Ep 61: How I Built a $200M Business Without Crossing These 5 Lines ft. Ying Cong
Summary
What happens when a startup founder takes Buddhist precepts seriously — not just in meditation halls, but in high-pressure boardrooms and tough layoff conversations? In this candid episode, we speak with Ying Cong, co-founder of Glints, on what it means to lead a company without losing yourself. He shares how his practice of the Dhamma has shaped everything from how he hires and manages people, to how he navigates co-founder conflict and difficult decisions — all while trying to be firm in kindness.
About the Speaker
👤 Ying Cong is a long-time meditator and the co-founder of Glints, a leading career platform in Southeast Asia. Over the past decade, he helped scale the company from an idea incubated by JFDI to a regional startup featured in major publications like The Straits Times and Yahoo News. As Glints’ former CTO and current machine learning engineer, he has worked on recommender systems, fraud detection, and data infrastructure—though he jokes that most of it is just “glorified data cleaning.”
His Dhamma journey began in his teenage years and continues to deepen through regular meditation, observing the precepts, and periods of monastic training in the Thai forest tradition. He is quietly exploring how to balance the responsibilities of lay life with the path of practice.
Key Takeaways
Holding the five precepts builds deep trust
While startup life often celebrates “hustle at all costs,” Ying Cong stuck to his precepts — even when pitching investors. Over time, however, this radical transparency became a strength. Colleagues began to trust him deeply, even sharing difficult truths others couldn’t access.
Culture is shaped by how you show up, not what you say
From hiring to meetings, people look to the leader to understand what’s “normal.” When Ying Cong opened up about uncertainty and shared his misgivings, others followed suit. But when leaders modelled secrecy or pure task-focus, people shut down.
Every employee is carrying something
After managing 40–50 people over 11 years, Ying Cong observed something simple yet powerful: “Everyone is suffering, to some extent. The only question is how much they show you.” Being present and listening with care — not just for what’s said, but for what’s held back — often reveals what’s really going on beneath performance issues or disengagement.
Transcript
Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Cheryl: Has there ever been a moment in your career where you were not able to hold your five precepts?
[00:00:06] Ying Cong: No. No. It’s been, that was my inviolable principles, uh, ever since, uh, I was young. I have, okay, there are situations where I’ve come close.
[00:00:24] Cheryl: Welcome to the Handful of Leaves podcast, a Southeast Asian platform sharing Buddhist wisdom for happier life. My name is Cheryl, the host for today’s podcast, and my guest today is Ying Cong, who is the co-founder of Glints recruitment platform that has expanded to eight markets.
[00:00:46] Cheryl: I just wanted to catch on a word that you said, you know, treating people, uh, your team like a family.
[00:00:50] Ying Cong: Mm-hmm.
[00:00:51] Cheryl: Right. In one of your articles you wrote about how you always struggled a little bit about personal boundaries.
[00:00:59] Ying Cong: Ah, yeah.
[00:01:00] Cheryl: So, like, you know, you are friendly with everyone, but you also don’t want to be too close.
[00:01:04] Ying Cong: Yes. Yeah.
[00:01:05] Cheryl: How did that work with treating everyone as family?
[00:01:09] Ying Cong: I’ve since stopped adopting that lens, uh, when it comes to colleagues and you treat your employees as family, um, there’s a lot of unspoken assumptions around that. So one of it is that they will never, never leave you. Right? And, and in this lifetime at least they’ll stick to you through, uh, thick and thin and also vice versa.
[00:01:31] Ying Cong: You will never abandon them. Hmm. But it’s just not realistic in a company, right? People do, uh, underperform for various reasons. Sometimes they perform very well in the first few years, and then their motivation shift or the job scope change. In a startup, you’re always changing. You’re growing, right, and the roles expand very quickly.
[00:01:48] Ying Cong: And it does come to a point where even the people that you cherish the most, sometimes they can’t live up to the job scope or you can’t live up to their expectations and you have to have that conversation to leave. When I was treating my employees as family, um, those conversations were much harder.
