Join Dr. Ramesh as she brings you a fresh and alternative perspective with Ms. May Sim, Asia's premier psychological astrologer and founder of her own unique business, Selfstrology Academy. May is known for her practical, no-nonsense and structured approach to applying astrology towards achieving one's personal purpose and fulfilment.
In this episode, May shares her personal entrepreneurship journey on how she moved away from the straight and narrow career path as a financially successful general manager at the age of only 24, to take the courageous dive into her passion to build an unusual profession in Astrology.
To get May's insights, join her upcoming Global Forecast live webinar on May 14, so you can strategise for an erratic 2022-2024. Learn more & register here.
Host: Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra, Author, Podcast Host and Founder of Talent Leadership Crucible
Guest Speaker: Ms. May Sim, Founder, Astrologer, Speaker, Consultant at Selfstrology
#entrepreneurship #maysim #selfstrology #westernastrology #astrology #entrepreneur #Dr.RameshRamachandra #TheBigJumpintoEntrepreneurship2.0 #psychologicalastrologer #asiaastrologer
Join Dr. Ramesh as she brings you a fresh and alternative perspective with Ms. May Sim, Asia's premier psychological astrologer and founder of her own unique business, Selfstrology Academy. May is known for her practical, no-nonsense and structured approach to applying astrology towards achieving one's personal purpose and fulfilment.
In this episode, May shares her personal entrepreneurship journey on how she moved away from the straight and narrow career path as a financially successful general manager at the age of only 24, to take the courageous dive into her passion to build an unusual profession in Astrology.
To get May's insights, join her upcoming Global Forecast live webinar on May 14, so you can strategise for an erratic 2022-2024. Learn more & register here.
Host: Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra, Author, Podcast Host and Founder of Talent Leadership Crucible
Guest Speaker: Ms. May Sim, Founder, Astrologer, Speaker, Consultant at Selfstrology
#entrepreneurship #maysim #selfstrology #westernastrology #astrology #entrepreneur #Dr.RameshRamachandra #TheBigJumpintoEntrepreneurship2.0 #psychologicalastrologer #asiaastrologer
To get May's groundbreaking insights, join her upcoming Global Forecast live webinar on May 14, so you can strategise for an erratic 2022-2024. Learn more & register here.
Host: Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra, Author, Podcast Host and Founder of Talent Leadership Crucible
Guest Speaker: Ms. May Sim, Founder, Astrologer, Speaker, Consultant at Selfstrology
#entrepreneurship #maysim #selfstrology #westernastrology #astrology #entrepreneur #Dr.RameshRamachandra #TheBigJumpintoEntrepreneurship2.0 #psychologicalastrologer #asiaastrologer
[00:00:00] Lai Yun: Hello and a warm welcome to Thriving In the Age of Disruption. Today we have Dr. Ramesh with Ms. May Sim, who is Asia's premier psychological astrologer, and founder of her own unique business Selfstrology academy, which is a psychological astrology academy training hundreds of astrologers around the world.
If you’re interested hear to her live, to get the global forecast so you can strategise for an erratic 2022-2024, do visit www.selfstrology.com to register to attend her next public webinar, coming up this Saturday, on May 14th.
[00:00:48] Dr. Ramesh: Welcome May to this Thriving In the Age of Disruption podcast series. We're excited to have you because you're going to bring a fresh new perspective. We want to give our listeners [00:01:00] an alternative or a fresh perspective to life and life today is one which is full of disruption.
The first question that I have for you is to share a little bit about yourself growing up.
[00:01:13] May Sim: I grew up in Singapore and apart from the fact that I didn't come from a particularly wealthy family, I don't think I've had a difficult life. For the most part, I would say I've been very lucky with a good family. I've got good parents. I went to many of the good schools here in Singapore. So, the funny thing is with this kind of background, it is even more unusual for somebody to go into an entrepreneurship journey and of all things to be an astrologer.
In terms of looking at disruption, I also feel that because of the nature of how peaceful life is and the truth is if you come from a good background, all the more, you have a much better foundation to go into business because unlike most people who could be struggling to pay the bills or whichever, I had a lot of support from my family.
I [00:02:00] did feel very strongly that I did not want to go into the usual career, join a big MNC, join the government. I felt there is a very important impulse to go into a different path. And on hindsight, it's been quite important that many people have come up to me to say that this is what they wanted to do as well.
I had parents who didn't act like I was a witch or something. They were quite okay with it, apart from the fact that my father told me that, "If you want to do this, go ahead. But if you don't make any money in a couple of years, maybe think about going back to your full-time job." That was the deal I had with him. They did have some doubts about my ability to make a living from such a strange profession.
[00:02:39] Dr. Ramesh: You're pointing to something interesting that I talked about in my recent book, The Big Jump Into Entrepreneurship 2.0, and that is that one of the biggest barriers to entrepreneurship in a country like Singapore, where we are a developed country and life is good and comfortable and especially, for yourself because you have the privilege of going to good schools. [00:03:00] Your definition of success and your career path is almost well-defined. There's only one track, if you want to be that a successful story. So, to come out of that track and to explore the less defined pathway called ‘entrepreneurship’ is actually a risky, scary, and more importantly, it's a huge opportunity loss.
