To my dear sister, Adlina Masturah

Assalamualaikum & Hi,

Hey Sister, this post is specifically written for you. Not sure when you'll read this, maybe before you become a wife or after that. One thing for sure you'll definitely cry whenever you read this (because I teared up writing this). 

Remember when you were born, there were only two of us & we were besties, doing everything together, & became Abah's favourite daughters. Then Adik came, and we became trio siblings. We played, went to school, ride the car, ate & slept together. If we looked back at the album, it's always the three of us together. I always asked you to treat me at school & share food with me because you were kind to share hahaha. You also loved to listen to the stories I made & remembered them up until now. 

We grew a little bit distance when I went to boarding school. At that time there's already seven of us. When I went to KL for study we grew apart a little further. It's my fault for being busy all the time. Many times we fought with each other but the biggest one was I don't remember what but I did throw your laptop (on the mattress) & we don't talk for a year. But in the end I surrender & made up with because I know that really hurt our parents. And I'm really glad we made it up because after that we experience a lot of amazing things together.

Along the way I learned how much you adored me. That you looked highly at your weird annoying sister for being independent, work hard, never caused trouble to our parents & giving back to our family. Little did I know, you followed my footsteps. We planned vacations together, treat our family a lot of things & survived on our own. We made our parents experienced everything they never had before since they had us. And you became my partner in crime to make everyone happy. I really hope we will continue this even after you got married, or even all of us get married.

Most of all, I hope you always know I am so so proud of youuuu!
For graduating a course you never wanted to enroll in before.
For making Abah proud of becoming a soldier.
For making Mama happy by pursuing Masters while working.
For being one of the top salesperson & become a trainer at the same time.
For ensuring I took that leap of faith to change career in telesales & taught me how to close deals.
For setting many good examples to our siblings.
For always having faith no matter how hard life is for you.
And for many more amazing things you did in your life.

When you become a wife,

We will be sharing you with your husband & his family, but I hope we won't lose you but have another brother.

Despite how stubborn you are, listen & respect your husband okay? Your heaven lies under his feet now.

Love both families equally, & treat them like your own family.

Marriage won't make life any easier, but it will make you learn to tolerate in this life.

Remember marriage is ibadah, so gain as many pahala as you can from it.

Our partner is not our source happiness, but you'll be sharing your happiness together.

Whatever happens, always be patience & remember how much you love each other before, now & always.

I still remember you said you will cry on my wedding day, but here I am, crying on your wedding day instead (doakan my turn nexttt). It's okay, life in not a competition, except for us competing with our own self to become a better person. Many people in life compete with their own family on money, status, children & many more. I always pray hard & hope we won't and we'll never do that. We'll always shine in our own lives & stories. We should be guiding & helping each other instead. Because one thing for sure, Mama & Abah raise us right, which is family & love always come first. 

Our main goal in life is to always be happy, with everything that we have even the littlest ones. Also to reach for His blessings & the highest level in Jannah. 

I know you will survive & be happy in this life just like you always do. You are a wonderful, hardworking & determined person, forever & always. 

I might not be the best sister you ever had, but I hope you know that I will be the only favourite sister you have. No matter how terrible we fight, or how many times I said I hate you, deep in the bottom of my heart,

I really really love you (did I just said that? Haha)

Happy wedding day, Adlina Masturah! May Allah blessed your marriage forever until Jannah :)

Will always be your one & only fav Kakak

The best night we had together

Till then,

Adlina Maisarah.

6 months as a salesgirl

Assalamualaikum and Hi,

I got this idea to write my progress because I know my old brain will forget my thoughts later on. So it's been since 6 months since I shifted into telesales field. You can read my 3 months updates here. Another update was I have been confirmed on my 4th month, alhamdulilllah & it made me work harder for more sales.