[00:02:05] Ying Cong: I tend to avoid them, um, because who would ever fire your own brother or sister? It’s like, it’s very heartless thing to do, right?
[00:02:12] Ying Cong: Yeah. Yeah. But then when in a company setting, actually the more heartless thing to do is to let them to continue to underperform in a role where, you know, they’re no longer suited for. Because their self esteem will start taking a hit. And the company doesn’t benefit from it.
[00:02:28] Ying Cong: And you also, um, compromise on the other employees who depend on them. Yeah, so, so I started to draw that boundary, like, okay, we treat each other with respect, right? We also build that relationship at certain times where we are outside of work, but when it comes to work, there’s a clear boundary about, okay, this is what you have to perform, uh, and this is what the company can give to you, right?
[00:02:50] Ying Cong: So you have to make those boundaries, underlying boundaries very clear in your mind, and also when you talk to the employees. Um, but of course the close danger of that is it becomes too transactional.
[00:03:01] Cheryl: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:03:02] Ying Cong: It becomes like, oh, you gave me this, I give you that.
[00:03:03] Cheryl: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:04] Ying Cong: Right. So it just becomes a balance. You do have to, at some certain moments, you do find that relationships, like during one-on-ones, don’t just talk about work. Mm-hmm. I know some managers do that. They just talk about what, just what you got done, how can I help you to get the next thing done?
[00:03:17] Cheryl: Yep.
[00:03:17] Ying Cong: Right. Um, but the best managers I’ve seen, they are also sensitive to the employees underlying needs.
[00:03:23] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:03:24] Ying Cong: And once you, once you do that, when I’ve been, I, I think I managed maybe close to 40, 50 people on and off across the 11 years. Right. And I, I noticed one thing is that everyone is suffering to a certain extent. Mm. Um, it is just about how much they tell you about it. Mm. Right. Even the happiest and cheeriest employees, the most upbeat ones, there’s always something that’s bothering them.
[00:03:46] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:03:46] Ying Cong: Right. And it can be very obvious things, very immediate thing like, oh, my immediate family member passed away or is having a illness. Or it can be very subtle things, sometimes they just can’t really articulate it. Mm-hmm. Like for a lot of my employees when I was running the Vietnam team, they felt that maybe the strategy wasn’t too clear.
[00:04:04] Ying Cong: Right. But it’s a very underlying feeling and they don’t know what the next direction is for their lives because of this. So there’s some uncertainty.
[00:04:11] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:04:11] Ying Cong: And when you talk to them and you really listen, uh, with your heart then these kind of things start to bubble up.
[00:04:17] Cheryl: Mm. Yeah.
[00:04:17] Ying Cong: Because they will first tell about their work. That’s a very immediate thing. And they’re tell about immediate family life. They’ll tell you about facts. Mm. But you can just see in the way they talk to you where they hesitate a little bit or, um, they have this little bit of holding back about telling you certain things, and that’s when you can sort of pick up, oh, okay, maybe certain things are not going all too well over here.
[00:04:38] Ying Cong: So then you can ask. So you ask them for permission, “I can ask you about this?”, and then they give you permission and you can talk about it.
[00:04:44] Cheryl: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, wow, the people under you are very lucky to have you. Someone like you as a manager who really listens and want to understand them in a holistic way. Yes. Yet being firm in being kind. Yeah. Not just nice by showing respect to them.
[00:05:02] Ying Cong: Imagine right when you’re under a lot of pressure from your board or your leaders above you to achieve a certain target. Then if you are not very mindful about it and in what conditions, sometimes you’re not mindful, especially about relation, the softer stuff like, uh, you, you are maybe seen as too soft, if you are too soft to your employees too, and then you are trying to just push that down to the next level, right?
[00:05:24] Ying Cong: But then for me, as part of that whole, you know, journey of transformation, like what the startup journey meant to me, one of the things I also realized is that, you know, that connection that you have people.
