Guangzhou: What looks like a 2 hour meeting is often a 20 year transformation waiting to be born.
The Real Return On a 24 Hour Investment
Most people measure value by time. One hour for one output, one day for one deliverable, one trip for one outcome. In that logic, travelling 24 hours for a 2 hour meeting sounds foolish.
Leadership uses a different mathematics.
Leadership is more like compounding. You invest heavily now for a return you may not see for 5, 10, or 20 years. A conversation today can shift a family, a team, a city, even a country. Not because of the duration, but because of the depth and the identity of the person who walks into that room.
As I sat at Guangzhou Airport at 5.34pm on 19 November 2025, after 3 packed days and 2 nights, that was the question sitting in my heart. We spent one whole day travelling into China, another whole day travelling back, and only 2 hours meeting the main person from Shantou.
Was it worth it?
For most people, I believe the answer is a simple no.
For a leader who lives by purpose, the answer is more precise. It depends on who you are becoming and what you are building.
Because the real question is never just “Was it worth it?” The deeper question is:
“What generational pattern am I breaking or reinforcing through this choice?”
A small side note. In the real world of trust building, presence still matters. People respond very differently when they see your eyes, feel your handshake, and watch how you behave when you are tired. Research has shown that face to face requests can be more than 30x more effective than email. Presence creates a level of trust that digital tools cannot replace. In China especially, many deals still require at least one physical visit before trust is truly given. Relationship is the first due diligence. Face to face connection carries a weight that no email or Zoom link will ever replace. You will not find that inside a calendar invite.
The Journey Back To Who I Am
My journey with China itself is not new. The city of Shantou is no longer a stranger. The first visit was roughly a year ago. Then I was back on 31 August 2025, Malaysia’s National Day. Just two months later, I returned again. Same city. Same airport. Same country. But a different man inside.
Because the more important journey was not geographical. It was internal. It was a journey back to identity.
When I was younger, I wanted to be anything except myself: Malaysian, Chinese, etc. I admired the western world. I wanted to look like a Caucasian. I wished I could be born into a different identity. Being Chinese, Malaysian felt like something to hide, not something to honour.
Of course, I could not change my face. I still looked Chinese. But I could change how people listened to me. So I tried to do that. I chose to speak English as much as possible, especially outside, to project a “higher class” image. I would even feel proud that I could say I was “English educated.”
There is nothing wrong with speaking English. The problem was my motive. I was not speaking it out of love for the language. I was speaking it out of shame and self-rejection. It was not a tool of communication. It was a mask of identity.
Time, travel, and pain have a way of exposing these masks.
The more I travel to China, and the more I grow up, the more I see how empty that thinking was. You do not become more valuable by changing costume. You become more valuable by deepening your character and your clarity. The world’s “number one” ranking shifts over time. Once it was one empire. Now it is another. One day China will overtake the United States. One day someone else may overtake China. If your identity keeps changing every time the global ranking changes, you do not have an identity. You have insecurity.
So this time, as I flew into Shantou, I was very clear. I am Malaysian Chinese. I am shaped by my family, by my faith, by my story, and by this land I call home. I am not here to hide. I am here to build. And I am here to carry a purpose that is bigger than my personal comfort.
That connects directly to why this trip even happened.
My heart is for my team. Especially those in the knowledge industry, teachers and educators. Teachers spend their lives looking at children. That is beautiful. But it also means they can easily become very inward looking. They are busy with classroom management, routines, safety, homework, discipline, and daily operations. Their world can shrink into lesson plans and timetables if no one pulls them out to see the wider map.
Global surveys show that close to 90 percent of teachers report having very limited exposure to real world industries beyond school, which confirms what many of us already feel on the ground. If the people shaping the next generation are boxed in by the timetable, how can they prepare children for a world that is changing so fast?
I am not blaming them. I understand them as I started my career as a lecturer at the age of 21. Their job is demanding. But that is exactly why I, as a school leader and entrepreneur, must do my part. My responsibility is to create opportunities, build bridges, and take risks they cannot afford to take. If I as the visionary, do not travel to explore, then who will open new doors for them?
That is why I came. Not as a tourist, but as a steward.
There is also a simple human truth. People still trust those who are willing to show up. It is one thing to talk about collaboration over a call. It is another thing to see someone fly in, sit across the table, meet your family, and take time to understand your world. In cultures like China, a visit is more than a courtesy. It is a vote of seriousness. In many parts of China, a shared meal is treated almost like a soft contract. The dinner table becomes part of the negotiation. Hosting is not a side activity, it is the real conversation.
The Hidden Million: Ability, Not Money
Let us return to the mathematics.
24 hours of travel. 2 hours of key meeting. Is it really worth it?
If you only count output, maybe not.
If you include everything that really happened, it becomes very different.
