Mommy Ginger
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Mommy Beginnings: Shoutout to Soon-to-Be Parents from the South!

We went to a get together with friends last Saturday. One couple was pregnant and one couple just recently gave birth. We were talking about pregnancy and what we (the two moms who already gave birth) went through. It’s really scary not having to know what to expect really when you get pregnant. There were some things that I was scared of, which I shouldn’t have been, and some things that I wasn’t expecting that I wish others would have told me earlier. Haha! well, for those who are expecting, welcome to this complicated and charming life of parenting!

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We have been receiving a lot of inquiries about holding parenting workshops in the south, so here it is! Manila Workshops is giving you “Parenting Pals: Mommy Beginnings” to help expectant mothers on their pregnancy journey! Expectant dads are also encouraged to attend this together with their wives because we believe that pregnancy is not just a journey of a woman, but of a man as well.

TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED:

AM SESSION (9AM-12NN): All About Breastfeeding

PM SESSION (1PM-4PM): What to Expect during OB Check-ups/Preparation for Delivery Day

LEARNING FEE:

Individual Rate (regular): Php 600

(Early bird rate-until August 20, 2016–paid and registered): Php 500

Couple Rate (1 workshop): Php 1,000

(2 workshops): Php 1,750

VENUE:

7th Floor, Silid Karunungan, Insular Life (Alabang)

We also encourage singles to attend this in preparation for their future ????

Please send sign up here: http://manilaworkshops.com/events/parenting-pals-super-mom-series-mommy-beginnings

 

Show and Tell Session with Solopreneur PH, Horsepower.ph and Taxumo

What do you think makes a startup succeed? Is it the brilliance of their idea? Is it the team and their skills/personality mix? Is it the constant inflow of Investors and funds? Is it proper timing?

With this, I am sharing this video from TED. Listen to this interesting talk of Bill Gross, the founder of Idealab.

The reason why I brought this up is because a lot of us are scared to tell others about our amazing startup or business idea. We are afraid of being copied. We do everything in our power to protect our idea, and when competitors enter the arena, we become overly sensitive about the issue. The fact of the matter is, what you have is just an idea. You and probably 50 other people all around the world may be thinking of the same idea (probably even simultaneously!).

My opinion is that the startup team who defines, listens and understands the market well wins. The team who is open to tweak their idea based on what the customers want (tweak features, processes or event the timing) succeeds and has nothing to worry about. Now, where do you start validating the idea.

First of all, thoroughly think through everything — all possible scenarios that you can think of. Create a presentation so that you can also visually see your “thoughts”. Then look for people who can help you think through all of these things.

I am a believer of mastermind sessions. Mastermind sessions are mini meet-ups where like minded individuals come together to discuss certain topics. This month, our startup, Taxumo, is teaming up with Solopreneur PH and Horsepower.ph for Solopreneur PH’s end of month Show and Tell Session. This session will be on August 31, 6:30 PM at BlastAsia, Inc. in Ortigas!

Show and Tell Sessions - Taxumo

What is Show and Tell?

Show and Tell is a venue where you show off your new project to people and tell them how you started and what you learned from building it. If you want to be part of our Show and Tell, please go here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/solopreneurPH/permalink/471767093031426/

It’s a good venue to for the following:

  • To gather feedback from the attendees. Most of the attendees are solopreneurs or aspiring solopreneurs with their own businesses. If they are not your market, they can probably introduce you to some people who are. Also, you can ask them about their previous experiences.
  • To practice your presentation skills. Presenting to possible investors can be intimidating and practicing in-front of friendly faces is good preparation.
  • To gain friends and possible business partners.
  • To relax and unwind! We’ve all been working so hard. We deserve a break!

 

This event is FREE and if you just want to come to listen, feel free to drop by!

Again, the events page for this meet up is: https://www.facebook.com/events/1602233543408756/

Hope to see you there!

