HOW TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL IN AMERICA

“A VOICE FROM AMERICA”
By Ernie Delfin

HOW TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL IN AMERICA
(A speech delivered by this columnist before his town
association’s annual dinner dance in San Francisco)

It is both an honor and a rare privilege to have been invited to be your inspirational speaker on your association’s annual pre-Thanksgiving dinner dance. I’ve accepted this challenge posed by my kailians (hometown folks) with humility as I reminisce my humble beginnings as a farmer’s son in one of the barrios of our town. I hope I can live up to your expectations.

I am not here to teach anyone the magic formula of success rather I intend to simply share you some personal insights drawn from my own memories, education and experiences that I have accumulated for about 30 years in America. During my first few years in America, I was working as a CPA- controller in a big hospital in Los Angeles. Still single and quite ambitious, then, I went to see our Speech Pathologist Dr. Debra Jones, and I inquired: “Dr. Jones, I always wanted to improve my life here in the United States, what is the best way to get rid of my accent?” The wise doctor replied “Ernie, that is very easy, just go back home to the Philippines!” But I never went back except about ten balikbayan trips since then.

Now, that you are laughing, let me proceed with some anecdotes from my own experiences and education in the University of Hard Knox towards my topic of “How you too can become successful in America”. Hundreds of books have been written about success, but each one must have his own personalized roadmap to follow. As everybody is a unique individual, what works for me might not work for you. I believe, however, that the basic formula for success is quite universal.

Although the road to success is always under construction, it must also start with ABC. Let me expound. First is AMBITION. You must have high ambition, otherwise you will not go far. If you wanted real bad to become a priest, aim to be a cardinal, if you fail to become a cardinal you will still be a priest. But if you just aim to be a priest, if you fail, you just become a sacristan (acolyte or mass server)!

Secondly, BELIEF in your self. You must first believe in your mind that you can do anything. Napoleon Hill has said, “He who can conceive can achieve” Every man’s creation, like a novel, always starts in creator’s head. Our predominant thoughts will determine what kind of person we eventually become.

The two most important factors that will contribute to your success are the PEOPLE you associate with and the BOOKS you read. You’ll gain lots of practical knowledge from successful men without experiencing costly mistakes, whereas a good book allows you to stand on the shoulders of great men from all over the world. If you just read one book a month and if you just apply a few principles you’ve learned and follow the road less traveled, you will become a better person, a more successful professional in a couple of years from now.

Thirdly, COURAGE. Be adventurous. Be strong internally. Even Jesus Christ admonished his disciples, “Be not afraid!” Do not be afraid to fail because those who never experienced failures never tried anything worthwhile. These losers belong to the world of mediocrity. They are members of what I call the NATO Club. NATO stands for No Action Talk Only. If you desire success, stay away from these NATO Clubs that exist everywhere including here in San Francisco.

To have courage, however, requires tough and oftentimes uncomfortable changes. Just visualize the caterpillar that never dared to free herself from the cocoon! She would never have become a beautiful butterfly flaunting her multi-colored wings. You too can undergo a metamorphosis in your life. Oh, how I love that word, metamorphosis, it says it all! Everyone can have it too but it must start within you and your personalized ABC: Ambition, Belief in yourself, and Courage.

In addition to your ABC, you must also water your desires with empowering fertilizers like: Dream, Vision, Work, Humor & Attitude and Prayer. The partners for ambition are dreams and work. Even to this date of high prices and inflation, dreams are still free. So you might as well dream big every day. But just daydreaming is never enough because a dream without work soon becomes a nightmare. With your lofty dreams, you must also have a grand vision for your life. The Bible says a man without a vision will perish. Vision without work is also nothing. Remember Juan Tamad? He was just waiting for the apple to fall down although he was getting very hungry but was too lazy to climb the apple tree. Unfortunately, it’s only in the dictionary where SUCCESS appears before WORK. In real life, it is ALWAYS the other way around.

While working towards your goal, you must as well have a good sense of humor to make your life exciting and worth living. Your attitude determines your altitude. What happens inside of you will always manifest externally. Be discriminating and always choose your environment. Just observe that all around us, people react differently to the same circumstance. Some laugh at my jokes but some of you, especially in that table, just fold their arms as if I am an alien from another planet. Oftentimes people are physically present but they are actually somewhere else. They do not savor the gift of the present. That’s the reason why many people are crying in quiet desperation in their lives, at work or at home.

Life can become boring and dull only with your permission. Boredom is like weeds, they grow wild even without watering them. But life should always be a mystery to be lived, and never a problem to be solved.


Readers Digest even prescribes that laughter is the best medicine. I believe that ll0%. Let me share you a story that happened when I was one in a panel of interviewers in the County of Los Angeles where I was working as an auditor in the early l980. We were interviewing this young nice looking, newly arrived Filipina college graduate for an entry bookkeeping position in our Division. I still remember her name: Liwayway Dimasupil (Just imagine how my two American fellow interviewers pronounced her name!) One of my American fellow department head asked, “Lie Wee Wee, did you ever have bookkeeping experience”?

Liwayway, confidently but naively answered, “YES, SIR…. I used to work in the library when I was in college!” We could not hold our laughter and the poor lady was shocked but obviously did not understand why we were laughing…. But despite of her naiveté and inexperience, we hired her because of her accounting education, her potential accentuated by her natural charm and personality. How I wish I gonna see Liwayway again one of these days!

