How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard

 The last half year is one of the best periods of my life.

·       Professionally, I was totally consumed by up to 18 hours/day of work as governments all over the world turned to us for help and I had to deal with many overworked colleagues along the way, some of whom manifested their stress poorly

·      Politically, my home country’s back door government has descended further into ever more nefarious dealings while the country slides ever backwards socio-economically

·       Socially, it’s depressing, especially not being able to meet friends for the first few months and even now, I am still not able to meet clients and colleagues at scale

·       Spiritually, the fact that churches remain a restricted gathering place meant I haven’t stepped into one physically throughout this period, though the online masses and informative podcasts helpe

Y   Yet, despite all of these challenges, this has been a most wonderful period for me. And that is saying something, as I have now lived through more than a hundred half-year periods. So, what makes this period the top percentile?

Only one thing: being in the presence of my immediate family extensively and over meals and family activities, intensively. So, despite all my work and social difficulties, emotionally, this is my happiest time. I penned 8 blogs in this period, beginning with one in April about parenting styles and concluding earlier this month on being able to run together with my children, achilles tendonitis notwithstanding. I guess you already know the cause of my joy; this is the happiest moment because my family is together

I wish we could have spent more time together, but alas not every single minute of the day was spent together, and even when we are together, it’s honest to say that not all the minutes there were pleasant. As usual, being all well-educated and even more well-opinionated people, there are differences in opinions on just about everything: from car sharing schedule to insurance purchases and scholarship obligations. For me, and I trust for you too, it is often at these times when our opinions are most sharply divided that we find the essence of our love.

 It is when we are almost at the point of hurting each other with our words and thoughts that we realise that we cannot be torn apart. Both sides will find a way to reach out and as we do so, we find that throughout all our differences, there remains always a common core: that we always have the best intentions for each other. How the intentions are translated into action differ, but the intention is always good. That is the essence of our love as a family. We are always wishing and wanting the best for each other.

J left for UK two weeks ago to do his Masters and M just left last night to begin her second year. I miss them so. The words of Winnie the Pooh capture the sentiment so well

Old Upper Thomson Road

Sometimes, urban planners can lack creativity. It is one thing to name a road after the chief engineer who designed it. Quite another to name the road above it as upper. And what really takes it to the next level is to build a new road next to it, re-use the name, and call the original road old. Well, that is where we were at over the weekend: the Old Upper Thomson Road. In its heyday, it was more than just a road, it was also where the Singapore Grand Prix took place. 

credit: timeout.com

For the past 20 years though, it has been our family exercise track; and especially over the last 6 months as we all sought escape from our circuit breaker lockdown at home. Over the weekend, M & J joined me on a circuit I had tried several times before the last few months. We ran from our place and up and down the length of the Old Upper Thomson Road.

It's such a pleasure running with them. The last time all three of us went up and down this road was maybe 10 years ago, with Meg on her bicycle, Josh on his roller blades and me on my pre-achilles tendonitis legs. Josh in front would sandwich Meg in the middle. They were both just gaining confidence on their new modes of transport and I, as the cheerleader-in-chief would urge them on and also, to pick them up when they fell. I must say that I have been more responsible for their scars. It is fair to say that I subscribe (in this case, literally) to the parenting school of hard knocks. I would push M down the slope and her mom would watch in horror of her darling veering off!

The scars have long healed; and J then M have been exceeding me in all sporting activities since then. They are literally "citius, altius, fortius" than me. As they live up to the Olympic creed, the chance for the old bean to do something together with the faster, higher, stronger younglings is a much cherished one.

So, yesterday, in the rain, coached by a well-informed J who kept us on a LSD (long steady distance) pace and led by a beautifully-gaited M (even when the sole of her shoe gave out), we ran together for more than 80minutes covering nearly 12kms up and down this famous road.

The achilles heel is aching all day, but oh-so-sweetly when one thinks of the cause!

For our 3rd act

While most of the world were under some kind of lockdown, D and I opened up two new fronts for us, which hopefully will prove to be the right future-proofed decisions.

