For many people, their twenties represents a time when life is full of potential and exciting opportunities. The world is their oyster and few things are impossible.
This was certainly the case for 42-year-old self-help author, life coach and motivational speaker Zai Miztiq.
Back in 2001, she was a gung-ho, carefree polytechnic graduate who took part in beauty pageants, loved makeup and was a deft hand at henna art.
“A friend who used to live in Japan saw me drawing henna and suggested we take it there as a potential business,” said Miztiq. And so at the age of 21, she went on her first entrepreneurial adventure, setting up a henna stall at street events around Tokyo.
What was supposed to be a two-week trip became a six-month stay. “I was blessed because more people got to know about us after I was interviewed by Tokyo FM and various magazines there. Some Japanese even wanted to pick up henna art themselves,” she said.
By the time she and her friend returned to Singapore, there was considerable buzz around them and their enterprise.
“Suddenly, we were being featured in a lot of media as the local girls who brought henna to Japan. There were interviews with Suria and Berita Harian, among others, and we sort of became celebrity henna artists in Singapore,” she recounted.
Over the next few years, her business, Miztiq Henna & Body Art, boomed. She had bookings two years in advance, particularly for bridal work, with many brides wanting to be adorned by her hand.
Then one day, when she was 25, it all came literally crashing to a halt.
THE ACCIDENT THAT CHANGED HER LIFE
Miztiq was in a taxi with her friend, travelling home from work in the afternoon, when she found herself violently thrown forward in an instant. The taxi driver had fallen asleep at the wheel, ramming the vehicle into the back of an army trailer.
“I remember it was the sort that carried military tanks,” she said. “When the cab crashed, I didn’t know what happened. All I could recall was that my phone dropped onto the floor and I couldn’t move.”
She remained conscious all the way to the hospital.
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