By Sheikh Faleigh
What I’m doing now - is it fated or something I’ve planned for?
This is the question I’m always asking myself….
Have you ever thought about someone who never had their life planned and yet made it big in life? Was it fate? How about someone who planned all their life and was still unable to make it big, in fact, worse things happened to him/her - was that fate too?
It’s interesting how life is…how it turned out to be. We can only learn from yesterday for a better tomorrow - amen!
At times, I do wonder honestly if what I’m doing now was largely contributed by fate? To choose to be so determined in ensuring young entrepreneurs know the true meaning of the word ‘ENTREPRENEUR’, and the responsibilities that come along with the full package. Frankly, I do wonder if any one of us knows our purpose in life. Why does God choose for us to live in this world?
I’ve mentored young entrepreneurs for over 20 years, because subconsciously, I enjoy seeing them being successful and continuing to help others to be more successful than they are, thus, creating a strong and caring eco-system in life. For me, success is when the person you’ve helped to improve their life is then able to help others to be just as successful or more.
Is it fate that I established a foundation to mentor young entrepreneurs and a magazine to publicise them and other entrepreneurs? One thing for sure is that I am enjoying doing what I am doing now and I will do it to my best sincerity, for the benefit of all; No questions and no regrets. There are some who say that I’m stupid like a-silly-poor-Santa for helping people who cross my path by creating projects for them without even having drawn out contracts in making sure that I will be taken cared-off. For me, when a task is given to me by fate, I am just concerned about the success of the task and the person that brought it. I do not have the time to focus on my own personal gains especially if I know the project can be done with my ‘intervention’. Call it a hobby or passion, I always welcome challenges in life. Most of the time, l would be given hopes and promises but be left empty-handed financially. Year after year, one entrepreneur after another would que for my ideas, advice and contacts and somehow creatively find fault in me, making it a breeze to walk away and claim their rights to great success. Of course, there are a few good and noble ones who share sincere intentions.
I just don’t get it…I do not understand why many entrepreneurs only focus on their own success and financial gain and not care to benefit others. I guess my terminology of the word SUCCESS is different for some.
Let me share with you a little on my journey in life, a story I believe needs to be shared so that I can be satisfied with myself for going through such a tough passage for young entrepreneurs to learn, pause and continue with their journey in life. It is a story about “Fate vs. Plan”.
When I was a young boy, I had many questions… in fact, so many questions until most adults would just not bother answering them. Frustrated as I was, it forced me to come out with my own answers… my own version of what life was all about. I think if I had the power of the internet back then, I would have been able to initiate more things today, but in the 80’s, I could only dream (until now) of how life would be in the future…trying to envision my own future based on trends and scenarios of my journeys, surroundings and mind-set in life.
I always loved playing with paper planes…and always wondered how it would feel to be on board a paper plane. I always wondered why I couldn’t make these paper planes last longer in the air and often thought about what it would take for me to improve my paper planes in order for them to fly and float longer in the air.
I also loved to day dream. I mean come on…my era, the 80s, was the time of Buck Rogers, Star Wars, Star Trek and many other inspirational science-fiction movies where kids were psychologically coerced into becoming day-dreamers!
On one of the many days when I was busy day-dreaming, I watched His Excellency, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (Malaysia’s 4th Prime Minister {and now the 7th too}) on my little 14-inch old-school box TV, sharing his vision of the future. It was around 1991. It was awesome to hear how he narrowed down the vision planned for Malaysia to become a self-sufficient industrialised nation by the year 2020, encompasses all aspects of life, from economic prosperity, social well-being, educational world class, political stability, as well as psychological balance. He wanted Malaysians to have ownership of this vision and treat it as a project. The project was called ‘VISION 2020’. On a personal note, maybe he was referring to people to have a clear vision of what they wanted to do in life, and being a doctor himself, he might have referred to it as your eye vision of 20/20 and somehow it became an agenda, a target, and a vision to look forward for (‘someone’ shared me this side of the story). Anyhow, the VISION 2020 became a National Dream!
