How to be a success

(Commencement address delivered during the 85th Graduation Ceremonies, Institute of Accounts, Business, and Finance, Far Eastern University)

Graduation speeches often take on the character of the person delivering them. I am not a priest, so don’t expect me to preach to you. I’m not an inventor, so I can’t tell you about the magic of scientific discovery. I’m not a philosopher, either, so don’t hope too hard for me to tell you the meaning of life, love, or happiness.

What I am is an accountant, a finance man, and a public servant.  And so today I will tell you about business, service, and my observations on how to be a success.

It is my privilege to serve our country as the Secretary of Finance and under P-Noy. While many agencies play a role in Philippine economic development, at the end of the day, it is my job to make sure that we have the resources to invest in our country and our people. When we talk about our biggest asset, it is our people  and our challenge is how to educate each one to become a professional or an entrepreneur. And in preparation for when you begin building your futures, I would like to share with you two very meaningful stories.

The first story is about a poor immigrant. During the Spanish era, two of the lowest jobs you could possibly have were carrying water – kargadors, and repairing shoes – cobblers. This young man learned to be a cobbler after the Spanish era. But rather than just spend his life repairing shoes, he decided to begin collecting and selling rejected and overrun shoes from factories. Eventually, he saved up the capital to start his own shop. Yet he didn’t stop there. He worked hard to evolve himself and his business so he would always have a new way to serve the market. Today, he is the richest man in the Philippines. He graduated with a degree from FEU, and his name is Henry Sy.

The second story is about a young student from Tondo. Born the youngest of five children, his father was a barangay captain, and was brutally murdered when he was quite young. His mother left the country to work as a caregiver, and he studied political science at FEU. He learned to develop a unique perspective and deep understanding of human nature, which he cleverly incorporated into comedic routines. Soon he became an important cultural critic and an icon for aspiring entertainers.

His name is Jose Maria Viceral, but he is more popularly known as Vice Ganda.

Now, you may find it strange that I mentioned the stories of people with very different occupations – one a successful businessman, the other a very popular entertainer. The stories of these two FEU personalities inspired me because there are three very important lessons to be learned from them, no matter what profession you choose to pursue. And no, these lessons won’t necessarily make you millionaires or billionaires. But if you commit to these lessons honestly and purposefully in your heart and actions, you will be productive, satisfied, and clear in conscience – precisely the kind of worker I would hire, and precisely the kind of person that our country needs.

The first thing you must learn is from Henry Sy’s story – you must never doubt the value of hard work. I’m sure that your whole life, you have heard again and again about the virtue of diligence. I particularly like what the American president Calvin Coolidge had this to say about hard work:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

What Coolidge is saying is that there are plenty of people who are smart, educated, or talented who do not succeed – simply because they do not have the fortitude to persevere in achieving their goals. They look for the easy way out. Mr. Sy was not born into a life of privilege or good fortune. In fact, he was disadvantaged in many ways. It was only through dedication and hard work that he became a successful businessman.

Part of working hard is working to constantly improve yourself. My own graduation speaker was Mr. Joe Concepcion, and the most important advice he gave me was that you must develop two inventories – an inventory of skills, and an inventory of contacts. An oft-repeated cliché is that an education should prepare you for the job of a lifetime. This means that your job does not begin or end with your workday – you must always be striving to move yourself forward. This is true for your technical skills – in this age of technology, there is always a new platform, new software, new infrastructure that you need to master to keep yourself evolving and relevant. I tell you this because you are not just competing with the workers in offices today; you are competing with the generation of workers who are now being born even as I give this speech. You must always know what your value is and you must always be working to keep that value high.  For Henry Sy, he knew that he could not stop at just being a shoe seller. He worked hard to build, expand and grow from one shop to a chain of malls. He evolved and adapted, and now the SM empire spans many different lines of business.

The second half of that statement is your inventory of contacts – that is, building your network of relationships. Look around you. Right now you are not just surrounded by friends and classmates, but also by your professors and loving family members. Think of how you would go out of your way to do something good for these people, and remember that many of them feel the same way about you. The relationships you build as you enter professional life are crucial. They will sustain you when things spiral out of your control – and believe me, if you work as long as I have, they always will at some point in time.

When you succeed, always share the credit with the people you work with. Remember that in the professional life, you will live and die as a team. Look for ways to make your teammates better, because that will ultimately make you look better. In many activities, even cooperatively, there will be winners and losers, and some will be better at certain things than others. It is important to learn how to manage your team’s talents so that everyone comes out better.

Above all, be grateful to the people who bring goodwill into your life, and do your best to show them your appreciation. This is not just for your own advancement, but also for your soul. Sometimes you go to bed thinking that you can thank someone tomorrow, only to find that you may no longer have the chance. No regret is more common than the regret of not having loved enough.

Now, talking about how you should feel, let’s move on to Vice’s story. The lesson you should learn from Vice is that no matter how difficult things get for you, you must always stay positive. When you sincerely have a positive attitude, you will find that every problem has a solution.

I spoke about how we are not yet where we want to be yet in terms of our economy. I agree that there are many areas where we can still improve. However, if you let anger take over you and focus too much on assigning blame, you will miss out on chances to maximize your strengths. This is like looking at someone incredibly beautiful and only noticing a mole on their face. We have to stop looking at the moles!

We have one of the youngest populations in the world – Our median age is 22, and we are poised to enter the “Demographic Sweet Spot” – where the majority of our population is of the productive age between 15 and 60. Our labor force will be one of the youngest, most dynamic, and most skilled in the world – a force that you all will become part of very soon. (To be continued)