Where are our alumni now and what are they up to?
It’s interesting to know where our alumni are now and what they are up to. We are happy to introduce one of our many Train-the-Trainer (TTT) Alumni, Dr Christal Asong. We were very lucky to have gotten the chance to meet and catch up with her recently. Let’s see what she has to say during the brief interview session we had with her.
Can you share a little bit about yourself?
I am originally from Sarawak, born and raised. My childhood, primary and secondary school were all in Sarawak. I came here to pursue my higher education. I graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) at University Malaya (UM) in 2019. I then proceeded with my Housemanship at Hospital Serdang for about 8 months but then decided to leave as I did not enjoy what I was doing.
Not long after I resigned, I made a video entitled, ‘I quit my job – as a junior doctor in Malaysia’ and uploaded it on youtube which surprisingly caught a lot of views. Some even reached out to me, sharing their own struggles in the medical field. During this time, I had several months’ gap to continue my Masters in Bioethics so I decided to do an Internship in Bioethics since I have time to spare. I did my internship with a law firm but once completed, I felt that it was not for me.
At that point, I felt that I was facing an existential crisis and needed help. I didn’t enjoy working in a hospital, I didn’t feel that bioethics suits me, so where do I fit, what am I meant to do?
I pretty much did some soul searching and stumbled upon coaching. So I joined a coaching course and I continued on coaching informally. Most of my clients are houseman’s themselves. Not long after, I got to know this thing called ‘training’ and I realised that I like teaching but at the same time I like to learn as well. And I found out that’s what training is. Coaching is different as it is more to counseling and guiding people with a certain problem and then trying to find ways to solve it together.
How did you discover Access Ideas or AIM? What led you to choose us?
I talked to a friend who is also a friend of Sensei Fauzan. I told her, I was thinking of going to training. She recommended Sensei Fauzan to me. She told me that he is a really good trainer and I should join his course. So I did my own research, found a lot of good reviews about him. I read his articles and sharings on LinkedIn and I was drawn to a specific article about his journey to become a trainer and how he got to where he is now. It’s inspiring and I felt that that’s what I need, someone I can learn from. I believe that it’s good for me to learn from someone who also went through the same thing. They should be able to guide me as they’ve been through hardships as well to become a trainer. I watched his youtube videos and browsed through his website as well. All that has helped in my decision making to sign up with AIM. His LinkedIn was linked to AIM’s website so that’s how I got to know about TTT and signed up for the programme.
How does the TTT programme help you? / How did you benefit from the programme?
Before this, I had absolutely no idea about the programme. I am from a medical background. My whole entire world was about medicine. When I got out of the medical field and came across coaching and training, I needed guidance as I am very very new to it. I know that I should surround myself with people who are in this industry. Having attended TTT made me understand everything there is to know about training. I got to know about the terms used, the system, and the ecosystem around the training industry in Malaysia; about HRD Corp, HRD fund, training providers and so many more. And of course, I learned how to train/teach from this programme. I only know that I want to teach, but I have no idea how I should do it. So from the TTT programme, I acquired the knowledge, skills, behaviour and the whole cycle. It’s definitely the right programme and what I needed.
Since you enjoy teaching, was there at any point that you felt that you wanted to become a teacher/lecturer rather than a trainer?
Yes, the initial plan was to become a lecturer/professor. Since I plan to get my master’s after my degree and then continue on to get my phd. But since I didn’t enjoy the internship at the law firm, I thought to myself that I would still be doing the same thing if I became a lecturer. I will still be working daily, 9am to 5pm under an institution where my time and freedom will be imposed by others. Plus, the institution will already have the course syllabus for me to teach.
For me, I see that if I become a trainer, I get the best of both worlds. I get to teach WHAT I WANT and at the same time, I get my own freedom. I get to build my own contents and learn WHAT I WANT to learn and share WHAT I WANT to share. I get to create my own contents and build my own course outlines which I enjoy doing.
Care to share on your journey after the TTT programme?
After I graduated and obtained the certificate as a certified trainer, my first “debut” training was the very next month. It was under a medical organisation. I trained junior doctors on finding their ‘Ikigai’ – finding their life purpose or the right calling for them in their career. I used the TTT framework and the whole outline to teach. I would say that I did good. I gathered testimonials from the participants and they were all positive, which is great!
So what’s next?
I had a few meetings/discussions with Sensei Fauzan and Zati prior to this. It’s mainly about the coming training module. My previous training focused on career but I am in the midst of planning a new training module; mindfulness. In brief the module would be about how to reduce/manage stress with mindfulness so that individuals can increase their productivity and career growth.
Other than training, are there anything else that you pursued after getting the certified trainer certification?
I wrote a book which has just recently been published. It’s very very recent!
What’s the story behind the book? What led you to write a book?
I am actually a member of the Malaysian Association of Professional Speakers (MAPS). They wanted to organise a book writing workshop. Whoever wants to join can sign up, and so I did.
Other than discovering that I like teaching, I too have always loved writing. I have always wanted to write a book but I didn’t know that it would be this soon. When MAPS came up with the workshop, I thought to myself, since I have a story to tell, quitting medicine and that my youtube content has received a lot of engagement, why not help people more by sharing my story in writing. My book is basically about how to find your career and at the same time I shared about my time quitting medicine. Writing this book is also like a closure for me personally because after I quit my housemanship, I went through a lot of different processes which is quite traumatizing to be honest. Once this book is written and published, it’s a closure for me to leave all that behind and start the next chapter in my life.
In the far future, I may want to write more books. But at this point of time, I’m letting this book ‘settle’ for a while and probably will come back to writing in a couple of years. Let me focus on training for now.
Would you say that AIM has supported you?/ How do you feel about the support given?
I am grateful for AIM. They are the ones who provided me the platform or provide a platform for people like me, new trainers, who are new to the industry, who are trying to figure out a lot of things.
I feel that AIM has helped so much. I mean at the end of the day, it must be you yourself who wants to make changes for the better. If you have a TTT certificate but you don’t do anything with it, it’s your loss. AIM can only do so much but if one does not want to do their part, then that’s up to them. People can’t be the one pushing you all the time. You must take the initiative to do whatever you want to do and grab whatever opportunities that come. In terms of support, Sensei Fauzan and team is always reachable, approachable and very very helpful. I am very grateful for the relationship built with AIM.
What are your plans in the future/long term?
For now, I would love to collaborate with training providers like AIM, who can help me promote my training topic.
In the future, I don’t plan to open up my own training provider, no. But I was thinking of opening a retreat center where I can provide my training, workshop, talks, conferences, etc. But this is like my dream, a plan for the far future, not so soon.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I really believe that we are so much more than our career. We have more to offer than what we do for a living. I always thought that once you’re in a certain field, you’re meant to do that for the rest of your life but apparently I’ve learned that, that’s not how it is. I feel that we cannot confine ourselves to one thing. It’s about how you design a life that fits who you are rather than it’s predetermined for you by others.