150K Followers, One Content Creator: How She Built Multiple Revenue Streams in Thailand

[00:00:00] New: What I learned the most from my PhD, I think it’s not about chemistry, but about I learn how to learn. And it’s actually shaped me to be a person that I’m not afraid to actually learn a new skill. There is no shortcut here. When you learn the language. I have students that actually started learning Thai before they came to Thailand.

[00:00:17] When the business partner came in, they changed my point of view. I need to grow, I need to learn. To me, the funnel is the glassware that we did in the laboratory. So all those things about marketing and business, I learn so much. I don’t look at myself as one person. I look at myself as one company. In my case, I don’t aim for money, I aim for freedom.

[00:00:42] Scott: So I’d like to welcome New to the podcast. So New, thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:00:48] New: Thank you so much for your invitation, as well. And I’m so glad to be here and to get to know you and your audience more as well. Thank you.

[00:00:57] Scott: Absolutely. So the reason that I invited you on is because you’re well known in the education space,

[00:01:03] But the thing that’s really interesting to me is that there’s a lot of people in the education space, but not always really business owners. And I think that you bridge that gap very nicely because you have the business mind, you have the educator’s mind.

[00:01:17] And so that’s why I thought you’d be a fantastic guest on the podcast. So maybe we can just kick it off by, uh, you share a little bit about yourself, who you are and what you do.

[00:01:27] New: So I’m the founder and pretty much mostly solo, self employer, self employee myself for Thai Lessons by New. So what I do is teach Thai language to foreigners through the online courses and also online platforms.

[00:01:46] Scott: Excellent. And what’s the name of your platform again?

[00:01:48] New: So I am in everything but the name. the main name is Thai Lessons by New.

[00:01:54] Scott: Excellent. So Thai Lessons by New, and again, as I said, I’ve seen you a lot of different places. It seems like you’re on all the socials.

[00:02:02] What would you say is your kind of favorite social platform nowadays?

[00:02:05] New: Firstly, I like YouTube the most. That’s actually where I grew up from and that’s also the original of the whole story of Thai Lessons By New is actually start from YouTube. But at the moment where I have the most followers, would be Facebook at the moment, so I kind of can’t choose which one I failed with the most.

[00:02:25] Scott: Another really interesting thing about you is that you definitely have some, some credentials that I don’t have. Uh, you actually have a PhD. So um, I’d love to learn a little bit more about that. Um, since you teach. Is that a PhD in education? Like what, what, what is this, uh, PhD in?

[00:02:42] New: Actually that’s a secret.

[00:02:43] You might be the first one to know that. I don’t really show that much on social media. Um, yes, I have a PhD. Actually it’s in chemistry. But I think you don’t want to know into detail of what I actually studied. Right. I’m going to start speak some language that you might not understand much. But yes, it’s in chemistry.

[00:03:02] It’s not about education. However, I think it’s pretty close because eventually the most of the people who graduated in PhD, then they would do research course or teach at a university. So actually, although I didn’t graduate in education, but I have experience in teaching training supervised students as well.

[00:03:25] What I learned the most from my PhD, I think it’s not about chemistry, but about I learn how to learn. It’s actually shaped me to be a person that I’m not afraid to actually learn a new skill. If I can spend three or four years to actually be, uh, a specialist in that area that I wrote 400 pages of my dissertation and then get a PhD, I spent four years doing that.

[00:03:50] Why can’t I spend another three, four years learning a new thing and be an expert in another new area? So actually it’s about the feeling of you can learn and you can relearn and then be an expert in any area that you want. So I think that would be the, the benefit or the, the mindset that I get the most when I get the PhD.

[00:04:08] So I’m not afraid to actually learn and relearn something. Another thing that I feel like, I spent 10 years of course learning this, but that’s my 10 years. I still have 80 years, 90 years, a hundred years to go, right? I shouldn’t let my 10 years dictate all my whole life. And if we have only one life and we are going to live 70 years, 80 years, I don’t know.

[00:04:30] Why don’t. Why do I do only one job? This is only one life that I can do, right? I can still have many chance, many things to do in life. Now, back to what I’m doing, it’s by circumstance. So I, I enjoy my work at that time. However, it’s come to the situation that I know that my contract was about to end, and then COVID time happened,

[00:04:53] I got an idea that I said like, I want to have passive income. Then when it come to passive income, I was looking and it’s like I can just do, and it cannot, it wouldn’t have a ceiling or limit my ability or limit my income.

[00:05:09] So that’s why at that time, so I chose YouTube because you actually can reach so many people around the world, right? There’s no ceiling.

[00:05:17] If I do Thai language, that means I can speak English to foreigners. And then if I speak English, then I can reach out to the whole world, not just only Thai people.