Being movie buffs, we both liked the fact that the films were works of studios with a full organisation of producers, screenwriters, actors, stunt workers, prop makers, costume designers and of course directors. So, for no other reason than the word sounded cool and the meaning of it interesting, I had used CP as an ‘entity’, a-la Hollywood, to present works we had created for our significant moments. This is an early example of how CP featured.

 

So far, we have produced no cinematic masterpieces though I must say J & M are two joint works that we continue to be proud of.

At the end of March, we set up CC. Over the years, we have been investing in various assets, including in start-ups, and we have been pondering over how best to hold these: whether in our own personal names or through a private limited company where we can manage these more professionally. D’s decision to move on from her full time job clearly meant she now has more time to attend to our holdings. We hope we have invested wisely to date and so we set up an investment holding and advisory company and we will eventually pool our value-creating assets here. With me already past my golden milestone and D about to do so, we thought we would use this as one of the vehicles for our 3^rd act together. We can then grow this together and also share our experience to others.

At the same time CP first found its way into our lives nearly 30 years ago, a small seed was also planted in my head. Having earned a government scholarship, studied at its national university, found a first job in one of its world class company and about to marry one of its (premier school) citizens, I naturally thought the world of the country. A country not of my birth but one had chose to go to freely to seek a better future. I didn’t think twice on applying for Permanent Residency. It was a no-brainer, as the saying goes. And throughout all that time, it has proven to be a true no-regret move, so much so that I was never faced with the need to take the next step of actually becoming a citizen.

 Four events over the last four years soon changed that.

• ·       First, both J and then M won important scholarships in the country. J with the highest level of Government and M with perhaps its most important world class company (even better than mine). It is clear that their future is here.
• ·       Second, the PR (good as it has been) is actually not permanent and tied to the holder having a job. As I approach my 3rd act where I would be likely self-employed, it makes sense to have greater assurance of permanence in a place where my children will be.
• ·       Third, as we move into our new place, our old house will become a stranded asset as a PR-owned landed property cannot be rented out. So, there is a small economic rationale as well.
• ·       Fourthly, the situation in my own home country is going from bad to worse. The small glimmer of hope in the 2018 General Elections has been snuffed out with back door moves earlier this year by Malay-Muslim lawmakers and the PM-to-be whom I had the chance to advise may not be so.

      So, in July, with D’s help, I applied for citizenship. It would take a couple of years to process and in the meantime I must confess I sometimes get “cold feet”. For all its faults, the home country is a lucky one blessed with abundant natural resources, and these resources are only getting more valuable as humans fail to look after Mother Earth. Moreover, it is a country where if one has the will, a way can always be found! Exacerbating that, the host country post a wake-up call GE, begins to debate issues of looking after the local core in a manner which I felt failed to take into account the very reasons for its success, and the parliamentarians even suggest policies that had dragged my home country downwards.

      I guess I will keep experiencing these vacillations. That said, I have two assurances. First, in the near term, the best outcome for my home country still pales in comparison to a weaker outcome of the host. Secondly, in the longer term, my children will hopefully be in a position to make a difference and keep this country progressing.

      That these two future-proofing decisions are taken now, three months apart, is not a co-incidence. Things happen in tandem. Events lead to a chain reaction that comes back full circle. It is indeed true that D & my (and therefore CP’s) best works are the two younglings.

 

For your 2nd act

 “When one door closes, another opens”; you may have heard this phrase before and it is certainly applicable to many aspects on one’s life. But I never quite thought it could be applicable across lives. What I meant was when Malaysia shut its door on me (for the Reciprocal Green Lane travel), J got his approval to travel to the UK to further his studies and M got invited to present to CAG’s senior management and 100 of her colleagues on the findings from her work during the internship. Now, these are wonderful doors to open.

 

The fact that I thought of this quote, and even felt that it was applicable across different individuals, is a good indication of how I think of the two of you in our (your parents’) lives. We see our lives as joined with yours, and that is why over the precious 6 months we spent together we felt free to discuss deep issues intimately as well as intimate issues deeply with each of you.

 

This half year has been God-sent especially for me. Both of you are now in your 2^nd act: young adults now making your own way in the world; and if mum’s and my own 2^nd acts are any guide, we were increasingly focussed on ourselves. I know both of you will be too. So, this past period has indeed been good for us to have had so much of your time.

