, maybe somebody got laid off and they're in a tight spot and they can't afford me.
[00:11:21] Randall: If I have the availability in my schedule, I will make time for that person just because I've been there and I have this set of skills, information and knowledge. And I want more people to have it, right? The thing I think about with ADP List from a coach perspective, that why I do it, one is because I, I enjoy it and your platform gives me the opportunity to meet people that I wouldn't otherwise meet.
[00:11:45] Randall: But also my motivation is because every one of those conversations, I'm learning. I learned about ADPList from a client of mine. She's how I landed here because I was working with her. So she provided me value. By telling me about ADP list, I wouldn't have otherwise known about.
[00:12:02] Randall: So I think for those people who are out there that are in a situation like me, where you get paid to have coaching conversations with people and you're reluctant to do that for free or pro bono, I think you're doing yourself a disservice because I thinkeverybody can learn something from somebody else, which is, you know, one of my motivating factors for having like the podcast as well.
[00:12:22] Felix: Right. Yeah, I think this is so important because when you have conversations like, like this, you know, I think it allows you to, you know, just have a new perspective from someone totally opposite part of the world right now from you and, you know, just a totally different upbringing and you're like, wow, wait, there are similarities.
[00:12:40] Felix: And there are also differences and we recognize both of those. And I think it's beautiful because then you end up learning something new and, become more globalized from a thinking perspective as well. And, and I think that's why I really enjoy it. I mean, I've met folks from like 42 different countries by now on ADP list of 44.
[00:12:58] Felix: I'm sure you have met quite a few as well. So, so that's always an interesting part.
[00:13:01] Randall: Yeah, I love it. Like, when I started coaching, I didn't anticipate that I would be working with people from all over the globe, but shortly after I started, I realized, that could be the case.
[00:13:12] Randall: And I absolutely love it. I've worked with people from ADP list, and not, but like Croatia, Germany, Singapore, Canada, I mean, just a bunch of places, not 40 yet, but I'm working my way on up.
[00:13:26] Randall: I want to like switch gears here a little bit, but, From one of our earlier conversations, I learned that, I guess pre ADP list, in Singapore, it's mandatory that you join the military at a certain age.
[00:13:39] Randall: Is that correct?
[00:13:40] Felix: Yes. Yeah.
[00:13:40] Randall: So, curious question of mine, because the United States, it's not mandatory. Yeah. What are your thoughts on joining the mandatory military service in Singapore, if you're willing to share? Of course. And how do you think that has influenced you as a person.
[00:13:56] Felix: Wow. I think it's a You know, it's a it's a very interesting one because it has changed me in many ways, but I'll start off from how I feel about the whole mandatory service, right? So for example, in the U. S. it's a pretty big country, so obviously, you know, just having a subset of a population to be serving or joining the military, would be a different story.
[00:14:20] Felix: In Singapore, you know, we are about 5. 4 million in population today. As an entire country, we are 5. 4 million. So we are a city and a country at the same time, as compared to the US. And so, the history of it is that we started our military because, our founding prime minister believed that, you know, if anything happened, we should be able to defend ourselves.
[00:14:40] Felix: We're a very small country and, we have seen what happened during the World War II. You know, the British were not able to protect us from the, the Japan invasion. Right. And so, this is a lot of lessons to be learned there, but then the biggest takeaway is that we got to learn how to defend ourselves and, be a little bit more independent than, just depending on foreign sort of countries to come and save you.
[00:15:02] Felix: And so, that's when we decided that, we should learn from Israel on building our military. And so we actually, the first country who helped us to build up our military capabilities was Israel. Right. And so they supported the whole setup of that. We learned quite a bit of fair things for them.
[00:15:18] Felix: So yeah, like uh, You know, that was when we kickstarted our military journey in Singapore. I think that was in the 1960s, late 60s, or even the early 1970s, I think. So it's been quite a journey since then. Soall the male in Singapore, we are mandated to register for the military by the age of 18, at age of 18.
[00:15:38] Felix: So sometimes you do it a little bit later, like 20 or 21, just because you might graduate from school a little bit. But so long as you graduate from, your sort of like your high school or what we call the junior college, that's where they would send you a letter and say, Hey, you got to go through the military right now.