[00:05:26] Scott: Yeah. You know, this is really interesting because you mentioned at the beginning that you learned how to learn, but I think that you bring up a really good point that communication is just one of the, those things we all need it.

[00:05:37] It’s similar, it reminds me of how a lot of people say they don’t wanna be a salesperson, but in reality, if you have ever had a job, you’ve ever applied to anything, uh, to a school, then you have to have some level of sales. So I can see now that whether or not you were teaching Thai at the time or not, you were, you were learning how to communicate. And clearly that’s done well for you, uh, as you fast forward, you know, to, to now to where, yeah, you know, your job might be communication, but clearly you’ve been, you’ve been essentially polishing that skill and, and, and building up that, that skill set over the years.

[00:06:11] I can’t help but think about some business owners that I speak with that don’t wanna put themselves behind camera. They’ll maybe get on stage or they’ll do some other things, but as soon as it’s looking into a camera, they don’t do it or they don’t wanna do it, or they’re scared to do it.

[00:06:24] What would you say to that individual that is essentially just not clicking the record button, not putting their face out there more, uh, what would you recommend to them?

[00:06:34] New: Firstly, of course, um, we see the successful person that don’t show up on the camera and they still be successful. So actually I don’t want to limit it to that. However, if we go to the point of how do I tell people they’re scared of making themselves better or improve, or in a way, I think sometimes we think too much. We think too much of things that could go wrong, but it’s actually, it’s not that bad. But you scared, but it’s not the end of the world.

[00:07:07] You scared of the camera, you scared of the comments, you scared of what people talk about you. But to be honest, I, I am on social media right now. I get comments every single day. And I read all of them. I answered all of them too by myself. And do I get bad comments? Yes, it’s, but how do I feel about it? Of course, now I have 60 more than nearly 70,000 followers on Facebook.

[00:07:35] I have nearly, I have more than 30,000 on YouTube. So overall it’s like nearly 150k over all social medias. Think how much I am going to get every single day. What I think when I got bad comment. Now ment, my mentally actually grew up a lot, but it was the day that those bad comment also haunted me as well.

[00:07:58] But how did I pass those days? First day, I think they don’t know me, they’re not close to me. And then they just spend one second target. Why do I have to spend my whole day thinking about it? It’s just there one second. They already forgot about it. You’re not important that much in anybody’s else mind. You important in your own mind.

[00:08:21] You forget about you already. Why do you care about it?

[00:08:24] Scott: What a great lesson. I’m curious, do you think that going through that, and I think anyone who’s been on YouTube or put themselves out there, to your point, has some level of negativity that come at them, right? I mean, essentially, did it make you a stronger person, the fact that you’ve gone through them?

[00:08:39] Because I’ve heard different feedback on this. Like some individuals would say, never look at comments on YouTube. Just, you know, move on. Don’t, don’t let it take over. It sounds like you found a way to say, I’m going to read my comments, but I’m not going to let them get me down. Yeah. And I’m curious if the path that you took, do you think it’s the, was the right decision and do you think it made you a stronger person because you’ve done that.

[00:09:00] New: Comments is the thing that actually they would tell you that.

[00:09:05] How could you do better? How do they feel about it so that when I actually can be better, and that’s actually true all along the way that I come to this part, this far, I read comments and I pick which one is I can fix, which one I can’t. Then I improve the point that I can. A small little thing can help.

[00:09:26] Like some students said, oh, you put the, was too high. You can’t see it when it’s put in Instagram. I didn’t know those thing, but I listen to them and I change along the way. Secondly, I delete some comment. I don’t delete bad comment. I left it there because it, it doesn’t reflect me. What they said bad about me, doesn’t reflect me.

[00:09:48] Reflect themselves, how they see the world, how negativity they are. He doesn’t talk about me at all. Your words reflect yourself.

[00:09:57] Scott: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you think about the types of individuals that do that, that go online and say, I’m gonna leave this mean comment and hope that almost the person is now gonna think through it and it’s gonna ruin their day.

[00:10:08] Think of what type of person you have to be to be that type of person. Uh, I wanna go back to your, your background again, right? Yeah. And uh, you have quite an academic background and you obviously were educated through the Thai education system, right? Yeah. And so I’m curious what your thoughts are with education in Thailand and you know, I know there’s a lot of stereotypes here and there, and it might depend on the different things people study. But you know, a lot of people think of Thailand as being a little bit more for rote memorization, and it’s not always problem solving skills, but everything we’ve been talking about to this point has been problem solving.