I love the fact that in your sharing, you talked about how your family was able to embrace that alternative career path that you were looking at.
[00:03:30] May Sim: You bring up a few points. The first is when you talked about how this kind of background in Singapore, doesn't usually lead somebody into an entrepreneurship path. My journey has been described by a lot of people as being like a sacrifice or I didn't get to be in a big career. I haven't seen this to be a sacrifice at all. And I remember once going to an event and someone asking me, "What would you do if you didn't have to work anymore?" And my response was, "Teach astrology." This is what I would have done.
And [00:04:00] if I had gone the usual path had I become a teacher or like a business executive in an MNC, I would have been dreaming about the day that financially I could just walk away from all of that and just teach astrology for a living.
[00:04:16] Dr. Ramesh: May, can you give us a quick description for what is 'astrology'? You know, I'm curious, could you see what sort of careers we would have?
[00:04:23] May Sim: For the listeners who are not as familiar with astrology, most people think that you would be just that one site that you are a Gemini or a Libra, or a Scorpio, but the chart is actually a very complicated thing.
And one of the things that I teach people at the basic level is this concept of the elements. It's fire, earth, and water. Most of the time when we talk about spiritual type careers, things like astrology and meditation and that kind of stuff, you would probably expect to find somebody who was more of a fiery person, somebody who wanted to discover more about the world, to connect with the divine, but also with the water element where [00:05:00] it's more associated with emotions and connecting with nature.
The funny thing is I'm actually an earth dominant. You would associate earth people more with the business world, somebody who was able to put lots of zeros on a contract and to build buildings. But I see things in a very different way because when I chose this career path, I was never intending to be like a new age, a very strange person and talk about things that most people wouldn't understand.
I was quite determined to talk about astrology, build my expertise in it, but also to bring this to people who wouldn't normally be looking at astrology. That means to companies, to schools, to parents, to be able to show them, "Hey, look! This is something you can use." And in that sense, I brought perhaps a bit of an unusual perspective to astrology. I'm not so interested in having people connect with goddesses or just to see the wonder of astrology. But I'm a practical person and I want people to use it, to have [00:06:00] to contribute better to their careers, make better use of their life.
[00:06:03] Dr. Ramesh: So, astrology from how you described it is definitely transformational because it gives people an alternative to looking at their life from a new perspective. And what I wanted to ask you was, how do people access you and get to know about your services?
[00:06:19] May Sim: The majority of my customers and the people who get to know about us do so via YouTube. It's a great platform where people can get to know your perspectives and also to tell stories about how people can apply what you have taught them. Also a great way to make things fun. Sometimes these topics can get really serious and people just want to have a laugh some every now and then.
I've been building an app for the last two and a half years really. And the app should be ready sometime this year. What we are really aiming for is that it's a platform where people can get to use this model that I've created. Because otherwise astrology is a really esoteric topic that most people won't understand. [00:07:00] Or if you went and asked somebody about their charts, they would just look at you blankly because they have no idea what exactly is on it. The app is a great way for me to download what, what I would have interpreted for people on their charts anyway.
It's an automated system, but that's how we use technology to create skill for what we are trying to achieve rather than me having to do it for each person, one by one.
[00:07:21] Dr. Ramesh: I wanted to also shout out that you were able to do that because you actually invented a very cool profiling tool.
You clustered people into 25 different categories. What about these 25 profiles? Is there something that you can give us a short introduction to us?
[00:07:40] May Sim: Primarily the easiest way to understand this PA profile, it's short for psychological astrology, it's like a profiling system. Most people are familiar with MBTI or DiSC. So, instead of 4 profiles or 16 profiles, we've got 25 of these. And unlike the other profiling systems where you are just ‘one profile’.
So, you're not just an [00:08:00] ‘ENTJ’, but with profiling, with this psychological astrology, a person isn't just one. I found that an average person will trigger between 9 to 19 profiles, but it also explains why an average person can have very different attitudes to different things.
We've all seen this, like somebody who is a very powerful dominating force in the corporate room, in the boardroom, but then gets his children climbing all over him at home. So, is he a tyrant or is he a pushover? And you realise, it also explains why some very, very successful women go to pieces when they are on the first date.
They can be eloquent with the United nations, but have no idea what to say to a man. This explains a lot of things and there's a lot of frustration in professionals. There are financial professionals who can sort out the finances of all their customers, but can mess up their own finances and they don't know why.
As a diagnostic tool, it's great because for all of intelligent people, when you try to apply the usual kind of frameworks to [00:09:00] identifying problems, sometimes things just fall right to the cracks. Because there are psychological reasons why people are unable to do things, and we all understand this as emotional reasons or something at the back of your mind.
For many of our students, what's very ground-breaking for them is to be able to put English words, to be able to say, in human language, what is that really strange feeling that you've got in there when you have to say, "Yes" but you just cannot bring yourself to say "Yes." Everything screams "Say Yes!" but in your heart that there is this fear, and this is also the reason why you have people saying that “I got face to face with my dream.
I knew that if I just said "Yes", I could get everything I want.” But it's that moment where you just cannot, it's a fear of your own greatness sometimes too. It's that feeling.
