The Promise That Would Not Let Me Go

It was almost midnight. Friday night. I was walking alone and feeling that familiar mix of guilt and gratitude. Guilt because I was not at home with my wife and children. Gratitude because my wife has been my strongest supporter and my children have been far more understanding than I deserve.

On paper, it looks simple. I am out because of “work.” In reality, I am out because of a promise I made 10 years ago that still refuses to let me go.

In 2016, I looked at a young woman whose only dream was to reach a salary of RM3,000. And I heard myself ask her, “Why RM3,000? Why not RM30,000?”

I did not say it to joke. I said it because I am a visionary, and when I give my word, I carry it as a trust. I did not know that sentence would become a decade-long pursuit. I did not know it would shape how I build Stellar, how I see education, and how I evaluate every ratio, every expansion, and every opportunity that knocks on our door.

I thought I was helping one person. I was actually declaring war on a system that keeps good people small.

One Girl, One Rescue, And A Limit I Could Not Ignore

The story begins with a girl named Yvonne.

I have known her for more than 15 years. When I first stepped in, my goal was simple. Get her out of an abusive environment. I was not thinking about Stellar. I was not thinking about business models. I just knew I could not watch her stay where she was.

So I helped her leave. At that point, I did not invite her into Stellar. I knew two problems clearly. First, conflict of interest. Second, we could not afford her. Even with side jobs, she could earn more outside than inside our small preschool.

But as time went on, I realised something. Getting someone out of a toxic environment is only step one. Survival is not the same as rebuilding a life. She needed more than rescue. She needed community, purpose, and a place to grow.

Eventually, I brought her into Stellar Preschool. She agreed to start with a low salary. I still remember the conversation where she shared her personal dream:

“One day, if I can earn RM3,000, that will be enough.”

Something inside me could not accept that ceiling. I looked at her and said, “Why RM3,000? Why not RM30,000?”

I meant it. Not as a motivational quote. As a commitment. But inside, I also knew the truth. Our system at that time did not have a real pathway to make that possible. We were a typical preschool. Provide services. Charge school fees. Pay fixed salary. Repeat.

To make it worse, we were not even stable. There were months I was not sure how to pay the team. At one point, the main reason I did not bring her in earlier was very simple. I did not have the capacity to pay her well, and I did not want to trap her in a low-paying environment just because of loyalty.

Yet she joined. She served. She grew.

The girl who once carried no confidence started to transform in front of my eyes. Today, the things she can do are far beyond what I imagined back then. Even I am shocked.

Her story is not the only one. Over the years, a second, a third, and a fourth “Yvonne” appeared. People with potential who needed more than a job. They needed a platform. And I realised, if I could solve this for one, I could solve it for many.

That is when the quiet sentence “RM3,000 or RM30,000” stopped being a nice line and started becoming a leadership problem I had to solve.

What A One To Seven Ratio Cannot Give You

On the surface, the education business looks straightforward. More students, more classes, more teachers. Grow enrolment, grow revenue, grow campus.

Then reality walks in with a very simple question.

If your mission is to help your teachers grow in income, how far can you go inside a traditional structure.

Let me use one simple ratio.

In most early years settings, the recommended ratio sits around one teacher to seven children. You can argue one to six, one to eight, but the principle is the same. It is everywhere. Malaysia. Singapore. Europe. OECD countries. The ratio is there to protect quality and safety. It is good for children.

But think carefully.

You start with seven students and one teacher.

You grow to fourteen students and two teachers.

Twenty-one students and three teachers.

Twenty-eight students and four teachers.

Now scale that up.

Seven hundred students. One hundred teachers.

The numbers are different. The ratio is exactly the same.

From the outside, the school looks “bigger.” Revenue is bigger. Campus is bigger. Operations are bigger. But for the teacher on the ground, something does not change. One adult. Seven children. The size of the system does not automatically translate into a breakthrough in personal income or personal ability.

That is when I realised the limit.

If we only play the “school” game, we can improve environment, curriculum, culture, and brand. We can make a meaningful social impact. We can even increase salaries over time. But there will always be a ceiling.

In simple terms, income is the fruit. Ability is the root.

And a fixed-ratio system is very good at preserving structure, but very bad at multiplying personal ability into new forms of value.

Globally, the pattern is similar. The educators who significantly lift their income are rarely those who stay inside a pure classroom role forever. They move into curriculum design, teacher training, consulting, content creation, educational entrepreneurship. They create value that escapes the ratio.

Countries that take education seriously, like Finland, Estonia, Singapore, have all discovered the same thing. You cannot lift a profession only by increasing headcount. You lift it by expanding roles and creating platforms where ability multiplies into new streams of impact.

That became the Lens for Stellar.

Stellar 1.0 was very clear. We are a school. We provide education services. Parents pay fees. We pay salaries. We serve children and families. We watch as F&B outlets around us enjoy more traffic, as residency occupancy rises, as property prices around the school climb. This is not theory. It is happening in Johor. It happens in many countries. Good schools pull life and value into a district.

But here is the tension. Developers and investors often see schools as a “pulling factor” for their projects. Build a school, attract residents. From their angle, the school is a strategic tool. From our angle, the school is a calling. We exist for the next generation, not just as a magnet for property value. For me, it can never be just commercial.

So Stellar 1.0 was necessary, but not sufficient.

We then stepped, by faith, into Stellar International School during the pandemic season. It was one of the toughest decisions of my life, just behind saying yes to being a father. The slogan “what does not kill you makes you stronger” became very real.

