A client of mine, a teacher, well settled into a school she had built a life around, recently made a change. Nothing dramatic on paper. She left a place she knew for one she didn't, choosing a new school, a different environment, a significantly different shape to her teaching journey. Moving from a primary to a secondary school. The immediate reaction for many people was: "She is brave!" She didn't see it that way at all. The View From Outside From the outside, the change lo

August arrived again this year, the way it always does. And each time it swings by, I take time to thank God. It is my birthday month. 44 years this year. It is also the month, ten years ago, that I was in ICU. The day I was extubated, but still "tubated" Intensive Care, Tan Tock Seng, August 2016. Wrestling with Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Paralysed, breathing through a tube, fed through my nose. I've written about that before. The helplessness, the prayer, the line that came t

Not Loch Ard but on the Great Ocean Road. During a trip to Melbourne, my family and I drove out along the coast and stopped at a place called Loch Ard Gorge. My wife, our children, my in-laws — none of us really knew what to expect. It is a beautiful stretch of coastline, with views that take your breath away. Then I read the displays. I cannot tell you now exactly what they said, word for word. But they told the story of a shipwreck, and something in it stayed with me long a

Photo by Kelli Tungay on Unsplash Towards the end of my teaching career, I started giving each of my graduating students a colour pencil. One pencil. Each of them, as they left. Being a teacher was a privilege and the journey with the students was always amazing. The graduation day was a stark reminder that our journey was ending. We would soon part. I wanted to give them something to think about. I wanted them to leave with a deeper reflection of what their actions meant. I

I’ve always believed in stewardship. As a financial planner, it’s second nature to watch spending, track budgets, and encourage financial discipline. Stewardship, after all, begins with restraint. Buy assets. Avoid lifestyle inflation. Sensible , sound advice. But at a recent Christian Financial Planners conference, something shifted. God didn’t convict me about spending too much. He convicted me about saving too much. God convicted me about saving too much. That’s not a sent

"Retirement isn't just about having enough money—it's about having a life worth retiring into." When we talk about retirement planning, certain buzzwords always come up: inflation, compound interest, drawdown strategies, asset allocation. Important stuff, no doubt. But somewhere between the spreadsheets, financial calculators, and growing stress levels, we forget that retirement isn’t just a math problem to solve—it’s a life chapter to look forward to. Packing for a Trip You

“We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.” – Anaïs Nin How Our Inner World Shapes Our Outer Lens We like to think we’re objective. That we take in the facts and come to logical conclusions. But more often than not, we interpret the world through the lens of our past experiences and emotions. David Brooks, in How to Know a Person, reminds us that people are interpretive beings. We don’t simply observe—we filter, we color, we assign meaning. Our lived experiences d

I wrote this article for Autoimmune Diseases SG. The full article is on the page, while here is an abridged version. August is a special month for me. Other than being my birthday, it is also the month, when I was warded in hospital for Guillain Barre Syndrome, for the second time, in 2016. Guillain-Barré (Ghee-yan Bah-ray) Syndrome (GBS) is an inflammatory disorder of the peripheral nerves outside the brain and spinal cord. As an autoimmune condition, it is when the immune s

I decided to do a personal update for this post. How quickly time flies. It is now mid-year. And a good time to review the year, if you have not already? More importantly than reviewing the year, review yourself. How are you compared to the start of the year? What do you need to do to end this year well? For me, April brought along a realization that I was burnt out. It was a combination of things that led me to the realization. The breaking point was that I had become extrem

Tan Ooi Boon wrote a wonderful article on The Straits Times about how high-income earners may be in the problematic position of having low wealth. The key idea is that these high-income earners face serious issues. Tan cited a survey where one in five Americans earning six-figure annual incomes lived from pay cheque to pay cheque. Closer to home, the top three debtors who sought help from Credit Counseling Singapore earned more than $30,000 a month. Why does this paradox of h

If you knew today was your last day, what would you do? I was on holiday in June when I received word that my uncle had suddenly passed on. In just a split second, we went from thinking all was well, to ruminating that our world has one less wonderful person in it. When we returned for his wake, I learned from those he interacted with, that he was a truly wonderful man. He was the man to go to if you needed help. He was a man who had the gumption to make hard decisions and se

“The ability to do what you want, when you want, for as long as you want, has an infinite ROI.” "The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed and happiness" by Morgan Housel Money is great. Having money is better than having none. If having just some money is good, having more must be better. It is no surprise that many of us would want more, and more, especially since we live in a capitalistic society! However, is it true that more money is always better? A rec