[00:10:40] It seems like you, you do not struggle in the area of problem solving. And so I’d love to just hear your opinion on the Thai education system. I mean, uh, how is it that you did well in that system? Um, were there strengths of it? Were there weaknesses of it? Um, and how did you become the thinker that you are today?

[00:10:59] New: Okay, back to Thai education system. As Yeah, you, right. In terms of, I spend all my education, bachelor, master, and PhD, all in Thailand. When people, when they talk about education, doesn’t groom kids or Thai kids to be able to think or speak themselves. I’m not sure if that just the education that we are talking about. Because that’s also part of the culture, that we actually listen to adults. That we actually follow what the, uh, uh, adults say that.

[00:11:37] We actually afraid to be wrong. That’s also part of the culture that’s combined into education. So everything in there. And I was ones that kind of kids before that I would just listen to mom, listen to what is supposed to be. I don’t know that what else that we actually do or think out of the box. It was once my problems as well.

[00:12:00] I think one thing that I want to point out here and maybe not related directly to the education is, um, when I grew up, we actually group kids together. So we, we separate kids based on the grading, like by the score. So if the kids that have good score, they will be together. If kids that have not good score, then they’re stuck together as well.

[00:12:26] I think the thing is about Asian culture, we encourage studying a lot. But then we know that we have 24 hours. If we are going to spend time studying in a classroom a lot, we know a lot of knowledge, but then we don’t have much time to think out of the box. But if you don’t have much of the strong foundation, you don’t study much time in the classroom, then of course you have lots of time to think. So, but I don’t know which one is good, which one is bad. You just have to, everything have pros and cons in here. But back to my case, I came to this point that because, um, although I’m in the Thai system. But I also chose myself to be in a position that I could reach out more. So I chose to have a professor, my advisor, who actually my PhD, I did in Thailand of course, but my supervisor actually they are from the uk.

[00:13:24] So I go to them and then they teach me. But then, not to necessarily chemistry, but actually everything. So we just speak English in. We just speak English in the classroom. We spoke English, everything. Because my supervisor, they can’t, he can’t speak Thai. And then all the system, everything we ran similar to like in the UK and where they graduated from.

[00:13:46] And I also learned about work life balance from them as well. ’cause that’s Thai kids, we actually study my whole life. I would just been going to tutoring school and stuff. I never known about, you have to work, you have to live, you have to sleep as well. There’s three things you have to do in a day. So I learned from them as well.

[00:14:06] So I think wherever you are, you have to find where you can actually improve and grow better, whatever situation you are in. And that would be where you actually can maybe be different from others.

[00:14:19] Scott: That’s incredible. I mean, I think one thing that I really get from that is. When I lay out something like the education system is a good way.

[00:14:27] It has goods and bads. Right. I like that. You’ve basically, every time that we’ve talked about anything up to this point mm-hmm. It sounds like it’s your personalities that you found the good in it. Right. And you, and rather than saying, oh yeah, my teachers weren’t good, it sounds like you said, oh, I found a way to study under someone that taught me this other thing.

[00:14:42] Um, essentially free will, you basically said, instead of complaining about the system, leverage the system you have or adapt within it or, you know, um, it seems like you’re quite nimble in the, in the way that you’ve always operated through life. And that makes me wonder where that came from. So I am, you know, curious about your upbringing.

[00:14:59] Did you get that from your mother? Did you, like, where did you think you got this personality type where you seem to have that fighter mentality where you say, I’m gonna prove someone wrong, or I’m gonna do it my way. I’m gonna give this a try. Where did that come from?

[00:15:11] New: So, since 18, I pretty much left home to study and since then my parents never had a say in my life anymore. So whenever I asked anything from my mom, she would say up to you.

[00:15:24] Up to you. Up to you. So that would be the point. I stop asking her opinion because eventually I know the answer. That would be up to me. Making a decision, being confident. I think it’s actually skill. You actually have to do it a little bit. You right and then you prove yourself, oh, I’m right this time, let’s do it another time and right again.

[00:15:45] And then you’ll be more confident, more in your own decision because it’s keep repeating. Correct, correct, correct, correct. But then since I was young, um, thanks to my mom that she’s actually really see the importance of the education. So I came from a small city where I actually live now, which is Nakhon Si Thammarat.

[00:16:05] It’s just a small city in the south of Thailand. When I say mom, see the importance of the education is actually because I, my hometown is in not the main city. So it’s from, so I am from Pak Phanang. But then you know that all the education and the number one school would be in the main city. And then every single day since I was around 11 or 12, I have to travel one and a half hour to my school back and forth.

[00:16:41] Every single day there will be three hours a trip. So imagine if I did that myself every single day since I was so little. Make a decision, come back home, take on a bus, back on on time. I can’t miss the bus either because then we’ll have no bus to go home. I would just ask my mom recently, like, mom, you’re never afraid that I would make a wrong decision.

