Singapore Lessons Revisited

Our family vacation to Singapore in December 2006 was planned to fulfil a promise to our niece, and the city immersion left me deeply inspired. As someone who gravitates towards any kind of excellence, Singapore fuelled me with inspiration. Witnessing the nation's incredible transformation from an underdeveloped to a highly developed country in less than three decades seemed unimaginable. This experience moved me to write down "10 lessons from Singapore," which I shared as New Year “musings” in January 2007.

A major highlight was the Merlion mascot, a mythical creature that combines a lion's head with a fish's body. It serves as a powerful affirmation, the country's core spirit of 'achieving the impossible against all odds.' I kept a silver Merlion bookmark pinned to my soft board to serve as a reminder of these lessons.

After 2007, we went again in 2010, and started visiting regularly from January 2014 until January 2020. Even after they moved, many family and friends who lived in Singapore considered it their "best city to live." It became a kind of “second home and workplace” thanks to Milind's teaching commitments at the S. P Jain School of Global Management.

In 2012 the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) invited us to start an entity in Singapore to service companies in South East Asia.

We set up Lumière Business Solutions PTE in 2013 and operated it until we closed it in 2024. In this time we secured very few local projects, and it mainly served to handle international payments for our overseas engagements. Visiting Singapore kept us connected with people and workplaces, and we built longitudinal data on innovation and good governance.

In 2026, we secured a team leadership coaching project for a Singapore-based client. Due to hybrid working models, this required us to be in Singapore for three half-day sessions in July. Turning this into a combined work and personal trip, we invited our son and his family. We caught up with friends and relatives over unhurried meals. 

We were back in Singapore for the first time after January 2020, and were eager to see what had changed. We did touristy activities with the family, including a visit to Sentosa for the second time after 20 years. This was specially to visit the Oceanarium. Our toddler grandson was the central focus of our family trip.

Revisiting Singapore showed me that my takeaways remained unaltered. Meaningful change brings churn and requires a genuine willingness to work hard. The country's motto during my first visit was "Against All Odds," has given way to the current motto, "Passion Made Possible."

On my return, our team asked me to share about our travels during our Learning Monday session. I revisited my original 10 lessons from Singapore and integrated them with the framework from Todd Henry's "Die Empty." He explains that all work falls into three categories—Mapping, Making, and Meshing—and doing all three makes you a DEVELOPER. 

Singapore embodies this by handling Mapping through thoughtful, citizen-centric planning 25 years ahead; Making through disciplined, quality-focused, and flawless execution; and Meshing via continuous learning and advancing best practices. Despite global anxieties, Singapore prioritizes the planet while providing active opportunities to learn and execute. By executing all three, the nation brings "Passion Made Possible" to life.

Here is the collection of my 10 lessons from Singapore written in 2007:

1. Transformation: Much like Singapore successfully refashioned itself from a chaotic slum into a state-of-the-art nation in just 30 years, it is entirely possible to dedicate focus to one's personal growth and elevate oneself to a magical new level of capability.

2. Foresight: Singapore systematically designs its future 25 years ahead year after year. Similarly, one should establish a crystal-clear vision and perspective for the coming year alongside a strategic 10-year life plan.

3. Positivity: Because Singapore's media actively highlights and communicates positive news, we ought to consciously adopt an aggressively positive mindset so that constructive actions can follow.

4. Determination: The country's spectacular evolution stems from pure persistence and grit to achieve its core mission—a quality we should aim to weave directly into our own DNA.

5. Energy: A powerful wave of energy flows through the nation, born from a clarity of purpose and fierce resolve. We can fuel ourselves with a boundless supply of energy by focusing deeply on what we love and do best.

6. Cleanliness: There is an absolute ruthlessness in how cleanliness is enforced. Likewise, we must keep our minds and deeds pure, systematically removing the unnecessary clutter that drains our personal energy.

7. Discipline: Orderliness and strict discipline define the country. Cultivating self-discipline in both our professional work and personal leisure helps us strike a true balance in life.

8. Integration: Singapore resembles an ethnic "salad" where a shared sauce of core values unifies the people while letting individual cultural flavors thrive. The takeaway is to absorb new lessons and knowledge while staying completely authentic and comfortable in your own skin.

9. Celebration: Individual success, material progression, and achievement are actively celebrated here. We should honor every small win to fuel our own momentum with the excitement that comes from winning.

10. Governance: The nation operates under a benevolent dictatorship. The lesson is to act as a benevolent dictator over ourselves—being gentle yet firm so we never compromise on our dreams or lose the true self we are meant to become.

From the grit of "Against All Odds" that defined my first visit 20 years ago to the aspirational "Passion Made Possible" of today, these 10 enduring lessons have been my compass. They remind me that while the motto of a nation—and our own lives—may evolve, the underlying pursuit of purpose, discipline, and growth endures.

The Impossible creature, the Merlion stands for the motto "Against All Odds"