[00:09:46] Dr. Ramesh: And people get to unlock that because we can't see it and we are constrained by the environment that we live in, which tells us we are this type, but with this new self-awareness that they get from the profiling they can [00:10:00] actually now trust a new path.
I love the fact that you've actually used psychological astrology and you combine the two and, it's a new way of coaching people, mentoring people. There's a science to it and there's an art to it. So, kudos to you.
[00:10:15] May Sim: Well, I'm trying to use this to highlight a few other things about the world as well. A good example would be if you were in any kind of career, most parents would say that “getting a promotion was a good thing.” If you started out as a bartender, usually it's not uncommon in most societies to be, "Oh, the bartender, he's not very high up or he doesn't get a very high salary."
And if you got promoted to being, say, the restaurant manager, then your mother would be a lot prouder of you. That would be the conventional idea. But you see, for most bartenders, there are certain skill sets that they're really good at. They can talk to anyone and they might love the creative side of creating a drink for somebody who's walked in and doesn't look like he's having a good day. But you see when you promote a bartender to become the bar manager, now he's looking at Excel [00:11:00] sheets. He's hiding in the backroom right now, answering emails from angry customers and having to deal with the board. And he doesn't get to talk to the customers anymore.
There's nothing creative about his work. He doesn't even get to touch the drinks anymore. For a lot of people, they accept promotions because the conventional wisdom is that you've now improved yourself or that you've gotten a higher salary or higher status, but not realizing afterwards why you are so miserable in your job, because then you're not using the skills that are intrinsic to you.
One of the beautiful things about PA or psychological astrology is going in the face of what most of us think is the norm. I've seen so many people realizing that they've got options here that is quite possible for somebody to refuse a promotion, because it means that I get to continue doing what I do best.
And knowing that you are taking responsibility for the decisions that we make as adults.
[00:11:55] Dr. Ramesh: If I'm willing to live with that less salary or give up the [00:12:00] opportunity to move up, it's fine because I'm doing what I love. Which is to be at the bar, serving the drinks to my customers and chatting them up.
[00:12:08] May Sim: In fact, I would challenge that sometimes it's that wonderful bartender who is such a good host, who actually is the reason for the success of the bar and even challenging the fact of why is he earning less than the bar manager sometimes.
[00:12:21] Dr. Ramesh: I love where you're going with this. So, you're saying that if I'm a restauranteur who owns the bar, I may want to now look at different KPIs and different ways to remunerate people because the stickiness for the bar is actually coming from the bartender who's serving the customer, the frontline person.
Not the person who is doing all that so-called management and leadership functions.
[00:12:43] May Sim: This is why it's amazing because especially as we start to get very high-level people taking an interest in this tool, we are starting to get leaders to rethink the way we determine whether someone's doing a good job or not.
If you look at most companies KPIs, as you mentioned, Ramesh, it's so [00:13:00] square. It's all about, "Oh, how many emails have you sent or how many business deals have you brought in?" But without any KPIs that measure, for example, the level of the relationship that someone has been able to build with their customers, which for most of us as experienced entrepreneurs know is much more valuable than having a hundred new customers.
Sometimes it's just not being measured. And there's just no way of being able to reward people for having skills and to contribute in ways that are not measured by a conventional sense.
[00:13:29] Dr. Ramesh: I totally agree with you, in our own consulting practice, we actually encourage the companies that we work with to look at as sustainable success in business.
They're not KPIs because KPIs practically kill the company and the individuals' initiative and creativity. The company doesn't grow anyway because someone who is doing something in marketing may actually be counterproductive to someone else in accounting. But because it's a KPI, we're all doing our part, but it's never the whole [00:14:00] that we're looking at.
[00:14:01] May Sim: Western astrology has really updated itself because people nowadays, they don't want to go to an astrologer as a fortune teller.
They don't want to sit there and go, "Okay, tell me what my 2022 is going to be like, or am I going to get a promotion?" People still ask these questions to some extent, but more and more they're looking at ways to have more control over their lives. Even if you don't get a promotion, for example, you don't get a contract, rather than just saying, "Well, here's just the way it is."
"You are just unlucky or it's just not in your stars." The average person now isn't going to accept an answer like that. They want to know why. “It's fine if I don't get the contract. But the thing is, I've noticed that I haven't been getting contracts for the last two years, and I want to know why.”
And when a person asked that question, it means that they want to fix something. Is it something that you've said? Is it the way that you have presented your business? Just it’s distasteful, for example, to the customers, for whatever reason, and people want to know so that they can take responsibility for their lives.
That's where Western astrology has set itself apart [00:15:00] from some modalities, most modalities are going in that direction of self-empowerment. But I think Western astrology is one of the first.
[00:15:08] Dr. Ramesh: Hmm. Interesting. I love what you've just said because not only can it give us a new perspective to life and our current circumstances, it also can help us to maybe live out the life that we really seek.
Because all of us are looking for something and by asking the questions and looking at it from, "What is it that I need to live and be who I am?" versus, "Where I was born or what I've inherited or the circumstances that I currently am", it would allow people to now be able to live their lives to the fullest.
Is there anything that people should keep in mind when they come for an astrological reading? Sometimes people can be impacted or influenced by actually negative information, especially if they had gone to an [00:16:00] astrologer, who's doing the fortune telling modality, right.
