AKRAB Resources

On Saturday, July 2, 2022, our professional trainer, Ms. Malar Villi Suppramaniam from Hearts & Minds, led an Emotional Intelligence Workshop for the Yayasan Sime Darby scholars. This workshop's goals were as follows:

-To understand, appreciate, and acquire fundamental knowledge and skills in Emotional Intelligence.
-To understand the impact of EQ on optimal performance.
-To reveal the cost and benefit of Emotional Intelligence and align it with their life goals.

Ms. Malar introduced five emotional intelligence during the initial session:
Emotional Awareness,
Managing Emotions,
Motivation,
Empathy, and
Managing Others.

These five skills are the foundation for acknowledging our feelings, acting on them, and managing other people in our surroundings.
Throughout this session, scholars were divided into five groups and were required to discuss the topics presented.

Breakout Room Session 1: Each group needed to do a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of having five emotional intelligence skills. Among the responses we received from our scholars:

Lim Wei Cheng: The benefits of having these competencies include the ability to build strong relationships, improve self-control and communication, and make faster decisions. The disadvantage is that we are vulnerable to stress.

Zainab: "Less conflict; we can be a mental supporter of people around us because we understand them," she quoted (empathy). The disadvantage is that we may become overly focused on others and neglect ourselves as a result of our empathy.

Cynthia Tan: The benefits of having these competencies include being able to do something without being told or pressured to do so, and not being overly reliant on others. The disadvantage is that we will never be able to achieve our objectives.

Breakout Room Session 2: Scholars must answer questions about Emotional Intelligence and can discuss their understanding with the trainer. They had 10 minutes to answer as many questions as they could and record any answers that were ambiguous.

Breakout Room Session 3: Discuss which actions belong to the pre-frontal cortex and which decision-making belongs to the brain part.

The topics of this series include:

- Three Parts of the Brain
The Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex
The Frontal Cortex
The Amygdala

- Triune Mind
Neocortex Brain: This is the Rational or Thinking Brain.
Limbic Brain: Feeling Emotional Brain
Reptilian Brain: Dinosaur Brain or Instinctual Brain

- Emotional Hijack
When the amygdala takes over the rational thought process. This can happen during difficult interactions with others, such as when you are angry, frightened, or anxious.

-6 minutes Pause
A 6-second pause allows the rational brain to process sensory information. This can help us recognize how to act and how we do it in this and other situations.

- 5 Steps in Managing Emotions
Recognize and name the feelings
Recognize the experience and how we perceive it
Check for Accuracy- the mental process by which we determine
whether we perceive the situation correctly
Accept the emotion
Choose Wisely.

- Neuroplasticity
The brain is wired in a specific way when we do the same thing repeatedly. In order to build neuroplasticity, we must start engaging in new routines/hobbies on a frequent basis.

Before attending the workshop, all scholars were required to complete the Assessment, which assessed their level of self-empathy, self-motivation, and emotional management, and this was then discussed with our professional trainer. This is to ensure that the improved their understanding of intelligence and their ability to relate to their life. Aside from that, our trainer shared her knowledge and encouraged the scholars to express their feelings about the emotional experiences they had.

Thank you to Ms. Malar Villi Suppramaniam and Hearts & Minds for this beneficial workshop!

"This is not a webinar, this is a mentoring session”- Mentors

The session #4 kicked off with some changes.

Change 1 - Recap from the last session on what was fruitful.

“We have our mentor to help us become a better version of ourselves. If you have any questions we can ask the mentor. During the last session with Dato' 'Aliyah Karen, it was a productive session.” – Nor Azmi

“The most important thing in this session was we need to improve and be practice on how to communicate professionally” – Zairin Zulaikha

Change 2- You get to choose your topics of .

A- I have random questions. I want to ask anything and everything.
B- I would like to know more about internship placement and experiences.
C- Resume or CV related

What was discussed in the breakout rooms?

