Kevin Low

We are all people with high standards; and very often, we want things to be perfect. And we would accept nothing less from ourselves. So when we know we can’t get things perfect, we decide not to do them. What is the point of getting in-between results? You penalise yourself twice: first when you produce imperfect work, and second when you get upset with yourself for producing it. And then maybe even a third time when you realise you could have spent all that time and resources just dwelling in the realm of ‘potential’, of possibly achieving the perfect result. Now you’ve just burst your bubble.

Except you don’t. Except that when you take that first step and produce something imperfect, you’re making a statement to yourself that you’re capable of starting. Of taking the first step. And you get out of the identity of being a lazy perfectionist, of just being a dreamer. If you take a larger step to collect feedback on your work – worthy feedback that is – then you could learn even more, and grow towards the potential you’ve been dreaming of.

So stop relishing in the thought that it is effortless to gain perfection when you are the right kind of person or with the right kind of mastery. That is a myth. There is no magic to perfection or achieving high standards beyond working hard, and consistently. Forget about others, work on yourself.

There is a big difference between problem spotting and problem solving.

John C Maxwell

I would like to think of Singapore as a nation of problem solvers. But the reality is that a small group of people are the ones focused on solving while the majority are just spotting problems and trying to broadcast them. Why have we generated such a culture? This is in part because we have somehow given ourselves a social compact that the government will solve problems and the job of the people is compliance.

And this implied transaction plays itself over and over again when people complain about various different things in society and yet simply sit back and wait for things to happen. There’s this sense that “I’ve played my part, I’ve complied by the rules of the game and so now can you please give me my share of the [fill in the blank] that I deserve.”

So problem solving becomes someone else’s responsibility whereas our responsibility is to comply with the ideas that eventually comes along. One can see how this narrative disempowers us all and sucks the life out of us. Little wonder our mental health takes a big toll. Same on the end of those who are holding on the heavy burden of problem solving. Part of the challenge of this mental health crisis we live within will involve dealing with this culture of problem-spotting we’ve generated.

During the period before I went to university more than 10 years ago, I gave Math and Economics tuition to students at O and A Levels. If there was one thing I would like to think I help to change their thinking about, it is towards exams.

Students I encounter tend to look at their exam papers and results as though it was water under the bridge and so toss out the papers and channeled all their emotions, energies towards the single grade or score they achieved. Yet the largest opportunity is actually in the marked script of the paper. Not because you can dispute the scores; but because it contains way more precious feedback than the single dimensional score or grade can tell you.

Reflecting upon the experience of the exam-taking, the way you approached each question, the manner by which you recall important details to answer the questions matters. That exercise allows you to work on the right aspects of your knowledge gaps or approach to test-taking.

It is a shame that exam scripts are not distributed back to the students. I mean the national exams and the important ones. Maybe they are afraid of showing tabulation mistakes or opening themselves to grade disputes. But I think it is a missed opportunity; it conveys the wrong messages that the grades were the only things that mattered in the whole exam process.

Feedback is important, and we should be clear to our students that exams are about getting the feedback to work on the right gaps. You can tell yourself the story that it is a measure of your ability; or you can have the story that this is a tool to increase your ability.

So the Chinese government was thought to be ‘cracking down’ on big tech in China and the stock market went down like crazy. And people are saying that is destruction of value, and it is being wiped out from the economy. Well, it’s probably true the government doesn’t care if you are losing money. But what is interesting about the communist government in China is that it has realised it gets its power ultimately from the mandate of its people. And that the market as a device or problem-solving tool has to be directed towards the common and social good.

It is interesting how value becomes redefined as what the market says rather than something more intrinsic and based upon one’s independent assessment of it. One needs to be always clear about what is the value of something ‘to you’ and to have the independent benchmark by which to measure value against. It is of course easy to follow the market and base your valuation on the market; but that puts you on the margin all the time, you are going to just make marginal exchanges all the time rather than when you know your value the object more than the money you’re parting with.

The same will have to apply to yourself, your thoughts about your salary and career. Choose work that energises you and which you can put a value on, yourself. Where you know roughly your worth (of course with reference to – but not beholden to – the market). If you let the market lead, then you’ll just be chasing high pay, or the highest you can get with the sacrifices you are willing to make. That does not sound fun and pretty much sucks all the meaning and contribution out of work. Let yourself take the lead on defining value – of yourself, your contribution, and your work.

I was pondering over the way a market tries to get players hooked on things. Obviously it’s great for people to like your product, to keep using it and even getting others to use it. It’s great if it generates recurring revenue for you. And it’s important that the products don’t last too long, so that you will spend more money on it. It might mean more innovation that is real and good, but it can also be just superficial innovation that adds on unnecessary bells and whistles.

And of course, I was wondering whether such addiction can still be considered a consumer preference. Does it mean people really want to spend all their time doom-scrolling through instagram just because they do it? Just because people are manipulated psychologically to take certain actions does not necessarily mean they are just acting out of their preferences. Yes people have choices and this is not a debate about free will. My concern is more whether the market is here to serve consumers or if consumers are here to serve the market.

Because we are training generation after generations of consumers. People who would aspire new things, who wants to spend more to relieve their stress. People who buys new toys to pamper and reward themselves after working so hard, only to realise they have to work harder to pay for the stuff they bought themselves. Now if people have pretty weird preferences and the market serves them, that is fine unless in the course of it, others get harmed. But when the market has a role in shaping preferences, that preferences are actually endogenous in the market, then it makes sense to question what do we really want our markets to do, and to set the rules of the market in a way that honours our intention and the objective.

We don’t want markets to take a life of their own and starts sticking their ugly heads everywhere.

I’ve been thinking about the fundamentals of economics and how optimisation and computation of equilibrium in economics assumes a closed system. And the problem is that the economy is an open system – new products and services keeps getting created. New business models comes into play that puts a price not just on the product or service but also the time dimension of when you consume or how you consume it. These complexities cannot be easily modelled.

But above all, the basic premise in economics that consumer preferences is the main driver of the market is flawed. At the heart of economics and the understanding of scarcity is that the world’s limited resources meets our unlimited wants – and the market is the device that makes the allocation so that things are optimised (based on whatever ways we weigh various preferences). In this line of thought, consumer preferences are supreme. But are they?

Just by mere observation one realises that the firm (ie. the producers) invest into marketing, branding and promotions in order to create wants. At the same time, there are addictive substances that also generate cravings and skew the preferences of people who have had a taste of it to begin with. Addiction either by chemistry or psychology is a channel by which the market can turn back to alter consumer preferences for its own goals. Therefore, it is important for us to recognise and understand what is the problem we are getting the market to solve when we simply leave things up to the market.

Making new friends can be pretty exciting; the prospects of that friendship and the form it’ll take being something you anticipate as you discover new things, common interests etc. And there is plenty to ask, plenty to discover, new context to dive into. Yet at some point we entrench our biases about people, we classify them into “that kind or this kind” of person, and then we are off to try and find new friends.

Same with business prospects, sometimes having done business with a person we think we’ll checked that box, we already know and satisfied the need. We don’t try and seek how we can serve this prospect better, discover other problems we can solve for them. And build deeper, better relationships.

Because maybe finding out something new about your old friend is only interesting rather than exciting; and getting more business from an existing client doesn’t feel as much like you’re growing the business than if you get a new client. I don’t know if that’s some kind of psychology of novelty. But I know the ones who win tend to be the ones with deep relationships and networks which are not superficial.