3. Working Hard and Smart. One Step at a Time (2).

In preparation for SPM, I often study until 3.00 to 4.00 o’clock in the morning. I went to bed around 4.00 am and then woke up at 6.00 am for morning class. By 1.00 pm, school usually finished and then I would sleep the whole afternoon, against the rule of the hostel. I would wake up just in time for bath and dinner before attending study night session at 7.00 pm until 10.00 pm. However my most productive study would be around 10.00 pm to 4.00 am in the morning. That is because only few of us left studying at that time, and thus the environment is more conducive. Of course it was against the rules, but after seeing the results in us, the warden seems happy for us to continue studying at those odd times. He understood that 90 percent of those attending the allocated time to study were really there just because they were asked to be there, and not for studying. Consequently, they were doing all sorts of very disturbing noises in the study rooms. Not to mention their efforts in impressing the opposite sex. Sometimes while studying in the early morning, we encounter all sorts of ghostly experiences. Only a few of us could pay the price to study with ghost, in order not to live like ghost in the future. After all, what else could I do, I have a goal to achieve!

Just for a side story. Some of my male colleagues try to emulate the few hard workers like us. They often stayed and slept (not studying) in the study rooms until early morning 6.00 am (leaving the impression that they have been studying the whole night long) and then staggered to their hostel, passing the female hostel. They would be hoping that the girls would notice them as hard workers and be impressed. In fact one particular guy who happened to be my roommate, often set his clock to wake up at 5.00 am, exactly when I usually about to fall asleep. He would then bring his blanket wrapped around his body and grabbed a few books and quickly walked to the study room. He often continued sleep there, waiting for the girls to wake up in the female hostel. When he thought he can be seen by them already, he then walked back home with an act of as if he has been studying the whole night. He would stagger passing the female hostel slowly, appeared drowsy just to make sure he will be noticed, with the blanket still wrapped around his body. He was seen I am sure, because he was very popular among the girls as a hard worker. He soon got married after failing Form Five and settled in kampong with half a dozen kids, became a story not worth repeating to even his own kids. However, that story is just for padding. Hope you learn something from it.

When I was in medical school, every time there was an exam (which always seems to be just around the corner) I studied like I have never studied before. Everything else seemed irrelevant to me once I got myself to work. I forsook everything except the most basic needs like eating, sleeping and going to toilet. Nothing else matter, as long as I could open my eyes, I would make sure they were staring at something related to the subject in question. I worked until I was about to collapse of exhaustion, then I would simply sleep anywhere, anytime. It could be in my room, my cubicle, library or some special room. I would sleep when I am really sleepy, and doesn’t matter what time they were. These usually happened during the study week, when there were no lectures interfering with my own private study. However, I never compromised on sleep. I still slept on average of 6-8 hours per day, no matter how busy studying was. Another classmate of mine work even harder, he studied until his eyes were red, and his appearance turned to zombie-like. He made the medical school his second home. He passed with honor in the course in the final year. He deserved every bit of it. My point is there is no easy success. We all have to work hard for it. I did! I have a dream to fulfill, is there any less I could do?

Did I say just work HARD, no I mentioned work SMART too. That was why I frequently deviated from the rule. That was why I studied when everyone else was asleep (in Form Five), and I slept when everyone was supposed to do their study. Given the situation and the prevailing problems at that time, what the few of us did was a smart thing to do. We could absorb more while everyone else was not around than the whole day of supposedly studying with the crowd.

What I mean by WORK SMART is ‘producing more result in less amounts of effort and time’. In other words it is efficient and effective. Efficient means less effort for more result in less time. Effective means working ONLY on what is required to achieve a defined set of results. Let me give an example, it is very efficient to drive from A to B as compared to just cycling, yet driving is not effective if you are heading toward C (when your intended destination is B).

