About

Hi! I’m Celestine Chua (call me Celes!), life coach and founder of Personal Excellence. If you are someone who wants to achieve your highest potential and live your best life, you are at the right place!

Personal Excellence is the leading authority site for people passionate about achieving excellence in life. From articles, to premium courses, to video tutorials, to inspirational quotes, to manifestos, to free e-books, PE has every resource you need to grow and achieve your highest potential.

Today, PE boasts a high traffic of over hundred thousands of readers a month, with international readers from over 200 countries/territories. We have been featured over 70 times in print, TV and online media, including CNN, Cosmopolitan, Business Insider, CBS Business Network, Channel News Asia, and Asia One.

Handpicked and profiled in a MediaCorp documentary Soul Sisters about inspiring women in Singapore

On Channel News Asia AM Live!, a prominent and prestigious news network in Asia-Pacific

On Channel News Asia AM Live! again as a repeat guest

My mission at Personal Excellence is “To touch others’ lives, help them achieve their highest potential and live their best lives.” This is not just a blog or business to me; it’s my life. I have created PE to be your home, your safe alcove to grow and excel in life. Through PE, we will grow, learn and flourish in life — together, as one big family.

Subscribe to my newsletter (it’s free) to get first-hand updates of all new articles, as well as a lifetime of free articles on personal growth. What’s more, you’ll get my e-books 101 Things To Do Before You Die and 101 Most Inspiring Quotes of All Time, completely free! Through the articles at PE, you will learn to

• Discover your inner self
• Live a life aligned with your highest values
• Take action on your highest goals and dreams
• Stop procrastinating and turn knowledge into action
• Let go of bad emotions and attract positivity and abundance
• Release toxic relationships and build positive relationships
• Achieve your highest definition of success
• Live your best life of your creation
• … and many more

About Me (and How I Started PE)

I started PE in December 2008, with the mission to touch everyone’s lives, help them achieve their highest potential and live their best life–one person at a time. My mission remains the same today — it is my life purpose and what I plan to do before I die. For more on how I discovered my purpose, read this.

I’m Singaporean, born and raised here. Prior to PE, I was worked at a well-paying job in brand management in Procter & Gamble (a Fortune 100 company). In 2008, I quit my job and built PE from scratch with zero startup capital and zero experience in professional training, and built it into one of the top personal development platforms today.

While PE has been my full-time career since then, it is more than a job to me: it is my life, blood, and purpose. This is what I plan to do till the day I die.

Here are my quick professional snippets:

1. Blogging. Personal Excellence is the leading authority platform for people who want to achieve excellence in life. It has a huge traffic of several hundred thousands of visitors a month, with international readers from over 200 countries/territories. (To build a top blog with over a million page views, check out Blogging Success Program.)
2. Media. I have been featured over 70 times in print, TV and online media, including CNN, Cosmopolitan, Business Insider, CBS Business Network, Channel News Asia, Simply Her Magazine, Singapore Women’s Weekly, Asia One, Her World, and Sun-Herald. I’ve also been profiled in a MediaCorp documentary Soul Sisters about inspiring women in Singapore.
3. Business. Personal Excellence is my full-time business. Much of my business income is passive by design, which means that I get the flexibility to spend my time however I want and build my business authentically as opposed to driven by income. (To build your passive income business, check out The Passive Income System.)
4. Speaking. I regularly speak on personal development, blogging, and entrepreneurship. Organisations I’ve worked with include Wharton Business School, Dove, Kimberly Clark, Ministry of Defence (Singapore), JobsCentral, NUS Global Alumni Network, National Library, Great Eastern, People’s Association, de Baak, and Singapore Institute of Management. (Contact me for a speaking engagement.)
5. Coaching. I have worked with thousands of individuals worldwide to achieve excellence in their life, business, relationships, and personal goals. I run regular group coaching programs and do one-to-one coaching. I’ve been named one of the Top 30 Coaches in the World by Coaching Gurus International in 2010, alongside renowned coaches like Anthony Robbins. Visit my Courses section for my premium courses and Coaching section for details on my one-to-one coaching.
6. Traveling. I’m a regular traveler and have traveled across Asia, Europe and America. Between 2011–2013, I spent almost 50% of my time abroad, visiting four continents and 18 territories, learning about different cultures and meeting new people. (Check out past PE meetups here.)
7. Corporate history. Prior to PE, I did brand management at a Fortune 100 company (P&G), managing billion-dollar brands in Asia Pacific for 2 years, before eventually quitting in 2008 to pursue my real passion to help others grow.
8. Academic. I studied Business Administration (Marketing) in National University of Singapore from 2003–2006 and was a Dean’s Lister every academic year. I eventually graduated as the top Marketing student in my cohort (receiving the Daimler Chrysler Prize) and was awarded as the Most Outstanding Student in Year 3 Modules (receiving the Chettiar’s Temple Medal and Ban Hin Leong Gold Medal).

