Jeremy Au speaks about the uncomfortable truth that the world isn’t fair. He urges listeners to let go of idealism, understand real-world power dynamics, and make deliberate career choices. From decoding hypocrisy in leadership to choosing when to be a small fish in a big pond, he shares how to survive and thrive by thinking both outside-in and inside-out.

01:00 Life Isn’t Fair: Jeremy dismantles the idea that good things always happen to good people and explains why embracing life’s unfairness is key to strategic decision-making

02:15 Choose Your Battles: Understanding your advantages lets you pick domains where you are more likely to win rather than relying on the myth of a fair system

03:24 Power Isn’t a Dirty Word: Power will come with professional growth. Learn to use it consciously and ethically without being afraid of it

04:33 Say vs Do: Leaders often say one thing and do another. Learn to read actions not just words when assessing people or systems

06:00 Big Fish Small Pond: Jeremy breaks down how switching between being a big or small fish in a pond can serve different career stages with examples from his own path

09:36 Outside-In vs Inside-Out: Use outside-in logic like market size and trends and inside-out values like what you enjoy and who you want to work with together to guide your decisions

(01:08) Jeremy Au: life isn't fair and all easy. I wanna kind of break this down for you. There is no such thing as karma. There's no such thing as good things happen to good people. It doesn't happen. We are describing a certain reality of times, whatever it is, but we wanna say is that life isn't fair, isn't easy.

(01:25) And we've seen this before, we've seen injustice. Even today, there are people who are dying for no good reason whatsoever. War, conflict, famine, all of them were just unlucky to be born there and not born here. So we kind of know that. We know that the wars are unjust place, and we know that if you jump off a building, you will probably die from the fall.

(01:48) You know that if there's a hurricane hits the land, people will suffer. And we also know that a world happens. There is, there's volcanoes, there's conflicts and so forth. So I just wanna be clear that even in our (02:00) developed societies, it's not as if injustice ends in our societies. It still happens here.

(02:05) It's just that our societies that are more developed, they are more good people choosing to do good things. Good people choose to reward good people with good things, people choose to set up courts to punish bad people who do bad things. So we humans are choosing to work with each other in that societal contract to reward good behaviors and to punish bad behaviors.

(02:27) But I wanna say is that even if society is trying to do that, doesn't mean that the world fundamentally is fair. The world is fundamentally fair, which is why we created a justice system. We created a police. We created military to protect us because the world is not fair. So if you want to continue living in that fairytale, that meant the model will not work in your career because there'll be politics.

(02:48) There'll people who backs stab you, there'll be freeloaders. My advice to you is just ditch that perspective. Let it be. Let it go. There is a wonderful fairytale. That I (03:00) have with my kids at four years old and two years old, and I'll raise them in that world 'cause I'll protect them as a family. But now you're becoming a doubt and that you are professionals and you already started to see that for your own life, which is that bad people can do bad things to other people.

(03:13) And good people by accident can still choose to do bad things to other people, and so just let go of that illusion, but. The thing is, when you let go of that, when you understand that life can be unfair, there can be a recession. Your company can do choose to do layoffs,

(03:28) maybe it's unlucky because you develop cancer, life isn't fair, but you can choose your battles, when you understand that, you can say, you know what? I don't assume the world is just, but because I can assume the world is not just, I can choose to play battles. And do and specialize in domains where I have the advantage.

(03:47) And that's really important because you need to understand that it can be unfair in your advantage. So you understand that there's advantage. There's this advantage. You need to pick the places where you're best at.

(03:56) And that lets you be able to advance in your career because (04:00) then you're able to advance yourself. My advice to you is that you need to think to yourself that more self-help is self-serving.

(04:07) And a lot of people give you the common wisdom about what it is. But you gotta understand that whatever they say has their own incentives, and so what I really encourage you for you to be thoughtful about is that when you see a powerful person, you must be thoughtful about what they do, not what they say,

(04:22) for example, I met a lot of people and I always say, I meet people and they're like, Jeremy. I don't wanna do a Harvard MBA. And I'm like, why? And it's 'cause I was on Twitter and people say that people with Harvard MBAs, they're arrogant, is worthless. You can do something else better your life,

(04:37) but then you look at it and you say, wow, a lot of the most powerful people in society today have an MBA, for example. So there's a difference between what people say, this is what people do, and you are going to be in. Workplaces or governments, and they're gonna say stuff right, that they don't do.

(04:53) We know it. And some of you would choose to say, that's hypocritical, that's injustice. That is wrong. You (05:00) can choose to do that. But my advice to you here is that you need to understand that this is the reality. And so when you look at the biographies versus the autobiographies of the most powerful business leaders, they're totally different.

(05:14) If you open up the Jack Welch, which is ge if you look at his autobiography, he talks about how, what a wonderful leader he is and what a beautiful culture of collaboration and trust and so forth.

(05:28) But if you look at the biographies of this time for G and so forth, they say that during his time they would say that the leadership culture was ruthless. Tough. Toxic. Now. I'm not trying to say who's right, who's wrong. I'm not trying to say what the reality is. I don't know. I was not part of ge. But there's a gap between an autobiography that you write about your own story and what lessons I took away to create my own leadership journey, versus me as an independent, hopefully objective journalist, writing their (06:00) story about ge,

(06:02) there's a difference in incentives, and so I think you just have, be aware of that. There's a difference between what people do versus what they say, and you have a choice to either say that it's not something I wanna do, or you can choose to look at it and say, I understand this is the reality of the world.

