The same water that softens the potato, hardens the egg. Are you a potato or an egg?

This has been my religion for years: that life will always be unfair for many of us. Some will have it easier than others while many will face challenges.There will be a fraction of those who will survive, and a portion who won't. C'est la vie. Such is life.

In my younger days pre-AirAsia, much of my learning were about hard skills: making concise and less verbose presentations, delivering pitches with confidence, crunching numbers in excel sheets with a sharp eye for detail, etc.

This year was rather different. It was painful. It beat me many times into a dried pulp.

It was the year when I learned more about soft skills, especially in the field of leadership and management of emotion. I learned how to control my temper when things went wrong. I faced the most evil people I had to work with, and learned so much about managing such kinds of creatures (and teach them a lesson or two). I also made new mentors. I met the most wonderful people at work who taught me how to give feedback to people without hurting their feelings. I felt I was finally graduating to become a fully-fledged adult.

"How do you survive such a competitive environment?" My friends would ask me. I always answer with a sigh of relief for the answer is never simple. But I do have a one-statement response: I look at things differently. I will never be able to control my water. On some days, it will be fine and some days it will be boiling. It is never a matter of choice. But every time it does boil, I always decide to be the egg. I become tougher. Every person I hated at work was an opportunity for me to increase my patience. Every conflict with a teammate who disagreed with me was a chance to practice how to respond calmly and resolve issues without badmouthing the person behind her back. Every mediocre report I received from another department was an avenue to put myself inside their shoes and be open-minded that the world doesn't revolve around my project. Other people are facing other battles too. Everyone had the same right to judge me the same way that I was judging them.

And this is where I feel grateful that my mentors taught me this skill at an early young age: you can never control the winds that move your ship, but you can always adjust the sail. When life gives you lemons, then make some lemonade (or wolf it down with a tequila, perhaps). The same fire that melts the better, hardens the steel. The same water that softens the potato, hardens the egg. It's about what you're made of, not the circumstances around you. 

Having a bad day today? Tough luck, most of us are likely having one too. But the ones who succeed, or at least those who move the ladder to another level of success, are those who make the most of what life throws at them. Complaints about life are fleeting, temporary, ephemeral. How you react to it is rather permanent, and will likely determine the rest of your life. Are you then a potato or an egg? 

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JONATHAN YABUT is the winner of the hit Asian reality TV show, The Apprentice Asia, and directly reported to Tony Fernandes as Chief of Staff of AirAsia.

He is based today in Kuala Lumpur as the Managing Director of his management consultancy firm, The JY Consultancy & Ventures, which offers digital marketing and talent optimization services to Asia's startups and corporations. Jonathan is Asia’s leading motivational speaker on topics involving leadership, talent development of Gen Y workers, and career management for Fortune 500 companies. In 2015, he debuted his best-selling motivational book in Asia, "From Grit to Great", and recently launched his second book, "Fast Forward", which is available in all bookstores in Asia. For speakership and media inquiries, contact [email protected] or visit his website www.jonathanyabut.com.