BEGINNING OF MY LIFE
My name is Raja Batumalai. When you landed on this page, I presume you wanted to know more about me. I’m wishing you advance thanks for your interest and hopefully, I can part with a valuable lesson from my life story which I hope would benefit you in some way. I learned the hard way that “Negative” is an important part of the “Positive” process. Embrace it. Rather than avoiding “Negative”, I learned to “Go for Negative”. It became my primary goal to reach each day. The difference between “Wanting Negative” and “Avoiding Negative” made all the difference. My natural fear of rejection practically went away. I became better, faster, and made a lot more money by working along with the “Negative” moments and turning it into something “Positive”.
1972 – 1984 THE BEGINNING OF MY LIFE
I was born in 1965, in a small town called FES Serdang. I lived with my parents, 8 siblings and my cousins. Those days, families of my father siblings stayed together with us and the total occupant in our house was 21 people.
I began my primary school education in 1972 by attending SRJK(Tamil) Serdang. We were a big family so all of us had to show responsibility by working together to place food on the table. I helped my father with his farming work after school every day. I was very active in football and hockey at school.
Once, I completed my primary school, I continued my secondary studies at Sekolah Menengah Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah in Kajang. In 1979, I started to play football for representing my school for MSSM ( Majlis Sukan Sekolah Malaysia ). I traveled around Malaysia to play with different schools and manage to win a lot of medals. We won some and lost some games, but every time I lose a game, I make sure I correct my mistakes and work harder to win in the next game. Learning from negativity started at an early stage where I never give excuses for failing, always be able to overcome my negativity through our action.
My classmates were friends that made me feel best friend can trust and tell anything too and are always reassuring you are okay. In the early days, communication was hard, there were no telephones among our group of friends, I lost a lot of contacts and looking forward to catching up with old times through my blog. I would like to seek to reach out to find my old friends despite having a large online community; sometimes we are unable to make those connections. If anyone is reading my blog kindly contact me via my email inforois@rajabatumalai.com or check my LinkedIn for further details.
1985- 1992 WORKING EXPERIENCE
Investing in yourself requires perseverance and determination. You can do anything you set your mind to, but to achieve your goals, you must be willing to face your fears. You may be reluctant to invest in yourself, however, not investing in yourself is worse, once you realize the price it cost: opportunity, time, learning, and your potential.
I learned this when I join my first job at Jalan Pekeling Plaza, Animal Centre and Pet Corner for the salary of RM180. The first experience will teach you a lot of things, my job scope was dog cleaning, giving dogs bath, feeding them, cleaning their shelters and assisting the veterinarian. I was basically working 24 hrs shift, where I had to handle walk-in customers in the morning, receiving their dogs and also marketing the pet food and other pet-related products. During the night, I had to watch the dogs and clean the shelter, and nurse the sick dogs. I only had a few hours to sleep where I basically stayed in the center. Prof Dr. Siva helped me to understand the art of marketing and developed my people skills by guiding me with basic business management theories.
I continued my career with another job at Hanifa bookstore, where I was a salesperson. I learned the art of sales and administration at this organization. I learned that people are not keen on quality, instead, they were more interested in cheaper price.
WHO I AM IN LIFE
To pursue my passion for learning business, I join Ante Post Sdn Bhd in 1987, under the leadership of Mr. Tsutomu Hirata. He guided me to learn and pursue engineering methodologies, through contracts on conveyer belt systems and mechanical system. This company gave me the opportunity to travel and get exposed to local and international industries such as Tanashi, NEC and National.
I gained knowledge in product management, product exhibition and dealing with distributors. This summarizes how I like to approach business, my business platform, and life. With so many available distractions, the true essence of progress is deep thought, coupled with simplicity. To achieve simplicity, you must remove the unnecessary.
Punctuality alone will get you very far in life. At this organization, I made it a point to be early in everything. Realizing my commitment, Mr. Tsutomo Hirata, my mentor guided me into marketing and business. Ability to understand my mentor implanted business strategies. Through dedication and perseverance, I was promoted to Business Development Manager.
Although I didn’t realize it at that time, I was priming myself to become a successful businessman.