Sant Qiu’s Speed Profit Blog

This story started a few years back, when I was still helping Adam Khoo start up his wildly successful company AKLTG. In one of the trainings Adam conducted, he shared the story of how he started out as a lousy student but then graduated as one of the top students in his secondary school – Ping Yi Secondary School. As we all know, he went on to top his Junior College and University as well and became a very successful entrepreneur.

His former secondary school got to know of his success and had invited him back to be a guest speaker at the school. Adam said that it was one of his highlight moments as they treated him like a VIP. When I heard of that story, it really inspired me because I was also from the same secondary school as Adam (Adam probably didn’t know this, but I was his junior), and because I was a mediocre student when I was in school.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I was probably less than mediocre. I was one of those students who were on the fringe. I was not a hardcore troublemaker, I was just unmotivated and uninterested in studying those boring subjects. (Of course, later on I discovered that was because of the mismatch of teaching style of the teachers and my personal learning style.) Anyways, I got into trouble enough times that my mum was asked to meet the Principal to discuss my “situation”. It was a very embarrassing, painful and upsetting experience for my mum as she had worked hard back in Indonesia to send her children to Singapore to study so we can have a better future.

So when I heard of Adam’s story, it resonated within me. It sounded like a fairy tale…  and it planted a seed within my mind. I visualised it so vividly in my mind and I even day dreamed about it. But I didn’t tell anyone about it, not even Adam. (Even at that time I was pretty introvert and private about my life.) Another reason was, I thought it’s impossible that it would happen to me as I was not a top student nor was I a trainer or motivator of students. So soon after, as I focused on my work and career, I kinda forgot about it.

Fast forward to the present: A few weeks back, I was invited to be a guest keynote speaker at Ping Yi Secondary School for their career guidance day!

Frankly, at that time, when I accepted the invitation, I was doing it more out of obligation because I my forte is marketing and not motivating students. I mean, I was a less than mediocre student remember..? But I accepted it anyway, put it in my calendar and put it in the back of my mind. I had forgotten about Adam’s story and my inspiration.

The night before the morning I was suppose to give my presentation, I started working on what I’m going to talk about. I had been busy the whole week with closing new deals and completing a couple of projects, so I had left the preparation for the talk to end. Since the audience was students, I thought I’d better come up with examples that relate to them. So I came up with the topic “Success Secrets of Rain and Lady GaGa”

Wednesday, 19 May 2010: D Day – On my way to Ping Yi Secondary School, I suddenly remembered Adam’s story. Maybe it was the familiar roads that sparked off the memory, or just my wandering mind reminiscing… suddenly it hit me! I was about to experience what Adam experienced. What I had dreamed about. What I thought was impossible for me.

As we (my wife, who is also a Ping Yi aluma, came along) arrived, there were student leaders who greeted us with the teacher in charge. Then we were personally escorted to the multi-purpose hall. The students were already waiting. We were shown to our seats alongside other guest speakers, mostly from polytechnics. Then the Principal came to greet and thank us before taking the stage to give for her opening address. (The Principal has changed since I was there)

And as I was waiting for my turn to speak, I kept thinking to myself, “Wow, this is really happening!” It was so real and yet so surreal at the same time. I can’t help but smile inside. It was a wonderful affirmation for me as I imagined it had for Adam.

Then it was my turn to speak. The students got excited as I used celebrities they like as examples. I shared the story of how the Korean superstar, Rain (Jung Ji-Hoon), struggled and got rejected so many times by talent agencies because of his “ugly” looks. But he persevered and finally got his first break as a backup dancer. But with so many other talented people with better looks, he has to differentiate himself and stand out from the crowd. I shared on how Rain differentiated himself and ended up becoming a superstar.

Similarly, Lady GaGa (real name: Stefanie Joanne Angelina Germanotta) also went through a similar journey before finding fame and fortune. By persevering, differentiating herself and continuing to take action, she became the success that she is today.

So I told the students that as they move forward to their next chapter in their lives, they will definitely meet challenges. There will be others who are more talented, scored higher marks in exams, more valued by some schools, etc. But the most important thing is that they must persevere (Ping Yi’s slogan is “Perseverance Yields Success”), they need to find a way to differentiate themselves and they must take action to make it happen. And of course I added a little twist at the end that got the students really excited and revved up to drive home the message.

The audience applauded. The Principal thanked me for a great speech. I even had a few other guest speakers and teachers came up to me and told me that my talk was inspiring! That was really great. And I do hope that the message had touched some of the students and implanted a seed in their minds like Adam’s story did in mine.

After the talks were done we were given a tour of the school. We learned that since I graduated, they had torn down the school and rebuilt it almost from scratch. They had so many wonderful facilities now compared to what we had last time. They even had a gym!

As we walked through the school, it dawned on me that what I thought was impossible for me had just happened. I was savouring it. It felt really wonderful and great and… wow! It’s amazing that something that I had dreamed of a while back actually became a reality, even though I just put it in the back of my mind and almost forget about it. It’s really cool.

So here, I’d like to give a shout out to Adam. Thanks for sharing that story Adam, and for being an inspiration. Dreams do come true when you persevere, stand out from the crowd and take action.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 24th, 2010 at 2:33 am and is filed under News & Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.