With the international school, a new layer appeared. As we draw in students from China, Korea, Japan, the Middle East, and other regions, Stellar quietly shifts. We are no longer only a school. We become a platform that connects developers, tourism, hospitality, media, government agencies, and international partners.

That is Stellar 2.0. A platform for collaboration. A platform for intrapreneurship. A place where our own team can start exploring beyond the seven-to-one ratio. Curriculum design. Camps. Training. Consultancy. Corporate services.

Here is where another insight landed.

Every year, we invest heavily in training our teachers. Time. Money. Energy. Many schools see that as pure cost. A necessary expense. But what if that training itself becomes a product that serves others. What if our unique curriculum, PVMC, STARS, and Purposebility frameworks become something that other schools and educators are willing to learn from and pay for.

Then what used to be cost becomes revenue.

What used to be internal becomes exportable.

What used to be for “our teachers only” becomes a platform for many.

That is exactly what the best education groups in the world have done. They did not stay as “only schools.” They built training arms, curriculum divisions, global partnerships, capital projects. They moved from running classrooms to shaping ecosystems.

And then another wave came from outside Malaysia.

China’s birth rate is dropping. Drastically. With fewer children, many schools in China are under pressure. They can see a future where thousands of schools face closure. So the government started encouraging operators to “go out” into the world. Invest abroad. Acquire schools. Bring Chinese capital and education experience into international environments.

Because of our track record with parents, students, and partners, we started receiving calls. Investors wanted to acquire Stellar. Buy out the whole thing.

My answer was simple.

“Stellar is not for sale.”

We are not building a school just to flip it.

Yet I also recognise another reality.

There are investors looking to exit. There are businesses looking for buyers. There are education providers in China who must move out. There are people in Malaysia who want to invest but do not know how. There are people who trust us because they have seen us build slowly, with integrity, over ten years.

So a question appears.

If we are educators at heart, and we are also stewards of trust, can we play a role in matching good capital with good businesses. Not by selling our soul, but by serving as a bridge.

That is the seed of Stellar 3.0.

We are still educators. We are still discipleship-minded. We still want to build the next generation and raise STARS. But the arena expands again. From product, to platform, to capital.

And through all of this, one small sentence keeps echoing.

“Why RM3,000? Why not RM30,000?”

Because if I ever want to see someone reach “RM30,000 ability,” then I have to build structures that can carry that level of value. If the system cannot lift them, then I must build another system.

Building Thirty Thousand Ability

After a decade of wrestling with this, I have landed here.

Do not chase the fruit. Build the root.

Income is not the starting point. It is the report card of value.

For my team, that means we no longer talk only about “position” or “salary scale.” We talk about ability. We talk about how much value you can create beyond your seven students. We talk about how you think, how you design, how you lead, how you solve problems, how you collaborate across industries.

In Purposebility language, it is the intersection of Purpose and Life, Profit and Legacy, Passion and Love. Ability is not just skill. Ability is who you are becoming, multiplied through what you can design, deliver, and steward for others.

For Stellar, it means we need multiple lanes, not just one.

One lane for those who are called to the classroom, who find joy in caring for seven children deeply. They are not “less.” They are the heart of why we exist.

Another lane for those who are wired for leadership and management. They can grow into principals, heads of departments, senior leaders, directors.

Another lane for those who are builders and dreamers. They love R&D. They love designing programmes, camps, partnerships, and curriculum. They are the intrapreneurs who can carry our frameworks into new spheres.

And beyond that, in Stellar 3.0, lanes for those who can understand capital, read deals, and steward trust between investors and real businesses that still honour people, culture, and values.

All of that sounds big. But the first step is small.

Ask one hard question.

“What ability must I grow to match the future I say I want.”

If you are a teacher, that might start with learning to handle not just seven children, but also to mentor younger teachers, to design a small module, to lead one small project.

If you are a mid-level leader, it may mean shifting from “please tell me what to do” into “this is my recommendation, this is the risk, this is the upside.”

If you are a founder or owner, it may mean being willing to step out of operations, create space for new leaders, and accept the discomfort of moving from control to stewardship.

Time multiplies whatever you feed it.

Ten years from now, your income will be a mirror of your ability.

Your ability will be a reflection of the problems you chose to face.

So start with what you can control.

One ability.

One domain.

One next step.

Build it until it is worth three thousand.

Then keep going until it is worth RM30,000.

Not for ego. Not for status. But because with that level of ability, you can bless more people, carry more responsibility, and steward greater trust. That is what it means to be Empowered, not Entitled.

The Reverse That Redefines It All

Here is the paradox that holds all of this together.

On the surface, it looks like a story about money. Three thousand. Thirty thousand. Ratio. Income. Capital.

But the longer I walk, the clearer it becomes.

The real pursuit is not money. It is mastery.

The real product is not education. It is ability.

The real asset is not the campus. It is the people whose lives are being built inside and around it.

If I chase money, I will cut corners, sell out early, and design systems that use people to grow numbers.

If I pursue mastery and ability, I will design systems that grow people until the numbers take care of themselves.

This is where the reverse insight lands.

The system does not exist to save you.

You exist to outgrow the system and then rebuild it so others can rise.

For me, that is why I still walk alone at midnight and wrestle with guilt and gratitude. I am away from my family at times, not because I worship work, but because I refuse to give my team and my children a system that keeps them small.

A decade-long pursuit has taught me this.

If the system cannot lift people to their potential, leadership has only two choices.

Protect the system. Or rebuild it for the sake of the people.

True leadership will always choose the people, even when it costs ten years of your life.