[00:17:04] And then she said. You make a wrong decision, you make a wrong decision. I also make wrong decision too. So then, yeah, right. Anyone can make a wrong decision. And then I think this one, it’s kind of like she let me do it a little bit, little bit and then make me stronger and make me be independent and confident in my decision.

[00:17:27] As a single child, I feel like I will have myself only. Let’s maybe be so sad, but I don’t feel sad. I feel like I only have myself to depend on. I don’t like depending on anyone, because no one cannot be reliable. You know yourself the most, and you can rely on yourself. Don’t put yourself in anybody’s else hand to take care of it.

[00:17:53] You have to be your own boss and trust yourself and take it. Why do you trust somebody and leave your whole life to be on anybody else hand to take a decision? So I said like, I would just have to do it, take care of myself, and then yeah, face the consequence of it. Hmm.

[00:18:12] Scott: It so sounds like the true entrepreneurship journey.

[00:18:14] I think a lot of individuals that realize they don’t want to, uh, report to someone else or rely on someone else for an income, you know, start to go down that path of saying, I might not know how to create something, but I’m gonna learn and get better at it and, and not have to depend on someone else to make sure I have a paycheck, for instance.

[00:18:31] And, uh, you know, so again, that seems like a common, a common thread of a lot of entrepreneurs. Mm-hmm.

[00:18:36] Now, can we turn that around because I’m, I’m sure that you have worked with and, uh, helped, um, foreigners study Thai and you have your platform where I think you’re, you’re helping tons of foreigners.

[00:18:47] And I’m just curious, do you see any problems or challenges that a lot of foreigners have coming into Thailand? Do they, do they fall into that same challenge of maybe surrounding themselves with other foreigners and not exposing them a lot to Thailand or, or how do you think about that?

[00:19:01] New: Firstly, I actually feel like my student and everything who made a decision to come to Thailand, they did so well in my opinion.

[00:19:10] I think that’s so brave. Like I know I have students that actually started learning Thai before they came to Thailand and then moved to Thailand. Like they planned to retire in Thailand and then they studied the language before and then they came to Thailand. I think that’s so brave. I imagine myself at when I was 30, moved to Australia.

[00:19:34] At that time I feel like everything was so fun. But right now at my 40 and you asked me go to a new country with zero friend and start everything from fresh, I’m scared to do it. So anyone who did that make a decision came to Thailand and want to settle here, start your new life with no background, no friend and anything.

[00:19:58] I’m so admiring you. You are actually so brave. And now back to learning the language. Um, yeah, it’s important. It’s because it’s not just really about the language, actually,

[00:20:11] So language is not just only about you, just understand what you eat, what you buy, where to go. But it’s about connecting to people. And when connecting to people, it’s more than just connecting because we are human.

[00:20:28] You can be happy with by just talking, having, having a good connection with someone, even a stranger for a few conversation. And that could actually light up your day already. So that’s how important or how you can communicate to people can be. That’s why people or students say like, I changed their lives because that’s made their everyday life is actually going better, having better communication, having better connection with people around them, especially when you are in Thailand as well.

[00:21:02] It’s challenging, of course, but this are also the charming of learning as well, and that’s no shortcut. I can’t tell you how many hours you are going to do. Everyone would be different. It might be 100 hours, it might be 200 hours, it might be 10 hours, and you stop and you have to go back to zero again. So everyone have different path. But the thing is you just have to go do it and then repeat it.

[00:21:28] Learn from your mistake, go out, do it again. My experience that if I can, if you can communicate the language well, then you have to just use it like you got no choice.

[00:21:40] Scott: There are no shortcuts. I a hundred percent agree with you, but then I can imagine that some of the AI and some of the technology that’s coming up is maybe making people think there might be more shortcuts.

[00:21:49] And I’m just curious if you have a thought about how language learning might change now that AI is becoming more prominent. I mean, I’m seeing it working its way into certain softwares now. Um, what is your opinion on AI?

[00:22:04] New: I have to admit that in terms of working is really helpful. It’s make me work faster, is make me work more efficient. It’s actually maybe even stable.

[00:22:12] I don’t need anybody else apart from me and my usual AI. It helped me with make things like faster, create things with 30 or 40% already, and I work on top of that, polish it and also get it done. So in terms of work is actually helpful. Now back to the language learning. I think you still need to have the strong foundation in Thai first. Or in anything that you are going to learn. That’s because AI would tell you something if you are not in a position to be able to judge that what it say is right or wrong is actually dangerous.

