8. Look out for oppurtunity (2).

The opportunity came to my life again when I was finally accepted to do a matriculation in a place far away from home. Had I let this opportunity passed, I probably would have never made it to Australia and thus became a doctor. Only later on I realized that Form Six is about the hardest way to get into any universities. I was only 2 months in Form Six and I was already feeling the complexity of the syllabus, mainly because lack of qualified teacher. Had I stayed there longer, I may have terminated my study life earlier due to various difficulties.

I still remember having a Physics Graduate teacher teaching us Add Mathematics. I pitied her because she had to always call her friends in Peninsular Malaysia, just to get solution for some of the problems we encountered.

I soon found out that in matriculation classes, we were having better (if not the best) qualified teachers. Learning therefore was easy. No joke. A topic I tried to understand in 2 weeks in my old school, I grasped in one session (1 hour) in the Matriculation class. It was at that time when I felt sorry for all the students in my old schools for having such second-rated teachers. I wish I could have been here (at a prestigious school) much earlier.

From that time on, every opportunity that came to my way would surely earn my full attention. I would always jump at the latest news and offers. After learning that I could have a chance to go overseas (Australia), I missed no times in trying my luck by applying it. Despite being giggled by fellow friends, I tried. Always believing that shooting for the sun will at worst put me among the stars. I tried and succeeded and the rest was a beautiful history of my life.

Until today, the best portion of my life is the 6 years I have spent in Australia. I can honestly say that I have grown into the adult of I am now, in Australia. I took the opportunity to learn different cultures, different languages and meet different kind of people. Not to mention the beautiful weather, nice environment, established systems and more civilized community. I have also taken the rare opportunity of learning a Bible course while studying medicines. This is something which is quite impossible in Malaysia. There were many other opportunities I have taken which were largely unavailable here in my homeland.

Even at the conception of this book (2004), I am about to take another opportunity which is a major leap in my life. This is a step which could possibly increase my wealth ten folds. It is going to be sure risky one, but so did all the other opportunities I have taken before. It is going to be no different this time. I promise that you will surely know about this in my later books whether this going to be a successful one or a failure. Time will tell.

So look around you, if there are no opportunities, look even harder. If opportunity presents itself, grab it. It may be the turning point of your life.

8. Look out for oppurtunity (1).

This chapter is simple and straight forward. Be alert to opportunities. Once it is there, grab it. It may appear only once in your life time.

If you are sensitive enough, (equipped with wide range of knowledge and exposure) you will be surprised at how many opportunities are there waiting for you (or someone else). There is a saying which goes ‘the quick and the dead’. How true! If you are not quick enough in life, you will be assured of failure (dead).

This is not only true in student life but even more in working life. In my student life, it took me into Form Six to recognize an opportunities. In Form One, there were two classes, 1A and 1B. I ignored the chance to be in 1A by foiling my assessment exams. There were rumours that those in 1A will be subjected to a much higher expectation and thus will be under much more pressure to perform. I was afraid of that pressure and opted for the more ‘relaxed’ class.

I am still not sure about the rumours, but one thing for sure; even in 1B I was still feeling the pressure to beat my classmates as well as the those students in 1A. I would not know what would have happened if I was in class A, but even in class B I managed to break the school record in my SRP exams three years later.

The fact that I have intentionally choose to stay in mediocre class showed my inferior personality and lack of strong desire to be distinguished in academic achievement. Fortunately I was not too late to change.

The story repeated itself after I broke the record in my school in SRP. I was more than eligible for full-boarding school in Sekolah Berasrama Penuh (Full Board School) in Bukit Padang, Kota Kinabalu. Some students who scored lower than me managed to get in. I did not even bother to get the application form and even ignored the suggestion from teachers and friends to apply for the full board school. My reason was similar, afraid of pressure, afraid of freedom limitation and not to mention afraid from being away from friends and family. Even though I still manage to score the highest in my school for SPM, I could not help but thinking about possibility of me scoring even higher if I was in the full-boarding school. I guess, I will never know.

After Form Five, I became more aware of my potential and vowed not to compromised with the prospect of me achieving the highest possible.

In Form Six, despite being too comfortable with friends and the established reputation, I let go off my fears and applied for University Matriculation in a place I would never ever dreamed of going at that time. When I was accepted, I went to Peninsular Malaysia in Taiping Perak alone without having any idea of what would the whole new world hold for me. The journey from a lonely remote place in deep jungle of Keningau to a bustling place in Taiping Perak was one of those dramatic moments in my life worth capturing for a movie. May be someday, I will make a movie out of it.

7. Atitude and Aptitude determine your Altitude (3).

THE WINNING ATTITUDES.

We have been talking about this right from the beginning. They are simply the opposite of the failing attitudes discussed before. In truth all the chapter titles are the summary of winning attitudes. The point is – attitude can be changed. They are not born with you. You can adopt these winning attitudes or you can adopt the failing attitudes. It is your choice.

Life is a matter of choice.

You always have a choice. The biggest lie is the excuse of ‘I do not have a choice’. No – you did have a choice, but you just choose not to have one. When a person says ‘I do not have a choice’ what actually said is ‘I do not have another pleasurable choice’. The usual example of this is when your superior tells you to do something with no option to say NO. Therefore, you will go on and relate to your colleagues that you have to do it because you have no choice. It is true that you have no choice as long as you want to keep the job (choice that is pleasurable). However, if you consider the possibility of not working under him anymore, suddenly there are millions more choices left for you to make. See what I meant.

Everything in life is about making choices. There is even a story about a dying man lying unconscious on an operating table but still able to reason with what was going on. After recovering from the ordeal, he recalled how he was repeatedly saying to himself ‘I choose to live, I could die, I fell like dying, but I choose to live, I want to live’. So he lives to tell the story.

You can choose to succeed or to fail. 30 years from now and whatever you have turned yourself into (a millionaire or a pauper), remember that you have made that choice today. You study hard, you choose to succeed. You do not and you have chosen to fail. It is your choice!

Learn how to say NO.

There is a book called ‘The art of selfishness’. It tells mostly of how important for us to be freed from other people grip and bully. It may sound easy, but you will be surprised how often people say YES when they really mean NO. Needless to say, the consequent of such mishaps can be painful and long lasting. You may have recalled (not so infrequently) how you have reluctantly say YES when the appropriate respond would have been flat NO. I do not need to remind you how uncomfortable it is to live up the ‘YES’ you have so carelessly uttered.

Free yourself. Say NO. People around you will be impressed and start respecting you for your firmness and principles. No? Yes!

Next is 'Look out for Oppurtunity'. Stay tuned.