David: Hello there. I’m David Norcross. Welcome to another edition of Bangkok Thought Leaders. Today we have a very special Bangkok Thought Leader with us, the youngest we’ve ever had on the show, Manish Sethi. Thank you for being with us today.

Manish: Pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

David: So you’re the CEO of Rescued Glass, and I’ve known you since, I think, you probably were just leaving school even when you started this. So an incredible journey in such a short period of time. What got you into entrepreneurialism?

Manish: Yeah. Great question. I think we met back last at an AIP event or was it an internship event or we were speakers and I was sponsoring the event. So, we connected and we talked on that. I think

David: You were only about 18 then, right?

Manish: I was around 19. Yeah, it was my first year of university, I think, so really freshly out of high school. I think I’ve always been an entrepreneur since I was young, you know, back in high school, I was training people how to play video games, getting paid for that. And so that was fun.

David: Brilliant.

Manish: I was personal training as well. I was always into health and fitness. That was really interesting. And then my co-founder and I, Aldin Shaw, with Rescued Glass, we saw a lot of glass bottles. And I used to go to a lot of Indian weddings. So I saw a bunch of alcohol bottles and we were like, wow, these are quite beautiful, actually. So we found a way to transform them into decorative and innovative household items, and we found a way to make an impact and give back to our communities. So with Rescued Glass, we work with a variety of different international schools. So it’s been really empowering and really nice to see the difference we can make so far. And now I’ve been trying out different industries and testing things out as I go.

David: That’s incredible. So you were just 19 at that time. So I started Lexicon when I was 34. Prior to that, I kind of messed around with my life. So you’ve got such a massive head start on me. That’s incredible. But how did you see the opportunities to work, to make money, to create something at such a young age? Is it an entrepreneurial family that you come from? Did you have mentors that were guiding you?

Manish: It’s a great question. I think for me, I’ve always been very curious. As you know, you’re actually one of my mentors. I’m really grateful to have you as my mentor. So I think I’m always asking questions, always learning from each other. My family does come from a family business background, although my family is more invested into real estate and investments, into stocks and things like that. But I’ve always been curious about different things, always wondering why things work the way they are. And I’m really blessed to have great mentors to guide me along my way. But I think it’s that curiosity that really drives me to learn more and ask questions and dig deeper and try different things and take risks, I think.

David: That’s really awesome because most people from every generation, I think at your age it’s girls and parties and the less serious stuff. So the fact that you’re doing this all now sets you up so well for the future.

Manish: I appreciate that, I appreciate that. And even back in high school or university, I used to host a lot of parties as well. But I always liked bringing people together. And I think learning from people, connecting with people and trying to empower others and allowing others to encourage and inspire me, it’s been a really important part of my journey as well.

David: Okay, so since we met at the AIP event, shoutout to Daniele, you then went to study in the UK for a while. How was that?

Manish: Yeah, I was in King’s College London studying Business Management in university there. I think it was a very eye opening experience, you know, being born and raised in Thailand, living here my whole life. It was interesting to go abroad, to be independent, to go out of my comfort zone. So it was a really good learning experience, joined a lot of events, met a lot of cool people, did a lot of activities that I didn’t do much in Bangkok as well. So it’s been really nice. Started going to networking events, starting hosting events, started meeting people from all walks of life, which is really cool.

David: And since you got back to Bangkok, you’ve already started up another new business which is focusing on hiring talented young graduates, which is a very great niche. I’ve never heard anyone do that before. We’ve already hired two of your people who have done amazing work. So great business you got there. But tell us more about that. How did you get into that? What is the benefit of this approach?

