Well I was a slow learner in the education system in my early years of school but through time I was taught the system by a caring brother. It's all about knowing the syllabus and feeding the answers to the expected questions into my head so that I could bring them out at the time of examinations.

I was also advised to read widely to gain more knowledge beyond the text book. He encouraged me to travel to learn even more and gave me financial incentives to score in my exam to make my first overseas trip! From a more Intuitive and Feeling-based mind of quadrants C & D, I was to become more organized and logical and exercised quadrants A & B of my brain!

There wasn't much technology in Malaysia for me at that time that I could use to be organized. I depended on 3" X 5" cards in my pocket to remind me of things and in the exam years of my life, they would be filled with mathematical formulas that I could keep pulling the card out wherever I am to register them in my brain!

I believed in hard work as that was what I observed in my family that brought results and achievement. My father was a hard worker and so was my mentor brother. Even back from the government office, my father came back to do gardening or carpentry work and at night, he consistently sat on his desk to do paper work. It was from his disciplined manner of working to file documents that I became an effective Accountant who could always file away a piece of document and retrieve back when required.

His style definitely was a B quadrant thinker, very organized and routine orientated. I think I emulated this trait of my father to this day except that today, I would have a computer or two in front of me with a mobile PDA to help me! This would reduce my time in back-room work and allowed me much more time to be in the frontline engaging with people to problem solve and achieve common aim objectives by working with them closely. My father didnt emphasize on quadrant C or D activities and was more a quiet worker who spent more time alone with his work or hobbies while I would be more involved with people and experiencing new things to have time with the masses as well as have adequate quiet time to engage in quadrant A & B activities

I seemed to get better and better academically. I was surprised to win a prize in English in Primary 5 and when I got into secondary school, after a year in Secondary 1, I got promoted to a better class. Following what my good brother had advised me, I prepared well for the Form 3 exams and scored a string of 6As to get into the Science Stream. Here is when my logical and analytical mind was developed further. I realized the power of quadrants A & B thinking.

Unfortunately, my creative side subsided. There was little influence of Art in the family and the schools kept emphasizing on the sciences and to be advanced in technology. I became a very logical and methodical student and figured out the world pretty much on this foundation. The opportunity to travel, due to the incentives given by my brother that enabled my first overseas trip to Europe, kept my mind open. I created more opportunities to travel in my latter life and soon, I became a more creative person of type D quadrant and not just a controller type person of Quadrant B

Since kindergarten, my mother had always been the driver to school. Around the time of Primary 6, I felt one day the desire to become independent. I told my mother I would catch the bus to school instead. After much pursuasion, I was allowed to and felt a great change in my life. I wasn't protected from the community or competition anymore but struggled with the other local boys to try to get a seat in the bus or stand all the way in a crowed bus to school and back. It made me feel good that I was no longer the pampered youngest child but one that changed to become a Man!

I would later have my own motorcycle when I turned 17 to go to College with and I never stopped riding even till my 50s, including riding the bicycle. The brain doesn't seem to forget what it learns in life! I can't tell which quadrant of the brain does wanting to be independent fall in. Maybe the sum or all its parts or quadrants? Mastery of all the potential of our brain surely will help one to develop more self confidence to become independent.

I remember in Form 4 & 5, we had a senior teacher who taught the 6 formers chemistry and was also our chemistry teacher. He didn't know how to adjust his teaching style to us younger students and spoke in terms that I couldn't understand at all. However there was one student who could understand him and that made me wonder why he could and I couldn't? I had worked hard to read our Chemistry textbook to try to understand what was going on but still couldn't figure it out. So I went to this student for help who was friendly and helpful . He told me to check out some other books from the library and when I did, it blew my mind to realize that a different textbook could be more informative! I was so happy to be now conversant with the teacher on advanced chemistry terminology and got an A for it.

Thanks to a good friend who has remained a friend to me to this day, I learnt to seek for more options or sources of information. Keeping this 'open mind' was a quadrant D function with strategic thinking from quadrant A. I find that the computer and internet technology has sharpen my quadrant A and D parts of my brain.

After mastering the sciences in 5 years of secondary school, my father suggested one day that I should plan to become an Accountant. He thought that it would be a good profession as one could have work in both boom times or recessionary times. I therefore followed his advice and instead of continuing Form 6 in my school, I would enroll into a matriculation course of 1 year to study accounting and economics in preparation for further studies in Australia. I had to work my brain hard again to learn these new Commerce subjects, remembering how my slow brain was trying to figure out the debits and credits of accounting. Fortunately I was smart enough to stick with the girls who would always gather together after classes to study together or do homework.

Thanks to these girls and my Quadrant A B & C mindset, I could relate and learn from them to be good enough to master the new commerce subjects in just one year to finally score in the Australian matriculation exams. This qualified me for free University education in Australian, then offered by the government led by the ruling labor party leader, Gough Whitlam. My experience in Australia would also sharpen my quadrant D skills too.

