بِسْمِ ٱللّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the name of God, the most Gracious, and the most Compassionate Peace and blessings be upon Prophet and his family and his companions.
Vice President of International Coaching Federation Robert Garcia, the organizing team of this important session All of Tomorrow, Specially Mr. Mohamed Alim, Dr. Mohamed Shaugee former tourism and education minister who has also played a major role in making the country. Nahid my colleague has worked with me for many many years, who is the General Manager of Villa Nautica today. I also see Mr. Umarbe I would also say Mohamed Hameed, another kind of mentor or coach or trainer, I would say, sitting just in the front row. Executives from organizations, I can see from front and behind, playing a major role in this country and all my very close friends here;
السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ 
And a very Good Morning to you all.
 
First of all it is my great pleasure, and I feel it is an honor for me to take part with you in this very important session I would say. Thank you very much for inviting me and giving me an opportunity to say a few words though I may not be the most appropriate person for such a session that gives coaching, or training, or mentoring. But I thought as I have said that I would not cancel it or I would just come and meet all of you. So thank you very much.
Alim, we have had few meetings before at the place where I live, and also the place where I work, the President’s Office, regarding this session during its planning was going on and we have discussed about the future of the country and how important these kinds of sessions would be. So thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to stand before you today. And I must also thank Robert Garcia, travelling all the way from the United States, Miami Florida. We all love to visit a place more or less like the Maldives I would say. The temperature. Not the other things. So thank you so much for coming and your readiness to share the knowledge and the experience that you have, with a young country. I would say a young generation here, to the Maldivians.
Well I was just asked to say a few words and as I have said that your main session is going to be with Robert Garcia and not with me but I thought maybe I can also share with you some experience that I have, may not be very interesting to you but, well, we have worked with so many people for many years though we are looking like this, I think we have worked with Umarbe and also so many people here. And for many many years. Last thirty years. And it is also good, it is kind of accidental or I don’t know if it is purposely planned that I maybe the right person or the wrong person to stand here, in this island where I had an idea to make this place a conference or meeting hall like this thirty years ago where it was not done at all, where we are sitting or standing now. This place, finally it has become a very nice conference hall today. Of course.
Let me tell you, it is also very timely that, I began as a small I would say a boy then. Thirty years back I was a boy. Today I am a big man. I don’t want to say I am old. But you may be saying that. This is where I started my career when I was just 18 years in 1992. And there was just, I would say kind of an old resort. We had to demolish everything and totally plan a new resort, build a very new resort. And a very new one to the Maldives again. A five star. Maybe it was going to be the second five star. They are looking at me from Universal now when I said that. Because I know you had the first five star as Kurumba Maldives, Kurumba Village. Yes this was second or third with the Fullmoon then at that time.
So imagine what kind of expectations and what kind of work environment we would have at a place like this, while I was just only 18 years I was a, I don’t want to say that, but I was, I would say second in charge. I was almost the in charge to the in charge let’s say or the manager here. So I was the second person in command at 18 years, just fresh from school, here in paradise working with at least three to four hundred expatriates and another three to four hundred Maldivian contractors, construction group and so on. And we built these resorts within two years and it soon became one of the most popular, one of the most favorite resort for the Maldivians in the mid-90’s.
So, I just wanted to tell you that as an 18 year old, fresh from school, I had no experience at all. I really did not know what was really going on. Building, construction, designing and landscaping, meeting tour operators, travel agents, trying to sell in advance to the European market, Japanese, Australian, everywhere. So meeting with very experienced people, tour operators and travel agents, locally and internationally and also dealing with those construction groups and contractors and of course others who are also again as employees of this resort. We had people who had worked as managers in other resorts. Some of Universal resorts and some other resorts I can remember. So I was just working with them and I would say, I want to say this because I don’t normally want to talk much about me. But today the purpose is just to tell you because I know this session is all about efficiency, delivery of service, productivity and how you work. I know it is all about that services. So I thought it might be useful for you to know where and when and how this person has come all the way.
So it was a time when I knew nothing. So I knew that I do nothing. So I took every little opportunity, every little chance that I got to learn something. To learn from everyone. I learned from the Bangladeshis. I learned from the Indians. I learned from the Sri lankans. I learned from people coming from North and South. I learned from very big people, I learned from small people. So, today we have to accept the fact that you can learn from anyone. Every human being has got something good. Believe me. Sometimes we as human beings we think that a mentor, a coach or a trainer, it can only be by a Professor, or someone coming from the university, someone from Harvard, someone from the Oxford, or someone from Villa College. Umarbe is looking at me. No, not that. Anybody, believe me. Even the janitorial staff, who we see every time we pass from the lobby to the restaurant, the janitorial staff can tell you something really helpful. So number one, please don’t underestimate anyone, and please don’t under rate your colleagues. It’s the hierarchy, you have on top the managers, you have the lowest maybe, and I don’t want to say they are cleaners. I don’t want to say that because they are also very important. Each and every one. Just wanted to say, because I know I don’t have time, you have come here not to listen to me. I know you have come all the way to listen to Robert Garcia. But I thought I must share some of my experiences.
