From Philosophy to Legacy
Believe it or not, I had never really been interested in business.
Until……i found one worth living for!
Here’s my story…
My father was a businessman in a traditional family trading business passed down from my grandfather. In school days or even as a young adult, i would tag along my dad in the office or my uncle on sales trips, however, that business never seem to engaged me nor showed me a possibility for my future. Too boring, i thought. Perhaps my personality was of a thinker and i assumed that business was just about buying and selling.
My mom was a teacher and one that was an exciting one (not all teachers are exciting i supposed), and she gave us quite an interesting life, exposing us widely to many things, and constantly stimulating my thinking. She set me on a path of endless knowledge accumulation and diverse experiences. As for teaching, i think i had a knack for it. Perhaps even enjoyed it. Alright, i did!
Little would i know that one day, both of those worlds would converge for me. I couldn’t be more lucky. But that would be jumping ahead in my story.
Fast forwarding to the matter, being the thinker that i am, i began to pursue theology in a Bible college. I excelled and was geared towards that career path. I graduated as the class speaker with honors and began serving as a pastor in my church. Preaching and teaching was common for me, but one thing that was lacking in my church was that of an enterprising spirit. It was inward focus and hardly any growth nor enterprising expansion. Something was missing. I needed a bigger cause, a nobler vision. I craved for an expansive innovation that challenges the status quo. I wanted to be part of a movement.
So I eventually decided to quit church ministry. I was lost and searching, not knowing what should I do next, I then went into some of my darkest times of my life…disillusioned. My search led me to a working holiday in New Zealand for 9 months to rediscover myself and try to figure out my future. Sadly it didn’t work and by the time i came back, I had loss my vision and loss the ability to dream big. At that point in time, my vision for my life was probably to just start a micro F&B business and have a simple life.
Through a series of unplanned events, I ended up married and drifted into an architecture business with my wife. Here i began my steep learning curve into running a business. Looking back at it, I didn’t really had a gameplan nor a blueprint for the business. I had no vision for the business nor even a purpose. I was just going with the drift and trying to survive. It was a stressful time. During this time, i really neglected my health, fitness and wellbeing. There were constantly lots of fear and anger as well. I did not love what i do.
Without a solid foundation, a sound business strategy and a cause worth striving for, there came the day where we were almost bankrupt and just a payroll away from announcing to our 10 man staff team that we didn’t have enough money to pay them anymore. I remembered telling my wife that if cash doesn’t come in next month, we will have to give out the dreadful news of our closure. People fantasize the idea of being a boss, but they don’t know the sleepless nights and stress that comes with it, especially if we don’t have a good system and structure in place, we’ll be using our brute force to survive, in exchange for our health and mental wellbeing.
Thankfully, by a miracle, the payments came in and things began picking up and our cashflow improved.
Although we started to make profits, I felt unsatisfied with the architecture business as my future. It lacked
a meaningful cause
a clear mission
a well thought out strategy
an entrepreneurial culture
and a passionate & performing team
that would make showing up to work feeling excited and alive.
When we saw the opportunity, we exited the business and there i was back to my search again. Though I dabbled into investments and trading on the sides, it wasn’t enough to satisfy me. I noticed a pattern about me that would pave the way to who i would become and what i would become good at. That is I needed a compelling purpose and cause to wake up feeling excited to contribute my energy. On the other hand, i lose interest when there isn’t a fight worth living (or dying) for.
Remembered earlier in my story where i said i got lucky? This is where that chapter began.
I joined MOVE Private Fitness in it’s early, infancy days in late 2020. Back then we were a nobody, single branch, personal training business in Malacca. Here was where I got to play a part along with the founders in architecturing up the blueprints and foundations of the company’s culture, purpose, vision, values, mission, identity, strategy and branding philosophy and daily principles and practices along with the business model. I came alive! Here was where i found a business with a meaningful cause, and even more, i get to play an active part in shaping it. On top of that i get to teach it and spread the ideas and frameworks. I was nicknamed the Culture Architect, and funny enough, it eventually became an official position.