• How to overcome shyness, fear, and stigma like HIV
• Medical check-ups affect job opportunities.
• Which one is more important job or salary?
• How to create personal branding?
• What is the company looking for in the CV?
• How to answer the question that we don’t know from the interviewer?
• How to know your interviewers?
• How to answer when the interviewer asks about strengths and weaknesses?
• What platforms to find internship placement?
• Is it okay to change career less than 5 months?

Some key from this session:

• “It is normal to feel fear and nervous, from there we can know how to motivate ourselves. Focus on the strength and don’t let the voices put you down. Try to be unique and do what you are good at”-Nadia Nazura

• “Be prepared and consistent because the interviewer wants to see whether we can fit the organization” – Ezleen Qistina

• “Apply for the job more than once in the same week. If you want to change the career make sure 6 months and above and fully covered expenses before quitting your job” – Zainab

• “Focus on the results rather than focusing on the responsibility when you write the CV, start practicing to present the interview in a structured way with the STAR method and Simon Sinek.” Wan Han Tan


The 2-hour session saw the mentors share their , replied to questions, and gave some tips to the scholars for their learning process.

AKRAB Resources thanks the mentor from Primed For Success - Chris Chuang, Dato' 'Aliyah Karen, Zohrab Chong, Ezwan Zakaria, See Wei Ngiam, Suraya K A Rahman, Tyler Chin, Bachik Hussain, Jun Hsien Lee and Fathiyah Muen who were on board this week.

Wishing everyone a Ramadan!

Selamat Menyambut Nuzul Al-Quran buat semua muslimin dan muslimat.

Ikhlas dari: AKRAB Resources

Do you have an agile ? 🤔

The agile mindset is a thought process that involves understanding, collaborating, learning, and staying flexible to achieve high-performing results.

A growth mindset and an agile mindset is synonymous where both of it is a belief in the ability to and adapt.

Co-Founder of AKRAB Resources, Raja Azura Raja Mahayuddin, or ‘Umi’ as she is fondly known conducted a 4-hours Mindset & Spiritual Resilience Workshop #2 to the 30 YSD Scholars on 16 April 2022.

The workshop saw the involvement and interaction during the activities in the breakout rooms. The first activity was the scholars were required to discuss among themselves fixed mindset statements to growth mindset statements.

One of the scholars, Zainab volunteered herself to share her answers:-

❎Fixed mindset: I can’t speak English well.
✅Growth mindset: I will try my best to speak in English.

❎Fixed mindset: I have no choice but to attend the YSD mentoring session to meet the programme requirement.
✅Growth mindset: The YSD Programme will give us new knowledge to learn.

During the workshop as well there was a good question asked by Abdul Rahman Mohd Pauzi. “I am doing an internship. I know the job given to me is hard, but I always think I am capable to do this. That’s why they give me the task. Do I then have a growth mindset?”

Some key takeaways the scholars shared about :

🌸 “Growth mindset is important for us to make through challenges”- Suet Leng
🌸 “The growth mindset allows us to value what we’re doing regardless of the outcome”- Beh Jen Han
🌸“Positive mindset is crucial to improve ourselves and our lives” – Nur Nilam

is about quality that involves deep feelings and beliefs of a religious nature, rather than physical parts of life.

The second activity they did in the breakout room was to answer;
How do you find your inner peace?

Some of them shared:

📌 “I will always go to do laundry every time I am stressed out. I will wait until the clothes dry” - Zhofirah
📌 “I will go jogging early in the morning” - Jannah
📌 “I will watch grace anatomy” - Ainul
📌 “I will go to the nearest mosque to feel calm” - Khairulimran
📌 "I will do programming or learn a new language such as mandarin and Spanish”- Rahman


Everybody has their way to find their inner peace.

Share with us how do you find your inner peace?

Start your day with a big .

You’re more than you think.

5 things to today 👇🏻

How about you?

What do you understand about ?
Do you know anyone who is currently going through mental health challenges?
Do you know anyone with mental illness?

Mental Health Awareness Workshop #2 greatly happened to take place on fasting month which is on Saturday, 9 April 2022.

Mental health is “a state of well-being in which the individual realized his or her abilities, can they cope with the normal stress of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and can make a contribution to their community”, according to the World Health.

