Telling it like it is

Go search this name: Nick Vujicic. And be ready to be amazed.

Saw him last night, and I’m amazed at his positive outlook in life despite not having arms and legs. He was born this way and at 8 years old, he attempted suicide. He was bullied. Teased. Called names. And he was depressed at a young age. But what kept him going was this: love. His parents loved him, and they continued to pour love on him amid his unique condition.

His story is one for the books–actually, he has written several now. After hearing him narrate his gut-wrenching stories–some quite funny as he pokes fun at himself–I have no reason to complain about my life. This guy has went through everything–even a panic attack two years ago, which was caused by burn out and having been through a speaking circuit. Last year, he got married and admitted that he waited until he got married. Nick is perhaps the happiest person I’ve met in my life. He is genuinely happy. No buts. No ifs. Just that: happy for his life. Happy to be speaking in front of a 20,000 Filipino crowd at the Smart-Araneta center. Even actress and co-host Rica Paralejo was so impressed, she got to hug Nick several times, as he answered questions from the crowd.

It was no accident that I found myself listening to Nick last night. A friend and mentor “forced” me to watch his talk because he wanted company. And before the lights went out for Nick, another man appeared on stage: Chinkee Tan, a man I met that morning. I thought, “What a coincidence!” But I believe things happen for a reason, and there are no accidents in life. God works in mysterious ways.

So while I listened to Nick (we had no chair so we stood for more than an hour), I realized I was not taking notes! But I took mental notes of what he said. One that struck me the most is this: failure equals education. And perhaps these words hit me like a brick. Having gone through a lot of failures over the past 3 years and 9 months, I’ve picked up lessons. I’ve known myself more, and my limits. But also, I found real friends who stuck by you no matter if you’re up there, or down there. No one is perfect in this life. But I’ve always gunned for excellence–and I do it with dignity and honesty.

Chinkee talked about staying away from negative people to be able to live a positive life. Reality check. It’s hard. You’re surrounded by negative forces. It’s part of nature: the Yin and the Yang. The good cop and the bad cop. The protagonist and the antagonist. But the point is perhaps negative people can change your mindset–and that’s the point that Nick and Chinkee are both saying. We all want to be happy. But we also need to know the purpose of our lives. For Nick and Chinkee, they’re both good at speaking. They’re great storytellers. That’s where they thrive and that’s their God-given talent. And they’re using that to send out the message of love, happiness, and peace of mind.

Failure equals education. Why do we want to be challenged? Because we want to win. But nobody wins in a game without going through failures. Stories abound about people who have gone through failures but have managed to eventually win after trying again, and again.

In the end, Nick’s and Chinkee’s life lessons are nothing new. But hearing them again with 20,000 other people in Smart Araneta tells you that it’s okay to feel down when you don’t make it. It’s okay to feel alone. It’s okay to feel scared. Which is why you also need to surround yourself with people who love you –and never be afraid to appreciate someone who loves you back. Love them back. Because love is patient, is kind, is not jealous. You know the line.

Nick is coming back next year with his wife and kids. I hope to catch him again and be inspired–forever.

I’m starting this blog post with a thank you.

Thank you Yahoo! for the wonderful years. It was a blast. Most of all, I thank Yahoo! for the people I’ve met along the way. (You know who you are!)

Most people are asking me, “Why?” There’s no short answer. But at some point in your life and career, you need to be honest with yourself. And it took me a while to understand this. Three years and 9 months felt like a decade to me. Why? The lessons I’ve learned, the things I experienced, and the people I’ve met (and friends I’ve made) are priceless. As my boss, mentor, friend and brother told me when I started, the only thing he promised me after life in Yahoo! was a good entry in my resume. Well, he was too modest, perhaps. I think the knowledge I’ve gained, and the experience has opened my eyes to more ideas of what else I can do to put a dent in the universe.

So the next question is “Where to?” My response would be depends, but it’s clear that the direction is towards more challenges (sleepless nights included), plus more blood, sweat and tears.  All I can say is, I’ve never been so excited again. No matter where you are, so long as you know who you are and what you’ve done, that is that one that matters.

I’ve been nostalgic lately, and for some reason, yesterday, I couldn’t hold a tear (it was rather embarrassing), but yeah, it happened. I’m leaving a team of good people that I saw grow and I’ve grown to love.

In my next entry, I will be telling you all about one of the things that I’ve ticked from my bucket list. So there, in this short entry, this closes one chapter of my life, and am opening another one soon.

E

I’ve been hearing this statement a lot these days.

