The Beginning: My Story

TRANSCIPT EP1
Welcome to Woman Leadership show. I'm Janet and in this episode, I will be sharing with you my personal story. 

I am the only child and my parents were divorced when I was at the age of 6 years old. As my mum had to work, I lived with my grandparents together with my aunty family at a provision shop helping out with deliveries, sales and packing before and after school. I moved out from there at the age of 19 years old and stayed with my mum till I got married. My late mum has recently passed away on Nov last year after suffering from Parkinson since 2015 and a fall in 2017 had caused her to be bedridden the last 2 years. 

During my growing up days, I envied my friends who have parents as role model, parents they can have heart to heart talk and do things together regularly such as watching movies, going to picnic, doing sports and spending time together. I seldom get to do those my late mum who needs to work to support me and herself then. 

I have grown up without a role model and I observed through my interactions with grandparents, aunty and uncles, however I was did not have a happy childhood. I was not shown care and love but just another child who could help in the shop and took care of cousins. At times, I felt I was a child labor without being paid to do the work. My unhappy childhood had caused great impact on my thinking and my limiting beliefs in my first 10 years of working which it took me another 10 years to work on healing myself through various programs and support groups.  

I have always wanted to prove to my relatives and others that I am good and my late mum would be proud of me. I have always thought that I am not good that’s why I was not well liked by the relatives. That has also led me into suicidal thoughts and depression during secondary and Junior College days though I was the cheerful and bubbly girl in school who was a prefect, someone who participate in various sports events such as school marathon, field track competition, house cheerleader, debate and was head of JC interaction club. Fortunately, I was able to get out of my depression then and not having to take medication. 

When I was searching for my first job, I did not know what I wanted to do in my life and work so I just applied for any admin job. By chance, I went into Human Resources and have since been growing my career in areas supporting Leaders and Employees in Talent Management, Leadership Development, Personal Effectiveness and Engagement. Because of my profession, I have also personally grown tremendously and developed to a stronger and resilient woman who juggles between 3 growing children who are now 15, 13 and 11 years old without any of their grandparents or in laws to support and a career and especially so in the last 2 years when my mum was bedridden who required 24/7 care to her daily and medical needs. 

Looking back at where I am now, my late mum has always been my role model though she did not get to take care of me when young and has her way of showing her love in different ways. I used to blame her for my bad childhood and what I have to suffer during childhood. Though she was just a normal worker earning income with jobs such as promoter, house cleaning and those manual jobs, she has demonstrated to me she is leader in her own way. My friends would comment that they admired my mum who was able to achieve financial independence as Single mum and many who were working was not able to do so.

I have learned to be resilient and resourceful by observing her to be one who will look for solutions and find ways to support herself and me to achieve financial freedom before her passing away. Now I think she was a very independent woman who also took care of my grandmother who is 93 years old now for over 20 years. She has inspired me to step out of my comfort zone and made the first step in what I like to achieve and not regret much later on when opportunity has gone. 

I hope my story will inspire you to step out of your comfort zone and do something that is close to your heart and achieve your goals in 2020. 

I look forward to seeing you in my next episode where I will be sharing with you tips and ways to realize your full potential as a leader on Woman Leadership.