S11E03 Are You Climbing the Wrong Ladder? | Ho Yong Min & Lim Pei Ying | CYT Tradition & Heritage

What if the ladder you've spent years climbing isn't taking you where you want to go?

For 15 years, Ho Yong Min followed a conventional career path, working in higher education at NUS and SMU.

Then he turned 40.

COVID had reminded him how unpredictable life could be. A bigger question surfaced:

Is this how I want to spend the rest of my life?

In this episode of Tradition & Heritage: Compass or Shackle, Ho Yong Min, Heritage Educator from The Urbanist Singapore, sits down with Lim Pei Ying, ICF Master Certified Coach and Producer of the Clean Your Toilet Podcast, to explore success, uncertainty, purpose, entrepreneurship, and why knowing where we come from matters to where we're going.

For Yong Min, one idea changed how he looked at life:

The right-sized life.

In Singapore, we're often conditioned to pursue more: the higher salary, next promotion, bigger life.

But somewhere along that climb, he began asking:

What am I climbing towards?

He realized he didn't need as much as he thought to live a happy, purposeful and responsible life. With enough financial runway, he left a 15-year career and stepped into uncertainty.

There was no fully formed business plan.

Just a passion for Singapore's stories and the belief that within uncertainty lies possibility.

Things could go terribly wrong, but they could also go terribly right.

That leap became The Urbanist Singapore.

Today, Yong Min tells stories hidden in plain sight: the buildings, roads and layers of Singapore we often overlook in our own backyard.

Heritage is really about understanding the stories that make us us and finding belonging in the place we call home.

Together, they explore:

- Why turning 40 made Yong Min rethink his life.

- Our conditioning to earn more and climb higher.

- What it means to create a “right-sized life”.

- Why uncertainty can represent possibility.

- Leaving a 15-year career without a full-fledged plan.

- How heritage creates cultural depth and belonging.

- The loneliness and self-doubt of entrepreneurship.

- What we inherit and what we pass on.

Heritage comes from inheritance. Consider:

What previous generations leave us makes us not simply recipients, but stewards. What will we preserve, reinterpret and pass on?

Perhaps the same applies to our lives.

We inherit ideas about success, work and what a “good life” should look like.

But at some point, we have to decide what belongs to us.

If you've questioned how much is enough, wanted to pursue something meaningful but feared the uncertainty, or wondered what connects you to home, this conversation is for you.

Maybe success isn't about climbing higher.

Maybe it's about knowing which ladder is yours to climb.

🎙️ About the Podcast

The Clean Your Toilet Podcast explores the inner work behind identity, leadership, mastery, creativity and building a meaningful life through honest, unfiltered conversations.

What does a “right-sized life” look like for you?

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 Meet Ho Yong Min

01:29 From Corporate Life To The Urbanist Singapore

02:54 Turning 40 & Taking Stock Of Life

05:03 Taking The Leap Without A Full-Fledged Plan

07:09 Are You Climbing The Right Ladder?

07:44 What Is A Right-Sized Life?

08:54 Stepping Into Uncertainty

15:20 The Mission Behind The Urbanist Singapore

16:46 Why Knowing Our Stories Matters

17:58 Heritage, Belonging & Singapore

24:04 Where His Curiosity About Singapore Began

27:14 Why You Have To Take Risks

29:06 Making Heritage Relevant To A New Generation

31:04 Heritage In The Age Of AI

32:32 Learning Entrepreneurship From Scratch

34:07 The Loneliness Of Entrepreneurship

40:02 Passion Versus Business

41:15 Managing Self-Doubt

43:24 Why Heritage Is Contested

1:04:00 Heritage Is An Inheritance

1:05:03 Don't Let The Stories Die With You

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