Asher

Nov 28 2021

A bump in the road.

I am tired.

I have been tired for a long time. It is not a tiredness that sleeping more or a few days of leave can solve. I know that because I have tried that, but still I feel unrested. The New York Times says it’s a legitimate mental health problem called “Languishing” – when one feels joyless and aimless in life.

I wonder how many of you feel the same way as I do?

Being Away

It has been exactly five months since I’ve returned to Singapore from the United States, where I was finishing up my MBA at Northwestern University.

The year away had been a mountaintop experience in many ways:

I was finally able to explore the side of me that really wanted to study and learn.
I got into one of the very top business schools in the world and experience world-class learning
I had the opportunity to experience a different culture and and way of life

The year away was also an opportunity to move away from the regular cadence of Singaporean living as a working adult: Wake, Work, Eat, and Sleep. Through that time, I was able to process things that I had stuffed away in the deep recesses of my mind – what I wanted out of life, what I desired from my career, and what I thought about my relationships. For a brief moment, I entertained the idea of staying in this land that I have newly discovered. How cool would it be to leave behind all my past worries and just immerse myself in this land of exuberance and endless opportunities?

Alas, we can’t stay at the top of the mountain for too long. Three weeks before graduation, I received news that my father had suffered a heart attack and had three major arteries blocked. He needed surgery immediately, and I was faced with the very real decision of whether I should fly back to Singapore before finishing my course and risk navigating all the COVID restrictions that we had back then. As if that wasn’t enough, we soon found out that my aunt had multiple clotted aneurysms in her head. The decision was written for me – I had to go back home.

I ended my time in Kellogg and the U.S. feeling sad that I had to leave my new friends and this brave new world, but I was determined to return to my homeland and my former employer to contribute my newfound knowledge and energy.

Return to Work

I landed in Singapore on 28 June 2021 to a strange world. Changi Airport was empty except for my fellow passengers on Flight SQ37. After exiting the Customs, I was ushered immediately to a PCR test and then escorted on a bus to commence my quarantine at JW Marriott at Beach Road. My work would officially start on 1 July, but I already had a meeting lined up that very day.

What followed was four crazy months of chasing after a product and brand launch timeline for a programme that my workplace was developing for families with young children. What I did not expect to be a major issue for me was the Work-From-Home order that all of us were put under. Used to walking around the company to see my colleagues for information instead of hiding behind emails and Teams meetings, I hated that my work now felt like orders coming in through the inbox that I just had to execute somehow. All the appeal of working among wildlife and nature was reduced to never-ending meetings where even going to the loo somehow became a luxury.

The deadlines did not help. We have a great team filled with people with a bias for action and who are willing to do what it took to deliver the product. We believe in the vision of what the Zoo could do to help do our bid to save the world by impacting children for conservation and sustainability. Yet, our personal lives were breaking down. Health issues, relationship issues, family issues emerged. Mothers blamed themselves for snapping at their children because there just wasn’t enough time to get work out and be a present mom at the same time. Others developed health issues. I found myself with dizzy spells and high blood pressure.

At the background of all these, I kept thinking – what will happen to my father and my aunt? What am I doing to help? What if I woke up one day and something had happened to them? I lost a close family member very suddenly in 2019, and it felt like I never got to spend enough time with him before he left. Now, I felt like I was in the same situation. What an awful son and nephew I am.

Was this all life is about? Wake, eat, work, die. I found it hard to find the silver lining. We eventually launched our product. We even won some awards for another product that was launched last year. But somehow none of these things brought with them the joy that they were supposed to come with.

The good thing is, my father survived three stent surgeries, and my aunt managed to successfully coil her two of her aneurysms. Neither of them are in the clear, but they are now in stable condition for the foreseeable future.

The major stressors are behind me, but I am still tired. I tell myself each day that I should celebrate the small victories to keep going, but I fight that battle daily.

Unresolved

Sometimes I think about what Jesus thought about when He was on the cross. We know Jesus now for his triumphal victory over death, his sacrifice for our sins. But what was He thinking about when he was in the midst of it all? Did His knowledge about the necessity of His work help him to rationalise the pain that He was going through?

