Success Starts With a Dream

Naturally we are all dreamers. When we were children we dreamt of being superheroes and dared ourselves to live in Dreamland of a fairy tale novel where the princess and her prince charming would ride into the sunset and live happily ever after. However when the traditional and conventional world show its true colours with negative mind conditioning through signs that read like “Hey, are you crazy? You can’t do that! You can’t be that! Wake up and stop dreaming!” After years of being reminded of what we can and cannot do, we will start to live a routine life and success is measured through the eyes of people around you. We start dreaming and quit building our dreams.

Well, there is nothing wrong with becoming a dreamer. Thomas Edison had a dream. And his dreams light up the whole world. Alexander Graham Bell had a dream. And his dreams made it so easy for people across the globe to communicate. The Wright Brothers had a dream. And their dreams made people fly. Colonel Sanders had a dream. And his dreams gave people around the world the KFC “finger lickin’ good” franchise. Tun Mahathir Mohammed had a dream. And his dreams made little Malaysia a big nation standing in the eyes of the world. Prophet Muhammad SAW had a dream. And his dreams gave eternal light of guidance to mortals until the end of time.

Realities of today were the dreams of yesterday. If we have a dream today, hold on to it and work on it, because one day those dreams may just come true. There is nothing wrong with becoming a dreamer. But it is wrong to let dreams drift and swept away by the passing of time. More importantly, don’t let others steal your dreams away.

Dreams need to be crystallized and cannot be left floating without proper direction. The inking of dreams need to be translated in the form of vision, goals and objectives. We need to have the courage and the guts to formulate big dreams. Dreams big enough to challenge all our senses. Dreams big enough that will boggle the mind, that will make the heart pound, that will inspire you with every breath you take and every step you make. Dreams big enough that every obstacles and resistance seemed small and insignificant. Just remember that every objectives accomplished, every goals achieved, every obstacles lifted and every resistance ironed out takes you closer to your dreams. Even if you achieve only 80% of your dreams but that 80% could mean an achievement of many lifetimes for some people. Think about that!

Lets not waste our time toying with small dreams. Small dreams are for people with small hearts. But a man without dreams is a man without soul. Merely living through time without proper purpose is a waste of bountiful resources.

Success : Believing in the Invisible

We have to understand that success is a choice we make. Life is the result of choices that we make and time merely enable them to happen. Nobody else can make us successful except us. We have a personal obligation to our own self to be successful. At the same token, we can choose not to be successful. We have probably seen this happening around us and there is nothing we can do about that. If we choose to be successful, we need to first of all believe in the Invisible. You may say, “What?” I say, “YES”. You see, success started out as invisible because we are not there yet. Success needs to be built over time. We started out our quest for success with nothing and all we have is time. I always say that the most critical resource that we need to manage is not money but it is time. With time we can find or make the money. But money could not buy back for every lost time. What we do with the time that we have will very much determine our level of success. But, time is invisible.

To be successful, we need to have our priorities straight. We need to have the discipline and perseverance to see things through. We need to have the undivided commitment and the endurance to make our dreams a reality. Again, priorities, discipline, perseverance, commitment, endurance and dreams are all invisibles.

Life is about believing in the invisible (ghaib). Life will loose its soul if we stop believing in the invisible. In Islam, the basis of life is the total submission to the Invisibles outlined by the Rukun Iman. Allah is the All Invisible but we believe in Allah as if we can see Him Bestowing His Blessings. The Angels, the Holy Book and the Scriptures, the Day of Resurrection, the Prophets and His Messengers and the Qada’ and Qadar are all Invisibles. The Rukun Islam, through the physical evidence of “ibadah” (practice), realizes the manifestations of the Invisibles. The only way to see the Invisibles is to see things with our heart and our soul will live to believe … until the end of time. Seeing with the heart will penetrate all barriers of sight.

Therefore, since success is invisible, we need to see success with our heart. If the heart could see the light at the end of the tunnel, if the heart could taste the sweetness of success and if the heart could believe then the mind, body and soul could transform the ray of hope into powerful actions that could shake and move the world around you. Believe in ourselves that we can make things happen and let the Almighty with all His Blessings take care of the rest.