You got to find the most efficient and effective way of studying FOR YOU. DO NOT try to follow someone else style, do not even try to follow the methods and formula given by other people. Find your own way. In a short while, I will tell you how I did my SMART STUDY, but do not follow them if it is not suitable for you. They are just for examples. The principle is, finding the most productive methods FOR YOU!

I am sure you have heard of study group. This method has been proclaimed as the most productive and beneficial for studying. Let me give you a bit of shock. I found it the most inefficient, ineffective and unproductive way of studying. Complete waste of time... (to be continued)

3. Working Hard and Smart. One Step at a Time (1).

When I was preparing for my SRP, I often read books for hours continually. My fellow friends often asked how I could have done it. They often wondered how I got to enjoy reading continuously for hours. I simply said ‘what else could I do?’

Exactly, what else can I do? Because I have a goal to achieve! That is the power of a goal, the conviction to attain. It makes you to work hard; because there seems nothing else you could do other than striving toward achieving your goal. IF you have not been working hard toward your goal, it may be because it was not really your goal in the first place. You have only deceived yourself in setting that goal – throw it away. Ask yourself again; is this really what I want?

YOUR GOAL WILL EMPOWER YOU TO WORK HARD

When one of Napoleon Hill’s (one of the greatest self motivator and author of all time) employees asked him for a promotion, Napoleon Hill looked at him intently and said ‘if that is really what you want, there is nothing I could do to stop you from getting it’. What he was saying was, if that employee works hard enough, he himself as a boss could not help but to grant the employee the well deserved promotion. That is indeed a revelation for the discerning. If you really want it, nothing can stop you!

I have nurtured my fondness of reading primarily because I love stories. Before I knew how to read, I fondly remembered asking my aunt to tell me all sorts of stories. She was always seems amazed at my enjoyment of her story telling. Every time she tells a story, I will seat and listen with undivided attention with my mouth partly open. I still have that thrill now whenever I watch a good movie (a modern story telling).

After I have mastered reading in Primary School, I became an ardent reader. I read everything I could get my hands and eyes into. This including newspaper, magazines, bulletin and yes the ever famous GILA-GILA (a satire cartoon in Malaysia). In fact I must say thanks to the many humorous magazines that I could get at those times, despite frequent opposition from my parents. The humors somehow keep me entertained and as a consequence, wanting to read further. I believe my fondness of reading is due to the conditioning of my subconscious mind to associate reading with fun, joke, amazement and laugh.

In Standard Three and Four I always sneaked into the ‘library’ in our school (a two doors closet in teacher’s meeting room). I often got scolded for reading books when everyone else supposed to be somewhere else doing something. I was truly a maniac in reading. When finally borrowing book was allowed (Standard Five and Six), I was borrowing at least 2 books per day (the limit was 2 books per week). I borrowed all type of books, including the more-than-an-inch in thickness. My class teacher wondered how I could finish reading two thick books for an overnight lending. I told him I didn’t finish it overnight, I finished it in that afternoon itself. (You can imagine his disbelief.)

Usually, once I started reading a book, I could not put it down. I will read until the story ends. Sometimes I miss my meals and other errands while reading, much to my parents’ displeasure. Another reason I cannot wait until night to finish the book is the fact that we did not have electricity. I do not want to turn an enjoyable reading into a ‘pain in the eye’ reading in front of a kerosene lamp.

My incessant pleasure for reading gives me the cutting edge in my ability in studying hard. This is simply because most of the ‘studying hard’ part is down to ‘lots of reading’. So in SRP preparation, I was glued to books like an addict glued to drugs.

I still remember reading the whole History Text Book for Form One in one goes for less than 3 hours. I like reading story, history book is just a collection old stories. My fellow students hated history subject very much mainly due to many funny names, dates and places that were difficult to remember. I did not pay attention to any of those details when doing the reading for the first time, I just read to get the big picture. After reading it several times, all those details simply pop up in your ‘movie’ when you play the stories in your head.

I even read the numbers in Mathematics Text Book, to my friend amazement. I could read the numbers as if it is just a story. (In fact it is a story of how to solve common problems.) I must give credit to the authors of the Mathematics text books who seem to always present the mathematical problems in a story form, extracted from daily encounter.

