One must not dwell on the things that could make one sad or unhappy, but rather, create a diversion by innovating and working on something, says multitalented Sharifah Shawati Syed, entrepreneur and founder of Adamaya fashion label.
The former television personality tells Business Today how pivoting digitally has allowed her to keep up with her business activities, roles and mission. Author, image and motivational coach, charismatic speaker, and media professional are only some of the many hats worn by Shawati, as she prefers to be addressed.
“I always believe there is opportunity in every adversity. Though it took time for me to adjust to being trapped at home, as I was always on the go and rushing here and there multitasking everything, I was still constantly thinking of how else I could maximise my time being at home proactively,” she says.
While the worldwide health crisis has been ravaging traditional businesses, Shawati decided to focus on upskilling herself and transforming digitally together with the rest of the world to stay sustainable.
“After the second week, I realised how peaceful it was being able to take the time to rest and slow down a bit to reflect on many things I could have overlooked before. I was able to spend more quality time with my family, have meaningful conversations and learn new skills online.
“Although there were times I felt a bit depressed that I couldn’t be my active self and I would don my suits and heels just to take pictures of myself as if I was going to work …just to make myself feel good. I always have a special coping mechanism to beat the stress whenever it appears, that is to do the ‘diversion techniques’. One must not fall victim to a given circumstance!” she adds vehemently.
Getting on the livestream bandwagon, Shawati decided to start a bi-weekly show on Facebook to serve her fans and audience who are seeking advice on love and life.
“I have an occasional bi-weekly show on Fb called ‘Love Matters with Shawati’ that focuses on interviews and insights mainly on the matters of Love and Well Being & Relationships, as I feel that in this pandemic era people tend to lose hope and faith in themselves and the stress could lead to the risks of suffering from mental health.
“Love is the basis of everything that could heal one’s pain, anxiety, depression, frustrations and hurt. While there are many webinars putting emphasis on survival in business and technical know-how, I chose to highlight the importance of psychological aspects of thinking, emotional capacity & well-being,” she adds.
Addressing this much-needed aspect of life has allowed her to continue her coaching and training work in the grooming and etiquette industry on the virtual platform.
“I’ve been doing a lot of personal coachings and training on Zoom about Self-Love and Positive Thinking and worked with consulting companies on media integration and image branding,” she says of her pivoting endeavours.
With face-to-face training postponed and some cancelled due to the MCO restrictions, Shawati explains that this motivated her to pivot to online training. However, since most of her topics involved human interactions, the first few times were quite frustrating as she felt they were not as effective as having face to face interactions. Despite the challenges, she soldiered on and stayed steadfast in her efforts.
Meanwhile, her role at HRD Corp as an independent media consultant is to work closely with the Corporate Communications team in conceptualising the goals and mission planned to promote it as a one-stop employment and skills development centre to provide the community with the opportunity to upskill and re-skill across a wide range of training, placement and career development services.
“We would extensively be interacting with the community through live stream channels to create awareness of our programs such as e-Latih, the Free Online Learning portal, Upskill Malaysia, the Integrated portal for Malaysians, providing access to training programmes, job opportunities, entrepreneurship skills, career planning support, and details on employment laws. We also have HPC, HRD Corp Placement Centre, a centre that provides employment and income-generating opportunities to Malaysians through job matching placement, training and development as well as career counselling and coaching. And we also have JanaPreneur, an online B2B and B2C that promotes products and services offered by sellers and wholesalers,” she shares.
She has also gone digital with her company and fashion label brand, Adamaya, related to beauty and health. Currently selling on the online platform Zalora.com.my and her business IG adamaya.co, Adamaya has also diversified its business to produce gourmet food products and is currently selling in Aeon grocers nationwide supplying their multipurpose chilli appetiser called ‘Hottie In Spice’ Food for Beauty.
“The pandemic has slowed down my retail activities and productions as well as I had to shift my stocks to be sold online due to many problems faced by the retail outlets that couldn’t sustain their business operations. During the first MCO, I couldn’t produce much but creative thinking is crucial when your hands are tied,” she says.
Shawati explains that they managed to transform the remnants of the songket fabric used on their runway clothes collection and transformed these into face masks with the help of her designer friend who sewed them from her home. Luckily for her, the vintage songket mask collection sold in a week with some repeat sales of some of the best-selling colours up till now.
Looking out for the welfare of other women has also been top of her list of priorities. Being aware of the present struggles cropping up due to the movement control order and the rise in domestic abuse and violence in the home has motivated her to stay actively involved with a few women’s non-government organisations. Acting as mentor and advisor on Mental Health & Personal Image Development, she has taken on leadership roles such as the Wanita Ikon advisor on mental health.
“We are currently organising a campaign called ‘Caretogether #kwimpeduli under Kelab Wanita Ikon to offer legal help to women who are mentally and physically abused to fight for their rights by giving them free legal services with the collaboration of a health product company,” she says.
To add to her list of accomplishments, Shawati has authored two books on self-empowerment focusing on Positive Image entitled ‘Imej Anda Aset Anda’ and a book on managing relationships called ‘Smart Women Foolish Choices’ , giving insights into how to manage the self & relationships with the opposite sex through real-life experiences of case studies featured.
“I want to help other women learn from the of failures and success stories of other women and to intelligently handle love matters that could build or break them,” she explains.
Her efforts in currently pursuing a Professional Doctor of Business Administration through the OXCEL-European-American University Partnership, a private international university in the United Kingdom, is a testament to her firm belief in life-long learning and staying relevant in the current business climate.
“The most important decision I finally made was to start on the thesis of my doctorate degree studies on which I procrastinated for too long. Time flies so fast and now I am already almost completing it. I pat myself and talk to myself in the mirror constantly after every completion of each chapter and tell myself ‘good job Shawati I am proud of you !” she says with passion.
How does she manage to do it all and still stay energised and youthful? She says that more self-compassion is key to staying motivated and driven in life and advocates the power of prayer in helping support her during the toughest of times.
“You need to be kind to yourself and reward yourself for every task done. Do not allow any room to entertain self-doubt or self-destruction and never underestimate the power of self-belief. You can achieve anything as long as you believe and manifest it hard.
“I love to dream awake and I must say that all the things that I managed to achieve start from the dreams and the power of my imagination of what I want to do and where I want to be. Once you have that dream in mind, your path would lead and manoeuvre you towards it. Have faith and always believe that the best is yet to come,” she sincerely advises.
