Meet KarFei Cheah, a leadership, emotional intelligence (EQ) and talent development coach that works with individuals and organizations to better perform and manage their teams, coaching them to improve their own life, teams and organizations. Starting at 21 years old, KarFei has been coaching and training for the last 12 years and is now the founder of Life Redesigned.
Life Redesigned is a talent development and coaching academy, which helps companies to build leaders and teams to perform better at work through coaching, training, and keynote address. Its coaching academy on the other hand focuses on providing world-class and practical coaching certifications for people to become a great coach in the workplace or to start a career in coaching.
Below are some insights shared by KarFei from a conversation with OpenAcademy.
Q: What makes you different as a coach and trainer?
A: My Unique Selling Proposition is multi-generation leadership. My in-depth understanding about Generation Y or millennials has gained me traction and recognized as a Gen Y expert. I coach on generational differences and how to manage it, as well as how to retain and motivate talent.
Q: What are some tips to manage the Gen Y’s?
A: My expertise is in human psychology, human behaviour, and mindset. I use this to help people to understand themselves so that they can perform better in their lives and work. In the end, the core of a human is the same, which is having a purpose in life. For baby boomers, as they survive post war when job opportunities are scarce, their purpose in raising kids up is to make sure there is food on the table. For the younger generation, there is a “paradox of choice”- they simply have too many choices to choose from for their life decisions. Humans as a whole need to have a purpose in life, my job is to help young people to see purpose in everything they do in their roles, life and company. In order for talent to perform, companies should invest in understanding, caring, and supporting what their talents are doing outside of work. It is the era of organisations being invested in their employees’ dreams and goals.
Q: How can companies attract a multi-generation workforce?
A: There are 3 important points to how you can do this. Firstly, the salary has to be competitive. Two, Benefits cannot be one-size-fit-all, they should be targeted at different groups, for example for young people they want more flexibility. Lastly, it is important to showcase what they do for the multi-generation workforce, sell themselves as a company with purpose and value as well as having a stand. SMEs have to change how they operate so they can attract talent by positioning themselves a bit better, and start selling their companies a bit better.
Q: What are some of the challenges you had to overcome to get to where you are now?
A: One of the challenges I had to overcome is being seen as too young when I started my business at 21. I have no corporate experience and did not graduate from a famous school. I overcame it through perseverance and talked to more people, getting more yes instead of no. I had a coach at 19 years old who encouraged me to try new things. I got certified when I was 20 years old and launched my business as a coach at 21. Since then, I have accumulated a lot of experience coaching Gen Y and have been invited to speak in many Gen Y conferences in and out of Malaysia.
Q: You’ve mentioned the difficulties in getting to where you are today, why do you continue doing this?
A: The biggest satisfaction when it comes to my work is the PEOPLE. When I am able to see their life transformed, and people sharing with me that what I teach really helps them at work, this is why I continue to do what I do. Additionally, I am also able to listen to thousands of stories in terms of their life and work, which also helps me to understand more about myself.
Q: Who are the types of people that can benefit most from your help?
A: Any organization who wants to develop future proof leaders, who believes leadership is important and is interested in growing their leaders. Also, young professionals who want to become better in their life through coaching or becoming a coach.
Q: What are your future goals?
A: As for the future, I hope to continue scaling my business, to coach, train more, and build people to do training. I also want to expand geographically to the Middle East (or any other parts of the world).
Q: What advice do you have for the community?
A: It is a given that technology is definitely growing faster and faster each day, but as human beings, we also have to remind ourselves to grow every day. Digitalization is not a choice, it will come whether you like it or not, but people may forget to grow themselves. So it’s important to remember to continue improving ourselves, not just the technology.
What amazing insights from KarFei! For more insights from KarFei, you can follow him on Instagram or LinkedIn or reach out to him directly via the Digital Space group for advice!