Well, I believe that the session of coaching and landscape of future of the organizations, this is very important. Continuous coaching, continuous mentoring, continuous training is very important. Very very important. We in the mid-90’s again, training was not very much popular I would say. You just do your job. You just do the way you know it. I remember in the mid-90’s myself and Umarbe, we both also discussed very much about training and then we also started very first trainings here in this Paradise Island in the mid-90’s. We had people coming from the Hotel School and those who are working in the College of Higher Education. Umarbe was in the HR Department in Male’ organizing all these upon our requests. So coaching, training and professional development was, it was always important. It has always been, and today it is more important than any other time.
So my friends, you have to improve yourself. Every day the whole world is changing. That’s what we saw from the video. They say in 2025 and then they go on saying like that. It is like the iPhone. You got an update for the software and you have it coming every month or maybe every other month. You need to update. You need to reskill. You need to learn. Don’t ever think, that you have completed your first degree, your masters or your PhD, it’s done for you. I got that in my drawer or in my file. You just go and show this is me. No. that’s not you. You are you. What you do. What you know. Not what the certificate says. We have so many Doctors, PhDs, so many masters, and so many degrees. So many people who has learned from the different parts of the world. But even Dr. Shaugee still got to update himself.
So my friends, you need to do this. This is a great opportunity. And every day is a great opportunity for you to learn. Learning never ends. That’s what even Quran says. From the cradle to the grave. So keep learning every day. Use your time, utilize to the maximum to read something, to learn something. To learn how other people do things in the U.S., in Australia or Japan or other parts of the world. India, China, neighbors or near or far. Try to learn what other people do things and how the world changes. Because we, today, at this age of creativity or at this age of technology, or this age of innovation or AI or whatever, you still got to change at a rapid speed. Because the whole world is changing at a breathless speed. We need to keep the pace with them. So in order to do that, as a small country with very limited resources, have only got one chance. The chance is our human capital and how we deliver. How productive we are.
So my friends, we got to do this. If you look at those developed countries in the world. Very developed countries in the world. If we take one country as an example one of our neighboring country, let’s say Singapore started sixty years back. What was the most important thing for them? Human resources. They invested heavily, investing heavily on human resources, human capital, and human development. That’s what they are. That is the success of Singapore today. They have people ready for everything. Technical people, Doctors, Scientists, Teachers, Nurses, Engineers, Pilots, everything. Civil Engineers, everything. Designers, Professors, Lecturers, name it. It’s not easy. It was not by an accident. It was not, I would say not an overnight victory. So these are lessons to learn. If we want to go that far, we want to go that far. We the Government, we the people, we the public, the private sector, we want to go far. We want to go far with them. We want to be a developed country like Dubai, like Singapore. Why not say like the Scandinavian. But it’s not an accident. You can’t do it like that.
You really need to invest your time in good things. You need to have a very good teamwork in your office. We sometimes, I don’t want to say very often, sometimes the boss may not be very happy. We saw that something. Somebody standing behind both hands, I almost thought he was going to bang on the face and you know it should not happen. Human coming from, all coming from, all are human beings. People make mistakes, but we also don’t want to say that we will learn every time from trial and error. No! We don’t have time even for that. Let’s not say we will learn from our mistakes. No, we don’t have time now. We can’t sacrifice all our time for that. But accept when someone new comes to your office, when someone new comes to the customs, comes to the airport, or to another private company, please accept this as a new person, I was a new person here at 18 years and I completed that and I became the assistant manager at this resort in 1994. My first job was assistant manager. So it’s like you have to coach them. You have to teach them. You have to guide them. Try to give a moral boost. Don’t just demoralize or just make new comers, especially the new generation, says very much the Gen Z and Alpha and all these. So it is different. It is really different. We were not born with iPads. We just saw iPhone yesterday. And this generation, they are born on iPads. On the internet. The first thing they see is the internet. Some YouTube, or some cartoon. That’s what they see. So their friends is more like this kind of things you know. Technology is their friend. We were not there.
So please, you have to tell me if I take too long. Because I know I may not get a chance as Vice President to speak to you anymore. I have few days left. So I just try to take some time. So you have to please. I hope.
