00:00So, what did I learn in those years?
00:02If you don't have the right people, the organization is just a plaster in a door or in a logo in
00:10stickers and brands, but it doesn't mean anything.
00:14It's the people that make the business.
00:17And as leaders in organizations, we have to constantly remember that it's the people that
00:24make the business.
00:30We have to stay real, and money always Fs with your brain, and it makes you think of
00:57things that many times are not necessary.
01:02Think from the people that I've met and talked to who are very successful in life, I've realized
01:10that they are successful because they are not owned by the money that they have.
01:16They're not possessed by their wealth, and they can think normally, and they can treat
01:24people normally.
01:28I realized that people are just people.
01:30When you strip them of all the trappings of what they're wearing, or what they have, or
01:35what car they drive, ultimately, people are just people.
01:39And all the more now, and into the future, the most important thing will be about what
01:45is real, because there's so much fake stuff.
01:48You have all these employees, you don't know how much of the interview will lead to a successful
01:55hire.
01:56When you hire someone, you don't know how they're going to perform.
01:59When you have kids, you don't know how they're going to grow up.
02:03When you're a parent, you don't know how you're going to be as a parent.
02:06When you are a lover, you don't know how you're going to be as a lover.
02:10You don't know how that lover's going to be with you.
02:13So there's so much pretense, second-guessing, overthinking.
02:18At the end of the day, people just have to learn how to be real, vulnerable, genuine,
02:26sincere, honest, and we get so caught up in so much of the pretensions that we just end
02:37up in disaster.
02:42What I've learned is, you can learn so many things from people.
02:46I have met good people, I have met bad people.
02:49I have met monsters and I have met angels, and there's always something you have to learn
02:54from them, from their encounter.
02:55I've met people and I've walked away thinking, I understand now why the family failed.
03:02I understand now why the business failed.
03:05I realize now why he's a drunkard, why he's a wife-beater, why he's an abuser.
03:11I understand now why people devote so much to charity, why people donate so much of their
03:20life to help other people.
03:23And I've also met people who will not bother to help anyone.
03:27One of the most interesting things about my job is, it gives me a look into the lives
03:33of so many people, a very diverse collection of characters that is really a study in human nature.
03:43I think that's the most interesting thing about what I do, what we do.
03:52So early in my life, I watched a video of a guy named Jim Rogers.
03:58Jim Rogers is the third biggest investor in the world after Warren Buffett and George Soros.
04:06It was after those two guys, it's Jim Rogers.
04:11He's not so prominent now, maybe because he's much, much, much older.
04:16One of the things he said is that if you think you know everything you need to know, then
04:21that is the beginning of your disaster.
04:24You think that you can predict the trend, and then you take positions.
04:29And sometimes even though you know where the trend is going, you either bet too early or
04:34you're betting too late.
04:35And then you need to bet on the right horse.
04:39And sometimes you think it's the right horse, yun pala, yun pala sabit.
04:44And you need to be courageous.
04:49Every so often, I think there are big disasters in the economy and then big booms.
04:56So you want to be able to buy assets when it's a disaster, and you want to be able to
05:01sell when it's a boom.
05:03So for five years of my life, I was preparing myself for this disaster that was going to
05:07happen, and that was the global financial crisis.
05:11I felt in 2007 that things were not right.
05:15So I sold a lot of my assets in 2007, preparing for what could be a crisis fairly soon.
05:25I didn't know what was going on.
05:27All I knew is that things were not right in the world, and that might produce a crisis
05:34of some kind.
05:35So I don't know what was going to happen, but I knew that I have to prepare for that
05:43eventuality.
05:44So I was able to raise a lot of cash at that time in 2007 to prepare myself for investing
05:51that money, a lot of money at that time, for me.
05:56I mean, it's not a lot of money for a lot of people, but it is a lot of money for me.
05:59It was everything that I had at that time.
06:02And when that moment came, global financial crisis, stocks fell 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, very
06:10big, solid companies.
06:14And I had that opportunity to deploy all of it at the very bottom of the market.
06:22If you look in hindsight, that was that one moment when I could have bought a particular
06:26stock that I wanted to buy for many, many years, and I waited for this moment.
06:32The moment arrived, and I let it pass.
06:37And why?
06:37Because I was so smart.
06:38I was thinking, oh, it hit this pencil, and I think it's going to keep falling.
06:45But it stopped falling because I was so smart, I missed it.
06:49I should have said it could fall further, but this is a good time.
06:56You can never catch the market bottom.
07:00People always say that, you can never catch the market bottom.
07:03But I was there at the bottom, and I didn't even know.
07:07And I missed it.
07:09And from that point, it never went back.
07:11It just grew 11 times.
07:15So from whatever that price of that stock of that company is, it grew 11 times in 10
07:20years.
07:21So I missed a very critical, life-changing moment.
07:26You think you know the trend.
07:30You're making the right bets with the right horse.
07:32If you don't have the cycle, if you don't have the courage to do it, then you will miss
07:36it.
07:37I've learned that that was one of the most amazing times of my life, but it's not the
07:44best.
