I saw Manny Pacquiao being interviewed on Australian TV last weekend. I don’t know if it was an old clip or a new one. His answers to the questions the interviewer put to him were a mix of motherhood and thoughtful statements. He was fighting for his country, he said. It was in such a depressed state it could do with some boosting, and knowing his countrymen reposed much hope in that respect on his fists, he would apply himself to the task with ardor.

Asked why he went into acting and singing and politics, he laughed and said why ever not, you never know what hidden talents lurk underneath you until you try. As to why he continues to fight, he said it was no longer really the money, it was, quite apart from raising the flagging spirits of his countrymen, trying to be the best that he could be. Or seeing how far his boxing gifts would take him. His inspiration in life—I held my breath for a while thinking he might mention Arroyo, Chavit Singson, or Lito Atienza—were his family and the Great Boxer in the Sky.

Pacquiao of course did not answer in this way. I am completely paraphrasing him, filling in the spaces between the lines. The interview was in English, and on several occasions he groped for the words to express himself. The motherhood statements probably owed to this. I suspect that if he were speaking in Tagalog, or Visayan, he might have given more detailed and personal answers to what drove him to fight.

I say this because despite speaking in English—and indeed despite the heavy Australian accent of his interviewer, which he had no difficulty understanding—Pacquiao was completely unfazed. He wasn’t nervous, he wasn’t shy, he wasn’t hesitant. He was brimming with confidence. I’ve seen athletes turn from ferocious to meek when interviewed after stunning victories, finding the task or organizing their thoughts or expressing themselves in another language far more daunting than the challenge they had just faced. Pacquiao was not one of them. He was as fearless facing his interviewer as he was facing Ricky Hatton.

Maybe it was the experience of having been interviewed abroad many times before. But maybe, more than that, it was just his character. Pacquiao is not one to be easily fazed. By anything.

After Pacquiao, the interviewer interviewed Brian Viloria. Being Fil-Am, Viloria answered his questions effortlessly and with much nuance. But you compared the demeanor of both boxers during their interviews, and you wouldn’t see any difference.

Pacquiao has sometimes been seen, at least locally, as being too self-assured to the point of cockiness, but I don’t know that that is necessarily bad. Certainly, I don’t know that he doesn’t need it. You can’t get far without those levels of self-assurance, or cockiness, particularly when facing foes in the ring who look like executioners. Wrestling of course has driven the idea to satirical or self-parodying levels. But you need to feel bigger, better, larger-than-life to not be intimidated.

I’ve often wondered if that is not Pacquiao’s biggest strength. Of course he is vastly talented; self-assurance alone will get you nowhere. But I’ve also seen deeply talented athletes fall by the wayside. Many Filipino boxers lose while fighting abroad because they are not just fighting one enemy but several enemies. Quite apart from their foes, they are fighting a hostile crowd, an alien culture (including an alien language), themselves. Or their shyness, their sense of inferiority, the reflex of “knowing their place” that has been drummed into them their whole lives.

Not Pacquiao. From the first, he exuded pugnacity not just inside the ring but outside of it. Though his answers were humble, his demeanor was not. He was unfazed by the crowd, he was unfazed by the cameras, he was unfazed by his English. They were merely of the order of facing another foe, not unlike the one in the ring, and vanquishing them.

Which raises an interesting point: Success does build confidence, as you can see from Pacquiao today—he is more confident than ever. But isn’t the opposite true as well? Doesn’t confidence also produce success?

You have to wonder on a broader plane if that is not the thing that has held us back from making the kind of giant steps Pacquiao has. The culture can be very cruel. Elsewhere in the world, kids are taught to be assertive, to speak their mind, to not take abuse. Here, we are taught to be obedient, to hold our tongue, to grin and bear it. Elsewhere, people who try to learn another language, or attempt to speak it in conversation, however haltingly, are thought of as doing a valiant thing. Here people who do the same thing—particularly in the province—are thought of as making fools of themselves. Parochial schools are not called that for nothing.

I have a friend who was thought of being aggressive and boastful by his classmates. Not surprisingly, he made it big in America.

Of course there’s a level at which frankness becomes bluntness, assertion becomes abrasiveness, outspokenness becomes loudness. You get a lot of that in US airports, a stunning contrast with Narita where the personnel are awesomely polite but just as awesomely efficient. But just as well there is a level where obedience becomes submissiveness, respect for authority becomes mindlessness, and patience is no longer a virtue. Certainly they can stand in the way of the dogged pursuit of greater goals, or giant dreams. Call Pacquiao presumptuous, call Pacquiao outrageous, call Pacquiao cocky, but you kind of thank heaven too that he is.

Maybe it’s a question of balancing things. Of finding the right mix between shyness and loudness, quietness and extroversion, compliance and pugnacity.

But right now, we can’t do better than err on the side of pushy.