Superstar in the making

LAST Saturday I attended my daughter’s A-Level graduation ceremony. One of the highlights of the event was when she was named Best Student of the college’s Architectural programme. While it was great news, we were not entirely surprised because Anis had previously been awarded a similar accolade.

This is just one of her steps towards achieving her long-term vision of becoming her version of a superstar. As parents, we have always supported her ambitions; in fact, we actually call her a “superstar-in-the-making”.

Such is the power of vision; it drives us to achieve the impossible. During the graduation ceremony, we were further enlightened and presented with words of wisdom by the person in charge of officiating the ceremony, Dr Khairul Anwar Mohd Jais. What he said that day struck me.

As a senior educator, he has been sharing his success formula with all his students. The formula, he says is called 3H — which stands for “Handson, Heads-on and Hearts-on”.

With the heads-on, one should plant the seed of success through rational thinking. Once we set our minds to seek something, the strong commitment to follow through will come along. The hearts-on section is where passion and determination come into play.

Whatever the mind can conceive, the heart can believe. Combined, they provide powerful weapons to combat any challenges ahead.

Passion is when we love what we do. In Anis’ case, she has loved art ever since she was a child. Our job was to encourage her to pursue her passion further by providing her with anything she needed. We reminded her that when it came to her pursuing her aspirations and ambition, we would not spare anything as long as we could afford it.

This leads to the third “H” mentioned by Dr Khairul: Hands-on. To pursue our dreams and goals, we must not be afraid to do the “dirty work”. This means, we have to get involved and do the hard work — be it working very hard to complete an assignment or sacrificing leisure time