[00:05:35] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:05:36] Ying Cong: That is actually what makes me come alive. Mm. No matter how momentary it is, how fleeting it is. Mm. As long as I come in the contact you and there’s a, there’s a personal connection. Mm. Right. That actually makes the day very meaningful to me. Yeah. Yeah. So little things. These are little things. These are little things.
[00:05:51] Cheryl: Yeah. Nice. And how do you translate individual meaning, individual significance to a team or even a regional team?
[00:05:59] Ying Cong: Yeah, that is the difficult part. Um, because you realize things are very difficult to change and the hardest thing to change of all is other people. Even, even though they are working in a hierarchy under you, right? You were hired, uh, they were hired by you. Uh, it is very hard to change people.
[00:06:18] Ying Cong: Right, though, uh, you can influence a certain culture. So the way I look at it is: culture — when you hire people, they usually fall within a certain range. So let’s say, let’s say for me, I do value people who are very open and transparent, who value connection, uh, who are also quite, uh, on the ball about their task, right?
[00:06:40] Ying Cong: So you can break it down into certain sort of knobs that you see, like in a culture. So like transparency, there are cultures that are very transparent and cultures that are very opaque, right. Then being on the ball: there are cultures that are more task-oriented and more relationship-oriented. Mm-hmm.
[00:06:53] Ying Cong: So each of these things that when you hire people, they fall within a certain range. Mm. And then how you act as a leader day to day influences how, where they fall within that range. Mm. Yeah. Because when people come into any certain setting, um, any certain social setting and company is one of them, they tend to look up to the leader to set the tone.
[00:07:13] Cheryl: Yeah.
[00:07:13] Ying Cong: Because they’re not, they, they’re not the ones who founded this company. They don’t know what to, to, to think or to feel yet,
[00:07:19] Cheryl: or what’s acceptable.
[00:07:20] Ying Cong: Or what’s acceptable. Yeah. What’s, what’s the norm. So they look up to the leader for a range of what the norm is as well as their peers. Yeah. So I find that if I model the behavior that I want to see in my employees, where I’m very open about sharing about my misgivings or my feelings or things that I thought about the strategy that I’m not so sure about, then it really opens them up to share also their misgivings.
[00:07:44] Ying Cong: Right. And they become more vulnerable at the same time. I also seen it the other way around when we hire new leaders and these leaders have a very different setting from me. Right. More task-oriented, a little bit more opaque. Right. And then people start to clam up.
[00:07:57] Cheryl: Right.
[00:07:58] Ying Cong: They’ll be more efficient in the short term, but they’ll clam up in the long run. And, and so it is really, it does come down from the leader. The leader, how you model your behavior in meetings, in all your interactions. It will trickle down, uh, to the, to the whole employee base after, after a certain time.
[00:08:13] Cheryl: But do you ever run into the, I guess, hiring fallacy of hiring people that are more like you? Mm, yeah. Yes. And yeah. Then how do you counter that? For example, you know, you are giving the example of the leader who was very different.
[00:08:26] Ying Cong: Yes, yes.
[00:08:27] Cheryl: But I’m sure he also brings with him a lot of benefit.
[00:08:30] Ying Cong: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right.
[00:08:31] Cheryl: How you maintain that, right?
[00:08:32] Ying Cong: That is, that is one of the difficult part about… like you can never be perfect. So there’s a reason why we hired that leader and he’s still with us, and because he’s making impact in a certain way. The problem… yeah, we made the problem in the beginning.
[00:08:46] Ying Cong: We hire a lot of people who are very, uh, friendly, very warm. And, uh, a a flip side of that is that you tend to not address fundamental problems in the company so head-on.
[00:09:00] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:09:00] Ying Cong: Yeah. So, yeah. So we brought on this leader because, uh, he was a good contrast to us. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He could, right in the first interview and the first meeting, he really made it very clear to employee base, okay, these are the problems that I see in the company that I feel we have to address.
[00:09:14] Cheryl: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:15] Ying Cong: Right? But then the balance that he need to strike is that he has to abide by certain inviolable principles that you want to have as a company. So one of the inviolable principles that we realize that we want to have, because there are people who violated them, is that you want to do this in a constructive spirit. Do it in the spirit of “let’s build this back together”.
