I love to share this story of my childhood. My dad just graduated from university and my mom just graduated from senior high school. They fell in love and then they had me basically. And then I grew up in uneasy circumstances, my dad not having any money to buy milk so I drink the starchy liquid of rice instead, in the rural area in Indonesia. Basically, my home is a bamboo house and then the floor is a dirt floor. We need to fetch the clean water from outside, but we are happy. And although my grandfather is the chief of the tribe, my dad wanted to stand on his own feet, becoming a teacher and my mom also helping him to sell something in the market. And also since an early age, I know that as a woman, we also need to contribute to the family. We need to work hard. I already know my purpose in life. I really want to make my parents happy, bring them from the poverty to have a better life. I also grew up with my grandma, which has eight daughters and also sons, basically. So she always taught me about sharing as well. So if I already had one, let's say, a piece of fish or something, I will never dare to take another one because I know it belongs to my uncles and aunties.
And I still remember until now, the value that my grandma gave me is that, “Dona, if you play with other girls and you see they're eating chocolate, and I know you want it, don't ask them. But come back to grandma. If I have the money, I'll give it to you. But if not, keep happy because God bless you. Instead of asking, you can give.” And I said when I was a child, right? “What can I give to them? I have no money.” And then she said, “You can give your kindness and you can give your smile.” Since then, I think until now, I really love to smile and I love to make people happy. Because regardless your background, regardless you have money or not, if you can just give your kindness, at least your smile, everybody has it, right? So then yeah, that's the greatest memory in my childhood who brought me to who I am now.
Laura
Yeah, I love that. I love that. I think there's so much meaning in that, like not asking for something somebody else has, but seeing ways that you can give. I mean, that's the law of reciprocity, right? In action. Have you seen that sort of more recently in your career since then?
Dona Amelia
Absolutely because I really love to serve people. I love to make my family happy and I love to make other people happy. That's why perhaps God gave me the talent in my voice. So I start my career as a singer and then I also do many movie series. I do acting, I do TV presenting a lot.
One of my TV programs won eight times the Panasonic Global awards in Indonesia. So basically people see me on TV every single day. And then actually what I do is to make people happy because of that, piece of advice that you can always make people happy and that's how you give.
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Laura
Yeah, it's so true. Our stories, especially our authentic ones, sometimes the most difficult ones, the challenges that we go through. So when we talk about that a lot on this podcast, we try to talk about the difficult things because it's the difficult things, the tough times that make us who we are. And often it's a thing that makes us strive to help others and serve others. You like you told of your childhood stories, like how much that affected you and how much the importance of service is to you now. So let's dig into a bit of challenge. I mean, have you faced in your adult career life other challenges that have been difficult?
Dona Amelia
Of course, especially I have a very different background. I come from the entertainment industry and then becoming an entrepreneur, that's also a big change and all. Luckily, I'm grateful that I still bring all my knowledge, my ability, my skill that I honed during my entertainment life to the work that I do now. However, let me tell you a story. So I met my now husband in Indonesia. I fell in love with him and he took me to holiday overseas in Vietnam. And until now, I'm not coming back to Indonesia, meaning that I live overseas already for nine years. Back then, I'm still a TV presenter, actress, singer and all. And then we moved to Ho Chi Minh City. I thought, okay, okay, no worries. I can still do all these things, right? Like being TV presenter, actor, actress and so on. And guess what? I can't speak the language so hard. Yeah, of course. Vietnamese is not easy language, right? So then, wow, that's hit me hard because I build up my career from senior high school, really coming from adversity. I build up brick by brick. And then now I just lost it like that. And then I don't know how to speak the language and all. But then I'm thinking, all right, so if I can't be the TV presenter or an actress here, so what can I do? So I choose the one that’s universal, I still sing.