How can people deal with that?
[00:16:05] May Sim: When I first started as an astrologer there was a high level of eagerness to do, to tell the customer as much as I could. Over the years, some of the rules that I've developed in consultation is that I never actually tell people about events that are beyond say a reasonable time period of 18 months. And there is a reason why I've come up with 18 months. Because let's put it this way, Ramesh, if I were to tell you about something that will happen, say five years from now, the truth is there's a very good chance that you have no idea what I'm talking about.
And there's a very good chance that it's not that I'm describing a project that you can do something about right now, because if we did it the other way, and if I said, "Okay, well five years ago, if I told you that COVID was going to happen and that you would have to do all these things for your business, you would have no idea what and it would have given you sleepless nights."
Because then you'll be worried about your team and how everyone's going to cope. And it wasn't as if you could do anything about COVID anyway. [00:17:00] My experience tells me that most people plan just about 18 months in advance. Even as a business owner, even as a member of your family, people are really afraid of this idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. But experience has told me if you stick within a period of about 18 months, the things that I tell people don't surprise them at all.
If I were to tell them, for example, even if it's bad news, even if it's, "Oh, I have a feeling you're not going to have your job in March,” for example, I've never actually had somebody go, "Oh really? Why would that happen?" It never surprises them because sometimes they will tell me things like, "Oh yes, I haven't been performing at work", or it could be that "My company's already started talking about closing down."
So, it's the same thing with business owners as well. If I were to tell them that it's quite likely that you might give up one of your products, for example, and it never surprises the business owner, because they might say things like, "Well, the market's changed and I've been thinking, too, about giving up this product."
What it does do then is giving people a [00:18:00] sense of where the timeline is so that they can make practical preparations. Telling people about things that are going to happen way beyond, imagine telling a 19-year-old that you're going to get cancer when you're 62, that's the best way to give somebody sleepless nights for the next 40 years about something that you have no control over.
The best thing about a timeline of about 18 months means that people can see in very practical terms. If we know that say a business has to move from one country to another in a period of, say, 13 months' time, then any self-respecting business owner, they'll start making plans.
They'll start going out, "I need to do some research. Maybe I need to get in touch with a lawyer. Maybe I need to have a chat with my team", because then is it true that you might have plans to move your business to another country? It's time to start the conversation now than to drop a bomb on your people after. It puts people in an action-oriented mindset rather than sitting around, just fretting about situations.
In terms of a self-fulfilling [00:19:00] prophecy, I honestly haven't actually seen it genuinely happen yet because like I said, first of all, the things don't surprise people. I also make a habit of looking backwards instead. So, if I were to look, say, two years ago, if I can do a calculation for what's going to happen in 18 months, I can do a calculation for what happened 18 months ago.
And then there would be no argument for a self-fulfilling prophecy, because then if I don't know my client and I don't know the circumstances of their life, there is no way that I would be able to tell the story of what happened to you 18 months ago. If that is exactly the way it is, then it gives that credibility for how people can plan for what's coming up.
The nature of the divination of astrology is that people think it's some kind of magic, " How do you know this thing is going to happen at this time?" You see the way predictions work in astrology is that it's about how the planets of a specific time interact with your birth chart.
If you look at [00:20:00] a million people in the world, we all have the same planets in the sky. It's not a different story for each person. The only thing that's different is who we are. And that's why for some people COVID was an opportunity to try something that they've not tried before.
For some people COVID was the nail in the coffin for a job that was already hanging at the edges. There are people who are struggling with things like family problems, relationship problems, and I've spoken with a lot of these people. And in fact, many of these people have said that "Well, it wasn't like the problems didn't exist before COVID", it was perhaps COVID had brought the issues up.
I like to think of events happening in our lives, whether they're as big as COVID or they're just an argument that we have with somebody that it surfaces where people have not been in integrity in their lives. Astrology gives people the vocabulary to identify issues for what they are so that intelligent people can address them and move on. Even the opportunities that come up, it's not like people jump into a business because they just felt like it [00:21:00] yesterday. Most people who go on and do wonderful things have thought about it for a very long time. Sometimes it takes an event or some kind of catalyst to have people take action.
And one of the best examples I can share is this wonderful woman who was in one of my programs. She was a microbiologist at a local hospital here in Singapore. And when she came in, when she introduced herself, she was so cute. And she said, "I'm a microbiologist. I deal with germs. And I work in a country that has no germs.” She said that “Singapore is a really, really clean country with some of the best hospitals here. And I sometimes feel that I'm not doing what I can do for the world.” I've asked her, “Look, I'm not a microbiologist. And where would you go so that you could contribute best?”
She said, "Well, lots of third world countries don't have clean water. People don't even drink water." And I've asked her, "What's stopping you from going there?" Looking at her chart, she found a lot of her skillsets, including a risk-taking element, it didn't scare her to go to countries where they don't have proper toilets.
In fact, she [00:22:00] wanted to go there. She said, "That's why I'm there. I want to create proper toilets for people." Three days after she completed my program, she sent a WhatsApp message to one of my guys and she had applied to the United Nations to be on their team for a specific project she had been eyeing for a very long time, that was creating proper water supply.
They were going to do some manipulation to the water supply so that people could have toilets and they could drink. She did.
