The Success of Failure

Just some thoughts before I head on a well deserved unwind in Shanghai and Seoul, and hopefully not gain a load more pounds …

Over the past one year, I’ve spent more time engaging and hearing from not just friends in Singapore but also based overseas, some of whom located in immensely dynamic markets and environment. And after a good reading and conversation with a senior advisor of ours at the National University of Singapore, I found myself thinking on the culture of success, and how that if done wrong, created pockets of opportunity for our well-groomed and well-intended habits to develop into continued areas of systemic failure.

I will be the first to note that I have not achieved any successes in life (I do sincerely think that the road ahead is still long, and at just the fresh age of twenty-three, I have not much yet done to offer to the world). So my thoughts and opinions here should represent nothing more than a random mulling of a know-it-none undergraduate student here in Singapore, who himself has not yet wondered the world. Yet, I do hope some of the things I have come to believe in, will find its resonance with the diverse set of individuals who might be reading this.

Firstly, do not think of stages in life/setbacks as different and independent events, but rather the hurdles as part of progress and eventual success. I find it more constructive to think of say, an objective than involved five set of failures at different turns before eventual success not as five failures and one success, but as one progress with six steps that I have had to make. If we are confident in ourselves, push to the finish line, there is no setback too big, we just don’t see the finish line yet.

Secondly, avoid the desire to preserve an image and reputation. It doesn’t matter where each of us has come from, no matter our track record, our reputation, nor the prestige of the institution that we bear our name to. The infallable image we seek to maintain stifles growth and exploration. Progress and further success only comes if we are willing to explore new bounds. Don’t let the fear of ruining a perfect track record/appearance of failure set us up for the biggest failure of all; not trying, or not adapting.

Thirdly, our human value today in a world marred by the touch of AI, comes in delivering our nuance in the areas where there are no right answers. It is indeed a cultured and ingrained habit for Singaporeans to gravitate to areas where there is exactly the opposite because of our deep embrace of certainty, clarity and need to be validated, a habit perhaps inculcated from our days going through past-year exam papers. Be willing to explore the questions that require the boldness to explore areas where no one dares to touch.

Fourthly, critical thinking requires being comfortable with being critical. I am not envisaging a confrontational world, but even the greatest minds during the Scottish Enlightenment, including philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith, aruged fiercely! We are inherently a very Chinese-valued society (to its pros and cons), and that leads to a prioritisation of values including harmony and consensus. That has led to us being a people where we do not enjoy the process of disagreements and ‘conflict’. Moreover, that aversion to tension and disagreements run contradicting to the human axioms of being imperfect. If we are to aspire to develop and achieve successes at the national and global scale, we are to understand that successes come from a process of iteration and a contestation of ideas, because no one gets it right all the time. Critical thinking cannot come without being critical. Being told you’re wrong, is an essential part of getting there!

Fifth, remember at heart we are allowed, and rewarded in the real world for being creative. I had the privilege of having just read an amazing book titled the Geography of Genius, which noted a unique experiment amongst two set of Chinese and American students: In the first scenario, the two groups of students were put up to produce a piece of work, which was independently graded as demonstrating the American students were more creative. In the second scenario, these same students were then given another task, but this time with the explicit instructions: “Be creative”. The Chinese students fared much better in the second scenario. I think at the heart of it, due to the similarities in the examination system and developmental cultures of both China and Singapore, our students have come to view creativity and non-conventionalism as something we need to be given permission for, else we might be marked down for it (same with the examination styled learning, there are only a few right answers that you should have memorised!).

Sixth, to build a society where there are problem-solvers, there must first be problem-noticers. I beseech all my friends in the nation to allocate the time in their schedules and travel plans to make some trips by foot, whilst putting all thought about your next task, objective and location at the back of your mind. Observe the area around you as you walk; what is it that our fellow residents are doing? What’s that empty area, that perhaps, could be better served for a different purpose? Without this journey and ability to internalise the world around us, we are essentially harbouring lofty dreams of innovators and problem-solvers, whilst shutting ourselves out from the world we are supposed to change.

Seventh, the risk calculus of most of us Singaporeans are skewed asymmetrically to the downside. I believe the risk of failure is far greater outweighed by the risk of having not started. With the former, we gain clarity on the pitfalls to avoid and the understanding of the markets and environments we operate in, positioning ourselves better for the next leg up. On the latter, we are not just deprived of the advantage of having learnt from experience, but also pay an active opportunity cost in that foregone probability we could have done something extraordinary.

Eighth, the only thing we have to lose when young is the regret of having given up on our dreams. Think about all the lovely dreams we have had throughout the years. The best time to pursue the life we want to live, the impact we want to have, and the communities we want to inspire is now.

Ninth, there are enough obstacles in our way in whatever endeavour we choose to do, more so when our goals are ambitious and noble. Don’t add another hurdle to your journey with self-doubt; if even you are not behind yourself, who will?

Tenth, don’t act only if you see the value in the final output. First and foremost, most of us cannot do a superior job of forecasting where the world, or an objective will be in a year’s time, so our forecast of the value of pursuing a particular endeavour is always skewed. Moreover, we do not factor in the value of the learning and growing we would have done through the process. More often than not, the Singaporean in us leads us to view the world in an overly quantified manner with a self-deflating need to benchmark the tasks we do. Even if something could seem meaningless or the possibillity of the desired results seem murky, I wish upon all of you the gusto to power it through and throw down the gauntlet. Sometimes, the most beautiful pieces of work are started by hands and minds who had never once knew how the final output might have looked like.

Wishing everyone a successful year of failures!