The Lessons Life Kept Repeating?

What I learned too late about ambition, leadership and being present.

I have been told more than once that I was too impatient. For many years, I heard this almost as a compliment.

Mario Andretti once said, “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” For much of my career, that made perfect sense to me. In hotel operations, urgency mattered. There was always another guest to serve, another problem to solve and another result to deliver.

It often worked in hotel operations. Life taught me the hard way that it was no way to live.

Early in my career, I joined a major international hotel group and felt I had something to prove. Nobody put that pressure on me. Most of it came from within. I wanted the group to know they had made the right decision, and I thought the best way to demonstrate that was to work harder and produce results quickly.

When the hotel performed well, I felt good. When the financial results or guest scores were disappointing, I took it personally. At the time, I called this taking responsibility. Looking back, it was not always the healthy kind. Every problem became mine to solve, and every disappointing result felt like a judgement on my ability.

My answer was always to work harder.

Fourteen-hour days became normal. I worked weekends and holidays and carried the hotel home with me. Before one problem had been resolved, I was already thinking about the next one.

I had taught myself to be proactive and to think three or four steps ahead. Sometimes this worked very well. It helped me anticipate what guests might want and what competitors might do. But eventually, I no longer knew how to switch it off.

Even when things were quiet, my mind was looking for the next risk, complaint or missed opportunity. I was physically present but rarely settled. I had begun to confuse activity with progress and anxiety with being prepared.

The people around me experienced another side of this. I interrupted before they had finished explaining. I expected everyone to be at the top of their game and to produce results at the pace I wanted. I was a pacesetting leader: keep up, deliver and move on.

I maintained good relationships with many people, and I believe they knew I cared about the hotel and wanted the team to succeed. But that did not make the pace sustainable. Strong people became tired. Some disengaged.

People told me I was too impatient. They told me to listen more and warned that we could not continue working at that pace. I heard them, but I did not really listen. Somewhere inside me, I still believed that slowing down meant lowering my standards.

My body was also telling me to stop.

After a long period of exhaustion and the death of a close family member, I nearly had a breakdown. By then, I had gained around 15 kilograms, was drinking most evenings and was living an unhealthy life. I was not coping well, but I kept trying to work my way out of it.

Eventually, I had to stop.

I began meditating, changed my diet and took up yoga. At first, I treated recovery like another project. I wanted a plan, measurable progress and a completion date. Recovery had other ideas. Getting physically healthy again took months. Feeling mentally well again took years.

It was one of the first problems I could not solve simply by working harder.

Mindfulness showed me how rarely I was living in the present. Thinking ahead had always been one of my strengths, but I had allowed it to become a permanent state of mind. I had to learn that preparing for the future did not require me to live there.

I also had to learn how to listen properly. Not to remain quiet while waiting for my turn to speak, but to let someone finish without already deciding what the answer should be. I began to understand that silence can sometimes be an answer and that not every uncertainty needs to be resolved immediately.

I wish I could say I learned the lesson once and changed. I did not.

When I moved to another hotel group, the same pattern returned. I was again highly detailed and involved. The environment was demanding, but so was I. The hours became longer, and the impatience came back.

From the outside, I was still functioning. I maintained good relationships, did the work and delivered results. But I was no longer happy in it.

Burnout does not always end in collapse. Sometimes you continue doing the job long after you have stopped enjoying it.

I then convinced myself that moving home might solve the problem. I had spent 18 years away, and returning to my own country seemed like an opportunity to be closer to family and live differently.

Instead, I chose another high-pressure role in a secondary city, working for a company with a heavily involved owner. I also arrived with expectations shaped by many years in Singapore. There was nothing inherently wrong with either side, but it was not a comfortable fit.

Once again, I had chosen circumstances that brought out the same habits I was trying to leave behind.

For a long time, I thought the job, the company or the location was the problem. Eventually, I had to accept that I was carrying part of the problem with me. I had changed companies and countries, but I was still making similar choices and reacting to pressure in much the same way.

Life is funny in this way. If you do not understand the lesson, it has a habit of coming back.

This time, I chose to take a sabbatical. I spent more time with my family and helped care for my father. I read, reflected and began reconsidering what success meant to me.

For most of my career, the measures had been straightforward: financial results, guest scores, promotions, hotel awards and money in the bank. I still believe those things matter. Money is important, but largely because of the choices it gives you. It can give you greater control over your time and allow you to look after the people, relationships and parts of yourself that work can easily crowd out.

During my sabbatical, I read Sahil Bloom and Peter Attia, as well as Poor Charlie’s Almanack. They approached life from different directions, but all made me think about the danger of measuring success too narrowly. It is possible to be successful at work while neglecting much of the life the work was meant to support.

Years ago, a mentor told me that everyone should spend some time unemployed because it would teach them to appreciate their journey. I did not understand him then. Now I do.

When the job title disappeared, I had to consider what was left without it. That was uncomfortable at first because so much of my identity had been built around work. Over time, I found it liberating. I could think about what I wanted the next part of my life to look like instead of simply accepting another demanding role.

Another leader once told me, “If it’s not in your calendar, it does not get done.” I remembered his advice and began using it for the parts of my life that work had previously pushed aside.

Most mornings now begin with twenty minutes of meditation. I exercise daily, alternating aerobic work and weights, and make room for investment research, deep reading, consulting, learning and journalling. I also practise walking meditation and usually meditate again in the evening.

My father is in my calendar twice a week. Family commitments are scheduled before work can take over the available space.

I am also more careful about whom I work with. I now have a “no-asshole” rule for clients. It may not sound very hospitable, but experience has taught me that the wrong client can take much more from you than the hours written on an invoice.

My days are not perfectly balanced, and I do not expect them to be. The calendar simply makes my choices visible. It is difficult to claim that something matters when I repeatedly refuse to give it any time.

I recognise some of the warning signs earlier now. Irritability is one. Another is when the calendar starts to feel impossible and I begin dropping the routines that normally keep me steady. In the past, I would have responded by pushing harder. Now I try to pause, reflect and decide whether I still want to continue in the same direction.

Meditation and journalling help me do this. They do not remove pressure or provide easy answers. They allow me to look at my choices more honestly and take responsibility for where they are leading me.

With 3AM, I still want to be successful. I have not lost my ambition, and I do not want to. I simply want to succeed in my own way without sacrificing everything else that gives success meaning.

Would I tell my younger self to choose a different path? Probably not. The difficult years, the mistakes and even my failure to learn the lesson the first time are all part of the journey. You have to accept the good with the bad, learn what you can and move forward.

I am still impatient. I still think ahead, care deeply about results and sometimes try to do too much. These qualities are part of me, and they have contributed to much of what I have achieved.

The difference is that I no longer assume they are always strengths. I know what they can cost when left unchecked. And when life begins repeating the lesson, I hope I am learning to recognise it a little sooner and finally listen.