(06:16) Okay? And of course, is that when you do that, you then unlock the ability for yourself to own your own power, because a lot of you at this stage, all of you are peers. You are all sophomores or juniors, whatever, so you are peers. When you become a professional, you'll become powerful in your department, in your team, in your company, your financial resources, your status, resources, you all those things.

(06:41) And you have to be thoughtful and comfortable using that power because when you're comfortable using that power, then you are able to understand that it is a privilege. There's a way for you to obviously help other people along the way, but you have to play by those rules that actually exist in (07:00) society,

(07:00) not the idealist, utopian That doesn't exist. And so by owning your own power. By being able to exert power by being comfortable with the concept that you are a powerful person, that you will become a powerful person in your whatever domain it, and that you're willing to use that power to get what you want.

(07:18) Then you are able to choose whether you wanna be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond. And Malcolm Gladwell does a great job talking about some of the career decisions that he can make. For example, right now in university, you are a small fish in a big pond. One of many. And one of the benefits of being a small fish and a big bond is you get to learn from other people.

(07:37) You get learn from their peers. You get to belong to a crowd. You can conform, you can freeload, but you can relax. But there's a place for you to learn. And some of you, and many of you would choose to join big companies like the banks, the investment banks, the consulting firms. 'cause you won't be a small fish in a big pond.

(07:53) You wanna learn from them. And then some of you will choose to take that knowledge and become a big fish in a (08:00) small pond. You're gonna differentiate. You gotta focus on a field that nobody else does because nobody else daress to do it. Nobody else dares to set up a swim school for kids in Singapore. We, nobody else is willing to build this or that, or quantum or AI or whatever.

(08:17) It's, but because a small pond where very few people are doing it, and then you become a big fish nurse, small pond. Some of you move to San Francisco or New York, and then you become a small fish in a big pond. Because you wanna learn from that ecosystem, and then some of you would then take back those learnings and return to Singapore, and then you'll become a big fish and a small pond,

(08:34) if you look at my own career, I've done some of those moves myself. So after undergraduate I became a consultant. I was a small fish in a big pond, and I learned from the database, the knowledge, materials, what makes a good company, what are the things I wanna do. So I learned and I took that time.

(08:49) And then eventually I went off to build my own companies where I was a big fish and a small pawn. And then after a while I was done. Then I went back to do my Harvard MBA and became a small fish and a big pawn again to learn (09:00) from them, and then after that I returned to Singapore where I have a different status,

(09:04) there are very few Harvard MBAs in Singapore, in Boston, there are a lot of half MBAs. And so now I'm a bigger fish in a smaller pond. So there are different aspects that you have to think to yourself, and there are moments and different domains that you can switch between those things and different life stages and just need to be thoughtful about that.

(09:19) And it's okay to be a small fish in a big pond. It's okay for you to do your apprenticeship, whatever it is in a finance institution, a consultancy, as long as you know that's what you're doing, and if that's the rest of your life and you're comfortable in it, then let it be. That's okay. No harm, no foul.

(09:33) And then some of you'll be in a small fish and a big point, and you feel. It sucks that you wanna become a big fish. So buy your time, understand your patience, and then figure out that toggle between it. And sometimes some of you end up in a big fish in a small pond, and then you realize that a bond is too small, too weak, too, shrinking,

(09:52) and so then you may choose to change your career. So I've met founders who were a big fish in a small pond, and then they gave up to join a (10:00) company and. Figure out the next stage of their life, raise their kids and then get ready for what they wanna do in the future. And so when you think about your career and a lot of decisions, you need to think about the two frameworks outside, in and inside out.

(10:13) Now, when you and I think about business, a lot of us would think about the outside in approach. This is why I call it a consultant approach, the total market size is this and the trends are good, and therefore these are the competitors in the space, and my company is very good competing against them.

(10:29) And therefore these are the things that we need to do as a company to achieve those goals. And this is my role that as part of that company, to achieve those things. So there's outside in, these are the data from the world that is rippling through your system. And there's a good way to think about it.

(10:42) There's a structured way for you to think about that business. That being said, I need you to think about it in out, which is that, what do you want? What are your values? What are you good at, what do you enjoy? And then saying, who are the people that I want to be with? Who are the people I wanna work with?

(10:59) What do we wanna (11:00) work on? And the next stage is, so what's a company we're gonna build? What is the direction and strategy we wanna build? And the last stage is, how does that impact. Our ecosystem or industry of the world. So it's a different direction and it's very important for you that you will have, be having multiple conversations in your workplaces at home.

(11:16) And you just need to take that moment and just tell yourself, am I having an outside in discussion or am I having an inside out framing? And sometimes you could be with your friend, your best friend, and he's having an inside out conversation, and you could be having an outside in conversation. So it's important for you to be thinking about those dynamics is very important.

(11:34) And the reason why it's important is because that's gonna serve you well for your career because many of you are going to do the jobs that the country, the university, and that your family and friends tell you that you should do outside in, the world is saying these are the things, and so you should do those things internally, but you'll also have to eventually build within the next few years.

(11:55) Some of you'll take longer, five years or 10 years, but you have to build out that (12:00) internal. Emotional self-awareness to say, this is what I want to do and therefore I'm gonna do those things, and then that's gonna be the impact that I have on the world. So that's very important for you to think about the outside in versus the inside out frame.