One example is, A farmer want to buy x number of chicken to be put in y number of farm. Each farm must be filled up with 20 chickens before he could start filling up the next farm. If each chicken cost the farmer RM10, how many farms he can fill up with 20 chickens with RM 5248? Isn’t that a story? Even better, this story invite you to solve the mystery. Hey … this is like reading the ‘Seven Secret’ stories. By the way the answer is 26 farms.

In preparation for SPM, I often studied until 3.00 to 4.00 o’clock in the morning. I went to bed around 4.00 am and then woke up at 6.00 am for morning class (to be continued ... )

2. Dream The Impossible. Determine to win BIG. (2)

Secondly, there have been nobody (at that time) from my kampong who manage to score a respectable results in Form Five exams (SPM). It seems that Form Five was the limit for academic achievement for anybody who comes from there. Even for those people who somehow manage to get to Form Five, they were always associated with some kind of ‘not so good’ behavioral problems (drugs, gangsterism, unwanted pregnancy, rebellion etc). This happened too often, people at the village started to associate education with negative influence. Most parents were happy if their kids learn enough just to read and count. No more.

As such, I was lacking an inspirational figure. And yet, those were the times when I started conceiving my dream. I must have mentioned my dream to some of my friends as a kid, because I can remember now I was being teased as little ‘Dr Tan’ (after a doctor who was working in Keningau Hospital at that time). As a kid I was teased and mocked by fellow kids. The grown ups at the time however did not even care to bother. The subject of someone from this kampong wanting to become a doctor was not even worth the littlest space of their time and energy.

I had no hope, on the basis my surrounding. Nobody has ever gone beyond Form Five. Nobody had any idea what is the school system after Form Five. I myself did not even realize that Form Six existed until I was well in Secondary school. No discussion at all about the existence of Form Six among the daily conversation of the kampong people. Do not even mention about Matriculation, it was totally a new word to them. University, uni – what? We did not even know how to pronounce it, let alone to spell it.

Thirdly, no one has ever travelled further than the capital city of Kota Kinabalu from my kampong. There were one or two who managed to get a good grade and continue studying in Peninsular Malaysia under Sabah Foundation Sponsorships. However, they went there fully supervised and at a very young age (Form One), so their experience was limited in term of sharing and guidance. There was no university in Sabah at that time. If I want to be a doctor, I obviously had to go to Peninsular Malaysia.

The thought of living in a local hostel far away from family often resulting in many potential students running to their jungle hide out. Therefore the idea of being whisked away in an airplane and stay for months in strange land is definitely something needing more than just courage and bravery. This is the scary possibilities that I have to accept, to nurture my dreams. There was nobody I could ask about how to be a doctor. No soul to discuss about traveling, about buying a plane ticket or boarding a plane or to get around in another part of Malaysia.

I still remember with some degree of sadness when I boarded my first plane, and started looking for my seat number at the back of the seat (thinking it is printed at the back seat like those in buses), only to find out later that I have missed it and now I had to walk against the flow of the passengers.

There were many other problems hampering any potential students in those times. Economic disadvantage is one of the serious hindrances. Others are mediocre health, lack of basic amenities such as water and electricity, language barrier, custom and tradition, poor transport and road condition and geographical isolation. All these were working toward much discouragement for us.

All the problems above render me as ‘out of his mind’ boy at that time. But I had a dream and it was big. It was seemingly impossible. Today I am alive to tell you the truth. I have achieved my dream. It was not impossible after all.

Imagine yourself in a poker game. If you are just sitting there for fun and absolutely no desire to win the bet, you better get up and let somebody else play. Play to win the big money or you will loose! I repeat it again, you will loose big time if you are just sitting there without the wildest desire to win all the money on the table.

Therefore,

DREAM BIG, DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE!

