MM Leadership Reflection Paper 3 by Leader May Roxas

Hi Prof,

Here is my Reflection Paper 3.

Thank you,

May Roxas

What is your passion? (What is it that you love doing?  How is it reflected in your work, daily life, and life's journey)

In my life, there are two things that I am passionate about. These are reading and running. As a child, I was a lover of books. Perhaps this was because my parents introduced me to books at a very young age. I remember that growing up, I didn't have many toys, but I did own two books that I had always kept with me for many years. They were children fairy-tale books – Sleeping Beauty, and Jack and the Beanstalk. During elementary days, I didn't get excited because of new school things. What I normally looked forward to were the new books for the school year. The rest of my summer vacation was happily spent reading textbooks. I especially loved the stories written in the English and Filipino literature. Through time, my passion for reading only increased as I was introduced to science fiction and epic fantasies.

But how did my passion for reading reflect in my work and in my life? Through reading, I was able to develop comprehension skills that are needed in critical thinking and analysis. Skills that are essential in my technical line of work. I was able to apply it in troubleshooting different issues by reading manuals and methodologies. Moreover, my passion for reading was able to help build my personality. I am an introvert and it takes me time to warm up to people. Because reading allows me to see emotions of the characters in books, somehow I was able to understand why real life people act the way they do and relate to them. Another thing that reading did for me is that it taught me to slow down, to imagine far greater and to experience something different. Lastly, my love for reading translated into a passion for learning. Because reading provides a rich source of knowledge, I do not become afraid of challenging myself to do new things in life. I already made different career moves and decided to enroll in an MBA, because I want to continue learning.

My second love is running. When I first joined a race, it was because a friend invited me. I was out of shape and had no training, but I figured that the distance was short anyway. The category I participated in was just 3k, but because we were not familiar with the location, we arrived 30 minutes late and I ended up one of those last to finish the shortest race category. I even had to do almost twice the distance because we parked in Manila Hotel and the event was in CCP. Unsurprisingly, because of my bad experience, I vowed that I will not run again. However, just a few weeks later, a turn of events made me broke my vow. I got confined in a hospital for a week because of severe stomachache coupled with an unrelenting fever. They did lots of tests, but found all the results negative. Therefore, they diagnosed my illness as stress related. My doctor's advice? Seek psychiatric help or change my lifestyle. Of course, I chose the latter.   

I am now running for two years and have completed two marathons and one ultramarathon. I am now training for another 42k distance this coming February 2016. So far, I did not have another episode of that sickness. But actually, running did more to me than just make me adopt a healthy lifestyle. Running made me find out who I really am and what I am capable of.

Running made me more productive at work because I want to make the most out of my working hours. I want to spend my non-working hours going to the gym or running outside. Running showed me the true meaning of being committed. Like the commitment I have for every race, I promised to keep going unless I puke, faint or die. Running taught me not to give up during hard times even if the odds were not in my favor. It taught me determination and perseverance. But running did not only show me how to befriend pain, it constantly reminded me that I also need to relish the results. Similarly, in life there are times that I have to remind myself that it is okay to enjoy and celebrate the fruits of hard work.

In my life, I don't think that I will ever get tired of telling other people my marathon story or how much enjoyment and benefits I get from continuous learning. I would like for others to see it and be somehow inspired that they too can do greater than what they can imagine.

I believe that to become a true leader, we have to be passionate in our actions. Our passion may not be grandiose, but the important thing is that we love whatever it is that we are doing. Because only when we feel true passion on what we do, do we begin to have an effect on people, and for me leadership is really about that – influencing others to become better.