[00:22:55] So you yourself need to have a strong foundation. First should be in a position that good enough to be able to judge the information that AI going to feed to you. And that would be even more critical time that you should need your analytical thinking to filter which one you are going to believe. Which one, which one you are going to pick to use.

[00:23:19] And now, yeah, as I said, is critical time that you should start thinking about. Improving yourself. Even more than any other time because now you are going to not compete with human, but you are going to compete with AI as well. So use it as a tool, but don’t let it control you.

[00:23:41] Scott: Great advice. Great advice.

[00:23:42] What you’ve talked about through this whole conversation has been human connection, right? You talked about how when you can speak a language, you can make a, a, a deeper connection. When you have reasons to make connections, it’s forcing you to learn more, right? Because you know, you wanna be able to talk to that person on the bus or whatever it may be.

[00:23:56] And so I tend to think that AI is, the more you’re focusing your work, your time, your effort on the human connection side of things, that’s the part that I think is least replaceable. Now, who knows? I get it. People might have their AI girlfriends or boyfriends in the future, but my main thing is that seems like the safest zone is the area in which you’re making a human connection.

[00:24:14] But the repetitive tasks are not a very safe place to be.

[00:24:17] New: Although I said that, I don’t know what is going to be, I don’t even know if I am going to have a job in another 3, 4, 5 years or not. But what I tell myself that I can still go to bed at night is if I keep learning every day. If I am able to adapt myself, if I am flexible and want on and willing to learn and relearn and adapt myself to a situation, hopefully I also can learn something new again.

[00:24:49] And also as an entrepreneur, I built everything from zero. I think I can build something new again too.

[00:24:55] Scott: Now that brings me back to your business and how you’ve been able to develop a business that scales, right? Yeah. And, and so I’d love if you could kind of transition from what you were doing and how you were teaching and how you were leveraging YouTube and social media, but then you, you’ve, you’ve clearly grown since there and you have a plan behind all that you’re developing.

[00:25:13] So can you like, walk us through those phases that you went through and kind of where you are today and maybe even what you plan for the future?

[00:25:20] New: So what I do right now, everything are all online. So I teach Thai to foreigners. The social medias, uh, all that people can actually access to me the most. So as you, I am everywhere, as you said, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok.

[00:25:38] At first it start from YouTube. And the story would be it start from YouTube and then I started having student. Not that I advertise about it, as we said earlier, that I actually aim for passive income. So then I would do things that I think that it could keep creating me some money or revenue. And so that’s the plan.

[00:26:02] So that’s what I am still stick to. So what I plan to do, even in the future or whatever I add on my products, then everything would just be stand on the point that it should keep making me money, not me keep working. So if anything doesn’t fit in this, then I don’t actually do it. I don’t do it. So we have to stick on the plan of what you want first.

[00:26:28] In my case, I want freedom. I don’t aim for money, I aim for freedom. Freedom in terms of I can choose what my life would be, where I am going to be, when I am going to do things or my own decision. And it is right now, even I’m, I’m not that financial freedom yet, but I already have freedom in my own life right now.

[00:26:49] So that’s freedom. That’s the thing that we aim for. And money, which just be the tool to get to that point. Now, back to how that happens. So it start from YouTube and then I have, uh, some students reach out to me, send me an email and say, if they would like to be my student and I like, provide lessons, and then I was stop and asking myself like, am I going to change my career?

[00:27:14] I was a chemist, I was a researcher. Am I going to change it? Because I’m not the person who actually do things just, just for the sake of doing it. If I do something, I would just do it, put myself into it. My motto, one of that is. If you are going to play a game, play to win. If not, don’t play it. So whatever game I am, I’ve actually planned to win in that.

[00:27:40] Otherwise, waste your time. Why don’t you do it? So this as well, if I am going to change my career, then I am going to put myself in it. So I stop and ask myself am I going to do it? And then I was calculating and I was like, yeah, why not give it a try?

[00:27:56] I have to thank all my students as well. Even right now, I still do one-on-one, although with limited hours. One reason that I still keep doing this, that because my students are so nice and smart and kind and successful. Most of my students are early retired people. They might retire since they’re 40, 60.

[00:28:21] So they’ve been successful. They were CEO, they were the, the owner of the company and everything. And even now they still learn Thai with me. That mean they keep learning, never stop. So I myself, I believe that you will be similar to people that you spend time with. That’s what I believe. So then I like to spend time with my student because I like to surrounded myself with people like that.

[00:28:52] Kind, smart, wise, intellectual, also successful. They have good view of the world and they kind of, they’re my student, they pay for me, but I learn so much from them as well. So that’s why I still keep teaching because I want to surround myself with them. Second reason also, then I can see student problems closely and that could help me to improve my lessons in my self-learning courses in my Patreon for the monthly membership as well.

