Photograph courtesy of Rachael Kam
Rachael graduated with an LL.B. from the National University of Singapore. She completed her training with a corporate and commercial law firm and was called to the Singapore Bar in August 2011. She is the founder and CEO of an on-demand beauty platform (The First Refresh) and an e-commerce jewelry store (Lucy & Mui). To her, unplugging looks like taking a digital yoga class, reading by the pool or binge-watching Netflix + eating cake.
This letter is written to her 23-year-old self, having just graduated from law school.
Dear Rachael,
Law school is over - finally. What a tiring 4 years. You were not the best academically and always felt like you were scraping by. But that's okay. More importantly, just like most of your peers, you don’t regret it.
The friends you make here will be friends for life. For one, who would have thought that the first friend you made outside the admissions interview room would become one of your nearest and dearest? The analytical skills you learn here will also eventually help you in your entrepreneurship journey. These, you are grateful to have picked up. But to be frank, legal work never was your cup of tea. The content was difficult - case law was complicated (even though it is the backbone of our legal system…) and some of the modules (ahem… securities and financial services law) were super hard to digest. But you worked at it, and (barely) graduated with second class uppers. Looking back, the 4 years spent in law school set the foundation for where you are now.
Like most, you will go into practice after getting qualified, doing mostly corporate work in your first job. Many of the negative thoughts you had during university will resurface - how the work did not excite you, how you couldn’t find the drive to keep working, and how this wasn’t something you could see yourself doing long term. But you will still get out of bed and do the work, because these years teach you strength, resilience, and to never take anything for granted. They teach you to respect the grind and to do what needs to be done, even if the work isn’t glamorous. You will leave after a few years for another firm, and though you will love the people and the team, it won’t feel like you’ve found your purpose.
Near the start of your time in your second firm, you will start your own jewellery business – named for your maternal and paternal grandmothers, Lucy & Mui. You will have to juggle the business with your full-time job, and you will learn, year after year, month after month, that entrepreneurship is the hardest job ever. What drives you is the stories that you get to be a part of, and the milestones that each piece of jewellery marks. To distill a 6-year journey into one lesson: treat people with kindness. From your team members to your brand ambassadors, to your clients – always place them above yourself and always consider their wants above yours. Sometimes that kindness is returned, sometimes it isn’t. But what’s important is the growth you go through as a person.
As you continue to find yourself and grow, you marry your best friend and are blessed with two children – a girl (Natalie) and a boy (Ethan). Some days you think to yourself – how did I get so lucky? And some days, when the house is a mess with toys strewn everywhere, like every parent in the middle of a pandemic, you ask – why me? Despite this, every single day is filled with madness and with laughter, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
Eventually after almost 8 years in practice, a pandemic will hit - many of your daily routines will be completely upended. As you schedule a housecall appointment for yourself post-circuit breaker, you realize that the beauty industry is filled with manual systems (think scheduling appointments on WhatsApp). Your beauty therapist-turned-friend also suffered a near complete loss of income during the circuit breaker. These ignite a small spark that you couldn’t put out. What if everything you learnt from Lucy & Mui was preparing you for this? What if technology could reshape the beauty industry and make a positive change to the way beauty has been done for the last 50 years?
With women starting to work from home, there will (arguably) be no better time to create a new segment of at-home beauty services (think Uber, but for beauty). You will take a leap of faith, quit your job and begin to work on The First Refresh full time at the beginning of 2021. It will be a new experience, putting all your time, energy, and heart into something you can call your own - but I think you would have learnt enough from your first business to make this jump. At this point, it’s only been a few months, but I’ve never regretted it and don’t plan to start.
So Rachael, let’s get back to you before I forget. Hearing all that I’ve shared, you must be thinking… no way. At 23, the life you envision for yourself looks like a stable job, a family and a white picket fence. I don’t think you ever thought you would have the courage to go off the beaten track. But I’ve always believed that God has been and will be here every step of the way – and with the support and encouragement of your best friend, you finally did it. It was a long road, and it took a lot of encouragement to rock the proverbial boat and veer off from the ‘safe route’. I guess all that’s left to say is: dream big and have fun while doing it! I will always be here for you.
Your big sis,
Rachael