Business 101: Stop wasting your breath BEGGING the ‘best and brightest’ to stay

Take stock of the current political landscape today and one stark reality jumps out of the picture: There is no one great leader who stands out as one who possesses a coherent enough strategic vision for the Philippines. Instead of true leaders and statesmen all we have is more of the usual bozos: politicians. Filipino politicians are no more than con artists in suits and barong tagalogs. Their vision does not go beyond duping Filipino voters. Indeed, duping Filipino voters is pretty much the whole point of Philippine politics.

Do Filipinos routinely strike a winning pose?

Do Filipinos routinely strike a winning pose?

So the lament of the day is that we need a good man (sige na nga, a good woman na rin) who can get things done and see things through in such a way that profits are reaped from that good work over the long haul. Trouble is, smart people and good investors don’t do things for nothing. They want to ascertain whether or not investing time and money in an endeavour will yield results. Even if those results don’t translate to personal benefits, they should be worthwhile results just the same.

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Filipinos need to take a more business-like perspective when trying to get good people to work for them. We can’t always appeal to the altruistic or patriotic sensibilities of potential leaders and investors. We cannot always be imploring them to do stuff out of the goodness of their hearts. Even philanthropists, like the average greedy venture capitalist, seeks returns out of whatever entity or project they throw money and time into.

If Filipinos want to build real pride, they should stop begging for stuff and start making deals.

Self-respect comes from knowing that people work for you and invest in you because you have presented yourself as worthy of the resources they are pouring into your cause or plight.

At the moment, all Filipinos have to offer to prospective presidents, senators, and House “representatives” is an entire society that is resigned to a fate of being stolen from without fear of consequence.

So guess what such a society gets for their trouble: none other than a criminal government. And that is what Filipinos are getting today. Filipinos not only elect crooks, they tolerate them through entire three- or six-year terms. They worhship them like gods, write idiotic songs about them, and wave colourful flags at their every prompting.

How can Filipinos seriously expect truly smart people to see it as worth their while to serve them when they constitute an entire society where all the wrong arguments win? Filipinos have built for themselves a perverse flavour of “democracy” and an appalling philosophy around the utilisation of their “freedom”. It is a society where the rightness or validity of an idea or notion is determined by its popularity.

When you routinely see presidents ascending the Philippine throne on the back of a mandate brokered by hollow-headed celebrities, no-substance political parties, election-winning machines, moronic catchphrases, and organised religion, one can’t really expect smart people who aim to succeed on the back of rational thinking, systematic problem solving, root-cause analysis, and the scientific method to find a niche in such a scene.

So to Filipinos who appeal to their best and brightest compatriots to stay and do something for the Philippines because it is the “patriotic” thing to do, hear this: Stop wasting your breath. The call to nationalistic duty has long been worn down to tatters by emo poets. The modern way forward is to present the Philippines as a viable investment to (1) smart people and (2) shrewd capitalists. People who opt out of the Philippines or choose to take their time, money, and lives elsewhere do so because they have a wealth of options. But, see, those are precisely the sort of folk that real winners are able to win over. Losers, on the other hand, end up stuck and partnered in with the desperate — people who are poor in options.

To get the good and real deals, Filipinos have to come to the table in their best suits, hair combed, and shoes shined. Come to a room filled with people who matter in a sando holding a begging bowl and sporting that all-too-familiar victim look and all you’ll get are breadcrumbs or tutong scraped off the bottom of a rice cooker thrown in your face and a Bally-branded boot mark up your ass.

As that character in the movie The Rock played by Sean Connery say…

Losers whine about doing their best. Winners go home and [bonk] the Prom Queen.

Do the maths. It really is that simple. Really it is.

12 Replies to “Business 101: Stop wasting your breath BEGGING the ‘best and brightest’ to stay”

  1. What do you expect from a culture that is all about sentiment and never about substance? They have no idea how to compete yet they expect all the pansin that comes with competing and coming out on top? They do not value work, preparation and results as evidenced by the loyalty to the last name of somebody in politics. Pinoys only know instant gratification and will never relate to years of anonymous preparation for a big task. Hence pinoys will never appreciate baseball.

