Real confidence is knowing why you are still here

Last night my wife took me to a Stefanie Sun concert.

Stefanie Sun was the singer I listened to all through university. Back in Singapore, riding the MRT to and from work, the MP3 player in my ears was very often playing her songs. I bought her albums too, but I was never a crazy fan, so all these years I never felt I absolutely had to see her live.

This time my wife insisted on going, so I went along.

When it ended, I was stunned, and deeply moved.

Not just because of the staging, but because I saw a rare kind of confidence on her face.

It wasn't the sharp edge of youth, or the swagger that comes from traffic and applause. Over a career of two or three decades, she has faded out, taken breaks, gone back to her family, and come back again. More than once.

I think that confidence comes from the fact that she is still doing what she loves.

Of course singing and performing have commercial value for her, and of course income matters. But I didn't feel she was standing there just for the money. She was doing something she simply loves.

If something works out and makes you famous, makes you money and earns you a lot of applause, that is a reward. But if the returns weren't that high, and there wasn't much outside recognition, would you still keep doing it?

The answer I saw in Stefanie Sun was: yes.

It reminded me of a conversation with some founder friends a few days earlier. We talked about starting businesses, getting married and having children. One friend's view was that it's best to wait until your business is stable and your finances are solid before marrying and having kids. Building a business is already hard, and adding a family and children makes it even harder to go all in.

I understand that view.

A family really does take time, children really do need you, and the responsibility really does get heavier.

But I increasingly feel that life shouldn't be cut into pieces like that.

It isn't that you must have a financial foundation before you can marry. Nor that you must have your family all sorted before you can start a business. Your work and your family are not necessarily two things competing for your time. They are actually one.

Because a person is never only a founder. You are also a husband or a wife, a father or a mother, and someone's child. A business doesn't happen after you step out of your life. It happens inside your life.

The responsibility you learn at home shapes your work. The resilience you learn at work shapes your family. In the end it all comes back to the same person.

I used to think building a business meant putting all your time into it, the harder the better, with no distractions.

Now I am slowly coming to feel that a business that lasts doesn't run on drive alone. It also needs a person who is steady inside.

If you do something only to prove yourself, you are easily controlled by outside feedback. Good numbers today, and you are thrilled. Bad numbers tomorrow, and you doubt yourself.

But if it is something you believe in, something you are willing to do for a long time, and it still feels worth it even when the rewards don't come quickly, then you carry yourself differently.

You aren't so easily carried away by applause, and you aren't so easily knocked down by silence.

That is what I saw in Stefanie Sun last night.

She hasn't always been at the peak. She has left, she has paused, and she has her own life. But when she came back, it wasn't to prove she was still popular. It was because she still loves doing this.

That kind of confidence is given by time. It only grows after a person has truly lived their own life.

There is no truly stable moment in life.

You think that once the company is stable, you can start a family. But the company will always have new problems. You think you can only start a business once your family is completely settled. But a family will always have new stages too.

If you wait until everything is ready before you start, you may never start at all.

After the concert last night, one feeling stayed with me.

Real confidence isn't always winning, or always standing at the front.

Real confidence is knowing why you are still here.

You left, and you still came back.

You paused, and you still carried on.

You went through different stages of life, and you still didn't lose the thing you love.

Maybe this is what the name of her tour, "Just After Sunset", is really about.

When the noise has faded and the applause is over, what remains is what truly belongs to you.