Lead with Purpose Tze Ching Yeung

On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Angela Roth, who used to be a police officer & now coaches entrepreneurs about visibility & marketing.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


Being a police officer took me to new parts of myself that I didn’t know existed. It stretched me in all sort of areas & put me in contact with people I would never have met. What it developed inside of me was a real compassion for people & the start that they get in life & the power we have to change that if we get the opportunity. It taught me a coaching mindset.
My parents had to fight there way up. There were 8 children in the family, so it was tough & there wasn’t a lot of money, but they opened doors for us. So many of the people I was coming into contact with had nothing like that & so they chose a journey to do what they felt they needed to do & often ended up in trouble, in prison or with criminal records. 
Ask clients to say deep down in their heart of hearts, all things being equal, what would you really like to do in life? Most people have something that they’d never thought was possible. What excites you & who would you like to help, this makes them think outside of themselves & opens their minds to what’s possible. 
If you follow your heart, the world is a bigger place, the imagination can take you much further than your mind can take you & it can really draw out of you the magic that’s inside. It can be a bit scary but for me it’s so much more empowering & richer.

BEST MOMENTS

‘There’s a lot of really passionate people out there who want to help others & I have the skills to help them do that.’

‘If everyone I worked with said thank you to me, even when I was arresting them, then I would have done a good job. Because I treated them like humans some did.’

‘Following your heart can lead to quite an exciting journey, if you’re a very structured person it can be hard.’

‘Changing people’s lives is wonderful, it gives me energy every day.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

What if there was someone who truly cared about you. Not about getting something from you, but cared about YOU, as a human being, and who refused to look at you in any other way than as a diamond.

Someone who trusts that what you have to say matters. That your voice deserves to be heard, that it can make a difference.

Someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to make you shine.

That someone is Angela Roth, the founder of Succeed From The Start.

Website

ABOUT THE HOST

Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges. 

Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company. 

Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

CONTACT DETAILS

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On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Alex Witty, an award-winning product designer who is passionate about motorsport, innovation and sustainable design, which may seem like a contradiction, but listen on to find out how these two things cross over.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


Famous drivers are being called hypocrites for talking about environmental protection & sustainability while still driving. It’s clearly not a mix that’s gone well, but like all good things something needs to change. The waste of value and material when tyres are incinerated is ludicrous. It got me thinking that most sneaker soles are made of rubber, so I got the ball rolling.
It’s been very difficult, but it would have been a lot harder 10-15 years ago. The new era of business is very eco-conscious, everyone’s got that on the agenda. The hardest thing has been getting access to the premium tyres that have been raced by the best in the world, but thankfully the big tyre manufacturers are really starting to push their sustainability & they see Compound as one of the vessels that will help clean up the industry and their act as they try to get into the circular economy.
Our end goal is to start utilising waste road tyres as well, as the motorsport industry wastes around 600,000 tyres a year, which is a drop in the ocean compared to road tyres. But right now we have to focus on what we have control over.
We’ve tried experimenting to create a rubber synthetic leather to make the body of the shoe, but it ended up being really heavy. It was entirely recycled but you wouldn’t want to wear them. So, we make the outsoles and keeping on iterating.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I’m a byproduct of my parent, as we all are, but my Dad was a petrolhead & my Mum works with a rainforest conservation charity.’‘1.5 billion road tyres are incinerated every year, in the UK we can’t put them in landfill which is great, but we pay other countries to take our waste who do who knows what with them.’‘A lot of my dreaming comes from playing a lot of sport at a young age & being part of a team that had discipline and satisfaction of winning a game & a need to succeed.’‘Once you start winning you want to win more & once you’re good at something your self-confidence & your belief in yourself improves.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Alex Witty in the founder of Compound Footwear, a revolutionary brand of footwear created from waste motorsport tyre rubber.

Website

ABOUT THE HOST

Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

CONTACT DETAILS

Website

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

LinkedIn

 

On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Professor Jaideep Prabhu about frugal innovation and circular business models.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


The process of production & consumption since the industrial revolution has been a linear one; companies took resources from nature, make products & services from them which they sold to consumers to use, & when we were done with them we simply dumped them back into nature. This system, while it was phenomenally successful for the companies themselves, created a lot of negative externalities for the environment & society. It’s both wasteful & unsustainable.
It’s important now, as companies & the economy grows we simply cannot replicate growth on that model, we have to move to a circular model where we reduce, reuse and recycle all the resources that go into the products & services we produce & consume. Making the best use of limited resources & not running the risk of running out of precious natural resources, energy & time. Frugal innovation is all about how one does more & better with less.
Startups using a circular model still have to produce a quality product that can go head-to-head with the equivalent linear model business. It may have to be a premium product because it’s not a trivial thing to do & they are absorbing some of the negative externalities & costs that the linear model competitors are not. By definition your customer cannot be the average mass-market customer who goes for fast fashion products. It may limit your market, but many businesses can succeed with a niche strategy.

