#NALS2017: Warming Up To Aina Syahirah Binti Mohd Mokhtar

To start turning our nation’s vision and dreams into reality by 2050, we need young groups of foundational and emerging leaders to start outlining Malaysia’s roadmap on how we can get there.

In this respect, the recently-concluded National Aspiration and Leadership Summit (NALS) 2017 serves as a platform to disperse unlimited knowledge to leaders of tomorrow. It is an effective channel to have dialogues with prominent leaders to discuss about current issues in the country.

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As a proud learning partner, Leaderonomics caught up with Aina Syahirah Binti Mohd Mokhtar, one of the many student leaders involved in organising the NALS 2017. Her life principle?

“Don’t stay in your comfort zone. Sometimes the best experiences in life come from unexpected achievements.”

We posed some questions from our Thinkonomics set, a gameplay that consists of various thinking questions based on our five Leaderonomics values: Relationships, Empowering, Giving, Growth and Building the future.

Q&A session

1. How do you fuel a lifelong passion for learning, innovation and holistic self-transformation?

Passion is the drive behind achieving great things. It will fuel us to push through when we lose hope. If passion is not ignited, we lose half the meaning of learning.
 

2. If happiness is a real currency, what kind of work would make you rich?

Charity work. I love to work in groups, and in charity, we do for others instead of for our own benefits. I feel very happy at every chance that I can contribute back to society. I guess I can be the richest woman in the world if charity works is a real currency.
 

3. If you were a woman instead of a man (or vice versa), how would your life be different?

People would not underestimate my ability at the first impression. Whether we admit it or not, society in general tends to give men more willingly the power to lead, even though women are equally capable to do so.
My decision-making skills would be great since men usually think rationally instead of emotionally. No matter how great you are, because of the way women are naturally wired, we tend to think emotionally when it comes to certain issues. Solving a problem with emotions all the time may aggravate the complexity of the problem.

4. If Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did not exist, would the world be a better place today?

I don’t think so because we need technology to develop a better world. We need technology to simplify tasks and to connect with people all around the world.

5. Your hope for Malaysia.

My hope is for Malaysia to be a country that we can be proud of. Also, to not be a part of society that complains and blames, but possess mature first class mentality. I also want Malaysia to be the best platform for education, because with education, we can change everything.

6. Share with us what you have learnt from any of the NALS 2017 sessions.

One particular session was the “Road to financial liability: Your money or your life.” The lesson from this session is to go back to our purpose as a student to study. I was reminded to invest in our studies instead of in other lesser things. Even if you want to do business or charity work, study is still your first priority.

If you would like to find out more about our Leaderonomics Campus initiatives to help your university accelerate further, email us at campus@leaderonomics.com. To know more about what Leaderonomics do as a social enterprise, check out www.leaderonomics.org. To read more about NALS 2017 feature stories, click here.