Bryan Victor has never taken a traditional path but he doesn’t know any other way. Perhaps that is why he started his own podcast in Singapore, Misfits, which interviews unconventional Singaporeans. At 20, he saved up $10,000 while he was serving required military time and decided he would travel the world for a year. During the trip, he realized this was all the “schooling” he needed (see 10 things I learned). After learning how he could live simply on very little money, he knew that this opened up many options for him. He knew that he would always value flexibility over maximizing income, learning this lesson earlier than others.
Regardless of any position towards “formal” schooling, his chosen path, wedding planning, wasn’t something you learned at school. He knew he had to create his own internship. So before his trip, he wrote to 50 American wedding planners (the best, he says), to ask if he could work with them. One person gave him a chance and he was able to learn while making enough money to live.
Going back to Singapore, he couldn’t get anyone to hire him, so he realized he was “forced” to create his own wedding planning business. In the process, he became named one of Singapore’s Top 10 Wedding Planners (though he argues there weren’t that many anyway!).
After proving he could make it, he started dabbling with a side business, 2D animation and founded Sage Animation. He decided to give the wedding planning business away as a gift and was able to find one person (out of 40) that he thought would do a great job.
Bryan has been fascinated with understanding what makes him happy. As he was on another trip in the United States, he was drawn to another project (motivated by the #vanlife movement) to build a liveable van for himself. While he accomplished the feat, he found that he was overcome with a “something-like depression” feeling after he achieved it. While he thought he had everything, it led to a new and deeper curiosity in what actually leads to happiness. This tweetstorm summarizes his latest working thoughts on the topic:
How to Be Happy (without being rich):
— Bryan Victor (@bryanvictorlim) November 20, 2018
Books & Other Resources Mentioned:
- Jose Villa – Wedding Photographer
- Seth Godin
- Tim Ferriss
- Antifragile
- Naval Ravikant Podcast on Farnham Street
- Solve For Happy
- SEO That Works Course
- Vanessa Van Edwards – People School