APC Operations Formula - Attitude, Passion, Competence

My odyssey with sales started with an acquaintance I had during my college days at Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan. That fateful day I met Raymund Acedera, formerly of Unilever Philippines, an Alumnus of Alyansang Atenista student political party . We were organizing for the XU Central Student Government 1996 Election. I had a very good impression on the way he captured our imagination in pursuing our campaign objectives despite the odds we were facing. That day I was resigned into pursuing a career in Corporate Sales. Truly, I say, “Waterloo was won in the playing fields of Eton”. Our educational institutions play crucial roles in the future of our land. Yet, the future remains to be a choice to be reckoned with everyday by each one of us.

In our time and age, where the definition of success has been equated to financial worth and property, it is a challenge to discern the horizon beyond this norm influenced by media and our materialistic generation. It is often a challenge to chose a vocation burn of one’s own personal passion when most of our mentors would prioritize the practicality of the modern age. Colonial mentality and globalization dictates even the core polices of our leaders over  sustainable national and traditional passion. And so we ask, where hast our passion for the sea gone when tragedy at sea continuously haunt out great land? Nor our passion for the land,  when we cannot even suffice in our staple food of rice, when our farmers lack in pride for their craft and teach their children the values for glorified white collar jobs.  Education perhaps can show us the glory of old days where Honor, Fortitude, Wisdom and Justice define a man’s stature in society; where the definition of the word “citizen” has graver implications towards society. Jose Rizal and our able historians spoke of a great race before the colonials. Artifact dated as far as 1000 AD suggest trade with Mainland China. Where is our national passion?  where is our personal passion?  Timely enough that we will discuss the subject of passion in relation to one’s pursuit of purpose that we make mention of this great quote from the movie Troy, an artistic interpretation of our modern poets pertaining to the grave question at hand:

“ Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity, 

and so we ask ourselves,

Will our actions echo across the centuries?

Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone…

and wonder Who we were ? How bravely we fought? 

How fiercely we loved?”

Looking back at the event that transpired in my life and the lives of people whose names now echo into hallways of greatness, I have given much thought as to a formula or an equation towards excellence in once chosen trade. Reflecting over the principles in psychology I have indulged myself to inquire, I have found three components in the lives of regular people who reached the pinnacle of human excellence:

Attitude, an individuals hypothetical construct that represents an individual’s degree of like or dislike for a subject. Often expressed in opinion statement, either leaning towards positive or the negative. Apathy and indifference is a manifestation of the negative opinion – “if you are not with me, you are against me”. A clinical anatomy of which is broken down into three components – Affective, Behavioral and Cognitive.

Competence, cluster of related abilities, knowledge, skills and commitment that enable a person to act effectively in a job or situation

           

Passion, intense, overpowering and overwhelming feeling and emotion, a consuming zeal, driving, pulling, pushing, burning us up forward regardless of logic or reason. Passion for Excellence.

           

While reading on the subject herein mentioned, I have realized why exceptional leaders have invested so much premium to a subordinate’s attitude. We hear of Abraham Lincoln’s confidence on General Grant or President Emilio Aguinaldo’s preference for General Gregorio de Pilar who was entrusted the fateful battle of Tirad Pass referred to by many historians as the Philippine Themopylae. An individual’s entire personality will eventually succumbed to one’s persistent attitude. Habitual persistence of attitude will lead into shaping one’s competence. The type of attitude we are referring to is the Attitude referred to in the composition “ The Impossible Dream”. To remain steadfast in our chosen path – to stand in the face of peril in defense of our chosen vocation in life.

We must apportion a thorough discussion on the subject of Passion. It has a special place in many historical events where beyond the structures of reason passion defined man’s finest moments. We hear stories about a father’s death awakening a dragon in a son’s heart; an insults inspiring a young man to riches beyond a child’s imagination or better yet, the story of Hannibal Barca, the scourge of Rome, who according to legend was brought by his father after the first Punic War in the shrine of their gods and made to swear eternal nemesis to Rome and so this child to his last breath was a constant threat to Roman homogeny in Europe. And so we ask ourselves, how do we acquire the Passion of the Titans to sustain us in our skirmishes with all the troubles the gods sent upon us. Unfortunately, it is a question whose answer is forever cursed into mystery whose key lies only in the hearts of men. In this aspect, we further ask ourselves are we truly free or are we mere pawns in the greater scheme of things. For how is it that so few find this godly emotion whose strength drives normal men into fits of godly magnitude. As the name of Achiless and Alexander echo into the centuries ; whose names we whisper two thousand years after. What logic is there for a king with a hundred soldier chose to battle to death a humungous invading force many times there size in Thermopylae. Passion makes Titans out of men.

·         Thou hast found a poor man in Tondo to educate himself  from borrowed books and led the Philippine revolution.

·         Thous hast seen a Shakeaspeare holding horses at a theater door, and hast driven him to write the immortal Hamlet.

