‘Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.’
— American football coach, Vince Lombardi
My friends, once in a while, it is good for us to take a break from our work in the office and attend a motivation talk.
This I realised after attending a two-hour talk on “Leadership Motivation” for senior staff of local dailies, New Sarawak Tribune (NST) and Suara Sarawak (SS) on Wednesday.
The two-hour talk on “How to Be a Real Success” was delivered by YAST Group founder and chairlady, Esther Law. It focused on leadership skills and charting ways to achieve success for an organisation.
Also present was NST and SS chief executive officer, Datuk Dr Jeniri Amir.
At the end of the course, I was asked to describe the talk in one word. “Interesting,” I replied.
One important lesson I learnt was that it was important for leaders to keep on learning and self-examine, self-reflect and self-improve everyday.
I also learnt that it was important for leaders to love themselves first before loving others.
“Every morning, when you wake up, hug yourself,” said Esther, before proceeding to show us how to do it.
She also urged my colleagues and I to stop and ask ourselves questions like “How many books do I read a year? How many years do I want to live? How many hours of exercises do I need to do to stay fit?”
Esther, who’s 49, and a versatile portfolio entrepreneur with many global achievements including Toastmasters International District 51 ‘Most Outstanding Toastmaster of the Year’ (2004-2005), also confessed to keeping a journal of the things she did everyday.
“Have a journal of your river of life. It will be valuable to people who know you or want to know you,” she said.
Esther also spends 18 hours a day working. She considers her work as her life.
She also stressed the importance of having healthy habits. For instance, she wakes up at 5 am daily.
Listening to her, I wondered if I could do that. Needless to say, I was inspired to wake up that early too.
Esther also told us, “A good system shortens the road to your goal” and “You need a map, not a plan, to achieve your goal.”
She also talked about the Wheel of Life, a simple but powerful tool to visualise all areas of our lives to see where we would need improvement to help achieve a work-life balance,
“But I need four hours to go through it,” she said before promising to conduct a talk on it for the senior staff of NST and SS in the near future.
Besides the lessons that I took home with me, Esther’s talk was interesting because the participants came from two dailies, namely, the New Sarawak Tribune, an English daily, and its sister paper and Bahasa Malaysia daily, Suara Sarawak.
Although we work in the same building, I seldom meet my counterparts, especially the younger ones, from Suara Sarawak.
So besides listening to the talk, I was busy trying to recognise some of the young ones, especially the reporters and uploaders for the online news, I had not met.
The presence of Dr Jeniri at the talk was inspiring to me. He proved he was a superb leader who believed in continuous learning and wanted to move NST and SS and their senior staff forward to a common goal.
Esther’s motivation talk was the first one I attended this year. Last year, my colleagues and I had the privilege to attend a talk by Suhaimi Sulaiman, former chief executive officer of TVS, the first television station owned by Sarawak.
I truly enjoyed Suhaimi’s talk then. Because he was also a media strategist and a well known figure in the broadcasting world, I went home with many valuable lessons on journalism.
When I was a young and struggling journalist, I attended a lot of talks and courses, courtesy of my employers and their media partners. Such talks and courses have undoubtedly transformed me into what I am today. Without them, I will not be where I am today.
I thank Dr Jeniri for organising the talks by Esther and Suhaimi for the senior staff of NST and SS. I feel that personally, even though I am now a leader in my organisation, occasionally I need inspiration, fresh insights or new tactics to move on in my leadership journey. I’m sure some of colleagues also feel the same.
Hence, I’m looking forward to attending more such talks and even courses during the Year of the Dragon next year.