First, the meeting itself was not blind. The 2 hours of key meeting started 3 years ago. Before I ever booked the ticket, there was groundwork. Conversations. Checking alignment. Evaluating values. In China, people do not simply open their network for fun. Every meeting is expensive in terms of reputation. So both sides had already done some homework.
Second, the 24 hours of travel were not empty time. On this trip, I was travelling with two other key people whom I see as a powerful combination. One is like the air force, 空軍. He operates with ideas, reach, and influence. I, as someone grounded in people, schools and systems, am more like the army, 陸軍. We build on the ground. The third person is like the navy, 海軍. With all three together, 海陸空, we could explore possibilities with a richness that a solo trip could never achieve.
Even if no deal comes out of it, that kind of shared experience multiplies friendship. Leadership grows fastest in real situations, not in theory. You cannot download trust. You have to live it. In fact, studies on partnerships show that senior leaders who travel for key relationships often close and sustain collaborations significantly better than those who only engage virtually. It is not just the meeting. It is the message that your presence sends.
Third, the “wasted” time in airports became opportunity for building relationship that matters and reflection. Before this trip, I had skipped my daily reflections for days because I was mentally tired. On this flight, the pause forced me back into that discipline. The airport became a classroom again. A quiet seat with a loud mirror. The travelling time has also given me great opportunity to build relationship that matters.
Fourth, the day in China was not only about the main meeting. We spent almost the entire day with a business family who hosted us with ridiculous warmth. They drove us everywhere, even though it is now incredibly convenient to book a car with apps like 滴滴. They insisted on being our driver, guide, and host. Not because they had to. Because this is part of what they believe.
在潮汕文化里, 亲自开车接送客人是一种荣耀感。把你交给司机, 反而像是“拉开距离”。这种人情味, 才是真正支撑家族企业一代又一代走下去的软实力。合同可以开启合作, 人情味才是让合作活下去的关键。
This is 人情味 (Ren Qing Wei). It generally means human warmth, relational; essentially means “Ways of being” in the Chinese term. You cannot understand that kind of depth by staying at home and watching short videos about “Chinese business culture.” You need to sit in the car and feel it.
The highlight for me was a young man in that family. 23 years old. Second generation. His parents are first generation business owners. He is one of the rare second gen who willingly chooses to take over the family business where most of the youngsters are moving to the cities. His heart is clearly with his parents. They are not forcing him. He is not escaping. He is the result of the investment that the parents have poured into his life for the past 23 years.
I love these kinds of stories. My own desire is that the heart of the parents turns to the children and the heart of the children turns to the parents. I saw that here very clearly.
So we talked. We went deep. Not about surface leadership tips. We talked about marriage. About children, timing and legacy.
He shared that he plans to have only two children, and only after he is stable. He carries the common belief that each child “costs” one million. In his mind, having children is a heavy financial liability. He even did a survey and found that almost 90 percent of young people around him do not want children. Why? Because they feel children will take away their freedom and their resources.
This is not only his circle. Across Asia, we see similar patterns. South Korea’s fertility rate has dropped to 0.75, partly because many young adults believe that raising a child easily costs close to one million in total. When you see children purely as cost, of course the next generation will disappear.
This is the zero sum mindset. The belief that if one area grows, another must shrink. The belief that love reduces money, responsibility reduces freedom.
I understand that mindset. I used to have it. Before I had children, I also thought of them as a drain on resources. At one point, I only wanted two children. That was my mental ceiling.
But real life, when you cross that river, tells a different story.
You will never understand what is across the river by standing on the riverbank. You can read about parenting for 10 years and still not grasp the weight and joy of being a parent. The same way you cannot understand the value of a 24 hour trip for a 2 hour meeting by staying home and saying “I would never do that.”
Before having children myself, I might need 8 hours to produce 8 – 12 hours of results. After I became a father of 4, the equation changed. Constraints forced creativity. I asked a different question. How do I use 2 focused hours to achieve what used to take 20? My time did not magically grow. My resourcefulness did.
Interestingly, studies on parents show something similar. Many parents, under tighter constraints, actually become more effective with their time than before. When responsibility increases, creativity and focus often rise with it. Responsibility can expand resourcefulness.
So I asked the young man a simple question:
“Which is more important, having one million now, or having the ability to generate a million, again and again?”
That is the real million. Not one million in the bank. The ability to generate one million in value because your capacity expanded. You can lose the money and rebuild it if you have the ability. If you only have the money and no ability, once you lose it, it is gone.
He paused and answered correctly. The ability, of course.
Exactly. That is how I choose to see my children. Not as million ringgit liabilities. But as the very reason my ability upgraded. They forced me to grow in patience, creativity, time management, courage, negotiation, emotional intelligence, and long term thinking. They forced me to change how I work, not just how much I work.
In the same way, this China trip forced me to sharpen my identity and my leadership. It pressed me to look again at how convenience has quietly trained us.