BEST MOMENTS

‘There is a very intimate link between sustainability, circularity and, indeed, frugal innovation & it’s really important for businesses to move toward circular business models.’

‘Fashion & clothing is a big source of waste, we buy far in excess of what we need & a lot of it ends up back in landfill. People need to reduce how much they purchase, reuse & repair as much as possible.’

‘You need to know your target market very well.’

‘Design sustainable solutions. It will help you be more efficient & productive, even financially.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Prof. Jaideep Prabhu is the Jawaharlal Nehru professor of business and enterprise at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, the director of the Centre for India & Global Business (CIGB). He is the co-author of Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth, described by The Economist as "the most comprehensive book" on the subject of frugal innovation.

Frugal Innovation: How to do better with less

ABOUT THE HOST

Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges. 

Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company. 

Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

CONTACT DETAILS

Website

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

LinkedIn

On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to leather craftsman, Yusuf Osman to talk about his career and his passion for leather.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


My mission right now is to get the world talking about leather, but it’s taken me a long time to get here. I didn’t know a creative career existed when I was a child, so from the narrow range of options presented to me at school I decided to choose law. As soon as I arrived in London for university, I realised it wasn’t for me, those weren’t my people, especially not the corporate side. But, I took advantage of being in London & the ability to try different things like working in food, knitting, jewellery, circus arts, ceramics, woodworking & after I graduated I discovered leather-working.
Looking through a lens of connecting different areas of our lives through leather, & connecting it to the values of craftsmanship, we can begin to understand ourselves, our relationship with materials, the natural world, how we relate to each other, & what kind of world we want to live in, what kind of values. It’s a way to be able to grasp sustainability in a tangible way. 
I was always driven by purpose. I didn’t fit into the corporate focus of law in the City, so I ended up practicing human rights law. But, as I was practicing it I realised that all I was doing was just putting a plaster on very big social problems that I couldn’t solve. I didn’t want that, & that’s what made me shift. I didn’t want to be someone that fixes, I wanted to be someone that builds because that adds value. 
I tried for 10 years to make money the reason I pushed myself and made my business successful, but really it was never my driver. I don’t think many, if any creative people are led by money. What I’ve realised, & I probably always knew, was that I wanted freedom when I left my job. I just came back from a stint of travelling and experiencing craft on the road & I realised it’s freedom that I need, not to be trapped by a sense of doing the same thing, I must keep a sense of freedom in what I do, I can’t follow a set path. Money has never driven me, though I want to earn more money. To do that I’ve had to realise what my value is, & I’m attuning to that and believe my value will be reflected back from the world in terms of money. 

BEST MOMENTS

‘Leather-working is still very much an undiscovered craft in terms of mass acceptance I’d say it’s a very accessible craft, you don’t need a lot to start, but it’s not as accessible as knitting, sewing or ceramics. But, that’s something I’m working to change.’

‘Leather is one of the few materials that connects land, farm, food, fashion, and beyond.’

‘People like to listen to me talk & the way that I communicate, that’s a skill that I learned at law school which is a really useful skill.’

‘People say that when you find something that you love you should pursue it as a business, but that just moves you from one box into another box. When I work, the only thing that drives me is a sense of freedom.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Yusuf Osman’s passion for making started whilst reading law at The London School of Economics where he thrived in the extracurricular. He continued to explore his creative side whilst training to be a solicitor. An avid workshop taker, he tried the gamut of crafts and discovered a passion for premium natural materials and a flair for working with his hands.

A chance weekend workshop in The Cotswolds introduced Yusuf to the world of traditional British leather craftsmanship and began a quest that has taken Yusuf all over the world to learn from the best and returning home to obsessively hone his skills in his home studio.

