A good leader has to be a great follower
What makes a good leader? If you follow a person you can always find flaws and they can always fail you.
Dr. Arif once said, "You have succeeded not when things run if you are there, but if things run even when you are not. You succeed if you can create a system."
Similarly, a good leader knows he cannot watch his followers and be with them all the time and so he gives them something greater than himself, a system. A system with rules that they should follow even if he is not there.
A great leader knows that a system merely imposes rules but does not give motivation and will. He gives them a vision instead. A vision of something great that they too can be part of.
An excellent leader follows that same system himself. And he follows it so well that all his followers are now his believers. And they will follow that vision to his death, and even after it.
The truly excellent leader realizes that he too must follow this grand vision that he gives to his people. After all, if he cannot follow that vision, why should they?
And so an excellent leader must be an even better follower and he must follow a vision greater than his own self.
This must be how a father feels…
Just over a week ago, the 9th IIUM Interschool Debating Championsip started. Nearly 80 schools from all over Malaysia, coming together to debate. There were a few categories: the Malay, English and even Arabic debates. But of course, my interest was mainly for the English debates.
The brother
My youngest brother, Affan, debates. He's been debating for just about a year. His team (Al-Amin Gombak) also ranked first in this year's Interschool debates.
Ranking first is... *drumroll* Al-Amin Gombak!
Yeah, I know it's grainy, but that's the best resolution I could get. I'll put up the proper tabs (digital) next time.
So I'm really proud of him. He's only in Form 3! And since he basically skipped a grade, you could even consider his age to be in Form 2.
The story
We were in the hall, just after 6 intense rounds of debating. They were just about to announce the rankings. Al-Amin Gombak had already had 5 wins and had just met up against MCKK in the 6th round. It was a silent round though, which meant that no one knew who won or lost! We were waiting in suspense wondering who won the last round.
And they kept delaying it! First talking about the tournament, then making one announcement after another. Finally though, the big screen up front started up. And...
"Ranking first. The only team with 6-0 in this tournament (6 wins - 0 losses) *drumroll* Al-Amin Gombak!"
The comments
"So, how long did you train them?"
"You must be proud of them."
"What did you do with them?"
The truth
I actually didn't do much. It was all mostly them. I only trained them for about a month before that. Actually, more like 3 weeks. And even during that time, we had the weekends off and they had to go for tuition and other co-curricular activities sometimes.
All 4 of them are pretty smart and have good logic. They can think on their feet. They can solve world issues. In their training, I never told them much about arguments that they should use for this case or that case. (No, I won't tell you more about our trainings. *grin*) They came up with that themselves. Every win they got from that tournament, they got themselves, using their own arguments.
So the arguments were sometimes a little weaker than I would've liked, but oftentimes much better than I would've expected of them. After all, they're still in highschool! I didn't start debating and speaking in front of people until I was 18 or 19. They're starting at 14 or 15... and winning!
So I can't fully take the credit for training them. But I can be proud of them. And proud of my brother. But I suppose my father must feel this even more. After all, I only trained him a month. My dad (and mom) have been taking care of all of us and training all of us for the past 25 years. If this feeling is what it's like to see your child succeed, it's amazing. I can't imagine how it would feel as a father to see your son or daughter doing well.
But it was only worth it because Affan wanted it so much. Not me or my dad. He wanted it, and he got it using his own skills and abilities. I think that's what really makes us happy. That we're not forcing him to do something but that he wants to do it himself.
The future
I don't know what'll happen. But I know that they've already made a target of themselves. From a little known school that most people haven't heard of (did I mention that it's my old school too?) to becoming the top ranking team at a national interschool debate tournament. Some schools will be gunning for them next year. And I'm sure that both sides will have fun doing it.
The other schools
I know you've never heard of Al-Amin before this. I hope that this helps. Because it is honestly annoying that when people ask me what school I went to, and I say "Al-Amin", they get this blank look on their faces.
So maybe now people will think "oh, I know that school", the same they do when people say MRSM or MCKK or TKC. Here's hoping that it'll happen that way.
The ending
After this whole event though, they proceeded to the knockout rounds. They skipped the double-octofinals and won their octo-finals, but were finally stopped at the quarter-finals by KYS (Yayasan Saad College). They were a good team.
So in the end, Al-Amin Gombak never made it to the finals, and they didn't win...
...
...but there's always next year. *grin*
What I learned from theatre
I was feeling bored at the time, with a light course load that semester. So I wandered around, appearing more in the faculties of economics and human sciences than in the engineering faculty where I should rightfully have been studying in front of a textbook. I guess it comes as no surprise then that I had a lot more friends from other faculties. One group of them were English students whom I knew through my good friend Matiin.