For the 6th months updates, there were few things I would like to highlight & remember:

Consistency is the key - It's been 6 months doing this, calling & reaching out to the same customers. I love my clients, enjoyed reaching out to them & so happy to be able to help them. However I'm just a mere human being too. There were days when making calls felt so overwhelming. There were times when being rejected felt so painful. There were moments I felt I won't get sales. My energy might be at peak in the morning, then depleted in the evening or otherwise

I've been seeking advice from my manager endlessly & he told me, you just have to do it. Put that smile, be calm & make that calls. It's not just about sales only. Just reach out to your customer with the same energy from morning till end of day. Be creative when talking to them. Make it a habit. Be happy when talking. Sales will come later, definitely.

Most importantly you have to be consistent. Consistently making enough or more calls, consistently follow up, consistently build rapports, consistently learn about your clients & in shaa Allah sales will come consistently. 

Keep on learning & gain knowledge - After 6 months, there's still so many things I've learned and a lot of things to improve. Like my boss always said, no matter how long you've been doing sales, or how powerful you selling skills are, there will always be something new you will learn every single day. The other day we had training & we learned the creative ways to build rapport. One of it was getting to know your clients' personalities & how to deal with them from here. Another example of simple thing I learned this week medication were used  according to season. Like demands for certain types of medication will be high when the kids got circumcised, during wedding season or when the weather was so hot. It's simple but there will always be different type of scenarios every single time.

Work hard & stay humble - this was my supervisor's tagline. If he's reading this, thank you for sharing this with us, I borrow your wise words hihi. He always told us no matter how high you fly, keep your feet to the ground. Respect everyone around you no matter who they are. We'll always need each other in the so be nice to everyone. Remember we'll never be at the top forever, once you're at the lowest point, how you climb back to the top will define you. 

That's all for now. Please pray I will do well throughout the year, unlocking amazing marks for all the KPIs I have. Because your prayers are what making me survive too. Thank youuuu ❤️❤️

Till then,

Adlina

Lessons from my grandmothers

Assalamualaikum and Hi,

Today I want to write about my two grandmothers. I'm someone who's close to my parents & siblings. But I'm not very close to my relatives - grandparents, cousins etc. Maybe it's because our family live far away from them. Nevertheless, my parents always teach us to mingle around & treat others nicely. So whenever we meet, we will always give our best to have quality time with others.

So about my grandmothers, recently both of them came to live with us. My 1st grandmother Maktok from my Abah's side & Nanny (idk why I called this since I was young maybe cus idk who to say nenek) from my Mama's side. 

Maktok lived alone in Penang so she wanted to stay with us because she haven't come to our house & stay here for a long time. Nanny usually came whenever my Uncle went to his in laws house in Perlis.

The similarities I found in my two grandmothers:

Both of then are very shy & polite as compared to girls in our generation - they talk softly, they care a lot about manners, they filter what they talk to people & they are shy with guys. Let's take from a bright side okay? Our generation is way too open with many things, so when I see my grandmothers put a lot of boundaries in a lot of things & very polite I think that's so special because it's like you're a hidden treasure.

They are strong woman - they lived a long time without their husbands & raised kids alone. Nanny lost his husband at young age, I think when she's below 50 & raised 3 children alone. Maktok lost Tokwan 10 years ago & lived alone ever since. Being single is fun but maybe lonely sometimes. But if you're already lived most of your life with your husband, have children together & lost him, it's not an easy thing to do. I don't know how they do that but they're so amazing.

Special things about my grandmothers:

Nanny - she's the educated type of woman. She's very knowledgeable because she read newspapers, both English & Malay up until now. That's so impressive because we follow news update from Twitter only lol. She went to college & work as an accountant. During her time, going to college was like a hugeee & rare thingg. Recently I just knew she work in PJ before she settled down in Penang & I was like whattt I never knew thattt. She's very fashionable back then, wearing nice clothes to work, not like me lol. I will always remember her Spicy Spaghetti Bolognese - cooked in Malaysian style. It's everyone's favourite & I already got the recipe. She loved gardening, she have a garden full of fruits & flowers. Now my Mama followed her footsteps, loving plants more than us hahaha. She's a very sentimental type & loved keeping stuffs that have memories. It's good to keep memories close to your heart but that's not a good thing as she have a lot of unused stuffs. 