 

I said to J last night that as part of my job, I size up a situation (or a person) quickly. I needed to do so as I need to absorb as much knowledge as possible before I make a decision. An occupational hazard therefore is I can be judgmental. Combine with the ability to express myself clearly, confidently and also loudly, I do know I can be overbearing in conversations and you both have probably experienced that more times than you care to remember. I am saying this here in this letter because I am not afraid of my weakness. I know it is there and I know how it has developed, and you can sometimes (maybe not often enough) see me trying to moderate that, mostly by using humour and that hearty laugh of mine.

 

credit: eurovision.tv

So, as your 2^nd act stage lays before you in the coming years, doors will keep opening and closing and sometimes you will find that closed doors are just as good because it forces you to go look for opened (and better) doors elsewhere. Many of these doors are inside you, like your strengths and weaknesses. I would encourage you to celebrate your strengths and also embrace your weaknesses: recognise them and work on them just as I am able to laugh at being judgmental.

 

I love you both dearly

 

 

 

 

It's all about balance

I came across a LinkedIn post from a colleague who put forth  the Top 5 attributes of leadership.

1 Try and take yourself out of the equation when you are taking a decision for the organisation

2 Always face reality, be authentic but give hope and purpose

3 Don’t ask people to do what you have not done before yourself

4 Surround yourself with strong people and help them succeed – they make you fly too

5 Keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars. But never let your feet leave the ground

As I reflected on these, as I always do when encountering words of wisdom, I found that all these statements have a common trait: balance. Be it about reaching high but staying rooted. Or providing hope but being real. Of helping others and helping oneself in return.

I then also thought if such a balance can be found in one person, or in this case one leader. Can you really take yourself out of the equation when you are one of the, if not the most, key person in an organisation when taking a decision? How does one find the balance. I felt that the trick is going beyond one. The way to balance is to have at least two people (with opposite traits), in a creative, no-malice intended, shared purpose tension.

This became a topic of conversation with D during a weekend afternoon drive.  She cut right to the chase by quoting from the good book. 

"It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him." (Genesis 2:18)

I find this so true. It is not good to be alone. Having someone with a shared purpose, who means no harm, and yet who holds opposite perspectives (like D being the deep roots while I provide the strong wings) is the answer. By answer, I mean the sought after ultimate state of being. Outside of Christian traditions, the Taoists hold as the central theme the Yin-Yang balance and Buddha himself learned to not go to extremes: the story goes that Siddhartha upon realisation of the suffering of his subjects, left his life of comfort and his family and became an ascetic to seek an end to miseries of mankind. 

He studied with prominent teachers and mastered all the techniques. He followed the teachings of ascetics and mistakenly believed the way to freedom was to completely deny bodily needs and any pleasures. Despite his strenuous determination, Siddhartha's efforts were futile and after some reflection, he decided to accept nourishment and cared for his body and changed the way he was seeking enlightenment. 

The bible speaks of marriage as being a celestial unbreakable bond. That a man shall leave his parents and find his half and what God then puts together shall not be separated, for the man and the woman has become as one.

This brings me back to the point about whether the leadership attributes can be found in one person. The truth of the matter is yes, even if you only have half the attributes my colleague had described. Because you are only half a person. Your spouse completes you and brings forth the remaining attributes. The organisation you both lead (as one) is the family and in that context, living up to all the five attributes are not that far fetched.

On inequality

November 4th, 2016 is a date that shall forever remain in infamy, especially for Americans. For on that date, their lauded system of democracy, with the rules around electoral college, put into the oval office a vile man called Donald Trump. I call him vile because I don't subscribe to his values. On the same token, he would also call me vile too, given the centrist position I hold on most matters. I am a particularly pragmatic school of self reliance centrist, as so eloquently put in this quote (often attributed to Lincoln).