Seminar Persediaan Menghadapi Peperiksaan

Musim peperiksaan semakin hampir. Debaran semakin ketara. Tekanan semakin mencengkam. Anda masih tercari-cari program untuk anak2 anda di musim cuti sekolah/bulan puasa ini? Sebagai usaha untuk menjawab 1001 soalan yang bermain di minda dan berlubuk di hati, Gem-Asia Seminars bercadang untuk menganjurkan seminar selama satu hari bertajuk "Persediaan Menghadapi Peperiksaan".

Saya yakin kursus ini sangat berguna untuk anda dan anak-anak anda terutama yang akan menghadapi peperiksaan UPSR/PMR/SPM 2009/2010. Kepada yang berminat harap dapat hubungi Azman Taher (016-980-0558) atau Ahmad Daud (019-950-1212). Berikut adalah maklumat lanjut :-

Yuran: RM40.00 sahaja seorang (Diskaun 10% kepada pendaftaran 2 orang ke atas)
Tarikh: 29 Ogos 2009 (Sabtu)
Masa: 8 pg - 3 ptg
Tempat: Klang Kristal Commercial Centre (bersebelahan Carefour Klang)

Helping Hands

It was the night of 27th Ramadhan and I was traveling from Penang back to Kuantan after spending three days in Penang delivering a seminar in Effective Corporate Governance through Implementing Effective Internal Controls. When it was all over, I called my wife and she asked me “How was it?” And I said, “I had fun and everybody in the class had fun”. She asked again, “How you could possibly had fun talking about corporate governance?” And I replied again, “I don’t know. I always have fun in whatever I do”. After that phone conversation I sat for a while and pondered on the answer that I just gave. How do I continue to have fun in doing the things that I do? Hmmm… something to think about.

It was probably the first time that I had travel this far in the month of Ramadhan and it needed some getting used to because I always wanted to be at home during the month of Ramadhan. But it was this very wee hours of the morning (it was actually 3:30 in the morning) while waiting for my connecting flight to Kuantan that something struck my petals of imagination and inspiration to write this article, which I passionately called “Helping Hands”.

The plane landed in Kuantan at about 8:30 am and got home at about 09:00 am. It was a glorious Sunday morning. The sun was shining gallantly piercing through my glass window. I wanted to snuggle under the sheets but I hate to see a perfectly beautiful day go to waste. I forced myself to wake up and gazed out the window. There was not a single cloud in the sky, the birds were chirping away singing tunes of freedom. The morning air was crisp and fresh. Subconsciously I began humming the tunes of “What a Wonderful Life” in my heart. My heart was brimming with joy. My mind was peaceful and contented. There was a sense of calmness and serenity flowing through my body. Deep inside, I was happy. I was blessed with a lot of good things in life.

As I turned away from the window, my eyes caught a small poster across the room, which read “in order to help others, I must help myself first”. I couldn’t remember where and how I got it but the poster has always been there for as long as I could remember. I didn’t take notice of it before but this time, I could feel something different. Somehow I felt a tingling sensation down my spine. Somehow my nerves were sending signals to my brain formulating pictures and images of a documentary, which I saw a few nights ago about the lives of helpless children in Palestine living in refugee camps. Their living conditions were not even close to what I have here. They lived in overly crowded and cramped tents with no electricity and no fresh water supply. Most of the time they just had barely enough food to eat and they just have enough clothes to cover their bodies for the day. Schools were makeshift huts and even that was considered as a luxury for many children. Entertainment was just mere words in the dictionary. Nobody could tell when it will end. I guess, the right question to ask is, will it ever end? They surely need a helping hand. I sincerely believe that if only all the helping hands around the world could converge and sincerely pledge their commitments to make the life of these helpless children, not only in Palestine but in all parts of the world, which are mostly ravaged by the cruel hands of war mongers, the dirty hands of corrupt politicians and the greedy hands of unscrupulous capitalists, could give light to new ray of hope so that they, these helpless children, could start to believe in themselves and start to appreciate the start of a glorious, civilised and caring world so that history could be recreated for the benefit of mankind.

At that instant I realised that the convergence of many helping hands must start with one helping hand and that is mine. I have been a receiver all my life but the time has come for me to change that. I must change from being a receiver to become a giver. The hands on top are better than the hands at the bottom. The hands on top are the helping hands of a giver. But how do I go about doing this? All of a sudden, I have questions but no answers. I was silently submerged in my own thoughts.

