Ian Goh

I knew I was good. I just didn’t know I was good enough.

I grew up a smart and sensitive kid who was creative and kind, and I learned to be good at everything I needed to do (ie. good at being a son, a brother, a friend, a student). What I did not know growing up was how I had unconsciously learned to work for the approval and acceptance of others.

As a gay man in Singapore, being queer was and is difficult. While I worked through my own understanding and acceptance of how I was different from other people in the way I loved, I started unknowingly hiding aspects of myself that could potentially out me to others.

I hid my heart. I hid my sensitivity. I hid my voice. I hid my ideas, my creativity, my ability to innovate and influence and lead. I hid the most precious parts of myself.

And this carried on long into my corporate career. I remember clearly in each and every role how I would push myself to go beyond what others could and would do. I felt like I needed to prove myself; and if my performance had anything to say about who I am as a person and what I was worth, I would make sure I gave my 200%.

I was a competent consultant and facilitator for leadership and organization development and worked with teams across the healthcare, public, and nonprofit sectors. I was invited to be a director on a few charity boards by age 28, and an influential voice for people-centric change. It seemed that I was on the pathway to greatness and making a big difference.

What people saw on the outside was a determined executive and a high-potential leader. What they didn’t see was how on the inside I was scared and insecure and empty.

Through a major reckoning in my life between 2018-2019, I found myself fired twice. Serendipitously, both with the same underlying message: we love your work contribution but you are not who we want in the team. Add in the pressure and stress of being heavily in debt, declaring bankruptcy, and not knowing where money was going to come next.

And it gave me the fuel and wreckage to stop: I knew that if I were to make it out, and if I were to survive and thrive from this, I had to face everything that I was running from for over 20 years.To face myself and get to know who I truly am on an intimate level.

To know deeply that I never needed to prove my worth to belong - my worthiness is innate, even if I am gay and queer and different.

Now I am on a renewed journey of living, loving, and leading authentically, contributing to the world as myself: with nothing to prove and everything to experience and offer. And the vision and mission of authenticLEADERS glow brightly and guides me forward… for a new generation of LGBTIQ leaders in our world.