A decade ago, I was just an ordinary high school student. I was one of those students who failed almost every subject - deserted by friends and teachers because you only get to be in the circle either if you're smart, talented, rich and powerful (tough reality if you're living in Malaysia - not sure about other countries though). My family was also struggling financially as well back then - I knew my dad worked real hard to get us through and survive the harsh reality - but yet, all our neighbors and friends seemed to have this funny look at us - maybe because we don't really have many things to boast about. There isn't really a big car, a big house, fancy furniture, jewelry or anything.
I wasn't sure what I was gonna do at that time. Living under a community pressure did take its toll on my family, especially me. I was thinking, what is the one thing I can do to beat the naysayers and restore back my family's reputation. And after scrutinizing myself for solutions, there was that one day back in 2005-2006, me and the rest of the students were called into the school hall to hear the regular speeches from aspiring students who manage to succeed in their SPM studies. And there was this person, Izzat Fahimuddin - who was crowned as the best student award. I looked around me - friends, teachers, and I realized that the community looked and spoke very highly of him and his family due to his accomplishment. That was when I found out that the only way our family was to be seen and be respected highly among the community was to ensure I get that Best Student Award title.
It took me 2 painstaking years to catch up with the 'big boys' because I wasn't a book nerd and studying always fell at the bottom of my life priorities. I started entering all kinds of competitions, pitched for different club titles, and excelled in almost all my subjects. At that very moment, I could see how the community perception changed around me - and I could see who are the truthful and the hypocrites. It was the best feeling I've ever had.
Right after I completed my studies, I grabbed the opportunity to become a cultural exchange program student to Ohio, USA, in which the program was held by American Field Service and US Department of State. The experiences I had were the best moments of my life (I felt like being at the top) - from the very moment I entered the cultural exchange program till the moment my mom called me from Malaysia telling me that I finally got that Best Student Award. Because I was still in Pennsylvania and the program policy did not allow exchange students to have a return flight any time during the program, so my parents were my representative and they were crowned instead. Finally, I got to beat the naysayers who said my family was worth nothing to the community. My face was all over the school's magazine and my Facebook profile was flooded with a lot of friend requests, and if I were to be around Gombak area, almost everyone knew me (and yes, this feels good at a point - it does feel like a celebrity - but in this case, just among local town community)
There's this saying where "What comes up, must come down" - I knew that the success of being the best student award was actually nothing compared to being in the larger world reality. I knew at this point, there will be moments where I may need to go down the slope again to reach the top. But the problem is, I didn't know what to do in life. Once you reach one goal, you always need to reach a bigger goal - but I was dumbstruck - not knowing what would my bigger goal be.
Since then, I started doing everything. I dug my personality and asked myself what would I want to be? The very thing I love the most is art, music, leadership and technology. I started sketching stuff and put them on DeviantArt. You can view them here. There, I built a community by getting to know all the graphic artists from around the globe.
Due to the passion I have in art, my first job was a graphic and web designer. I had the greatest pleasure learning from my very first boss, M.Lau. He may seem like a critical boss, but he's kind at heart. He was the one who introduced me to Joomla! CMS and showed me the direction on how to start tweaking the design templates and coding. And then, I became very proficient in HTML, CSS and PHP, so I started designing a lot of websites - and that journey lasted for almost 3 years before his company shut down due to financial breakdown. I am still in touch with him still because I still owe him the skills that he had thought me - plus, he was the one who introduced me to sales as well. (The journey in sales is another story)
While looking for a new job, I started composing music in my spare time - and thanks to my beloved wife (we weren't married yet at that time - just started seeing each other) - who inspired me a lot in my song writings back then. I started writing singles like, "I Don't Wanna Lose You" and "It's So Wonderful" - you can listen to them here.
And at one point, I felt like, "Hey, why don't I become a successful artist and perhaps, I can then later teach all the young artists and musicians how to be successful too?" Then, I realized this may seem like an easy goal (the fact that most young, aspiring stars nowadays gain stardom easily via YouTube) - but for me, this isn't the case. This is because I was constantly seeking to find my branding. Who would my listeners be? What will I be seen as? Will I be seen as just merely a singing artist? Or will I be respected as an industry pioneer or the one who brings an industry revolution?
The publicity that I would like to seek is to be with like-minded individuals who are just equally talented, people who are bold in their actions and have that spiritual drive on contributing something that is higher than themselves to the community. That is why I ended up only seeking organic reach on SoundCloud by reaching out daily to like-minded listeners - hopefully to build a community who may share the passion like I do: art, music, technology. But that effort only lasted for a few months until I landed another job in the event industry.