[00:22:25] Dr. Ramesh: Wow. Well, thank you for spending the time with us to decode astrology and its intersection with psychology.
I have been enriched and I took away three key points and one is that engaging in astrology with you can be action-oriented because you actually use that 18-month timeframe before and after. I'm looking at things that I can touch and impact as action. You also talked about giving a vocabulary and that's an important piece. And the last piece that I got was that it is an access to be who we want to be and who we [00:23:00] really are. Those are really three powerful takeaways on astrology.
[00:23:09] Dr. Ramesh: I want to now make a segue into the other parts of the conversation today. We are living in a world of profound change. And what it means is that there's disruption in all areas of our lives, whether it's at the workplace or whether it is in our families.
One of the things that I found to be useful has been a couple of mindsets. And the first mindset that I use is the mindset around being entrepreneurial. And the second mindset, of course, is being someone who's like crisis-ready, because you're able to take the necessary actions to pivot.
And in some ways, if you're an entrepreneur, you are able to blend these two because there is no guaranteed pathway for an entrepreneur, you have to figure it out. What do you think about entrepreneurial [00:24:00] mindset?
[00:24:00] May Sim: Yeah. I think the entrepreneurial mindset has a few core pillars to it. The first is always creativity. It's the kind of creativity, I don't mean painting or dancing, I'm talking about being able to be resourceful. And another big pillar about entrepreneurship is solving problems that it's not just a career and it's not just a way of making a living. It's seeing what problems that are in the world, and then getting together whatever resources by any means just to make it happen.
This is one of the real reasons why I totally agree here about entrepreneurship being the solution to disruption that's happening in the world right now. There's too much of this waiting around and maybe somebody else will come up with their solution or people do need to take action.
[00:24:46] Dr. Ramesh: Entrepreneurship fundamentally is about generating ideas to solve a problem and to manage the risk. And if you had to use one word, it's about being resourceful. [00:25:00] Everyone can be resourceful in life. And that's a core skillset, especially for this new world that we all live in.
So, I guess the astrology school would be your first business. How did you make the leap? I recollect you were someone who was very successful at work, very young at 24. So, share a little bit about the journey, your early career and why you left and started your own business.
[00:25:27] May Sim: When I first joined this safety company, I was part of a safety consultancy. I was employee 001. When I joined the company, it was just the boss and I was the first employee. In a sense, I was drawing a salary, but let's just say we built that company together. I was working for a very young boss at the time who was very inexperienced, so we took the risks together.
I remember at one point in my first year as an employee, we ran out of money. So, someone had to pay the rent for [00:26:00] our office. And I paid the rent. My boss paid me back after, but I don't think you see very many employees doing things like that. At the time when my father found out he was quite mad because he said, "Well, first of all, they didn't pay your salary. And you went and paid the rent, too." But you see, it comes right down to entrepreneurship. It is also about believing in the cause of what we are doing. And I believed in what my company was doing, which was bringing safety. Something that my boss said was that “safety only matters when people value life.”
And if we don't value the lives of all the Bangladeshi and Indian workers who are on our construction sites, then what's the point of all the song and dance and pretending that we care about safety. That was what got me to stay with the company for as long as I did. We experimented with a lot of things but there was a lot of risk-taking, I got a deal with ExxonMobil at the time.
And it was unthinkable because we were a two-man company. People wanted to know how it happened. Well, here's the short version. I called the 1800 number. Because I was 21. I didn't know anybody in the industry at all. I asked for the number to the safety department.
And then I asked for the number to the safety [00:27:00] management department. And I just asked for the number of the safety manager and I got him on the phone and I had no idea what to say to him because then I didn't think that far. I sort of told him that I've got a safety system and I wanted to present it to him.
He just gave me access to Jurong Island. So, I told my boss, I said, "We are going in for a presentation." And he was like, "What?" And we just went in there and we did the presentation and came up with a program on the spot. We listened to what they needed. And we came out of the program and we had no idea how we were going to run it.
But we did. It's like when you get the contract, you think afterwards, "How can we make this happen?" We had to be resourceful. So, maybe we needed frameworks, we needed equipment, none of which we had the money to pay for. You just find the money to pay for it.
And one contract led to another, so you get ExxonMobil in the bag and before it, you have Shell Chemicals, you've got Shell Petroleum and that was how the company grew. Even as an employee, one of the things that I was very lucky to have experienced was working in a very, very small company.
Like with most [00:28:00] people I think they join a large organization where you are one person in one department. If you join the accounts department, you really only get to see what happens in the accounts department, but you never actually get to see what happens in operations or in management. One of the advantages of joining a terribly small SMEs that you see everything and the advantages of building from the bottom also meant that while most people think that I was very brave to start my own company, but I had seen how somebody can build from a two-man company to having a three-story building of their own. I have a lot of admiration for how my boss did it.
[00:28:34] Dr. Ramesh: Wow, that's really great. And I'm glad that you brought this up today because the entrepreneurial mindset can be applied in any situation even if you work for another person as an employee.
You've just described the whole process of going to work in a start-up, which was also a very, very small company. And because your boss was open enough to allow you to contribute, [00:29:00] almost equally growing that business.
