Crown | Elken Malaysia
Twenty-Three Years Behind the Same Counter
For 23 years, Gan Chiw Sien built her life inside a beauty spa and salon she ran with her own two hands.
She was good at her craft, and her days followed a familiar rhythm. But the business lived and died by the work of her hands, and the market it reached barely stretched past her own shop walls. She had never learned to sell. She had never gained much experience of the world outside. She was always busy, yet quietly uneasy: the market felt fragile, the challenges kept coming, and a part of her simply wanted to retire early and rest.
And yet, underneath the tiredness, there was a different feeling that wouldn’t go away.
A Dream She Didn’t Know How to Start
What Gan truly wanted was for her life to mean something. She wanted to succeed on her own terms before she turned 60, through her own effort and nobody else’s.
The trouble was direction. She had the wish but not the map. She didn’t know where to begin, and somewhere in her 50s a quiet fear had settled in: what if she tried and failed? Maybe it was safer to want nothing at all.
The Woman Who Made Her Ask, “Why Should I Retire?”
Then one day, a 76-year-old walked into her shop and changed the course of her life.
Her name was Crown Mary Lee. At 76, she was still working, still striving, still refusing to give up, and she invited Gan to join Elken. Gan looked at this woman and a question rose up inside her that she couldn’t shake:
“If Crown Mary still has this much energy at her age, why on earth should I be retiring? I should be even stronger. I should be working even harder than she is.”
That single thought was all it took. She decided to begin.
The Tears She Doesn’t Hide
What came next was the hardest stretch of all.
When customers rejected her, it stung. When the sales didn’t come at all, and when people made cutting remarks, it cut deep. There was a moment when she very nearly walked away and returned to the only path she knew. Maybe, she told herself, she just wasn’t built for sales. Maybe she was only ever meant to work with her hands. She remembers the tears clearly. She remembers how heavy that sadness felt.
But she didn’t go back.
Three Months That Changed Everything
The real turning point came wrapped in an enormous challenge: qualifying for an incentive tour to Beijing, with only three months to earn the points.
So she went all in. For three months straight, she met customers from 8 in the morning until 7 at night, day after day, without rest. It was exhausting in a way that’s hard to put into words. But when it was done, she felt something she had never quite felt before:
- Pride, because she had achieved it entirely through her own effort
- Satisfaction, the deep kind that only comes after you’ve given everything
- Fresh energy, as the very tiredness that should have drained her left her more motivated instead
Others might have seen ordinary hard work. Gan knew better. She had proven something to herself.
The People Who Wouldn’t Let Her Quit
Gan is quick to say she didn’t do this alone.
Her upline carried her: 3-Star Crown Chu Hou Ling and Mr Koo, and 3-Star Crown Hasmawati. And most beloved of all, Crown Mary Lee, the very woman who first invited her in, stayed right by her side. In the moments when Gan was ready to give up, it was Crown Mary’s words that lifted her back up, guiding her and helping her toward success with a kindness she calls priceless.
She is also deeply grateful to her husband, who understood her demanding schedule and supported her every step of the way.
A Reason Bigger Than Any Award
Ask Gan what truly drives her now, and the answer has very little to do with rank.
Her real wish is to help as many people as she can move from an ordinary life to a more comfortable one. She believes that women today should be able to depend on themselves to build their own success, and that effort, given honestly, is never wasted.
“Hard work is never wasted. God will not let the effort we build go to waste. Don’t give up too soon, because the path you choose will always reveal its light if you walk it with all your heart.”
Congratulations to Gan Chiw Sien on achieving Crown, one of the highest honours in the Elken family. Thank you for showing us that it is never too late to become who you were meant to be.
#Elken #Crown #GanChiwSien #NeverTooLate #WomenWhoLead