That time, I'll have to admit - I was struggling financially (especially when I decided with my wife that I wanted to get married). So, I was constantly seeking for a higher pay rate, a higher position, a higher role in the community - somehow, I'm always thirst for more and more success, even faster than ever. And the consequences of these are, my job was always on a contract basis. And this has been a nightmare of every employers I've met during interviews. Either they were afraid I was too good that I may take the leap of faith to build my business instead of growing with the company, or I may just get bored too easily in what I do.
But to be honest, this is partially true - I was actually looking for a people-oriented company that really takes a good care of employee's well-being and contributes employee's growth at a fast pace - an employer who knows my thirst for success and willing to be my benefactor to bring me there (my vision is that by the end of the career growth, my employer becomes my investor). And every piece of my success can be then shared with every people who actually brought me to the top on the first place. (Unfortunately, this may be far from reality since most companies don't mind having a high turnover rate and abandoning employees' well-being because the job demand will always be there)
In between my jobs, I did start my own business to ensure I got to enjoy more perks and financial freedom. I started by calling back all my contacts to see if they're interested in the services I want to sell. And in order to sell better, I entered an multi-level marketing program coached by a local doctor-turned-millionaire, Dr Shanjay. For a few months, I was under his mentoring for a few months - he was aiming for me to sell his products - but to be honest, I wasn't interested in the product that he wanted to sell - I was more interested in the ways he sold the product. So, I used his skills to earn myself around RM80,000 worth of website sales throughout my period of doing the business - but I also ended up with tons of unnecessary debts due to the bad choices I've made. I wanted to create a sustainable income from website and social media contracts but ended up being lost in the bureaucracy game. The acquisition process was far easier than maintaining them. I nearly struck a good deal which will be worthy to sustain my business for at least another 2 years, but then again, got cheated by the middle men - who played me and my business partners at that time with their great skills of bureaucracy.
I was so devastated at that time because everyone around me seemed to distrust my effort of succeeding in business (because the number of failures seemed to dominate their perceptions) - plus I was losing trust in myself as well (that was the worst moment I have felt in my life) - therefore, I had to secure another job again to keep up with the naysayers (Well, they win this time). That time, I knew I had failed, but that doesn't mean I have failed entirely. I knew that failure taught me a great deal of things about life and people. So, I decided to work for the sake of gaining enough experience to understand and tackle all sorts of bureaucracy by the time I'm opening my own business one day. I had the skills to create and innovate new ideas, but I don't have enough skills to play around with the people who are constant manipulators and do not walk the talk. These are the people who will strive to succeed at whatever cost, even to the most extreme measures - and from there, I concluded there are two types of people:
a) Type A: Steve Jobs type: the creator - this person is always the smartest one in class, the smartest one who has the smartest thing to say in meetings. Type B envy him because of his ideas and intelligence. But most of the time, due to being too smart, this type of people didn't realize - by exposing more info, they're only exposing more of their weaknesses which makes them an easy target for Type B.
b) Type B: Bill Gates type: the manipulator/inventor - these are the silent killers where they know how to innovate a particular idea into something better and commercial - they learn the ideas from Type A - and they surely know how to then manipulate those ideas to bring Type A down - and bring the spotlight or limelight to them. Even though this may seem like a cruel thing, but most leaders will definitely need to conquer the ability to do this to prevent enemies from bringing a business down.
And for the past few years, I've had pleasure working with friends and enemies who actually both taught me these skills - and it's a skill only learnt if you are dedicated to keep failing and failing. (Yes, the feeling isn't good at all although I do believe failing fast will make you succeed even faster.) I had to plot my failures to understand the entire corporate game. I can't sleep at night most of the times, thinking on how to play the game and survive like a winner. (I was thinking of sharing all of them here with you, but let's take it over a coffee chat or something, shall we, haha?)
Now, it has been a 10-years ride ever since- some good ones and some bad ones. Not so much I can proud of yet. There is still a far journey ahead and there's so much things I need to accomplish in order to reach that goal: financial freedom. And I hope in the next 10 years to come, I will then read back this piece of article - being able to continue the next chapters of the story - and hopefully by then, I have managed to climb the top of the game and inspire you with more stories.
Therefore, my question to myself would be: How can I leverage all these skills for my future career progression? Are these skills sufficient enough for me to take that leap of faith and start my own entrepreneurial journey once again? Or do I constantly seek for potential benefactors who are willing to invest in what I do and achieve my goal of bringing something back to the community?
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