Anyway, as I was listening intently to his speech, I was thinking, how could this guy be talking about what he wanted Malaysia to achieve 40 years into the future. I thought to myself, thank God I am not the only crazy guy who thinking too much of the future… this guy is crazier and an awesome dude! I don’t think that we was just dreaming… he had a plan. His Dream and Vision was the target and he had a backward plan to follow-through. This amazing courage by one man stunned me. It made me pause. Suddenly, all of my thoughts paused. In silence, I imagined that the whole world was on pause mode. I started to wonder…could we actually do such a thing? Are men capable to plan so far ahead? It struck me that he was not the first person to plan such a future vision. He was not the first Futurist. Many past leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Hitler, Nelson Mandela, even Mother Teresa have been futurists in their own era, executing their plans in the best possible way for the benefits of others. Even the Prophet Mohamad, Jesus, Moses, Noah and Adam were dreamers and visionaries…they were Futurists.
I ended up doing more and more research during my high school days on the past history of human achievements more than my school homework. Making me an average exam oriented student but a master of thinking. I started to read about world history and the cool ‘Popular Science’ magazines in my school library, instead of my boring and lame text books. I was not just reading this cool books and magazines in the library…. I was imagining going back to the past and being in the achievers’ shoes (thanx to idea from Michael J Fox - Back to the Future movie).
I began dreaming further in a more structured manner by documenting my dreams and turning it into visions and mind-mapping the ideas and plans. I set my future. I set my targets in life and developed a backward plan: by the time I turned 70, what would I wish to achieve in life, and from there, did my backward planning up to the age of 60…in terms of what I needed to do to achieve my targets by the time 70 came a-knocking. I then continued to set my targets for when I turned 60 and what I wanted to achieve, developing a backward plan down to the age of 50. I continued doing this for all the respective ages: down to the ages of 40, 30, 20, 17 (when I graduated from high school) and 15, when I was seriously planning my life; TO BE AN AGENT OF CHANGE, AN ENTREPRENEUR. With my vision planned…. I was set… I was ready… ready to be a part of VISION 2020 and beyond. I developed a ‘VISION-LIFE-LINE-PLAN’.
When I was 17, right after my high school exams, I had three months to spare prior to obtaining my exam results. With my new mind-set in life and with the many things to do in life in order to achieve my targets, I planned to utilize the three months doing things beyond what a normal 17-year old would do, whilst most of my friends either stayed home or worked in fast-food restaurants for the holidays. I applied as a sales representatives for a company that had a project at LIMA ’93 (LIMA is a government organized air show that’s held every four years in Langkawi island, Malaysia). The company was small and the basic pay was like RM300 or less, I think, but the so-called unique and special commission structure convinced me that I could gain lots of experience and money from this job, selling an advertisement page in their info-kiosk machine project.
In my second week, I was asked to follow my boss to Langkawi Island where he promised good allowance and accommodation in a reasonable hotel. My task was to promote and sell the company’s info-kiosk machine (a wow machine then) at the first LIMA ’93 expo. Of course, I went ahead blindly. What would you expect a 17-year old boy to do? My parents were shocked that I had wanted to travel to Langkawi for the company which I had just started to work for. Somehow, I managed to convince them that it would be safe and I think they knew that they couldn’t keep me from going anyway, they knew that I was a very independent person. With much anticipation, the road trip began… we drove all the way to Langkawi… excited, as I could ‘be away from home and have total freedom’.
Sadly, it was all spoilt when we reached Langkawi. There was no hotel as we ‘checked-in’ into a small hut next to a paddy field; no allowances and no so-called high profile products or services to sell, except for the company’s own pathetic version of a LIMA ‘93 lanyard event tag at an open parking area outside the venue of the show. Even worse, the souvenir tag was priced at a ridiculous RM40 per tag! It was really hard to sell. However, I managed to sell about 200 tags and I was relying on at least a RM2 commission per tag sold to buy food! Of course, I had fun witnessing the big expo, the first LIMA Air Show but on the third day, I called it quits and decided to take a bus home. Out of nowhere, my boss told me that we had to leave Langkawi right away and head on to Terengganu. I thought that I had to sell yet another silly landyard tag in shopping malls; instead, while driving to Terengganu, my boss confessed that we were actually distant-related cousins and that we are going to my aunty’s (my father’s sister) house for a funeral of a family member. I was shocked but kinda like the idea of my Fate Vs Plan journey has started to roll-out. Anyway, once we reached my aunt’s house, she had a shock to see that I was there with these two guys whom I hardly knew much about, and worse off, these people had a family misunderstanding. The next day, my aunt ordered me to resign and return to KL, which I did half-heartedly after being advised and forced by my father. Well, after the Langkawi so-called project I have decided to resign anyway.