And then it brought me to the next phase of my life. I discovered another talent, which is being a DJ as well. Right? And also, that is when I also introduced to EGN and I fall in love immediately because I feel, wow, I love seeing all these humble leaders who really, they are already, you know, bring wealth of knowledge, yet they still want to learn from another person. And they also want to help. And I'm amazed and I fall in love immediately. I said, wow, if this is the mentality of the leader, no wonder, let's say Scandinavia or Western in general are very advanced compared to my home country in Indonesia. Because back then people still thinking of why should I tell you my secret? Why? And then you will be successful and I'm less successful. You see that kind of mentality.
Back then, in Denmark from 1992, they already know that they cannot be good by themselves. If they want to grow, they need another people that they can talk, they can help, they can learn, and so on. So I'm like, ok, this is the community that I want to be part of. And if I can serve them in any way I can, I'm grateful. yeah. So then from that moment, I know that I wanted to be part of EGN. And then, yeah, in 2018, we moved to Singapore and start our life and journey there.
Laura
That's amazing. I love that you had to start again from rock bottom in a place where you didn't speak a language. I mean, what a challenge to face. And then to find music, the universal language that you can then share. It's just such an amazing part of your story. I absolutely love that. And then, you know, then you find the EGN and it connects all the dots for you. Because I think that is the key. And I think this is so much what entrepreneurship is like.
It's, you go this one direction and maybe you hit a rock bottom and then you got to build back up again and then you see the world a little bit more differently and then you find a way to serve with your gifts because your gifts are so unique. It's the combination of all your life experiences, and with that experience being comfortable and confident to just speak, in front of people, in front of a crowd, to sing in front of a crowd, to DJ in front of a crowd, that level of confidence, is a lot of people, that's their greatest fear, right? Their greatest fear is having to be on that stage in front of people talking. Do you have any tips or tricks for somebody who is maybe a leader and they need to speak at a conference or an entrepreneur that needs to pitch their business to investors? What's a tip to help people get over those nerves, those butterflies, that fear of the public speaking? Do you have any?
Dona Amelia
Sure, definitely. And disclaimer, I feel and until now always have the butterfly and whatever you call it, right? And that's the beautiful butterfly because that's what made you really, being alert, being ready and all. But for me, my experience, the moment I'm on stage, the moment I speak to people, that's gone. It's all about delivery. So now in my life, I have this principle that I call it four P E's. So the first P is pray. Pray meaning that if you want to pray to God or you want to centre yourself, you do meditation, you do focus, whatever you want to call it, but that is the first stage, which is you need to pray because sometimes this day you just go into it without that really take your time to really focus, centre yourself, ask for blessing or whatever it is. Yeah. So that's the first P. And then the second P, of course, the preparation. So whatever you do, you need to prepare from A to Z, right? From the beginning you wanted to know that person and also their background, how you want to pitch and so on and so forth. So nothing going to be forgotten. And of course, also preparing Plan A, B, C, D, if you want during the preparation. That's the second P. The third P is of course practice. Of course practice. I mean, for me, even when I do the TV presenting and it's always live, yeah? And I don't have any teleprompter. It's all in my memory.
So I need to practise, practice, practice in front of the mirror. When the makeup artist do the makeup, I still like, okay, blah, blah, blah, know, like keep practising until people like, my God, Dona I really? mean like, but that's how you do it. That's how you do it. And then the fourth P is the perform. So when you perform, you do 200%. Don't give only 100%. Too less, far too less to me. You need to stretch it out because things might happen on the day itself, right? You might be panicked, things might happen. So when you forgot, then you will be like at least becoming like 100%, right? So that's the 4PE. Now, the next one is the E, which is evaluation. In this part, you need to be in the state of gratefulness and acceptance. So first thing first, when you are in the evaluation mode, you need to be grateful, you need to hug yourself and say, well done, Dona. You already pray, right, to God, and then you already prepare your best, you already practise, practice, practice, and you already perform your best. So give yourself a hug and compliment yourself and congratulate yourself that you go this far. Now, the next one is acceptance. You need to accept because something are beyond your control. Those four P is within your control, but the result is beyond your control, right? Might be good, might be bad, might be whatever it is.
