Fear murdered creativity!

I spent way too much time procrastinating before I finally got to work on this story. I was worried that my work would suck and people would hate it. It didn't help that my last YouTube video was a success (for a beginner like me). What if I just got lucky? What if I am not able to repeat the quality? What if I am mediocre? 

Then I read…

"On the spectrum of creative work, the difference between the mediocre and the good is vast. Mediocrity is, however, still on the spectrum; you can move from mediocre to good in increments. The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something."

– Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon.

It was the inspiration I needed to face my fear of being “not good enough”. A fear that I have been battling with my whole life. I thought I had overcome it, but it snuck up on me without my realisation.

“People often procrastinate because they're afraid of failing at the tasks that they need to complete.

– source www.solvingprocrastination.com

So many of us go about life, oblivious that we live in captivity to fear. It traps us in the dungeon of our minds and keeps our souls in poverty. It causes us to make poor decisions about our priorities and what to pursue in life, which often leads to adverse outcomes for our finances, health and relationships. 

Fear makes us lousy human beings. We become disrespectful, disparaging, impatient, condescending and judgemental towards our fellow humans. Insecurity, selfishness, greed, jealousy and pride have their lineage in Fear. 

According to research, we are born with only two natural fears: falling and loud sounds. All others are learned, caused by our environment and culture. I was unaware of Fear’s grip on me, and it took an encounter with Death to awaken me. The question is, how did I learn to fear, and how did it become a stronghold in my mind?

Expectations of Chinese Parents

I am Chinese. I was born in Singapore and grew up in Malaysia before being shipped off to boarding school in Singapore at eleven. In my days, I can’t speak for the situation now, Chinese parents expect their children to be filial, study hard, get good grades, and go to university to become doctors, lawyers, architects, accountants or engineers. It seemed like it was every parent’s aspiration for their children to go to medical school. Doctors stood head and shoulders above all the other professions. If you become a doctor, you’ve made it in life, and the key to success is education. 

Comparing their children is a full-time sport for Chinese parents. We would often hear stories of someone’s child getting perfect scores in school or whose kids got into medical school. There was always somebody better than us. In their minds, this was motivation. The other way was to beat motivation into us with a bamboo rod. I was very acquainted with Mr Cane because my grades were not good enough.

We were expected to get married before thirty, start a family to produce grandkids, and provide for our elderly parents. We could enjoy life when we retire, provided we are still healthy enough to do so. 

You can’t blame Chinese parents for their actions because this practice was handed down from one generation to another.

Expectations of Society

After university, with only a suitcase in hand, I came to Singapore in 1995 to seek work. I joined a multinational company where I worked for a few years before moving to another company. Job hopping is a common practice in Singapore for better pay and promotions. Attaining the five C's of cash, credit cards, condominium, car and country club was the epitome of success. So much so that it was mainstream news in the nineties. 

I did life as expected of me. I got married, had kids, made my parents proud, got indebted to banks to buy my home and a car, and saved for my children's education and my retirement. Life was compartmentalised between hours at work and hours outside work.

Encounter with Death

Everything was going according to plan until Death paid a visit on November tenth 2006. My wife and I had just welcomed our second child, and at fourteen days old, doctors told us that he was dying. There is only one word to describe how we felt that day—hopelessness. For one week, doctors subjected him to test after test, but in the end, the doctors told us they could only make our son's last few days as comfortable as possible. Every way we turned to was pitch black, so we turned to God. For some reason, humans only turn to the Divine as the ultimate final resort. But God is faithful, and He gave us a gift. Our son's condition went into remission the very next day. He turns sixteen this year, and although he still has a heart condition, he lives a pretty normal life.

That event was my awakening. I began to question my work, life and purpose. The internal struggle lasted for four years until I finally called it quits. With a third child on the way, I handed in my resignation letter and went to bible school, searching for God's purpose and calling for me. 

Haunted by Fear

As my year at bible school approached the end, so too was my bank balance. I considered going back to the corporate world, but I really wanted to be my own boss. I had an idea to use my experience to provide consulting services to the small business community in Singapore but had no clue where to begin. So like most people, I turned to Google. I read books on how to start a business and took the plunge. I sold our home and moved into a rented apartment to finance the effort with my business partner.

For more than two years, we struggled to get clients. And things only got worst. My dad suddenly collapsed and had to be put on life support. Three weeks after being induced into a coma, we made the painful decision to turn off the life support machine on December thirty-first, twenty-thirteen. This was my second encounter with Death, but Death was not finished with us yet because my business partner lost his grandmother, uncle, and father in the following four months. 

It was a very stressful and disruptive period. Still, we managed to land our first big client. Unfortunately, the breakthrough didn't last, as my business partner suffered a stroke a few weeks later, which eventually led to the end of our partnership.