Maktok - she's a different person from Nanny. She married at a very young age, became a wife & mother ever since. To be honest I was not close with Maktok until I started working. When she came to live at my parents' house 2 months ago, I realized a lot of amazing things from here. She's a very organised person. She can clean the house like in a very short amount of time. We didn't ask her to do that, it's a habit of hers since she has been a housewife for a very long time. She arranged stuffs here and there to ensure it's neat & tidy. At first I was like why my Maktok always move things around, but it's not that. She just can't get rid of that habit. At times people might misunderstood she's trying to control. But no, it's just something she has been doing her entire life. Maktok is very religious type. She always remind me to perform my prayers on time. She woke up for night prayers every single day. She always listened to Islamic classes online even before she fall asleep. She said if we listened to Islamic things before sleeping, & if we died, we'll die doing good. She always read quran almost all the time. 

Maybe I wasn't close with them before but I'm glad Allah gave me a chance to get to know them closely & learn so many things from them. Because of them too, my wonderful loving parents were brought into this world followed by my birth later on. We might be from different generations but all of us went through a lot too. Listening to their life stories from them gave us something to bring into our lives. For me, when we close the gaps, there's so much love & lessons can be shared.

Over years, I realized life is amazing when we focus on good things other people have rather than seeing bad things. Nobody's perfect, neither both you & I. Open your heart for some love & you'll see great things in life.

As for now, I will be forever thankful for having two amazing grandmothers & will continue to cherish them in my life 👵 💓 

Till then,

Adlina

2021: December wrap up!

Assalamualaikum and Hi,

It's middle of January already but I only managed to update this now lol. It's my fault because I kept procrastinating. So let's go, the highlights of December! 

In terms of work went to few nice places for lunch & won a competition out of sappy post sincerely from my heart. A consistent month but a sprint towards the end (I pity my heart for beating so fast in the last 2 days but it's worth for the money & satisfaction). Alhamdulillah everyone managed to unlock all comission schemes! Feel so so grateful to be in this team: supportive, positive, hardworking, fun & cool too 😊

After closing we had training on effective customer service which I found so mindblowing as we learn about type of  personalities, how to apply it for our career - to understand ourselves & our clients better. The trainer read us like a book! We also learn how to communicate well, ways to keep conversation going & how to minimize no from clients. 

Great closure for career in year 2021 ❤️ may 2022 will be the year of always 120% 😘

For two consecutive weeks, I went out last minutes with two girl friends who declared me as their sugar sister. Huda, my ambitious strong friend who'll always give her best. And Nasuha, the kind hearted friend who always have faith, courage & strength in everything 😊 

It's always good times catching up with friends. I wish all the best sisterssss. May life treat us well ❤️. Let's catch up again later! 

After closing, I went back to my hometown for a week plus. I watch Spider man: No Way Home with my siblings & food hunting with them. Then we had elebration for Muadz's belated birthday, Tuwa's birthday & Mama's advance birthday. We managed to surprise all three of them especially Mama bcus she wanted to surprise people, in the end she was the most surprised! Me, Abah & Tuwa gave a gift my Mama always wanted. We sang Happy Birthday song for 3x, people might think we're crazy. Nevertheless, it was really a good time with my family ❤️ Ps: missing baby boy Mukhlis sad sad. 

But we surprised him by going to a random trip to Penang for a dayy. We went to send my grandmother to her house, then went to Queensbay to eat panmee which was very spicyyy, then bought some stuffs for Mukhlis. We met him for a while at his college, quick catch up & took a lot of picturesss togetherrr. 

At night, we had a catch up with my aunt to eat sup kaki kambing. Then we had a rest for a while before going back to Kedah. We celebrated new year on the Penang bridge. At 2am, we finally arrived home. 

Overall it's a great month, but lesser pressure than November. November was the fastest month for me. May January 2022 will be filled with more meaningful memories ❤️

Till then,

Adlina