Now, after that, then you evaluate that, okay, what I do well, what I need to improve, or maybe what I need to eliminate at all. However, because you are in the grateful and acceptance state, you will be in the positive state. So you will not be beating yourself too hard and so on. Like, why, why, why, why, Instead, you are grateful that you already do the step. In my experience, if you do all those steps in everything in doing the communication, you're going to present, have stage fear, whatever it is could be. If you follow that,I think that will be helpful, in my opinion. And if you miss one of it, that might a little bit, you know, make it not as perfect as it could be. That's my opinion.
Vicki
That is gold. That is gold. And what I love about what you've just shared with us Dona is it's addressed two of the big things that I think hold people back. And one is that we're harsh critics of ourself. So, you know, we think we've performed worse than we actually did. We are worried about taking a step because we are so critical about our self that we think the whole world is going to be critical about us when in fact that's not the case because the whole world is being critical about themselves. So they're not worried about us. And then the second thing I think you already touched on in that story and in that fabulous formula you shared with us is failure, fear of failure. But if we know that a part of the process is to accept the outcome, how can we be fearful of failure? Because we're going to already accept whatever happens.
Laura
Exactly. And we're so much harder on ourselves than other people are on us. You know, I think people give other people so much grace when things go wrong because, I mean, one time we were helping a client launch their business and we had a big presentation on a big screen, several screens, and we had all these people showing up and then the computer just wouldn't work and the presentation just wouldn't play. And here was like ministers and like important people and everybody she's trying to impress that she's launching her business and just tech just failed us. You know, and as one of those memories like, my God, I cannot believe! We'd prepared, we had done all the things practised, we'd rehearsed, we'd gotten their way in advance so that we can make sure everything was working. It was all working until the time it needed to actually work. And then it failed and you had to just accept it. And you know what? She played it off with humour. We got it back working again eventually. We pulled in the expert to come help us real quick and it all was fine. And we ended up just kind of laughing about it afterwards because she just had to accept it. Sometimes in life, this is what happens. You can't control everything. Yeah.
Dona Amelia
I completely agree. And that's also what we need to have in our preparation to have a plan B, C, whatever. That doesn't matter how many layers you want to have it, right? Because again, things might happen. Doesn't matter how good we are preparing for it, right? So yes, having a backup plan is great. And also indeed, as you mentioned, in the acceptance mode. So we need to accept, right? Because if we are in the state of anger, right? It's not only that it's bad, right? It's not going to solve the problem anyhow, right? But if you are in the state of acceptance, most of the time you will be calm and you can really think clearly to really solve it. I mean, as soon as possible. While the show must go on, basically, right?
Laura
Exactly. That's exactly right. The show must go on. So you've got to be able to be nimble sometimes as an entrepreneur because stuff is going to happen all the time. It's just normal. Whether you're the CEO of a huge corporation or just starting out as a solo entrepreneur, like you're going to face these things and your attitude towards facing them is so important. But I think one thing you've talked about so much that I think it's really key to point out here is when you're in service of others and not service of self and you perform and you use that as like your motivation. I think it changes your inner sort of monologue of I'm not good enough. You know, a of people talk about imposter syndrome and they struggle to do things like present because they feel like, who am I? I'm not good enough. But when you take it out of the mindset of me, like who am I into like, I can serve others with what I know or what I'm capable of doing. It changes your ability to get out there and do the thing. Right? It's good to remember it's hard. It's hard for everybody to get out there and do the thing. Like you said, you still have butterflies after years of performing and acting. You know, if you still get butterflies and anybody listening to this podcast, it's normal. It's part of the process.
Dona Amelia
Completely agree. Yes, yes, completely agree. And yeah, that's just enjoy also, you know, all those moments. then, yeah, when you succeed afterward, you will feel like really, really grateful and happy and you get all the endorphin kicks and so on afterwards. As much as you get nervous before, when you succeed, you also get the hype also, which is beautiful and lovely.
Laura
It is true. And you don't know how many people you may affect. You know, you don't know how many people you could help and lives you can change. I always think about that during this podcast because we don't know exactly who's out there listening and we don't know how much this conversation might just be the one thing that uplifts the person and maybe gets them brave enough to go and pitch their business or whatever it is they need to do. To raise their profile and take their business to the next level. And I hope, I hope that's exactly what we're here to do.
Dona Amelia
Oh my goodness, and thank you for sharing. I would love to share this story again, especially for those who transitioning and so on, because I've been there, right? Imagine being me, every day on TV, I only know everything about singing, acting, TV presenting and all. And then now I becoming an entrepreneur and so on. You know what? I don't even know how to use PPT, Excel and so on. All those admin. And it's embarrassing, but guess what? I admit it because it's not my expertise.But again, how I overcome that, then I admit that's the first thing I do. I admit to my colleague, to myself that I have no idea how to do it, darling, please help me, right? However, you need to, of course, do your best to enhance your ability and so on in any part of your life. However, also focus on what you are already good at and, you know, like focus on that. So for me, I bring all my knowledge, all my ability in yes, speaking to people, perform, I'm good in hosting, I talk to people. so that's my strength. And that's what I do now.
So that's why at EDN, I love serving people. I am responsible in making 150 meetings and events per year in three countries. And I know how to do it because that's my whole life all about, right? I do live TV, what is it, like presenting and so on and so forth. So yeah, instead of beating yourself too hard as you said right and really like not knowing what to do because it's new I'm all by myself now I mean it's okay to not being able to do I'm not shy now well at the beginning yes perhaps, but now I mean it is part of life, I don't know how to use this excel and ppt's and all those things you know because I'm not I don't know back then but of course I learned right along the way and don't really only thinking about all those things. But focus on what are you good at. Because everybody has their own skill, right? You have your strengths. So focus on your strength. For those who are in the transition. I just want to share that as well.
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In fact, I always love to give back to people. I love to serve people. So in my current career as a co-founder of Executive Global Network in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, we do knowledge sharing for senior executives.
Because the idea behind it is that sometimes the leaders are lonely at the top. Because sometimes they are just lonely. However, they really need someone to talk to, to discuss about their challenges that a lot of leaders might struggle with the vulnerability. It is because the stigma of you don't want to seem weak or incapable of doing things.
But actually, when you are in the safe space, like what we do at EGN is to give them a platform, a safe space where you can really be yourself. You can really say that I screwed up, I need help. Oh God, I hate my project this time or whatever it could be. I mean, you are human at the end of the day. And it's amazing to see how much help actually leaders are also willing to help only if you are willing to open. And that's sometimes something that is the hardest part is to start to be able to be vulnerable and able to say that I need help. And it's amazing how much people actually want to help.
Laura
Yeah, that community is so key of people that understand what you're what you deal with. And as a leader, like you said, executive loneliness is a big thing. We've had other conversations on this podcast about that. So I know it comes up. It comes up a lot for men and women equally. So how do you create a safe space for them to feel open to be vulnerable? Because that's a hard thing.
Dona Amelia
Right. So basically what we do is we gather this senior executive to go to meet up every second month for four hours within one group. And in this one group, the members, they don't have any competitor. So we want the industry as diverse as possible with no competitor in the room. Everybody understood the non-disclosure agreement and whatever happened in the room also stays in the room. Of course, the learning point, they can always spread the word and implement, other than that, they understand the confidentiality.
And also we really want them to feel at home because when they are at home, they're comfortable to wear pyjamas and all, right? Because yeah, it's beautiful that in every single meeting what we do is we start with the moment of gratitude. Why are you grateful for? Let's say this week, right? I have a story that's quite funny also. Like one of the members said, I can go first. He said, I'm so happy my CEO has been kicked out. Yeah, and everybody laughing. yeah, because you know what?