We started getting some really awesome people on board who totally got what we were about - you know what they say, your vibe attracts your tribe! We made sure that as we expand, we expand with the same DNA, the same foundation, of having an entrepreneurial, enterprising spirit and philosophy along with it’s systems and structure and dynamically imbued with purpose and a meaningful just cause, leadership development and brand identity, appealing to the whole human’s heart, head and hands. We are reaching new performance heights sustainably.
As of this time of writing in early 2025, MOVE is soon reaching it’s 10th outlet mark and has even expanded overseas, heading towards the year’s USD 4mil revenue target. We’ve got a great leadership team and an engaged and performing workforce. Most of all, we are healthy on many metrics indicating growth and sustainability. Pretty wonderful for a service-based startup from a small town in Malaysia.
The lessons I’ve learned and will carry forward into my work in avantej…
It is crucial to build on a right foundation/DNA
The right foundation has 2 parts:
Having the entrepreneurial, pioneering, risk-taking philosophy, systems and tech
Being clear of the purpose, mission, just cause and culture of the movement
Many founders focus on the business aspect, but totally neglect the just cause aspect. They fail to attract passionate talent and oftentimes they get worn out themselves with the business hustle. On the other hand, some focus on the just cause aspect only, but fail to create a sustainable business model and systems with an entrepreneurial vibe. This too causes the fire to fizzle out. Both are foundational.
Infused early on with strong performance management and discipline
Tracking and determining the baseline metrics that are good indicators of the growth and health of the company such as revenues, retentions, KPIs, OKRs among many more others.
Leveraging on tech to enhance our labor efficiency (as mentioned above, but deserving a key point of it’s own)
Growing a business without tech is like trying to build a skyscraper with hand tools instead of modern construction equipment - without tech, growth becomes painfully slow and inefficient.
A strong and united team is your best asset
It is like a well orchestrated symphony, each playing their parts to the best of their talents, while united as one.
The commitment to enhance and polish the team is also real whereby iron sharpens iron.
When you have found and built a good team, nothing beats the feeling it brings. Going solo just doesn’t make sense anymore.
This has been my story, and it continues to unfold. How about you? Where are you in yours?
Perhaps, you too are purpose & cause driven like me.
Perhaps you have the desire to scale your idea or business and expand your dream team.
Perhaps you don’t know where to start and you need good partners to come alongside your journey.
Perhaps you have no confidence going up against your competitors.
Perhaps you think you have lost your fight and you do not think you have a spark left in your bones.
What if there is a hope, a dream or an advantage available waiting for you to reach out?
What if avantej came alongside you to make those things come true?
What are you going to do about it?
Believe it or not, I had never really been interested in business.
Until……i found one worth living for!
Here’s my story…
My father was a businessman in a traditional family trading business passed down from my grandfather. In school days or even as a young adult, i would tag along my dad in the office or my uncle on sales trips, however, that business never seem to engaged me nor showed me a possibility for my future. Too boring, i thought. Perhaps my personality was of a thinker and i assumed that business was just about buying and selling.
My mom was a teacher and one that was an exciting one (not all teachers are exciting i supposed), and she gave us quite an interesting life, exposing us widely to many things, and constantly stimulating my thinking. She set me on a path of endless knowledge accumulation and diverse experiences. As for teaching, i think i had a knack for it. Perhaps even enjoyed it. Alright, i did!
Little would i know that one day, both of those worlds would converge for me. I couldn’t be more lucky. But that would be jumping ahead in my story.
Fast forwarding to the matter, being the thinker that i am, i began to pursue theology in a Bible college. I excelled and was geared towards that career path. I graduated as the class speaker with honors and began serving as a pastor in my church. Preaching and teaching was common for me, but one thing that was lacking in my church was that of an enterprising spirit. It was inward focus and hardly any growth nor enterprising expansion. Something was missing. I needed a bigger cause, a nobler vision. I craved for an expansive innovation that challenges the status quo. I wanted to be part of a movement.
