Retired, not expired: They wrote a best-selling business book on visual thinking
Published on
27 Jul 2024
Published by
The Straits Times
SINGAPORE – Ms Sherrie Low, 59, and Ms Ai Yat Goh, 68, did not expect to be best-selling authors post-retirement.
But their book, The S.T.A.R. System: Applying Visual Thinking For Business Success, published in 2024 by Marshall Cavendish Business, debuted on March 7 and topped The Straits Times’ non-fiction bestsellers’ list on March 16 and 23, as well as on April 6.
The 156-page tome remained on the list for five weeks, dropped off and then topped it again on May 18. It returned on June 29 at No. 2.
“Our readers have helped us make the seemingly impossible possible,” Ms Low wrote in a grateful LinkedIn post in April.
The acronym Star in the book’s title stands for story, takeaway, application and reflection, and the Star system leverages visual thinking to help businesses build resilience in uncertain times. It builds on American author Dan Roam’s visual thinking framework in his 2008 bestseller, The Back Of The Napkin.
Ms Goh has been a master trainer in Asia for Roam’s The Back Of The Napkin – Solving Problems With Pictures programme since 2010.
The duo soon followed that up with an executive training programme, Power Of Visual Thinking In Business, which launched in Hong Kong and Thailand. They plan to roll it out in European and East Asian markets in 2025.
They are also in discussions to include the Star system framework into a programme on creative problem-solving with an overseas university partner, and are keen to develop similar conversations with other universities.
Also in the pipeline are more books, which will highlight businesses that have successfully used their framework, as well as one on active retirement.
Both would make ideal poster girls for active retirement, as they each intentionally carved out time to pursue meaningful passions from an early age.
The two banter like childhood friends, but they met only in 2019, when Ms Low enrolled in an entrepreneurship workshop that Ms Goh ran. Despite their contrasting personalities – Ms Low describes herself as a conscientious student in school, while Ms Goh says she preferred to play – they bonded over a common love of food and travel.
Ms Goh had given up a deputy general manager role in a French finance company at age 38 to run banking and financial training programmes. At age 50, she completed a Master of Business Administration in entrepreneurial management with the Entrepreneurship Institute of Australia.
Four years later, the singleton sold a dot.com company she founded and “retired” from full-time corporate life, only to find herself bored after three months.
Over the decades, she started multiple businesses in various industries, from education to food and beverage. She has been an associate lecturer with SIM Global Education for 22 years and is managing partner of local training consultancy Infiniskills.
Ms Low, on the other hand, had been deeply affected by her mother’s death in 2018.
A year later, at age 52, she left her career in sales and marketing management roles, which spanned companies such as CNBC Asia Pacific, Sony Pictures Entertainment Networks Asia and Channel NewsAsia, to find out what she really wanted to do.
The mother of two adult children in their 30s first worked as a freelance editor, then joined Ms Goh’s Infiniskills consultancy as a visual thinking strategist in 2020. Her husband, aged 63, is also an active retiree, she says.
Keen to build her academic credentials, she pursued a Master of Science (Global Marketing) from the University of Roehampton, London, in 2021. A year later, she completed a SkillsFuture WSQ Advanced Certificate in Learning for Performance 2.0, or ACLP in short, which qualifies her to facilitate adult learning.
She joined SIM Global Education as an associate lecturer in 2023, teaching two programmes – professional writing and business in society – at RMIT University.
“Our definition of retirement is when you have a choice to do what you like and not what you have to do,” Ms Goh says. That may mean, for instance, having the freedom to choose training engagements and “add another stop (like Waze)” like a short holiday afterwards, she says, referring to the real-time driving navigation app.
The idea for a book came about in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, when both were stuck in Singapore, but got delayed as Ms Low decided to do her master’s.
She likens her skills upgrade to the message of the book which, more than just teaching businesses to boost resilience, is about “a pathway of lifelong learning and embracing change”.
Many people erroneously think retirement planning is just about money, says Ms Goh, who has been holding workshops on that topic for more than 15 years.
In reality, she says, “it’s got to do with emotions, learning how to let go of your structured lifestyle to something very blurry”.
“There’s no more purpose. And I think that’s the fear.”
Ms Low adds that people approaching retirement should not just react when they hit the metaphorical “wall”, but plan ahead and understand what they want out of this phase of life.
“We are active retirees. We don’t clock in from nine to five at a workplace, whether it is physical or virtual. We don’t draw a monthly salary. But we do, however, put in a lot of effort. We’re very busy – doing the things we love, experimenting and making some pocket money.”
People often ask Ms Goh when they should retire, to which she says: “It’s when you’re ready. In the past, I retired when I was not ready. I learnt from it, then now I send the message that you have to do it purposefully.”
She urges people in their 40s and 50s to spend 20 per cent of their time doing something they enjoy because it may lead to something more down the line.
In her case, that meant taking up painting after the Asian financial crisis hit in 1997, when she realised she had spent her career using mainly her logical left brain and had neglected the creative right brain.
Her hobby soon expanded to watercolour, oil and acrylic painting, and in 2010, she felt she “earned the right” to e-mail author Roam, whose book she had bought two years earlier, to ask if she could represent his framework.
In a serendipitous turn of events, he invited her to San Francisco, where he launched the inaugural workshop for his visual thinking programme, and she became the first master trainer in Asia to represent them.
“You pick up little skills here and there, and then suddenly you’re ready when the opportunity comes. And that opportunity could be a retirement opportunity.”
Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Reproduced with permission.
ALL views, content, information and/or materials expressed / presented by any third party apart from Council For Third Age, belong strictly to such third party. Any such third party views, content, information and/or materials provided herein are for convenience and/or general information purposes only. Council For Third Age shall not be responsible nor liable for any injury, loss or damage whatsoever arising directly or indirectly howsoever in connection with or as a result of any person accessing or acting on any such views, content, information and/or materials. Such third party views, content, information and/or materials do not imply and shall not be construed as a representation, warranty, endorsement and/or verification by Council For Third Age in respect of such views, content, information and/or materials.
