As a young career and guidance counsellor in 2010, I came across students and teachers who struggled with their academic performance. I also met with their parents who were anxious about their children’s future. At the time, our nation was also clamouring over the deterioration of the quality of education. It was obvious then that every parent, teacher, student, or you name it, measured the success of students based on their academic accolades and government recognition with a job or position in civil service.

If that is the case, I spent almost over 20 years of my most productive part of my life in pursuing my academic journey with the real success still overdue. At the time, I made that vociferous declaration to those students, teachers, and parents that academic achievement was not “the only magic wand” that can deliver success. Success is a mindset that individuals choose. I invited some people to the school who did not have any college degree to share their stories with them.

One such remarkable man whose story inspired hundreds of my students, teachers, and parents, was Mr. Pema Tshering, the founder and the CEO of the High-Quality Group whose meteoric rise from nobody to a highly accomplished businessman is noteworthy.

Mr. Pema only finished his Year Eight, but he did not want to continue further for two important reasons:
His mother passed-away in her slumber and he did not want to be an extra burden on his father. He had
passion for drawing, sketching and paintings and he even won some prizes from interschool and interclass art and drawing competitions. He fondly remembers those moments even today. Thus, with the help of his maternal uncle, he was enrolled at the school of thirteen arts and crafts. His decision to discontinue western education was viewed with scepticism and even disdain by his community. However, he was certain of what he was going to learn and what future he was going to shape. That’s his mindset!

Mr. Pema had his first insight into minting money from his thangka paintings was from his aunt, who
was working as a saleswoman in a handicraft shop.

He would paint some simple paintings like four harmonious friends, eight lucky signs: four powerful
animals and paintings of black-necked cranes. His aunt would sell them at her shop to help him with
his pocket money during his art school days. Mr. Pema was one of the top performing students among
his peers and today he is acclaimed as a virtuoso thangka painter. As a painter, he is a perfectionist
and his paintings are rare, which cost over millions. He paints just over one or two painting every three
years.

Mr. Pema foresaw what he was going to do after his studies while his other cohorts mostly wanted to work in conventional painting studios, with government or private contractors or apply for government
positions. He believed that anyone can re-write their own destiny and he wanted to do to the same. He
sought some loans from his close friends to raise his seed fund to set up a business. At the time, our
crown prince Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck was going to be crowned as the fifth king of Bhutan
in 2008. His Majesty’s vision for Bhutan and his faith and confidence in the young people to shape
the future of Bhutan, gave that elusive impetus to Mr. Pema to take the hardest path. Mr. Pema set up
his first High-Quality Thangka gallery in Thimphu with measly sum of Ngultrum Twenty Thousand.

It was his sheer grit and perseverance that paved his path toward success. It was his bold-courage
and mental fortitude that distinguished him from his other cohorts. Mr. Pema was unique and at time
crazy through business lens. Wherever he travels, he would visit business establishments, observe them,
and make notes and use those ideas to innovate his business and establishments back home. When he
meets new people during his travels, he would talk about business and build networking.

Once, he visited me in Australia for a week to spend time with my family, my brother showed him
around Bunnings and other shopping malls. He was intrigued by the quality of some farm and household
tools displayed at the malls. He bought some of those tools and said that he wanted to sell in Bhutan. I was flummoxed by this unconventional attitude, and I said that customers in Bhutan would be turned off by the price. He said that his customers would not care if the quality of the goods were excellent. When he returned home from the trip, his entire luggage bags were filled with goods that he picked from his visit to business establishments around Perth. He was indeed right, his customers cared less about the price but quality that is worthy of the price.

Every single piece of goods that he brought from Australia were sold within first few months.
Nonetheless, I would not recommend anyone to travel with him if the reason is travel and leisure. If
it is for business, oh my word! you can learn a lot from him. Mr. Pema indeed is one in a million kind
of people who dares to walk the least treaded path.

When people meet him, they see him as a successful businessman with full of opportunities shoved upon
him but in contrary he encountered his own shares of hurdles, downfall, setbacks, and even near-failure
experience before forging himself into the man and businessman he is today. If I highlight an example, when his business was flourishing at a staggering rate, the owner of his business space issued him an eviction notice citing no plausible reasons. He moved his business to different site and struggled to repeat that feat of success. It took almost a year to pick up that momentum.

On the other hand, his space owner started his own thangka studio after his eviction. That was a double
whammy on him. It was then that I learned from him that success is the sweetest revenge one can give to
those who hurt you.