Will God be able use my work, my stress and my pain and turn it into something beautiful? I hope so.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end
Ecclesiastes 3:11 (ESV)

Unfortunately, this is a story with no answers. I can only say that we can only do our best to find rest in God and pray for the pandemic to come to an end, God willing.

Until that day, I will continue to find little victories and bright spots to be thankful for. I hope you do too.

Aug 24 2020

On the way to the US.

I am sitting in the Hamad International Airport in Doha, waiting for the connecting flight to Chicago. It has been a flurry of activities in the last few weeks and this Is the first time I have truly had the opportunity to sit down to reflect on my decision to go to the US for my MBA amidst the worst pandemic we have seen in our lifetimes. Was that smart or really foolish?

It started with a dream.

We met for lunch at Privé Grill at the NUS Guild House. It was supposed to be a regular catch-up gathering, but it turned into a farewell lunch after Professor Tambyah and Camillus realized I was leaving today.

“You’ve been wanting to do this for a really long time haven’t you?”, Prof asked.

[Read more…]

Aug 14 2020

Trade-Offs and not having it all.

*These days, I catch whatever sleep I can.*

Good morning!

It’s 5am, Singapore time. I managed to get some shut-eye from 1am to 4am after a series of webinars, and this is supposed to be a relatively free day in school. It has been 9pm – 5.30am days of of the time this week, and I often just go straight to bed right after classes as I get a little too tired. It has been pretty hard trying to stay awake for Finance and Accounting classes in the wee hours of the morning — it’s not fun trying to think quantitatively at 3am in the morning.

I chose this life though, so I am not complaining. It does strike me that every strategy has trade-offs – something that we learnt in Strategy Class. We simply can’t have it all. By choosing to do an MBA, I commit myself to arranging my activities towards studying, effectively making it much harder to do anything else.

To be honest, it has been pretty exhilarating doing business cases again. We used to churn these things out in 24-hours in competitions back in undergrad. Right now, we do a couple every week across the different modules. It’s fascinating to read about companies’ stories and understand how they choose.

Choosing what not to do. It is definitely hard to just focus on school work though. As my day of my departure draws near, the number of farewell dinners also increases. It has been days of meeting groups of friends, then rushing back home for online lectures, balancing between a Singaporean life running on GMT +8, and an American education running on GMT -5. It is difficult to choose between having a social life and getting enough time in for academics. I have been avoiding the choice, and it has come at the expense of sleep and mental presence.

Friends question if I am sure I want to be flying into a country with the highest number of COVID-19 cases globally. Even my family thinks I am being too much of a hero by deciding to go to Evanston. I have come to realise that in such matters, perhaps we cannot help but be ourselves. I had chosen before I choose. Fate had made me interested in marketing, arranged for teachers in my life who came from Kellogg, and made me fall in love with the study of business. I know in my heart that this MBA is the right thing for me right now, and I have known it for a long time. It is therefore what I will do at the moment.

Strategic Fit. An interesting observation in business school so far though, is how diverse everyone’s reason for being here is. Some are here for the network and are super bummed out by the physical restrictions caused by the pandemic. Some are here for the future career and defer their studies, bidding for a better time when the market gets better. Others use the MBA as a gateway to a life in the US, looking to use their visas for a new job in a foreign land.

Me? I truly want to study. It feels like such an indulgent reason – spending $200K to study – but I truly am interested in the learning and the knowledge. And it has been working out really well so far. Just 4 weeks in and I am already learning so much about Strategy, Finance and Accounting. It is truly exciting to do something for the first time.

Where might all this lead? Only time will tell. Perhaps I might one day see how all the different activities in my life align toward a grand arc.

In the meantime, I am enjoying the ride, sleeplessness and all.

Jul 21 2020

Getting into the swing of things

Starting classes

Classes have finally started. The hours are pretty insane – classes this Quarter go from 9.45pm all the way till 5.30am in the morning. I have been trying to adjust my body clock to start later in the day so that I can stay awake to participate meaningfully in classes. Not bad so far for the Strategy class that just ended.

I’m pretty stoked to be reading so much and learning again. Spent the weekend planning the courses I was going to take in the year and realised that one year was just too short to study everything I want to!