 

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GLAD at Dagupan Bangus Festival 2016

Brands should focus on helping promote culture. Sorry (LOL!), that thought just crossed my mind. We don’t see a lot of focus on our culture and original content coming from the Philippines. My friends know of this frustration that I have about not having enough Filipino content. We should be advocates of our own tradition, culture and content! This is the reason why I admire brands that take a stand to promote and spread the word about certain festivals and traditions in the Philippines.

One of the brands that I admire is GLAD. They participated in the Bangus Festival in Dagupan.

I have been to Dagupan before but it was just now that I heard that there is this celebration called Bangus Festival in Dagupan where thousands of people gather together. This festival puts the province’s native delicacy (milkfish) in the limelight. To celebrate, 900 grilling stations were put up along De Venecia Highway in Lucao where thousands of fresh bangus were cooked simultaneously for the participants to partake of thereafter.

Ceremonial lighting

GLAD, the Filipino homemakers’ partner in food protection and kitchen management, joined in on the fun by providing grill participants with the required kitchen tools like aprons and paper fans. GLAD’s innovative Non-stick Aluminum Foils were also used to cover the grills and fish to be grilled, thus helping to make cooking easier while also ensuring faster clean ups afterwards.

Executives and staff of Glad Philippines staff flash the # 1 sign at the GLAD-sponsored booth

Executives and staff of Glad Philippines staff flash the # 1 sign at the GLAD-sponsored booth

According to Paulo Lao, Sales and Marketing Director for GLAD Philippines which is also among the event’s sponsors, “This is already the third straight year that our company has participated in the Bangus Festival through CSI Lucao. We are happy to support this activity as it allows us to help the local government of Dagupan ensure a successful staging of their event. It’s also a good avenue to help educate the public on how to achieve the best cooking experience using some of our kitchen tools like GLAD Non-stick Aluminum Foil,” she says.

In our home, we really use and love GLAD. We also used GLAD to cook fish since GLAD Non-stick Aluminum Foil ensures that the skin stays on the fish and not on the foil. You should try using these products, Mommies! You’ll be happily surprised at how useful their products are!

For more information about GLAD, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/GladProducts/

Raise Great Kids: Healthy Balance Between Responsibility and Fun

I have a new yaya and it’s her first day today. Although, we loved the last one, she had to deal with personal issues. We will miss you, Ate Nene. So anyway, going back to this new yaya, she was really impressed at how well behave my daughter was. She is one of those great kids you’d see — always such a good girl. She was shocked that my little lady knew how to pack away her things, knew how to answer adults respectfully, etc. The new yaya was also amazed at how unattached my daughter was to the TV. She didn’t really care much for shows. Our daughter, also, wanted to play at the playroom more than to play with just her tablet. She loves it when people tell her stories — random stories about anything!

When people ask us how we did it, how did we raise such an amazing kid, I actually don’t know what we did well. We actually don’t know what specific things or lessons or parenting skills we have applied that contributed to making our child such a great kid with a great attitude.

Great Kids Mommy and Me

What I will tell you now is what we do and what we follow in our household, and I don’t even know if this is what helped. It has worked for us, but of course, it may not work for you.

One of the things that we keep in mind at home is to do everything in moderation. We can have fun and play with our daughter, but we expect her, too, to do her share in some of the chores. “Chores” for a three year old really is just packing away her toys, helping get stuff, help put things away — those simple things. We make it clear that we can be silly and funny, but if she does something wrong or does not fulfil commitments, we switch to our serious, stern parenting modes. I think she gets it that we mean business!

Great Kids PH 3

Parenting can be tiring but fun! 🙂

Also, moderation means having boundaries with certain things and activities. When we go inside a toy store, we already set expectations. We talk to her and say that she can have just one toy or she needs to wait for the weekend for us to buy her a toy. She ends us just playing with the toys inside and she doesn’t throw any tantrums when we don’t buy her anything. Although, occasionally, she will cry when she thinks about a certain toy, but she hasn’t really cried loudly and uncontrollably inside a store.