[00:15:55] Felix: And they give you maybe like a year in notice or maybe half a year in notice. And then, they just enlist you. Now, how I feel about the mandatory service.Well, I talked to my partner a lot about this. I'm really supportive of a mandatory service in Singapore. I think every boy and every man should go through it at this.
[00:16:12] Felix: You know, it's a great experience, but I think what I'm not that supportive about, and I've always been pretty open about it, is that, I think a year is almost like two years in the military is too long of a service. That's one, right? Two years is a little bit too long. And the reason why I say that is because You know, kids these days, they have a dream that they want to pursue and when you're 18 and you're 20, it's a prime time.
[00:16:35] Felix: It's a prime time for you to go out there and get things done and chase your dream. And so conscripting you to a military service for two years, it's not going to serve you well. I mean, it's going to put a pause on a lot of, of your plans. Right. And so, I was one of those people.
[00:16:49] Felix: Right. And so I think. It could be shortened, that's one. The second thing is that we could make way more exceptions for people who really knows what they want to go do in life. So I'll give you an example. We do give exceptions to people who can defer their service. So that means that they push it back, but they still have to go.
[00:17:07] Felix: That has been a very rare case of deferment, but we have done one successful deferment. There's this guy called Joseph Schooling, who won his Olympic gold medal in swimming, at the age of 21.
[00:17:18] Felix: And so, So, he deferred his military to train for the Olympics, and he won gold medal in the Olympics, and he was swimming the hundred meter butterfly against Michael Phelps.
[00:17:30] Felix: And I believe this was maybe about four years, six now or something. But maybe eight years now, sorry, that was in 2016. So it is maybe eight years. Yeah. Eight years now. So it was such a historic moment because first of all, he beat Michael Phelps, but he also took home and brought home the first gold medal for this country.
[00:17:47] Felix: Like we did not have our first gold medal until 2016. It was quite recent. And so the exception of military service obviously proved to have worked out well in his case. You know, my personal hope is that I hope to see more of such, where we can defer for people who, are working really hard towards something and obviously they might not need to require it to, to achieve it.
[00:18:07] Felix: But then, we have to start having an alternative track for people who might not be conscripted. So that's one. But yeah, I mean, that's how I feel about it.
[00:18:15] Felix: How he has changed me is simple. think military made me an extrovert to an introvert. And I'll tell you that 100 percent it is the biggest change because I used to be the biggest extrovert.
[00:18:25] Felix: You know, I always love the center of attention and everything, but while it does seems like I go for a lot of events these days, and a lot of social sort of like ADP events. But the truth is that I only go to these events when it's work related, like ADP list. I would never go for this on my own.
[00:18:39] Felix: And I used to go on these things on my own, but I never do it that now. And the reason why military has changed me into an introvert is because being someone who is so outspoken, creative, and want to do things, you go to the military, it's a totally opposite world. If you speak your mind, and if you try to be creative, you get punished for it.
[00:18:56] Felix: You get punished for it. At least in the unit where I'm at, right. At least in the place where I was deployed to. You know, you get punished for speaking your mind for not following the rules for bending the rules a little bit. You get scrutinized, you get, targeted by your friends and whatever.
[00:19:11] Felix: Like peer bullying. So I went through all of those. I could tell you for good entirety of 60 percent of the two years was just that experience. And it changed me. I think it changed me to become an introvert because then I start to rely a lot on myself for energy rather than people.
[00:19:27] Felix: And I think the best thing about it is that. You learn to be so independent, from a mind perspective, from a physical perspective, from a spiritual and mental perspective, emotional perspective as well, that you no longer need to rely on anyone to define your own worth and your success. So, when I was so alone in the military, I had no friends.
[00:19:46] Felix: I was constantly working on design projects, freelance design projects outside of the military. Every single night after training, I opened my laptop, I would talk to my clients, I would help them get something done. It was such an experience. I wasn't trying to go out there and hang out with people.
[00:20:02] Felix: I was obsessed. And until today, I'm still obsessed with just trying to make myself a better version of myself. And I think that is a result of the whole military experience and saying that, Well, now that you're alone, you're forced into this being alone phase because no one wants to be a friend or whatever.
[00:20:19] Felix: And I think that you sort of see me rise up from it and became a better version. So, so yeah, that's my experience and that's why I learned from it.
[00:20:24] Randall: Thank you for sharing number one. So. From, how I interpret what you said, going from, extrovert and getting energy from people to introvert and being able to, rely on yourself, but also, focusing on other things and channeling your energy into something that, energized you instead of, you know, going out and trying to meet people or whatever.
