The fear and humiliation of being corrected by the Minister of Trade and Consumer Affairs clouded my thoughts throughout the days leading up to the presentation of our findings in the SACEi Economics Awareness Day on 21 June.

 

Fortunately, the day turned out to be a massive success. My teammates and I, a group of unlikely alliances, began the day pumped and prepared, paying attention to every detail of our booth decorations. We figuratively heaved a sigh of relief as our booth looked impressive. Nevertheless, we were all anxious and nervous as we waited for the Yang Berhormat Saifuddin Nasution to examine our booth.

 

At the moment of reckoning, I inhaled a deep breath of determination and presented our research findings despite my palpitating heart and shaky hands. As I presented, I was reassured by the approving nods and enlightened facial expressions of the audience. Reassured and confident, I proceeded further. A quarter way through the presentation, I actually began enjoying the process of what I initially thought was going to be a nerve-wrecking, disastrous experience. Midway through the presentation, the Yang Berhormat also provided some insight into Malaysian subsidies in transportation and fossil fuel which he then compared to Australia.  To our delightful surprise, the Yang Berhormat was very  pleased with our presentation and was fascinated by some of the subsidy schemes practiced in Australia. In fact, one of the Yang Berhormat’s aides requested a soft copy of our presentation as a reference to review the subsidy schemes of both countries.

 

All in all, the day turned out to be a fulfilling one, and the experience was one that was enriching and empowering. It allowed me to discover my strengths by providing an avenue for me to showcase and fine tune my presentation and engagement skills. More importantly, it taught me precisely how to work with unfamiliar and new teammates by highlighting that building real, genuine relationships is key to a proactive and productive team. 

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I think that my biggest takeaway from this experience is to not fear the unknown. More precisely, to not fear what I don’t yet know. Following our presentation on subsidies to the Yang Berhormat, we also shared our findings to passerbys who were intrigued by our poster displays and asked thought-provoking questions we were unable to answer. Scary as it was, I found that admitting to being ill-informed and being open to learning what it is that we do not yet know was a good strategy in maximising the benefits we could obtain from being put in that uncomfortable situation. And that is the kind of value and attitude I would like to live my life with; not being fearful and always scared of the unknown, but instead adopting an open mindset in accepting what I don’t know whilst being keen enough to find out what it is that I have yet to discover.