In my seminars to motivate students, I often say to them ‘Do not just write a story, create a history’. You can only create a history if you start dreaming the impossible. If you dreams are too common and plain, then it would be just another story. If you break the academic achievement record in your region, you have created a history. If you become the fist person to go to Australia from your isolated place or you become the first person who takes the Socrates Oath as a doctor from a kampong where nobody had passed beyond Form Five, I think that is a history.

Too many people are simply satisfied with just being at par with the most successful person in their community. And they become just another story. If you surpassed the most successful person, that is a history, at least for you and for the rest of the community.

Now, you may want to look at the goal you have set before. Does it truly represent your biggest and wildest dream possible for you? Why don’t you set the biggest and wildest impossible?

3. Working Hard and Smart. One Step at a Time.

When I was preparing for my SRP, I often read books for hours continually. My fellow friends often asked how could I have done it. They often wonder how I got to enjoy reading continuously for hours. I simply said ... (to be continued).

2. Dream The Impossible. Determine to win BIG. (1).

I trust that you have now set your very own goal. Excellent! This chapter will give you some insights on how to review your goal. If the goal you have set is truly of your own, the rest of this chapter only serves to strengthen it. However if you have set the goal with some apprehension for whatever cause, you may want to re-look at it again later.

It is often quoted ‘Aim for the sun. Even if you missed, you will be still among the stars’. How true indeed. It is okay to dream, it is okay to dream BIG, the impossible dream. Dream the biggest and the wildest you can (of course within the boundary of sanity). But then again, time has proven that even what people may perceive as insanity is not a limit. Think of the Wright brothers who invented flying machine. Their society thought it was not only insane but blasphemy to God when they were talking about flying. We are surely glad that the Wright brothers did not listen to them. Can you imagine the world now without all the flying machine?

There seems to be no limit to what you can dream. You want to be the first Malaysian born President of USA? Sure, why not. Sonia Gandhi (Italian born) almost become the Prime Minister of India. Arnold Schwarnegger of Austrian born may one day become the president of USA.

You want to be the first man to land on the Sun. Okay you can laugh. That is totally insane. But wait, there could be a way. We just don’t know it yet. The problem is, we are currently thinking based on facts available to us now. For every discovery we have made, there are gazillions more we have not yet make. There are possibilities to land man on the Sun. Now you know how crazy I can be when talking about setting goals and dreaming the impossible.

My goal was to become a medical doctor. For some of you who are reading this book, being a doctor may means nothing in the context of dreaming the impossible. We have plenty of doctors now and we have numerous universities and colleges offering medical courses. At the same time, I truly believe that being a doctor is still a dream to most students out there. It still carries a noble intention, prestigious and respectable name for anyone possessing that dream. And it is still grand and mighty difficult to achieve.

However back in my time, in a secluded kampong, the intention to become a doctor was not only difficult, it was a sheer lunacy. It was a lunacy not because of what I wanted to be but because of where I came from. Let me tell you why. First, the name of my kampong was literally ‘earthworm’ in English translation. It was mythically named after a source of water which has resisted an ancient prolonged drought. The drought was very severe. The only brook in that kampong was reduced to an earthworm-sized of flowing water through a bamboo pipe and yet faithfully providing much needed source of life to the community. Hence the place named in such a way. As noble as the origin of the name may sound, you cannot help but feeling very inferior coming from a kampong with that name. With tradition and superstition still strongly manifested in the society, no one did believe that any good can emerge from a kampong named after an earthworm. Some efforts were initially done to change the name (indicating the uneasiness of the fellow kampong residences about the name), however it was never materialised and thus further strengthening the inevitability of the ‘cursed’ state of the kampong. The inferiority was there, not really a good start for anybody wanted to dream big. This factor seems to be quite significant, no one else manage to achieve even half of what I had achieved until today!

Secondly, there have been nobody (at that time) from my kampong who manage to score a respectable results in Form Five exams (SPM). It seems that Form Five was the limit for academic achievement for anybody who comes from there .... (to be continued)