    Baseball is a game of failure. Nobody since Ted Williams has failed less than six out of then times over the course of a season. That is not a typo error. No one is baseball in decades has broken the 40% threshold of hitting a baseball successfully over the course of a year. Just to prove Noynoy Aquino is just a blank sheet of paper, I once devoted a blog a year ago saying never mind Noynoy’s lack of successes over his life but show me his failures. Anybody who has ever accomplished anything great whether it is Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs will gladly show you their list of failures. Failure is a stepping stone to breaking new ground. Not that Noynoy Aquino would ever know anything about breaking new ground. Noynoy has no failures for the same reason that I have no major league strikeouts. Neither of us was ever in the game.

    1. you’re absolutely right. an official of the U.S. had this to say: “I’d hate to negotiate with that bastard (nonoy aquino the turd). His mind is out of this earth.” See? bastard na daw, buang buang pa. diyoskopu bakit pinapayagan pa natin manatili ang gunggong na yan sa sobrang takot natin sa mga amo niyang wala naman dito sa bayan natin.

    2. Can’t agree more with Benign0 and Gogs here.

      Another metaphor I can think of is that Filipinos are entering boxing matches hoping the opponent will go easy on them. Save for Pacquiao, who knows how the game is really played, most Pinoys think they can shame their opponent into letting them win or something.

      In boxing, you have to be ready to get hit again and again if you want to win. Looking good or pitiful isn’t going to do squat. You will only die miserably if you have that kind of mindset.

  2. Sometimes Filipinos beg the best and the brightest to stay and at other times, when they get fed up hearing people complain about the country, they go and tell the person if they aren’t happy with the way things are, then pack up your things and migrate.

  3. Its strange how Filipinos will beg the best and the brightest to stay and yet when they complain, they would get told: “if you don’t like how things are in this country, why don’t you migrate?”

  4. Because of the rampant/blatant corruption and obvious incompetence (dumb/stupid) of our politicians today – NOBODY should be our choice in Voter Ballots

    If None in the current List of Politicians are clean (TRAPO-dirty/corrupt) or cannot be trusted and none seems to be competent (sharp), young or in good health.

    Vote NOBODY for President 2016

    Don’t Just Vote for NOBODY. Get out there and ACTIVELY CAMPAIGN for a Nobody (non-politician) who you think can LEAD us Toward a Better & Safer Future.

    If majority of our people voted for NOBODY or “None of the Above” rather than, “the lesser of evils,” it might force a situation where Voters would have to find someone competent to lead them.

    To prevent Voters Apathy (lack of caring)-We need Active Participation of ALL in our Democratic System to show our disapproval officially in Ballots. Instead of people NOT registering to VOTE or boycott (50%) resulting a MINORITY winner (President).

    NOBODY is represented by substitute/symbolical or a real candidate which People may choose based on the following:

    1. A Non-politicians (not infected by system) – a simple man sincere enough to LEAD (no personal agenda or political ambition),

    2. He/she is not spoiled by family/society/religion – from humble roots meaning He/she can relate/experience first hand all of our problems.

    All other qualities that our present politicians and leaders lacks.

    NOBODY can be anybody (a non-politician) willing to officially & legally represent the votes of ALL who disapprove or dissatisfied with current list Politician.

    http://www.nobodyforpresident.org/index2016.html

    http://www.nobodyforpresident.org/

    1. You could do what various US states have done to shame their candidates: run a chicken or a goat for office. IIRC, the animal has actually been elected once or twice.

      The frightening thing about the Philippines is that a chicken would probably do a better job than most of the human politicians. At least it couldn’t do any damage, except possibly peck at the wiring in City Hall.

  5. My god, the level of stupidity on show in these articles is astounding. This nincompoop talks like the Philipines is somehow different to the rest of the world in terms of political corruption and shafting of the ordinary people. Probably a fag or some other affiliated commie traitor who wants yo destroy the nation’s identity to one more welcoming of their loser nature and ways. As for the childish comment about the difference between winners and losers, Hollywood movies are generally a bad place to start but hey, those of weakling disposition will always gravitate toward inane ideas which resonate with their under developed character. Winners don’t waste their time writing cheesy articles like this, that is for sure.

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