Hi Prof,
Good Morning. Sending my reflection paper #2.
Reflection Paper 2
LEADER JOSELITO P. GO
I. External - what are family, environment school and work experience that shaped you today?
II. Internal - your values, strength, weakness and how do they affect on how you decide act
III. How do they prepare you for your future challenges?
I. External - what are family, environment school and work experience that shaped you today?
A. My Family
For who and what I am today is a result of my journey with my family, my school and my work.
Born out of poverty, my life went through a cluster of challenges. My father has no permanent job with all the typical vices and basically not responsible enough to earn for a living for our family. I assumed he became so dependent with his parents considering his parents were one of the richest Chinese during their time.
It was my mother who did everything for our family to survive. To her, every day is an opportunity to earn for a living. She wakes up as early as 4 am and start preparing her stuff for her store. We had a stall near the school and she sells native snacks for the students until 5:30 pm. After then, she will go the market together with me and buy some of her stuff and food for dinner. Her day usually finish at 10 pm. During weekends, we sell vegetables in the market in the morning while in the afternoon she prepares native foods and I am the one selling to the neighborhood. At times, she accepts extra jobs like laundry and ironing including housekeeping just to earn extra income. During summer, we sell 'halo-halo' and at times I also work as dishwasher and errand to my aunt's restaurant. I remember all of these since I was with her most of the time and shared these difficulties in life.
During school programs, my mother would go to her friends and neighbors to borrow some stuff like shoes, pants and shirts or polo and sometimes rubber shoes for sports activities. I remember also that, I was in grade four already when we had our electricity at home. I still remember the days when me and my older brother would go to our neighbors and watch television on their windows outside but there were also times when the owners would close the windows and simply doesn't want to share and we had no choice but to go home with a heavy heart.
After school hours, weekends and summer breaks are not time to play and enjoy vacation. It is the time for me to help my mother earn for a living. It is the time for me to share the sacrifices she has to endure. My mother taught us the basic household chores like cooking, dishwashing, marketing including washing clothes. She also taught us the values like being humble, helpful to other people, being polite and showing respect to others, being honest among others.
Now that I have my own family, I have no regrets with the life I had years back and always cherish the bad and the good memories. I always feel proud to share this humble beginning to my children for them to appreciate and value the life that they are enjoying now. This experience pushed me to have the strong determination to succeed and provide a better life to my family. This experience drives me to my journey and hurdle all the humps and bumps along the way that brought me to where I am now. I am always guided by the values my mother instilled to us and try to be a better person, as a father, a husband, a friend, a colleague and a leader.
B. My School
The difficulties in life I had at home made me more driven to do best in school. I maintained to be in top 5 until high school despite the limited resources and time to study. During my elementary and high school years, I am always being elected as Class President. At that time, Class President is always a battle between the top 2 students since everybody believed that people who excel academically are considered good leader. But in my case, it is different since my classmates saw my leadership capabilities which I am not aware of at that time. They are observing my initiative in doing the daily tasks, cleaning the room including the surroundings and watering the plants then eventually everyone follows. For me, I am just doing what needs to be done without told to do so. I did not realize that these little things for them are already a manifestation of a good leader. With this, I think the first step to become a good leader is being a role model or lead
by example.
One of the most defining moments in high school was when I passed the UPCAT and the scholarship in Los Banos campus. I have never thought of this dream to become a reality since I find the entrance exam very tough. There were no preparations done and the only main objective of taking the exam is to see and enjoy Laoag City with my friends. I have never thought that this will open the door towards the fulfilment of my goals in life.
My college days were not easy because I am only depending on the stipend received every month. It was not easy because there were times that the stipend is delayed and I need to stretch my allowance. I will never forget when this critical time comes, I am riding a jeepney going to the campus without paying and always asked God's forgiveness every time. Worst experience I had was taking examination with empty stomach. I cannot concentrate since I am starving and at the same time thinking of ways how to get over the hunger. There were also success stories and the most important is being able to gain and build true friendship. I learned to value friendship that I will always treasure and be thankful for the wonderful experience. I have my own story of friendship worth remembering and worthy to share to everyone for the rest of my life.