So, yes, when you've had that experience, when you started your own astrology school, it was not as daunting. There must've been something more intrinsic that had you look at, "Why do I want to go out and start my own business, my own journey?"
[00:29:19] May Sim: It sounds weird. It started going a bit downhill. Once we became very successful, because what I experienced was that the contracts got bigger, the clients got more and more illustrious, but it also meant that I got further and further away from the action.
One of the problems with having a three-story building is that when you're the manager, your office is on the third floor, you get a nice window looking down at all the activity that's going on down there, but I'm not getting my hands dirty. I got to a point where I was the person who put zeros on a contract, but I was never really at the site, I wasn't involved.
When I was just starting out, it was quite fun and you got to deal with participants. When you get to a certain level in your career, then you deal with the project managers and the board of directors. And I started to see decision-making that I didn't like.
I started to see people making decisions that affect that everyone in the company that didn't always put the [00:30:00] benefit of the people we said we cared about at the forefront. And I decided I didn't want to be part of that.
When I started making a very decent salary, one of the things that I wanted to do at the time was to buy property, which is very expensive here in Singapore.
I was 24 when I walked into one of those condominium showrooms and I bought myself a unit. It was something I bought it with a friend and I remember collecting my keys and excitedly going to the unit and feeling very proud of myself for having achieved this. I remember sitting down in an empty condominium unit and feeling a bit empty. Feeling like, "Is this it?" because if I were to extrapolate into my future and I was doing well in my career, so what could I expect more would be more of such properties. And I suppose putting a lot of tenants in there and collecting lots of rent, and I didn't think it was something that I looked forward to.
In that moment, I just realised how empty it was. I didn't quit my job immediately after that. I [00:31:00] stuck on for a while, but it became quite clear that I wanted a new career that would allow me to deal with real people, real issues. And I also realised in that moment that I didn't really care whether I became a multimillionaire or not. It didn't matter. I needed one roof over my head and that's all I needed. I didn't need the extra.
[00:31:20] Dr. Ramesh: That's really great. This is something that I'm also familiar with when I did the same with my technology company, where we grew it and raised money. Sometimes as you go higher and you see more success, that's when it starts to be a downhill. That's number one.
Number two is that when you got to see the inner workings of corporate world and the inner workings of how decisions are made and how in reality that, on the one hand, we say "safety is important, lives matter." But at the end of the day, it's all about business and that it's really so inconsistent. What do you do [00:32:00] when your values are jolted because safety touches every single human being.
The third piece that you described when you had your first property and you were sitting in there, right? And how that empty house, in some ways, also for foretold that emptiness. With all that material success, it is really courageous to be able to find another way to express your passion in the world, to work with real people on their real issues. And to say that "What matters to me is not so important because, the basics are handled and how many roofs do I need over my head?"
[00:32:40] May Sim: It sounds very noble when you put it this way. But I do want to have a disclaimer that there were times when I started my business and start-from-scratch entrepreneurs know that in your first year, there are times when not very much money comes in. And I remember sitting in a rented office that cost me like just a room that didn't even have [00:33:00] a proper ceiling.
And I remember sitting there in the dark one day and just wondering how stupid I've been, I've just walked away from a very fancy place in a nice company. Why give it up to sit all alone in the dark, in a tiny little room where I've just been seeing astrology clients. Why do that?
There were times when I did think I was very stupid for having given it up. And there were times where I did think that maybe I should just go back because it wasn't like I wouldn't be hired back. You keep on to it because you don't want to give yourself a backdoor and that's something that's very, very important. When you leave, the idea is you don't want to think about the potential for failure, because to me, when it comes to business, there is no such thing as failure, really. There is a down time and then there is a way of getting out of it.
That's where the resourcefulness comes in, because then you want to look at the problems behind the business and then deal with it. And it's a story every entrepreneur can resonate with.
[00:33:59] Dr. Ramesh: [00:34:00] Totally, totally. You're pointing to a very important piece that, there are the ups and downs. You're also pointing to something very important, what’d you do when it's a down period?
[00:34:11] May Sim: It comes back to what was the reason for starting your business in the first place, because then if it was money, it would have been easier to just stay in my job. Right? If you want to do this and knowing the risks and the financial sacrifice, it's got to count for something and what will be the outcome?
Like I said, entrepreneurs are result-oriented. Me giving up would mean that there would be no marginal benefit to this anymore. Taking a spiritual or divine view to this, sometimes when you're at the lowest and then you get a WhatsApp and somebody just asked, "Can I book an appointment?"
You just pull yourself together to reply them and say, "Well, I'm available on Tuesday at 3:00 PM." So, there's the next client. And then somebody comes in and say, "Well, thank you. This has really helped me." It keeps you going for another five clients and then it keeps you going for another 15.
There are [00:35:00] days when you wake up and you feel terrible, but then you go off to work and then you're in your element. And you forget that you're not feeling well sometimes. It's just like that. It's just getting on with it really. It's not romantic, but it's the real solution to all these problems.
[00:35:15] Dr. Ramesh: May, you may want to consider that whatever that you are doing is connected to your life purpose and that's what has you get up and continue and be happy and excited, irrespective of the zeros that you have in your bank balance. Because it serves your life. It fulfills you. That's an important piece for entrepreneurs to actually discover because if they went in to start a business, thinking that it was all hunky-dory and they were going to make millions, then they're in for a rude shock.
