I used to live by approval until it almost broke me
How breaking free from approval taught me to lead, love, and create with authenticity
Six years ago, I bought an engagement ring to propose to my wife, and the first person I showed it to was my mother.
I grew up in a home where silence was the punishment, where my mother would shut me out until I figured out what I had done wrong. As a result, I became an expert at people-pleasing because conflict felt unbearable, and approval felt like a matter of life or death.
When she looked at the ring and said, “Why so expensive?” (there was no congratulations or “I’m happy for you”), it cut deeper than I could admit, because I realised I had not shown her the ring to share joy; I had shown it to secure her validation.
That was the turning point, because I saw how the pattern followed me into the workplace, where I said yes too often, softened my edges, and worked overtime to prove I belonged. Every time I did that, I was making someone else’s approval the condition of my worth.
That ring taught me a brutal truth—approval will never be enough, and if you build your life around it, you will hollow yourself out in ways that no title, no job, no salary can ever fix.
Navigating my identity in Singapore has only sharpened that lesson, because as someone gender-fluid and pansexual, I have faced stares on the street, whispers in the workplace, and bathrooms without safe options, and my instinct could have been to shrink, to please, to stay silent.
Yet I could not, not if I wanted a life worth living, because love with my wife has shown me that truth is the foundation of belonging and parenting a neurodiverse daughter has taught me that authenticity is not a luxury but a form of survival.
My work today as a storyteller is proof that leadership is not performance; it is presence and clarity, and if you are a creator, founder, or solopreneur still chasing approval, you will never create the impact you are capable of because the world needs leaders willing to be seen as they are, without the mask and without the performance.
What is the pattern you had to unlearn before you could lead authentically? Feel free to share with me.