When a Song Becomes a Mirror

It was just another quiet drive. A quick errand to buy fever medicine for my son. The pharmacy lights glowed against the soft drizzle, and the smell of rain mixed with faint menthol from the medicine boxes in my hand. The radio was playing that familiar tune, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.”

I chuckled at first, but then a strange stillness followed. How did we arrive here so quickly? It felt like only yesterday that we were welcoming 2025 with energy and plans, and now we were counting the final months of the year.

That melody, simple and nostalgic, became a mirror. It was no longer about Christmas lights or gifts. It was about time. About legacy.

The deeper question surfaced quietly: What if the end of a year is not a deadline, but an invitation?

To pause, to realign, to measure not just success, but significance.

I found myself asking three questions as the car idled at a red light.

What must happen for me to end 2025 meaningfully?

What actions must I take to make it count?

Who must walk with me to make it real?

And strangely, the answers were waiting. Not in boardrooms or meetings, but in the small theatre of home, illuminated by laughter, learning, and the quiet rhythm of ordinary days.

From Control to Connection: The Nintendo Paradox

If someone had told my younger self that I would one day buy a Nintendo Switch for my children, I would have dismissed it instantly. Gaming was not allowed in my childhood home. It was seen as a distraction, not a discipline. And as a father, I had unconsciously inherited that same rigidity until this year.

The day I bought it, my children were stunned into silence. It was the first time I had entered their world. For the first time, I chose to connect instead of control.

What unfolded next surprised me. Gaming, which I feared would isolate, began to unite. As I watched them play, I noticed lessons quietly emerging, lessons about coordination, strategy, resilience, and negotiation.

They were not just pressing buttons. They were making decisions. They were not escaping reality. They were learning to face it.

I began to see that leadership, whether in parenting or business, is not about restriction. It is about responsible release. I wrote six quick lessons that day: coordination, determination, tactical thinking, negotiation, self-control, and identity.

The Six Lessons from a Console

As I sat beside them, controller in hand, I realised how much this little device was teaching me, not just about my children but about myself. What began as a simple experiment quickly became a classroom of leadership, disguised as play.

Coordination came first. Watching their fingers move across the buttons while their eyes stayed fixed on the screen reminded me that awareness is the first discipline of leadership. In games, as in life, timing is everything. One second too late and opportunity disappears. It is the same in organisations. Strategy fails not because people are unskilled, but because coordination is missing between vision and action.

Then came determination. The game demanded failure after failure before progress could happen. Each time they lost, I expected frustration. Instead, I saw laughter, a quiet resilience that kept them trying again. I realised how easily adults lose this. We read one bad report or see one poor result and immediately question our worth. Children simply start over. In that moment, I understood that perseverance is not about enduring pain. It is about remembering play.

Tactical thinking appeared next. The more they played, the more they began to plan. They talked through strategies, predicting one another’s next moves. Leadership requires the same skill. You cannot control the game; you can only learn to anticipate it. A good leader, like a good player, reads the field. Finland does this brilliantly in education, anticipating societal shifts before they happen and designing systems of trust rather than reaction.

Soon, negotiation entered the room. “Wait, do not hit me. Let me test this move,” one said. “Fine, but next round you defend me.” In that moment, they were not just playing. They were learning diplomacy. How often do adults forget this simple skill? In schools, companies, and even nations, negotiation is no longer about agreement but dominance. My children reminded me that the highest form of collaboration is the ability to pause, to let someone else experiment, and to trust that fairness will return.

Then came self-control. When I said, “Time’s up,” I watched their internal struggle. The urge to continue was strong, but they placed the controllers down. That was discipline, not obedience. They knew I had chosen to buy the console for them, and that knowledge created respect, not fear. In leadership, the same law applies. When people know your decisions come from trust, not ego, self-control becomes voluntary, not enforced.

Finally, there was identity. As they switched to Mandarin conversation, which is our family rule for gaming time, I saw how play could become a bridge to heritage. They were laughing in Chinese, arguing in Chinese, discovering pride in the language that ties them to generations before them. I used to think identity came from lessons and lectures. That night, I realised it grows in the spaces where joy and meaning meet.

As I reflected later, a harder question surfaced.

“Did I truly let go? Or did I simply redesign control?”

That question followed me into work, into leadership, and even into how nations grow.

Finland, for instance, is often hailed for having one of the world’s best education systems. Its secret is not more control, but more trust. Finnish schools do not rely on standardized testing or strict inspection. They trust teachers as professionals. The paradox is powerful: less policing, better performance.

