“The Apprentice Asia” winner Jonathan Yabut was a hit with the audience at TEDxDiliman, a conference on “ideas that matter” held on October 13 at the College of Economics in the University of the Philippines Diliman.
“Nursing a two-month old heartbreak” in November last year, Yabut was stalking his ex on Facebook while watching TV. It was then that a commercial about the show he had been a big fan of since college flashed on screen. The regional version of “The Apprentice” was looking for applicants.
Yabut knew that he had to cross off the opportunity from him bucket list. Out of 30,000 applications, his and that of eleven others were accepted.
He flew to Kuala Lumpur bearing his barong tagalong, looking forward to wearing it when he was already in the Final Two. He also brought his pin of the Filipino flag, which he always wore.
The series was shot from February to April. In July, the final episode was aired, and in it, he was declared the winner.
The experience was something he would never do again. “Cancer- and stress- inducing” was how he described it, filled with days that began at 5AM and ended at 11PM.
Nevertheless, he learned many things, and shared these with the participants at TEDxDiliman.
1. Why rely on diskarte (or, why wing it) when you can prepare for the task ahead?
To believe that one could merely wing it was “an insult” that things could be solved even without preparation, said Yabut. Preparation breeds familiarity, and familiarity breeds confidence, he added. And when one was confident, one was unstoppable.
Because he did not know host Tony Fernandes, the founder of AirAsia, he did his research by watching “all 34 videos of him on YouTube”. Yabut took notes on a spreadsheet about what they had in common, and noticed that he often mentioned the words “passion”, “leadership”, and “people” or “people management”. Yabut touched on these key words every time he would talk to Fernandes.
The former had also unwittingly prepared himself for the show by watching “all 158 episodes” of “The Apprentice”. Whether it was the United Kingdom edition, the Slovenia edition, or the Czech Republic edition, he had seen it all.
He noticed that in those shows, the first episode would always have the contestants sell something common in the location. In Ireland, it was apples, and in the United States, it was lemonade. Thus, he was “mentally prepared” when they were tasked to sell fish in the first episode of “The Apprentice Asia”.
2. It’s not about working hard, but about working smart.
People may take pride in going early to a government office and emerging with a complete application hours later. But to be smart about it was to file the application online, which required only five minutes of their time.
Yabut recalled how life was made easier for him when he brought his own iron steamer to the show, especially since there was only one iron board and one iron in a house of 12.
At 5AM, everyone scrambled to be the first at that iron to get his or her attire creased out. One of them even had to hide the iron under her bed every night to be able to be the first use it when she woke up, narrated Yabut.
As for him, he used his spare time ironing his clothes with his own equipment. And at 6 or 7AM, when the rest of the contestants were panicking, he was drinking coffee, “strategizing, during my own Zen, how to kick out Andrea or Alex.”
3. Keep developing your strengths.
One’s strengths would “overwhelm” one’s weaknesses at the end of the day. While one could work on the latter “gently”, it became more difficult as one grew older. This was part of the imperfect person one was.
During the first episode, Yabut knew he was terrible at selling. He was, however, good with numbers. Therefore he did pricing for the fish, which no one else was doing. He thought he would get kicked out, but managed to save himself with his strength.
4. The unexplainable secret to success is out there: grit.
Grit, said Yabut, could be defined as having passion and perseverance over the years. This meant sticking it out and having an unwavering faith that whatever obstacle happened, one was going to get through.
He sourced his grit from having come from humble beginnings. Yabut said that his parents incentivized having high grades by treating him and his brother to Shakey’s or Jollibee at the end of every quarter.
This was enough for him, he said, but he was “sick and tired” that only those who were rich, and therefore could afford good schools, made it big. This made him want to prove on the show “that you can never be too small to dream big.”
His grit was also sourced from wanting his ex to see him on TV, thinking, like Adele, “We could have had it all.”
Finally, his grit came from being fed up that Filipinos were always bullied in Southeast Asia.
At the finale of the show, he was competing against Singaporean lawyer Andrea Loh, who had a better win-loss record. He knew, however, that he was going to win because he wanted it, and knew what he wanted out of the win, unlike his competitor. This was what he told Fernandes, who ultimately chose the Filipino as the winner.
source: interaksyon.com