“What are you thinking?” My silent was broken by a familiar voice of my wife’s. Spontaneously I asked her, “How can I be a helping hand?” She took a deep breath, cleared her throat a couple of times and sat on my bed as if a bolt of lightning struck her. After a few seconds of silence she smiled, “Wow, you sure know how to wake me up. Don’t you have any simpler questions?” I know she was joking, but in her mind she was gathering her thoughts. Through the years that I have known my wife, she always seemed to have the answers to all the questions. She said, “To be a helping hand and in the process play some part in changing the world, you have to first of all be successful in whatever you chose to be”. She walked out of the room and I thought, “That was it?” While I was still gasping for more, she walked into the room with a book in her hands. She handed me the book and said, “I wouldn’t be able to explain more than I have but spend some time today to read this and hopefully you will understand what I meant”.

The title of the book was “Over the Top by Zig Zigler”. After spending the whole day reading it, I understood that in order to have a pair of helping hands I need to be successful so that I will have the capability and the capacity to help others. To be successful is a choice and as a matter of fact, to be successful is the obligation of every living mortal. For a man who is still learning in many ways, these revelations managed to unveil the curtains of my ignorance. However, to be successful I have to change. I have to change the way I think and the way I do things. I have to change mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. In order to have a pair of helping hands so that others could benefit from me, I have to continually strive to do my best and be the best because in a world that is rapidly changing and tenacious competition, only the best will survive.

I realise now that “in order to help others I must help myself first” has a deep-rooted meaning than meets the eyes. Helping myself means to be successful in whatever I chose to do and then only I can help others with my helping hands. The convergence of all the helping hands in the world can make this world a peaceful place so that one day we can perhaps “fly to the moon and play with the stars”.

Bergantung Harap Pada Yang Maha Esa

Kejayaan ialah sesuatu yang amat relatif dan mempunyai pentakrifan yang berbagai bergantung kepada persepsi dan kefahaman individu. Walau apa pun, kejayaan adalah milik setiap insan yang bernyawa tidak mengira bangsa, darjat, agama atau warna kulit. Setiap insan yang darah merah panas masih mengalir di setiap pelusuk tubuhnya berhak menginginkan kejayaan dan berhak pula membina kejayaannya sendiri selagi bumi yang terbentang luas ini dan langit biru yang tidak bertiang membumbungi alam fana ini masih utuh menahan mamahan masa. Pengembaraan dan perjuangan membina kejayaan perlu diteruskan selagi ianya belum selesai, selagi keinginan terus membara dan selagi ikhtiar masih terbuka. Setiap usaha yang diperkukuhkan dengan doa dan diperkuatkan dengan bertawakkal kepadaNya akan diberikan ganjaran kejayaan yang amat dicitakan. Ini adalah janji Allah SWT kepada setiap insan yang pasrah mengharapkan pertolongan dan bantuan dariNya.

Bagi setiap insan yang masih bernafas, bagi setiap insan yang jantungnya masih berdegup dan bagi setiap insan yang nadinya masih berdenyut, kematian adalah suatu kepastian yang akan datang tepat pada masanya, tidak lewat atau cepat walau sedetik. Manakala kehidupan pula belum tentu. Adakah kita akan diberi kesempatan untuk melihat matahari esok hari? Tiada siapa yang dapat memberikan kepastian. Adakah kita masih berpeluang untuk meneruskan kehidupan menjelang malam? Tiada siapa yang boleh memberikan jawapan tanpa megucapkan INSYAALLAH. Tetapi, selagi kita hidup dan diberi kekuatan serta kesempatan, kita wajib berusaha untuk membina kehidupan yang lebih baik untuk esok hari. Dengan izin Allah SWT, berkat usaha yang diperahkan, keikhlasan doa yang dipohon dan tawakkal kita kepadaNya kejayaan yang dicitakan dan yang dinanti-nantikan akan menjelma juga satu hari nanti. Tetapi ingatlah bahawa sekiranya Allah SWT tidak memberikan kejayaan yang diidamkan hari ini di dunia, percayalah apa yang kita pohon dan cita-citakan sebenarnya akan dimakbulkan oleh Allah SWT di Akhirat kelak dan Syurga menanti bagi setiap insan yang beriman walaupun sebesar zarah di mana kenikmatan yang kekal abadi sedang menanti setiap penghuninya. Ini adalah sesuatu yang perlu kita yakini.