Conversations

This little MBA adventure of mine stirred up some interesting conversations with people about their personal and career experiences and how they saw the future. They were also nice enough to allow me to bounce off my thoughts about what I think I would want to do in the future. Talking through things definitely gave me more clarity about what I wanted and what I might be good at.

I am truly thankful for the meaningful relationships that I have built up in different spheres of life over the years and for such great willingness to just chat and share. This is definitely something I hope to pass on to others as well. We all have the power to impact those around us and change their world for good!

Finally, a visa interview!

I managed to make an appointment in late July. Hopefully all goes well, and the only remaining hurdle would be the coronavirus situation in the US. Fingers crossed!

Jul 20 2020

Kellogg.

10 years ago, I set myself a goal to one day attend Kellogg School of Management.

I had fallen in love with the Marketing discipline and how brands could be a force for good if a company pushes a meaningful purpose. This idea of brand activism was something that Philip Kotler advocates as well, and he was the S. C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at Kellogg. Add the fact that the lecturer of my favourite business course, Product & Brand Management, was also from Kellogg, and you can begin to imagine how incredible I found this school to be.

Actually attending Kellogg was always a dream somewhere down the road though, blurry and out there in the future. Until it wasn’t. Left to my own devices, I would have chosen a safe, local MBA that would have allowed me to satisfy my intellectual curiosity at a nearer and cheaper university.

It wasn’t until someone close to me asked me, “If it is your dream, why not chase after it?” that something in realised that I should just go for it. The rest, as they say, is history.

I still can’t believe I made it!

An MBA of the Coronavirus era

Fast forward to today, I have just completed the virtual orientation week called CIM (Complete Immersion in Management), and am at the start of a virtual quarter. I would have loved to attend orientation and lessons in person, but such are the times we live in. The coronavirus is definitely not going to stop me from attending the school of my dreams.

In an ironic way, doing a virtual quarter in Singapore helped remove some of my earlier hesitation about being away from loved ones. Having taught Design Thinking via Zoom in the Zoo, I am also definitely less worried about technical issues that might come with the platform. The wide variety of online communication channels also help to close the distance between being in Evanston and being in Singapore.

Many have asked why I decided to go ahead with an MBA at such a difficult time, especially when my course requires travel to the United States. Well, I figured that there will never be an ideal time, and the fact that we are in the midst of a global pandemic would offer a rare context in which to receive an education in management. I hope that what I learn can be used to help fuel the next stage of growth when the pandemic blows over.

Initial Thoughts

CIM emphasised reflection and introspection. I realised I hadn’t had time to sit down and think for quite a while now, and the room to think helped me to understand myself better. Here were two questions that were raised during CIM:

“What is your cultural identity?”

It was fascinating to listen to my course-mates and hear their perspectives. As an international student, my American course-mates’ sharing provided some insight into life in the United States, their heritage, and what they identified with.

I also became quite aware of how I had never had to think too deeply about my cultural identity, being from the majority race in Singapore. My privilege confronted me. When asked to find an item that best represents my cultural heritage, I chose the Hainanese Kaya (Coconut Jam). Equally Hainanese and Singaporean, a representation of Singapore’s reputation for being a food paradise and quite frankly, a symbol of my love for Kaya Butter Toast.

Our short sharing showed a difference in where each of us came from, but also showed that underneath that cultural difference lie very similar themes of love for our families, pride for where we came from, and goals for the future.

“Who are you as a leader? What are your values and what experiences informed those values?”

We had to think back on significant moments in our lives that served as crucibles that transformed our thinking or values.

“Extraordinary leaders find meaning in— and learn from—the most negative events. They emerge from adversity stronger, more confident in themselves and their purpose, and more committed to their work.”
Crucibles of Leadership, Bennis & Thomas, Harvard Business Review

It was a difficult exercise. I had to confront thoughts that I’d much rather push to the back of my mind. Yet at the same time, it affirmed my values and my belief in our own power to change the world for someone else.

I am starting to think that this MBA will be more fruitful that I had initially imagined. I only pray that the coronavirus situation would improve so that I would get the opportunity to make it down for Fall.

Here’s to more amazing experiences at Kellogg!