A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
– Winston Churchill, British statesman who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom twice
In continuation with my previous column where I said that we get broken by many factors along the way, and most times unwittingly it is by well-meaning parents who continue the cycle of devastating trauma on their children that they themselves were subjected to when they were kids. I mentioned how I broke the cycle. My mom raised me up to be afraid of life, having no confidence but I defied it to become the confident, capable woman I am today.
However, we keep flitting from one narcissist to another without knowing it, and I went from having a narcissistic mom to a narcissistic husband which compounded the insecurity, and feelings of abandonment. When you are vulnerable and broken, you attract those who can sniff it and they zero in on you and hold you captivated by their charisma, lies and games.
I kept my insecurities and fears hidden well, as most of us do. Even the most successful of personalities suffer deep down with feelings of doubt and fear that they keep hidden and never resolve because they refuse to face it – thinking that acknowledging these emotions is a sign of weakness.
They go on and achieve incredible things, while constantly in conflict deep inside, never really able to talk about this because they feel they need to keep it all together for the outside world. This is why you suddenly hear about suicides from very well-known personalities who seem to have it all and you wonder why. This is the why.
Facing your demons inside is the strongest act of courage one can take and the kindest thing you can do for yourself. Because talking about it is letting it out, and thereby releasing the welled up pressure inside of you that causes so much pain, effecting you in many other ways.
Once you do that, is when you start living. You shed the old skin of doubt, fear, anxiety, second guessing and you emerge – still the same person on the outside, but a whole new person on the inside. Stronger and with a sense of purpose.
It took me seven years of untangling from a narcissistic ex-husband to finally understand that I did not need him to be successful in my life. That it was always I who was the one who gave so much energy into my business, my family and to him. That I was as smart or even smarter, that I was capable of doing just about anything I set my mind to. All I needed was the confidence and self-worth that I finally gave myself.
Just that one thing changed everything. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle piece just fell into place and light shone from there, illuminating the dark and creating a kaleidoscope of wonderment.
From existing, we started trail blazing, all within two years. Ideas, innovation and creativity started bubbling like Macbeth’s three witches stirring their cauldrons and smoke began pouring out of our cauldrons.
We started creating magic. The IBR Asia Group started making waves. We created VOICE OF ASEAN, our digital portal that connects 10 countries in ASEAN in one platform and we started interviewing the who’s who in the region and beyond, creating our digital talk show and podcast.
We created multimedia newsletters with embedded videos that we sent out to 11,500 decisionmakers across South East Asia and the Middle East, including 544 media houses and journalists.
We revived the IBR ASEAN Awards in 2021 and made it spectacularly different – making it a 360-degree storytelling saga for all our award recipients. And last year, we got the Premier of Sarawak to be our guest of honour and he was so impressed that he asked us to do one in Sarawak for Sarawak companies and we are now doing the IBR Borneo Awards 2023 in July 2023.
I got confident enough of the support to make International Business Review, our flagship publication that is on a controlled circulation to 30,000 top corporate, government and diplomatic decisionmakers go from six times a year to 12 times a year this year in 2023. To be able to offer great storytelling for all our clients – big and small.
And to be able to get a critical mass of support from our clients, we are lowering our prices for International Business Review while offering a whole lot of complimentary support from VOICE OF ASEAN to those who take a 12-month storytelling package.
I hope to tell the stories of Sarawak companies through International Business Review, VOICE OF ASEAN and the IBR Borneo Awards this year. You deserve to have your work and vision recognised locally, regionally and globally. Here’s to creating magic for you. I am just a flight away to help you do that.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune. Feedback can reach the writer at beatrice@ibrasiagroup.com