In February of twenty fifteen, I was nearly broke. I only had enough for two months' rent and living expenses for my family of five. I applied for jobs with no success. The stress during this period was unbearable. I was constantly haunted by Fear. Panic attacks would jolt me out of sleep, and as I lay in bed, it felt like I had an elephant sitting on my chest, suffocating me. Fear was paralysing me, and I could not think clearly.

A new beginning

Everyone has their own explanation for when they are thrown a lifeline at just the right time. Some call it the “Stars Aligning”, “The Universe”, or plain old good fortune. I choose to believe it was God's grace that opened a door for me to be rehired by the company I left five years earlier for a better position and pay. The company also reinstated my former years of service, meaning I got back all the benefits I had given up.

The five years that I had no income were the most fear-filled years I have ever been through. But when I look back, it was a time of tremendous personal growth, psychologically and spiritually. Death, desperation and survival caused a lot of self-reflection that made me take stock of what is truly important. I appreciate the things I used to take for granted and am reminded to live in the moment. Most of all, I have been humbled because as much as I like to think that I made it on my own merit, the truth is many people helped me along the way.

Awareness of Fear in the workplace

Although I am back in the corporate world I vowed to never return to, I have a new perspective and purpose. Fear has infiltrated the workplace, and it is influencing decisions in HR, sales, marketing and strategy, among others. However, most people are still ignorant of its hidden workings. Ignorance is not bliss. Not when it destroys you. People need an awakening for change to take place. And for that to happen, they need to be made aware.

Awareness is awakening – Brian Solis, "Life Scale."

Bring back creativity

Many corporations govern by Fear. Fearful people create fear-filled systems, resulting in toxic cultures and dysfunctional relationships. It creates selfish managers who put their own interests first. Good leaders are silenced and struggle with imposter syndrome. Companies claim to promote teamwork and collaboration; the truth is, when shit hits the fan, it is everyone for themselves. Management tells employees to trust the system, but the system is failing people. Instead of serving the people, people end up serving the system. People are not happy at work; the statistic proves it. The end result is a workplace devoid of humanity and creativity. 

The bible says: 

“Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment. But love’s perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts.” 

– 1 John 4:18

Though it speaks of the perfect love of Christ, there is a truth that we can apply to combat fear and bring creativity back into the workplace. It is love for people and putting people first before outcomes. And we can design fear out of the systems with human-centred design (HCD).

If fear shuts down creativity, HCD ignites it because it is a creative process. Where fear makes us react, HCD helps us to reflect before responding. Fear is inhuman; HCD promotes empathy. Fear causes confusion and chaos; HCD brings clarity. Fear holds us back and makes us risk-averse. HCD gives us the courage to step out of our comfort zone and push beyond the boundaries.

Unfortunately, profit chasing organisations have adopted HCD as a process for innovation and transformation for more gains. It is also widely promoted by academic institutions and large consultancies as such. That is such a shallow use of HCD. The true power of HCD is unleashing the creativity in all of us to solve complex problems for the benefit of humanity.

Failure is not an identity

For too long, we have allowed others to define success for us, our parents, society, religion, the organisations we work for, etc. And when we do not achieve their measure of success, we are branded failures. People do not fear failure; they fear the pain that failure might bring and be identified as one. On the other hand, creative people do not see failure as an identity; therefore, they are able to see success in failure and as an opportunity for growth. We were all born creative, but it was educated out of us. The good news is we can rediscover our creativity and build our creative confidence.

I want to close by reading the following excerpt:

When it comes to our modern day society, there is no doubt that we are being told how to live and what our lives are supposed to look like. When we are born we have our parents imposing their ideas and beliefs onto us about what is right and what is wrong and then from there we are usually enrolled into the public school system. Here is where a lot of our natural, inherent creative abilities unfortunately come to die.

In many cases, the school system doesn’t celebrate gifts in the realm of art, music, poetry etc. Rather, the more logical analytical ways of knowledge are celebrated, such as math, science, and memorisation. Sure, these are important gifts as well and they should be celebrated, but not all people fit into that mould. And then what happens to those gifts that are left untapped and never brought forward into our world for everyone to enjoy? Well, society wants us to believe that those gifts do not fit into our system and we can’t make a living by utilising them. What a conundrum. 

https://educateinspirechange.org/society-kills-creativity-award-winning-pixar-esque-short-film/

You can watch a very moving animation of what happens when we allow society to sap our creativity here. https://youtu.be/kQjtK32mGJQ

Standing on shoulders of giants

I love the phrase "Standing on the shoulders of giants". It is a metaphor meaning "using the understanding gained by major thinkers who have gone before to make intellectual progress". I am not a major thinker, but I want to offer up my shoulder, however big or small, to whoever wants to stand on them. I want to do my part in bringing creativity and humanity back into our workplace. I hope you have been inspired to think differently!