[00:09:35] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:09:35] Ying Cong: Because we have hired leaders who also have that critical mindset, very objective, but they have the mindset of, oh, “everyone in the past they did a bad job.” Mm-hmm. Right? “Let me take this all down. And I do it my own way.” Right. It is not a collaborative, constructive, “build this together” kind of mindset.
[00:09:52] Ying Cong: And that’s caused a tremendous amount of damage in the culture, in the business. Yeah. So to answer your question, to summarize it very succinctly, right, is you want to have a base of inviolable principles, sort of like a, in Buddhism we have the five precepts that are inviolable. Yeah. Right. The foundation.
[00:10:10] Ying Cong: But then above that base you can have very different configurations and that gives you contrast and that gives you diversity as a leadership team. Yeah.
[00:10:19] Cheryl: Beautiful. One very interesting thing that I want to ask you: has there ever been a moment in your career where you were not able to hold your five precepts?
[00:10:29] Ying Cong: No. No. It’s been, that was my inviolable principles, uh, ever since, uh, I, I was young. I have… okay, there are situations where I’ve come close.
[00:10:42] Cheryl: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:42] Ying Cong: And usually the principle about not lying.
[00:10:45] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:10:46] Ying Cong: There’s the principle that we are taught not to lie, but actually if you read the sutta more closely, actually there’s some variations of it where there’s stronger forms of it, where you don’t even tell white lies or you don’t embellish the truth and you try not to, you don’t gossip also.
[00:11:02] Ying Cong: Right. Nothing that’s divisive. So I come close to that when you have to pitch to investors and, and I, I made a mistake where I was sharing too openly about all the problems in the company. I remember there was this one investor meeting where my co-founder brought me and they were pitching AI, yeah, as one of the, uh, one of the value propositions or the competitive advantages of Glints, and then I just came into the meeting and this investor asked me, “Hey, so how’s the AI?” Then I say, “Oh, not very good yet. Still a lot of things to work on. Very basic at the moment.”
[00:11:36] Cheryl: Oh no.
[00:11:38] Ying Cong: Then my co-founder like, just face palm silently in the back and after the meeting he told me, “Hey, can you don’t do that or not? Doesn’t help my case at all.” The investors did join, uh, still invested eventually because of other reasons. Yeah. So I had to learn to manage that.
[00:11:56] Ying Cong: Right. So I still… but I still hold my line. I wouldn’t tell a, an explicit lie. Mm. But I would see the situation and actually the Buddha did talk about this, like, what’s the right thing to say at the right time?
[00:12:07] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:12:07] Ying Cong: Right. So I, I know that wasn’t very helpful to my co-founder at, at the very least. Right. So I, I learned that there are many ways you can present the facts that’s still being truthful.
[00:12:18] Ying Cong: Right. But it’s more aligned to what this, what the situation cause for. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. So, so I learned in, in certain meetings I would say, uh, when you ask about the situation of the AI, I tell them, “okay, this is the current foundation that we are building and this is where we, we feel like we can get to. And this, uh, this is a roadmap to getting there.”
[00:12:36] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:12:36] Ying Cong: Instead of just being saying, “oh, we’re not there. It’s very basic.”
[00:12:39] Cheryl: Yeah. It is about packaging the truth in a way that’s beneficial for yourself and others. Yes. It’s a very difficult, um, thing to balance, especially when there’s so much pressure to, to get some investors money and, and all that.
[00:12:55] Ying Cong: Correct. Correct. Correct, correct, correct.
[00:12:56] Cheryl: But have you seen how the five precepts protected you in the workplace?
[00:13:02] Ying Cong: Yeah, it’s protected me in other ways. I think the biggest one is when you are consistently truthful, and when sometimes to your own detriment, then people will trust you actually.
[00:13:14] Ying Cong: Mm, yeah. People will trust you. So the people in my company know me as like the principal who, who was a monk before. And, and they do trust me with very, uh, some very personal sharings.