C. My Work Experience
My work experience started at an early age dictated by our status in life. Back then, I was wondering why my childhood days are indifferent from other kids only to realize as I grew up that it was a good training ground to value survival amidst the struggles we come across. I got my first job in a chemical company in a supervisory level. At first, many did not like me since I was very aggressive in challenging the old system and introducing changes tantamount to 'epal.' But after delivering good results, little by little they started to appreciate my initiatives. I started to gain the trust of my subordinates, my colleagues, my immediate superior, the top management and surprisingly, even the owners. My presence was felt in every corner of the company in 3 months. This achievement was confirmed by getting my regularization in just 4 months which is normally given in 6 months with a remarkable 50% salary increase. This experience taught me value of
hard work and perseverance. I also learned the secret of building good working relationship in all levels of the organization. After 4 years, a bigger opportunity came in that exposed me to a tougher challenge as one of the pioneers to establish and set up Yokohama Tires Philippines in Clark way back 1996. A challenging job that taught me the process of putting up a new plant that started with our 1 year extensive technical and operational training in Japan. I got promoted year after year until the highest position a Filipino can hold after the Japanese expatriates. This is where I started to realize my strengths and weaknesses as a Manager and a leader as well. After 8 years, another multinational company offered a bigger role with irresistible compensation and perks. I decided to jump into this new world only to find out after 8 months that I am not the right person for the job. I decided to quit without the assurance of getting a new job soon after.
Initially, I thought this is a failure that I have to endure as a result of wrong move until it proved me wrong when Yokohama hired me again as a Project Engineer for the construction of a new plant in Thailand. As an OFW in Japan, I have to bear the pain of being away from my family for 1.5 years although they were able to stay with me in Japan during their summer breaks. Now as the Plant Manager of Viskase, I was also one of the pioneers in establishing the company in Clark. Going 4 years with the company in September, I can say that the journey was not easy. It was not easy because while learning the business, I was also preoccupied establishing the operations and building its foundation. It was not easy because the journey was not only a bunch of success but also a cluster of failure. It was not easy because the journey demanded greater time than what was anticipated and even sleepless nights. But for me who embraced the journey driven by faith,
strong determination and commitment, it is worth continuing the job. I will keep on aiming high for the company and bound to lead my team to make it happen.
My work experiences molded the leader I am today ready to face endless challenges and ready to decide on the interest of the company and not for anybody.
II. Internal Influences
My Values, Strengths and Weaknesses
Being humble, respect to others, helping the needy, being honest, keep grounded despite my achievements in life are some of the core values I am living upon from childhood until today as a family man. Time is also one of the things I value most. As they say, 'we make time to people and things that matters most.' Making time out of our busy schedules signifies how valuable people or anything to us. I am a righteous person wherein I obey rules and regulations even from the simplest one. I easily get along well with people including the different levels of any organization. I love talking about the different stories of our lives just like what we are doing now in class because we learn many things about realities of life and not fairy tales. Despite being an aggressive type based on my enneagram, I easily get distracted when it comes to the health of my children and family and to other people who matters to me. I pull out my strength from God and family
during the lowest moment of my life. These internal influences serve as my guiding principle in choosing my actions and behavior.
III. How do they prepare you for your future challenges?
I believe that the experiences I had from childhood until now, the rollercoaster ride, the successes and failures, the laughter and tears made me stronger to face endless challenges in life. These experiences equipped me with the right tools to conquer the struggles that will come across from today onwards. These experiences empowered me to be an authentic leader I am now. There will be situations beyond our control and left with no other choice but to take calculated risks. My strong faith with God and love from my family will always serve as my inspiration and my strongest weapon against all odds.
Lastly, I strongly believe that failure along the way doesn't make us less of a leader but rather a challenge for us to become better and stay 'unbreakable.'
Thanks,
Josh 3.5
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