Last Updated on June 7, 2026 by Michelle
When people discover the BYORM Method today, they often assume it started with a grand plan.
It didn’t.
There was no dramatic turning point.
No life-changing event.
No moment where I suddenly woke up and decided to redesign my life.
Looking back, the BYORM Method was built through a series of small decisions over many years.
At the time, none of those decisions felt particularly significant.
But together, they completely changed how I think about aging, work, money, purpose and the second half of life.
2018: The Year I Started Thinking About My Second Career
In 2018, I was 16 years into my corporate career.
Life was busy.
Work was demanding.
The children were still young.
By most measures, things were going well.
But I found myself thinking about something I had never seriously considered before.
If people are increasingly living to 100 years old, what exactly was I planning to do with the second half of my life?
Retirement suddenly seemed like an outdated concept.
I wasn’t dreaming about stopping work.
I was thinking about what kind of work I could happily continue doing when I was 80 years old.
That question became surprisingly important.
I realised that while my corporate career had been fulfilling, it probably wasn’t something I wanted to be doing into my 80s.
So I started thinking about a second career.
Not because I wanted to leave immediately.
Not because I disliked my job.
But because I wanted to design a future that felt sustainable and meaningful into my older decades.
I had absolutely no idea what that second career might be.
But I knew one thing.
I wanted the freedom to choose it.
That led to the very first well aging habit I ever developed.
I started logging my daily expenses.
Every single day.
At the time, it seemed like a simple financial exercise.
But it became one of the most important habits I’ve ever built.
I knew that if I wanted to leave corporate life one day while maintaining my lifestyle, I needed to understand exactly how much that lifestyle cost.
Not approximately.
Exactly.
So I tracked everything. Down to $3 hawker food.
And I have continued doing so everyday since 2018.
Today, that habit has given me complete transparency around my spending.
It has helped me determine:
- how much passive income I would need
- how much financial freedom I require
- when I can realistically leave corporate life
Most importantly, it gave me confidence.
I always knew that I would only leave once I became financially free.
The daily expense tracking habit transformed that goal from a dream into a measurable plan.
Looking back, I realise that this was my first BYORM habit.
I wasn’t waiting for financial freedom.
I was taking daily actions that would eventually create it.
2020: Discovering My Interest In Well Aging
Then came Covid.
Like many people, I suddenly found myself spending more time at home.
I started listening to podcasts.
A lot of podcasts.
Topics that naturally interested me:
- life
- psychology
- health
- dermatology
- personal development
I wasn’t trying to start a business.
I wasn’t researching a future career.
I was simply curious.
But over time, a pattern emerged.
I kept returning to the same topics that I was interested in and kept wanting to learn more about.
How do people age well?
Why do some people become happier with age while others become more cynical?
How do you maintain physical vitality?
How do you maintain intellectual vitality?
How do you continue growing throughout life?
Without realising it, I had become fascinated by well aging.
Not anti-aging.
Well aging.
The distinction mattered to me.
I wasn’t interested in looking younger forever.
I was interested in becoming the best version of myself as I grew older.
Physically.
Financially.
Emotionally.
Intellectually.
That curiosity would later become the foundation of BYORM.
Although at the time, I didn’t know it yet.
2023: The Hardest Year Became The Most Important Year
Of all the years in my life, 2023 was probably the most challenging.
And because it was the most challenging, it became the year of the greatest growth.
I spent much of my free time learning.
Not because I had a plan.
Because I needed perspective.
I immersed myself in:
- psychology
- neuroscience
- relationships
- love
- emotional wellbeing
All through YouTube and books.
What surprised me was how much these topics changed my thinking.
The more I learned, the more I realised that my problems were not unique.
The more I learned, the more I realised that many people were carrying burdens far heavier than my own.
And slowly, I began to let go of the idea that my life was somehow the saddest.
That shift was incredibly freeing.
2023 became the year I started taking self-growth seriously.
Not occasionally.
Daily.
I started learning French every day through Duolingo.
I had always loved the language.
But I never believed I could learn it.
Duolingo removed the pressure and gave me permission to simply begin.
I started flossing daily.
I started reading more than one book every month.
I learned about investing and put to practice straight away.
I felt increasingly in control of my future. The significance of this realisation was that I did not even know I was not in control earlier.