[00:20:44] Randall: But to me, that just seems like it made you a more self reliant person. And one of the observations I've had in my life so far is that I think people become better versions of themselves, or better adults even, if they have that moment in time in their life. And the sooner it happens, I think the better for them, where like, you know, maybe it's a challenging moment, but it's a time where they have to become self reliant.
[00:21:09] Randall: There's nobody else in their life that they can rely on, and they either get through it on their own, or they crumble at the pressure. But I think when faced with those moments, I think everybody needs that moment in time where, I think there's for a lot of things, I'll expand the thought maybe to make a point, when people like date.
[00:21:26] Randall: Sometimes they go from boyfriend or girlfriend to boyfriend or girlfriend to the next boyfriend or girlfriend. And to me that was always like baffling, just like, do you think the odds are really in your favor that you just broke up with your significant other and then the next person you go on a date with is going to be your long term significant other?
[00:21:44] Randall: It could be, but perhaps Pump the brakes. Let's have a little reflective moment and see what we actually want to accomplish, with dating or relationship, right? I think people sometimes, you know, if we're talking about like using dating as an analogy, they want to have a partner.
[00:22:02] Randall: Because, they are afraid of maybe sitting in the room by themselves. And I think when you're able to sit in a room, you know, I talk about it half jokingly, but when you can sit in the dark room by yourself and be comfortable, I think you've made it. And I think moments like you talked about, and I can think of a moment in my life where, I had a period of time where I had broken up with a significant other, I had my own apartment, for the first time in my adult life, and that was really like, a defining moment for me of what turned me into the person that I am today, right?
[00:22:34] Randall: It set me on the trajectory to be here talking to you. So I think that that's a good experience for anybody to go through. I think a little bit, it can be challenging, but I think if you embrace it as an opportunity, it can really set you on a positive trajectory.
[00:22:50] Felix: Yeah. I think a lot of these, conversations and, taking a step on things and talking about it.
[00:22:55] Felix: These are all important learnings. In the military, I think I have my fair share of sort of interactions with many different types of humans as well. And, because you are thrown into the mix. And, and trust me when I say it's literally a mix of people that comes from all walks of life.
[00:23:10] Felix: You have the reachers of reachers and you have the people who is not bothered for silver spoon. Yeah, and just teaches you so much about human connection. How do you talk to people? How do you understand their perspective as well? You know exactly like what you say, it's like sometimes you gotta put the brakes on something and and talk about those things.
[00:23:27] Felix: It's important to have that, those conversations with people.
[00:23:31] Randall: Yeah. Excellent. So fast forward starting ADP list, it's an existing company, right. And I was reading in your, your LinkedIn bio before we started and you had a section in there that said something to the effect of, you know, of course you're the co founder, but.
[00:23:49] Randall: That you were responsible for setting the company's vision and strategy. So, my question to you is, how do you determine what the vision of ADP list is and what the strategy is? And what's the process look like there for you?
[00:24:06] Felix: Wow. This question is so serendipitous because I just had this discussion with a good friend of mine at lunch yesterday, and he's a very respectable founder, in Singapore. So his name is Siu Ray, and he's the CEO of Carousel. Carousel, it's a unicorn company worth about two billion dollars today. And so it's a great friend of mine. We just had lunch and we talk about this. I asked him for advice on this.
[00:24:28] Felix: So he's a great, great guy. Obviously shout out to him. And a lot of what I've learned is from him. I think the first thing about a vision. A vision always starts from what you believe and what problems you want to solve. Right. I think it comes together. And so one of the problems that I really hope to solve in my lifetime.
[00:24:46] Felix: At least that I hope to elevate, you know the opportunity is to be able to allow everyone to get access to conversations that can help them become a better version of themselves. And the question is why conversations? Because I think conversations leads to a lot of things.
[00:25:01] Felix: Conversations leads to insights, exchanges, perspectives, it leads to opportunities, right? When you have a conversation with someone, they could refer you to something or they could, you know, it's conversations are opportunities. And so growing up, I grew up in a blue collared family and my parents were working class parents and I never knew anyone who worked in tech.
