Fye Property Club

Assalamualaikum abang Ghazali.

This is Fye(Faisel) here. From the bottom of my heart, i appreciate your time and effort rendered during our meeting on the 8th of Aug 2007.

Well you heard about my past, my struggle, to start out my business alone. I fumbled along the way and picked myself up, in hope to find a mentor from my own community but that didn’t happen of course. That’s the past. It’s alright. So now it means a lot to me, that you would spare your precious time to sit and listen to a young man who rambles on about his idealistic thoughts.

Many misunderstood me as trying to be too smart, cocky, but there's still a lot for me to learn from other malay muslim biz individuals like yourself. I'm still learning of course. I don’t have any bad intention; I’m just blunt sometimes and a bit vocal. I call it "honest to goodness". Well, I’m working on that. Probably tone down a little bit. Maybe I turn out to be like this because life is tough out there for me, not that rosy, especially if one decides to go into business or become self employed. In business, things are not served to you on a silver platter. I can’t help telling everyone this. Well the truth hurts somtimes but you can’t always paint a beautiful picture to anyone who wants to go into business. You can’t learn to ride a bicycle by reading the manual or self-help books and scared of getting hurt, can you? There’s sure to be bumps and bruises along the way. It’s never been easy but it can be rewarding for sure. And when you succeed, it's a great feeling that words can't describe. If you're afraid to fall then, business is not yr cup of tea. Most of my role models, they bounce back after every fall in their business. I tell myself if they can do it, why can't I?

I like to challenge myself and break the pattern when things stay status quo. I don’t give up easily and make a point to “grow”, in every aspects of my life. And thus I’m always hungry to learn something new everyday even from you, hopefully.

Although i feel it's just my social responsibility to share something i learnt from my past mistakes, many tell me that I’m just fighting a losing battle trying to convince the community. Well Rome wasn’t built in a single day. I've all the time now. And so i take little steps. Something i learnt after my business collapsed. I was lucky to start early. It was a great learning experience that I don’t think any Uni can offer.

InsyaAllah with whatever I've learnt from my humble past, i hope to create a positive stir in our community, not for the money, not for the name, not to snide at other biz ppl in the community, but to raise the awareness among our young malays to invest early in their life. And hopefully improve the living standards among our community. InsyaAllah. (Sounds ambitious, but I will try my best. I'm hoping more would come forward actually.)

Being a part of the whole process to help my friends purchase their first property was a memorable experience for me. I can see that they begin to take more responsibility in life and towards their family and friends. Alhamdullilah. They now have a more positive mindset towards wealth management which was thought to be difficult and almost impossible. (They used to be in that group of people having paychecks of 3-4k and end up with zero savings at the end of the month. This is common actually.)

And witnessing them achieving all these is even more fulfilling than making my first million a few years back. What i achieve right now by seeing people around me going thru positive changes, will stay with me forever, and that gives me the drive and at the same time, humbles me in many ways.

Having lost everything before my eyes after making so much, made me realise that having assets at an early age is important. I learnt the hard way when it comes to wealth management. Money can come and go. But when you’ve got money, you’ve got to let it grow! Money is a sensitive issue among our community, especially when some still believe that it’s the root of all evil.

I've learnt that money is just a medium to reach a destination where I've the freedom to do more things I love or dreamed about. And that I would be able to have more to give to my family and society, not just the material things. It can be time, knowledge and love. So money is not something we all should get too emotionally attached and feel slaved or burdened by it.

The whole idea is just to be a bit smart in doing things to make sure that money works harder for us and we get to work lesser each day.

At the end of the day, we all want to feel happy and fulfilled. That's my personal opinion at least.

I asked my friends, am i too idealistic. Is that good or bad?

And he just sms me, "Dol, saving the whole mankind is idealistic. Helping close friends is a realistic start. Hahahah". And i laughed.

Of course i'm not trying to save the world, he was just kidding. For a start, maybe just among my malay community and my other close friends that know me regardless of race language or religion.

I replied his sms, "of coz u say this brader, with today’s current property market, you and the rest ( a small group of friends) are definitely laughing your way to the bank."

And I'll be in one corner, feeling happy for them. alhamdullilah.

The one that sms me was my ex Victorian schoolmate. A secondary school teacher, at the age of 28, now owns 2 private properties with his sister who's an auxiliary police at the airport. Most of my friends that own properties are still single and staying with parents, so their properties are investment tools that give them additional income that's very rewarding.

Like some(not all) of the others in teaching industry, they tend to burn out early in their career. But with better financial planning, and getting savvier in property investment, somehow or rather, have helped to save their careers.

I guess they felt that they're financially and emotionally better compared to how they were before. Their minds are more free to focus on productive and constructive things that over the years have been distracted by personal or financial problems. I admire him (my teacher friend) because instead of whining about the system, management, working culture, he took the first step to make a change and take action rather than play victim to the situation. Like most of us do at some point of time, including myself.

Teaching is a great career; I think kids should not be deprived of great teachers like him. Because teachers are people we won't forget for a very long time. We are the product of their teachings, and they shape our lives in many ways. I have many great teachers in my life not just in schools, and i thank them till today. Maybe I can learn something from you too.

Fye Property Club is my vision, my dream. And these friends of mine are the product of the baby steps i took to educate the young Malays, the importance of investing early in property. Of course at the same time I get to learn new things from my friends in other areas. There's so much to share and learn together. I personally feel, in order to receive; we have to give as well. You can't always be at the receiving end ....

Oklah bang, dah cukup lah sampai sini. I look forward to meeting you in the future so that we can sit down again and probably come up with something constructive, since we are in line with our intentions and ambitions. Assalamualaikum.

PS. Nice to hear you're from Haig Boys!!! I knew there was something about that school! It produced a unique "breed" of boys. Sad that they closed it down.