This week, Trisha interviews Shaikh Fadilah Ahmad, a former diplomat from Brunei, Darussalam. Shaikh Fadilah shares his rich career experiences spanning 30 years and his seamless transition to 'coffee diplomacy' after retirement -at least from the Diplomatic Service. The conversation dives into the importance of cultural intelligence (CQ) and how Fadilah applied his early learnings of respect and cultural adaptability in his diplomatic career. They also discuss his successful pivot to owning a coffee shop, mentoring young entrepreneurs, and his involvement in social causes. His passion for coffee culture and art exhibitions in his cafe is underlined, offering a unique blend of business, personal connection, and social impact.

You can connect with Fadilah on LinkedIn and/or explore his cafe (especially the cake gallery) via his website and if you are lucky enough to visit in person -enjoy!

I would like to acknowledge the Dharawal people, the Aboriginal people of Australia, whose country I live and work on. I would like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and thank them for sharing their cultural knowledge and awareness with us.

[00:01:14] Trisha: Motivational, the drive, Cognitive, the knowledge. Metacognitive, the strategy. And behavioral, the action. And all four of these capabilities can help us operate effectively in situations of diversity. In this podcast, we focus more on the metacognitive aspect, where we think about our thinking. The CQ Strategy.

[00:01:58] Trisha: Did I pronounce the name correctly?

[00:02:01] Trisha: Thank you. He is from Brunei, Darussalam. Fadilah has enjoyed an impressive career spanning 30 years as a diplomat. In addition to his time at APEC, he served his country as ambassador to Cambodia at the UN and New York and as permanent secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

[00:02:44] Trisha: He's twice been listed in the top 50 Brunei inspiring icons. So we have a lot of shifts to unpack in this conversation today. Welcome. And thank you for giving us your time Fadilah.

[00:02:58] Trisha: Wonderful to meet you too. And it was great that Bridget almost pushed us together and saying, you should interview him.

[00:03:07] Trisha: It's wonderful to have you here. So I want to go into all of those shifts and learn about all your thinking and your experiences. But first the questions we ask all of our guests, what is a culture other than the culture you grew up in that you have learned to love and appreciate?

[00:03:43] Fadilah: And, one of the interesting that I found as well that I was studying in an independent school in Brunei at the time, and my classmates were all from different faiths, Buddhists Christians, Hindus and even the local diocese as well. And one of the things that I was exposed to at a young age was visiting them on holidays and traditions and festivities.

[00:04:13] Fadilah: And when I started working at APEC Secretariat with Bridget back in 1996. I felt that I was exposed to those kind of values as well, and that I have to use those kind of values that I learned when I was young to adapt to cultural diversity.

[00:04:47] Fadilah: So it becomes such a practical thing and it doesn't stop you from networking and meeting. So it, it takes a kind of environment that adaptability is such a, you adapt quite easily as well because of, how I I grew up and the kind of thing that, you know, I lived when I was young.

[00:05:11] Fadilah: I see it, being a diplomat, you have to be a good soldier, meaning that you need to be prepared to wherever you go. Some people would love places like London and Paris because of, flair city, in a sense but you get to send the places as well. But I, honestly, I enjoyed wherever I was, posted in Singapore, Cambodia, even Australia.

[00:05:39] Fadilah: Because I believe that it's up to us to create beauty in in wherever you're present.

[00:05:45] Trisha: Yeah.

[00:05:47] Trisha: I can imagine there would have been some climate differences from some of those, you know, you were talking about Canberra in Australia.

[00:05:58] Trisha: Can you tell me about a time you might've experienced a shift, you know, when you suddenly became aware of a new perspective?

[00:06:37] Fadilah: Part in trying to treat a teamwork, the diversity, the cultural diversity. And I started realizing, no, you, this is where I could not just hold back. Look, I'm from Brunei I don't, do this or, but end of day was very open-minded about, adapting to a different situation.

[00:07:08] Trisha: Yeah. So it was a shift you moved comfortably into them

[00:07:26] Trisha: Yeah.

[00:07:49] Fadilah: There's a different cultural shift as well.

[00:07:52] Fadilah: yes. And, but so I, we come to adapt. Myself that look wherever I want to go, I will able to shift quickly and adapt to where I am. And I still visit Saudi Arabia once in a while because my, I have a hundred cousins there. And and it's nice to just catch up with everybody.