Manish: Yeah. Thank you. Well, thank you for trusting me to hire two great people. They’ve been amazing so far. I think for me, through Rescued Glass, I worked a lot at international schools, so I had the opportunity to work with a lot of talented young students, and I think through that, I was able to see that fire within students and see that drive and passion. I was like, wow, let me find a way to meet more like minded people who have that fire in them, who have that passion in them. And I’ve started to build a really good eye on good talent. And for me, it’s especially for early grad talent, it’s not necessarily about the skills they have, but the attitude and the desire to develop those skills and their proactiveness. So I believe I’m quite practical myself, so I can spot that out in someone, right? All the small details. So I found a gap in the market so far and it’s actually by chance. People always ask me for referrals and it slowly started to grow and grow and grow. And I hope in the future it starts to grow as well.

David: I’m sure it will, because again, this can be a testimonial as much as anything. But yeah, we’ve hired a lot of over the years of Lexicon, a lot of new graduates. Often they don’t quite fit in for whatever reason. The transition from university to the working world can be quite harsh. So what is it that makes the people that you suggest? What is it they have differently? What makes them special?

Manish: Yeah. For me, I think it really comes down to attitude and proactivity, right? It’s that attitude to learn to go above and beyond and that proactivity to ask for feedback, to ask for questions, to want to improve. And being honest as well, hey, I don’t have all the answers, but I’m willing to be coached, willing to be empowered and willing to be guided to get things done, and really not being afraid to make mistakes as well. I think a lot of the time we can be scared to make mistakes or just take a first stab at it, but I think when you’re willing to try and see how things go, you become a better entrepreneur or a better person in the team.

David: Okay and if somebody wants to reach out to you for this as an offering of a service, is this something you offer to the public?

Manish: Yeah, absolutely. So I’m starting to build a house brand called Msethii, which has my consulting events and recruitment as well. So you can reach out to me via LinkedIn or through our Facebook as well.

David: Okay. Amazing. So we might argue with this next question.

Manish: Yeah.

David: But so again, we’ve hired a lot of graduates over the years. Again, the ones that you’ve brought in don’t count as this example. 

Manish: Got it.

David: But one of the things that we hear a lot from new graduates is that they’re burnt out, which doesn’t seem to actually match reality that much. What I’ve seen is that when we’ve had new graduates before, certainly from Thai universities, I’ll sit down with them and the usual coaching process, trying to figure out what’s going on, what work do you have on hand? And often it will be, oh, I have nothing on hand, but I’m burnt out. This suggests to me that it’s more bored out than anything, the transition from Thai University at least to the workplace.

Manish: Yeah.

David: The transition is too harsh from one to the other. Is it that that generation is lazy or is it something else? Because from my generation, old person perspective, the idea that you could be burnt out doing a couple of hours work a week makes no sense.

Manish: Yeah, yeah, that’s a very fair, interesting point. I’d say in my opinion, it’s our generation and my generation. We’re really short term thinking. We’re impatient, especially myself. When I first started working, even starting Rescued Glass, I expected success right away, right? A lot of times now on social media, we only see the end result, right? We see Lexicon now where it’s been around for 10, 15 years. We see the end results. We don’t see the journey along the way. So a lot of us have been misconceived of what reality actually is. So we lack that patience and we expect results too quickly. And I think we’re not patient enough to stick through the challenges as well. So I think that’s a challenge. I’m seeing a lot within my friends and in the current generation as well.

David: So do you think that’s caused by because I’m in that unique place where I was born in 1981. So I grew up in a house that had a record player and a tape player and a CD player, and I had black and white TV in my bedroom as a little kid, all the way through to the flat screen 60 inch that I have now. 

Manish: Awesome.

David: So it’s quite a unique perspective being able to see the past and the present. But I guess if you’ve only ever grown up with a short term fix, go on TikTok. And you know, here’s my yacht, here’s how I made $1 million by 17 or whatever, it’s going to give you a false perspective on reality.

