Meet Elango Thiyagu | Entrepreneur, Investor & Author

We had the good fortune of connecting with Elango Thiyagu and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Elango, how do you define success?
To me, success is the ability to do what my heart tells me to do. Some might say, “That’s easy; anyone could do that.” That is pretty much true. However, “It’s simple but not that easy.” That’s what I often tell the entrepreneurs I guide.

I say this because while on the path of listening to my heart, the mind often has many things to say to ensure my life is objective and practical. And in these moments of listening to the heart’s crazy voice, it might seem more practical to follow the “realistic” voice of the mind.

But over the past few decades, from all the successes in my life, from becoming a millionaire in my early 20s to selling thousands of copies of my books and even developing more than 30 startups, the route I’ve taken has never been conventional or practical. All of the successes that have happened in my life almost always resulted from the uncomfortable moments of saying “I’m sorry” when I was wrong or simply learning to trust in people again, even when people make mistakes. All the ups and downs in my life are worthwhile because I learned to follow my heart!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

I am currently retired, so I spend most of my time penning down my experiences in the books I write. Recently, I released my latest book, ‘Wisdom of the Talking Bodhi Tree,’ which talks about the simplicity of life from the perspective of a tree in comparison to the complications that humans cause themselves. This is my fifth published book, with more projects in the pipeline. I enjoy writing about my experiences in life, and this time, I’m collaborating with the many entrepreneurs I have previously guided to have their thoughts on the areas they specialize in.

Occasionally, I spend my time guiding successful individuals who are in the later stages of their lives to smoothly transition to the ‘letting go’ stage of life. I believe that every individual goes through a learning stage and experiencing stage in the first 40 years of their lives. Eventually, with wisdom comes the next stage, contemplation, which is to make sense of whatever has occurred in the years of their lives thus far. The fourth and final stage, letting go, is a stage of giving back your time, resources, knowledge, and more to those who need it more than you. This concept and way of life has gotten me very far and made me a much happier person. Hence, I guide other successful individuals who are interested in transitioning into the ‘letting go’ stage based on my personal experiences.

We’d love to hear what sets you apart from others, what you are most proud of or excited about.

I’m a strong believer that the young should lead. However, saying it and taking action on it are two different things. So, when I came across four youngsters back in 2015 who were very excited to change the world, I helped guide them to actualizing their idea and vision. This, to me, was the beginning of many more youngsters leading and changing the world.

Over the past decade, I’ve shared with these youngsters my days of being a young entrepreneur (I launched my first business when I was 12 years old where I developed software programs back in the 1980s). Things were not easy for me as people didn’t believe a young person could take their career professionally as adults did, let alone run their own business. I didn’t have a support system to champion my ideas and vision. So when I finally did become successful, and was met with youngsters who were embarking on their entrepreneurship journey, I wanted to make sure I could give them all the support they needed. It was more than just talking about business strategies or their start-up growth; I also shared a lot of values that I learnt were important to have before one started running a business – i.e., being truthful, working hard, being resilient, finding solutions to any problems, and setting and achieving goals.

These four youngsters went on to form Ascendance (www.ascendancepro.com), one of the largest youth organizations in Southeast Asia that has impacted over 55,000 students in 26 countries. Ascendance enables students to discover their interests, understand what drives them, get real-world hands-on experiences in the fields that they are passionate about, and create sustainable careers for themselves.

Ascendance and the many individuals from ET Ideas (the social business incubator I founded) are impacting plenty of people worldwide. These are the joys of my life – seeing them make the world a better place.

How did you get to where you are today professionally.

I was 12 years old when I was first fascinated with computers. This was in the 1980s when personal computers were new and very expensive. Seeing my interest, my father, who was an ordinary government employee, took a loan and bought me my very first personal computer.

This further sparked my interest in writing computer programs. And so, a few months later, I started writing my own computer programming, including a software that recorded employee data for cooperatives. It was here that my entrepreneurship journey began as I met up with business owners, government employees, and others to share about the software I created. Things slowly kicked off, and soon, I was making money at a very young age.

This one idea sparked the next one. I learned at that time in my country that companies needed to track and report the hearing capacity of their factory workers to ensure employee safety standards were being met. So, I came up with software that could capture and track their hearing results since the previous method of recording the results was done manually by hand. This gave me my big break, since numerous corporations needed this software to keep their employees’ records as part of the government’s regulation.

Creating this software led me to meeting the many factory workers who were part of this regulatory safety and hearing test. After conversations with numerous workers, I realized many of them were not using their safety gear. To my astonishment, they didn’t see the need to do so. And so, came my next business idea — to provide a training program for these factory employees to learn and understand the use of these safety gears and the dangers related to it if not worn during work. Since many companies already knew me as their software provider, I was then able to pitch my idea as a trainer to share the safety rules regarding protective gear.

