Singaporean jeweller Choo Yilin on what she learned during her hiatus

In the second of a multi-part series, Singaporean entrepreneur Choo Yilin shares her experience grappling with making difficult decisions and what she has learned from putting her eponymous brand on a break

In business management, we learn that for an organisation to thrive, the different functions—sales, marketing, product operations and so on—must frequently communicate and collaborate. Each institution will have a department that is dominant, likely due to its outsized impact on the bottom line, but it is crucial for all functions to have respect for each other. Acknowledging that every function plays a pivotal role within the company ecosystem is essential, and in order to facilitate this flow, its leaders must intentionally and systematically build the infrastructure.

At Choo Yilin, our team understood this and did our best to honour it daily. And as we were gearing up for internationalisation, we realised that the infrastructure that had served us sufficiently as a company thus far needed a massive revamp in order for the company to continue thriving.

The decision to go on hiatus—and in doing so, sacrificing revenue—was difficult, but we knew it was crucial to prepare our company for its next phase of being. Taking away the pressures of day-to-day retail operations would allow us to devote our energies to transformation, which was key to honouring the trust and faith our community had put in the brand.

In case you missed it: “My venture needs to grow beyond me as CEO”: A founder's search for her successor

On a personal level, I knew that for the best version of Choo Yilin 2.0 to materialise, I, the founder, had to undergo a similar transformation as my company. A “radical self-inquiry”, as Jerry Colonna, an ex-venture capitalist turned executive coach to startup leaders, likes to say. Through this, I came to a few realisations that mirrored what we had already begun to do for the company on a functional level.

Above In 2019, Choo decided to put the brand on hiatus to make significant structural changes (Photo: Darren Gabriel Leow)

The How

The journey is long and nuanced and best left for another essay, but briefly, I will share two resources that I found helpful. They will be especially valuable for leaders or anyone grappling with making big decisions in their lives.

Jerry Colonna’s work has inspired and taught me in countless ways, beginning with the question that he always asks: “How are you complicit in the creation of the environment you say you don’t want?”

Consistent, systematic shadow work with probably the most valuable tool that I learnt and used in this journey, and Colonna is a big advocate for that as well. A good primer on what it entails can be found on his website. The 5-day Shadow Reboot is free and I recommend doing the guided course as an easy introduction, regardless of whether you're an entrepreneur or not.
Matt Mochary’s bible for CEOs and entrepreneurs was also a lifeline for me. It gave my head the validation I needed to make key changes to our leadership team, even if I didn’t know how yet. Especially helpful was the Energy Audit, which I recommend to everyone.

This journey led to some incredible lessons and gifts, some of which I share below.

Gift 1: The Discovery

One of my most significant learnings was that we have three intelligence centres: the head, heart and gut.

Above Illustration: Raphael Quaison

I learnt that I had been prioritising my head above all else—this was the brain that so many of us believed was the safest to use when making life's most important decisions. Yet, just as it was pivotally important to have each department communicate and collaborate with each other, I began to feel the significance of hearing my heart and body speak.

Gift 2: The Practice

The stories my heart and gut have been telling me were unrecognisable from what I was used to hearing from my head. It took me a long time to begin trusting the stories from those two intelligence centres.

I initially rejected the stories I was hearing from them—one of which was to step away from being CEO of my company.

Stepping away brought up shame, like I had abdicated responsibility to the most emotionally significant endeavour I had taken in this lifetime.

Stepping away was acknowledging the terrifying fear of the unknown of the company’s leadership and future.

Stepping away felt viscerally like an admission that I was somehow not good enough to see the brand through.

I didn't like a lot of what my heart and gut were telling me. I attempted to negotiate and persuade them to see the viewpoint of my head, but they held firm. And so I continued to listen, often with feelings of betrayal, resentment and bafflement.

On a personal level, I knew that for the best version of Choo Yilin 2.0 to materialise, I, the founder, had to undergo a similar transformation as my company

- Choo Yilin -

Gift 3: The Growth

Then, the stories evolved.

In the beginning, the desires were in opposition to each other. Over time, these disparate aspirations converged into a larger story quite distinct from its parts. While my heart and gut stood firm on the idea that I was not meant to be CEO, there was a willingness to collaborate with my head about designing solutions to actualise the company's future growth plans.

There were incredible pay-offs to listening to my heart and gut that extended to other areas of my life. During this period, I created some of my greatest work for the brand—ideas, plans and designs that seemed so elegant and even obvious in retrospect but did not come to me in the hustle of everyday doing.

In the end...

My new understanding of and respect for the head, heart and gut as an ecosystem—an interconnected web—was a beautiful reminder that the whole was far bigger than the sum of its parts. It was another piece of humbling evidence that no one part had a monopoly of wisdom regardless of how dominant or capable it might seem.

Perhaps one of the biggest takeaways I took from this journey was cultivating a new relationship with time. Decisions took far longer than they would normally have, had I gone with the default way of proceeding with my mind’s desires.

I was reminded of the African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Now, whenever I feel resistance to this new way of being, I think back to the reason we went on hiatus: to build the infrastructure that would enable Choo Yilin to speak to a global audience long after I'm gone. With that, I realised the perceived slowness of collaboration and communication were tiny specks of time in the grand design of the universe—and a necessary part of transformation.

Choo Yilin is the founder of her award-winning eponymous fine jewellery label, which specialises in jade and is modernising this historically significant gemstone for the 21st-century audience. She would like to see herself as a storyteller, but instead of words, she uses gold, diamonds and Type A jade to tell these important tales rooted in heritage and history.

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Topics

Singapore Entrepreneur Startup Jewellery Business Succession

Tatler Asia

Going on hiatus: Jeweller Choo Yilin on making the decision and the lessons she gained

The How

Gift 1: The Discovery

Gift 2: The Practice

Gift 3: The Growth

In the end...