Ning-Jia.com

Recently, I’ve been reading about populism and its effects on communities. As a social psychology enthusiast, it always amazes me how the crowd can bring out either the best or the worst in people. And when you’re in that crowd, it’s not easy to maintain the awareness to realise what the crowd is doing to you. Its effects in politics can generate a momentum that pushes opinions toward the extreme. Most academics agree that this is not healthy in the long term and can distract from what is actually important. A recent video by Joeri Schasfoort, the YouTuber behind Money & Macro, listed four mainstream explanations for this trend: Social media polarisation Economic disenchantment Cultural disconnect and representation gap Rise in racism Interestingly, he quickly dismissed the fourth reason—racism. It’s a relief to think we’re not heading toward total societal collapse simply because we’ve started hating one another so intensely. But the other three factors offer very real lessons for...

Do we seek the best driving advice from a 60-year-old who has been driving for 40 years? Or from an F1 champion who has won multiple championships? Or from a driving instructor who has spent 10 years deliberately helping others improve? Casual experience — simply racking up decades behind the wheel — doesn’t mean much. Even expert performance, by itself, doesn’t automatically translate into wisdom worth following. What truly counts is instructional experience: the refined ability to diagnose errors, break down tacit knowledge, and guide others through deliberate practice. Most of what a long-time driver “knows” is tacit — intuitive, embodied, and hard to articulate (as Michael Polanyi described). An F1 champion has elite pattern recognition and deliberate practice under pressure, but that doesn’t guarantee they can unpack their skill for a beginner. The instructor who has spent years reflecting on how people actually learn, adjusting their methods, and producing measurable improvement ...

Honesty. It isn’t just about telling the truth. The recipient of that truth also has agency in the matter. Few of us think about it this way, but I’m here to remind myself that I have a role to play in building an honest society. I’m going to assume most of us here understand the importance of honesty. But for the sake of building the case, I’ll go through it briefly. It is my belief that honesty is the best policy—not because it is some intangible virtue that somehow earns us karma points in the distant future or the next life. I’d rather be very specific and practical about why honesty is the best policy. There were countless times in my youth when I thought I could cover something up, that enough time would pass, and I would get away with it. Of course, there were also countless times I got away with saying, “I’ve forgotten my homework book at home”—but that’s a story for a different day. As we get older, people start depending on us, and we have to do our part. For example, at work...

It's strange to reach this point in my life, where friends no longer reach out to me because they think I'm busy.  And if I don't reach out to them, we'll surely drift apart. So, should I?

When we face difficult decisions, what do we think about? Our priorities, our learnings from similar situations. Where should we start? I begin with who is in front of me and who will be impacted by my decision. In an optimized world, everything becomes a trade-off. We no longer have the luxury of "no-brainer" decisions that are superior in every aspect compared to all other alternatives. Yet, this is not a curse—it's an acceptance that we are living in the real world, where we see enough to understand the broader implications. We become aware of how our choices affect those around us, whether in relationships or in balancing long-term versus short-term outcomes. So many factors must be considered. This reminds me of a wise philosopher who said, "If I am walking on the side of a mountain, I can see first a lake, then after a few steps, a forest. I have chosen either the lake or the forest. If I want to see both the lake and forest at once, I have to climb higher....

"If I am walking on the side of a mountain, I can see first a lake, then, after a few steps, a forest. I have to choose either the lake or the forest. If I want to see both lake and forest at once, I have to climb higher." ~ Simone Weil There's so much wisdom in this quote. On the flip side, if we want to see things clearly, we have to go closer to examine the forest. To look at each tree, we have to walk right up to it. While that gives us the detail of how each tree grows in the forest, we will lose sight of the lake. So, as leaders, we have to take that hike. We have to walk down to the trees every now and then to see if the trees are growing according to how our people report to us. But we must also ensure that we hike back up into the mountains to get an overview of everything. Trust our people too much to give the right information? Disaster—as they become mechanical and cannot take into account what's going on with the lake to consider what information is impor...

After 5 years, I'm finally going to write about what I've learned from running a family business: the top 5 things I couldn't just copy-paste from the corporate world into an SME, and the top 5 things I could. Here's a teaser. First off, it's been a rough journey for me. The whole idea of "managing up" changes completely when "up" is my Dad. All those data-driven presentations I'm so used to, the facts and analysis I've come to appreciate deeply, and the structured discussions I've been trained to lead—they all went out the window. Suddenly, I found myself dealing with passion, emotions, and relationships above all else. Sure, those elements mattered in the corporate world too, but there's a threshold there where people would eventually say, "Okay, you make sense. Let's do it your way." But in this family setup, the more "facts" I presented, the more I got told I lacked "experience," that I was be...

Boredom. What's the cause of it? Is our life not interesting enough anymore? Aren't there enough things to do? Are we just at a stage in our lives where nothing feels meaningful? No—it's that our threshold for what's exciting has increased. Back in university when I was studying psychology, we were taught the definition of a drug as any substance that, when taken into the body, changes how the body or mind works. Strictly speaking, this includes things like caffeine and sugar—substances we consume daily. When we consume these in excess, they give us a dopamine spike. They act like stimulants. They directly tell the brain: MORE . These natural instincts helped in ancient times when substances like these were scarce. They drove humans to seek them out—to a certain extent, the same goes for fats. But these days, we have them in such abundance that we have to consciously reduce our consumption. We've altered the world we live in so much that evolution hasn't kept up...

When do we outgrow our family? Should we outgrow our family? At which point do we consciously cut ties? I believe family is the people we’ve spent our time growing up with. And to them, we owe the comfort of staying in touch— just like I’m genuinely interested in knowing whether you’ve turned out well. Maybe there’s still something I can do to improve your situation. Maybe not. It’s sad to realize that Arthur Fleck’s mother was actually deranged, that Thomas Wayne didn’t have an affair with her, and that it was all a story she cooked up in her head. Yes, there are real stories like that too. Unfortunately, the mind conjures up plenty of fantasies it wants to live in. We want to believe the poor deserve better; we want to believe there’s more the rich can do. But market forces remain the most sustainable way of delivering what’s “deserved.” The more we intervene in systems we don’t fully understand—or lack the perseverance to see through—the more damage we’re likely to cause in the long...

People ask the same questions over and over again despite us already giving an answer, because the answer we gave isn’t what they are looking for. So how do we combat this kind of unawareness? Maybe we should give the answer they want first, just to hook them in—so they feel their question was heard—and then caveat it with what we actually mean. Is that a form of deception? Manipulation? No. It’s influence, because we do want the best for that person. Remember: intention matters most. May all beings be happy.