In the final year of my University, another change would come into my life. I had left out religion as my family had little to do with it. Two missionaries knocked on my door which started months of investigation into Christianity and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It took so long as my analytical quadrant A brain had to have all the facts to make a decision. I can say I made a decision to be baptized purely on a 'need to know' basis, a work of quadrant A thinking as I wanted to experience God as a fact for myself and I did.

To my surprise he called me to go on a voluntary mission for 2 years which brought the challenge to explain to my family. I overcame all the obstacles and did manage to serve a successful mission and came home to start off another new life of the working and business world. I think I had developed what I call the Spirituality of Imperfection. God helped me become aware of who I am, an imperfect man. With his knowledge and miraculous powers that my quadrant A mind had analysed and experienced, my quadrant D brain soon saw visions of what an imperfect man can achieve and I became charged up to help others see the same vision and become an achiever.

I was to find a a job after my mission to qualify as a professional chartered accountant and also found a girl to date. My mother passed away suddenly due to her long illness of diabetes which left me with a choice by Chinese tradition to marry my fiancee within 3 months or wait 3 years. I was only 24 and she 20 but we felt our minds sufficiently mature and compatible to embark on the commitment and we did marry. Close relationship with a woman was a new experience for me as becoming responsible to care for her needs and that of the future family would be also. This would surely require all 4 quadrants of the brain to be functioning. I guess I had reached a stage of sufficient confidence in Self and God to know that I can measure up to whatever else would come before me. I just needed to continue to have consistent faith in Self and God to do whatever that is right for others and myself.

The church not long after I was married put more responsibilities on my shoulder by calling me to be the Branch President of the Church in Kuala Lumpur. Later I was called to be the District President, providing leadership for other branches. Leadership roles provided me a Quadrant B challenge and focus for me. It led me to many other responsibilities that soon kept all my 4 quadrants active.

I creatively visualized for myself a future beyond that of just being an Accountant. I had self confidence to capitalize on my Optimal Thinking brain to further acquire new knowledge and skills I needed to position myself in sunrise industries of a global nature. I would embark into the computer industry with some friends as business partners and would make a living for ourselves and a name. From computer hardware we began to specialize in softwares and training. The ITC name for our business was an appropriate acronym to represent the group of companies that were created with the keyword INTEGRATED combined with Technical or Trans and Consultancy or Corporation.

Eventually I became a multi disciplinary management consultant providing solutions for businesses, organizations and individuals. The 4 quadrants of my brain were constantly taxed and well exercised. As our family grew in numbers and age, I made sure they had their brains constantly updated by my discoveries and experience told to them in personal stories directly or indirectly through my web journals like this one. The fruits of this INTEGRATED theory of development can only be seen in the results of our children in our family in years to come as they mature from childhood to full grown adults. Everyone is different as I always say but performing and thinking optimally is all within our natural abilities.

My consulting business received a client one day that was poorly performing in the local Direct Sales and Marketing industry. I was not familiar then with this particular industry but believed that I was sufficiently trained in all my 4 brain quadrants to become helpful to the client to turn around the business.

I eventually did and from there I realized my multi disciplinary skill sets were useful in the management of a direct marketing and sales environment. Being in relationship marketing and sales are many emotional activities so the quadrant C of my brain was probably well exercised. Marketing and sales companies need strong leadership and management, a quadrant B strength. It needs Creative marketing and development of programs, a quadrant D offering. Operational systems and processes including products and campaigns need to be constantly analyzed for improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, a quadrant A function. I thought the computer industry was a good exercise to integrate all the 4 quadrants of my brain but so is leading a direct sales company to world class performance is what I have found. There are opportunities to integrate not only the 4 quadrants of our brain but also the 4 corners of the world with the borderless plans that are a vision of modern direct sales companies today in a globlized playing field.

I ventured to participate in several other non profit organizations besides Church to share my acquired skills and talents or keep them sharpened. In the field of communication and leadership, I found that the Toastmasters organization was ideal to keep me challenged to speak with different hats ie to inform, to entertain, to motivate or to gain commitment. I started to get more involved in real community problem solving such as apartment management starting in my own apartment complex in Kuala Lumpur. My zeal to continuously learn and share never left me and I believe my brain like my body muscles if continually exercised will stay optimal and effective.

Dealing with many residents of the community, each with a different cultural, ethnic and educational background helped me relate better to them though not without challenges. I needed to be more open minded and have better empathy instead of simply trying to organize them by implementing logical systems and using analytical data of the left brain. Both the right brain quadrants of C & D became further exercised. As a result I could connect with them better to gain rapport, find synergistical ways to work effectively together and be more successful in futurizing our community for the better.