[00:29:23] ’cause I see clearly, closely what’s the student problems, so I know how to help them, how to fix them, and put those things into my lessons that I provide courses for student. Back to that. Now my student helps me because they actually like me enough to actually kind of be my mentor in a way as well. They said because they are student, they’re not just, they learn with me.

[00:29:51] Right? They learn with through many channels. And then they also help me by, no, why don’t you try this? Why don’t you try that? So then they introduced Patreon to me and that’s after I teach for like a year and then they introduce it. Patreon. It’s like Neil, give it a try. Try Patreon. And as I said, that I would improve or combine new things into me if it fit my goal, right?

[00:30:20] My goal is to have freedom and Patreon fit in that way, that because it’s also a channel that people can submit to my spatial content, and I provide spatial content regularly. These days I do three short video, one long video to my Patreon, and that’s the monthly subscription. That means I kind of know already that how much I am going to earn a month.

[00:30:43] In a way. It’s also no ceiling. I still do the same amount of job, but if I have more subscription, then I earn more. So it also fit with my things as well. And that’s also, if I am going to do Patreon, it should be different from what I already have done. So I also plan my Patreon to be different from my YouTube and other contents that I provide for free too.

[00:31:07] Otherwise, we’ll support people, subscribe, subscribe to it. So now I have the second product that different from what I already have and keep also generating. No ceiling income, do the same job. If I get more subscription, then I earn more. So that’s fit what I need. And then I also provide new extra contents for my students as well if they want to.

[00:31:29] Apart from the YouTube and also free social media, I want to mention a little bit why do I keep providing YouTube and social media for free? People might think that it’s also because of course you advertise yourself. However, to me, I do this because I want to decentralized education. I want to make learning Thai, be able to accessible to anyone.

[00:31:59] Regardless of how much you earn, you don’t need to pay me for money, but if you wash my lessons, you definitely will learn. Of course, if you can pay more, if you want something special and extra, then you can also sign up to my Patreon as well. After Patreon for about a year and a half that I get quite a number that I am happy about.

[00:32:21] Then also then after that, it’s a good time that a new opportunity came in my mind. I already know that I want to have a video courses and then. Luckily, then I got a partner, but then they actually reached out to me and sending an Instagram to me. Actually the founder of the company, who is my business partner right now, send me an Instagram.

[00:32:45] I chose them that because they already have the plan to do the things that I already have in my mind that I want to do, which the video courses today just came to actually fill in the gap that I needed. And what they did is the part that I don’t do. So I do my part, which is the create courses, planning and everything.

[00:33:04] So all the content would be my part. Other thing else is their part. Which is behind the scene in terms of the finance, managing the payment marketing websites, reach out, sending emails, everything behind the scene that I don’t know, and I don’t know for real. I actually learned so much during these two years that we’ve been together, and we still been together in another few years.

[00:33:29] So I learned about cold ads. I even Google what it means, like what cold ads mean? I learn about green funnel. Ever green something? To me, funnel is the glassware that we did in the laboratory. And then they talk about funnel. I like what does it mean? So all those things about marketing and business, I learned so much about this within these two years.

[00:33:56] Now, when we talk about business mindset, I have to admit that I actually didn’t have this kind of mindset before. When I did at the start YouTube teaching one-on-one, even Patreon, it was just, okay, everything for just have passive income. And that’s just for myself. But when the business partner came in, they changed my point of view about, I need to grow. I need to learn. And I now by myself in terms of I’m the whole company myself. I don’t look at myself as one person. I look at myself as one company. This company, what do I have to do? I have to aim that what this company going to hate to, what we are going to do this year, what we are going to do next year.

[00:34:43] I’m not talking about with my business partner, I’m talking about me, myself. The whole company of Thai Lessons by New is here. My product one-on-one, my Patreon, self learning courses, what else that I am going to add in this new company. So, and then I have to go through all the finance, reading all the report, checking all the numbers, and then go to all the best, and then answering comments, going to making a decision, doing pictures, websites and everything.

[00:35:16] Checking. I also learned to communicate with working in a team. Like before when I was in academy, we don’t really work in a team actually. I think ’cause I was kind of like my own boss in a way that I make a decision of what, like what direction of the research we are going to and stuff. I discussed that to my boss, but I was still the one who made the decision.

[00:35:41] I don’t really need to communicate in terms of what should I say to make him happy or what, like communicate with the employee and stuff like that. But I learn everything like right now and I’m still improving. Hopefully my, my team think that I’m good enough, better now, but like how to tell them because I’m actually the person go to the point. If you message to me, I wouldn’t say, hello Scott. Good morning. How are you today? I was just like. The go to point. But then I also learned, okay, softer, communicate, giving a compliment, and then maybe tell directly. I also learned from podcasts and everything how to communicate to the team, how to talk to the employee.

