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COMPETITIVENESS: IS IT BUILT FROM LEARNING AND HARDWORK?
By M. Nino Mayvi Dian
As we’re already know that current market competition rates are outrageous. People or companies
who don’t have the ability to change, adapt and compete, they’ll soon to be vaporized from this
competitive world.
Recently, I enjoyed and learned so many things about South Koreans aggressive movements in this
world. In my opinion, this country has become one of the business giants, and shows to the world
that asian countries also can dominate the world.
As you know that South Korea is becoming the trend setter of this world, not only about their
business and economics, but also their unique pop‐culture already become the worldwide trend,
which usually called, K‐POP.
I’m not going to write more details about South Korea, but I’d like to share with you about my
opinions what can we do, like this country do, to become one of the business giants in this world.
Let’s find about South Korea first (from en.wikipedia.org),
South Korea, also called the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state located in the southern part of
the Korean Peninsula. The name "Korea" is derived from Goryeo, a dynasty which ruled in the
Middle Ages. Its neighbors are China to the west, Japan to the east, and North Korea to the north.
South Korea lies in the north temperate zone with a predominantly mountainous terrain. It covers a
total area of 99,392 square kilometers and has a population of 50 million. The capital and largest
city is Seoul, with a population of 9.8 million
South Korea is a presidential republic consisting of seventeen administrative divisions and is a
developed country with a very high standard of living. It is Asia's fourth largest economy and the
world's 15th (nominal) or 12th (purchasing power parity) largest economy. The economy is export‐
driven, with production focusing on electronics, automobiles, ships, machinery, petrochemicals and
robotics. South Korea is a member of the United Nations, WTO, and OECD. It is also a founding
member of APEC and the East Asia Summit.
Alright then, since I’ve only taken a small portion of South Korea’s country information, I’d like you
to compare it with other big countries, especially with Indonesia, our beloved country.
If you’ve done it, I believe that you’ll find so many things our country has and South Korea hasn’t.
But, the question is why their country could be so much powerful in this world, not only about

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economics, also their pop‐culture trends, which I can tell that Indonesian resources are bigger than
theirs and also our pop‐cultures are more unique and we have so many talented artists on it.
So, what’s the thing then...
First of all, South Korea put education as the most important part of their country. Their government
used the most advanced technologies to support their primary and secondary school, which these
are the first level of education to develop the youngsters. Have we done it in our country? These
aren’t my portions to critize what our birocrates have done about educations, let’s keep our own
opinion for ourselves.
So, what’s so important about educations when I’m already a smart person?....
Do you ever see a person with, let say, 220 of IQ, but never goes to school, will be able to make such
a complicated chemical or physics formula? If you ask me, I’ll answer that I never see things like that
with my own eyes, but I don’t know about you....
But, will the education be enough to go through this competitive world?
In my opinions, good educations aren’t the ultimate factors that made people or persons become
more competitive. Education will result nothing, if you don’t learn about it. There’s so many people
only through their educations for the sake of titles and grades, but not about what you should
learned after you went through that educations.
South Korea made their success not only depends on their superior education systems, BUT they
built those education systems to create people which they’re able to learn and made something
from those learnings...Let’s say you have the most sophisticated education systems, so what??? But
you can’t create people who can made something from their learnings...In my opinion, this kind of
education systems should be changed and reformed.
Let me give the example of Samsung and LG, the two biggest corporate giants from South Korea. If I
ask you whether you use Samsung and LG products around late 90’s, I bet that you’ll say, “I’m not so
familiar about it”. But, what will you say if I ask you the same question in the last 3‐5 years?...
I want to share my experience why I want to use Samsung as an example. One night, I was surprised
when I watched the show of “American Music Awards 2012”, the artist who announced the award
winner didn’t use an envelope as it used to be. Instead of using papers and envelopes, these artists
were using Samsung Galaxy Note to announce the award winners.

