“Datuk Wira… I have a much bigger dream now. I want to build 100 branches.”
That was one of the things that stayed with me the longest after the LIVE Inspirasi SeeNI Bersama Datuk Wira this afternoon with Puan Norlinda Daud, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bright Hill Islamic Montessori School.
What made me smile wasn’t just the number 100 branches.
It’s because I know how that dream started.
When she first joined the mentoring with RichWorks Consulting Group (RCG), she didn’t come with a dream of opening 100 branches.
She came as a founder who had already been through one of the hardest phases of her life. Bright Hill had grown to five branches, but within a short time, three of them had to be closed. That was when she realised the real problem wasn’t that she wasn’t working hard. It was that her knowledge and the way she led her organisation still weren’t enough to take Bright Hill to a bigger level.
That’s where the real journey began.
When a founder chooses to learn, to get guidance, and is willing to change herself first, her dream starts to change too.
From just wanting to run one school, she began talking about building an organisation.
From just wanting to add more students…
She began talking about how to help more families all over the country.
And today…
She dares to put forward a vision that is far bigger.
100 branches — not because she wants to chase a number.
But because she believes more branches means more children will receive a quality Islamic early education, more parents will have the best option, and more of the coming generation can be shaped with good akhlak, character and leadership.
That’s what I always stress to every founder in mentoring.
Mentoring isn’t only about helping a business grow bigger.
Mentoring grows the way a founder thinks.
Because when the way we see the future changes…
The decisions we make change too.
The way we lead changes, and in the end, the size of the dream we dare to build changes as well.
My prayer is that one day we will see Bright Hill truly reach its dream of 100 branches.
Not just because it wants to be a big school network.
But because each of those branches will be the place where more children are born — children with good akhlak, with knowledge, confident in themselves, and able to give back to their religion, their race and their country.
Because at the end of the day… many founders build a business to make a profit.
But a founder who is truly great builds an organisation that leaves a legacy.
And every big legacy… always starts when someone dares to enlarge the way they think.
— Datuk Wira Dr Azizan Osman