So I eventually decided to quit church ministry. I was lost and searching, not knowing what should I do next, I then went into some of my darkest times of my life…disillusioned. My search led me to a working holiday in New Zealand for 9 months to rediscover myself and try to figure out my future. Sadly it didn’t work and by the time i came back, I had loss my vision and loss the ability to dream big. At that point in time, my vision for my life was probably to just start a micro F&B business and have a simple life.
Through a series of unplanned events, I ended up married and drifted into an architecture business with my wife. Here i began my steep learning curve into running a business. Looking back at it, I didn’t really had a gameplan nor a blueprint for the business. I had no vision for the business nor even a purpose. I was just going with the drift and trying to survive. It was a stressful time. During this time, i really neglected my health, fitness and wellbeing. There were constantly lots of fear and anger as well. I did not love what i do.
Without a solid foundation, a sound business strategy and a cause worth striving for, there came the day where we were almost bankrupt and just a payroll away from announcing to our 10 man staff team that we didn’t have enough money to pay them anymore. I remembered telling my wife that if cash doesn’t come in next month, we will have to give out the dreadful news of our closure. People fantasize the idea of being a boss, but they don’t know the sleepless nights and stress that comes with it, especially if we don’t have a good system and structure in place, we’ll be using our brute force to survive, in exchange for our health and mental wellbeing.
Thankfully, by a miracle, the payments came in and things began picking up and our cashflow improved.
Although we started to make profits, I felt unsatisfied with the architecture business as my future. It lacked
a meaningful cause
a clear mission
a well thought out strategy
an entrepreneurial culture
and a passionate & performing team
that would make showing up to work feeling excited and alive.
When we saw the opportunity, we exited the business and there i was back to my search again. Though I dabbled into investments and trading on the sides, it wasn’t enough to satisfy me. I noticed a pattern about me that would pave the way to who i would become and what i would become good at. That is I needed a compelling purpose and cause to wake up feeling excited to contribute my energy. On the other hand, i lose interest when there isn’t a fight worth living (or dying) for.
Remembered earlier in my story where i said i got lucky? This is where that chapter began.
I joined MOVE Private Fitness in it’s early, infancy days in late 2020. Back then we were a nobody, single branch, personal training business in Malacca. Here was where I got to play a part along with the founders in architecturing up the blueprints and foundations of the company’s culture, purpose, vision, values, mission, identity, strategy and branding philosophy and daily principles and practices along with the business model. I came alive! Here was where i found a business with a meaningful cause, and even more, i get to play an active part in shaping it. On top of that i get to teach it and spread the ideas and frameworks. I was nicknamed the Culture Architect, and funny enough, it eventually became an official position.
We started getting some really awesome people on board who totally got what we were about - you know what they say, your vibe attracts your tribe! We made sure that as we expand, we expand with the same DNA, the same foundation, of having an entrepreneurial, enterprising spirit and philosophy along with it’s systems and structure and dynamically imbued with purpose and a meaningful just cause, leadership development and brand identity, appealing to the whole human’s heart, head and hands. We are reaching new performance heights sustainably.
As of this time of writing in early 2025, MOVE is soon reaching it’s 10th outlet mark and has even expanded overseas, heading towards the year’s USD 4mil revenue target. We’ve got a great leadership team and an engaged and performing workforce. Most of all, we are healthy on many metrics indicating growth and sustainability. Pretty wonderful for a service-based startup from a small town in Malaysia.
The lessons I’ve learned and will carry forward into my work in avantej…
It is crucial to build on a right foundation/DNA
The right foundation has 2 parts:
Having the entrepreneurial, pioneering, risk-taking philosophy, systems and tech
Being clear of the purpose, mission, just cause and culture of the movement
Many founders focus on the business aspect, but totally neglect the just cause aspect. They fail to attract passionate talent and oftentimes they get worn out themselves with the business hustle. On the other hand, some focus on the just cause aspect only, but fail to create a sustainable business model and systems with an entrepreneurial vibe. This too causes the fire to fizzle out. Both are foundational.