And so I heard about how they wanted to cast a play (for an internal theatre competition) and how the English department had a lack of men (because they were taken up by the other competing plays). Put together a bored engineering male (student) and an English play that needs males; what do you get?
We practiced day and night for months! Memorizing the scripts, acting out the lines, vocal training in the middle of the night... It was so much fun. We had a great director too who really knew her stuff and showed us exactly what we needed to do to get it right.
Then we reached the night itself and we performed in front of hundreds of people! I'll admit I'm an amateur but I didn't embarrass myself too badly that night. We came out of it feeling pretty good about ourselves. And I came out of it feeling a little wiser about some things.
1. It taught me that I've come far.
You don't know what you can do until you do it in front of 500 people. I've always had a bad reaction to speaking in front of people. And I've always tried hard to fight against it. Performing on stage was just the best test to see how far I'd come. I was pretty happy.
2. It taught me that rehearsing the same script a thousand times doesn't make it dull.
Repeating that script a thousand times didn't make it dull. It was the same script, day in and day out. But instead of boring me, it made me more connected. Once I knew them by heart, I could stop looking at the paper and really let my imagination move me instead.
But every time we rehearsed it, there would be something else that could be changed, something else to be improved on. So we practiced again and again, each time improving, until we could pull it off with the emphasis needed.
3. It taught me that I can do more.
Too many times I see people limited by what they do. Don't get me wrong, engineering is awesome, maths is fun and physics is the most interesting thing in the world. But they're not the only things I want to be able to do. I want to do more.
4. It taught me how to speak a little louder.
For those who know me, they know I prefer to keep my voice low. I hate people who shout for no reason, especially when they're on the phone. I always imagine that they're shouting because they're afraid the person on the other side is too far away to hear them. After all, they're sometimes a few hundred kilometres away! Lol.
Those vocal exercises they use are really good. They were good enough that they helped us 'project' our voice to the whole audience (we weren't using microphones). So yeah, I can speak a little louder now. But maybe I choose not to.
5. It taught me that you always need to have their backs (in a calm way).
Loyalty is good but it doesn't mean anything unless you can cover your friends' backs when they mess up. One of the things we had to be ready for is if one of us messed up during the actual play. If I forgot a line, or someone else came on stage a little slow, what do you do?
You have to be able to cover. You have to be able to calmly see that there's a problem and not freak out. then you have to do or say something that will prompt the person who made the mistake and get the play back on track again.
And you have to do this calmly so that the audience doesn't suspect there was ever a problem to begin with.
What it sums up to...
...is that theatre is a very enjoyable experience. If you ever have the chance for it, give it a try.
What I learned from reading stories
I grew up in that age when computers weren't common. We had one at home (that ran Windows 3.1!!) that I played some disney games on (hey, I was 6 ok!). But we never played it that much. My parents always pushed us to play properly instead. By properly I mean imagining trolls and wizards, heroes and ninja swords, fighting together to save the world. Well, I was 6.
But even better, they pushed us to read. So when my sister started reading a whole bunch of story books, I figured that I should follow big sis and read as well. Now, when I think back, I realize it was peer pressure. She was half of my play group (my little brother was the other half) so I had to bow down to peer pressure!
So I read a few books. Then a few more. Then more. And then I finished off the books we had. I still remember them. Mostly Enid Blytons at the time; stories about little kids who dealt with imps and witches, stories of children who climbed trees a hundred stories high, stories of boys and girls with a hollow tree in their backyard.
And we begged to buy more books and my parents said yes! So while we waited, we read the books a few more times. Then we went to the bookstore and bought a ton of books (like 3 or 4!!). And we devoured them in a few days. Then wanted more. So we read the same old ones a second time. And a third and fourth and fifth time.
I'm kind of sad that a lot of my generation and the generation after me don't read as much. It taught me so much more than just the stories inside.
1. It taught me to see from 2 perspectives at once.
By its very nature, reading a story book means that you have to see from 2 perspectives. You have to read it and be the one telling the story, telling it as how the author wrote it, with emphasis here, a question there, an aura of mystery when the hero opens the door. You also have to be the one receiving the story, the reader who sits back and enjoys the tale that the author has spun.
It gives you that oh-so-important skill of being able to speak in a conversation and understanding how you are saying it (as the author) and how the listener hears it (as the reader).
2. It taught me to imagine.
How do you teach a kid to have fun and imagine and play? Well, you could just get him a huge empty box and he'd build a fort out of it. Or a time machine. Or a transmogrifier. That's what my parents did. Got me a big empty box I mean. I don't think they know how to build a transmogrifier.