Closer to home, AirAsia disrupted the aviation industry through a similar approach. By trusting passengers to self-check-in, print their boarding passes, and take control of their journey, the company redefined affordability through empowerment. Tony Fernandes did not just build a low-cost airline. He built a culture of participation.

From Finland to AirAsia to my living room, the principle remained constant. Empowerment is the highest form of discipline.

The Nintendo Switch became more than a console. It became a mirror of leadership itself, revealing how the courage to trust is often the first step toward transformation.

Legacy Is Built in the Everyday Systems of Love

John C. Maxwell once said, “A leader’s lasting value is measured by succession.” Legacy, then, is not about achievement; it is about continuity.

When I look at my own life this year, legacy appeared in the quiet corners. Documenting my parents’ stories before time could blur them. Mentoring younger teammates at Stellar. Preparing for the groundbreaking of our new campus. Celebrating my daughter’s 100th day.

Each act reminded me that legacy does not live in milestones. It lives in rhythm, the daily discipline of love expressed through structure.

We often say form supports function, but I have come to learn that love gives it life.

Malaysia’s success stories echo this truth as well. When the late Tan Sri Dr. Jemilah Mahmood founded MERCY Malaysia, she did not just create an organization. She created a system of compassion, structured enough to respond swiftly to disasters, yet human enough to restore dignity. That is structure with soul.

Legacy is not a building or a balance sheet. It is the invisible architecture of values that others can walk through and feel at home.

So, I have stopped chasing monumental outcomes. I am now learning to design mundane faithfulness, small, consistent actions that make the extraordinary sustainable.

That Lesson Found Its Echo

That lesson on letting go found its echo days later, when I visited my mentor in Kuala Lumpur, a man who never stopped letting life teach him.

In his sixties now, he is launching Sante, a healthy fast-food brand built on one radical idea: Why not both? Fast and healthy.

No deep frying. No synthetic preservatives. No artificial flavors. Instead, carbonated fresh juice, fresh greens, real food served fast.

It is a question that has redefined not just food, but leadership itself: Why not both?

Why not efficiency and empathy? Why not structure and soul? Why not business and blessing?

He reminded me of the Law of the Lid: an organization’s effectiveness is capped by its leader’s mindset. His lid kept rising because he refused to fossilize. Every stage of his life was an S-curve in motion. Each time growth plateaued, he reflected, reimagined, and renewed.

He embodies the truth that growth has no retirement age. And as I left his office, I thought, Maybe the truest measure of success is not how far you go, but how long you keep growing.

From Reflection to Renewal

When I returned home, fatigue met peace. The year had been full, travel, family, decisions, and dreams, yet I felt a deeper calm.

I realized that reflection is not about looking back; it is about looking through.

Every S-curve of growth, as Clayton Christensen described, ends not in decline but in renewal, if we choose reflection over repetition. Organizations, relationships, and even nations that forget to reflect eventually repeat their mistakes. Those that pause, rise again.

That principle guided my personal practice this year. I now see reflection in two rhythms:

Micro reflection – daily gratitude and correction. The small resets that keep me honest and human.

Macro reflection – annual redesign and realignment. The long pause that helps me remember who I am becoming.

Both matter. The micro sustains momentum. The macro restores meaning.

And somewhere between those two scales, I rediscovered the beauty of 仪式感 (yì shì gǎn), the art of intentional celebration. Celebration is not frivolous. It is formative. It teaches what to repeat. It reminds us that joy is not the absence of struggle, but the presence of meaning.

In many ways, this mirrors our cultural rhythm in Malaysia. We pause for Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali, and Christmas. We do not stop life; we reset it. Festivals remind us that continuity needs ceremony. Legacy needs rhythm.

So as I prepare for my daughter’s 100-day celebration, I am not planning an event. I am marking a moment of gratitude. Because celebration, I have learned, is not indulgence. It is stewardship of joy.

The Reverse That Redefines It All

As 2025 draws to a close, one truth stands quietly at the center.

The opposite of leadership is not surrender. It is control.

Every time we cling to control, avoid reflection, or delay celebration, we preserve ourselves at the cost of our legacy. True leadership requires release, of ego, of certainty, of comfort.

Perhaps the true test of leadership is not how much we build, but how much of ourselves we are willing to release.

And maybe, every December is not the end of a year, but a rehearsal for legacy. An annual invitation to return, reflect, and renew.

Because legacy is not something we leave behind. It is something we live, one reflection at a time.