Many thanks to Dr. Sangeeta Kaur the founder of Emerging Journey Asia Sdn Bhd (EJAsia) and co-founder of Yayasan Health On World
(Y-HOW) conducted a 4-hour workshop for some 56 YSD Bursary Scholars.

She shared important information about mental health, especially the differences between practitioners which were counsellors, psychologists, and psychiatrists that people need to know and be aware of if they want to get treatment.

Psychologists and counsellors CAN NOT prescribe medication but only psychiatrists CAN prescribe medication.

She explained about physical self-care, psychological self-care, emotional self-care, spiritual self-care, relationship self-care, and financial wellness. All this self-care needs to be applied in our daily routine to sustain good mental health.

There were some questions from the floor:

🖊️ What is the difference between Alzheimer’s and dementia?
🖊️ How to encounter opinions from the oldest such as 'our life was tougher than you, why all the youngsters cannot handle their lives and lead to mental illness'
🖊️ Is stress good for us?

Dr. Sangeeta also said, “It was very important to not impose your religion when we talked about mental health. But you can and accompanied them to talk with an expert and get treatment to the right person”.

Some takeaway that they had learned from this workshop were:

📌Do not discriminate against people who had mental illness
📌Do not judge who suffered from mental illness
📌Self-care was very important for our mental health
📌Those who had the mental illness should not be left out
📌Shouldn’t discriminate against others’ feelings and respect what they were going through. We need to support each other.
📌Anything is possible when you had the right person
📌Everyone deserves a second chance

Share with us what you know about mental health 👇🏻

How do you know you can control your emotions? 🤔

50 YSD Scholars participated in the Emotional Intelligence Workshop #2 on 26th March 2022 run by Malar Villi Suppramaniam and founder of Hearts & Minds Development Centre.

intelligence is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.

In this session, the scholars shared their own emotions and how they felt:

📌 “I feel sad because I miss my best friend who I last met was two years ago” – Zairin
📌“I feel happy because I am able to meet positive-vibes people like you” – Nurul Syafikah
📌 “I feel delighted because I could save my money from overspending” - Amos
📌 “I feel excited because I’ll begin the new semester next week” – Ashaffiah
📌 “I feel motivated because my future visions are clear” – Ilakkia
📌“I feel excited because I am going to develop a real mobile app during my industrial training” – Abdul Rahman

Another question from the speaker to the scholars was “When were you at your , and what are the emotions that you experience?”

One of the scholars Muhammad Izzuddin said, “At my best, I feel , but at my worst, there is a feeling of uncertainty and sadness”.

So, he chose to do something great that could enhance his enthusiasm when he wanted to do something. He said when we got the , we’ll get the excitement. For example, he said that he felt excited when hanging out with friends and playing bowling.

Special thanks to Hearts & Minds Development Centre trainer and specialist Malar Villi Suppramaniam for this great sharing session with these scholars.

What they had learned on this session were:
📝 How to properly manage emotions, especially the negative ones
📝 Physical health also depended on emotional health
📝 How to distract emotions so that we can actually think using our rational brain instead of our emotional one.

How do you feel today?
Share with us what you feel today 👇🏻

“You need to ask questions to your mentor in your breakout room and have a conversation” Koh Mui Han

For 92 scholars of YSD THRIVE – Rising Talent programme on 24 March 2022

that sentence may have been a scary thought,

but here's some interesting questions posted to the mentors which opened a big door towards , open conversation.

o Challenges in career and how to overcome it.
o How to balance work life and personal life.
o Which one is important, career or salary?
o Should we plan for the career path or just follow the flow?
o How to overcome feeling nervous when asking questions?
o What is the corporate world in reality?
o How to have good communication and confidence to speak in front of people?
o Is soft skills more important than a paper qualification?
o Do you accept an internship which is Work from home? How would you get experience?
o How do you get passion from work?

It was all about learning, sharing, discussing, exploring, and asking questions to understand the working world. It’s really important in preparing them for after University.

