Many years ago I proudly went to my Dad and told him that I’ve won an entrepreneur award. I won’t say what award it was, but it was for a business organization. Expecting my Dad to be really happy for me, he gave me some tough love. He said
That’s good son. But the most prestigious entrepreneur award is the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award. Win that and then you know you’ve won something big.
I’ve never heard much about the EY Award back then but as I did more research I began to understand why my dad has such a high regard for it. It was a strict process to even get nominated for the award. EY would ask to evaluate not just you as an entrepreneur but the financial health of your company. Past winners of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award in Malaysia were Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, Lim Kok Wing and well the list goes on.
A year after talking to my Dad I got an email from Ernst & Young saying that they wanted to nominate me for the award and asked me if I would submit our financials to them and attend an interview. I politely turned it down because I didn’t feel I had achieved enough. I felt my company was still too small and that maybe they should check back again with us in a few years.
This year someone else from EY contacted me again. I talked to my accountant who happened to be from EY and asked her if she thinks we were big enough now. She nodded. So we submitted the application under the Emerging Entrepreneur category and went through the process along with some 70 or so other successful entrepreneurs.
Then came the night that they were supposed to announce the Top Nominees. I tried to ask EY if I was going to be one of the Top Nominees but they said they didn’t know until the actual announcement was made. I toyed about whether to go or not. After all I’m a super anti-social person and I avoid as many events as I can.
Then just a week before I happened to talk to my friend Bryan who won last year’s EY Entrepreneur of the Year under the Emerging category for bringing Chatime to Malaysia. I asked him if he was going and he said yes… and asked me to go along just for fun since he’s gonna be there.
I’m glad I went.. because to my surprise that night when they were announcing the Top Nominees, the name “Timothy Tiah” got called out.
Until that moment I hadn’t said a word to my father about joining the award because I didn’t think that I would win anything or even get shortlisted. That’s rare because I tell my father everything.
So after the award dinner I called my Dad and told him that I was Top Nominee now under Emerging Entrepreneur for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year. To my surprise he just went “Hmm ok”…
Then I said “Do you remember when you told me years ago that this was the one award that mattered the most?”
He replied “I did? I said that? Oh… good then”.
So this nomination taught me two things. That sometimes we don’t know what we’re capable of… and sometimes even our parents forget the impact they have on us.
Thank you EY for making me Top Nominee.
And thank you Dad… for unknowingly pushing me on!
Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t actually won yet. I’m just shortlisted one out of four. But being shortlisted is more than I could have asked for.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space