What do you remember the most from your childhood? Is there any special memory you’d like to share?

Growing up in Alor Setar, Kedah, the memories that will always stay with me were the paddy field behind my house, the sound of nature, the train crossing, and the harmonious life with my close-knitted neighbourhood. We lead a simple life, yet full our laughter and happiness. Once a year, we celebrate the Sultan Kedah's birthday with a joyous event and parade. Since my house is located in front of the King's Palace, I am lucky to get to see the earliest part of the event, as normally the parade will start from the palace.

Growing up, what were those habits that made you the person that you are today?

Since young, I was surrounded by an entrepreneurial persona - my late grandmother and her strong-willed, like-minded ladies' friends. I had always accompanied them for buying missions, bought household items in bulk to be sold through installment plan to others, a popular method of purchasing back then. I believe if there are suitable entrepreneur development programs in place back then, they are able to prosper as successful entrepreneurs.

Thus, though I did not become an entrepreneur myself, the spirit of entrepreneurship and their strong-will guided me to assist the development of entrepreneurs.

What would you like to share about your family, your bond with them, how do you stay together despite the busy lives we live?

I am blessed with 2 sons, who are both in elementary school. I must admit that works does take away some of their well-deserved time with me. Thus, whenever available, I will make quality time to bond with them by listening to their ideas, inspiration, taking interest in what they like, and spend the bedtime listening to their stories - which come from their imagination. I encourage them to share their imagination and ideas for them to build confidence and become more creative in problem-solving and decision making - a trait which I believe the most important part in life. Combination of the skills and the right attitude improves one's EQ.

Where do you draw your strengths from? Who or what are the biggest inspirations of your life?

My biggest inspiration in life would be my late grandmother, who was a cheerful, creative, and industrious lady and my ever-energetic mother. Both of them are strong-willed and generous ladies. In whatever they do, they will do with the best intention to ease others' life. As the result, they got back what they give through never-ending support from family, friends, and those whom they have helped in various aspects of life.

Their sincere heart and strength inspire me to push myself forward and overcome obstacles in life while empowering people around me.

What is your formula of balancing your work and personal lives and being an ace in both?

Realising that my works may drive me away from family life, I try to have quality time with them whenever possible. Picking up new hobbies that can be shared with my kids, having a vacation with them and simple things that we can do together - e.g. involving everybody in house chores keeps the bond stronger.

What disparity do you still see on the gender front at the workplace?

I am lucky that my company is non-gender biased! My company treats both genders equally. I myself, believe that gender plays a very less role in one's ability and work performance.

If you would be given the superpower for one day to do something for Women, what would be that?

I will make all women are able to prosper without dealing with work-family guilt! As a career woman myself, I understood the working mum’s dilemma. The feeling of left out with kid’s growth and the need to catch up with work at the same time is torturous for working women. As summed up by Amy Westervelt in her book ‘Forget Having It All’, “We expect women to work like they don’t have children and raise children as if they don’t work.”. Working mothers always find it difficult to carry both responsibilities – of raising kids while working.

Thus, I hope to make a better world for working mothers and better support for the working mothers to ensure good mental health and guilt-free living.

What is the happiest moment of your life that you’d like to share?

The happiest moments in my life would be:

1. Able to hold my kids after an exhausting day at work

2. During the budget announcements – whenever there are allocations announced for my organization, I am ecstatic that my team’s hard work pays and entrepreneurs are able to benefit from the allocation. The spillover effect is tremendous, that the employees of the entrepreneurs too, will be able to provide for their families. For that, it brings me happiness.

What was the biggest setback in your life and how did you overcome it?

The biggest setback in my life was when I have been diagnosed with autoimmune (SLE) in November 2018. It started with me vomiting for days and turn to a vegetative state. The vital organs works 50-50/60-40 only. It took the docs a week to find out what was wrong with me. A shocking news, since SLE is not in my gene!

After some time, the doc found out that it triggered due to my high-stress level. I had even been diagnosed with hypertension just 2 weeks before being warded again. It was all because of high-stress level for about 8 years due to work nature.

I work 9-9 or more most of the days. Was working under pressure and did not even realised it. Just get along because I wanted everything to run smoothly. Not knowing that it affected my health adversely.

Within these 2 years, my body had been probed here and there for the various test.

In December 2020, as usual, I met the doc for a routine appointment. I was in tears when the doctor asked me how I managed to get the SLE in my blood almost to the normal rate. It was a miracle! 

The road to recovery has been rocky for me.

After diagnosed with SLE, I struggled with depression and anxiety disorder. The effect of medications made it worse. I barely sleep at night, my mind was busy worrying about everything. I lost self-esteem due to ballooning body and weight gain. Suffered mind-fogging and it leads to anxiety, thus self-isolation. I was not myself and avoided to meet people.

While going through the phase, another challenge came. I was being promoted to lead my current team. Meeting the expectation to lead the team was not easy. I suffered burnouts trying so. Health gotten worse. However, I refused to share my suffering because I did not want to be seen as incapable leader.

Until at some point, I could not contain it anymore as things are getting out of hand. I carefully selected several colleagues that I trust to share the issue. It works a miracle! I started to accept myself, deal with the anxiety, and increased self-confidence. My mind is more at ease and it improves my well-being!

Sharing the worries put my mind at ease and it improves my well-being. Best of all, I gained support to improve health. After all, life is not about waiting for the storms to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.

Well, I am not free of SLE yet, might never will, but I believe that God’s will, faith, keeping the medication routine MENTAL HEALTH does it all!

Share any initiative/s you have taken to empower other women if any?

Amazing things happen when women help other women. Being a mother myself and understand the value of family, thus I am flexible for my staff to make time for their family. It helps them to ease the work-family guilt while raising the family.

I am blessed with wonderful teammates who are able to do wonders while juggling with family – especially during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period when meeting the kids’ education need is demanding due to home online learning. During this period, though it was the first time for us to experience Working From Home (WFH), my teammates were able to accomplish numerous projects.

They are the living proof that the hands who rocks the cradle are able to rock the world!

Define in your own words - #WorkingWomenWonders

Each working woman has a wonderful story to tell, for they are heroes in two worlds called Family and Career.

About SCIKEY: