Just to put things in their proper place, the column title “IF” is not about the popular song of Bread but rather the poem written by the English poet Rudyard Kipling sometime in 1895.
The poem speaks of real life challenges, human nature, character, trials and tribulations. It serves as a reminder to be grounded, to be bold, dealing with failure as much as with success. It also shows that critics and envy abound, even several centuries ago.
Every now and then, I read the poem to remind me that all of the above comes with life and are consequences of dealing with people and to serve as a personal compass.
While reading the poem early this week, I was reminded of a friend who is a visionary, a patriot and someone so bold and is in the habit of defying the odds. But in the process, he is constantly disparaged, doubted, even maligned by lesser individuals and envious groups.
He has been called nothing more than a mechanic, a China man, unqualified, inexperienced in the world of real business, dreaming, boastful, even crazy.
But in spite of all these, he maintains his composure and diplomacy. He has come to accept that crab mentality, small-time thinking is and will be part of the business landscape. “The criticism,” he says, “only stops when the critic dies.”
Rather than get petty and vindictive, his form of revenge is “radical success” and profit. Instead of wasting energy and resources, he chooses to put them into thinking big and doing more.
I refer to none other than Ramon S. Ang a.k.a RSA, chairman and president of San Miguel Corporation.
While talking to one of his officers in B-Meg, we recalled how we reacted in disbelief that SMC would break the mold and invest in “mega” poultry farms and modern feed mills.
Today, those mega farms and mills are no longer sufficient to meet the public demand for chicken as well as feeds for poultry, hogs, dogs, goats, etc. We believed in market history, RSA followed data and believed in market capacity.
When RSA went into infrastructure and started bidding three times higher than the competition, people said he was over investing and would go broke, especially with NAIAX, on April 15, 2013. Today, the NAIAX is already beyond capacity.
When RSA decided to embark on building the SMC-Bulacan Airport, he was blocked, opposed by government officials back then. “Only in the Philippines will you find such a massive, game changing project built on private land” and “private sector funded.”
But instead of “hurrahs” and “let’s go,” politicians found ways and means to “skin the cat,” line their pockets or steal business ideas. Others said the project would never get off the ground, while fake NGOs falsely accused RSA and the project of destroying the environment.
Even a bill that would allow an export processing zone in the proposed airport was vetoed. That bill would have maximized economic benefits and job generation for the province of Bulacan.
Today, people are pinning the donkey’s tail on NNIC and the NAIA. People who could not accept defeat at the bidding as well as the changes in tenancy now agitate in their interest rather than cooperate with the majority of satisfied locators at NAIA.
In spite of such pests, RSA and SMC remain focused on what is essential. SMC continues to be very profitable from “a little of everything.” All the expansion programs, the diversification into infrastructure, power, petroleum plus the traditional businesses have come together in spite of head winds and disrespect.
If, in your own little way, you have been subjected to the same behavior or insults, read the words and wisdom of Rudyard Kipling:
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master; If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on;”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
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