Quick notes about myself:

• My life purpose which I live by every day: “To help others achieve their highest potential and live their best lives” and “To achieve my highest potential and live my best life.”
• My values are: Excellence, Passion, Courage, Truth, and Authenticity. Besides being fiercely passionate about growth, I believe in standing for what’s right, being true to who you are in life, setting the highest standards for yourself and achieving them, and treating people with kindness and respect.
• Age. I’m 30 (as of 2014) and my birthday is June 25, 1984.
• Married. I got married to my soulmate on May 25, 2014. More on how we met (and how you can do so too): How To Find Your My Soulmate (series). Check out our engagement pictures taken in Scotland: Part 1 | Part 2.
• Vegetarian/Vegan. After experimenting with a vegetarian diet in Jan 2008, I decided to stay that way for non-cruelty reasons. I also feel that being a vegetarian gives me higher mental clarity which a meat-based diet doesn’t. For the record, my diet is my choice which I don’t impose on others; I believe everyone is free to eat whatever they want.

My Other Media Features

Featured on Channel New Asia’s AM Live in a cosy home interview, sharing about goal setting and vision boards. The filming was done in my room, showcasing me in my natural work environment (Dec 2012):

On Michelle Martin’s The WOW Club on 938 LIVE, an English-language radio station in Singapore (listen to my interview in the podcasts section):

With Kiss 92 morning crew Maddy, Jason, and Arnold in the morning show! (Listen to my interviews in the podcasts section.) I was the Kiss 92 personal excellence expert and was on air over a period of eight weeks talking about various topics on personal development:

On UFM 100.3 (a Singapore chinese radio station), sharing about my journey pursuing my passion and the 14-day kindness challenge which I was conducting then. With the lovely crew Wenhong, Li Mei, Myself, Xiao zhu, Yanwei Xiao Er below :

Just some of the many events/trainings I’ve spoken at before:

Panelist at the prestigious Wharton Marketing Conference 2011 to share on “Social Media: Fad or the Future of Marketing?”

Monthly career workshop I ran with JobsCentral (a learning career portal in Singapore and Malaysia) between 2010–2011. Our workshops are about achieving career excellence and ranged from how to excel in your career, how to write winning resumes, how to ace your interview, how to network with success, how to discover the right career for you, and many more.

Teaching my talented participants my best resume strategies to land their dream job

Another workshop with JobsCentral; this one is on How to Build Meaningful Relationships and Winning Connections!

Engaged by Ministry of Defence to train full-time National Service men on achieving excellence in life

Sharing my entrepreneurial story at National Library Board’s Entrepreneur Series

Conducting a workshop on EQ @ Work at Singapore Management University

Conducting a live class of Blogging Success Program

Engaged as to be the official personal development expert for Dove’s Camera Confidence Campaign in Singapore:

Answered Q&As from Dove Fans via Dove’s Facebook Fan Page throughout the campaign period (Dec 2013 – Jan 2014)

Heading the Dove Camera Confidence Workshop on Nov 30, 2013

Doing the video trailer shoot for Dove in their Camera Confidence Campaign

Dove’s final video trailer which can be seen below: 

On top of my TV and radio interviews and workshop trainings, I’m regularly invited to share my expert advice on an array of self-help, relationship, and career topics by local media, including (but not limited to):

• Her World magazine — Singapore’s most established women’s magazine with the highest readership of 189,000. It’s the voice of authority on fashion and beauty, lifestyle trends and social issues.
• Simply Her magazine — A solutions-oriented lifestyle magazine for working women with a readership of 74,000.
• The Singapore Women’s Weekly — A women’s magazine targeted at modern working women and mothers. It covers everything from fashion, beauty, health, self-help and relationships with a readership of 91,000.
• Lianhe Zaobao — Singapore’s largest Chinese daily with a circulation of 176,000.
• Lianhe Wanbao — Singapore’s Chinese afternoon daily with a circulation of 90,200.