Great Kids PH 4

I teach her to try to dress up by herself or pick the dress that she wants to wear.

We also teach her to commit to doing things and to be responsible for things. We bought this task chart in one of the Homeschooling Conferences that we had before. We use it now for Zeeka. If she completes tasks and fills the chart with stars for one full week, she is allowed to choose a prize. The tasks in her chart included sharing (since this is what we have noticed to be something difficult for her to do), dressing herself, brushing her teeth, taking a bath, etc. For the reward that we give, it’s normally a toy that I can afford or an app that we have to pay for. This week it was a Yo Gabba Gabba application that cost me $4.99. Haha!

We also teach her to make her own decisions. Do you know that this great kid chooses her own clothes? We don’t pick them for her. She chooses what she wants to wear on a daily basis. This little lady loves shopping, and believe it or not, she has great taste! She even has more fashion sense than me.

Great Kids PH 8

Great Kids PH 9

My daughter also has a set schedule and I encourage the yaya or anyone watching her to follow this schedule. I’m sure when she grows up, she will eventually break the schedule, but I think that having a routine instills good habits that I think she will carry on until she’s older (like taking care of her health and having enough sleep).

Making them responsible for things doesn’t make you a boring parent (I think we’re cool parents! haha!). When they are still young, my belief is that these children need to have a balance between fun and learning to handle responsibilities, and it’s our responsibility as parents to teach them to balance these things.

PS. Check out the Mommy and Me collection of Great Kids PH! Have you seen the clothes that we wore above?! It’s so cute!

Mommy and Me Great Kids

 

Entrepreneurs Make Things Happen

We make decisions — decisions that will form our destiny. I do not think that destiny is something already planned out for you. I believe that you make things happen. You create your own destiny.

There was a time, three years ago, when I couldn’t keep still. I was looking for that something that would make me happy. I was looking for something that would make me feel more fulfilled. After a few months, I actually found it. It was right before my very eyes. It was something that I created, called Manila Workshops with the main intention to help other people find their own path that would make them feel happier, too, and more fulfilled. This path that embraced continuous learning was then advocated by other people, who I lovingly call Team Manila Workshops.

We continue on our journey to help execute learning events since we each believe that we all have a lot to learn and we should commit to learning something new everyday. We have seen how learning positively affects people’s lives and how it brings people closer to their entrepreneurship goals.

I was curious to know why entrepreneurs like me made that big leap into starting their own business. Was it because of a dire need for extra cash? a need to have more time for themselves? a need to explore and satisfy their curiosity? or a need to change the world and make a difference? Here are some of their reasons.

 

It’s amazing that we all have our own reasons why we started our businesses, and I believe that these people are all successful, not because of the magnitude of their reason, but because they were/are clear on what they wanted to happen. I recently came across a form that asked me what my own definition of success was. I actually forgot what I wrote, but I thought about that question even after submitting the form.  Then I came up with this definition…

Success comes in all shapes in sizes all throughout an entrepreneur’s journey. Success is having a clear end goal in mind and working with grit, tenacity, and respect for others along the way. Then, success becomes achieving personal dreams and aspirations — having the capacity to enjoy life to the fullest! And then lastly, success becomes a journey in an awakened path where your main goal is to help others achieve their own successes.

Starting a business is hard, and not everyone makes it alive in this journey. I am no expert. In fact, I am currently walking on this journey, collecting more Pokemon balls with others, in order to gain more XP. We can never put any limit to learning, because the path just gets harder and harder (you will need more raspberries and great balls). But you are not alone. In times when you feel down and miserable, just go through the slides above and be reminded that there are others ahead of you, clearing the path and their making it easier for you to tread on.

PS. Thank you to all those who contributed their thoughts! I apologize as I could not include all those who replied and sent messages. I appreciate and love you all! I hope I will be able to meet and talk to each one of you in the future!

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