Staying bored at home after a long week, my mother told me to try for another job as a telemarketer for a company nearby my home. Since it was just a walking distance away, I said ok, went for the interview and got the job immediately. The basic pay was again low at RM400 per month. I never really knew why the previous company and this new one only promised me between RM300-400 per month; was it because they thought that a young 17-year old kid didn’t need anything more? The commission package was good though…at least this time I got a real appointment letter. I was a telemarketer, selling real estate training programmes to those interested in becoming real estate agents. I was doing quite well, in just weeks I’m already earning high commissions and being a top performer. I was then challenged to handle another project - to sell a certificate programme for the construction industry, and within a few weeks, I was a top performer and getting to know a few new ‘old’ working friends, some of whom were double and triple my age! Hanging out with these working professionals gave me a different spectrum in the real working life. It also gave me a few more ideas in terms of what they wanted in a training programme, in fact, they wanted to attend more short courses and seminars. I then proposed these ideas to my employer and started developing the content together with the speakers and clients to improve the seminars where the content was much needed by the industry. I did great and received a good commissions. I was enjoying my journey as it became clear and I felt closer to my visions and plans.
After 3 months into the real world, reality kicked in. It was time to get back into high school and receive my exam results. Next, going through university and probably after wasting many, many years ‘studying’, graduating and working for people, I would then resign and then move on to work for other companies while climbing the corporate ladder. Finally, when I become old I would only then be able to open my own company and actually do a business. This was the life-time-tested traditional way of life as a normal person, but I had visions for my future life. I had drawn my ‘VISION-LIFE-LINE-PLAN’. I knew what I wanted to do. So I did it.
Even when I received offers to attend universities to further my studies, I rejected all of the offers as I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur and contribute to change, to better the world as much as I could, and I knew that I could continue what I was already doing as it would be better and faster in achieving my goals, as I planned to work and study at the same time. Of course, my parents were furious after knowing that I had rejected all offers from the universities and I was firm on my decision and intent to continue working. I explained to them that I was going to continue working in the current company as I needed to learn and explore the world of education and learning… frankly, I was ready to be thrown out from the house. It almost happened!
The whole idea of organising a training seminars and conferences just amazed me… I mean, doing the research and producing a content for an event that would be held in six months or more. It was almost as if it was preparing me on how to predict the future. I am practically producing and selling a content that will still be relevant in the near future and people are paying for it now… after many times doing it and achieving it… It was close to the same research I had done in school library about human achievements and I could feel that I was on the right track; TO START A NEW MIND-SET THAT A YOUNG PERSON CAN BE AN ENTREPRENEUR!
I then continued working whilst most of my friends attended universities to continue their studies. Of course, my employer was more than happy as I contributed over RM30k a month (in 1992 it is considered a big amount to achieve!) - comparatively better than some of the working adults in the office. Not bad for a fresh 17-year old boy! I was getting better in what I was doing and started enjoying the whole world of education and learning. I developed more and more training programmes and conferences and had hundreds of participants attending these unique technical programmes for the construction industries as many in the market were focusing more on general management and personal coaching programmes.
Being in the field of learning was part of my life vision that I documented when I was 15 years old. I envisioned that I would be involved in the world of learning and exploring future targets by executing my actions today.
To fulfilled my promise and make my parents happy I enrolled myself to an evening classes at PJ Community College as they have a twinning business degree programme with Iowa University. With my little salary I was really relying on my sales commission. Life was tough but I enjoyed the journey I got myself into.
Things were good but any life story has a catch. Unfortunately, the company that I was working for was not being fair to me in terms of my commissions. I gave more and more ideas and the company benefitted from it but my commissions were creatively cut as they claimed that they had to cut my commissions to pay off office administration, bills, etc. They thought they could fool a 17-year old boy. I told them to give me shares in the company if they wanted me to care about the company’s expenses. They were shocked and after much arguments, they gave me a bit more but still less then my calculated sales commissions. I then decided to resign and formed my own company. I guess this is part of my FATE Vs PLAN.
I formed my first company in November 1994 when I was still only 18 years old. Crazy with the idea of visions, futurist ideologies and how a human mind works, I named my first ‘baby’; Power Mind Consultancy Sdn. Bhd.