The lesson he learned from that setback gave him more conviction to expand his businesses for future
security and scaffolding. Mr. Pema after that opened his Travel company- Bhutan Land of Happiness Tours, luxury car rental company- High-Quality Car Rental; Hito-Kara Lounge and Bar, and a Live Painting Exhibition centre. In fact, the live painting exhibition center was the first of its kind that was run side-by-side with his Thangka Gallery where visitors could watch his painters and artisans at work. In the meantime, they can make direct order of the products of their desire onsite.

This model was an instant success that has been imitated by others in the country. He made additional
openings of Thangka Gallery in Punakha, Wangdue; Bumthang and Paro. He has captured the niche in the art and painting market and today High-Quality Thangka is second to none.

He exports his products to high-end luxury tourists from all corners of the world bringing in the most sought-after US$ (US dollars) into the country. He tells his colleagues (some local tour operators) that
Bhutan must not emphasise generating US$ (US dollars) only through tariffs but ought to encourage
people to initiate projects through which visiting tourists are attracted to spend while touring in Bhutan. He accentuated that this model should be the winning ticket for Bhutan’s tourism industry.

When global pandemic ravaged the tourism industry across the globe, it did not spare Mr. Pema as well.
However, he bounced back stronger with better and every setback made him resilient and adaptable. Amidst pandemic triggered economic doom, Mr. Pema made a paradigm shift to sell power tools and building hardware. He struck deals with Bosch, Kesebi and Yato tools to be their authorised dealers in Bhutan. Mr. Pema started their sales outlets in Thimphu, Bumthang and Wangdue. At the height of pandemic, Mr. Pema was always positive despite its ravaging impact on his company’s survival. When I asked how he was coping, his answer made me believe that he would get through the chaos. He simply said that this too shall pass.

At the height of the pandemic, many companies had to retrench their employees, but Mr. Pema did not for some months. He values his employees and considers them as his biggest assets. His motto is always that if he does well, so should his employees. For him, human resources are his biggest assets as well as liabilities if not well managed. Some of his employees have been with him over last ten years and he acknowledges them as his reasons for his success. Currently, his staff members are among the best paid employees in private companies across the country. Some of his employees after leaving his company even started their own businesses along the similar line. I think that should be the spirit of every company in Bhutan.

Mr. Pema is an enterprising entrepreneur and businessman in its truest sense. He defies our cultural norms that college degree and academic achievements brings success and luxury. I knew him when he was a boy from an impecunious family with his father as the lone bread earner for his family of five. We maintained our friendship since then and observed him transform to a successful businessman today. If there was one fitting story of rags to riches, Mr. Pema’s is the perfect fit. With his success, Mr. Pema showed and nudged his other siblings along the similar path of success. He would always ask his staff to treat working with him as a source of learning so that someday they would also follow the path toward success.

Mr. Pema believes in calculated risk-diversification of businesses to shield from unforeseen inevitable crisis like the global pandemic. When several businessmen left the country to Australia and Canada with collapse of their businesses after the global pandemic, he survived evidently due to his diversification of his businesses. He is a national hero in his own rights, and I take pride in sharing his success story to those who are looking for inspiration. His company takes a pivotal role in preserving and promoting our tradition and culture by promoting our products of Thirteen Arts and Crafts. He is a champion advocate of GNH. His company generates dollars for our national coffers, pays taxes on time and creates hundreds of employment opportunities for our young people without college degrees.

I am not an entrepreneur but after watching him grow from a destitute boy from the far-flung hamlet of Gyelkhar to a well-to-do businessman cruising in his posh BMW along towering city in Thimphu today, anyone has that greater probability to become the next Mr. Pema Tshering. Associating with him over thirty years, I am convinced that one of the most essential traits that every entrepreneur ought to develop is courage to take risk and pursue any of your aspiration. In every sphere of his life, his employees were indispensable for his success. Thus, I learned that one must value and appreciate that every single employee makes to your success. He also showed me that if one can adapt to any given situation, you have the better chance overcome any adversities. He once said that procrastination only erodes your probability of success and of course every entrepreneur ought to kill such vices.

“If you are born poor, that is not your fault but if you die poor, it is your fault” (anonymous).

By Kuenga Tenzin [Counsellor (Trauma/AOD/SCGC/Relationship/Family)]
Winner of the first National Script Writing Contest