[00:13:27] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:13:27] Ying Cong: Because they know that I always tell them, I always share the truth, even when it’s ugly from the management team or the leadership team, from a strategy perspective.
[00:13:37] Ying Cong: I tell them, okay, this is what exactly is difficult for the next phase that we are going into. I still remember, um, this, this also during the COVID period, uh, where we have eventually to, to lay off, uh, a portion of employee base in order to save the company. PR/ marketing team person, she wanted me to lead that message first, right?
[00:14:00] Ying Cong: Because in the past, uh, we, we had slightly different, slightly different approaches like with me and my co-founder, my CEO. So he’s more polished, right? Mm-hmm. You try to frame the message in a way that’s palatable, um, easy to digest for the employee base. So in the past, for example, the PR crisis, you try to frame it in a way that saying that, okay, yeah, we stand strong.
[00:14:21] Ying Cong: It wouldn’t affect us so much. But then my approach was slightly different and I was like, okay, this is exactly what happened. This is exactly what we screwed up and this is what we can do better. Mm-hmm. Right? And I find employees over time, they, they respond to the second way better. Mm-hmm.
[00:14:37] Ying Cong: Right? Um, when you, when you treat them as intelligent human beings, they also respond in kind. They’ll see you as someone trustworthy. Right. So, so yes, it is helped me in that way. So we find that many times right when employees leave us, it is not because, the company was going through difficult times.
[00:14:54] Ying Cong: Mm. It’s because when we go through difficult times and we didn’t tell them the whole truth. Mm. Then that’s when they felt like the trust has been broken. Yeah. There was a period in time when our, after our Series A, uh, before our Series A, we were running out of cash. We were actually down to two months of payroll and it was a team of 15 people.
[00:15:10] Ying Cong: And we sat him around the table and we, I, I… and we told them very, very honestly. We only have two months of payroll left. We’re not sure whether we can close this next round.
[00:15:20] Cheryl: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:21] Ying Cong: But if you want to leave, you can. We are, we can leave on good terms. We can pay you the last two months of pay.
[00:15:27] Cheryl: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:28] Ying Cong: And then everyone stayed. Mm-hmm. Everyone stayed for that. The reason because we were honest and, and they wanted, they wanted to stick through to see what happened next. Mm-hmm. But then there were periods where we were less than honest, less than open about what’s going on in the company.
[00:15:41] Ying Cong: Like a leader left, right, because of some mismanagement on our part. And we didn’t tell them the full truth. We told them, oh, this person left because of their personal reasons. Mm. And people just immediately after the announcement come ask me, “Hey, is that true or not?”
[00:15:56] Cheryl: They know you will tell the truth.
[00:15:57] Ying Cong: “Tell me the real truth.” So I tell them.
[00:16:03] Cheryl: But can you also tell me about the biggest disagreement that you’ve had with your co-founders and how did you use Buddhist principles to overcome that?
[00:16:12] Ying Cong: The biggest one, the hardest one was when our third co-founder, uh, left us, we split. So we started off with three co-founders and we ran it for five years, and then we, around the fourth to fifth year, my current CEO, Oswald, and this co-founder who left, they started having major disagreements around vision, right? Where the company should go. That’s the biggest one, but also the underlying one that has been pegging them is difference in philosophy.
[00:16:44] Cheryl: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:45] Ying Cong: Um, this other co-founder who left, he was more process-driven. He’s much more about being very scrappy and going for quick wins. Right. Whereas Oswald, he’s about the bigger vision, where we can go in the long run and let’s not do things just for this small quick win in the short run. Yeah. And it is both perfectly valid, right. Um, both have very valid approaches.
[00:17:06] Cheryl: And what was your philosophy?
[00:17:08] Ying Cong: Me. Back then I was just interested in building the tech. Mm. Right. So I was like the neutral third party. Sometimes I come in to try to manage it, but unwillingly, begrudgingly. Uh, so I was also caught in between both of them.
[00:17:19] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:17:19] Ying Cong: Right. Uh, but this was building up for quite some time already. Even when we first —
[00:17:23] Cheryl: simmering.