My first project came three months after I resigned, and I managed to get more than 140 participants for the seminar, and each person was charged RM950. A good three months of sleepless nights and I managed to get around RM130k! Not bad an amount to achieve for the first project by an 18-year old boy in 1995. It felt like I got a million! The sweetest thing about getting the money this time is because it was all mine, and not just earning peanut sales commissions.
To side track a little on my business journey and more stories on FATE, I actually found my first wife (ex-wife now) in my first seminar as she was calling my home office and requesting for a job. She was my registration girl at my KL seminar and I offered her a job right after the seminar – but that’s another long Bollywood episode.. that I will perhaps share in a book later in life (may Allah bless me with a long life so that I may be able to see all my kids and grandkids grow-up and of course to continue to help more people).
In 1995, I organised many seminars and in-house training programmes. Business was good. I made my first million in my first 2 year of business and I was only 20 years old. Life was great too. I was featured in The New Straits Times for being a young businessman, a teenage boss. It was a three-hour long interview. The interview was actually arranged by my dad’s classmate, H.E. Datuk Ahmad A Talib (Uncle Mat) that ‘happened’ to be the Assistant Chief Editor of NST back then… (FATE). He was simply shocked to know that an 18-year old boy opened up a company and was doing well independently. There were not many young entrepreneurs who opened up a company back then in Malaysia, and having a 20-year old boy who was doing great and opening up a company at the age when he was 18 years old must have been a first and a newsworthy story to be shared. After the NST interview, the story about my life went viral…not like how it should have been as there was no such thing as Facebook or YouTube at that time, but more and more media companies contacted me and requested for interviews. I think I appeared almost monthly between 1995 – 1997 in all the local English and Bahasa Malaysia newspapers, magazines, radio shows and TV talk shows. I even received fan mails. Some are genuine fans who wants advice from me but there were also a few scary stalker fan mails…. no joke. My most memorable talk show was on TV3’s ‘Remaja’ when I was interviewed by Mr. Kamarul Baharin; the ‘Face-to-Face’ talk show hosted by Mr. Suhaimi Sulaiman; and the ‘Global’ TV talk show hosted by the late Dato’ Mahadzir Lokman.
All this popularity landed me a space in the Malaysia Book of Records. One day, they called me and mentioned that ‘somebody’ had given them details about me and they did a research in the Registrar of Companies that I was the youngest person ever to have registered a company (by the way that ‘somebody’ was my x-wife, got to thank her for a life time for that). I was featured in a special interview on TV2’s talk show, ‘The Malaysia Book of Records’, hosted by the famous late H.E. Dato’ Mahadzir Lokman. On that show, they announced that I was certified by the Malaysia Book of Records to be the Youngest Entrepreneur in Malaysia, establishing a company at the age of 18 in 1994.
Life was great.
A great FATE Vs PLAN Journey.
The popularity led me to be invited to more business and high profile functions. During this period, I met many famous millionaires, businessmen, political leaders and VIPs. Life was great! People recognized me at every function I attended. Even Tok Pa (H.E. Dato’ Mustapa Mohamed) invited me to his constituency in Jeli, Kelantan to give motivational talks to the students there on Future Planning. I did many free talks back then whenever I can squeeze my busy and hectic schedule as part of my CSR programmes.
In 1997, I participated in the 26th IFTDO’s World Conference and Exhibition in PWTC, KL as a conference delegate and exhibitor. My intention was to study how the international conference worked as I was exploring the vision I had in my life plan; to organize an international level conference in the near future. I learned a lot and became more and more determined to turn my dreams and vision into reality one day. One of my dream was to bid for this particular IFTDO world conference one day and to bring back to Malaysia (there is a relation to this story later on).
Anyway, back to the main reason why I shared this long journey…
Like any young blood, I guess fame and ego arose. I was being selfish and over-confident with myself. I care more about money and not on the sincerity to help others. My whole mind-set was very micro and not macro. Being a Change Agent and caring or helping others came last. I had forgotten my vision. I had forgotten my mission. I had forgotten my religion. I had forgotten how to thank God. I had forgotten the purpose of me being in this world and starting this whole journey of being a Change Agent. I only thought about money and was too confident on how to earn more money from my so-called business experiences… I had lost my soul. I was living in a fantasy mindset that was caccooned by a world of selfishness.