·         Jose Rizal was broke in Europe while writing El Filibusterismo. A compatriot had to lend him money just be able to pay rent and be able to publish his book.

·         Thou hast found a blind Homer wandering on the shores of Greece and made him sing the Iliad of all times.

·         Beethoven was almost totally deaf and burdened with sorrow when he produced

his greatest works.

·         Repacking his consumer goods in a small sari-sari store at Quaipo and persevering in a shoe store rose the Retail Magnate of the Philippines, Henry Sy who owns the most progressive bank of 2010, BDO – Equitable.

·         Michelangelo, architect of St. Peter dome; sculptor of “Moses”
  and painter of “Last Judgment. Found in a correspondence at the
  British Museum, he was so poor while working on his colossal 
  bronze statue of Pope Julius II he had but one bed in which he
  and his three assistants slept together.

·         The passionate Miguel de Cervantes was in prison in Madrid when he wrote “Don Quixote”.

·         Selling his wares in some far flung palengke in Cebu and sitting with his tires for a six hour trip to Manila from Lucena, John Gokongwei of Universal Robina built his empire.

·         Thou hast found a Patton turning his battalion 90 degrees to relieve Bastogne, 150 miles away. With this almost impossible maneuver, the tide at the battle of the Bulge turned against Germany 

·         During the ten years in which he made his greatest discoveries, Isaac Newton could hardly pay two   shillings a week to the Royal society of which he was member.

·         Apolinario Mabini, the brains of the Katipunan, was a paralytic. Crippled by polio

in his youth.

·         Luther translated the Bible while imprisoned in the Castle of Wartburg.

·         Thous hast found a Pacquiao training in some obscure boxing ring in Manila and become an All Time Filipino Hero, winning 7 Weight Division International Boxing Titles, and inspired a nation to regain national pride.  

·         Thou hast created the immortal oath of Hannibal Barca who brought the great dagger poised at the heart of Rome in the Second Punic War.  To his last breath, he remained steadfast to his oath.

·         Christopher Columbus was dismissed as a fool from court to court. Rebuffed by  kings. Scorned by queens. But he persisted.

·         A nervous breakdown had him sore in bed for six months. Lost in business and whose borrowing he had to pay for the next 17 years. Abraham Lincoln had every opportunity to give up but he never faltered.

Genius is the ability to endlessly take pain and pursue with 

relentless determination once purpose in life; confront steadily

adversity or peril.. It’s the mental power to rule over once 

entire personal power towards a defined meaning or purpose. And

human passion is the self sustaining fuel that fires once great 

Want.

How is it that a man,. who once stocked scrap bottles, metals and newspapers; drove a worn out pick up while staying in a shack owns the largest scrap yard in the East Manila Area? What great sentiment he had to sustain him through the many obstacles of

scrap trading?

How is it that a man who nearly died of malaria would rise to great prominence in the Bicol Region. What great passion sustained him to pull his Kareta from one town to another in trade of his items? How is it that he succumbed to great courage to confront any situation from the Japanese soldiers occupying the Albay choke points during the War and the American soldiers during the liberation when he neither knew how to speak Nipongo or the English language?

Could it be love for his family and the memory of his father that would drive a young man of fourteen to trade in the provinces of Cebu using his bicycle and a three square meter table to display his wares in a “tiange” towards greatness in the air transportation, consumer and real estate ventures in the Philippines.

Could it be a love for a mother and aspiration for a father that fueled a man in the North towards the helms of the Philippine Senate? Born into unfortunate circumstances, he persevered in the houses of relatives as a housekeeper to be able to study.  Fought and a POW during the second world war.

Could it be love and fear that drove a young man into leadership in the real estate industry in the Philippines? When he witnessed how the family had to cramp in a small house in Tondo and how troubled his mother and father was in their fish stall, as the eldest child he must have invested much emotion for their situation. He must have thought that a situation as he had experience as young man is his bench mark for “worst” and he will use all his power to act such that it would not happen to his own family and provide for his parents when they are getting old.

How is it that Hannibal Barca, General of Carthage, carried with him a mission to his last breath. What great passion drove him into the peaks of the cold Alps? What great emotion sustained him in enemy territory? and beyond every obstacle and losses his person succumbed to? What passion is there for a man to carry a poison bottle relentlessly determined not to be conquered by the Romans to his last breath?

What great passion has driven our Lord Jesus Christ to weather every pain inflicted upon him – the wounds of the thorns, the weight of the cross, the heat of the sun, whipped several times, nailed on the cross, betrayed by friends, denied by his closest confidant. What great love to carry this insurmountable burden upon him. 

To steadily conquer great failures or setbacks would require the existence of the greatest passion in a man. A love for God, a love for the family, a love and respect for a father, a great sorrow for a lost love, a great grief over a personal humiliation, a love for a woman, a love for once country, a great infatuation for life, a passion for once craft or purpose in life and many more forms of emotion distinct and unique in every man. 

Rene Bitara, Prometheus Consultants