Infused early on with strong performance management and discipline
Tracking and determining the baseline metrics that are good indicators of the growth and health of the company such as revenues, retentions, KPIs, OKRs among many more others.
Leveraging on tech to enhance our labor efficiency (as mentioned above, but deserving a key point of it’s own)
Growing a business without tech is like trying to build a skyscraper with hand tools instead of modern construction equipment - without tech, growth becomes painfully slow and inefficient.
A strong and united team is your best asset
It is like a well orchestrated symphony, each playing their parts to the best of their talents, while united as one.
The commitment to enhance and polish the team is also real whereby iron sharpens iron.
When you have found and built a good team, nothing beats the feeling it brings. Going solo just doesn’t make sense anymore.
This has been my story, and it continues to unfold. How about you? Where are you in yours?
Perhaps, you too are purpose & cause driven like me.
Perhaps you have the desire to scale your idea or business and expand your dream team.
Perhaps you don’t know where to start and you need good partners to come alongside your journey.
Perhaps you have no confidence going up against your competitors.
Perhaps you think you have lost your fight and you do not think you have a spark left in your bones.
What if there is a hope, a dream or an advantage available waiting for you to reach out?
What if avantej came alongside you to make those things come true?
What are you going to do about it?
Believe it or not, I had never really been interested in business.
Until……i found one worth living for!
Here’s my story…
My father was a businessman in a traditional family trading business passed down from my grandfather. In school days or even as a young adult, i would tag along my dad in the office or my uncle on sales trips, however, that business never seem to engaged me nor showed me a possibility for my future. Too boring, i thought. Perhaps my personality was of a thinker and i assumed that business was just about buying and selling.
My mom was a teacher and one that was an exciting one (not all teachers are exciting i supposed), and she gave us quite an interesting life, exposing us widely to many things, and constantly stimulating my thinking. She set me on a path of endless knowledge accumulation and diverse experiences. As for teaching, i think i had a knack for it. Perhaps even enjoyed it. Alright, i did!
Little would i know that one day, both of those worlds would converge for me. I couldn’t be more lucky. But that would be jumping ahead in my story.
Fast forwarding to the matter, being the thinker that i am, i began to pursue theology in a Bible college. I excelled and was geared towards that career path. I graduated as the class speaker with honors and began serving as a pastor in my church. Preaching and teaching was common for me, but one thing that was lacking in my church was that of an enterprising spirit. It was inward focus and hardly any growth nor enterprising expansion. Something was missing. I needed a bigger cause, a nobler vision. I craved for an expansive innovation that challenges the status quo. I wanted to be part of a movement.
So I eventually decided to quit church ministry. I was lost and searching, not knowing what should I do next, I then went into some of my darkest times of my life…disillusioned. My search led me to a working holiday in New Zealand for 9 months to rediscover myself and try to figure out my future. Sadly it didn’t work and by the time i came back, I had loss my vision and loss the ability to dream big. At that point in time, my vision for my life was probably to just start a micro F&B business and have a simple life.
Through a series of unplanned events, I ended up married and drifted into an architecture business with my wife. Here i began my steep learning curve into running a business. Looking back at it, I didn’t really had a gameplan nor a blueprint for the business. I had no vision for the business nor even a purpose. I was just going with the drift and trying to survive. It was a stressful time. During this time, i really neglected my health, fitness and wellbeing. There were constantly lots of fear and anger as well. I did not love what i do.
Without a solid foundation, a sound business strategy and a cause worth striving for, there came the day where we were almost bankrupt and just a payroll away from announcing to our 10 man staff team that we didn’t have enough money to pay them anymore. I remembered telling my wife that if cash doesn’t come in next month, we will have to give out the dreadful news of our closure. People fantasize the idea of being a boss, but they don’t know the sleepless nights and stress that comes with it, especially if we don’t have a good system and structure in place, we’ll be using our brute force to survive, in exchange for our health and mental wellbeing.
