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Tag: health and wellness

Read an exclusive excerpt from Happy Ever After

Posted on by simransingh

Happy Ever After: Transform Your Leaders, Teams, and Organizations with HAPPY System™ is a robust book based on leading industry research on what it takes to create sustainable change, bringing together the latest breakthroughs in neuroscience, wisdom from ancient philosophies, thought leadership on coaching and experience of working with hundreds of leaders across the world. 

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How Can Organizations Develop a Culture of Coaching?  

Creating a sustainable culture of coaching in an organization goes beyond one off initiatives for leaders to work with external coaches—it requires embedding coaching and being coach-like in our daily interactions as a core organizational value. The following steps outline how organizations can cultivate this culture, from defining a coaching philosophy to aligning coaching practices with strategic objectives.  

  • Defining the coaching culture 

Begin by establishing a shared understanding that coaching is essential for growth and development of individuals, teams, and organizations at all levels. This sets a foundation where employees and leaders alike see coaching as an integral part of their developmental journey.  

  • Training managers in coaching skills 

Equip managers with coaching skills that enable them to ask powerful questions, encourage self-discovery, and provide constructive feedback. Trained managers model a coaching approach, inspiring others and gradually infusing coaching into the organization’s daily interactions.  

 

  • Democratizing coaching access 

Make coaching available across all staff levels to develop an environment where everyone feels valued and supported. Access to coaching for all employees unlocks their potential, leading to higher engagement and a more resilient workforce.  

 

  • Implementing a systematic approach 

Develop structured coaching systems tailored to the organization’s needs. This might include creating a global network of coaches, cultivating in-house coaching capabilities, or establishing partnerships with local providers. Define success metrics to ensure these initiatives have measurable impact.  

  • Aligning coaching with business strategies 

Integrate coaching with organizational goals, ensuring that coaching initiatives are designed to support broader strategies. This alignment maximizes the relevance and effectiveness of coaching, reinforcing its role in achieving the organization’s vision.   

  • Embracing learning and celebrating success 

Deploy coaching in a way that feels natural by celebrating success stories, sharing testimonials, and highlighting real impacts. This encourages employees to embrace the value of coaching, making it a part of the organization’s fabric.  

  • Providing support structures 

Offer ongoing training, supervision, and recognition for internal coaches to maintain high-quality coaching standards. Integrating coaching into organizational processes ensures it remains a vital part of the work environment.  

  • Engaging stakeholders and building partnerships 

Engage key stakeholders and establish partnerships with external coaching experts to enrich the organization’s coaching capabilities and ensure seamless integration of coaching initiatives.  

Together, these steps build a coaching culture that empowers employees, drives growth, and aligns with organizational goals, positioning coaching as a strategic asset for organizational success.  

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This book re-defines the way we relate to ourselves, our teams and life itself. It is a must-have book for any leader who wishes to turn possibilities into reality for themselves, their teams and organisation. Get your copy now.  

 

New Books Releasing in June 2025

Posted on by simransingh

It’s that time of the year when summer is in full swing and readers want light summer reads, books to take on vacation, stories that will accompany you on rainy days and more. Whether you’re traveling, sheltering from the heat with the A/C on full blast, or enjoying a rainy afternoon with a cup of tea, June’s literary offerings promise a journey for every kind of reader.

This month, we bring you a diverse and thought-provoking selection. From multigenerational sagas and poignant queer narratives to sharp romantic comedies and timely geopolitical analysis. Here are the books releasing this month: 

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This novel follows the life of Jon, a Filipino gay man and his coming out of the closet in conservative and Catholic Philippines. He becomes a journalist and lives briefly in the United Kingdom and the United States, but returns home to a colourful country that is beginning to change.  

He forges friendships and alliances in gay Manila, meets and break ups with lovers, and lives with eyes wide open to the possibilities of hope.  

Here you will get a narrative line that is enriched with different prose forms like vignettes, poems, songs, speeches, reviews, feature articles, portraits of people and sketches of places. 

