Believe in yourself, be passionate and patient

The best piece of advice I ever received was to always have priorities in your life which cover both professional and personal goals. There should always be something more important than your job. I am a driven professional and consider myself reasonably career-oriented. This advice reminds me that in the end there are things – family, health, friendship foremost of all – that are more important in life than any job. This allows me to stay grounded when I have great professional success and prevents me from getting too depressed when I hit professional challenges.

How do you stay abreast of issues affecting your industry? I am a digital native, and so I learn from my network. The people, who I trust, often provide me with the news and opinions that inform me of the changes in the world.

What do you think is Malaysia’s greatest brand? Without a doubt, it has to be Tourism Malaysia. There is no one who cannot complete the iconic phrase ‘Malaysia, Truly Asia!”

Blue or red ocean strategy? Or neither? Why? My strategy is based on a line of thinking known as “first principle thinking” where after some consideration; we arrive at certain unshakeable “truths”. All of the innovation and planning is then based on these truths, and this allows you to innovate in clear leaps, rather than building small improvements onto something that already exists. This contrasts with an analogue mode of thinking where we are doing something but it is something that has already been done before or is what people are now doing.

In the end, everything should be driven by the truth and we should always leverage on that as our guiding principle.

A must-read for every business owner/ manager is... Time to Think by Nancy Kline. It will fundamentally change how you think and help others think, by changing the way in which you listen. It was a real eyeopener and the PropertyGuru leadership team has benefited from reading and working on this methodology together.