Reading stories only gives you the words. It's up to you to imagine those words, and those worlds. How the heroes look like, and how sturdy the forts are. How fast the horses gallop and how an elf talks. It forces you to imagine, and so... you do.
3. It taught me proper spelling and grammar.
Yes, I'm that guy who hates it when people don't spell properly. If I'm not spelling properly, please tell me. I'll be glad to fix it.
4. It taught me what good manners can be like.
A lot of those stories I read as a kid were stories about kids. And it was always emphasized that you must have good manners. They would mind their P's and Q's when visiting other peoples' homes. They would tip their hat to ladies. They would always help neighbours carry groceries in from the car.
These are acts that can barely be found any more. At least not in my parts of the world.
5. It taught me to write.
How can you know how to write properly until you've seen it done before? Therefore, to write properly you must read properly. It's an amazing feeling to be able to put your thoughts into words, even if it's only for just you alone to see. It's part of why I write on this blog, to write more often so that I don't forget to.
What it sums up to...
...is that reading stories is such a rich experience that I pity those who do not enjoy it. I hope that people will start reading more, just because it's amazing.
What I learned from Math
This will sound really geeky, but I love Math. And it really annoys me when I hear people (and students) say that math isn't important because:
- we have calculators now!!
- we'll never use geometry after high school.
- we can pay our accountants to do our taxes.
This just shows me that most people misunderstand what math is. It's NOT about the numbers. You can hate numbers and love math (theoretically). But calculation with numbers is an essential tool to help you build your math skills.
And what exactly ARE these math skills that I'm talking about? What did math teach me?
1. It taught me to think in abstract terms. I mean REALLY abstract.
Even in lower level math you can see the benefit of this. Imagine 78 cars. Now imagine adding 34 cars to that. Can you imagine it in your head? How many cars do you have now?
As you can see, its ridiculously hard to count the number of imagined cars in your head. Math abstracts it and just makes you add the numbers (giving you 112 cars). Even this low level of abstraction allows us to simplify complicated problems and deal with complicated thoughts. Multiply that ability by 100 or so. Thank god for math. I would've been quite dumb otherwise.
After all, our brains are quite limited. I honestly can't picture 112 cars in my head accurately. Math helps me explain those ideas in abstract terms. More complicated mathematical functions have allowed me to abstract even deeper ideas.
It's probably the only reason I can understand complicated ideas, philosophies and world views.
2. It taught me to simplify and remove whatever is irrelevant.
A math problem can very well give you 30 pieces of information. Maybe only 4 are used to find the answer. The other 26 pieces of information? Completely useless. They clutter your brain and make you think much more than you have to. They make a simple problem look so much more complicated.
When you can do math, it means you know how to sift through data to find only the information that is relevant. All the irrelevant stuff is thrown away.
Now look at life. It turns out a lot of choices we can make and a lot of things we can worry about are irrelevant. Remove that and life seems so much simpler (and definitely more enjoyable).
3. It taught me to only calculate the variables that are in my control.
In math we have two main things. Constants and Variables. Constants are things that cannot and will not change. It's out of your control. It's just the way life is. Don't bother about them. When chance gives you the opportunity to cross it out, then do so.
I do this in life too. I try not to worry about things I have no control over. Usually I don't bother thinking about them. Sometimes, life gives me a chance to remove some of these worries. I try to take them.
Variables are the things that ARE changeable. Sometimes they're not fully in your control. But you can affect them. These are the things worth worrying about, to make your life a better one.
4. It taught me to deal with things one at a time.
It's basically impossible to deal with multiple problems at once. You can't focus on more than one thing at a time, so how do you deal with extremely complicated problems that have many factors that affect them? You deal with it methodically, mathematically, scientifically (which all pretty much mean the same thing).
So you break it down into tinier problems that you can solve one at a time. Example: you're given
y = 3x + 4z
It's too complicated to find what 'y' is straight away. So we break it down and find 'x' first. Then later we find 'z'. Then after that it becomes a lot easier to find 'y'. (If you have no idea what I'm saying it's fine... No, it's not fine! Everyone should know basic Math!)
Conclusion
Math helps on so many level, least of all with calculations. You can do calculations with a calculator, or with a computer. Maths is more than that.
It's about looking at a problem and understanding it. It's about picking out the causes of that problem. It's about knowing what information can help you solve it and what info is just cluttering your mind. It's about writing all that down in a mathematical form so that it can be solved much much easier (remember adding up the imagined cars?).
Math is about solving problems.