It’s term end again, and I’ve spent two hours signing the report cards. I remember at the beginning of Stellar I used to spend only 15 minutes to get it done. As the number of students grew, I had the option to use digital signatures, but I prefer going through them one by one to see the academic progress of our students. I’m glad I did because I could see a lot of things I might have missed otherwise. I try not to let my hectic schedule disrupt this: I turn on soft music and make sure I’m mentally relaxed before signing them, one by one. I bless each and every child in my heart, even though I might not know all of them personally. I’m grateful for the parents’ trust in us.
There’s been a lot going on lately, especially in the past 1.5 months. There were events in Kota Kinabalu where we met amazing people who could help shape the future of schools. I was sick for a week, then involved in a public education project in Indonesia. I also dealt with the sudden death of a family member, participated in a strategic retreat with other business coaches, attended an education conference with key academic leaders, went to the funeral of a respected pastor, hosted a local and international madani awareness talk at Stellar with nearly 200 entrepreneurs and some politicians, and tomorrow I’m traveling to China for a corporate visit.
I only have 24 hours and 7 days a week. Why do I stretch myself so thin? What’s the purpose of such a schedule?
As a father of 3, it’s indeed a lot to juggle: faith and purpose, health and fitness, love and romance, home and family, knowledge and wisdom, money and finance, friends and social life, business and career, play and relaxation, community and contribution. But growth is a key responsibility, especially as a leader. I’m not sure how people would interpret growth. Is it financial growth? Technical? Professional? Career advancement? Business expansion?
Many people have misinterpreted my ambition for business expansion. In fact, if you ask me personally, I never imagined myself even finishing university. I wanted to work right after high school because I felt useless in my studies. I used to joke that my dream was to “lie flat” and do nothing. That explains why I’m always reluctant to do things. Yet, at the same time, I’m purpose-driven. I constantly battle with my desire to avoid work and push myself to get things done. Simply because the battle is not about me, but about the team. There’s a reason behind every expansion, and it’s always about people.
How did that happen? It’s hard to connect the dots, isn’t it?
There’s always someone in our life that we are forever indebted to. In my case, it’s my mom. Since I was young, she allowed us to try things we loved. We learned art weekly from my uncle who’s an artist, took piano lessons, computer classes, swimming classes – basically anything that was available back then that we requested. However, she didn’t give in to my request not to further pursue my studies. My grades were so bad, and she was very firm. If there’s one person in the world who gave me life and changed my hopeless trajectory, it would be my mom.
When I got into my foundation program, I felt ashamed because I had repeated a year and was a year older than most of my classmates. But my mom was constantly cheering for me. She said it was okay, that one year would pass quickly. At first, I felt like I had wasted a year of my life and money. I was filled with guilt. That’s when I decided to change my life and focus on doing my best in my studies. What did “doing my best” mean for me? I was a science student who switched to art. Most of the students had done art during secondary school, so they found it manageable. People used to study for one round and get the idea. I told myself I would study for several more rounds. Eventually, I found a successful ratio of 1:6. If people needed to study for one round, I would do it for six. If people needed two rounds, I would do it for 12. Back then, I didn’t realize it was a journey of mastery; I just figured out what worked.
Since then, my goals have evolved. From striving to be a top scholar, to getting a laptop without asking my parents for a single cent, to becoming self-sufficient financially during university, to falling in love with teaching and wanting to be a teacher, and so on, I’ve come full circle back to my original starting point: I want to be the one who changes someone else’s life, just like how my mom did for me. I want to make a difference because someone else made a difference in my life and shaped who I am. The idea is to freely receive and freely give.
Fast forward 20 years later, that little act of my mom’s has given birth to the Stellar Education Group, comprised of four preschools and one international school, with about 160 educators serving close to 800 students from Johor Bahru and Kuala Lumpur. We had our very first boarding program yesterday for new Stellarians to give them a crash course not just on HR policy (the original intention) but also on the DNA of Stellar and the stories of each aspect of our culture, shared by our pioneer team: Daniel, Samuel, Yvonne, and Rachel.
- Servant Leadership: Leading by serving others.
- Transformational Innovation: Constantly evolving and innovating to make education better. There must be a better way.
- Empowerment, not Entitlement: Encouraging everyone to take ownership and responsibility.
- Living Gratefully, not Blaming: Focusing on gratitude and personal accountability.
- Love Truth, Love Life, Love People: Embracing honesty, valuing life, and cherishing relationships.
- Appreciativeness, not Criticism: Appreciate publicly; criticize privately.
- Resilience Leads to Desired Results
Even among us, as iron sharpens iron, we impact one another to be better daily. From impacting individuals to impacting the whole organization, one day we will impact the town, the city, and the nation.
In the era of AI, the responsibility of an educator towards the lives of students is becoming increasingly important. One key thing that remains unchanged from 20 years ago is that we should believe in our students more than they believe in themselves. What’s our expectation for Stellar? We want to inject such confidence in our students, believing that they too can make a difference in society one day. We want them to believe that they might even become someone as important as the Prime Minister of a country. While we can only have one prime minister at a time, it doesn’t mean that other careers are not important. The health of this society is precisely because of the few committed individuals who caught the vision and believed they could change the world.
So beware… Take every opportunity to impact others, as sacred as possible. Because the future leader of our country might just be from Stellar.
Finally, now back to the first question: How do I define growth?
After all these painful life experiences, which gave me the biggest transformation, growth to me as a leader would mean growing to be someone who could add greater value in other people’s lives. Sometimes it’s journeying together and accompanying them to grow together. Sometimes it’s a momentous charting voice that you speak in someone else’s life that changes the game forever. It’s about empowering them to become the best version of themselves, whoever they dream to be. The ripples created by such positive change is how you leave a lasting legacy. While personal well-being is important, growth often happens when you also focus on enriching and impacting other people’s lives. The more you give, the more you grow. And that, to me, is the truest form of growth for a leader.
Leave a Reply