 

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Ah Lam is married off to Cheng Lei, the son of a wealthy merchant, to help improve her family’s situation as she is of age. Ming Zhu, Ah Lam’s daughter, befriends a wealthy Muslim Javanese entrepreneur family and falls for Arya, an aspiring scholar, whom she later marries despite her parents’ disagreement for their different cultural and religious backgrounds under the authoritarian New Order regime. Dido, one of Ming Zhu’s twin children and a Peranakan woman, faces gender and cultural challenges as she is torn between her hybrid ethnicity and cultural roots while growing up in the disorienting Reformasi era and riots. 

This is a story of three generations of women in Indonesia which talks about what happens when intergenerational trauma and family memories haunt their lives and ties to others.  

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After witnessing the relationships from the two closest people in her life fall apart, Clara was determined not to be the curse’s next victim by avoiding the root cause: falling in love with cliché love interests. 

Leading up to college, Clara has managed to avoid getting stuck in situations that will cause her to spend more time than necessary with a cliché love interest. But when she accidentally arrived late to the first day of ASL class, her streak came to an end when Colton Reed, the college star baseball player ended up sitting next to her.  

Escaping the curse was going to be a lot more difficult than she thought it would be. 

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An era of great power rivalry made the rise of Southeast Asia possible. It stimulated common purpose and unity among nations and led to the creation and consolidation of ASEAN.

The question now is, will the return of geopolitics have a similar impact? This is no means assured. In fact, the opposite could happen. The new geopolitics is, after all, quite different from the old. Developments affecting Southeast Asia’s reputation and appeal might destroy ‘Southeast Asia’ not just as a distinct idea, but also as pawns in the hands of great powers. 

 

With so many interestingly crafted stories, we know it can be hard to choose which one to read first. But the good thing is that you get to read all! Stay tuned on our Instagram to know when they release.

Books you can read instead of doomscrolling – Mental Health Awareness Month Edition

Posted on by simransingh

This Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re not here to tell you to think positive or be mindful.

In a world overflowing with endless feeds and fleeting updates, it’s easy to fall into the trap of constant scrolling, especially when life feels overwhelming. If you’re feeling frayed, restless, or just plain tired lately, you’re not alone. Doomscrolling might feel like control, like staying informed—but mostly, it just wears us down. But this month, we’re offering an alternative: start reading.

Not because reading will magically solve anything.
Not because you need another thing on your “self-care” checklist.
But because your mind deserves better than an endless scroll of anxiety, outrage, and distraction. Each book here, whether fiction or nonfiction, offers insight into the human experience, mental wellness, and self-discovery. Here’s what we recommend flipping through instead of your social media feed.

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Through the powerful stories of her clients, Clinical Psychologist Dr. Cassandra Aasmundsen-Fry explores how buried experiences shape our feelings of being stuck, in our careers, relationships, and personal fulfillment. This book is a journey of embracing our most difficult parts to rediscover hope and reconnection. It is about unearthing and embracing the difficult parts to reconnect with ourselves and with hope.  

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The story follows its disturbed protagonist over two nights. She is a Harvard-educated mother who struggles to find an outlet for her loaded brain. Meanwhile, her marriage with an asexual husband unravels and she goes through familiar motions of motherhood for their child. She lives entrenched in her mind, facing demons whispering that the love she gets from this family unit won’t make her own life less devastating. 

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This book is not a prescriptive roadmap to being more efficient in life. Instead, it will guide you to create your own manual to get things done through the power of self-awareness. It will ask you confronting questions that only you can answer; it will show you how to look inward and dig deep into yourself and how to look outward so that you can understand your surroundings. 

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Woman Turning F*fty is a collection of savagely personal as well as eclectic experiential essays from a former journalist on the margins of middle age. The author ponders timeless questions about life, maturity, and loss, and dips into universal truths that not even hormonal changes can alter. 

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Beautifully illustrated and easy to dip into, this book provides a toolkit for self-reflection that honors your unique journey. It’s not about fixing yourself—it’s about discovering who you are and embracing your own path to progress. With bite-sized writings and illustrations, it aims to help get us to know ourselves better and appreciate our unique way of progressing in life through self-reflection and evaluation. 