When life becomes very convenient, something dangerous happens. Our threshold for discomfort drops. We become impatient. We become intolerant of slowness. We become addicted to fast rewards. We start spending the saved time on mindless scrolling, not mindful reflection.
Short form video platforms are literally designed to trigger dopamine spikes every few seconds. The more we lean on that kind of “easy stimulation”, the harder it becomes to stay with anything slow and meaningful. Some societies are already naming this the “paradox of comfort”: the more convenience we invent, the more emptiness and loneliness we feel inside.
We say we value freedom. But without rhythm, freedom becomes noise. Without purpose, convenience becomes addiction.
You will not experience the best side of humanity by chasing only convenience. You will not taste Ren Qing Wei through high speed WiFi. You will not build 20 year partnerships only through scheduled calls. There are dimensions of trust and insight that only open when you are willing to be inconvenienced.
So now the equation looks different.
24 hours of travel, 2 hours of meeting.
But also:
- A deepened friendship with two partners.
- A captured reflection that re-centers my identity.
- A live case study of a second gen son with his parents.
- A full day of observing an honour-based business culture from the inside.
- And a clearer conviction about what truly grows leaders.
Suddenly, the “ROI” looks very different.
What Leaders Must Do When Convenience Becomes a Trap
So what do we do with all this?
If we are serious about building leaders, protecting our teachers from stagnation, and raising a generation of STARS for a sustainable future, we need to stop worshipping convenience.
Here is a simple starting point.
Step One: Choose one strategic inconvenience that grows your ability.
Not random suffering. Not meaningless hardship. A deliberate inconvenience that stretches your capacity and deepens your identity.
For example:
- Travel to meet a partner in person when you could have just scheduled a call.
- Have that difficult but necessary conversation instead of avoiding it.
- Bring a young leader along on a trip and let them see how you think.
- Commit to a weekly reflection habit, even when you are tired.
- Invest time in a second gen successor and talk about more than just business numbers.
The what is less important than the why.
Why this matters now
You cannot raise future-ready learners if you are not future-ready yourself. That requires courage to leave the comfort of your “virtual classroom” and step into messy, real, human environments.
You cannot keep your teachers inspired if your own leadership muscle is weak. They need to see you model risk, depth, and relational investment. They need to see that leadership is not just paperwork and performance evaluations. It is presence. It is sacrifice. It is responsibility.
You cannot build second generation succession in your organisation if you avoid the hard conversations about identity, family, resource, and calling.
People do not change just because you tell them to. They change because they see someone living in a different way that makes sense and carries peace.
How to begin this week
- Identify one area in your life where convenience has quietly become your excuse.
- Ask yourself: “If I stopped choosing convenience here, what ability could grow?”
- Choose one action that is mildly uncomfortable but deeply meaningful.
- Do it. Then reflect. Capture the lesson.
- Repeat next week with another deliberate act of meaningful inconvenience.
It does not need to be dramatic. It just needs to be consistent. You are not trying to be a hero. You are trying to upgrade your ability.
The Reverse That Redefines It All
The Real Danger of Growth Is Not Failure. It Is Convenience.
At first glance, failure looks like the opposite of growth. We fear failing. We fear wasted time. We fear wrong decisions. So we try to protect ourselves by choosing what is safe, efficient, and convenient.
But look deeper.
Many of the greatest breakthroughs in business, science, art, and family life came from people who were willing to risk failure, to travel far, to be misunderstood, to step into environments where nothing was guaranteed.
On the other hand, many quiet tragedies are born not from loud failures, but from quiet convenience. Passive choices. Endless scrolling. Refusing to travel. Refusing to talk. Refusing to stretch.
So the real danger of growth is not failure. It is convenience.（不要麻烦）
Convenience makes life smoother in the short term. It makes you feel clever and efficient. It gives you quick hits of satisfaction. But if convenience becomes your default compass, it slowly eats away your courage, your depth, and your ability.
You may still look successful on the outside. Good job title. Decent income. Clean social media. But inside, the million ability is shrinking.
Leadership works differently.
Leaders often look “irrational” to people who measure life only by convenience. They will travel long distances for short meetings. Risk reputation for the sake of a relationship. Invest heavily in young people who cannot “repay” them. Welcome the tension of holding family and business in the same conversation. Choose to walk, even when a lift is available, because they know they need to think.
They are not chasing hardship for the sake of hardship. They are choosing inconvenience for the sake of growth.
In the end, this Shantou trip was not just about China. It was about clearing my own mirror again. It reminded me that:
- Identity matters more than image.
- Ability matters more than accumulated comfort.
- Relationship matters more than remote efficiency.
- Responsibility matters more than self-preservation.
That is the million ability I want to build and pass on. Not just the ability to make money. The ability to create value anywhere, with anyone, in any season, without losing who you are.