[00:08:15] Trisha: Do you ever have to remind yourself, where you are in terms of thinking just whether it's, you know, ways of operating that, that perhaps you have to remember to be in one place?

[00:08:32] Fadilah: Especially when you meet people, there are some do's or don'ts as well, which I pick up as well. But yeah, they're quite a close knit s family as well. So you need to understand especially when you address women or men in a sense of there are ways of doing it without them being offended.

[00:08:56] Trisha: And I do think some people do it more naturally than others the switching between ways of operating. But I think also that there's an element of learning to it as well. The countries and cultures you've lived in would have brought some challenges. And as a diplomat, the challenges become critical.

[00:09:18] Fadilah: Can I just share with you, Trisha, one of my strengths as well is a people's person. I don't know. I do meet officials, but I also like to meet people on the street for when I was in, in Cambodia, I happened to go to Siem Reap and in Siem Reap, you can visit the temples Angkor Wat, but I befriend locals at the local gym and they invited me on a cycling expedition.

And they don't know who I am. I just told them I'm a clerk at the embassy. But when they saw my photo on the video,

[00:10:15] Fadilah: So I was very lucky to get to know a few people there. So I enjoyed, and from there I learned more about the cultural. The kind of food they eat, we could have, a local, like a noodle coconut noodle broth, and no soup at one of the stops as well, or coconut water. But the whole idea is to embrace your, your interactions with local to get to understand the country better.

[00:11:12] Fadilah: So I created the kind of friendship. Anyone I meet in my travel. And they are so into solar. I met two years ago and I came to visit a coffee roastery, because I wanted to visit him because these are really important for me knowing people behind the coffee industry, what are the main, business interests and where we can find synergies.

[00:11:49] Fadilah: Through, through people.

[00:12:14] Trisha: hard work. And then at some point you decide you're going to switch and you're going to move away from diplomacy and you're going to go into coffee.

[00:12:29] Fadilah: I did my masters at Australian National University in Canberra, 2007. After finishing my exam the year after, I went down to Sydney and, just for a holiday, like after the exam and I went to visit some Brunei students living in Brunswick. So I went down to Pitt Street, just, checking out the city, and I bumped into the Sydney coffee school there.

[00:13:11] Fadilah: But I really enjoyed the two days course, because I come out of it. Now, when I go to cafe, they cannot lie. I knew what they're doing, this one, but I wanted to come back to Brunei, apart from my master's with a new skills,

[00:13:46] Fadilah: I didn't touch I didn't develop further, but everytime I traveled to Singapore, UK to Middle East, I will go to a to a coffee shop and learn more. I talk to the barista, just, just have a chat with them. And one of the things that I realized that I pick up a lot of Australia coffee and just the standards, I mean, you you're in Sydney when you go to a cafe, you get to know the owner, the guy behind the bar and the first day and after a week you start talking about the weather and after the third week you talk about family, and I said, this is such a good skills and doing business, because you get the one off of your customer, you get to know them.

[00:14:43] Fadilah: as a business, but when I retired, I was looking for something to do. I said to myself after 30 years, I don't want to do, I don't want to work in office and I want to pick up something, which I've never done. I want a new learning curve at 55 years old, a new learning curve. And I said, my God, what happened if I fail?

[00:15:05] Fadilah: The sad thing is you're not trying at all.

[00:15:29] Fadilah: She will do the starter and the mains, I will do dessert and coffee.

[00:15:36] Fadilah: So we had this kind of, this kind of tag team. And I found that yeah.

[00:15:52] Fadilah: Thank you. Yeah, definitely.

[00:16:06] Trisha: And when I asked Fadilah about that before listeners, he referred to her as the Mary Berry of Brunei. So she was the famous, What is, what is the sort of a chef who makes a pastry chef? Is that, Is that the term?

[00:16:22] Trisha: And she had a cooking show on TV.

[00:16:54] Fadilah: So I put myself first and so when I started the, so my mother was a good, was a big influence on me. And my dad, of course, entrepreneur. And I said, maybe I should go into entrepreneurship, just do, just sell coffees and some bakes. And when I started the cafe, the best burnt cheesecake was the global, freeze.

[00:17:32] Fadilah: So it was nice and I was doing alone, but I didn't realize that people start to come in and they're just curious, who was this, who's this guy and why is he doing coffee?

