Discovering The Philippines

Part 1: An Unexpected Adventure

Author

Cliff Nielson
September 09, 2023

Hey there,

Last week was the first time in 40 weeks that I haven’t published my weekly newsletter.

I was completely wrapped up by an idea that I have been exploring - at the expense of just about everything else.

But here I am.

*cue Wolf of Wall Street meme*

If you know, you know

Now, let's introduce today’s topic: The Philippines. 🇵🇭

This is gonna be a multi-part series, because there is just too much info to share in one.

Today, I’ll share my backstory of working with Filipinos and why I became so obsessed with the Philippines.

Okay lang.

Handa mo na? Tara na! (Are you ready? Let’s go!)

Why the Philippines?

Aside from the fact that my first crush was half-Filipina, my interactions with Filipinos were pretty much non-existent up until 2-3 years ago.

I was working in a digital advertising agency and we outsourced some of our design work and video editing to a Filipino team. They were awesome and much less expensive than Americans, so when I started my own company, I decided to hire from the Philippines.

And that was when the adventure towards the Philippines really began.

Over the course of the last 2 years, I’ve hired or contracted with 11 different Filipinos. Basically everyone in my company except for me was/is Filipino.

Let’s quickly go over what makes working with Filipinos so awesome, so you can understand why I was *magnetically* drawn to their country.

Here are a few immediate observations I made long before I jumped on a plane:

  • They are fun. It is super easy to laugh and joke with them. They like to have good relationships with the people that they work with. Pretty smart, considering we spend most of our lives with our co-workers.

  • They are more patient than average. Once you go to the Philippines, you will see why firsthand.

  • They are very creative. This became more and more clear to me over time, but they are wicked with anything artistic or musical - it is built into their culture, as you will see later in this letter.

  • They speak English. And they speak it much better than I was expecting. Drastically. In fact, many Filipinos speak 3 languages, and nearly all speak at least 2 languages.

  • They are affordable to work with. The American dollar goes quite far in the Philippines. (for reference: $5/hour is like $15+ here).

  • They are extremely family-oriented. One time I did a survey of everyone on the team and asked them what their #1 motivator was and 100% of them independently said something related to their family.

So after a year of being surrounded by so many friendly Filipinos, my curiosity was piqued and I had no choice but to go and experience the culture firsthand!

In the interest of my fingers (and your eyes), I am going to wrap up here and pick back up next week.

If you want to go a bit deeper while you are waiting for part 2 of this letter, you can find my other Philippines-centric letters here:

Thanks for reading!

Cliff