[00:25:21] Felix: Now think about it, I could have had the opportunity to break into tech at an earlier age as well, because if I had exposure, but I just did not know anyone else to get that exposure. And so, there's a lot of conferences and a lot of coaches that were really expensive and I couldn't get their time as well when I was younger.
[00:25:36] Felix: And a big part of me is that I want to build a world where a kid like me and any other people, right, frankly, adults, no matter what age you are as well, you can have access to these conversations that can help you gain perspectives, opportunities, insights, whatever that you require, like it could be unlocked through that conversation.
[00:25:56] Felix: And so, So that is what I want to bring to the world. And that's what I believe in. And the second thing I believe in is that everyone has a perspective and an insight to share, right? Everyone has an insight to share and it's our job at ADPList to open up that window for you to reach out to the other person.
[00:26:13] Felix: But we believe that everyone has something in their life and their careers that can benefit someone else's life and career. So put in perspective, you and I, we chatted a few times and the way that you journal, that is your unique insight. That is your life perspective and experience like that has directly benefited I conduct my life as well, how I do my journaling.
[00:26:33] Felix: And so this is exactly what I'm talking about. When I say that there's always something, at least one thing in someone else's life or their career that when they share with you could benefit you as well. So, I believe that, we're going after that whole vision, that everyone has something to share and we're here to open up that whole ideology of sharing with one another, to everyone.
[00:26:52] Felix: That's why our vision, you know, it's never really about mentorship only, right? It's about helping every person unlock their human potential because When you have conversations like that, which, you know, it leads to, that is a means to an ends.
[00:27:06] Felix: And that ends, is that when you hop off the call, you walk out becoming a much more inspired version of yourself. You walk out becoming someone who is a step further and a step into unlocking the potential that you want to unlock. And so that's why we talk about human potential a lot more than just saying the idea of mentorship, because mentorship is just a product.
[00:27:28] Felix: What it comes out of it and why it's so important is exactly what we're doing. It is because it helps to unlock your potential. And so that is our vision now in terms of the strategy. And what is the strategy? I think a strategy is how you do something. Right, the strategy is how you do something, how you're going to get there, right, how you're going to get to the vision.
[00:27:45] Felix: And for us, the strategy has always been clear for the past three years, and now we're at a crossroads. And I'll talk a little bit about that, which is interesting. I've not talked about this anywhere. So the past three years, our strategy has been clear to build a platform, the world best platform that facilitates free mentorships and conversations.
[00:28:04] Felix: Now we have done that to a historical extent, and we have done that to an amazing extent for folks like yourself, myself, and everyone else around the world. And so the strategy of that is that we come back to the vision, you know, we go to the mission and we say, we want to bring shared knowledge and conversations.
[00:28:21] Felix: To the world and Then we say, okay, what is the user problem? Right? Because you always want to be solving a user problem. So user problem was that people want to share their knowledge, but they don't want to say it, or they always feel like they've got to charge for it, or that if they are going to do it for free, people ask too much of them.
[00:28:39] Felix: Right? And so, that is a problemfor the mentors and for the mentees. There's just a lot of price tag placed everywhere. Not everyone can afford them. And so we had a clear problem statement, and then we say, okay, how are we gonna do it? We're gonna build a platform that supports people who want to give back, but we're not gonna tell them you have to spend an hour every week.
[00:28:58] Felix: No, we're gonna keep it flexible because we want to solve their problems. Now, In order to solve that even further, we say we need to build tools for them so that they can manage their own time. They can, you know, be flexible around things. And so we want to build that for them. Now on the mentee side, on the member side, we say, okay, so we got a bunch of mentors who are now willing to contribute to you for free.
[00:29:17] Felix: And so on a pro bono basis. So we would, you know, love to verify you and we make sure that you're good. And the platform is open for you to learn. And so it solves their problem of not having to pay a thousand dollars just for 30 minutes. And we launched that, right? And we just execute it. And so the strategy is very simple.
[00:29:34] Felix: It comes down first of all, from your vision. And second, obviously, or rather first is what problem are you solving for people? And then third is what resources, how are you going to solve it? What resources do you need? Right. And then last but not least is just executing it. It's really just executing it.
[00:29:50] Felix: So we executed that for the past three years. And I think a lot of strategy. is also execution. I think execution is part of strategy because a strategy continuously evolves and execution helps support that evolution. So, the past few years we have changed a lot as well. Now we're at a crossroad today.