“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you” – B.B. King

AKRAB Resources Thanks mentors Mui Han Koh, Yathong Lee, Chris Chuang, Zohrab Chong, See Wei Ngiam,Ezwan Zakaria, Tyler Chin, Dato' 'Aliyah Karen, and Suraya K A Rahman for the great insights with the scholars.

We hope that the sharing was valuable.

When your names are nominated what do you do??

Mentoring Session Part #2 from 15 March 2022

It is always fascinating to see someone step outside their comfort zone. This person just happened to be in the session! Despite her shyness and nervousness, she was able to talk about what she had learned in the breakout room.

Saffa Rosli , the first person who was nominated by her mentor Jun Hsien Lee to share what happened in her breakout room.

She shared on how made new friends from other universities and that she would like to have these kind of mentoring sessions again as they gave her the to be more confident in speaking.

Next was Nur Salsabilla, a ‘special person’ who confidently spoke in the main hall. She was curious on how to build in the working work as she felt her disability was a stumbling block.

Her mentor, Raja Azura Raja Mahayuddin encouraged her to focus on her strength and not her weaknesses.

Although she faced a challenge on speaking in English, ATIRA ELYANA did a good job sharing what she learned in the breakout room with mentor See Wei Ngiam.

Her advice was, to keep telling ourselves, it’s okay to speak English even not fluently however as we keep on practicing, we could overcome the fear to speak with others.

She did not let her weakness stop her from communicating in English and shared what she had learned in the breakout room.

Some of the mentors’ feedback were:

➢ Good conversations and the scholars asked some really good questions.
➢ Some did well and participation was excellent.
➢ Although some of the scholars were passive, they did participate to answer and share opinions when they were asked questions. This was done after the role play, and they were keen to receive feedback and re-asking the topic to learn more. The fact that each person shared their reflections at the end of the session, convinced the mentors that many of the scholars had gotten some valuable lessons of the session.
➢ Most of the scholars had an excellent command of the English language and was eager to join in the conversations and asked questions.

AKRAB Resources thanks the mentors Mui Han Koh Chris Chuang Yathong Lee Raja Azura Raja Mahayuddin Shahrul Nizam Md Nur Dato' 'Aliyah Karen Zohrab Chong Ezwan Zakaria See Wei Ngiam Suraya K A Rahman Tyler Chin Bachik Hussain Jun Hsien Lee .

Looking forward to a better and improved session, which will take place on March 24, 2022.

What do you know about mindset & spirituality?

The co-founder of AKRAB Resources, Raja Azura Raja Mahayuddin
conducted a brilliant workshop on the Mindset & Spiritual Resilience Workshop.

70 YSD scholars attended the 4-hour workshop on 19 March 2022, where she shared important information about our mindset, spirituality, and in life for the betterment of self-well-being.

There are two types of mindset :
✅ growth mindset
✅ fixed mindset.

A growth mindset is about how to change our thinking for a better version for example when I fail an exam, I will not to repeat the same mistakes.

The fixed mindset is when I fail, I feel like I’m not good. This needs to be changed.

Spirituality is about the quality that involves deep feelings and beliefs of a religious nature, rather than the physical part of our life.

One of the scholars, Mas Nur Jannah said, spiritual are things that cannot be endured but they come from our soul.

The workshop saw interactions and involvement during the breakout rooms.

One question and statement by Shamaaraj Shanker on current disaster and difficulties was answered by Dato' 'Aliyah Karen. Her simple reply was to always focus on what we could change rather than worry about what we couldn't. “The world is getting tougher and more complex. We need to get stronger and more resilient” she quoted.

Each room had 4 or 5 participants. They were given 10-15 minutes of various tasks to discuss fixed versus growth mindset statements and how they found their inner peace. Some of the groups voluntarily shared their answers and gave opinions.

, Raja Azura Raja Mahayuddin shared her experience of what she had been through in her life and how to be an agile and resilient person.

We hope that these scholars learned valuable lessons from the session and change their from a fixed to a growth mindset. As the speaker said, “You must have a strong mindset, strong spirituality, and strong support systems. In life, the challenge will come to everyone”.