The Last Quarter, The First Question of the Soul
It is already the first of October. The final quarter of the year has arrived, and time feels like it has slipped through my fingers. The year that began with such freshness has rushed past with a speed that almost feels cruel. The question is not how fast the year went, but what anchor it leaves me with. For today, my anchor is one word: reconciliation.
When I think of reconciliation, I don’t just mean resolving conflict. I mean reconciling past and present, reconciling growth and impact, reconciling marriage with mission, reconciling success with meaning. It is a word that cuts across family, business, ministry, and legacy.
This morning, on the way to Singapore with a friend from the publishing world, the topic that filled our conversation was not business. It was marriage and family. Not the glamorous side of family life: the Instagram-worthy vacations or the anniversaries but the quiet, unglamorous side: the routines, the frictions, the sacrifices. Marriage after ten years is still filled with uncharted areas. Children bring joy but also routine, fatigue, and demands. The question is: how do we reconcile ourselves to this daily grind in a way that builds rather than erodes?
That is the beginning of reconciliation.
Eight Reasons That Pulled Me Toward China
Later, my meetings in Singapore turned my thoughts to expansion. Honestly, I have reached the stage where personal hunger for growth has subsided. I no longer chase expansion for expansion’s sake. I crave meaning, not milestones. Impact, not image. If business does not bring impact to the community, it feels like wasted energy.
Still, I asked myself: why am I drawn to collaborate with Dr. Elias in China, when the costs are so heavy? The money, the time, the opportunities lost with my wife and children. Why not just spend that same time on holiday, or quietly at home?
The answer came to me in eight layers, like steps of reconciliation between my inner cost and outer impact:
- Exposure for my team. A problem cannot be solved at the same level it was created. My team needs fresh horizons, new levels of thinking. Exposure, I believe, is as important as experience.
- Family time intertwined with mission. I could bring my parents, my wife, and my children along. It becomes a vacation and a mission. A sustainable way to travel without losing family presence.
- Recovering costs. If some expenses can be offset, it makes the trip not just meaningful but sustainable. Like a stewardess, paid to travel, what looks glamorous is actually sacrifice, but the paradox is that people dream of it anyway.
- Personal challenge. I love challenge. Every new frontier feels like an episode waiting to be unlocked. Some things you pursue just because you know you’ll grow by doing them.
- Roots. As a Chinese descendant, traveling to China connects me back to ancestry. It is not just work. It is identity.
- Ministry. A prophet is rarely welcomed in his hometown. Local artists in Singapore, like Stefanie Sun, had to become famous in Taiwan before being embraced at home. Sometimes ministry requires stepping out before you are received inside.
- Social impact. This is the deepest layer. If the work reconciles broken families, heals marriages, guides youth, and brings people back to wholeness, then no cost is wasted. That is why church volunteers serve: they see the impact with their own eyes.
- Friendship and memory. In the end, what matters most are the relationships and shared memories. That alone makes the journey worthwhile.
Even if one or two reasons fall away, six remain. That is why reconciliation is not blind pursuit. It is the art of aligning multiple purposes so sacrifice still yields fruit.
Growth Ready. Impact Ready. Future Ready.
In another conversation that day, we discussed what it takes for youth and leaders to be ready for life. At Stellar, we frame readiness in three phases:
- Growth Ready. Taking ownership of your own development, not because of pressure or image, but because you know growth is your responsibility.
- Impact Ready. True elites don’t just grow themselves. They turn around and lift others. They reconcile excellence with service.
- Future Ready. When your why and what are clear, regardless of how much the world changes, only the how needs to adjust.
John Maxwell’s Law of Process reminds us that leadership develops daily, not in a day . It compounds like investing. But growth reconciled with impact becomes legacy. Without reconciliation, growth becomes pride. With reconciliation, it becomes service.
I imagined even our Lead to Impact book becoming a co-created framework. First authored by me, then by Samuel, then by others adding case studies, local context, and data. Even students designing their own curriculum with AI support. Imagine rewarding them when their work gets chosen. That is growth reconciled with impact, producing future readiness.
The Flywheel of Value
That evening, I joined a dinner with a media leader. Around the table sat representatives from three major press houses. Once again, I saw reconciliation at work.
Jim Collins calls it the flywheel: when you create value, momentum attracts attention. That attention brings more resources. More resources create more value. From outside it looks like luck, but inside it is reconciliation between effort and timing, between consistency and opportunity, between sowing and reaping.
For me, the lesson was simple: stop chasing what drains you. Instead, reconcile your natural strengths with discipline. For me, routine is natural. Authenticity is natural. Family and discipleship are natural. Since they come easy, I must work hardest there. Because reconciliation is most powerful when it happens at the intersection of grace and effort.
Reconciling With Family and Generations
The day ended not with strategy, but with family. My parents are preparing to visit relatives, one battling cancer, another remembered at a memorial a year after passing. I volunteered to drive them. Why? Because how many more opportunities will I have?
At the end of life, nobody brags about expansion. They remember reconciled moments with their children, their spouse, their parents, and their God. That is why I want to serve my parents while I still can. They raised me, redeemed me from my own failures. Driving them to a memorial is not inconvenience. It is reconciliation between generations.
Legacy is not written in contracts or campuses. It is written in reconciled relationships.
The Reverse That Redefines It All
Reconciliation is not weakness. It is courage. It takes humility to throw away pride, ego, convenience, and excuses. It takes strength to say sorry, to serve quietly, to heal instead of harden.
And here is the paradox that reframes it all: the opposite of reconciliation is not conflict. It is indifference. Conflict at least means there is something worth fighting for. Indifference means the relationship has already died.
Growth without reconciliation builds walls. Impact without reconciliation becomes noise. But when growth is reconciled with impact, leaders move from survival to legacy.
That is the reconciliation worth pursuing.