Manish: Absolutely. Right. So like if I think about it, the video that’s saying get rich in 60, you know, in one day, make $1 million in one day, they’ll have more views than this is how you get rich sustainably for the next 10 years, right? We want that short term quick win where I think it’s not really possible, right? It takes time, it takes years and decades to build your craft and improve and going along those ways. So patience and grit and resilience is really important. And I think it’s really important for us entrepreneurs to highlight our journey, not only the successes, but, you know, the challenges we face as well. So that gives hope to the other entrepreneurs like, hey, I’m not alone in this. Because when I started, I was like, oh my God, what am I doing wrong? Like, why are we not a $1 million company in 1 year? You know, I had those unrealistic expectations as well. So I was like, oh wow, like, so whenever I speak to kids now or any young entrepreneurs or anyone at all, I’m like, dude, it’s been really hard and now I’m still figuring things out. It’s a challenge, but I’m always learning and evolving as I go.

David: Okay, so this next question we might not keep in the final cut, just bear that in mind. But I was once speaking to a young guy at an event. Very smart kid. He’s like 21. He was already working. I think he hadn’t even been to university. He was just talented at what he did. And, he explained to me that, like, my generation doesn’t understand his generation. He was saying that basically when he was, like, 6 years old, he was watching beheading videos on YouTube.

Manish: Fair enough. I’m not surprised.

David: Stuff like this, you know, like, the most extreme things that you could ever see. He saw them at like 6, 7, 8 years old.

Manish: Yeah.

David: I think for a lot of my audience, they’re my generation or older. It’s hard for them to see the huge difference in stimulation. Like we, you know, we had access to books. Things moved a lot more slowly in the 80s and the 70s. But for your generation and younger, the amount of information that you’ve consumed by the age of 10 even is more than we would have consumed up to the age of 30.

Manish: Absolutely. 

David: So there is a very different mindset. It isn’t necessarily that that generation is lazier. It’s just that they’re more impatient, as you said, they expect things to be quicker. 

Manish: Yeah.

David: So eventually my generation will die out. But maybe a difficult question in the interim period, how can older business leaders better understand their younger staff?

Manish: Yeah, I think it’s a constant challenge. But I think the more you speak to the younger staff and seeing what’s important to them makes a big difference. For me, when I lead my team or work with people I work with, I always ask them what’s important to them and what their long term goals are. One thing I’ve noticed is that young people, including myself, are really passionate about making a difference, and if you can align that with what they’re interested in, they’re more willing to work for a cause. Whereas I believe in previous generations, to some extent it was about going to work, getting a paycheck and that was your life to some extent. I’m not saying in general, that’s my opinion. But now it’s really about how can we make an impact, how can we make a positive difference. And I think that’s a really big thing. I think the more you speak to younger people, you know, people work in different industries, you can see how that’s a common thread among them all.

David: Okay. Good answer. So with each generation, with technology, we lose certain skills. So certainly for me, I don’t know if I could read a map anymore. 

Manish: Yeah, yeah.

David: I’ve got Google Maps. I don’t know if I could actually figure out how things work. And the same with mathematics, you know.

Manish: You don’t need it anymore.

David: Once you get a calculator and a phone, you don’t really need to know maths in your head that much, but it’s probably not affecting you that much. But for the generation coming up behind you, with all the AI tools and especially with something like ChatGPT, do you think that’s going to have a negative effect on how they think critically and how they create work even for school, because they’re not having to use that skill set that much? They can just, like I would ask Google Maps, tell me where Paragon is. They can say, you know, explain this book. You don’t have to actually engage with the concept. Do you think that we’re going to lose critical thinking?

Manish: Yeah, that’s a very interesting question. And I’ve only started to use ChatGPT recently in the last 6 months, and it’s been really eye opening to see how powerful of a tool it is on all aspects of business. When it comes from an education point of view, I’m a part time business teacher at a business school in Thailand, I’ve seen how AI can help students as well as be a drawback as well. So what we can try to do to combat that and develop that critical thinking skills within the students is questioning them, doing debates and interactives as well. 

I think AI should be used to empower the students, but it can make students really reliant on technology and allow them to have that lack of critical thinking. And, you know, you can’t always trust ChatGPT all the time as well, right? So I think it’s about having the ability to question, to dig deeper, to think more and have that debate as well, which is really important.