An all consuming hobby turned into a career when Yusuf moved into his current studio at Cockpit Arts Deptford to pursue leather-working full-time. His work has been exhibited at the Walsall Leather Museum and featured in Crafts Magazine; he

On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Lucy Hall to talk about sustainability in the fashion industry.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


My co-founder and I saw first-hand the meteoric rise of eCommerce and fast fashion, you’d shoot 100-150 products a day by the end of her modelling career. That’s a huge amount of over-production & under-utilisation & it didn’t sit right with us, we knew we were complicit in encouraging people to consumer more & more in our roles in the fashion industry, we wanted to use our skills for better.
In the fashion industry you rent clothes for photoshoots & events we wanted to democratise that & enable people to have a huge, shared wardrobe. We want to move people from the linear take, make, waste model to a more circular economy which we believe is a more sustainable way to experience fashion.
We talked to a lot of people about their fashion experiences, how they consumed fashion, what sustainability meant to them. We all want to be more sustainable, but we have busy lives & everything has become more convenient, you can go to your local high street and buy the latest trends or go on your phone & order something that arrives tomorrow. There’s a value gap where we can’t take the time to research & find out it might be better to rent the clothes & how to do that. In reality, it’s a tough sell. We’re thinking of lots of different ways to overcome those issues.

BEST MOMENTS

‘When I opened my restaurant is where sustainability really embedded itself into me, the connection between eating locally & seasonally was much more prevalent than in fashion.’

‘There’s enough clothes now to clothe the next 6 generations of people, we don’t really need to produce any more.’

‘What consumers want is to be sustainable, but we have to make it very accessible & convenient for them as possible.’

‘We want people to start being more conscious about how their clothes & their wardrobes & how they can experience fashion in a different way, but it will take time. It’s about education & removing all the barriers possible so it’s just like ordering something from Amazon or visiting a store.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Lucy Hall: “With 18 years of experience in the fashion industry, I have honed my skills in management, creative, & strategic practices while working for esteemed agencies like Elite World and Models 1.

During my time as a restauranteur, I observed the advanced level of sustainability practices and initiatives being implemented. This firsthand experience motivated me to seek out circular business models in the fashion industry that could deliver real impact. No longer content with waiting for sustainable change to happen, I joined forces with my co-founder to establish LOANHOOD.

Through LOANHOOD, we are actively working towards creating a more sustainable future, combining my deep knowledge of the fashion industry with our team's collective passion for environmental and social impact.

We see a future where the circular economy is embedded into every life, changing the way we create and consume forever. 

LOADHOOD

Wild Swans

ABOUT THE HOST

Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges. 

Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company. 

Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

CONTACT DETAILS

Website

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

LinkedIn

On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung gives her five steps to avoiding procrastination to increase productivity.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


People tend to procrastinate because they are trying to avoid some kind of pain perceived with doing a certain task. This could be because it’s boring, difficult or, if you complete the task & have to show it to the world, that pain could be about being judged or failing. So, we do something less painful or distracting like cleaning the kitchen, walk to dog, clean out drawers, watch a TV show, scroll through social media, the list is endless. We waste so much time in procrastination mode, even though the brain is only trying to protect us from perceived pain. It’s a habit & we can train ourselves out of it.
Focus on your ‘why’. Often, when we procrastinate, we’re thinking of the short-term result or pain that is perceived, if you tie the task into a bigger sense of purpose as to why you’re doing it, then it’s much less likely that you will procrastinate because you’re starting to see the longer-term vision & importance of the task much more.
Schedule a time in your for specific tasks rather than doing them when you feel like it because what gets scheduled is more likely to get done. This reduces stress & is another thing that, like a muscle, we can train ourselves to do. The more we follow through on tasks we’re supposed to do the easier it becomes over time.
Get an accountability partner because we need them to keep the noise down & help keep us on track. A good accountability partner won’t tell you to chill out & take it easy (unless you’re working too much & forgetting to eat, exercise etc!), for productivity it should be someone who has a chieved at a higher level then you (mentor/coach/friend) who will help push you beyond your comfort zone.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Procrastination is not really a time problem; it is a mindset problem.’

‘Stop catastrophising the task. If you associate the task with pain your brain will do whatever it can to make you avoid it.’

‘Chunk down your tasks into smaller, bit-sized tasks, it becomes much less overwhelming & much more doable.’

‘It’s very simple, but we need to practice it more & more because the more we do it, the more we follow through, the more we stop ourselves from procrastinating, the better we get at it, & enjoy it.’

ABOUT THE HOST

Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges. 

Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company. 

Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

CONTACT DETAILS

Website

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

LinkedIn