I thought he'd back me up, but actually he's not. He thinks he knows Asia better than I am. He has no idea. And then now he goes back to the US, blah, blah, blah. You know, sometimes a leader, I mean, it's a human being. They just wanted someone to hear them out and all. And of course, they cannot say this in their organisation, right? Yeah. So I think just to hear that, I'm happy to see that, OK, you can be vulnerable here. You can feel safe here because we’re helping each other and there will be no judgement and so on. And then after they talk about the moment of gratitude, they will go to what we call member challenge session where we have this moment for everyone to go to the smaller group discussion and they can really talk about their challenges and then everyone around them will give them some feedback and input and so on and so forth. So to the point that if one member has a really big challenge, he or she can also present in front of everybody in the whole room.
And then with the facilitator, of course, and then the whole room job is to really dig deep. It's like a team coaching or peer-to-peer coaching basically to this person. So you can imagine now, if I'm the one who present in front of everybody in the whole room, my challenge is not only mine, everybody with their vast experience thinking about my challenge and they will give input based on their experience. It's not based on the theory. So if let's say, Laura, you already been there, can tell me, don't go there. It's going to cause a bomb. You're going to spend a lot of time, blah, blah, blah, So it's amazing how we do that. And again, it's confidential.
And then after that, we also invite all the speakers, great, great speakers to talk about certain topic that they agree. Yeah. And then they can discuss about this topic itself. So it's a really safe space for them to not only learn something new, but also most importantly, to solve their challenges and helping each other and grow together and making each other better.
Vicki
It is when you meet somebody who you just click with, who you align with, your values match. It's magic. It's magic when that happens and you can't let that moment go. And that's what happened with Laura and I and we're partners since five years and it just happened that way and we saw something in each other that we knew was making each of us better in our work. And I think there's opportunities there when you're networking to find people like that to just connect and know that you're going on a path together. So what advice do you have, Dona, for entrepreneurs who are considering networking, or maybe they're already networking, but they're not as effective as they'd like to be with networking?
Dona Amelia
Right, so I think normally people network in a very shallow kind of manner or intention. But if I may give some, based on my experience, basically, best is to prepare really who you wanted to meet in that networking event. If possible, you really know the kind of profile that you want to be around with and then really learn about that kind of profile. And then go deep in the conversation. Be as authentic as possible, right? Don't pretend to be someone else. And then, of course, you need to always be kind and nice and all, but try to go deeper when you talk and be authentic. Yeah, telling story is better than just telling who you are on this, on that, on this, on that. Just start with a story, right? A story that people can relate or people can like, wow, this person is real or something like that, right? Yeah, no need to always talk about such a big rah rah on how good you are and all. Yeah, sometimes talking about some setback or failures that you learn and made you who you are now, you know, any story that could be very powerful during the networking, then that person will remember you.
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Laura
Good advice.
Vicki
Thank you for that, Dona. And I really feel like everything you've talked about here is what I would consider elements of resilience and being resilient. And to be cool with yourself and not be judgmental, to accept the outcome. What you just talked about is asking for help when it's not your area of strength and don't expect it to be your area of strength when you're already strong at something else. So look at what you are good at and lean in on that. All of those things I see stacking up as elements of resilience. How would you describe resilience? And maybe you have a story, I mean, you've already shared a couple of great stories about how resilient you needed to be in life. But is there one that stands out for you as resilience in business perhaps?
Dona Amelia
Yeah, so perhaps before in business, I just want to go back to my story when I was in senior high school. My dad was a teacher, as mentioned, and he knows that I can sing. And then there's a moment in time where we heard that there is a movie filming near to my hometown, right? And my dad with the old motorbike in a pouring rain in a thunder, he brought my photo, drive a motorbike, you know, and then just to meet the producer, to show to the producer, hey,
I have a daughter, she is very good, she can sing, she might be able to act, would you like to do the casting for her? And guess what? Of course he gets rejected immediately, like who are you? Like get away. But my dad never give up. He always told me, Dona, you know what? I might have nothing to give it to you, but I know that you have a great talent and I know and I believe you will help others in the future. I know you will be successful, I know.