David: That’s a great point. So we’ll probably have to change the way we interface with knowledge, because probably for both of our generations, exams were written. Read something and then explain it.

Manish: Yeah.

David: But if the writing is done for you, then you don’t need to think that much. But if we flip it to explain it in conversational answer questions, that’s probably an even better way to make sure it stays in, because you can explain it in your own words. You don’t have to follow because nobody really speaks like they write essays. 

Manish: Yeah.

David: 2,000 words of ‘therefores’ and ‘consequently’, no one speaks like that.

Manish: Yeah.

David: So maybe it’s actually going to be, you can get the knowledge quickly, you can get things explained, you’ve got a helper, but you still need to do the work so it can be enhancing your.

Manish: Absolutely. I think it’s a tool to empower you, but it’s really important to have those skills to be able to tell stories or to be able to communicate and really synthesize the information you’re getting, and also think and you know, question the information you’re getting as well, right? Because maybe ChatGPT takes a lot of information and puts it in for you as well, but you have to question it as well. But I think ChatGPT can also empower you to speak different perspectives, right? Because it allows you to communicate with someone as well. Basically an AI chatbot.

David: To be honest, I wish I had AI. I studied English Literature. And I’m an English person and I shouldn’t really say this, but I don’t like Shakespeare that much. 

Manish: Oh, alright.

David: It’s just, it’s so difficult to read Shakespeare. It’s written like in Old English.

Manish: Yeah.

David: So I’d be reading the book and I’d have another book that was explaining every single sentence and I would also be listening to the play.

Manish: Yeah.

David: Okay, what is this sentence? You get there eventually. It’d be very helpful to be able just to say to AI at that time, okay what on earth is this?

Manish: Yeah, yeah.

David: So yeah, I think that would help with those more abstract things too. Okay. So aside from doing recruitment and Rescued Glass, you’re also doing quite a few other business areas, which I think is amazing for your age to be involved in so many things, to be learning about so many things. But what are some of the other projects you’ve been working on?

Manish: Yeah, I’m always trying to keep myself busy, trying different projects, different activities, trying to find out my strengths, my weaknesses, and being proactive, you know, taking opportunities as they go and figuring out as I go. So recruitment is one of them. It’s a niche I’m in right now, social entrepreneurship at Rescued Glass. Right now I’m in education as well. I’ve been really passionate about empowering students, working with students. I’m a part-time business teacher as well as working in events and private security. So I used to host a lot of events back in Thailand, back in London. I found it interesting that bringing people together. Now I’m more focused on the private security aspect of it. So I was really blessed to be doing security management, working with Rolling Loud and Wonderfruit, and that was a really eye opening experience for me. But now I’m focused more on the education and the recruitment aspect, but I’m always open to learn about different industries right now.

David: How old are you again?

Manish: I’m 23.

David: That’s incredible. When I was 23, I was wearing white cotton pants, laying in a hammock, the classic kind of backpacker thing. So you’re so far ahead of where I was. You’re gonna have an incredible career. And I can’t wait to see.

Manish: You’re very kind. Thank you very much.

David: But as somebody with a fresh perspective, you’re coming just out of university. You’re seeing the world through fresh eyes. Over the next decade or so, what do you think are some of the emerging trends that we’re going to see in the business world?

Manish: Yeah, I think, definitely one is sustainability. You know, people are becoming more aware of the consequences of their actions and how they can work together to make a better world. But I think right now, in general, it’s all about making an impact. How can we as businesses, through our storytelling, through rescuing glass, through education, how can we make a difference? How can we empower others? How can what we’re doing make a difference and empower people along the way? So that’s a huge trend I’m seeing now as well, right? All of us want to be part of a movement. We want to make a difference through the work we’re doing. We’re not just working to get paid. We want to make a difference along what we’re doing.