It sounds scary, right? Entrepreneurs would understand this, as they have tolerance for ambiguity, as this Lifehacker article states.

Why do some people decide to take a plunge and become business owners? The Pros are good. But getting there takes a lot of energy and passion–patience included.

Before I dose off, I believe this entry deserves more than ambiguous statements. It’s done. I’m moving on. I’m taking the plunge. I’m chasing a dream. I’m going to pursue what I love doing, and I’m taking this new challenge with an open mind and a steady heart. New lessons. New chapter. New life–or at least another set of stories, experiences and people.

As a friend said, you will never know until you do it.

E

I was with a couple friend last night. They were full of energy, passion and love. (I always see them together in photos on my facebook profile).  I was also with old, new friends, colleagues that day. They smiled, laughed and cried. I wished I could read minds. I wonder what they were thinking. Soon, my brothers and sisters.

Reading nice things that people were saying about you was a surreal ending to a journey.

The world opens up. You surrender to the times. You look up, down, side to side. More opportunities waiting. I’ve heard words like courage, honor, respect, and integrity — big words that were meant for heroes, super heroes.

I’m almost 40 and as they say, it begins now–life.

I stumbled upon this blog. I love this line in particular.

Dedicate an hour a day to something you’re passionate about.– Take part in something you passionately believe in.  This could be anything.  Some people take an active role in their city council, some find refuge in religious faith, some join social clubs supporting causes they believe in and others find passion in their hobbies.  In each case the psychological outcome is the same.  They engage themselves in something they strongly believe in.  This engagement brings happiness and meaning into their lives.  Read Stumbling on Happiness.

For the past few days, I’ve been rummaging through my “hoard.” Me and wife have decided to start giving or throwing away excess stuff in our cramped apartment. And to our surprise, we’ve been keeping a lot! Papers, clothes, magazines, books and other stuff stashed away in our little storeroom.

It’s hard letting go of these “collections” but since I only started holding on to them again after I dug them up from the storeroom, they’re not worth keeping. Let go! Now that I have friends and family willing to adopt them, I think this is good.

I hope to keep things at a bare minimum, and only use what I need. I stopped (and I will consciously limit) buying books and magazines. Clothes, they go after a year or less. Cassette tapes, CDs, er, do I still play CDs, VCDs, and DVDs? Everything is in a hard disk or the digital cloud now. And also I just dumped all business cards I’ve “collected” for more than 10 years!!! (Who the hell is collecting these stuff?!). And, I found reams and reams of used paper, which were remnants of press releases and notes that I took while I was still a budding newspaper and online reporter for a news website. (I also junked all my newspaper clippings and copies of old publications I wrote for). Boy, do I take a lot of notes. But I kept the “love letters” and the older photos still printed on paper.

In the next two days, our little apartment will be spic and span, and it will remain that way. Makes our lives simple, less cramped and less messy. So when it’s time to move, it will be easy.

My wife and I are now joking ourselves how much hoarding we’ve done over the years, as we remember a reality show on TV that shows hoarding as a psychological problem for Americans. If you want to keep your life simple, make it so. Get rid of the stuff you don’t need. Less is more. And with less junk, you will have less worries.

This is fun and therapeutic (a bit nostalgic sometimes).

Where do big ideas come from?

From 17-year-olds who have the capacity to learn, the time, and the Internet as their playground. I bought a book called Digital Disruption: Unleashing the next wave of innovation from Amazon several weeks ago. It starts with a story of a boy named Thomas Suarez. Let him tell his story.

Imagine, there will be more of these kids creating the future. We should all be wary because they will create the next Facebook.

Today, I said goodbye to a family that has been an important part of my life. They have moved to another country, far from the land where they were born. Taking a big leap, they have decided to reboot their lives, hoping to find new opportunities in a foreign land.

I now see an apartment where they once lived, empty and dark. I miss the thunderous sounds of hi-fi audio emanating from the screened windows while they view a Bluray movie from a home theater system. I miss the cries and laughter of children.  And the smelly dog — it barks with a mere whiff of a stranger. It’s all quiet now. And it’s lonely.

What pushes us to reboot our lives. To even consider living in another country is a leap of faith. But that’s how life is. If you don’t take a plunge, you will never know what’s next. If you don’t take risks, you will never learn the lessons in life.

It has been said that change is something that should be a constant. We should change for the better. Be sorry, but be better, as one of my colleagues would say. Disrupt is another word that scares many. Disruption is needed when things are becoming more comfortable. We all need a bit of disruption in our lives. It keeps life exciting.

This week was a turning point. A Eureka moment.