And he told me, always that, know what, Dona, don't have like this kind of imposter syndrome. Although we have nothing, it's okay. You have your talent. You have your talent because, you know, living in Indonesia with now is 280 million people, right? Everybody wants it to be on TV every single day. And I got that, like, role. And of course, to get to one role, if I do 30 casting and I got one, I'm lucky already. And I need to be very, very, very good because if I made one mistake, a thousand girls wanted to be in my position. Right. So that's the element of resilience, never give up. For me, I really know my North Star, my North Star, my guiding light. I want to make my parents happy. I want to bring them from the poverty to have a better life. So for me, I work hard night and day. During my university degree, I only sing and study, sing and study, sing and study. When I graduate, I go to Jakarta and then I do singing, TV presenting, acting, and to the TV presenter job that I got eight time Panasonic Global Award, our program. The filming is from 12 am until 3 to 5 am every single night. And it's on air on TV at 11 am. So every single day, every single night like that. And when I do a movie series, all the filming until 7 am, all day until 7 am the next day, and it's on air at 6 pm at the same day, right?
So, those are like the moment that you don't give up. You don't have time to whining and be spoiled and all. My brain keeps thinking, I need to work hard. I need to make my parents happy. So what I do in life, I always do 200%.
And the good news is back to my grandma, to make everybody happy, you can start with as simple as giving them a kindness from your heart and to give them a smile to the point that, you can give many things to the world to make it a better place. So my contribution now, actually, two days from now in my hometown, I will visit my senior high school. I want to inspire all the kids over there, the senior high school students, because I come from that background. I want to spread the message that, you know what, regardless of your background, you can always reach your dream. Of course, with hard work, try to find the opportunity and never give up. And when you do the action, you do 200%. So I want them to see that I'm the living example. And it's really real. I'm not coming from the cloud or someone who coming from, you know, like, okay, kind of, what is it background or even rich background? I'm not, I'm really coming from really, really, really, really, really humble background.
And they can do much, much better than I am. If I can go this far, they can flourish way, way more.
Laura
It's a perfect why. It really is. And I think a lot of us are driven that way to make the people around us happy. I think my why is a lot to do with my family too. For me, it's for my kids. I do so much for my kids. My son's a bit of an entrepreneur as well. Not a bit, he's a full on entrepreneur. I just wanna say like so much appreciation to your dad for what he did. You actually choked me up when you told that story about him like taking your tape and insisting
because I feel like parents who do that need so much credit. Like parents who really put their kids at the forefront and like just give them that boost to be successful, need to be acknowledged, and then that's why you want to reciprocate and return, you know, the love that he obviously, they obviously had for you. It's just such a beautiful, incredible, important thing just to be recognized. I think you should, we should all recognize those people in our lives.
I always believe kind people who are there to serve others always succeed and live a happier life. I really do believe you live a happier life when you live in service. So thank you. I mean, just what a beautiful, uplifting, moving conversation. I seriously almost choked up. I feel a bit emotional. I'm trying to like, woo, kind of grained it in a little bit because I think it's important to acknowledge the people in our lives that help and then be a person that helps others. What a great way to live life. And I'm really honoured to have met you today. I'm honoured to have had this conversation. It's definitely one of the more touching conversations we've had on this podcast. So thank you and thank you for being authentically you and for what you do to serve others. I appreciate it.
Dona Amelia
Thank you so much also for having me, Laura and Vicki, really happy to be here and I'm grateful to be able to tell my story also to the world. So hopefully for those who listen, right, maybe who can resonate and all, perhaps if we can touch one heart, as you said, I'm grateful already.