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Yes, definitely I knew that Samsung was the major sponsor for this event, but what do you think
about it? What could be the possible impacts of it? This event was broadcasted in more than 100
countries in the world, and they’ll know about Samsung. Why Apple wasn’t became a major sponsor
for this event? While Apple brand is the original technology brand from USA. Personally, I’m eager to
know what the reason lies behind Samsung became the major sponsor for this event.
In my opinion, Samsung is one of great examples about how to make your learning capability
become one of your greatest strengths. In this case, Samsung has learned a lot from apple success,
and one thing for sure, their innovativeness and creativities weren’t depending on one superior
person. Their people don’t need to be smarter than Apple’s people, but they’re able to learned and
made something from their learning.
Personally, I believe that the ability to learn is the most important thing, or may I say that it’s just not
important, but it’s the major capital that you’ll need to become more competitive. The facts already
shown that currently Samsung has the dominant market share on mobile devices and electronic
appliances, and they can even beat Sony, the Japanese electronic producer giant.
Mostly people said that they have the learning ability. But if we take a deep look about it, you’ll see
that mostly people learned, and just only learned, but they won’t do something further on what
they’ve learned. This ignorance is mostly caused by their ego, yes definitely they learned, but their
ego has the biggest part on their minds. Their learning process was stopped when their ego said,
“I’ve already known this!”....”Uh, my ways are better than theirs”....”I had more years of experiences
compare to them”....etc.
So, I might say that learning ability isn’t only about the ability to learn from others or things
happened surround us, but what you can do more after you learned is the other part that can’t be
separated from learning ability. The bigger of your ignorance toward your ego, your learning ability
will be much better and will give you enormous results, because it shall be no significant barriers for
you to made something further upon your learning results.
And then, what about hardwork? Is it very necessary to do the hardwork, when you’re already a
smart person and have an outstanding learning ability?
For some people, they think that they can do the smart‐work to win the competitions. This opinion
isn’t wrong or right. In my opinion, it depends on what YOU believe about how to make yourself
become more competitive and have the bigger chances to win the competitions.

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I believe that every success persons in this world reached their success through hardwork. God
won’t give anything to us, unless we’re willing to do our best to earn it. For example, you’re a person
who’s really keen on praying to ask God’s favor. Your keen efforts to pray are also considered as
your hardwork. So, there’s no really pure smart‐work, according to my opinion, because you’ll still
have to do the hardwork, if you want to earn more.
South Korean people mostly are hardworkers, How do I know about it? Well, I’ve read it on
Forbes.com that at 2008, South Korean people average working hours around 2,357 hours per‐year
or 8.9 hours per‐day. Those working hours were more than 10% higher than Indonesia’s average
working hours. BUT, longer working hours doesn’t necessarily mean better. These numbers are only
shown for your reference and comparison with your productive time.
Another example of hardwork was shown by Colonel Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried
Chicken. In the age of 65, he’s still willing to work hard. The secret behind of his success story was his
endless hardwork. When he got rejections after rejections, he did not give up. In fact, after he got
over 1000 rejections. After 1009 no’s before he got his first yes. And with that one yes/success
Colonel Hartland Sanders changed the eating habits of the whole world with Kentucky Fried Chicken,
popularly known as KFC.
Competitiveness, based on what I’ve read, seen, and learned, was possible to be happened for
everyone. You don’t have to be a superior human to have competitiveness, or you don’t need to
have plenty resources to have competitiveness.
There are two basic things that you need to have to become competitive. First, learning capability,
it’s not about how smart you are in the learning process, but it’s more about on how you can make
something further upon your learning process. Possible barrier on effective learning process, is your
ego, ignore it. Put more focus on your willingness to learn and eagerness to make something from
your learning process. Second, hardworks, you should see the facts that there were no success
persons in this world reach it without hardwork. I only gave two examples of the hardwork, South
Koreans and Colonel Sanders, but if you seek it by yourself, you’ll see thousand examples of success
persons reach it through their hardwork.
After all the stories and opinions that I’ve told, are you still going to say that you can do only the
smart‐work to overcome this competitive world? It’s up to you then, because you have your own
believes and it’s your rights to do based on what you believe. I just want to help you to see other
opinions based on the facts shown, but when it comes to the decision and action, it’s your call then...