My big world of fantasy ended…and the Asian economic crisis arrived in mid-1997.
Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs and many companies closed down. Even the high and mighty public listed companies went bust. The crisis finally hit my business in mid-1998. My seminars were promoted very aggressively and expensive as usual, but not many clients participated. Then, most of my seminars were construction related topics and the industry that was hit the most during the crisis was the construction industry. Many construction projects were put on hold and many of my clients went bankrupt or had to cut their budget, especially training budgets. This dominos down to the training and learning industry was also badly hit. Many training companies closed down too. I had no choice but to cancel most of my seminars and ended up with big losses due to my usual crazy marketing campaigns for seminars that never failed. I ended up loosing a lot of money and started to incur many debts. I stop recruiting and started to manage my staff count. By May 1999, I was all alone again. No more drivers, no secretaries and employees. Even my reserved money was gone - no more anything. I was just trying to survive the deadly economic crisis.
I lost money…a lot of it…I lost my properties, my cars, my so-called ‘friends’. Sometimes, I had no choice but to borrow from money lenders to pay some bills. I got no resources to organised my own projects so I had to work on other people’s projects and get paid. I survived by doing odd projects. Some got paid very little and some got cheated. Life wasn’t great any more.
To cut down on operational costs, I even moved to Bukit Beruntung (40 minutes from KL) where the office and house rental were dirt cheap. After a long hard year, in year 2000, I made a small comeback… I’ve re-strategize my training business a bit and focussing on producing a unique and timely subject matter content and scale up from a small seminar to a high profile and flamboyant conferences. I organise my first big conference, inviting foreign sought after speakers and managed to get good sponsors too. As the economy was trying to crawl back from a bad blow, I organized a conference that gathered four views in Strategic Management; Japanese – Kaizen by the founder himself, Masaaki Imai san; Chinese – Sun Tzu’s Art of War by the famous local newspaper columnist, Dr Ong Hean Tatt; Islamic – Althuristic Management by Dr Ismail Noor and the American strategic mind-set by Mike Robert of Decision Processes Int. (conducted by my Aunt, Ms Raby who was the managing partner of the franchise at that time). I named my first BIG conference the ‘Strategic Management Conference 2000’. The topic was applauded by many including Prof. di-Raja Ungku Aziz whereby, he almost made it as a keynote speaker. The conference was a turning point for me financially and mentally after experiencing the economic shock for the first time at a very young age. I charged RM1,999.00 per person and managed to enrol more than 150 participants for it.
I organized many more international conferences such as the first ‘Women’s Conference’ in Malaysia, one of the first ‘Corporate Governance’ and ‘Call Centre’ conferences. I also organised the first ‘Information Security Conference’ that was ever organised in Malaysia; Nokia, Phoenix Technologies, former MI-5 and former CIA i-security experts were invited as the sought after speakers. This was when the global scare of Information Warfare threatened the global market place.
In year 2001, I heard that my dream IFTDO world conference would be held in Bahrain, and that Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad would be the guest of honor speaker. I thought, this was it. It was a sign from God giving me a chance to materialize my dream to organise this world conference in Malaysia. I believed that the management committee of the world IFTDO board would give a chance for a Malaysian to present an idea to host the conference back in Malaysia since the Malaysian Prime Minister was their Guest of Honour Speaker in Bahrain. With the little money that I had, I convinced one of my old friends to introduce me to the IFTDO board member and we flew to Bahrain. During the launch of the conference in Bahrain, I was standing at the back of the hall admiring the perfectly organized conference, and imagining how it will be like in the near future when I would organize such a grand world conference in Malaysia soon. While I was day dreaming, to my shock, there he was, standing next to me, the President of Petronas, H.E. Tan Sri Hassan Marican (back then). He asked me what I was doing here in Bahrain and I told him that I wanted to bring the world conference to Malaysia; he looked at me unconvincingly. Fortunately and shockingly at the same time, Uncle Mat, my Uncle, the NST Chief Editor was also there and joined the conversation. He was also at the back of the hall busy taking pictures of the event and happy listening to H.E. Dr Mahathir delivering his key note speech that was drafted mostly by him. Uncle Mat introduced me to the ‘Petronas guy’, after which, he was impressed once he listened to my entrepreneurial journey from Uncle Mat and the fact that I was listed in the Malaysia Book of Records. He then told me to come and see him if I won the bid to host the conference in Malaysia.
