One thing I’m thinking about lately is how difficult it can be to trust our own voice and our own gut feel, especially when we’ve spent a huge part of our life following the rules set for us. 

Follow the rules. Don’t stand out. Be independent. Help other people. Work hard. Find a good company and stay there… among other things.

For a while, that blueprint works. But eventually, it can become difficult to tell the difference between who we are and who we’ve been taught to be.

Social media currently calls it the Millennial Career Crisis, and in our part of the world, it feels like something older and deeper.

It's the weight of the Parental/Ancestral Checklist — a series of checkboxes designed around stability: the right title, a respected organisation, and a stable home. For many high-performers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia, this was the inherited definition of success.