Semestinya, kita harus ingat bahawa kejayaan mudah diucapkan tetapi hakikatnya “jauh panggang dari api”. Kejayaan sebenarnya “mudah cakap dari bikin”. Kejayaan memerlukan pengorbanan segala apa yang kita sayangi dan kasihi. Kejayaan memerlukan kesabaran, ketahanan dan kekuatan. Banyak halangan yang perlu diatasi. Banyak dugaan yang perlu ditempuhi. Banyak cabaran yang perlu dilalui. Jalan menuju kejayaan penuh onak dan duri. Hanya mereka yang benar-benar berhati cekal dan berjiwa tabah berpeluang dan layak menikmati kemanisan kejayaan. Seorang sahabat pernah mengingatkan kepada saya memburu kejayaan memerlukan kita membuat pilihan. Kita boleh memilih samada untuk menjadi daun atau menjadi pokoknya. Kalau kita memilih untuk menjadi daun, usaha kita tidak akan dapat bertahan lama kerana daun akan menjadi kering dan luruh. Kemudian daun akan hilang dimamah masa dan akan hilang buat selama-lamanya. Mati tidak bernisan. Mati tidak meninggalkan sebarang kesan, hilang bersama peredaran masa dan hilang ditiup bersama desiran angin. Tetapi, kalau kita memilih untuk menjadi pokoknya, walau angin bertiup kencang, walau matahari menyinar dengan gah dan walau siang dan malam silih berganti, pokok akan tetap berdiri teguh memberikan tempat untuk ranting dan daun untuk terus menyemai baktinya. Kerana kuatnya pokok, burung dapat menumpang membina sarangnya. Kerana teguhnya pokok, manusia dapat berteduh di bawahnya. Kerana tegapnya pokok, makhluk dapat mencari rezeki darinya. Daun akan silih berganti tetapi pokoknya akan terus berdiri menahan segala anasir dan gejala yang boleh menganggu dan menggugat kewujudannya. Untuk memburu kejayaan kita harus memilih untuk menjadi pokok supaya kita boleh terus berdiri tegap dengan penuh kecekalan dan kekuatan menahan segala dugaan dan cabaran.

Blog ini bukan bertujuan untuk mengajar pembaca kerana saya percaya 80% dari isi kandungan blog ini telah pun diketahui oleh pembaca. Anggaplah blog ini sebagai medan perkongsian idea dan ilmu. Walau bagaimanapun, tujuan utama blog ini ditulis ialah untuk berkongsi pendekatan dan membina perspektif yang lebih matang dalam kita menongkah arus badai dan gelombang dalam usaha kita untuk membina kejayaan. Maka, bacalah blog ini dengan hati yang terbuka dan minda yang lapang semoga pembaca akan mendapat manafaat darinya seperti mana saya sebagai penulis telah mendapat berbagai ilham dan inspirasi darinya.

Success : God Given Opportunity for ALL

Success can be simply defined as “the ability to achieve what we set out to do”. Just by the definition, every living soul has the ability to be successful regardless of colour, race and education background.

We often hear that success needs a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work. Well, this may surprise a lot of people, but luck has nothing got to do with it. How do we explain luck? It is unexplainable. Why is it then some people are bestowed with all the good luck while others are cursed with all the bad luck? This is just not right.

Lets take a few steps backwards. In some cosmic perspective lets try to understand the purpose of our creation and everything else around us. The Almighty God created the earth, the sky and the universe to submit without question to Allah SWT, the All Powerful, Ruler of the Judgment Day. To express their submission, the sole purpose of their creation is to serve humans. God created cotton and with cotton humans are able to produce bundles of thread from which cloth were made. Cloths were then made into dresses so that humans could cover their aurat in observing their deeds to the Almighty Allah SWT. God created animals that could be slaughtered, plants that would bear fruits and vegetations as food so that humans could consume them for energy and nutrition so that humans could be thankful and steadfast in observing their deeds to the All Knower Allah SWT. God created rain so that all life forms could benefit from the bounties of the Almighty Allah SWT.

