RESILIENCE

Malaysians don’t have it easy. Leaving parents behind in Johor Bahru, Lawrence Wong has carved a path for himself. He shares how he did it

ONE THING DISCIPLINE HELPS YOU WITH, is that it helps you get things done. When you get things done, you get more success and a big pa of success is just doing it. You’re not going to be pe ect every day. There are days when you just push through, and those days will be more numerous than days that are smooth sailing. One of the big problems is just si ing down and ge ing through it. You have to overcome resistance. It didn’t ma er how many “lousy roles”

I got, I did them and when I felt that the local market wasn’t right for me, I went overseas. I went to Thailand, not knowing a word of Thai and memorised my lines. I took pride in that. Out of that discipline, things sta ed to happen, I was developing my potential.

Life is hard, there were challenges but I never thought of qui ing. I knew I had something (acting) I wanted to share with the world. You need to have some belief in yourself even when nobody

believes in you because if you don’t, how do you expect strangers to? This is the nature of trying to get good at something, even when people don’t see it in you, you have to see it in yourself and figure out how to let it shine.

The more effo I put into my cra , be it acting or Grail, the more I create my own struggle. People need challenges to grow. When I don’t nail a role or pe ect a product, I learn from it. People learn more from ge ing things wrong than ge ing things right. What makes me be er as a person and as an actor, is also doing the things that I’m completely comfo able with. You get so much benefit from a struggle you choose rather than ones that life throws at you.

Building up that ability to endure things and not running from discomfo will ultimately see you doing things outside of your comfo zone before you finally get that role of a lifetime.