A life of service is a life worth swiping for

IN today’s highly competitive to achieve. But my question for them is: Who are you achieving for and what are you truly leaving behind?

Many of us today, especially among the younger generation, have the mentality that to achieve “success” (defined in your own eyes—be it status, money or posi of you even do this subconsciously without realizing it’s always about what’s best for you.

Let me ask you: Which is the most successful sports team?

Answer: The most successful sports team in the professional era is not the New York Yankees, or Manchester United, but a team from a far less well-known sport. It is the New Zealand All Blacks in rugby, who have an astonishing 86 percent winning percentage and numerous championships to their name.

How are they able to do it? Especially since they are from a country with such a small population, similar in size to Singapore. Even less well known is the concept of “sweep each All Black player, no matter how famous, has to humbly sweep the locker room after each game. This is the foundation of an All Black— serving others before self. Character and discipline triumph over talent.

In an era of self-entitlement, we should not forget the key element of true achievement. Talent and discipline are important. But so is humility.

Humility is not about bowing or appearing servile before your superiors. It’s about performing little acts of service for your company, your team, your family, and your country daily.

What are acts of service? Taking out the trash, helping to put back your bowls and plates after a meal at the hawker center, and deeper acts of commitment such as volunteering weekly and helping a colleague out at work when you don’t need to.

I cannot blame today’s youth for too as I pushed myself up the career ladder. I want to share with you my personal journey so you can take in my observations with your own set of experiences and life goals.

At 29 years old, I was already running a small proprietary credit desk at a local bank. By my mid-30s, I had learnt how to manage winning from scratch for two large US companies—from buying coffee powder to laying T1 lines.

The wake-up call came with the premature birth of my daughter. That forced my wife and me to recalibrate our lives, and reminded us of the things that really matter to us. We had both been involved with social work since university and we fervor. We took time to re-forge deeper family and personal relationships (simple commitments such as having a meal with family members every weekend). I also spent time nurturing talent and investing in the lives of young people.

- pany was to send a company-wide email to instruct my colleagues to wash their own cups and not wait for the cleaners to do so. I have made similar decisions in US companies; but this time there were a lot more colleagues and they were from very diverse backgrounds. The question “What would my colleagues, especially the traders, think?” did cross my mind for three seconds—but discipline and humility are key attributes which I really wanted to encourage, so I got over my brief hesitation.

Sweeping the shed can start from continue at home.

It’s the little acts of service that will truly matter at the end of the day. A word of encouragement to your family. A smile for a service personnel. Spending time (not on your phones or on social media) with good friends and meeting them face-to-face. Being kind to yourself.

“How can I serve?” and “How can I give?” are questions I do not hear often from young people. Perhaps it’s time to ask a little more, do a little more, give a little more. I learned from my kind-hearted neighbor who asks every morning “Who can I bless today?”

You need to be part of something bigger than yourself. If you want higher performance, begin with a higher purpose. At your age, you can do a lot, especially with other youth—focusing on technology teaching computer coding at a study to kids in a neighborhood school?

What if I told you that this is the secret to true sustainable and meaningful success? To live a purposeful life.

That in addition to making meaningful impact in whatever cause or field you choose, material successes will also naturally come—not because you seek them, but because you will then naturally act and apply your life much bigger things beyond your own narrow ambition?

joy and realize that work can equal life and that a life worth living for is a life worth dying for?

Take Tinder, for instance. The dating app is a microcosm and encapsulation of this world we live in, where everything is a transaction. This is what we have come to, where we debase and simplify the value of humans and real relationships into a simple left or right swipe, where instant gratification—my game. Where it becomes easy to at- tach points or value to people based purely on what? Looks? Surface attributes? Where everything is a because it is always just about you, right? So that’s the new normal: You swipe left or right.

Today we have lost much of our face-to-face interactions. The art, beauty and importance of real human conversations have been lost to this faceless online facade. We have forgotten how to engage each other, and to some extent how to truly understand, empathize and love each other.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong believer in technology and the private logistics company I work for is effectively a technology backbone; we spent about US$280 million on IT development in 2016 alone.

Yes, you may think this transactional culture is localized to only But no, we are the most networked generation and yet many of us are lonelier these days.

Dear readers, do not let this happen to you. As I said at the start, dedicate your life and your livelihood to a cause greater than your is to you. Each of you have unique gifts, talents, personalities; each of you have much to contribute and serve the world with.

I challenge you to really think about what matters to you beyond all the noise and clutter and striving for success the world throws at you, and think of a life worth living.

This is a life worth swiping for. integrating key cities of Mindanao, as far as Cagayan de Oro. Apart from being one of the key proponent of the Mindanao Rail, it has the capacity to become a center for value-added and post-production, especially for agri-industrial produce. It is ideal for Metro Davao to be the center for value-adding services because of its fully functioning seaport, its seaport’s capacity to expand, and because of the Metro’s capacity to give highquality education.

It can spearhead Mindanao, along with key cities such as Cagayan De Oro, General Santos City, Zamboanga, Cotabato, Surigao, and Butuan, among others, in developing new agri- industrial business and economic value- chains.

With the expected improvement of the Davao International Airport, it can expect a drastic increase in domestic and foreign arrivals. Davao offers a lot more than her famous durian and banana plantations. One cannot miss going to the Samal Islands, and visiting the indigenous communities such as the Manobos and Bagobos. Moreover, Mount Hamiguitan in Davao Oriental was named a UNESCO In last week’s column, I wrote that in 1905, visionary architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham designed Manila according to the principle of the City Beautiful and City Efficient, taking inspiration from the bay of Naples, the canals of Venice, and the rivers and wide walkable boulevards of Paris. During that time, Manila was one of the best planned cities and other countries looked up to it. However, after World War II, it seems that Burnham’s plan was forgotten, and Manila has instead taken inspiration from the 70- year- old mistake that is the car- centric planning of Los Angeles.

Metropolitan Davao needs to act fast before it transforms into the next Metro Manila. No metropolis should copy the urban design of Metro Manila. Whenever I visit cities and municipalities around the country and ask the locals what is their dream and vision for their community, the response that I often receive are these: we want to be the next Makati; we want to be like Manila with all of its business opportunities. With this I respond by asking them if they want to have the “traffic grabe” of Metro Manila, as well as three- hour commutes, less family time, rising housing costs, un- walkable streets, poorly lit neighborhoods, and smog- filled air? I go as far as asking them if they want to have their own EDSA.

Metro Davao needs to develop a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan, widen sidewalks, and avoid developing more gated subdivisions in the central business district to avoid strangulating traffic, which is now happening in Makati.

The Metro can also develop its water transportation by inter- connecting cities across the Davao Gulf and entry to downtown Davao through the Davao River. The Metro should utilize all possible modes of transportation that are people- centric. In this manner, the Metro can develop a mass- transit system with the likes of South Korea and Japan.

The leaders of the Davao Gulf megalopolis area should also realize that waterfronts have amenity value and are considered as prime real estate in developed nations. The waterfront should not be treated as back of the house but as areas of value and social space.

I believe that the next six years will give our country an opportunity for genuine reform and change. Mindanao is taking a major step in the right direction by prioritizing projects that will improve connectivity, convergence, context, corridors, and networks. Instead of putting up walls, the Philippines is building more bridges. Improving peace and order as well as promoting unity in diversity will also be crucial for growth to be inclusive. With this, bringing the Philippines well into the 21st century— a globally competitive country— will soon be in the horizon.