• 6 months ago
From Advertising to Farming. Finding Happiness in Everyday Life | Real Stories Real People | OG

Third Domingo is the founder and CEO of one of the top advertising agencies in the Philippines called IdeasXMachina. He also gets to live a humbling life at the same time by farming his 10-hectare farm in Capas, Tarlac. He and his team of farmers grow rice, coffee, mulberries, fruits, and vegetables.

It does make you wonder, doesn't it? What the heck is a city guy who runs his own advertising company in Manila doing in agriculture?

Here's a fact in life. Returning to someone's roots is a meaningful act. And one can see this all the time among successful people who came from humble beginnings. They tend to look back the big way.

Now in this story of passion and purpose is an affirmation. Whether someone's wearing a suit or a farmer's long sleeve, they can make a difference. Look who's doing both and living the best of both worlds.

Here's Third, a successful CEO being outdoorsy on a different level. He talks about his humble beginnings, why he chose the advertising career, building his own company, how farming serves as an escape, and more about living a life that's bigger than one's self.

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Transcript
00:00 It's nice being in a farm because it gives you a semblance of routine.
00:06 You are able to respect time because you're forced.
00:09 Because you work with the sun, you work with the rain, which is nice.
00:12 Because I think in advertising, creativity is anti-routine.
00:15 You kind of need to be surprising all the time.
00:17 But in farming, it's different because you need to follow forces that are much bigger than you.
00:23 That are much stronger than you.
00:25 Hi, I'm Third Domingo. I'm a farmer and I'm also the CEO of an advertising agency.
00:31 I'm a copywriter actually.
00:43 So basically, I write and think of commercials.
00:46 That's really my trade.
00:48 My mother was a public school teacher and we were not rich growing up.
00:53 We weren't also that poor.
00:55 You can say that I grew up wanting things to become better for me and my family.
01:00 And that is why the idea that I need to be good at studying to be successful in life inculcated in me.
01:08 Early on in my life, I gained a lot of confidence in dealing with and talking with all sorts of people.
01:16 Which proved to be very important in my chosen path for a career, which is advertising.
01:23 When I was young, I was happy to watch commercials.
01:27 Because my course in college, in UANP, was Integrated Marketing Communications.
01:32 So I was brought to the side of communication for brands.
01:36 So that's where I used my training in theater and writing poetry.
01:43 So that classical training, I think, helped me to think of ideas.
01:49 Luckily, I was part of the team that created the Sprite Magpakatotoka campaign, which was the campaign of the decade.
01:56 And being part of a great team like that, you learn a lot.
02:03 Before I was 10 years in advertising, I thought I'd put up my own company.
02:10 And so therefore, I put up IdeasXMakina.
02:14 I've been managing my own company for 12 years now.
02:18 And I saw that there's an evolution in the challenges.
02:22 You have to be great at what you do.
02:24 It is tiring, I tell you.
02:26 But ultimately, here's the thing.
02:28 When you are able to achieve a certain level of success also, you actually become happy.
02:33 And actually, you increase your capacity to become happy to a point that you're also able to give and provide happiness to other people.
02:41 By way of, for example, livelihood, by way of advice, by way of help, by way of lessons that you share.
02:48 I didn't grow up in the province.
02:51 But when it's summer, your parents will bring you to the province.
02:54 And you will help in plowing the land, in plowing the rice fields, in planting and harvesting rice.
03:03 Those were the best times of my life, literally.
03:06 It's a different kind of experience, the physicality of it, and you also think about it, you discard it.
03:13 And then you're just, you know, you're literally communing with nature.
03:17 Somehow, that has always been very exciting for me.
03:20 Being able to touch things and smell things and experience things on my own.
03:26 When I achieved some level of success in my work, it became clear in my head that, you know,
03:34 I'm going to buy land and I'm going to be a farmer.
03:39 Farming, believe it or not, it's relaxing.
03:42 It's a different kind of respite from the hustle and bustle of advertising.
03:48 I enjoyed that too.
03:49 But usually that sort of thing, it takes a lot from you.
03:52 It can sap your energy if you're not careful.
03:55 It will kind of take away your energy and your enthusiasm.
03:59 So you've got to find ways to somehow replenish your energy.
04:04 And the farm for me is one of the best ways to actually do that.
04:08 But the thing with farming is, it has a time limit.
04:17 If there's no sun, you won't be able to do anything.
04:20 In advertising, even at night, you can't stop yourself from thinking of concepts, right?
04:27 Writing.
04:28 In farming, you know when to start and when to finish.
04:32 Which is a discipline that is somehow very hard to learn when you work in advertising.
04:37 Sometimes you're in the city, when you're working, when you have a career.
04:40 Sometimes you only take it day by day, right?
04:43 But farming forces you to think kind of long term.
04:46 You learn to literally plan.
04:48 Because you have to work with nature.
04:50 The sun will go down and the sun will go up.
04:52 It will rain and then it will dry up and then it will become sunny.
04:56 Working with those forces that you cannot control allows you to have a much complete perspective.
05:02 The day of a farmer starts at night, actually, before you go to sleep.
05:08 Because you're already thinking, "What am I going to do tomorrow?
05:10 I'm going to wake up like this?"
05:11 There's a lot to consider.
05:13 Soil preparation, fertilizers, the quality of the soil, herbicides, killing weeds.
05:19 Now, harvesting, the price of the rice you're going to sell.
05:23 So, those dynamics, because you have to be clear in your mind before you go to sleep,
05:27 what you're going to do tomorrow.
05:29 You have to wake up early next morning.
05:31 Why?
05:32 Because you're not going to wait for the sun.
05:34 Right?
05:35 You're not going to say, "Hey, I'm not going to get famous, I'm going to sleep."
05:38 The sun is not like that.
05:39 It will become famous whether you sleep or not.
05:42 So, you have to keep up with it.
05:43 It's the opposite, right?
05:44 Work comes first before breakfast.
05:50 You can say, "Aren't you tired of advertising?
05:54 Where are you looking for your energy to farm?"
05:57 Energy has two types.
05:59 There's potential energy and kinetic energy.
06:02 There's energy that is being carried by movement.
06:06 So, while you're moving, while you're moving, while you're trying,
06:10 you're being given more energy.
06:13 I feel like the ideal of a person in relaxing and replenishing energy and relieving stress
06:19 is when you have nothing to do.
06:21 I think you actually need to do some active form of stress.
06:25 That's why you exercise.
06:27 That's why you walk, you run.
06:28 That actual movement is creating energy for you.
06:31 So, that's the thing that I'm trying to harness with my life here.
06:35 So, that's the adventures of arch.
06:42 You're going to get lost, think about it.
06:45 How can I get out of this?
06:48 It's nice being in a farm because it gives you a semblance of routine.
06:54 You are able to respect time because you're forced, because you work with the sun, you work with the rain.
07:00 There's no such thing as a stress-free life.
07:02 Stress is part and parcel of our life.
07:05 If you're alive, there will be stress, right?
07:08 The technique is how do you harness these stresses such that they actually energize you,
07:15 that it does not sap energy from you, but actually you use those stresses to become stronger.
07:22 [Music]
07:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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