I am not sure how many companies we have here but I think it is also good that you go back to your work environment and then try to pass on to the colleagues. I think that’s what you do because, probably your company must have sent you to keep everything inside and then bring it and then again open it to others. So please pass this message to the rest of your colleagues when you are back at work. So please treat them as human beings. Accept that they, someone who don’t know will know a lot of things if you teach. Nobody is born with any talent. No one. Not at all. Just how you were born, can you remember when you were born? Anybody remember the time you were born? How you were born? No! You don’t know. You can’t even remember that. So but I know, because we see, I have three children. So I was there when they were born. So I know how they were born. But no talent at all. No talent. So we got to feed them, we got to coach them, we got to teach them. This is what we have to do. So when a new person comes to your office to stand beside you, behind you, in front of you, please try to help them. Try to teach them. Make it your commitment kind of. Or your duty to make that person greater than you. That would be a real good accomplishment for you. When you leave you say, hey, see, the one who were sitting behind me for years now is in the front row. That would be a real, what should we say for that? Dr.? Achievement. It is called achievement. That is achievement. Making another person is the achievement.
So, please my friends. This is teamwork. So you have to teamwork, lead. You have to lead today. If you don’t lead you are left behind. When you are left behind the others go forward and you will be staying there. And we will not get what we want.
So you have to move. Move on. Move forward. We have now, when you press sometimes, one, two, three times this forward right, it goes very fast. So this is how we should work today. Leading, and we have to have a community. Sometimes we think that it can be just only the Government. Or it can be only the President or maybe you know, the whole of cabinet or maybe those of the executive or other employees you know. Or public servants I would say. They will do everything for the nation. No!
To me the Government I believe is a whole of it’s including the people the public, the private and the Government that’s it. But we have to remember, if ever our lust for power prevails over granting the care and the love for the people, no country is going to succeed. And we also make a specific group as a more important than the public, or the state that’s also not going to be successful. So we have to have an environment, a community where we give love and care to everyone. To the whole of citizens. We cannot also keep the public at our service. As long as you do that you are not going to succeed. Not as a nation, not as a community, nor as a family even.
So my friends, think every day. We see news from everywhere. On our palm we have, you must be having your iPhone, some might be even looking at that now. So easy to get information. So easy to learn things. Make your time even productive. Because as I have said earlier the world is changing at a rapid speed. We can’t control it. We can never control any disaster. We have already gone through. I can’t just even tell you now, what the situation it was. In resorts mostly they have experienced it when we met or when this covid-19 all the way came and at a bash. It was shocking. It was shocking for us. But then everything was disabled. What, the whole country was like shut down. No economy. Nothing was moving. We were just only fortunate that how the Government and the public worked together as a team and tried to come out of this. So that was one thing. And then look at the world around. All those conflicts and wars between two countries two giants again and all these things affecting, impacting specially on small countries like this. These are all human made disasters.
In the Middle East what is going on. Or in the Europe what is going on. So much of disasters are created by human beings. So, we are to suffer. Small countries like Maldives. Especially small island nations with less little resources are to suffer. And I don’t want to say that there is much kind of, I mean justice in the sense that we being a low lying country, small island states, everyday facing with natural disasters, floods and other destructions to all the islands and that we are being paid by the rich countries, you know what we deserve. No!
Today we are facing the fighting and the result of their, in fighting and things and we are to face in the front row. Not our fault. But we are affected very much by the global warming and all sorts of things. But nothing. We don’t contribute. Not even a 0.0000 something we are contributing to the global warming and other disasters that are being you know in this world. We in the Maldives we drive few cars. And we are trying to change from the fossil to renewable energy and all these things. We are doing nothing compared to what the giant countries, the industrial nations are doing. But we are taking that brunt, we. So, this is the world my friends. This is the world we are living in. can we expect this to be any better. Can we say that we will never face any disaster in the coming years? No conflicts, no wars. We don’t know.
So this is the world we live in. So I think the solution is that we got to be prepared. We got to be more resilient. We make sure that each and every one of us work hard. From morning till evening, work hard. Make more money, spend less. It is very important. So my friends, please try to push everyone you know. If you have children, your children. If you have brothers and sisters, those. Try to make them work hard.
I am in a resort which was opened in 1994. A five star resort which is one of the most famous in the Maldives. If you look at resorts I can say this is almost the 90% of direct and indirect revenue of the country through our GDP. We as Maldivians, industry leaders and all those who are involved, I think it is time for us to think about empowering more. To train more. Not for that. For the top. I have sat with Ali from Universal, and Ahmed there, with Iyaz, and I can see some others even. Many many times. Many many times we met at President’s Office and in the place where I live now. We made plans, we discussed a lot. Training Maldivians for the executive posts for the tourism industry also and other industries in this country. We have to do it, we have to do it because today we can only show our credibility by actions. Not just by words. I have stood in a podium on stage five hundred times this five years. Five hundred times. I stood on a stage talking to my fellow citizens. Same thing I have been talking to my fellow citizens. Same thing I have been talking. Five hundred times, but those are words, we need actions. Unless we have this kind of actions people will not trust us. Believe me, you can tell stories to little children you know, while you put them to sleep. Nursery rhymes and all those, but not to the people of this age you know.