[00:36:25] If you are the CEO, then what you should do, how you should spend your time, how to make a decision in a day. How to get enough sleep, exercise, and then make the good decision at the right time. How to actually manage your time. That which time you should do it, at which time of the day to actually, your brain still function, right?

[00:36:43] So everything is actually learning and coming, uh, during these two years. And now I see the whole world better as the whole market that I can reach to, not just a little like small little thing. I think they came into fill in what I didn’t see before and now make me actually could be stronger and bigger in a way.

[00:37:05] Scott: Yeah. I love that, New. Now this is actually something that as you’re sharing how you’re changing your business, how you seem to be very good at iterating, right? So you’re adding to things, you’re improving things, you’re listening to feedback from YouTube, you’re listening to feedback from your one-on-one sessions and you’re, you’re changing these things. But you’re also talking about how you’re, you’re optimizing also for your own income and growth.

[00:37:26] Right? And what I love about that is I personally see that as a very. Beneficial thing. I don’t see that as like, oh, business over here is like, make money. And then over here you’re trying to keep some clients happy. To me, they’re all the same. Now I think there are some bad people out there that will try to do those like quick scams sort of things, right?

[00:37:42] They exist where people will take advantage of the money, but to me, I see the incentives aligned because if you’re able to provide more value to your students.

[00:37:51] New: Yeah.

[00:37:51] Scott: You should be able to make more. Um, it’s actually a conversation. I have a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old, and I was just talking with my son, the 9-year-old, about, um, about business. Like what is business?

[00:38:01] And he said, oh dad, I think that’s like making money. And it’s like, no, I would actually argue that business is not about making money. Business is about providing value, and the result of providing value or making something better is to make money. It’s the byproduct. I think too many people switch that around.

[00:38:16] And what you’re doing is you’re making a product better, you’re providing more value, right? And as a result you absolutely should have an increase in money. And if you’re able to optimize your, your courses, your platform, your Patreon, uh, you know, yeah, the, the post that you’re making, then of course some of that should be evergreen and should continue to grow and build up and everyone should be winning.

[00:38:39] And the, the great thing about that too new is that I’ve unfortunately seen the other side of that. I’ve seen some very good teachers that unfortunately I think get caught in that whole do it myself. Right. I’m not saying that’s wrong for everybody. Mm-hmm. But the reality is sometimes you see people, and I’m not sure if you’ve seen people in this, in this, but it’s that they will build, build, build, work on the lesson plan, work on the thing, and they’re, they’re buried in what they’re doing and as a result, they never really get to improve.

[00:39:05] They never really get to build and allow more students to get the benefit and get more exposure. Mm-hmm. Instead, they end up helping three people or whatever, you know, whatever the number is. Yeah. And then they’re just never out of that. Uh, it’s almost the rat race, right. It’s, it’s almost back to the whole what happens for a job sometimes as you just get caught in the doing and you never get to go bigger.

[00:39:26] But I love about your story is how you’re always improving and you must be providing more value, otherwise you wouldn’t have found success like this. Right.

[00:39:34] New: Yes. I actually really agree in terms of, I heard people say before that the more people you help, then the more benefit that you would get to yourself.

[00:39:45] But actually you help more people as much as you can and then eventually you will get some return. I didn’t understand that before, but once I am doing what I am doing at the moment, and I actually understand that even more. It’s not about making money. I think what I love about my job is also when I get to see comments about how I can change their life, how this important to them.

[00:40:12] And that’s so rewarding. When they say, you are the best. You help me. You actually make me understand this. Your courses is actually one comment. Actually say I take a few, I think he said he took five courses and only my course, that actually he find he found it the best and can help him improve his pronunciation.

[00:40:33] And when I see that. Yeah, it’s like this, I don’t know. This is the best job. You get money and you get to hear this kind of thing, and that’s so rewarding. Eventually, when it’s not about yourself anymore, it’s actually feel even a lot better.

[00:40:54] Scott: Yeah.

[00:40:54] New: And of course this kind of thing not necessarily, necessarily include in terms of that.

[00:40:59] In terms of as, I always want to improve myself when I produce courses. Of course, I have experience in teaching, but my course is also my first course, right?

[00:41:10] Scott: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:11] New: My A one course is my first course. My A two course is my first A two. My reading course. It’s my first reading course. I also want to hear what people think about it as well.

[00:41:22] Of course, I did my best to actually do it. But you would be the one who tell me that if it’s the best or not, and it’s good to actually hear that. Your effort, what you put in there is actually, yeah, they say that yes, you did the right thing.