Lastly, PRAYER. Praying is the most direct communication with a Supreme Being who knows and understand us always, especially when tough times and life’s trials visit us. In life there are people who seem to work much less than others but they seem more successful than some who harder and longer. Why? I believe that our work makes us more successful if That Somebody Up There blesses our work, and if our work is done in consonance with His will. There is a good book about his subject that I strongly recommend called “The Prayer of Jabez” by Bruce Wilkinson. I used to believe due to many seminars and workshops that I have attended that “I am a self-made man” with that inherent humanly pride. But at my age, I no longer say that. I now realize that all I did was to do the best I can every day and that Somebody Up There to whom I offer all my work and surrender its outcome blessed my work and I never worry about the outcome.

I hope you do believe in prayers as I do. Prayers can move mountains. Indeed, prayers can still do many miracles.

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Fast forward, NOW you are successful person, a doctor, a businessman or a teacher or a farmer. Then what? This is the time when your life offers you many options and opportunities to do more. For instance, once you become economically successful, you can relive your childhood days when you always ordered from right to left when you were in a restaurant with your parents oblivious of the the price tag. But that is a very small icing on the cake of success.

No matter how you define success, you will soon start questioning the meaning of your own life too. When you do that, your mid-life crises begin. But life can be beautiful if we define it that way. Our life should be like the bamboo that should be pliant and flexible. Down in the thick of the bamboo grove where the bamboo shoot starts its adventure, there are many surrounding thorns that can harm the bamboo shoot but it grows slowly anyway. Once the bamboo reaches the sky, it just dances with the wind and enjoys gazing at the blue skies as it invites the birds to use its branches as their playground. That is how your life should be.

As we become more successful, however, our definition of success also changes. It is normal to define success with many material connotation. Our success in America is often associated with money because of the great Western influence of materialism and the barrage of commercialism into our daily lives. Let me leave a serious warning here: Success must not ALWAYS be associated with money. To illustrate my point: Recall the lives of Mother Teresa vs. Princess Diana who died about the same time about six years ago. Or the Dalai Lama of Tibet vs. Erap Estrada. Then in solitude, ask yourself, “Who were really more successful in their lifetime”?

The success, happiness or loneliness does not always spring from the possession of money or material opulence. Success and fulfillment in life are not always in proportion to one’s wealth. I have some multi-millionaire clients who are also unhappy and miserable human beings. Their material net worth did not measure the depth of their self-worth as children of God. Something is missing because they lack nourishment in the immaterial world, deep in the inner sanctuary of the soul.

For many of us immigrants, America has offered us the greatest equalizer because anybody can be successful much easier. In their best selling book, “Millionaires Next Door” Professors Danko and Stanley concluded based on exhaustive research that the first degree immigrants have sixteen times more chances to become millionaires than a natural born American because we often see opportunities where others do not see. It’s much easier to make money in America than in third world countries, like our own homeland, the Philippines.

But I would like to caution this audience not to be driven in your life by money alone. It is dangerous and there is a fine line when money becomes the possessor rather than just a mere possession. To have a balanced perspective in life, amidst the wealth of consumerism here in America, we must be reminded of what is truly important in our lives. This can be done by the habit of regular reflection, meditation or prayer. If we never stop listening to that silent but profound voice deep within our souls amidst the hedonistic ways of our world, we can truly become more successful and fulfilled as human beings.

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With the remaining minutes that I have, may I take the opportunity to touch on something very close to my heart, that is also related to one’s true success, and that is the PHILSOPHY OF GIVING. Sharing and giving of ourselves for others coupled with that joyful state of always being grateful to God are the corner stones for a truly blissful and and successful life.

When I was very young, I really did not believe that it is better to give than to receive. Now I do. Now, I can enjoy just witnessing the success of others, which is the best antidote against that dreadful disease called “crab-mentality”. If I have a magic wand, I would prefer all my friends and everybody around me to be wealthier and more successful than I am, so it is easier to solicit grants and donations for our Katipunan-USA Foundation whose main objective is to help our less fortunate brothers and sisters, especially in the field of education, in the Philippines. For instance, we just received a $250.00, that’s already about P13,000, from Celia Ruiz Tomlinson, a successful lady engineer-engineer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that we are doubling that amount tonight for your scholarship fund for some poor but talented and deserving students in our hometown. Books for the Barrios that is headquartered here in the Bay Area is another worthy project that we at Katipunan-USA are supporting. I challenge you to find time to also get involved because millions of poor Filipino children were born without their consent and deserve a better chance like us.

Yes, friends and kababayans, whenever you receive an unsolicited letter of a genuine appreciation from someone is quite gratifying. That feeling of fulfillment lasts longer than the ephemeral happiness derived from shopping in the malls of America. When you help and give to someone truly deserving, especially in sending poor children to college, you are planting good seeds for their future, because you are in effect teaching them how to fish, rather than just giving them a fish to eat for one day.

You might ask, but then, how can you help just one or two persons --- amidst the millions of deprived children in the world or in the Philippines. It will not make any dent or difference at all. I used to believe the same excuse that made me immobilized to do anything until I realize that indeed one act, one person can make a lot of difference. Mother Teresa said that one specific act of kindness to one child means 100% to him or her and that person will never be the same again. Our hope is that the beneficiary of today will also become the benefactor for others someday. It is like throwing back one starving starfish washed in the shore back into the ocean in order to live--- so she can multiply.

My friends, I challenge you to try or continue your Christian acts of sharing or any random act of kindness. Together we can make a better world for us, for our children and their children. Our world is getting a smaller village after all.

In closing, may I share with you a beautiful poem from my library about Success:
You can use most any measure
When you’re speaking of success.
You can measure it in fancy home,
Expensive car or a dress.
But the measure of your real success
Is the one you cannot spend.
It’s the way your kids describe you
When they are talking to a friend.
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Thank you and Good night!

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My e-mail is erdelusa@hotmail.com or drbannatiran@yahoo.com
Website: www.katipunan-usa.org
Join his e-Forum at: ProgressiveTimes-subscribe@yahoogroups.com