[00:17:23] Ying Cong: Yeah. Just simmering in background, you know. When we first started the company, we already knew there were some differences, but we didn’t, we thought, okay, you can, people are really like, you can, you know, just be resolved over time.
[00:17:32] Ying Cong: So we just started building and building and building until eventually there was this, uh, internship business where we are helping polytechnics do internship trips to Jakarta, to different Southeast Asian markets. And we were charging for that. It was doing a good, a good amount of, uh, cash flow but that was it. They can’t, the business, you know, is not scalable. It cannot grow.
[00:17:54] Cheryl: Mm.
[00:17:54] Ying Cong: So this co-founder, like who eventually left right, he wanted to keep growing, growing that, trying to keep pushing and putting more resources in it. Um, but Oswald and I saw that, okay, maybe it, it’s quite clear this can’t scale, um, but we avoided a conversation for a while. Um, we just skirted around it and say, Hey, can you, yeah, this, there’s this problem, but you just keep running and see where you can go.
[00:18:16] Ying Cong: And then eventually the, the truth was very obvious. It can’t, it can’t grow anymore and we have to, uh, shut it down in order to grow this other part of business, which is more promising.
[00:18:25] Ying Cong: And it became very personal because this was his idea, this was his baby, and it was like him versus us, kind of a dynamic, uh, at the very end. So there, there came a point where we felt like, eventually Oswald and him couldn’t work together anymore. And now I was caught in between and they asked me to decide, oh, what should next step be?
[00:18:46] Cheryl: Oh no they (push the responsibility) taichi it to you to make the tough decision.
[00:18:48] Ying Cong: Yeah, because I was a neutral third party right. So I was caught in between and I really didn’t know what to do. It was, it was so, such a difficult, I was close friends with, uh, both of them. And then I thought, okay, in such situations, what would the Buddha do?
[00:19:05] Ying Cong: Like what, what would I be taught when I was learning from my teachers in the past? How would they approach this kind of situation? And first of all, what I did was, um, I, I first took away the emotions. Just from a very detached point of view, look at, from the business fundamentals, what’s the path that we will approach.
[00:19:21] Ying Cong: Mm-hmm. Right? And that, that came much more naturally to me because of the meditation practice. You’re always taught to, at a certain point, look at your emotions. Look at feelings from a third person’s point of view. Mm. Okay. Yeah. How much suffering is it causing you? And I was doing that for the business.
[00:19:37] Ying Cong: Mm. Then after I made the business decision, it is around how do you then execute that business decision in a way that’s the most compassionate, uh, to both parties, to everyone involved. And, and, and, and that was the approach I took. So you, you first approach it with wisdom, a little bit more calculated, but with wisdom then you then apply it with, uh, compassion after the decision has been made.
[00:20:01] Ying Cong: Yeah. So that’s the approach I took, I first told everyone, this is the, the cold hard facts, right? We can’t avoid this. This business cannot grow. This is where it’s more promising. Uh, this is where we need to go. Right. And then it was about, uh, approaching with them in the, in the most compassionate way.
[00:20:18] Ying Cong: So it’s like telling the co-founder, “I know that you have built this for this, this amount of time. I know it’s your baby and we acknowledge all the efforts that you put in. Um, but this is why I think we cannot go on any further.” Mm.
[00:20:29] Cheryl: Right.
[00:20:29] Ying Cong: So, and then
[00:20:30] Cheryl: so compassion seems to me, um, is by acknowledging the effort that a person put in. Yeah. Um, and showing a lot of gratitude to the, to what they’ve done and contributed.
[00:20:39] Ying Cong: Correct.
[00:20:39] Cheryl: Anything else?
[00:20:40] Ying Cong: Correct. Correct. I think those two actually go very far already.
[00:20:44] Cheryl: Yeah.
[00:20:44] Ying Cong: Because, I’m not sure, if you have been in the business world for 10 years, you realize that sometimes it is in quite short supply just acknowledging a person’s efforts, being grateful for what they’ve done. Right. Um, and also it’s, and also acknowledging that the friendship between both of you isn’t affected by this decision. Right.