In my years of doing journalism (and teaching it), I came to realize how important it is to have context–a piece of the storytelling puzzle that gets left out because we’re in a rush to find the next breaking story.

It’s been years ago when me and my boss (and some former colleagues) were talking about the 3Cs in doing online journalism: produce content that will lead to conversations, and in turn, build communities around these conversations. Everybody is doing that now. What’s missing is CONTEXT.

I’ve spent the whole semester teaching CONTEXT to young journalism students. They call it many names: computer-assisted reporting, data journalism, or whatnot. The bottomline is this: very few of the “leading” websites in the country offer context. And yes, context is important these days especially when you’re dealing with complex issues such as the Sabah dispute.

So as the local media reported on the incursion of a group of Filipinos who believed they have ancestral claim to this land, very few thought of giving people a bit of context–a lesson of history.

And this thought led us to create a Timeline, collecting and curating content for context.

SEE UNDERSTANDING THE SABAH CRISIS.

This is the same concept that the Guardian or New York Times have done when they got the war logs leaked by the Wikileaks. Journalists exist not just to report, but to provide context into very difficult topics and issues that come their way. Their years of experience and training are meant to prepare them for this: making sense of the world. And with that, aiming to help explain things to readers who will in turn think and act. Journalism is here to influence and change society.

This brings me to the last point: the web. It’s a medium–and as my boss would say–it’s an amplifier that will allow a bigger crowd to hear it. And I really love this metaphor because I love playing my guitar loud with a big kick!@# Marshall amplifier! Imagine the world without those Marshall amps. Where would Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page be?

The web is here to amplify context. It is the most fascinating medium that will allow you to establish context to stories like the Sabah standoff/crisis.

So if there’s one thing that I would want my current students to understand about data journalism, it is this: the context is also the story. We now have 4Cs. Content, conversations, community, and context. Tada! Isn’t that great?

Have you often been told, “You’re too nice!”

It’s a curse.

Steve Jobs doesn’t fall under this category. If there’s anything I learned from reading Walter Isaacson’s biography about him, Steve was nothing but nice. But he was brilliant, and there’s no denying that.

Jobs founded Apple Computer, launched an “insanely great” product in 1984, was later kicked out of his own company, started another company that failed, and later went back to Apple to transform it into what it is now. He was young at that time and was aggressive. Not everyone liked him. In fact, very few can tolerate his behavior. People who stood up to him earned some respect. But not everyone survived him.

I’m halfway through this book and I still am fascinated by his “reality distortion field.” He was laser-focused on what he wanted, and he never let anyone stopped him from getting that–sometimes at a cost of losing friends, colleagues, even a co-founder.

At the onset, Steve understood that running a business like Apple required tough decisions, tough calls. Steve was a marketing genius. He was also the most-involved founder-CEO. He cared about the products he helped build. He never tolerated mediocre jobs. He populated his team with “A Team” players. He got rid of the “bozos,” especially when he returned as iCEO. He had a clear vision of what he wanted. And, he went after it.

I was once told culture trumps strategy. Apple’s success is tied to the culture that Steve created in Apple. This is the same culture that drove him to push Pixar to where it is now–producing the best animated movies, which changed animation as we know it.

When he came back after Apple decided to buy NeXT, Steve demurred a bit about being CEO again. But it was clear that he went back to start running the company again. It was no democracy. He pushed for reforms and after some painful years, he started turning the ship around–a metaphor that he hated.

***

I gravitate towards people’s stories. I read a lot of biographies of rock and roll icons, of fallen heroes, of geniuses who die young.

Steve was a square peg in a round hole. He wanted to be different, and so he thought different. That was his vision, and that set him apart from competition. His reality distortion field kept critics at bay as he wanted, as he put it, to “make a dent in the universe” of computing and our lives.

Just think about the Apple inventions that we use these days. This blog is being hacked on a beautiful Macbook Pro. Just a few feet away from me, my iPhone sits idly, but busy scanning the ether for e-mail from 3 web services. When I got my first iPod–that changed my lifestyle. It became a door to meeting people who enjoyed music. We had MP3 parties where we each brought iPods to plug into a speaker and listened. And there was the iPad, a tablet device that changed how we interacted with computing devices. Steve hated the stylus, which drove him to kill Apple’s Newton. He wanted the technology to be natural and simple. He wanted a technology that allowed us to use our God-given stylus–at least 10 of them.

Steve was no “Mr. Nice Guy.” But he was a visionary, the square peg, the a@#$%^ which drove people nuts. But he knew what he wanted–to some it sounded like a pipe dream. But he did it. He owned it: from vision to execution.