This was a week of reflection where I had a number of good conversations with persons who were at various stages of the lives. I could relate to all of them as I had previously been there and done that. I shared with them about my experiences and how I dealt with them, with the hope that this will provide comfort and direction for them on how to deal with their own personal journey.
Met a friend mid-week who was experiencing nervous panic attacks recently. In the last 16 months, he had started running the biggest role in his career as CEO of a company. He has been driving himself very hard during this time and the fear of failure was very real to him. Being totally immersed in the role, he is frustrated that others around him may be hindering his progress but yet feels powerless at times to do anything about some of them. He then tries to second guess every step and agonizes over the various permutations of how a situation may play out.
I empathize with him as I was in a similar situation during the Asia Financial Crisis in the late nineties. I had just started to management my first team as a leader while in the midst of a market meltdown which the region has never seen before. I was totally overwhelmed by events happening around me and the pressure was so very severe. Luckily, I had a good mentor and boss to guide me through and provide assurances that things will be alright.
I told my friend that he was over-thinking all situations, that 50% of the stress he is feeling is mostly self-created. He is assuming worst case scenarios and trying to predict 10 steps ahead of the game. With the big burden of doing the biggest job he ever had in his life, he is trying to be superhuman. He should move with the flow and manage things he can control, rather than trying to over analyze every situation. Part of being in control and managing a team is to prioritize tasks and to ensure one does not burn out too soon.
I assured him that he will become stronger in the process and all these things will pass. One needs to enjoy the ride and not over analyze as we are only human. There is much to be thankful for and we should count our blessings. I hope that he is able to digest what I said and reflect upon himself to resolve his panic attacks.
I had another lunch meeting with the mentee whom I had “adopted” for the undergrad mentorship program on Thursday. As this was the second time we were meeting, I had him propose a few questions for me to prepare and share with him. He came back with 3 before the meeting and I asked him to also prepare his answers to share with me. The questions revolved around work-life balance, biggest success and failures.
We had a good sharing session as we got to know each other better. Given that he has not started out in the real working world yet, I could see that some of his thoughts may be too idealistic. I shared with him my experiences working for the last 28 years and my thoughts on the topics being discussed. It was also refreshing to listen to his thoughts and aspirations and what he wanted for his career. I wished I had someone to guide me while I was in uni. So hopefully, I hope I can do a capable mentorship role to pay it forward and provide value-add advise to him.
Another good friend also just informed me that he is leaving his senior banking job in a European investment bank after 11 years. He decided to take the package after turning down an alternative role offered to him. I empathize with his feelings now as I had been through a similar stage 7 years ago. There is a huge sense of loss and uncertainty, some regret and anger mixed into the emotions at this point in time. I can only give him some words of comfort for now and arrange for a meet up next week to talk further.
To round off the week, I had lunch with some old friends at a new concept supermarket billed as a multi-sensory, tech-meets-food grocery and dining experience. It is totally cashless end to end, using its app to enhance the customer experience with maximum efficiency while enjoying the shopping encounter.
Technology has improved so much that it is now capable of totally revamping traditional retail processes. Transport (Uber/Grab) and Holiday Accommodation (AirBnB) industries have already been disrupted and I don’t see why all industries cannot experience the same eureka moment too. I had seen the same in the Hema store during my Alibaba Hangzhou study trip 2 weeks back. The future is already here and how we traditionally do things will become obsolete overnight.
There is no way we can or want to go back to doing things the old traditional style once we experience the ease of doing it the new way, thanks to technology. We have to embrace change or change will engulf us totally.
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