[00:30:08] Felix: So that's what a strategy is, right? And that's what our vision is now. We're at a crossroad today is because we've come to a point where we realize that, wow, our strategy has served us well for three years, but we think that there is a bigger opportunity. There's a bigger market that we can serve with our resources to be that we have yet to tap in.
[00:30:25] Felix: So now we'reat an interesting journey of our company or like a startup as a community we are now charting the chapter 2. 0 or maybe a little bit lesser of our, you know, like 1. 1 of ADP list. And so there's going to be a new strategy coming up that I think is going to be very, very exciting.
[00:30:44] Felix: I'm in the midst of planning it and so, you know, I, I look forward to sharing more of that as well in a different conversation, but this is how, you know, we, we look at strategy here.
[00:30:52] Randall: At the crossroads, a little bit of a cliffhanger there for us, Felix.
[00:30:57] Felix: Yeah, it is. It is. I definitely put it, in there.
[00:31:00] Felix: So, so yeah, hopefully, hopefully, you know, your audience comes back here a lot more.
[00:31:04] Randall: Yeah. Once that's launched, we'll have to do a follow up to this.
[00:31:07] Randall: Um, Couple thoughts on the vision, the strategy. So one, I think that's beautiful, right? I have a similar, like I'm from a blue collar family, blue collar town, and, you know, the majority of my career I've been in banking, finance, wealth management.
[00:31:23] Randall: In my town, I didn't see people going to work and in dress shirts and suits. I didn't see people driving luxury cars. I saw, you know, sedans, like domestic sedans and pickup trucks, right? My perspective was shaped and informed by what I was seeing every day. And I didn't necessarily know that, I mean, I guess I knew because I, I saw people going to office buildings on TV, but that wasn't what I saw in real life, right?
[00:31:50] Randall: My 24/7, 365 was different. And the part of what I want to accomplish with the podcast is, you know, if people are tuning in from, a background like you or a background like me, there's a different world out there. Right. And I hope that this podcast reaches those people to let them know that where they're at now isn't always going to be where they, have to be. So I think that your, vision's beautiful.
[00:32:16] Randall: With the podcast too, I'm willing to interview anybody for a podcast because I think everybody has a story to share, everybody's on their own unique journey, and from their journey, they have a story, and that story is made up of, successes and failures and struggles and challenges, and challenges they might have overcome, or challenges they're still working to overcome.
[00:32:37] Randall: But that's lessons that can be learned from other people that helps them, helps the other person go further, faster. We all don't have to solve the same problems. Other people have solved those problems already. Don't struggle, seek information.
[00:32:50] Felix: I'm curious,what is the most interesting conversation or something you have learned through the viewing people so far?
[00:32:56] Randall: Oh, geez. I think, The number one insight I have had from doing the podcast so far is similarities like similarity isn't the word I'm looking for patterns, right, I guess. And a couple, couple patterns I've seen. There's people, and maybe this is like a bias of the people I want to interview, but people that have, that are being successful and doing what they're doing, and, I say that term loosely because success can be defined differently by different people, it's just not money, it could be having no money but doing what you love, or making all the money, right?
[00:33:31] Randall: But people that I interview typically are really passionate about what they're doing, right? And that might be a bias on my part of conversations that I seek to have. But in those people I've interviewed, a couple of things have stuck out to me so far. Is one, they've had the support of other people, and that looks differently for different people, and sometimes that, you know, a new college graduate moving in with their grandmother where they don't have to pay rent, on their own, so that kind of gives them a leg up financially, that has been a couple people on the podcast.
[00:34:04] Randall: Being able to live with family members at the beginning part of their career. So they could save money and, you know, focus on what they're passionate about. So support has been one of those things. The other thing that has stuck out to me is that people, they've invested their 10, 000 hours into what they're passionate about right.
[00:34:23] Randall: So I think from the outsider perspective, a lot of people think that, you know like Felix Lee is really good at doing this thing. He is an overnight success. He's naturally gifted at it. But then they hear the story that you're in the military and, you know, after training, you spend all evening, working with your clients and working on freelance projects like that's how you invested your 10, 000.
[00:34:47] Randall: Right? So, having support is commonality, investing 10, 000 hours is a commonality, like one of the interviews I did early on with Greg Pryor, who I think is like episode four, but he creates food content. Right. He's not a chef. I don't think he would call himself a chef.