So we everyone have to make sure that we take actions. And I am very much sure, sad thing is that I wish I was, I had the chance but anyway I think everyone will have a time you know, get on to the stage or get off the stage. So for now maybe it is my time for, to get off the stage because I know the curtain is already closed. So I must slowly work from behind and get away. But it is just one person again who is going away, but there are many. There are more creative and more innovative. More productive in this country because our youth have talent, they are very good, the Maldivian youth. So I see a bright future. I see that there is so much happening, specially training the Maldivians to the executive levels in the resorts. And also fisheries industry, renewal energy, Engineers, Doctors, so that we try to retain, we try to retain a lot in the country rather than sending as remittance millions and millions of dollars every month. This is something that we can do, something that we can do. We have to do more. There is so much we can do. We don’t say oh we have little resources, or it is like you got nothing so I will just sleep. No, you have to find, you have to find what can be done. Singapore got no resources at all. But they had a leader, who was like a nation loving leader who says I am for the country. I am for the people. No corruption. Nothing into the pocket. Lee Kuan Yew I am talking about. And if you look at now U.A.E we take an example, Mohamed Bin Rashid. And also we take Abu Dhabi, the President of United Arab Emirates. You look at Doha, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, oh my god, they wake up in the morning and they go out to drive on the road to see how things are starting in the morning after dawn. This is the leaders who are making an impact on their country. These are the kind of people who love their country. And they left a mark, Lee Kuan Yew on you and still we talk about, still we watch Lee Kuan Yew’s videos, still. Not outdated. Infact, even until 2050 we still can use it. So this is what we need. We need to prepare our people for different industry to take up the jobs of tomorrow. We have a good team. We have young. Our youth population is huge. It is huge in this country. So this is what we have as resources.
We have water 99%. We have fish under that. We need to do something and how we can sell it at the highest rate. This is what we have to do. We have islands. We can do agriculture. Today it is not horizontal. Today it is vertical. It goes up. Technology for everything.
So my dear friends, I know I have spoken to you for too long. I don’t know how much time I was given. But I know I am taking time of Robert Garcia. He has come all the way from the United States. I just thought that I, since I may not be getting another opportunity to speak to you like this, I thought that I would just share my thoughts and you know, what I see my country as you know. And how I want to see my people you know. That’s what I thought so, be good leaders, show your leadership. Work with your colleagues. Respect people. Learn from others, from everyone. And then it will definitely make a huge impact. Immense, tremendous so that is my little advice from my less, less, less little knowledge that I have gained in my 50 years. I don’t want to mention that 50 years.
That’s it and just before I conclude, I would just like to thank all the participants for listening to me and I never saw anyone talking on the phone. I was just looking at the table if I can see anybody watching Tiktok or you know Instagram. Very famous for our youth. But I saw everybody’s heads up looking towards me. So thank you so much for that and thank you very much Robert Garcia. I hope, I will have some free time. In sha Allah I will plan a trip to Miami. I will see you there one day soon in sha Allah.
Thank you very much for coming here to the Maldives.
Alim, thank you so much for inviting and also for organizing such an important session for the interest of our youth I would say here in the Maldives. And Villa Nautica I think has helped so much and I don’t need to say more about Villa. So much of contribution. Here is one person Dr. Shaugee along with the Chairman of Villa Mr. Gasim Ibrahim who has also helped so much to bring up Villa College and education sector, private education. So it is a major reform, major transformation in the private education. One key member was Dr. Shaugee and sorry Mr. Umarbe. I forgot. I was looking at this side. Mr. Umarbe and Villa Foundation, so you both have contributed a lot and I see many from both sides I see Hassan Saeed also coming from my island. We lived together. Grew up together as young kids. Even Iyaz from my island. I see many of you. My very close friends here.
So thank you so much Villa Hotels, Nautica for arranging such an event. Thank you so much Nahid who was my colleague while I was the General Manager he was my colleague working with me. I don’t say working under me. I say working with me. And I am so proud to see that all Villa resorts got General Managers in all the resorts, who are my, I will not say again who worked under me, I will say who worked with me while I was General Manager in 2001. I am so proud to see all those who has worked with me being so successful. Leading people in the tourism industry.
So thank you very much Nahid. And it is again I would say it is a great honor, pleasure, a great opportunity for me here. Thank you so much.
May god bless us with good health, peace and prosperity. I wish you a pleasant day.
Thank you very much.