The truth is he won because he had correctly diagnosed the illness of the country: a deep seated inequality, that is widening with no apparent solution in sight. So did Bernie Sanders by the way. The two men however had identified different root causes, and hence different solutions to this problem. Bernie blamed the rich (from Wall Street to the 1%). Trump blamed foreigners (from Mexico and especially China). Sanders didn't even get on the final Democratic ticket and Trump won against Hillary Clinton who represented too much of the status quo, whom he successfully blamed for the ills. Truth be told Bill Clinton was then a beacon of centricity, along with Tony Blair with his new labour movement and even China's Jiang Zemin then had a non-confrontational foreign policy. The 90's were indeed an era of globalisation and China's ascension into the WTO and the NAFTA deal are poster events of this fact.

A globalised world with lower inter-country trade barriers allowed Ricardo's Theory of Comparative Advantage, first pronounced over 200 years ago now, to become reality and what a reality it is, especially when you consider the hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty in China alone in those closing decades of the 20th century.

It is therefore not difficult for the masses to believe that China took their jobs and China's growth was at the expense of the US (then and still is the largest consumers in the world buying all the China-made goods). The truth is there was another development in the late 20th century that really came into its own in the 21st century: the information age. 

For a long while, information technology made communication easier, analysis faster and record keeping more pervasive but it did not seem to deliver the promised productivity gains. In fact, in many countries productivity growth declined despite the increasing use of technology. However, in the second decade of the 21st century, especially with the rise of AI, the increasing ambidexterity of robotics and the past critical mass of data collections (esp in realtime and remote basis), that we now have many functions performed by (human) labour that can now be done by machines. This ushered in the machine age, esp machines that can learn and increasingly do higher level functions.

It is therefore not at all surprising that the best selling business book is Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st century. It is, to date, Harvard University Press' best selling book. In it, Piketty, observed that the rate of return on capital is greater than the rate of economic growth (in other words return on labor) over the long term, the result is concentration of wealth (to the capital holder rather than the labour provider) and this unequal distribution  causes social and economic instability. Piketty proposes a global system of progressive wealth taxes to help reduce inequality and avoid the vast majority of wealth coming under the control of a tiny minority.

Piketty has later issued some corrections though what he observed was in fact predicted by another giant of an economist, John Maynard Keynes nearly a century earlier. In his essay, Economic Possibilities of our Grandchildren (and indeed his grandchildren would be nearing their retirement ages now), he argued that we will find that the economic problem, the struggle for subsistence, always has been hitherto the primary, most pressing problem of the human race—not only of the human race, but of the whole of the biological kingdom from the beginnings of life in its most primitive forms, would have been solved. Keynes predicted that Mankind is solving its economic problem and that the standard of life in progressive countries one hundred years hence will be between four and eight times as high. Indeed in the pockets of my children are smartphones with more computing power than Apollo 11 that safely got astronauts to the moon and back half a century ago.

Keynes anticipated technology would be the answer. Mankind would have harnessed it to solve the economic problem. He thought that  for the first time since his creation man will be faced with a new problem—how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well. He had assumed that the wealth created for us (by machines) would flow to all peoples, thus allowing us to to cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself and do not sell themselves for the means of life, who will be able to enjoy the abundance when it comes. He did not mention nor foresee that mankind had not dealt with the distribution of the wealth created by the machines. 

So inequality expanded at an alarming rate and before the 2nd decade of the 21st was barely halfway, we had jingoistic leaders like Trump and Johnson who would persuade their respective populations to withdraw from international/regional collaborations and to put their countries first. Neither would solve the fundamental problems described by Messrs Keynes and Piketty.

Even in well run countries, like Singapore, the electorate voted to have more opposition voices in parliament. Singaporeans too felt the widening inequalities and they too had pinned the blame on foreigners taking their jobs. They also felt (eloquently expressed by a star opposition candidate, Jamus Lim) that the government has taken the side of capital rather than labour. It is little wonder that The Workers' Party (including Jamus) won the seats in parliament.

My children (yes, those with phones smarter than a rocketship) are fortunate to be in the sponsorship and employment of good institutions. So, they will have jobs when they finish their tertiary studies. But when they start working, they will be part of a new generation. They will know that there are others whose skills are not rewarded (or required) by the capitalist system. If they have the inclination as well as the opportunity, they need to find a right way forward for society. One where the economic gains are more fairly distributed not by pulling down the rich or weakening the strong. They have to share the wealth without taking away dignity and  without extinguishing the incentive for humans to keep striving. That way, we can then hope for a peaceful future for our grandchildren rather than staring into the spectre of yet another class war.

