WBW 17: Make Failure Your School, Not Your Funeral

When encountering failures in your life, how do you tend to react? Are you the type who takes your mistakes humbly and learns from it? Or are you the stubborn or proud and fail to see and understand the learnings behind these mistakes never again to take another shot at it? Mike shares with us his experiences of how he has come to understand failure and how it is very much a part of life, growing up and pursuing what you really want. And as a professional poker player, Mike definitely needs to learn about failure as much as he can.

Who is Michael Jason Tee?

Other people might say Mike is a hopeless case after a string of failures since he was in high school. But through it all, Mike has shown courage, overcoming setbacks along the way, and a different perspective about failures in life. After being retained for a year in Xavier School, he got back up, becoming the Batch Representative in his junior year and Student Council President in his graduating year in high school. Soon after, Mike got into the country’s premiere university UP Diliman, took up Public Administration and even served in the University Student Council. Things were going well until another realization struck him: he didn’t want to pursue politics after all. With this, he left school and worked in Convergys as a call center representative for a year and a half. It was then that he realized he wanted to try being a professional poker player. As of date, Mike plans to wrap up his successful stint as a professional poker player to finish his studies in UP, taking up Architecture.

When asked what's his greatest failure / challenge?

When asked what's his greatest success?

Show notes

Why did you choose this topic?

• A lot of people are afraid of failing, but why are people afraid?
• Failing will teach you a lot of things
• It's only when you get a taste of the bad, will you truly appreciate the good
• It will teach you a lot of things about yourself, about the world, about how people around you work or operate
• Just keep on failing. What doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger
• Failure is a part of life

What led you to the conclusion that it should be your school?

• When Mike was in 1st year high school, he got retained. The summer before he had to repeat his 1st year of high school, his mother asked him, “What are you planning to do with your life?”
• He wanted to transfer schools. He didn’t want to stay in Xavier School. His new batchmates will look at him as the one who got retained.
• Then his mom said a phrase he will never forget – “That’s where you fell. That’s where you’ll get back up.” So she enrolled him back into Xavier.

What were the next series of experiences that strengthened the idea that your mom taught you?

• When Mike was in 3rd year high school, Mike was planning to run for batch representative.
• Before running, Mike consulted the great late Fr. Santos Mena - one of the batch's counselors - on whether he should run or not. However, Fr. Mena’s reply was “No”. This was coming from a priest! That was pretty disheartening. He said things like “You will not make it. You will be doing a lot of things and so on.” But Mike really wanted to run, and luckily he won.
• In 4th year, a similar experience happened, this time Mike was thinking of running for Student Council President. Mike talked to Fr. Mena sincerely seeking to get words from a wise man, unfortunately Fr. Mena still said “No.”
• Then that’s when Mike starting getting worried. Because after Mike’s win, Fr. Mena still has the same stand. But actually, Mike got a lot more motivated. It was a challenge. And Mike ran and won. Luckily, it was a great year.
• After that, you feel invincible, feels like you can take on anything. Then you’ll fail again.

Failure is an integral part of life

• It's very fortunate to have failures come at a very young age
• So that when you start supporting someone, you’ll be a stronger person by then
• Welcome all the failures right now so you’ll be ready in the future. BUT its not an assurance that once you get there you won’t fail anymore
• Of course you will still fail. BUT after failing so many times, you’ll be more prepared should you fall again. You won’t panic or be as depressed

Through those lessons of yours, how did it give weight to the decision of what career you will take right now? Was it easier to make that decision because you were courageous?

• Currently, Mike is a professional poker player.
• It was a much easier decision to make because Mike was more courageous and was not afraid of failure anymore. Because even if he fails, he would learn something from it.
• Mike might be giving off the impression that he is so courageous that he will get into anything, but he isn’t. He will only get into things that he likes. It’s a bit unorthodox but he wants it and he’s really passionate about it, that’s why he would do it.
• When Mike was a kid, he wanted to be a professional athlete. But the Lord did not give him height, so no basketball. For golf, he had no funds because it is an expensive sport. This is the closest thing. And there were other things there that he was looking for, such as competition. He doesn’t like team sports. He prefers to play alone.
• Relating failing and career choices, you aren’t really looking towards failing but you are more prepared more than anything else that if you fail, you’ll know what to do or you’ll know how to interpret what happened when you failed to make it something better
• In poker, you will not win every pot, but you’ll analyze the situation. What went wrong, what were the good points, bad points and you’ll try to improve

Failing as a "gym workout"

• You need failing to improve. Think of failing as going to the gym. You need to work out. And its when you become buff that you’ll really improve.
• Practice makes perfect? NO. Perfect practice makes perfect. You can’t think that since I’m always failing that tomorrow everything will be okay again. There are bad failures and good failures.
• Good failure is a failure where you get something out of it. At least you know how to interpret what happened. Because if you weren’t able to understand it, it would just be a failure – a double or total failure.
• If you fail, and then you’re man enough to accept that yes you did fail, then try to analyze it objectively, what happened, etc, then turn it to something good or like gold

For example, down the line, knowing what course of career that you’ve chosen is very unorthodox and very untraditional, lets say someone comes up to you 10 years down the road and says to Mike “You are a great failure and the decisions that you made”. What is the answer that you will have to give?

• "Depends on who said it really. If it was my wife, it would be a different story. But if it was a total stranger, it will not matter. It's not that I’m proud, but who are you to tell me that it was a failure? One, you don’t know me. Two, you don’t know the entire story." He would ask or clarify how the person said that Mike was a failure?

If it was someone close to you?

• If it was a failure, Mike would be the first one to admit it. His answer would be “Yes, you’re right” or “No, it wasn’t a failure.”. It really depends on who said it.

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