(Articles not shared for copyright reasons, but you can see a full list of my past media features here.)

Invited to write an exclusive piece on productivity in Australia’s Sun Herald and The Sunday Age, popular dailies with a combined circulation of nearly two million people (full article here):

Photoshoot with Simply Her Magazine (2010):

I also host my own online video show, Celes.TV, to help others be their best self and live their best life. I do a range of videos from interviews with inspiring people, to self-help tutorials, to video lectures, to positive messages, to productivity hacks. My channel has over 1,250 subscribers today and my videos have a combined view count of over 70,000 views (as of Dec 2013).

(Subscribe at:  http://youtube.com/celestinechua)

Interviewing Karl Chong, CEO of Groupon Singapore

PE Reader Meetups

Since 2011, I’ve been conducting PE reader meetups around the world:

First London PE readers meet-up, Aug 2011 (Photo album)

Second London PE readers meet-up, Oct 2011 (Photo album)

Check out this Personal Excellence shirt that London reader Dimitri got custom designed and
made for me!! What can I say—totally hard core!! (This was before PE’s domain shift, hence the old domain name celestinechua.com.) Thank YOU so much Dimitri!

New York PE readers meet-up, Dec 2011

Los Angeles PE readers meet-up, Jan 2012 (Photo album)

Singapore PE readers meet-up, Jun 2012 (Photo album)

Kuala Lumpur/Malaysia PE readers meet-up, Oct 2012 (Photo album)

Lovely PE cake that one of our Malaysian readers, Elton, got custom made!
Complete with the PE logo, title, and slogan! And—it’s vegan! Thank you Elton! :))

Singapore PE readers Halloween meet-up, Oct 2012 (Photo album)

Hong Kong PE readers meet-up, Jan 2013 (Photo album)

Johannesburg PE readers meetup (South Africa), Apr 11 2013 (Photo album)

Cape Town PE Readers Meetup (South Africa), Apr 21, 2013 (Photo album)

Lovely gift note from Barbara. She gave me a bar of healing clay, meant to be used as
a soap and said to have healing properties. Thank you so much Barbara!! :))

Singapore PE Readers Meetup (a.k.a my 29th Birthday Celebration), Jun 23, 2013 (Photo album)

Edinburgh PE Readers Meetup (Scotland, UK), Aug 17, 2013 (Photo album)

Singapore PE Readers Meetup (a.k.a my 30th Birthday Celebration), Jul 27, 2014. My fourth readers meetup in Singapore, and biggest PE meetup we’ve had to date!

I plan to conduct more PE readers meetup as I visit other countries as part of my personal and business travels. Places I plan to visit next include South America and Canada.

Articles About Me

If you want to know more about me, here are some articles you can start off with:

• How I Discovered My Purpose In Life
• How I Found My Soulmate, Part 1: My Journey in Love (series)
• The Day I Was Proposed To (Thank You Ken Soh )
• How I Found Peace in My Relationship with My Parents (series)
• My History with Anger and How I Finally Let Go of It (series)
• My Journey with Emotional Eating and How I Overcame it (series)
• How I Moved On From a Heartbreak (series)
• Why I Openly Share My Life With You, The Media And The World
• How To Have More Best Friends in Life
• How I Used To Feel Inferior about My Looks and Why I No Longer Feel That Way Today
• How I Used to Be Afraid of Intimidating Men and Why It Does Not Faze Me Anymore
• The Night I Cried
• Are You Treating Dating as a “Game”?
• Why I’m Retiring at 28 and Inviting You To Do the Same (April 2013)
• Why I’m Completely Okay with Being Single (and update: I’ve since met my soulmate and am married as of May 25, 2014 :) .)
• My Letter To All Of You (April 2010)
• My Bucket List (constantly updated)
• Latest posts at the blog

And my childhood photos:

• My Childhood Photos: A Walk Down Memory Lane

Get Your Free Welcome Gifts to PE!