[00:17:46] Fadilah: Together.

[00:17:50] Fadilah: because, yeah, because I learned about coffee pairing.

[00:18:10] Fadilah: It was three, three months before the lockdown of COVID 2020. I had my first challenge because all shops have to close down.

[00:18:25] Fadilah: So we have, health protocol and, things like this so it becomes challenging. But it was such a good learning curve because of, oh my God, there goes my investment.

[00:18:51] Trisha: Of course, yeah.

[00:19:10] Fadilah: I. I'm selling, I found it's such an important work for me, extending family relationships. And, and I also had friends like, customers from Australia, Philippine, Singapore buying cakes for their friends Brunei.

[00:19:29] Fadilah: Are you Dil? I said my, I have a long friend in Brunei who's a Buddhist kind of man, he send some cake with food and maybe you can get a bouquet. I'll pay everything and gimme a link. I'll pay on credit card.

[00:19:41] Fadilah: I was building on to that business in a different light, even though it was a lockdown, it was a challenge.

[00:20:25] Trisha: Much more personal.

[00:21:05] Trisha: Oh, that's lovely.

[00:21:25] Trisha: Yeah, exactly. It's, So many people, when they get to that stage in their fifties and they're thinking, what's next? What do I do? How do I make the jump into the next stage of life? Whatever that might be. And so some people have to do a lot of soul searching to discover that thing, but it feels like your thing had been sitting there ever since that training course in Sydney. And you'd probably, I mean, I'm sure it had, it had surfaced in all your interactions as a diplomat, because Coffee would have been a source of for any New Zealand diplomats, any Australian diplomats

[00:22:02] Trisha: and lots of others around the world.

[00:22:16] Fadilah: So public relation meeting, customers are very important, which I also train my staff. You just have to say hello to anybody because, uh, you end up, you know, they become your friends.

[00:22:41] Fadilah: definitely.

[00:22:49] Trisha: Yeah.

[00:23:13] Fadilah: So basically if you stay you know, near the mosque or near Radisson Hotel, what are the cafes around it?

[00:23:20] Trisha: Yes. Depending on the quality of the cafe

[00:23:42] Fadilah: They won't have this kind of, You know, cafe culture, when you go to Melbourne, you can find people catching up. And, so I said, no, I like that. And I, I want to kind of feel, cause I still miss my time in, in Australia. I mean, I love Sydney. I love Melbourne. And I would sit down at Potts Point suburb, you know, cafe, just watch the world pass by. so I said, I want, to have that. So. in the home cafe, which is a starting point. And because I have no business background. I have no. measurement skills apart from my work, but I use that kind of opportunity as my stepping stone because during COVID because of, you know, we cannot, be together in one room.

[00:24:41] Trisha: And then another factor that you've done is thinking about others setting up in business as well. And I understand that you're mentoring or, you know, have a process for helping other entrepreneurs.

[00:24:59] Fadilah: So I did a few, entrepreneurship, basically I found I hit 800,

[00:25:07] Fadilah: It was a public forum of 800 people. and 70 percent of them were teachers and they were looking for something to do, like, what if I quit my teaching job And go to apprenticeship? I was helping them to start something uh, something new or try to inspire them. If you think you're quite passionate about it,

[00:25:26] Fadilah: And how to do markets on social media, how to promote your business.

[00:25:52] Fadilah: And also apart from entrepreneurship, I was involved in a few other social causes as well. Mental health was a big issue during COVID because, we're talking about, recurring mental meltdown and, trying to adapt with situations. So I work with the Department of Psychiatry at our local hospital.

[00:26:37] Trisha: Oh wow.

[00:26:39] Fadilah: we, removed the, social stigma. It was full of people. Doctors came down, and they were just interested to see me, and the Minister of Health was there as well. But it was such a success that, people can just pass by, look at the exhibition, or just have a chat with a counsellor without feeling, they are a patient,

[00:27:28] Fadilah: I want to do this because I thought it was quite close to me as well. And so I, my plan was making sure that men would pick up either information about breast cancer and understanding how to support either their spouse or their family members about, coping with the disease.

[00:28:02] Fadilah: If they're not well, and see a doctor or seek out, uh, some help. So these are, so apart from doing business, I am involved all these different social causes as well

[00:28:15] Fadilah: From the coffee.