I met many great VIPs in that conference but I didn’t manage to meet H.E. Tun Dr. Mahathir in Bahrain as the security was tight. Fortunately, I did manage to meet him a month after I was back in Malaysia, at a dinner function, and shared briefly with him my future plans. Dr. Mahathir was impressed.
To cut the IFTDO conference story short, in year 2003 in the city of Lisbon, Portugal, I won the bid and was geared up to make my dream in 1997 come true - to organize the 35th World IFTDO Conference in August 2006. In addition to that, I strategized in such a way to make my personal dream conference a national project by inviting Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) to co-host the conference with me. At that time, the UiTM’s Vice Chancellor was H.E. Tan Sri Ibrahim Abu Shah, a great man, always encouraging and supporting young entrepreneurs. He was thrilled to co-host the world conference with me as the year 2006 also marked the 50th anniversary of UiTM.
We received good support from the government and the corporate sector to organize the conference and even obtained many sponsors such as PNB and MAS. Petronas was the main sponsor. Since Lisbon, a lot of hard work was put and promotions were done from year 2003 to year 2006. We confirmed the venue at the new (then) Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. The Royal Guest of Honor was the King of Malaysia; the Patron was the Prime Minister, H.E. Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi; and The Guest of Honour Speaker was of course H.E. Tun Dr. Mahathir. Two Ministers stood as advisors to the conference (the Minister of Higher Education Dato’ Mustapa Mohammed and the other was the Minister of Human Resources, Dato’ Dr Fong Chan Onn). 70 speakers from 20 nations were to speak at the world conference. IFTDO 2006 received an overwhelming response throughout the marketing campaign.
Fate was doing well for me for a good five years since the coming out of the dark financial crisis, and all my planning was doing great again. Well at least it lasted long enough. After 4 years of promoting the conference in more than 20 countries and cities, just months prior to the conference, I had a call from UiTM notifying me that we have received an official letter from the Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) that our conference was not eligible for the training grant of HRDF and the members who registered at the IFTDO conference were not able to claim the conference fees. A huge number of participants cancelled their registration. I was devastated. I went to meet the HRDC CEO then, and even met the HR Minister, but was denied support suddenly. I even reminded them that the money in HRDF belongs to members who chose to attend any training they thought necessary for their employees from their monthly contributions towards the HRDF and that it’s not owned by the Government or the management of HRDC. Worse still was that HRDC promoted and organized their annual conference two weeks after my conference and provides a 100% reimbursement to HRDC members. The HRDC conference always done at the end of the year but somehow conveniently change the timing and do it near to mine. I even went to the PM about this and a NINE-hour wait to meet the PM went to waste when the PM do not want try to help and listen more to my predicament.
Anyway, the show have to go on. There were good and bad experiences during this conference, as there were some people who were exceptionally selfish and enjoyed watching some fall. The conference was successfully organized but I did suffer financial losses as the training fund grant that was promised was cancelled. Many companies were not able to claim the registration fees from the grant and many refused to register. I felt sabotaged. One of many reasons why this happened was because I refused to to suck up to certain parties that didn’t deserve any credit from society or me. I thought merit and the betterment of the Training and Education Industry was good enough. On top of that, during the conference, the budget went bust as I trusted an old friend with costs and project management of the conference. Anyway, I do not wish to blame anyone but myself. I guess my planning was just focused on merit and not on ‘human idiotic’ factors. Again… it was FATE Vs PLAN.
Being the so-called one of a few Bumiputera and the youngest Professional Conference Organiser meant nothing to the leaders for support. So much for the country that looked after the benefits of Bumiputera Entrepreneurs.
Life was bad, yet again.
I almost gave up on everything - vision, business, future, even life. I mean, come on, first it was the ’97 crisis and now this! Oh, my God! I looked back at my ‘Vision-Life-Line’ plan. I thought, what went wrong? I mean, it was the year 2006 and in my plan, I was to organize a world conference, which I did, but why did I lose a lot of money? Is it fate again? Or was it just my fault for trusting people blindly without drafting any contracts or terms of reference? MAYBE IT WAS.
Just as I was about to give up on life, a new life was born, my first child, Sheikh Sharat Shah bin Sheikh Faleigh born on 19th of May 2007. He gave me a whole new motivation to live and get back to my life’s vision. I refused to give up even though my wife (now ex-wife) told me to give up and just follow her to Sydney where she would work in a huge company as one of their six sigma experts - and me being a proud father and a house-husband. I almost did though!
