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A Profile On Lillian Too: A Touch Of Dragon Magic
Feng Shui for Modern Living,
June 1998
interview by Helen Oon
A splendid home, a thriving successful career, a life blessed with good fortune and spiritual fulfillment, a dynamic and charismatic personality, a razor-sharp wit and a tremendous sense of humor: this is the hallmark of dragon magic! This is Lillian Too, the name synonymous with feng shui. But Lillian is much more than that - her talents are legion.
Apart from being an established entrepreneur, Lillian is also a highly successful author in subjects as varied as inspirational and motivational books for the corporate market and bestseller on feng shui. She is a brilliant orator who can hold her audience enthralled for hours with her dynamic delivery and entertaining repartee on her favorite subject.
Three years ago, Lillian Too was relatively unknown in the West. But today her books are bestsellers in Europe and America and her hottest selling book "The Complete Illustrated Guide to Feng Shui" is widely acclaimed as the "bible" of feng shui. In her home country of Malaysia and in the Far East, Lillian enjoys a celebrity status ad is widely sought after by the media, making frequent appearances on television and radio, and being featured regularly in newspapers and magazines.
Yet despite all this adulation, she is unfazeed by her fame and success inher second career as a feng shui author. Lillian adopts a very down-to-earth attitude towards life. Her meteoric rise in the corporate world has moulded her into a remarkable woman with a sharp business acumen and a killer instinct when it comes to opportunities.
Lillian Too graduated from Harvard University with an MBA and has enjoyed a very successful business career. In the early 1980s she became Managing Driector of Hong Leong Berhad, the first Malaysian woman to hold such a high office in a publicly listed company. In 1982 she was appointed Managing Director of Grindlays Dao Heng Bank in Hong Kong and in 1986 Executive Deputy Chairman of Dickson Concepts Ltd, the billion dolar Hong Kong retail giant which owns ST Dupont and Harvey Nichols of London.
At the end of 1987 Lillian Too became Executive Chairman of Dragon Seed Ltd when, in partnership with America's Prudential Insurance Group from Indonesia, she packaged a leveraged buyout of this department store chain. She ahs since sold her share in this company and is now based in Malaysia where she heads her own publishing and investment company.
At the age of 45, she decided to quit the rat race and attained enough financial power to retire early. Her maternal instinct led her to return to her native country Malaysia to devote her time to bringing up her only child, Jennifer. In her 'retirement', she embarked on the second phase of her life as an author. Drawing from her experience in the corporate world, she wrote many books on career motivation and creative visualization notably "Tap the Power Inside You", "Explore the Frontiers Of Your Mind," "Creative Visualization" and "Strategies For Career Success" which have become a source of inspiration and adapted as corporate staff training manuals.
It was then, in collaboration with her long-time friend and teacher, feng shui Master, Yap Cheng Hai, that she turned her skill as an author to writing books on feng shui. Although she had learnt the art from many feng shui masters whilst living in Hong Kong, she got her main inspiration from Master Yap. Together they spent many laborious ours scrutnizing valuable old Chiense texts to unravel the many secret formulae and nuances of feng shui. Tod ate, she has penned over 20 best-sellers in her name and her book "The Complete Illustrated Guide to Feng Shui" has reached an astounding million copies sold!
Lillian proclaims that she owes her incredible luck and success in the corporate and entrepreneurial world to her in-depth knowledge of feng shui which she applies to every aspect of her life. She called it "Dragon Magic", a name she also used for her semi-autobiography. Lillian always insists that she is not a feng shui consultant but she adds, "I only do feng shui for close friends and associates. I do not ask for a fee, but people give me the usual honorarium in a red packet (in accordance with Chinese tradition). I donate every penny to charity."
Through her books, Lillian generously imparts her deep knowledge to her readers. She proclaims, "Feng shui is not the preserve of a few elitists or great scholars but anyone with a keen mind and enthusiasm could master this ancient Chinese wisdom to attract good fortune. If it works for me, it could also work for anyone."
Lillian lives in Kuala Lumpur, the capitol of Malaysia, with her husband and their daughter Jennifer (when she is on holiday from Cambridge University where she is a final year student in economics). Entering Lillian's sumptuous home evokes the ambience of a sanctuary. Feng shui cleverly disguised as interior design comes into play in every corner of the house. The peace of the main reception room is punctuated by the soothing sound of water trickling from a bamboo chute into a pond alive with Japanese carp. Through a double fronted main door, a vista in gleaming white marble greets the visitor. Statues drawn from various Buddhist pantheons and Chinese mythological figures are placed reverently on intricately carved tables or stand guard in the hall, whilst Tibetan religious paintings or tankas of breath-taking beauty adorn the wall, reminding one that Lillian is a devout follower of Tibetan of Buddhism. She has recently lent her corporate and feng shui expertise to an ambitious Buddhist project to build the biggest Maitreya statue in the world at Bodhgaya in India.
Lillian now devotes her time to writing more feng shui books and her Buddhist project. Her new book "Essential Feng Shui" came out in April this year and is set to be a hit especially amongst beginners. She has almost finished "Feng Shui for Gardens" and "Lillian Too's Feng Shui Tips." Now that she has just passed the half century mark in her age, she often calls herself "an old woman" in jest but anyone who has ever met Lillian Too could easily put her age back at least ten years.
Her youthful appearance coupled with her dynamic energy could put any woman half her age in the shade. An encounter with Lillian Too will inevitably leave you in no doubt about the power of Dragon Magic! |
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Find out more about events from Lillian Too. |
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Download Lillian Too's latest video clips. |
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Talk 640 with Lillian Too. Live! Lillian Too on feng shui. |
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Download Lillian Too's wallpapers and screensavers. |
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