[00:35:06] Randall: He creates these awesome reels of him, cooking these, eccentric dishes. Right. he says, chefs hate them because they would never replicate that dish in the restaurant. He's like, I know, like I'm not a trained chef. It just tastes good. Right. But the thing I appreciate about Greg the most is that his, voiceovers of the content he's, shooting, right, of him cooking, is excellent.
[00:35:27] Randall: This script that he wrote for himself to read is fantastic. And from the outside perspective, I was like, that's fantastic. I didn't judge him one way or the other, but I was just like, that's really exceptional.
[00:35:39] Randall: He's funny, he's witty. While also being informative of like how this recipe is coming together. But then I interviewed him and then I find out that he went to college to be a screenwriter. So he has put his 10, 000 hours into screenwriting and you can see it into his work. Whereas like, if I didn't have that conversation, I would have thought that, maybe he's just, naturally witty or gifted, but, these people I've interviewed, all typically really passionate about what they're doing.
[00:36:06] Randall: They've had support along the way to get them there, and they've invested their 10, 000 hours. They're not overnight successes. At some point in time in their life, they've done the work to get good at what they're doing, today.
[00:36:19] Felix: Wow. Thanks for sharing that, man. You know, there's so much to say about the 10, 000 hours the concept of mastery.
[00:36:26] Felix: You know, I was at a dinner last nightwith a couple of students from my former school, arranged by, my former teacher, and some of them are wanting to be founders and whatnot. And one of the things that I say is that, you know, you don't want to double standard your life. And what I mean is that, you know, I told them, don't look at who I am today, there's a lot of things that I don't post on my LinkedIn, for example, whatever we just talk about, which is, you know, me, being isolated in the military and I was just working every night after trainings.
[00:36:54] Felix: These are things that you don't see. And I mean, on that side note, last week we had a huge ADP event here in Singapore. And guess what, man two of my military buddies, came and supported while they were not, they were not on ADP list yet at a time. Now they are, but last week they came just to support me and dude like, you know, telling my team, I was like, that's one of the most important moments for me, because there were so many people who doubted me back then, who saw what happened.
[00:37:23] Felix: And they were the few people who supported me by the way, and they came down and it means the world to me because they seen that journey and they know what it's like. And I remember them telling to my partner how I was like in the military, how everything was isolated for me.
[00:37:38] Felix: And I think some people, they You know, when you share stories like that, they are like, okay, you know, it's Felix story, but when you hear it for people who were the witnesses who were there, I think it gives a very different perspective. My partner knew what happened, but then when she hear it from people who were there to witness things, it's a whole new perspective for her.
[00:37:57] Felix: And so it's so important. Back to the point of me telling the students last night, I said, don't double standard things in life.I say this because There's a lot of things that are not written like this, and there's also a lot of things that I have done that I also don't write and actively promote.
[00:38:10] Felix: And so, I'll give you two examples. One, I was a top student in school when I just entered the Polytechnic, which is like the high school kind of thing, I was the top student all the way. I was always achieving the best in class. I was very good in my studies.
[00:38:21] Felix: Andso I became really good at my studies because I was obsessed with curiosity and understanding the things that I was studying, but I also wanted to be the best at what I do. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's study or whatnot, right? I just wanted to be the best. And so I became the best in school.
[00:38:36] Felix: And then, you know, one of the things that I also did in my life was I used to be a national athlete, which is a professional athlete, for Singapore. And so I used to compete in speed skating, right? Speed skating.You see, I don't write these details on my LinkedIn, on my portfolio, but I'll tell you that, at the height of my sporting career, I was easily one of the top, three to four, you know, skaters in the country.
[00:38:59] Felix: And truth to be told, there's a lot of hard work and obsession that puts into it. But then the reality is that you could look at the founder and you said, okay, he's good at startups, or you he's good at design or whatever. Right? Or you could look at his studies and you could be like, he's good at studies.
[00:39:11] Felix: And then you look at sports, it's like, oh, he's, he's good at sports as well. And then no one knows that I played a violin for like 14 years of my life as well. Look, I'm not throwing all these things out here saying that I'm an overachiever. I think what is to be said of that is that when you're put into something.
[00:39:24] Felix: You have to goddamn make sure that you do it to be the best. Like you have to have a level of obsession to be the best at what you do. And if you've seen that throughout my career, you know that I bring the same attitude, the same determination, the same passion into the places that I choose to show up.
