Almost a year ago, I landed in Singapore on a trial basis. I’d agreed to come over, see if the work made sense, see if the city made sense, and then make a decision. Two weeks later, I’d moved there for the year.

Huron Singapore is more of an innovation hub than a traditional consulting office – fewer layers, faster pace, and a lot of hats to wear. On any given week, I could be deep in a complex CRM sales transformation, drafting sales plays for the ASEAN region, testing a new AI capability, or presenting to a room I hadn’t expected to be in. The pace didn’t allow for gradual settling in. You had to be useful immediately, and honest about what you didn’t know.

I also learned how to be alone in a new city, how to build a life you know has an expiry date, and how to function at full speed without the support structures you’ve spent years quietly relying on.

It was a year that asked more of me than most. And I want to try to name what I actually learned from it as an honest reflection on what it takes to grow fast.

What Inspired Leadership Actually Looks Like

The leadership team in Singapore approached problems in a way I hadn’t seen before. When something complex landed on the table (which was quite regularly in a newer market like Singapore), there was no retreating into a senior huddle. Someone would get up, go to the whiteboard, and simplify. Not dumb down. Simplify. There was a collective ability to frame a problem so clearly that everyone in the room, regardless of their level, could actually engage with it. An analyst and an MD could be in the same conversation, both contributing, because the problem had been made accessible enough for that to happen. And then, you can see the power of diverse ideas translating into innovative solutions.

The second thing they did was create genuine safety for ideas. Not just the “all ideas are welcome”, but actual safety – where a junior person’s instinct was taken as seriously as a senior person’s recommendation. I watched that dynamic produce insights that none of us would have arrived at alone. There is something specific that happens when a room full of people with different vantage points work through a problem together, and it requires leaders who aren’t threatened by not being the smartest people in the room.

But of everything I observed, the rarest quality – and the one I saw most clearly in our MD – was composure. The pressure and challenges that come with building something new in an emerging market should not be understated, and I witnessed it first-hand. But what I watched him do was meet that pressure with complete poise. Not false positivity. Not dismissiveness. Just a steady, grounded calm that made everyone around him feel like the problem was solvable. That kind of energy is contagious – and it’s something you can choose to model.

Knowing What You Don’t Know

I arrived in Singapore as an expert in some things and a complete beginner in others. I knew Salesforce and CRM transformation. I did not know the ASEAN market, the cultural nuances of working across Singapore and beyond, or how to set up a life from scratch in a country where I knew almost nobody.

I’d describe myself as someone who likes to have answers; I’m fairly type-A. I prefer to understand something before I act on it. Singapore didn’t offer me that luxury.

What I had to learn was that asking the question is faster than pretending you know the answer. That letting go of ego and not knowing is not weakness, it’s efficiency. At the pace we were moving, spending time performing competence I didn’t have would have been genuinely costly. So I asked. A lot. I asked about the market, about the culture, about the technology. And every time I did, I got somewhere faster than I would have by figuring it out alone.

This sounds straightforward written down. In practice, for someone whose instinct is to have the answer, it required a real shift. And I think it’s one of the most transferable things I’m taking home with me.

Just Try It

Singapore asked me to live in the grey. To move toward things without knowing exactly what they would become. To try new food, to say yes to an AI experiment, to take on work before I was certain I was ready for it.

I am not naturally comfortable with that. I like a plan. The grey used to genuinely unsettle me.

What I learned this year is that the only way past discomfort is through it. Not around it. And that every time I went through it, the next version of grey felt smaller. Not because the unknowns got smaller, but because I’d built evidence that I could handle them.

And now this is paying off in how I approach AI. I am genuinely eager to try things I don’t understand yet. To test a new model, to push a workflow to its limit, to ask a dumb question of a tool just to see what happens. That curiosity and willingness to experiment have become some of my biggest professional advantages. Because most people are still waiting until they’re sure before they try. And by the time they’re sure, the window has usually moved.

The discomfort doesn’t go away. But once you’ve seen what you gain from going through it, you want to do it more, not less.

Showing Up When It’s Hard

Moving to Singapore alone, building a temporary life from scratch while working at full speed, was genuinely difficult. There’s a specific kind of effort that goes into making a city feel like home when you know you’re leaving – making friends, building routines, letting yourself care about a place that isn’t permanent.

I decided to focus on what I could control. I made a deliberate choice to show up with grit and with openness every day. Not because everything was easy, but because I knew what I could control and what I couldn’t. The external things – the market complexity, the distance from home, the uncertainty of what came next – those weren’t mine to fix. My attitude was. And how you carry yourself through hard things might matter just as much as any technical or professional lesson.

Now What?

I leave with a different understanding of how I work best – in environments that move fast, with leaders who inspire thinking, in situations that don’t have all the answers yet.

I also leave with a healthy obsession with AI. Not because I was told to care about it, but because a year of trying things I wasn’t sure about rewired something in me. The willingness to go first, to not know, to learn publicly.