[00:21:03] Cheryl: Is it really though?
[00:21:07] Ying Cong: For me, it was true, like I kept it because a big part of why sometimes people don’t dare to make these kind of decisions about letting people go or shutting down a business is because they are affected. They’re afraid that this person might feel, uh, excluded, right, or left out. And I’ve been on the other, I’ve been on the receiving end too, when I have to, I’ve been informed that my business unit has been shut down.
[00:21:27] Ying Cong: Mm. Right. And the biggest fear that I have is, well, I lose my, uh, my identity in this group where they start to reject me. Will I be, will I be ostracized? Yeah. So that is something that you have to assure, uh, right up front also. Yeah. So this is a part of that connection. You, you start to see these fears when you are open to that person’s, uh, inner, inner thoughts and inner feelings.
[00:21:50] Cheryl: Yeah. Wow. And that really reminds me about a sutta about metta, which is, I think it’s in the Dhammapada. Mm-hmm. Where, you know, all beings just like us, fear death, fear pain. Yes. And only want to be happy. Yeah. Um, I think we will find a quote later and insert it somewhere here. Yeah. Um, but yeah, really being able to see the same fears that you have, um, exist in other people, even in difficult situations.
[00:22:19] Ying Cong: Exactly.
[00:22:19] Cheryl: And speak to that.
[00:22:20] Ying Cong: Exactly. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. For me, one of the biggest change that helped with that empathy right, was when I stood down as a CTO. Uh, and then, uh, I was leading a small team, and then there were, then, now I stood down, stood out that position again from complete management perspective, and I played a individual contributor role. Mm. And from a very conventional perspective, that seems like a demotion.
[00:22:44] Cheryl: Mm. Right.
[00:22:44] Ying Cong: But for me, it would just open up so many perspectives. Now I see things from also an individual contributor’s point of view. Mm. And I can empathize a lot of what the leaders say, how, how it actually affects the employees.
[00:22:55] Ying Cong: Mm. Right. There are a lot of fears that I have as leaders, uh, actually the employees have it by a slightly different form. Right. So, so to me that was very eye-opening, being able to play different roles and then you can see, oh, this is what they, how they felt when I say that, okay, now I’ll approach it differently the next time. Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:12] Cheryl: There’s a massive learning ground when you take on all the different hats without the ego of like, oh, this is demoting me. Correct, correct, correct. I’m co-founder.
[00:23:20] Ying Cong: Can always lean on the co-founder title.
[00:23:25] Cheryl: I’m very inspired by Ying Cong’s sharing and how he applies various aspects of his business from growing a, a team, leading a team and even to navigating disagreements between his co-founders and what I’ll be taking away is to have a giving competition with my friends and my colleagues. So thank you very much Ying Cong for coming on today’s episode. I hope you join us again. So, so to all our listeners, see you in the next episode. Stay happy and wise.
Resources:
Ying Cong’s article on giving: https://handfulofleaves.life/how-seeking-to-balance-everything-nearly-cost-me-my-relationship/
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Buddhist Youth Network, Lim Soon Kiat, Alvin Chan, Tan Key Seng, Soh Hwee Hoon, Geraldine Tay, Venerable You Guang, Wilson Ng, Diga, Joyce, Tan Jia Yee, Joanne, Suñña, Shuo Mei, Arif, Bernice, Wee Teck, Andrew Yam, Kan Rong Hui, Wei Li Quek, Shirley Shen, Ezra, Joanne Chan, Hsien Li Siaw, Gillian Ang, Wang Shiow Mei, Ong Chye Chye, Melvin, Yoke Kuen, Nai Kai Lee, Amelia Toh, Hannah Law, Shin Hui Chong, Dennis Lee
Editor of this episode:
Aparajita Ghose
Website: aparajitayoga.com
Transcriber of this episode:
Tan Si Jing, Cheryl Cheah, Bernice Bay
Visual and Sound Effects
Anton Thorne, Tan Pei Shan, Ang You Shan