I told myself it was fate and just bad human trust factors that made me go down again but I was not out from the game yet. In 2008 I somehow manage to secure a meet with H.E. Tun Dr Mahathir through his office at the Perdana Leadership Foundation. I brief Tun a bit on what had happened and he was shock and gave me few advice. I shared with him a few of my future plans to ‘re-boot’. I requested him to speak at my new conference and he agreed. I quickly took out the drafted brochure titled Futurist Forum 2008, featuring the best two Futurists whom I know, H.E. Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (Tun M) and the famous Mr. John Naisbitt, as my speakers for the forum. He smiled and say “I just agreed but you have printed the brochure with my name on it”. I smiled and mentioned that the brochure was only a draft. He then gave me his blessings and motivate me to do a good job.
The Futurist Forum 2008 was an awesome half-day forum. Attended by many VIPs and well-known entrepreneurs, including Berjaya Group business tycoon, H.E. Tan Sri Vincent Tan, who was seated next to me with Tun M and Tun Siti Hasmah. The forum was hosted by the best master of ceremony in Malaysia, H.E. Dato’ Mahadzir Lokman. To give me encouragement and support, the late Bang Dale was willing to travel overnight from Terengganu to Kuala Lumpur, a six hours journey, to be at the forum.
After the forum, I took the opportunity to share my ‘Vision-Life-Line’ plan with Tun M and Mr. John Naisbitt. Guess what, one of the plans was to have a foundation that cares and mentors young entrepreneurs and also to publish a magazine (which you are now reading!) – it was a perfected life plan from the one I did in the 90s. Instead of producing great content and organizing unique and timely international conferences for a better world, I would just DO IT by “real action”, starting with mentoring and nurturing young leaders and entrepreneurs to grow and remind them of the true meaning of Entrepreneurship, and not just being focused on doing business but to give back to society. Both were impressed and John ‘knighted’ me as the Futurist of Malaysia.
Life was great again.
In November 2010, I established the Futurist Foundation. It was registered as a private Trust Fund under the Legal Affairs Department in the Prime Minister’s Department. I was the Founder, and my old buddy and one of my mentor, H.E. Tan Sri Megat Najmuddin Khas, who’s like a big brother to me (old enough to be my father actually!) agreed to become the President of the foundation. He is a very prominent corporate and political figure in Malaysia. He is seated as Chairman in many public listed companies and also holds many advisory positions in government agencies. I met Tan Sri Megat in year 2000 when I was proposing a collaboration to organize a Corporate Governance conference with one of his NGOs, the Malaysian Institute of Corporate Governance (MICG). The conference was a success and we became friends ever since. The funny thing is that he was the guy who told me not to go to Sydney and follow my wife and I would be dumb to leave the country and be a house husband after all that I’ve done in Malaysia. Another two of my buddies, Dr. Kamal Khir who was the former CEO of IBBM and former President of MIHRM and Mr. Juhaidi Yean Abdullah, a former press secretary of Tok Pa and founder of a famous Kelantan Delights in klcc then; whom both I’ve known since the 90s became the Deputy President and Treasurer respectively. They were my trustees. Another old buddy of mine Dr Mazlan Che Mat, founder of The Value Management Institute of Malaysia became the advisor.
Within the first month, I initiated a few growth plans for the creative industry and organized a Malaysian pavilion at the Dubai Game Expo 2010 in Dubai, UAE, where we brought and featured 10 best companies in the games and creative industry. This project was sponsored by MDeC and supported by MATRADE. We then established an incubator to mentor young entrepreneurs and focused on Gamification. We formed the first Game Incubator in the country, GCM Incubator that stands for Gamification, Content and Mechanics. I even went to Tehran a few times and exchange ideas with the Iran game developers through the Iran Game Council. I also advise a few game companies and young entrepreneurs in Indonesia.
Since 2010, we have mentored and develop many benchmarking projects in the global game industry. Some of them are the first Chemistry game in Malaysia and the first RPG educational game in the world, ‘Chemcaper’, developed by Ace Edventure Studios and Artoncode; ‘Upin Ipin: Metromilennium’, developed by AGATE studios and Les Copaque Games Dev. Inc.; and the world famous game ‘Sara is Missing’ by our Incubatee game studio, Monsoon Labs head by Tim W. who is also my partner in GCM. Tim made his name globally known in the game industry as the founder and chief editor of world renowned indiegames.com, a news platform that promotes indie game developer world wide.