[00:41:40] Scott: Right? You’re the one that’s reading the comments and clearly you take them to heart, right?

[00:41:44] Mm-hmm. So you iterate based off what you’re hearing and the feedback you get. That’s fantastic. Well, New think you’ve been incredibly generous with your time. I’m just curious, is there any, are there any topics that you think we should have discussed that we actually didn’t touch on yet today?

[00:41:59] New: I wanna talk about time management a little bit.

[00:42:03] Scott: Hmm. Please do.

[00:42:05] New: So, I, I think you will hear about this, um, that you divided into a box of what important. What not important. What urgent. What not urgent.

[00:42:17] Scott: The Eisenhower metrics, right?

[00:42:18] New: Yeah. And that’s what I believe, and that’s what I choose to do every single day. That to do importantly, but not urgent. So I want to, so I would plan a day and just do what?

[00:42:33] Important but not urgent. Anything that’s not important and not urgent you don’t do at all. I really value the time. So if you have, yeah, this limited time, what you are going to put yourself into it. I even believe this, not just only for work as well, this, this belief, it actually pushed me to go out and do exercise that, because if I don’t exercise right now, it’s going to cost me much in the future.

[00:43:01] So I have to start doing this now is important, but not urgent yet. And don’t make it to be urgent until you do it. But in terms of work that, because I have so many things that I was saying before that I have to do pretty much at the moment, like three, four things that to do. The Thai teaching. So in a week I would choose to plan that.

[00:43:24] When do I research my new contents? When do I prepare for my Patreon? When do I actually have to prepare for my new courses? When do I actually have to do marketing for everything? So that would come to like, I have to set in a week at which day I am going to do what, at which time as well. So I have to plan that.

[00:43:46] If I don’t do research right now, then tomorrow I don’t have content to talk about. So that would be the thing that I have to plan ahead and plan the really important things to put in the right time to actually do it. I also, but then I also believe that you have to balance as well, not just work in life.

[00:44:07] So we have health, we have relationship, we have work. I’m not sure what else. But what would be three, four things right now. So like I spend. Not sure if it’s enough so I be sick, my mom and spend time with my mom 24 hours in a week. And then go back to live by myself doing the work and other things. Half an hour every day doing exercise, and then the rest, maybe doing some work and hanging out with friends when I need to.

[00:44:36] I’m not when I need to, when I want to. Everything. Also what I feel like as well. So I feel like we should balance to do things and manage time to do what important. So if, and stick to your aim. If you aim to be, to have freedom or to have money, there’s nothing wrong. You aim what you want, but then keep looking at that goal and check yourself if you keep walking in the right direction or not.

[00:45:06] Scott: Yeah. Great advice. Be intentional, right? And, and make sure that we’re not skipping some of these key things. And health, I’m so glad you touched on health, because it is sad sometimes when people focus so much on work, they don’t realize that by not taking the breaks, not getting outside, not seeing some greenery, not seeing friends, right?

[00:45:25] It, it, it hurts your mind, doesn’t it? Right. It doesn’t allow you to get as creative and I think you have to strike a balance, don’t you?

[00:45:32] New: I was actually still stick to being super productive. And to do that, you actually have to have those things. You have to, you need sleep, you need good mentality. And that’s coming from spend time with friend talking something that nonsense and spend time with someone that don’t really talk about work or anything at all.

[00:45:51] That’s also actually helped a lot.

[00:45:53] And also, yeah, exercise, eating healthy food. So everything needs to balance, but to be honest, that’s come to the point that, yeah, then I can work super correct tomorrow. If I don’t sleep tonight, then I can’t work properly tomorrow. So that’s also important. Yeah,

[00:46:09] Scott: yeah.

[00:46:09] Great advice. Great advice. Well, New would love if you could share the best way that people can get in touch with you, they can learn more about you or learn from you. Um, where would you recommend they go

[00:46:24] New: so they can follow me on my social media? So if you can just search Thai Lessons by New. In any platform, even with Google, you actually should be able to find me.

[00:46:35] If it’s for my courses or anything. You can also send me an email as well. That’s [email protected]. But pretty much if you find me in any social media, you should find me. Yes.

[00:46:50] Scott: Fantastic. Well thank you so much for the time. I will have to share that I do the same thing that you do. The reason that you still have all these one-on-one lessons is because you’re learning from people, you’re learning from your students.

[00:47:01] That’s of course why I do this podcast. I love to surround myself with individuals like yourself ’cause I can learn so much and I hope others that have listened, have learned as well. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and uh, we’ll catch you on the next episode. Thank you.