Thankfully, by a miracle, the payments came in and things began picking up and our cashflow improved.
Although we started to make profits, I felt unsatisfied with the architecture business as my future. It lacked
a meaningful cause
a clear mission
a well thought out strategy
an entrepreneurial culture
and a passionate & performing team
that would make showing up to work feeling excited and alive.
When we saw the opportunity, we exited the business and there i was back to my search again. Though I dabbled into investments and trading on the sides, it wasn’t enough to satisfy me. I noticed a pattern about me that would pave the way to who i would become and what i would become good at. That is I needed a compelling purpose and cause to wake up feeling excited to contribute my energy. On the other hand, i lose interest when there isn’t a fight worth living (or dying) for.
Remembered earlier in my story where i said i got lucky? This is where that chapter began.
I joined MOVE Private Fitness in it’s early, infancy days in late 2020. Back then we were a nobody, single branch, personal training business in Malacca. Here was where I got to play a part along with the founders in architecturing up the blueprints and foundations of the company’s culture, purpose, vision, values, mission, identity, strategy and branding philosophy and daily principles and practices along with the business model. I came alive! Here was where i found a business with a meaningful cause, and even more, i get to play an active part in shaping it. On top of that i get to teach it and spread the ideas and frameworks. I was nicknamed the Culture Architect, and funny enough, it eventually became an official position.
We started getting some really awesome people on board who totally got what we were about - you know what they say, your vibe attracts your tribe! We made sure that as we expand, we expand with the same DNA, the same foundation, of having an entrepreneurial, enterprising spirit and philosophy along with it’s systems and structure and dynamically imbued with purpose and a meaningful just cause, leadership development and brand identity, appealing to the whole human’s heart, head and hands. We are reaching new performance heights sustainably.
As of this time of writing in early 2025, MOVE is soon reaching it’s 10th outlet mark and has even expanded overseas, heading towards the year’s USD 4mil revenue target. We’ve got a great leadership team and an engaged and performing workforce. Most of all, we are healthy on many metrics indicating growth and sustainability. Pretty wonderful for a service-based startup from a small town in Malaysia.
The lessons I’ve learned and will carry forward into my work in avantej…
It is crucial to build on a right foundation/DNA
The right foundation has 2 parts:
Having the entrepreneurial, pioneering, risk-taking philosophy, systems and tech
Being clear of the purpose, mission, just cause and culture of the movement
Many founders focus on the business aspect, but totally neglect the just cause aspect. They fail to attract passionate talent and oftentimes they get worn out themselves with the business hustle. On the other hand, some focus on the just cause aspect only, but fail to create a sustainable business model and systems with an entrepreneurial vibe. This too causes the fire to fizzle out. Both are foundational.
Infused early on with strong performance management and discipline
Tracking and determining the baseline metrics that are good indicators of the growth and health of the company such as revenues, retentions, KPIs, OKRs among many more others.
Leveraging on tech to enhance our labor efficiency (as mentioned above, but deserving a key point of it’s own)
Growing a business without tech is like trying to build a skyscraper with hand tools instead of modern construction equipment - without tech, growth becomes painfully slow and inefficient.
A strong and united team is your best asset
It is like a well orchestrated symphony, each playing their parts to the best of their talents, while united as one.
The commitment to enhance and polish the team is also real whereby iron sharpens iron.
When you have found and built a good team, nothing beats the feeling it brings. Going solo just doesn’t make sense anymore.
This has been my story, and it continues to unfold. How about you? Where are you in yours?
Perhaps, you too are purpose & cause driven like me.
Perhaps you have the desire to scale your idea or business and expand your dream team.
Perhaps you don’t know where to start and you need good partners to come alongside your journey.
Perhaps you have no confidence going up against your competitors.
Perhaps you think you have lost your fight and you do not think you have a spark left in your bones.
What if there is a hope, a dream or an advantage available waiting for you to reach out?
What if avantej came alongside you to make those things come true?
What are you going to do about it?
Feb 27, 2025