In 2014, me and my Indonesian business partner, Ibu Nurana Indah Paramita established the Yayasan Futurist Indonesia. Today, both foundation has initiated and mentored many startups and young entrepreneurs in Malaysia and Indonesia. There are many more projects in the pipeline and we are always promoting great potential entrepreneurs who have high values in our Usahawan Nusantara magazine for them to grow stronger and bigger in the mission of helping others to grow together. Somehow, by fate, it is the only magazine based in Malaysia that featured Indonesian Entrepreneurs and the only Malaysian entrepreneurial magazine focussed on young entrepreneurs. The magazine can be found in major bookstore chains in Malaysia and Indonesia. You can also find our magazine at Starbucks through-out Malaysia.
Wow… that’s a long story for you… thanks for reading…
I have initiated many things since the 90’s. There were no start-ups or young entrepreneurs then. I initiated the mind-set of being a Young Entrepreneur and leader to the youth. I gave many talks to students, graduates and young entrepreneurs since the late 90’s. I was an advocate for young entrepreneurs and SMEs when the nation was focusing on SMIs before year 2006. In late 90s and early 2000 I was even advising a few association for the physically challenged on their rights to the government. In 2007/2008, I even convinced the new management in HRDC and the new Minister of HR then for HRDF to provide reimbursement for all conferences for their members, and not only their own conferences (too late for me, but good for the training industry). In 2009, I initiated the first Putrajaya International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta with my buddy, the late Khairuddin (Rudy) and the Malaysia Sports Aviation Federation. The event received tremendous media coverage. Now in 2019, the fiesta carries on into its 10th year anniversary and orgainsed by Rudy’s old buddy Tom and Rudy’s kids. I have initiated and mentored many world famous games that was originated in Malaysia and create a high benchmark with my buddy Tim W. for the local game industry.
I have experienced many ups and downs in life in my entrepreneurial journey but hey…that’s what makes you a greater person. The journey in life must be shared so that others can learn from it and together, we can create a better society and build a better world for our future generations.
The life that we are living now is simply a deception of what we are and who we are - it is what we do in our day-to-day life. My entrepreneurial and personal journey of over 24 years has taught me many things about this life.
Life has been planned for you by our Creator, but of course, you need to have your own plans and do your best to achieve those dreams. Act as if it is your will to survive and challenge yourself to be better. Once you’ve experienced a certain journey in life, always look back and learn from it – it makes for a better future.
Life is not about thinking of your fate or planning on what to do next. It is about learning. Learning about what has become and what is becoming. It’s a life-long learning process. A process needed for men to know the purpose of life itself. For me, my purpose in life is to be an INITIATOR of GREAT CHANGE and help others in any way I can. What is yours?
FATE Vs. PLAN
The article above was written by myself in Jan 2016 for the 5th issue of the Usahawan Nusantara magazine. I decided to republished and add bit more story in this issue since it is a special issue for us and to re-established the facts of FATE Vs. PLAN in our life. My Life and Entrepreneurial Journey from the 90s to 2019 could be guide to some entrepreneurs whether young or old in age but the main point that I wanted to share is that NEVER gave up in achieving your dreams and plan it well and with a touch of FATE and sincerity, you will do fine.
In the current happenings in Malaysia, ho would have thought a 93-year old man could become the Prime Minister again for the second time?! Being the oldest Prime Minister ever elected in the world, H.E. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has created history once again. He have proven that Fate does exist and planning and replanning is necessary in our lives.
I am personally happy for Tun M to be our leader again. I think the nation needs this re-boot administration in the government. I was also delighted when he made the announcement that the Ministry of Entrepreneurship Development (MED) being re-established in July 2018 and H.E. Datuk Redzuan Yusoff was appointed as the Minister.
I’ve been monitoring the programmes and the commitment initiated by the MED Minister and I’m very impressed with him and his team in the ministry. The establishment of MED gives new hope for the betterment of Entrepreneurs, especially Young Entrepreneurs in Malaysia.
By this FATE, let us re-PLAN our strategies and work together in making Malaysia, Indonesia and this region great Again.
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