While I was sharing about safety awareness with these employees, I was also sharing about living a meaningful life. That inspired me for my next growth career: to provide awareness-based training programs for employees, entrepreneurs, and individuals who wanted to experience positive changes in their lives. It was also around this period that I wrote my first book – ‘The Seven Basic Laws Of Nature’, so I based my training program on the book. With the Biocybernetics Training Program (today known as the ‘Be At Your Best’ program conducted by PhD Candidate Valsala Krishnan), my businesses expanded even further.

By then, I was in my late 20s, living a successful life and planning for my early retirement. That’s when it occurred to me that instead of retiring before I was 30, I could use the skills and wisdom I’ve gained to help other people become successful. I knew that working with people wasn’t as linear as working with the 0s and 1s in computer programming. It was going to be challenging but I love challenges and looked forward to it. So, in 2008, I built a platform and business incubator called ET Ideas, to provide an avenue for ordinary individuals to turn their passion into sustainable careers while giving back to the next generation. To date, the business incubator has developed more than 30 startups with organizations in different fields like finance, events, media, music, tourism, websites and more, with each organization sharing its resources with others in the incubator so everyone grows together.

Was it easy? If not, how did you overcome the challenges?

It was definitely not an easy journey. Coming up with an idea that helps organizations at 12 years old was an amazing feat, but I was constantly questioned about my ability to deliver results at such a young age. “What if you take on the project and you can’t deliver because of your schoolwork?” This was one of the many questions I received in the early days of my career. My father was very supportive but he didn’t know what advice to give a young entrepreneur who was facing countless rejections.

The truth is, I’ve gone through plenty of setbacks, rejections and obstacles throughout my life. My ideas were revolutionary during that time and didn’t conform to the norm.

So, I had to use a lot of willpower to keep pursuing what I wanted and ignore the naysayers. It was tough and lonely doing it alone without much support but as I kept on persevering, I met many accomplished and inspiring business owners who passed on their wisdom to me. That kept me going to achieve more results in life and also inspired me to give teen entrepreneurs a support system for them to be successful without the age factor becoming a stopping block.

What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way.

Listen to your heart and be yourself no matter what society tells you to be. Nobody said this was going to be easy. But the journey of being myself has taught me so many things, even the simplest, yet the most important of things in life like love and compassion. Over the years, I saw that, by having compassion for each other and giving people the benefit of doubt, has brought me strong friendships and has changed the lives of many.

What do you want the world to know about you or your brand and story?

I’m a guy who tells people to follow their hearts, to live your life the way you want and to support the younger generation by sharing your knowledge, experience and resources with them. This brought me immense joy. I hope it does the same for you.

If you are intrigued with the things I’ve mentioned, feel free to read my books at www.bodhitreewisdom.com. It will give you more insights into my journey and my story.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If you’re a taco lover and foodie such as myself, I recommend stopping by Taqueria Cambray. We enjoyed their soft-shelled chicken tacos and quesadillas when we were there.

I, for one, am someone who loves catching live shows and supporting the arts, so I’d recommend stopping by the Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center to check out what shows they have this season to celebrate the creative and performing arts community.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to shout out to Joyce Lim and Edward Boey for being with me since the formation of ET Ideas, the business incubator I founded in 2008. With its aim of developing entrepreneurs to step out of the system and solve world problems at the root cause collectively and selflessly, Edward and Joyce were willing to go ahead with my idea even though many told me it would be impossible.

Over the years, both of them have become successful founders of their organizations – Edward, the Founder of Newwave Synchronizer, an app and website development company, and Joyce, the Founder of Simply Empowering, an outsourced accounting and business advisory company. Not only have they developed themselves and their careers, but they still dedicate their time, energy, resources, and even funds to growing the new and upcoming startups in the business incubator. It is because of kind individuals like them who understand that the young must lead that gave me the backing I needed to support the ideas of the young. Even with their tremendous support, they’ve always chosen to be in the background, supporting the entire organization I was running from behind the scenes.

Another person I would like to thank is my business partner, Ho Yep Man, who passed away during the pandemic. He lifted me up during the lowest point in my life despite knowing nothing about me at the time. His faith in me was incredible and taught me so much about life. Working beside him and gaining all his wisdom for the past three decades was a true joy and gift.

Website: www.bodhitreewisdom.com

Other: www.et-ideas.com www.ascendancepro.com

Image Credits
ET Boost Studio