You have to keep adapting, pivoting and self-motivating yourself throughout that journey, because it's the freedom that you get being an entrepreneur.
[00:35:57] May Sim: I don't know if you felt the same way, Ramesh, but I [00:36:00] remember that when I was in my late twenties, when I'm pretty broke and I remember at one point I didn't even have money to top up my EZ-Link Card. It was that bad. When you're broke really, and I've been there, it's that feeling of, "Well I'm going to make this work.” It's that hunger, that “I just don't have a choice I'm going to make this work.”
It's that moment where an entrepreneur knows that they're not giving their business up, ever. It's that moment if you don't have that moment, it's like that conviction just isn't there.
[00:36:29] Dr. Ramesh: So well said, thank you, May.
[00:36:34] Dr. Ramesh: So now I'm going to move to another topic. Which is about spirituality. Can you share a little bit about your spiritual journey and spirituality?
[00:36:42] May Sim: When I first started as an astrologer, I was so new to this industry of spirituality. I attended a lot of classes. I learned about meditation, tarot cards, essential oils. I want to explore everything. Over time, I've sort of realised that [00:37:00] spirituality doesn't necessarily refer to the activities that we do.
I think spirituality is down to a perspective of life. If we think of spirituality as detaching ourselves from a lot of these material concerns of life. I like to think of astrology as being like a blueprint for what your soul has chosen, because a lot of people have asked me, how do you justify positions of planets describing how we are as people?
I like to think of it as some kind of a language. I don't have any illusions about like energies from the planets and I'm not that kind of astrologer, but I like to think of it as a language. And the plotting of the planets tells a story. I like to believe that, as souls, we choose what challenges to take up in this life.
But the chart beautifully also describes the resources that we have. Some people speak really well. Some people are very good withdrawing or music or they're fantastic cooks, for example. So, it's about having people recognise that here's the hand of cards that you've been dealt with when you were born and how you want to [00:38:00] play the game.
That's the real conversation. And that spirituality is in recognising this is what I have, and here's what I don't have. But you're not going to focus on that because like you said, it's about the resourcefulness to make up for what we don't have because nobody gets born with everything.
So here's where I have a bit of a controversial opinion is that one problem that I see with spirituality nowadays. There are a resurgence of mindfulness and people going for yoga or feeling like they have to eat vegetarian food or be vegan or whatever.
There's a lot of focus on the activity that if I do these 10 things, I'm spiritual. And I haven't seen that happen because then these people are still stuck in jobs they don't like, or they still feel like they have to pay top dollar for the best yoga class. I'm sorry if this offends some people, but I don't see this as being spiritual, necessarily.
A lot of this spirituality has become very egoistic. It's all about me and whether I'm getting the help that I need. And [00:39:00] they think that if they go to a spiritual practitioner of some sort that “you will cure me of my depression or can you make my life better?”
And I don't think that's what spirituality is about. I mean, spirituality, as far as I can see, looking into the charts, it's about a person's resources, what you were born with. This thing about a purpose. We talk about life purpose a lot. Even if I were to pick up a cup like this, a cup has a purpose is to serve some kind of function. It's got to hold water because the day, it doesn't hold water anymore, it no longer has a purpose. And the purpose doesn't serve the cup, it serves whoever else is benefiting from the cup. One of the things that people haven't figured out about life purpose is that this is not about you.
It's not about what you were meant to do or "Oh, I'm awesome. I'm some great motivator." A life purpose is how useful you are to other people. If you're not doing anything that's useful for other people, then you don't have a purpose. You could expire in the next five minutes. It's possible that no one might notice because you don't have a purpose to anybody.
This self-centeredness is one of the [00:40:00] things that I have been rather concerned about with this resurgence of spirituality in the world, and lots of people asking, "What's my life purpose?" I usually turn it around by asking them, "Well, what are you capable of doing? And who can you benefit?" Because that's how you find a purpose.
[00:40:15] Dr. Ramesh: I really love you contextualising this whole superficial relationship that people have now to spirituality where they think it's an inward journey about “myself and who I am,” but forget to then connect with the fact that they are part of this universal system. This thing "who I am" is also one with the rest of the world and what is the collective consciousness? That word collective consciousness is missing in the world. And thank you for really saying it in a very simple and straightforward way for our listeners. I totally agree with you and thank you as usual for being so candid. [00:41:00]
[00:41:00] Dr. Ramesh: The next question is, can we live a simple life? Is that possible, going forward in the next 10 years?
[00:41:07] May Sim: The real answer to that is I don't think people are going to have a choice. If you're looking at what's happening in the world right now with supply chains and the walls and all the other stuff, climate change, dealing with the realities of shortages that are going to happen in the world. I don't think anybody's going to be able to get away from it. So, living a simple life, just to put it in context, is that we’re not going to have a choice.
And the second thing is also that if the COVID pandemic has done anything good for humanity, it is also proving to people that you can have a simple life that lots of people have not been to their fancy offices in the last two years. You haven't had places to wear your fancy clothes to for a long time. Many people have been working on Zoom and people really can only see you from chest upwards anyway. So, who cares about your shoes anyway?