Allah SWT had repeatedly narrated this phenomenon by saying “humans and jin were created for the sole purpose of worshipping Me”. Humans have to use their intelligence to transform resources around them so that humans could observe their deeds and make the necessary preparations to face the grim challenges of the Hereafter where the promise of Jannah (Heaven) is the goal of every soul. Heaven is the ultimate destination and the ultimate reward of success where we live eternally.

Therefore, we have the divine right to be successful both here and the hereafter. Allah SWT presents countless opportunities to enable us to pursue the right to be successful and to seek freedom. How many times have prayed to Allah SWT to bestow us with “rizqi” and to shower us with His Blessings. Allah SWT the All Sustainer and the All Maintainer, the Ruler of the Entire Universe, do not lose anything if He were to Grant all of our prayers. As a matter of fact we are obliged to believe that Allah will grant all our wishes, it is just a matter of time. How do Allah help us? By presenting opportunities so that we would make every effort to transform those opportunities into actual results.

But time and time again we have turned Allah down by making up endless excuses when opportunities start to knock on our door. Excuses such as “I do not have the time”, “I do not know how to do this”, “Can someone do this for me?” and “I do not have the money to do this” are commonly heard and enough to deter anyone from making an honest effort.

We need to understand that every single event happened with the Blessing of the Almighty and these events happened for a reason or several reasons. Therefore, from the standpoint of religion, to aspire to be successful is a duty of every man and more importantly to be successful here today and in the hereafter.

Note : This article was extracted from my book “Success, Happiness and Performance : They Are Within Our Control” published in 2007 by Pekan Ilmu Publications. Your comments are greatly appreciated or email me at azmantaher@gmail.com or gemasia2u@yahoo.com.

Put Your Heart on the Right Path

It was a humid mid-August night in Kuantan. It was cloudy. There were no stars in sight. I just got back from another road trip delivering a one-day seminar in Building Effective Performance Management Systems Using KPIs to the management team of Ladang Rakyat Trengganu Sdn. Bhd. We emphasized on the main virtues of honesty, integrity and most of all truthfulness in ensuring effectiveness and efficiencies of work process implementation. Once again, on my way home while Light FM was playing a favourite 80s tune “What Does Love Got to Do With it” by Tina Turner, the word truth comes to my mind. The truth is, the word truth is such a relative word. The word truth means differently to different people. How do we know that we have been truthful? What is truthful to me could be dishonesty to another. What is truthful to me could mean betrayal to another. What is truthful to me could mean disloyalty to another.

The fact is that sometimes “truth” is not well-defined. Truth is a lot of times start in the gray area. With the right interpretations, the gray area could turn to white and everything becomes crystal clear. But with the wrong interpretations the gray area could turn to black and everything got lost in translation. Interpretations require wisdom and wisdom requires knowledge and experience. In the end, we can’t see the truth with our naked eyes but we need to see the truth with our heart. When the heart believes, the mind will conceive. When the heart starts to see, then the heart could penetrate all barriers of sight.

But the heart could only see the truth when we could start to put the heart on the right path. Actually, this is easier said than done. Most of us used logical thinking to navigate our way through in order for us to see the truth. Logical thinking only see things from a binary standpoint. It’s either yes or no, right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable, white or black and nothing in between. But when the heart feels strongly about something, there’s virtually nothing could stop it from continuing to believe and starts building hope around it. When the martyrs of Badar fought against the disbelievers, logical thinking may suggest that it was sheer suicide. How could 313 men fought against 1,000? But the 313 men could see the Promise of Allah SWT with their heart. The 313 men of Badar could see the sheer ecstasy of becoming eternal dwellers of Heaven. The 313 men of Badar searched for the truth with their hearts. The 313 men of Badar put their hearts on the right path.

Sometimes the truth hurts. That maybe true. But the most important thing is, if we could see the truth with our heart on the right path, we will always be at ease with ourselves, at peace with our mind, and will feel a sense of calmness and serenity with every beat of the heart. If the “truth” do not bring peace to the mind, contentment to the heart and always feel that we could have done things differently, then chances are we probably did not put our heart on the right path when we set out to search for the truth. Think about it …

In the end, the essence of life and living is always about searching for the truth. But we can only find the truth if we could put our heart on the right path. And the right path will always lead us to the path of Allah SWT, the Almighty, the Sustainer, the Merciful and the Creator of the entire Universe.