David: Do you think that is, so everyone when they’re 21 or 22, kind of is very focused on things like that. By the time they get to 30, generally it’s kind of gone in a different direction. Do you feel that with your generation that’s going to stick more, or do you think that might just be a youthful, optimistic?

Manish: That’s a very fair question. I’d say I’m sure as we grow up we’ll be a tad bit more pessimistic. But I think the core value of us trying to want to make a difference, seeing how we can empower others, wanting to create change or being part of change, we’ll stick to some extent. It just depends on how many challenges we face and how resilient we are. You know, I am concerned about the resilience we have, but through learning, through processes, through getting great mentors, I’m sure we’ll get there.

David: I hope so. I hope so. I sound like the grumpy uncle in this video, probably pretty accurate to be honest. But like when I was your age, I was, when I wasn’t wearing cotton pants and laying in a hammock, I was like, super like political left wing, like at war protests, stuff like that. I’m very much not that guy now. I don’t own any cotton pants, and I don’t go to anti-war protests. But it kind of happens with every generation pretty much. Unfortunately, like the hippies in the 60s, the flower power, that generation. By the 70s, they were kind of the most capitalistic people of all. So I hope that your generation bucks the trend and is able to stay moral and pure into the 30s. 

Manish: Hopefully. Yes, all the best with that. 

David: Yes. All the best with that. Okay. And then finally, the question I ask every guest on the show is, as you know, Lexicon is a storytelling company. I love storytelling myself. But who are some of your favorite storytellers that have inspired you and why?

Manish: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I’d say one of my favorite storytellers is Steven Bartlett. You know, I listen to a lot of his podcasts. I actually was at an event called Dragonfly H.E.A.L Summit, like a few months ago, and I actually got to meet him briefly, but it was really inspiring to meet him. But I think I like his podcast, I like his way of sharing stories, empowering people, his challenges, and the impact he’s created so far. So Steven Bartlett’s been really, really a motivation to me through his journey.

David: Okay. What is it about him specifically that you find inspiration in?

Manish: I think it’s his attitude and his willingness to share his journey. You know, he’s got a lot of amazing podcasts. He shares the highs and lows of his journey as well, but he’s not afraid to show that he’s still learning and he’s still growing and he’s still evolving. And it’s all about being 1% better, right? He talks about a concept about skill stacking as well. 

David: Totally.

Manish: You know, and his journey was really inspiring from how he started 10 years ago to where he is now. And he’s quite a really young chap as well. He’s around 30 years old.

David: Yeah, it’s a great point, though, that the skill stacking thing, because even in his podcast, he’s covering all sorts of different people.

Manish: Yeah.

David: And that’s totally a key lesson. As you said at the start of the interview, people think success is an overnight thing, and it’s really not. If you can improve 1%, if you can become 6 out of 10 or 7 out of 10 of a 100 things, you’re going to beat somebody who’s 10 out of 10 at one thing. So it’s definitely a great lesson for everybody. Is there anybody else that you would like to learn from?

Manish: 100%. Well, I think, I like Jay Shetty a lot. You know, I follow Jay Shetty’s mindset. You know, I read a few of his books about Think Like a Monk. It’s all about the attitude, the mindset, about giving back. So I do listen to a lot of podcasts like Jay Shetty and stuff like that, which has been really inspiring to think about things from a different perspective as well. He goes on to like spirituality, being a monk back in India, those concepts were quite interesting as well.

David: Okay, amazing. Well thank you, thank you. I’ve learned a lot from today. I hope you all at home have too. If anybody wants to get in touch with you, what’s the best way to?

Manish: LinkedIn is usually the best way. So my name is Manish Sethi. You can find me on LinkedIn. I’m sure David will tag me as well. 

David: No doubt.

Manish: I’m really active on LinkedIn as well. So happy to chat. Happy to learn from anyone as well. Any way I can give back. More than happy to do that as well.

David: Amazing! Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for watching and I’ll see you again.

Manish: Thank you, David. Cheers. Thank you.

David: Cheers.