Starting Over

These lockdown days have indeed been some strange days. 

Strange days have found us
Strange days have tracked us down

They're going to destroy
Our casual joys

We shall go on playing
Or find a new town

The Doors released this 2 months and 2 days before I was born. And now, more than half a century later, the lyrics make even more sense. 

It’s been 7 weeks of “circuit breaker” here in Singapore, where all four of us are together 24/7, and the days are strange indeed. I, for one, was really pleased to have this time together more than we have ever been before all of our lives. The old maxim that you get quality time only if you spend a good quantity together could perhaps now come true for us.

Then the eternal truth of Jim Morrison’s poetry breaks through. While our casual joys have yet to be destroyed... but there have been moments that came close, especially for me. M shared, as she examined her conscience that she felt strange to see such an imbalance in the dynamic of the family, seeing/feeling that I was not really helping out in other parts of the household, which D attends to. In a separate observation, J (very much a part of this overthinking clan) observed if all I have worked for, including the wealth we have accumulated and the nice house we are now comfortably nested in, are worth the pursuit at all. 

In the background, I have been having issues with colleagues who are either overreacting or in any case misunderstanding my good intents. Still, office politics is par for the course, but observations like M’s and J’s weigh much more, a million times more, on my mind. 

There comes a time when everyone should pause, look back and see what has been accomplished (and not), and move forward. It hurts to get to this point, past my mid century mark, to know that the colleagues in the office that I have given much of my time can be petty and that the family I had spent less time with now are nettled by my lack of share in household chores (formed of a habit of never being home) and then are not appreciating the material fruits of my labour.

This trifecta of “blows” would stop most people in their tracks but I would like to think I am made of sterner stuff. Though I share the birthday of the most famous member of the 27 club, I am not about to throw it all away. 

Bad things, like the good, come in threes. So, with three bad circumstances, I can now move forward and do better. Office politics can be overcome. How M and J feel about the time I have spend the last 20 odd years travelling for work, being an absent dad/husband, and for what has tangibly been material reward, are harder to move from.

On the one hand, D and I are fiercely independent people and we cherish being able to live our weekday lives separately but deep down, we are so together. In the words of one of my favourite authors, De Exupery, “love does not consist of gazing at each other, but at looking outward together in the same direction”. 

So, no, I do not regret being able to build a family in this way. D and I came from lower middle income households and living in countries aspiring to become first world and surrounded by social climbing, 5 Cs chasing cousins, classmates and colleagues, we were swept up in the tides of those times and were fortunate enough to have created better than most. Our fortune were less foretold by the Gods but rather we were lucky (in my case, I had sought luck by moving out here to Singapore) to make our careers in a meritocratic, capitalist democracy. And what did I do in the last 20 years and some: I helped clients become better: more innovative, more efficient. I was good in my work, in fact so good one client called me a “Superstar”, and another said I was a “Special human being” with reference to my Ted talk urging a more holistic measure of the wealth of nations, beyond just GDP. In recent years, I helped governments deliver more impactfully and sustainably to their citizens, and often with less. Was wealth a sought after reward, yes to an extent and past a certain point, the amount I got was often just a barometer of how well I have done towards my objectives.

Maybe that is what they are not understanding and perhaps the maxim is right. Quality time requires quantity and 7 weeks certainly qualifies as quantity time and we have the opportunity at daily lunches and nightly dinners to talk and work this through. 

Another thing that we all get to do (a lot of) is to Netflix. In my case, I also watch YouTube and just watched a VH1 documentary of the last years of John Lennon’s life. After a five year hiatus, as he re-examined his life and connected with what he loved, he and Yoko One came roaring back with one of the greatest music albums of all times, Double Fantasy. The first track is “(Just like) starting over”.

Our life together

Is so precious together

We have grown, we have grown

Although our love still is special

Let's take a chance and fly away somewhere.

The cover of their album is iconic now. Two middle aged lovers in a kiss. The back cover which I only just came across is even better. It showed two strong creative individuals looking out together, in the same direction, at the same destination.

That’s what it feels like for me, at this ripe middle age, to start over.