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Every time I travel to Singapore, something unusual happens to me.
I encounter a man who has dedicated 1,800 days of his life to serving in war zones.
A man trained to analyse threats, decode deception, and walk into danger with a steady pulse.
Building a company, Insight Intelligence, from nothing but grit, instinct, and truth.
Yet Singapore turns me into a child opening a Christmas present.
I remember my very first visit in 2012.
It was the first time I travelled not as a soldier or a government asset, but as a man celebrating a milestone: my business winning its first Service Level Agreement. That trip tasted like freedom—not the political kind, but the personal kind.
But this most recent visit brought me back to that same feeling for one reason:
Curiosity.
Curiosity is the willingness to learn.
Curiosity is the courage to venture into the unknown.
In Singapore, curiosity is not an indulgence.
It is a discipline.
In my old line of work, curiosity kept me alive.
In my current life, it keeps me growing.
Whenever I travel, I remind myself:
Never stay in your comfort zone.
Walk.
Listen.
Observe.
Speak with the people who live the reality—not those who manage it.
Taxi drivers. Street vendors. Bartenders. Local workers.
These are the individuals who understand their country far better than any official briefing.
So, in Singapore, I joined a 2.5-hour historical walking tour.
What I expected was information.
What I received was transformation.
Singapore celebrates 60 years of independence this year—a nation younger than many of its oldest citizens. Yet it has achieved what many older countries still fail to do:
recognize that a nation’s true wealth is its people.
This principle is not new.
History shows us that the most resilient nations understood this:
Japan’s Meiji Restoration (1868) invested heavily in universal education to transform its population into skilled citizens.
Finland after WWII became a global success story by building one of the world’s strongest public education systems.
South Korea, devastated by war in the 1950s, rose to become an economic powerhouse by investing aggressively in healthcare and literacy.
Economist Theodore Schultz, a Nobel Prize winner, argued in 1961 that human capital—not land, not gold, not machinery—determines national growth.
Singapore is living proof of this theory.
During the tour, I asked the question every foreigner asks:
“Why is chewing gum banned?”
The explanation was not authoritarian.
It was operational.
A train door’s rubber seal was once blocked by a single piece of gum.
The train doors couldn’t close.
The network halted.
People were late to work, school, and family responsibilities.
The entire ecosystem was disrupted—all because of one careless act.
As someone trained in military operations, this episode resonated deeply.
Small acts can create systemic collapse.
Small disciplines prevent it.
I also asked about the vaping restrictions.
The guide’s answer was simple and powerful:
“Singapore’s biggest wealth is its people. We protect them.”
From a policy perspective, this reflects utilitarian governance—prioritizing the well-being of the majority over the pleasure of a few.
It mirrors the public-health doctrine that helped countries like Japan and Norway achieve some of the highest life expectancies on Earth.
Critics say such policies restrict personal freedom.
But criminology and behavioural science confirm:
Societies with higher collective well-being produce more stable individual freedoms.
In Singapore, people feel safe not despite the rules but because of them.
I spoke to dozens of ordinary Singaporeans.
Their top three reasons for loving their country were identical:
Safety
Freedom to live without fear
A system they can depend on
These observations align with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
When safety and order are met at the societal level, people experience a higher sense of belonging and identity.
No one complained about the thousands of CCTV cameras.
Why?
This is because safety fosters trust.
Trust creates stability
Stability creates freedom.
What shifted my thinking the most was a single sentence from a local host:
“Singapore is the Little Red Dot.
We have no natural resources. Our biggest wealth is our people.”
As an investigator, I analyse language.
This was not a slogan.
It was a doctrine.
Most countries claim that their greatest wealth is derived from:
oil
technology
military
tourism
banking system
natural resources
artificial intelligence
But people?
Almost never.
Yet Singapore invests in them—health, safety, education, mobility—because history has
proven again:
A nation that invests in its people writes its destiny.
A nation that ignores its people erases its future.
Singapore teaches without preaching.
It protects without suffocating.
It thrives without forgetting who it serves.
Every time I visit, I learn something new—not from the skyscrapers, not from luxury hotels, not from brochures—but from the heartbeat of the Little Red Dot itself.
And the lesson is simple:
A country’s greatest defence is its people.
Its greatest wealth is in its people.
Its greatest future lies in its people.
When the world forgets this truth, Singapore stands gently in the corner, reminding us that size doesn’t determine greatness.
Values do.
Discipline does.
Humanity does.