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Tracy was at the start of her law career and at the cusp of life when she got a debilitating brainstem stroke that affected her breathing, swallowing, speech, eyesight, and severely weakened her left and paralyzed her right. She found herself effectively a thinking statue at the age of thirty-five. In this memoir, author rebuilds her life, she learns life’s basics all over again, discovering the deeper meaning of faith, resilience, and healing.

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A vibrant collection of seventeen stories rooted in Malaysia, Tapestry of the Mind introduces you to characters navigating everything from family loss and legal injustice to spiritual crises and societal stigma. Each story is a rich exploration of the mental and emotional threads that bind us.

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A charming and wealthy young man who is grieving, begins to hear his late sister’s cat speak, and the conversations change his life. This touching and surreal novel explores grief, memory, and the strange comforts that help us survive loss.

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This book demystifies the process of how to come up with effective, problem-solving ideas. It will help you discover how to unlock the transformative power of creative conflict. You will become an expert at sparking creativity. By the time you get to the end of this book, you will have all the tools to brainstorm like a champion. 

 

Mental Health Awareness Month isn’t just about awareness—it’s about action. Choosing a book that speaks to your experience or stretches your perspective can be a small but powerful act of care.

So here’s your challenge: put the feed down. Pick one of these books up.
And start feeling a little more like yourself again.

Which one are you starting with?

Read an exclusive excerpt from Ageless

Posted on by simransingh

Ageless aims to bridge the gap between the bench and bedside, to further Dr Michael Khor Kok Seng’s legacy of service to the community and to educate the reader by promoting healthy living and informed choices. Here is an excerpt from the book. 

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Gut dysbiosis 

The gut is very important to us. We use the word ‘gut’ in both literal and abstract ways. These are all abstracts using the word gut. 

  • No guts = scared, running away  
  • Gut feeling = instinct/intuition 
  • Having guts = courage 
  • A kick in the guts = a big setback 

In literal terms, the gut means the intestines or the digestive tract. There are enzymes in the gut that digest the food that we consume. The gut also protects us as a barrier against the bad bacteria that we ingest together with the food that we eat, as well as the poisons and heavy metals that are accidentally taken in.  

Among the essential metabolites produced by the gut microbiome are vitamins, protein derivatives (amino acid parts), bile acids, and short chain fatty acids (SCFA). Sugars like table sugar and lactose (milk sugar) are quickly absorbed in the upper part of the small intestine, but more complex carbohydrates like starches and fibres are not as easily digested and may travel lower to the large intestine. There, the microbiota help to break down these compounds with their digestive enzymes. The fermentation of indigestible fibres causes the production of SCFA that can be used by the body as a nutrient source but also play an important role in muscle function and possibly the prevention of chronic diseases, including certain cancers and bowel disorders. Clinical studies have shown that SCFA may be useful in the treatment of ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, and antibiotic-associated diarrhoea. 

The difference in the composition of the gut microbiota can determine how healthy we are and how long we can live. A healthy gut means a good balance of microbes in our body. These microbes have a lot of functions in the body.  

The gut microbiome is a key factor in multiple processes: 

  • It helps to digest and absorb ingested nutrients. 
  • It protects as a barrier against harmful organisms. 
  • It allows the passage into the body of beneficial agents. 
  • It produces essential metabolites like vit B and K. 
  • It provides signalling of peripheral and central nervous systems. 

Harm can occur in the body when: 

  • The composition of the gut microbiota is changed, or  
  • The intestinal barrier is compromised. 

Some organisms may be pathogenic and cause disease. Although the body and the totality of all these microbes live together peacefully, sometimes there is an imbalance between the synergistic and disease-causing microbes, especially in the elderly. This causes a dysbiosis, a disturbance in the microenvironment in the gut.  

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Using a combination of personal anecdotes and thorough research, this book is written with the layman in mind, and lays down the latest scientific evidence in man’s search for healthy longevity.