07:46So I think I'm living at, I'm trying to make that best moment happen.
07:52So what did I learn in those years?
07:54I think, again, companies are made out of people.
08:00It's the people that make the company.
08:02It doesn't matter what brand.
08:04But if the wrong people are there, if you don't have the right people, the organization
08:09is just a plaster in a door or in a logo in stickers and brands.
08:17But it doesn't mean anything.
08:19It's the people that make the business.
08:22And as leaders in organizations, we have to constantly remember that it's the people that
08:29make the business.
08:33There's just risk.
08:34It's good risk when your risk pays off.
08:37It's bad when it doesn't.
08:40In 2003, when I was the GM of Savills and they said, we're going to close the business
08:45because this country was such a mess, I joined them in 1998 at the height of the Asian financial
08:52crisis.
08:53It started in 97, 98, 99, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, eight-year crisis.
09:01In those eight years, every day we had rallies on Real Avenue, Corner Paseo de Rojas.
09:07And the peso went from 25 pesos to the dollar to 50 in a span of, what, 12, 18 months?
09:16And that wasn't just Philippines.
09:17It was all over Asia.
09:18And that destroyed so many companies, lost so many jobs.
09:22Companies were wiped out all over Asia.
09:25And things were very hard.
09:27And all those things led to a political crisis, which is why we elected President Estrada.
09:33And in 18 months, we kicked him out.
09:36And we installed JMA, rightly or wrongly.
09:39And as soon as she sat there, we wanted her out.
09:42All these economic hardships led to political uncertainty that led to risk.
09:50And Salvo said, OK, we're pulling out of this.
09:52Even though you were growing the business revenue peso-wise, the moment you convert
09:57that to dollars, it meant nothing because your pesos are worth half the dollars now.
10:07So they said, the easiest way to do this, just run a franchise.
10:10Pay us every year, run a franchise.
10:13But that would have been seen as a moment of hardship, yes.
10:19But also, it was a great opportunity.
10:21Back then, my father-in-law said, David, this is a great opportunity.
10:25Let's go do it.
10:27So I put all my savings in that company.
10:31He borrowed money against his house to put it in this company.
10:35And my other partner, Angela Padilla, also took her share and invested in the company.
10:41These are the three people that founded Leachian Associates in 2003.
10:47That became the business we sold to Jones Lang five years after.
10:51What I learned from many clients at that time is that you have to be brave to be able to
10:56invest meaningfully.
10:58But in order for you to do that, you need years of preparation.
11:04You need to build assets in anticipation that one day, a crisis will happen.
11:11And that when that crisis is there, you have to have resources during that crisis, deploy
11:15that capital, and buy when nobody wants to buy.
11:19When companies are falling left and right and failing, you don't know which company
11:23to buy.
11:24But maybe you'll take a risk, and maybe that risk will pay off.
11:28So many people in the 80s left the Philippines.
11:31And the ones who stayed said, OK, Forbes Park at 1,800 pesos per square meter, Ayala Avenue
11:38property at 2,000 pesos per square meter, let's go do it.
11:43Did they know that things will go from 2,000 pesos to 250,000 pesos in less than 10 years?
11:51They didn't know that.
11:52But they were prepared, and they were brave enough.
11:55And then they sat it out.
11:58And I think that is the biggest lesson.
12:07Love and kindness will overcome anything.
12:14Your self-esteem is not based on what you have, what you're wearing, or what you don't
12:21have and what you're not wearing.
12:23It's about what's inside.
12:27I had many friends who didn't care that I didn't have anything at that time.
12:31And sometimes today, what's very hard is that now that I have some things, sometimes it's
12:38very hard to discern who are your real friends and who are friends that are there because
12:44they're opportunistic about the relationship they have with you.
12:48And when I look at my clients, if people think that I have a lot, these people have a lot
12:55times to the power of 100 to the power of 2,000.
12:59And it's a very different equation.
13:03But they're also asking the same thing.
13:06When they were younger, things were less murky.
13:09They knew who their friends were, and they knew who were not their friends.
13:16And at the scale of X to the power of 2,000, at that level, they're still asking the same
13:22questions.
13:23Are these people real friends?
13:25Are these people just here for the ride?
13:28And again, it just goes back to people are just people.
13:32There's one time I was in a very fancy, I won't name the name, I won't name the, but
13:39this is this family and they built one of the most beautiful office buildings in the
13:44Philippines.
13:45It's still one of the most beautiful buildings today.
13:48But I was 24, 25 years old then, and I was taking a leak in the bathroom of this very
13:57nice office building.
13:58And the owner of the building comes in.
14:01It's one of the most prominent families here, if not the most prominent family.
14:06And the guy who owns the freaking company walks in the same bathroom and takes a piss
14:10right beside me in the urinal.
14:12And I go, you know, and I was 25, I was very, very, very young and it's like, fuck, this
14:19guy is peeing also.
14:21You know, this is just regular dude, doesn't know me, so do my thing, he does this thing,
14:30you know, wash hands, go out, walk out, it's just, fuck, this guy is like so normal.
14:35He pees just like me.
14:37So it's, people are just people.
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