For the people who are willing to see the message, what we have all gone through in the last two years has convinced people that you absolutely can [00:42:00] live a life that's simple. It also challenges people to realise how much you can do even if you are not necessarily out there in a fancy car. And there's so much that people can do with very authentic conversations. And if you do leave your house to do something, what the governments call essential services. You're only starting to realise that you don't actually do have to leave your house unless you're doing something that benefits humanity.
So, in terms of living a simple life for the people who can see the message. They should have gotten it in loud and clear in the last two years. And for the people who are just waiting for, "Oh, I want to go show off my car,” or whatever it is, they didn't get the message and I'm not sure if anything as big as the pandemic is ever going to happen again in their lives. And if they haven't gotten the message, it might be a very difficult next few decades for them, especially if they start to realise that the material life that people have led or taken for granted in the last few decades, couple hundred years, [00:43:00] is just not going to be the same again. Yeah.
Also, living a simple life is, I don't know about you, Ramesh, but I find it to be so liberating that I haven't had to go and think about what to wear, or I can just teach a class and focus on what I'm going to say or what questions people will be asking. I don't really have to worry about, I don't know, whether my office looks high class or not. It's been very liberating for me and it's a very viable way for people that live their lives in the upcoming years.
[00:43:31] Dr. Ramesh: Yeah. Not only that, we can make an impact with all the climate change and consumerism that we complain about because, what do we really need to be happy? What do we really need to be healthy? And what do we really need to be able to contribute and to know that we are fulfilled?
And like you said, the writing is on the wall. We are transitioning whether it is from the astrological perspective or whether it is [00:44:00] from the world of COVID and the kind of diseases that will keep coming, or the supply chain interruptions that are going to have us move from being global to very much local.
I think it's an important area for people to start exploring because to live a simple life is also another kind of mindset. It's a mindset where we are willing to say that “even if I can afford it, and even if I have all this, why can't I live a simple life? To be able to set all that aside.”
[00:44:30] May Sim: When the pandemic was the worst and I remember running a webinar where I challenged my audience to keep a journal or just to take note of what are the items that you actually use and touch, on a daily basis. And there's a very good chance that if you monitor yourself for a week, you might really only use the same 50 items in your house. It's that same thing.
It's just the toothbrush. Maybe your toothpaste, your favourite mug, maybe your favourite coffee, but you have all that stuff [00:45:00] that's in your house, that you have forgotten about it's in a drawer somewhere. You've got closets, you've got basements, you've got attics. We've filled with stuff that you don't even touch, and you don't even remember that you own.
And if you lost all of that, would that be such a tragedy? You might not even notice and you absolutely can live your life on a daily basis with just that 50 items that is serving a purpose for yourself every day. And you can live without the rest. Don't need it.
[00:45:26] Dr. Ramesh: That's right. Well listeners, the writing is on the wall and as much as we have the means and the ability to have all that we want, are we willing, however, to consider living a simple life, because it is about a mindset and maybe we should start to consider that because things might not be the same.
May, it has been really great having you here for the interview. Thank you once again.
[00:45:52] May Sim: Thank you.
Lai Yun: Thank you Dr. Ramesh and Ms. May Sim.
If you want to hear more from Ms. Sim, her upcoming webinar on Saturday May 14th, is the ideal opportunity for you to get the global forecast for 2022-2024.
Do visit www.selfstrology.com to register for “The Second Wave: Raise The Siren” webinar, which covers the following topics:
. Putin Vs The World: Is It World War III?
. The Other Power Struggle - Global Finance & The Energy Crisis
. Digital Tech Developments, Food Supply and the Post-Pandemic Job Market
Next up we have the CEO of Speedcargo, Dr. Krishna Kumar Nallur. Speedcargo brings innovative AI, that's Artificial Intelligence, and robotics solutions to the logistics industry.
We loved having you join us today. Thank you, and be sure to catch Dr. Krishna in his journey of career and personal growth in our next podcast episode with Dr. Ramesh.
Bio
Ms. May Sim, Founder, Astrologer, Speaker, Consultant at Selfstrology
May Sim is the region’s premier Psychological Astrologer, and is known for her dynamic personality, stage presence and a razor-sharp wit, drawing speaking engagements with audiences of hundreds at Facebook, Fortinet, Omega, RADO, Hansgrohe and government organisations like the Health Sciences Authority and E2i.
She is the first Asian to graduate from the International Academy of Astrology (Cleveland, Ohio), she is now a member of their faculty, and the author of their syllabus for Psychological Astrology.
Founder of her own astrology academy, Selfstrology Academy, is Asia’s #1 psychology astrology academy, and has trained hundreds of astrologers around the world, from as far as Brazil, Ukraine and Switzerland.
Her personal experience the courage to move away from a successful career as a General Manager at the age of 24 in Height Safety company, to pursue a unique profession in Astrology has inspired many others to have the similar confidence to do so in their careers.
May is extremely passionate about topics relating to careers and how unique individuals should fully pursue and use their strengths to achieve personal fulfilment, as described in their astrological profiles.
Many of her clients and students are top executives, business owners, entrepreneurs and coaches who currently find dissatisfaction in their careers wishes to move towards empowering and transformative growth in their work.