This was also the year I set a goal that felt both exciting and terrifying.
I decided on the. year that I was going to leave my corporate career to start on my entrepreneurial career. I set a promotion goal first in order to leave the corporate career at a more senior title and I also needed the years of work before I was financially free.
And to celebrate that transition, I would spend two months in Paris.
Not just as a holiday.
As a symbolic closing of one chapter and opening of another.
The interesting thing was that I still had no idea what business I wanted to build.
And strangely, I was okay with that.
Because I knew I had some years to figure it out.
I started envisioning my Paris 2 bedroom apartment and the day to day, hour by hour actions I would be taking during my 2 month stay in the inspiring beautiful city.
2024: Discovering Ikigai
In 2024, I came across the concept of Ikigai.
The intersection of:
- what you love
- what you’re good at
- what the world needs
- what people will pay for
Something clicked.
For the first time, I started wondering whether my future might involve helping others to age well.
I realised that some of my favourite moments at work were not necessarily the technical or strategic business discussions.
They were the conversations where I shared:
- life lessons
- personal growth insights
- wellbeing ideas
- lessons around aging intentionally
I genuinely enjoyed those conversations, the best parts being when I sensed something clicked with the individuals I was speaking with. A sign that the individuals were getting inspired through the conversations.
Around the same time, I was listening to a podcast guest while driving back on a 40min journey back home and came across a female entrepreneur who mentioned that she had started with a blog.
That simple comment changed everything.
That very day, I Googled:
“How do I start a blog?”
Within a week, I had started one.
No business plan.
No audience.
No certainty.
Just curiosity.
I began publishing one blog every week.
I took a blogging course.
I started learning about Pinterest strategy for bloggers.
I started building the foundations of something I couldn’t fully see yet.
I took a 2 week leave and emulated being an entrepreneur, to imagine how I would feel as an entrepreneur. I realised 2 real things – not knowing that I was going to get a fixed salary at the end of the month was a big hurdle for someone who had been working non stop for 20+ years and I needed to overcome the fear. Second was the importance of taking healthy breaks, in order not to get burnt out resulting in demotivation.
2025: Building Two Futures Simultaneously
2025 became a year of dual goals.
On one side was my corporate goal.
A promotion.
On the other side was my entrepreneurial goal.
Building something beyond corporate life.
I worked on both simultaneously.
And in November 2025, something remarkable happened.
Both goals materialised.
The promotion happened.
The business offsite happened.
But instead of immediately celebrating, I did something very BYORM.
I reviewed the numbers.
I conducted a mark-to-market assessment of my finances.
And the conclusion was clear.
I wasn’t financially free yet.
I needed one more year than I’d previously projected.
That was a difficult realisation.
But it was also empowering.
Because the decision wasn’t emotional.
It was informed.
In December 2025, I shifted my retirement target year.
The Paris plan moved accordingly.
Not because the dream had changed.
But because the numbers told me it was the right thing to do.
That gave me peace.
2026: AI Changed The Speed Of My Journey
In January 2026, I was flying to New York for work.
It was a long flight.
About 18 hours.
At some point during the journey, I started experimenting with AI.
And then something unexpected happened.
I spent nearly 10 hours of that flight using it.
Writing blogs.
Exploring ideas and strategies.
Thinking about investments.
Refining my strategy.
It felt like having an endlessly curious thought partner.
By the time I landed, I realised something important.
I could double my blogging output.
Instead of one blog per week, I could write two.
And that’s exactly what happened.
By May 2026, I was consistently publishing two blogs every week.
Not because I had become a full-time writer.
But because I had become more efficient at translating ideas into words.
The Realisation
Looking back, the BYORM Method was never built through one life-changing moment.
It was built through daily actions.
Tracking expenses.
Learning French.
Reading books.
Listening to podcasts.
Building spreadsheets.
Writing blogs.
Investing consistently.
Thinking intentionally.
None of these habits transformed my life overnight.
But together, they transformed who I was becoming.
And perhaps that is the biggest lesson I have learned about well aging.
Well aging is not something that suddenly appears at 60.
It is built through thousands of ordinary days.
Days where you make small decisions that move you closer to the person you want to become.
That is the heart of the BYORM Method.
Be Your Own Role Model.
Not someday.
Today.
And then again tomorrow.
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