Louie Sangalang shares confidence boosting ritual during The Apprentice stint

Louie Sangalang's positive outlook so far in The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition is because of a certain ritual. ONE Championship (file photo)

Warning: The following contains spoilers from the recent The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition. Read at your own risk.

By Ivan Saldajeno

MANILA--Following the broadcast of the latest The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition episode on Thursday night, mixed martial arts practitioner and North Pole Marathon finisher Louie Sangalang is among the five contenders remaining in the hunt to become part of the ONE Championship front office.

Part of Sangalang's prolonged stay in the reality game can be attributed to Team Valor's success early into the season that saw three members of the rival squad, Team Conquest, quickly getting eliminated, including the other Philippine representative, Lara Alvarez.

In fact, there is only one Conquest member left in Paulina Purnomowati against the Valor quartet of Sangalang, Irina Chadsey, Jessica Ramella, and Monica Millington.

Another reason why Sangalang has been fighting for The Apprentice win is because of a certain ritual he has been doing ever since he was still fighting cancer.

It has been his main activity every time he wants to instill positiveness especially during tough times.

"I’ve been practicing something, it’s called premeditatio malorum. It is a practice by Stoics wherein they question every single day, ang tanong nila sa sarili nila is 'What is the worst thing that can happen to me today? What is the worst thing that can happen in a given situation?' That practice, especially if you do it on a daily basis and you internalize that, it will, at least in my case, help me to always look at a situation not in a negative point of view but from a more realistic point of view," Sangalang said earlier in the day in an online round table with reporters.

He then said that the ritual has also helped him prepare for the worst down the road in his The Apprentice journey.

In fact, Sangalang added that with this, he just looked at the possibility of being the season's first boot on a positive note.

"If you practice premeditatio malorum, that actually helps you. It gives you the confidence to think na, 'Okay, I am a mortal being and that’s the thing that I should focus on.' If you do that and you encounter all of these failures, marerealize mo na, number one, that there are so many other things that you should be looking at na pwede mong gawan ng paraan," he further said.

Sangalang added, "So we lost the business challenge. So we lost the physical task. It can demoralize you e but you should not be stuck in that position. You should go forward. You should always look at what’s next and you should focus on what’s in front of you. ‘Yun yong isa sa pinakaimportante. The mind plays a lot of tricks on us kapag naiisip natin lagi tayong talo. Maiisip natin baka tanggalin na ako. But if you’re confident in your abilities and you know that you brought a lot of value. You know for a fact that if you are faced in a situation that’s going to be so difficult, ready ka because you’ve been practicing that principle. Dapat hindi ka kabahan e, dapat sila ang kabahan sayo. Because you know that in that position, you can deliver and you really add value to the organization."

As the season is reaching its homestretch, Sangalang is on the lookout to spoil an all-female finale.

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