[00:28:23] Fadilah: It may be, I don't know,but no, I think, I think more, no, Trisha, it's more from the coffee from the cafe.

[00:28:57] Fadilah: Thank you.

[00:28:58] Fadilah: Thank you. And but I'm also now, I've also created some space for art exhibition in the cafe. So I have walls. I left it empty, but every two months I invite a local artist to just to show some of their work. Because I want if you're a regular to the cafe, you see different things every two months.

[00:29:30] Fadilah: or a Star Wars spaceship. It's so beautiful and The thing that came up for me was like, people think it's easy, but it's a lot of hard work, you appreciate art in that sense.

[00:30:12] Fadilah: So I'm very instrumental with that as well. Yeah.

[00:30:25] Fadilah: no, I had vision when I started to say. So after two years at the my home cafe, I moved to Brigham Montana. I have a shop for the past two years

[00:30:36] Trisha: Dil's Cafe

[00:30:43] Fadilah: Two was what if I fail? I think everybody will go through this. So I should, so far it's been the cafe doing well.

[00:30:53] Fadilah:

[00:30:58] Fadilah: And uh, it was so funny because when I planned the renovation and the starting of the cafe, I was invited to go to Indonesia to be a judge for a coffee competition, And I left the opening of my cafe a week and went to Jakarta for a week.

[00:31:17] Fadilah: I left it.

[00:31:23] Fadilah: I will never Have the opportunity again. But I had a wonderful time because the judges are all, it's for Indonesia, Indonesian coffee art battle. I'm the only Bruneian invited. And the first time I see my, photo up at the wall, the judges, I felt, you know, this cultural shift, this, you know, it's a different feel, you know, and uh, and I said, I'm so glad I came

[00:31:57] Trisha: That's lovely. Yeah. And you came back

[00:32:02] Trisha: and the cafe was still going and successful.

[00:32:15] Fadilah: Vegan and then because of COVID we had issue with logistics. Sometime, you know, we rely on Australia for strawberries and shipment issues

[00:32:25] Fadilah: No strawberries,

[00:32:27] Fadilah: Yeah. And no cream cheese from Victoria,

[00:32:31] Fadilah: milk, so that's the challenge we face. So I had to start thinking about doing different things and maybe not fruit based or But it's been fun because I use a lot of my childhood memories to create recipes. And I always I always thought when, cause when I live in Australia, I like how the Australian bake rustic, using just fruits, coffee, chocolate tea, or for instance to, to flavor the bake. And that doesn't have to look beautiful, but when you eat it, oh, this is nice. And have it coffee and tea. So I use those kind of, my memory in creating things as well. and, so

[00:33:12] Fadilah: when I went to Taiwan, I pick up a lychee cheesecake with Osmanthus oolong tea.

[00:33:21] Trisha: So where does the, because listeners, let me tell you from the pictures anyway, these cakes look amazing. So where did the look come from? Where did you pick up the look?

[00:33:32] Trisha: Okay.

[00:33:43] Fadilah: what do they bake in? Like There's a cafe called Tuscanon in Collingwood, they just focus on tarts. They will do like lemon meringue, you know, banoffee pie

[00:34:10] Trisha: Yeah, that's amazing. That is amazing. I think you've created a lot of inspiration for people. So you can shift listeners from careers in diplomacy to careers and passions in a very different field. Yeah, which is amazing and

[00:34:49] Fadilah: Because

[00:35:17] Fadilah: So far, I think it's been five years since I retired. I really enjoyed what I do.

[00:35:30] Trisha: Coffee creates the friendship and the bridge to have a conversation anywhere.

[00:35:35] Trisha: That's so encouraging and uplifting. Thank you for that. And thank you for sharing your story. It's been lovely. I really appreciate it. So I'm going to put in the show notes. I will put your LinkedIn profile because that's often how people who are listening connect with people, but I'll also put The link to your, website.

[00:36:08] Fadilah: I would love to, let me know.

[00:36:42] Fadilah: Thank you, Trisha Keep inspiring.

[00:36:46] Fadilah: Okay.

[00:36:48] Trisha: will do my best. thank you And thank you listeners. And please, don't forget to push the subscribe or follow button to make sure that you will receive the next episode of The Shift.