[00:39:40] Felix: Right. And so, so that is such an important lesson because I tell my partner as well. And I tell my team, I said, look, you guys can be good here, but if you're gonna turn off your work and, you know, sit on the couch and whatever, I mean, that's fine as well, but if you're gonna do something, do it to be the god damn best.
[00:39:56] Felix: Like there's no point to be settling to be mediocre, right? And so I think you have to be expecting a standards of excellence for yourself throughout your life. Because I think when you do that, it permeates into everything you do, into the way you show up, into your work, everything.
[00:40:13] Felix: I think that is important. That is, that level of standard is something that you should expect. Everyone, I think, at least people who wants to dream, should expect out of themself when they do everything.
[00:40:22] Randall: I have a question.
[00:40:23] Randall: When you're looking to make a hire, how do you evaluate talent and then how do you decide who to hire?
[00:40:29] Felix: Wow. So I look for three things. Famously, I do look for three things. One, high energy, high energy, right? When you talk to someone, they have to exhibit this, almost like a kid that just came home from school and telling their parents, mom, dad, this is what I learned in school. The energy has to be there. It has to be like a kid that just came back from school and learned something new, and telling their parents about it. So, energy is the first thing that I look for.
[00:40:52] Felix: The second thing is high intelligence. And that means that, by the way, these are not priorities, these are all three together. And so, intelligence means this person has to be able to be a problem solver, and this person has to be good at what they do.
[00:41:05] Felix: That means that the excellence of their craft, the excellence of their field, they have to be really good at it, right? So intelligence perspective, that means that you know what you're doing. You're one of the best at it. Or you're striving and striving and learning to be the best at it. And you've got to learn fast as well. So high intelligence is a second thing.
[00:41:22] Felix: The last thing that I look for is high integrity, because integrity is such an unspoken thing, right? But you have to have high integrity to be able to do big things, to be able to do good things as well. Right? You can't be handling you know, big projects or whatever and managing people if you do not have high integrity.
[00:41:38] Felix: And so I look for three things high energy, high intelligence and high integrity. As long as someone checks all of that, I almost always make the hire within a week or so. So yeah.
[00:41:47] Randall: Excellent. Thank you. Last question. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received from a mentor?
[00:41:52] Felix: Oh, wow. This is a powerful one.
[00:41:55] Felix: So I received this piece of advice when I was 17 years old, I think 17 or 18. There's this pretty successful founder entrepreneur that is in Singapore. I said, Hey, look, what advice would you have for a 17 year old kid? And he told me this, he says, you know, don't do your best in life or in your work, do whatever it takes.
[00:42:15] Felix: It's like, what do you mean? He's like, you know, if you keep telling yourself do your best, you will always only be at your best. You wouldn't exceed that best. You wouldn't break through that best. And you're always limiting yourself at the best that you are today or tomorrow. And that fluctuates.
[00:42:30] Felix: See, when you have a goal, when you have a mission, when you're a man on a mission, do whatever it takes. Because your best will not get you there. Whatever it takes will get you there. So I was like, you know, when I hear that, it struck me because whatever it takes is so powerful because it's a message of obsession.
[00:42:47] Felix: It's a message of hard work. It's a message of determination all together. And it's a message of also pushing yourself. And to me, that was so powerful. I mean, it was almost like, knowing that for the first time, if you want to be really successful, you, you cannot just do your best and show up on weekdays, you know, you literally have to do whatever it takes.
[00:43:06] Felix: You've got to show up. You've got to take a flight to San Francisco, whatever, like whatever it takes. And that to me was the best piece of single piece of advice, because no one is going to come save you. You've got to save yourself and you have to put in all the work that you can in the world to do that.
[00:43:20] Felix: So that is my takeaway on
[00:43:22] Randall: I love that. I love that. I think that's a great place to end.
[00:43:25] Randall: So Felix Lee, thank you for sharing your story with us today. It's conversations like these that really inspire me and I hope they inspire others as well. So I'll let you go about your day, your weekend, but thank you so much for being part of the podcast and spending your time.
[00:43:40] Felix: Thanks so much for having me, man. This has been such a great experience right though.
[00:43:43] Felix: So thank you.
[00:43:44] Randall: You're welcome. Take care.
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