This is not true. It wasn't a description of my day, but it is a description of what I would've liked my day to look like. I need to wake up every day at 6:30 am, I do not sleep in the same room as my sister anymore, I can't have breakfast, lunch and dinner outside, I haven't participated in a showroom yet, I have to go to school and do homework, and I don't have a license yet. Anyways, this is a simple day that I can possibly achieve, and within my definition, it's a great one.
I woke up at 10:00 am; not too early for my body to be tired and not be human, and not too late to feel useless and guilty. My sister was sleeping next to me and I woke her up to have breakfast. We walked through Barranco’s malecon, getting hit by the sun, all the way to Miraflores, until we arrived to Crepes & Waffles. There, we had breakfast and updated about each other's life. After a frappuccino, a Nutella crepe, and a lot of laughs, my mom picked me up. She took me to my art classes, where I worked on painting a new project until 2:00 pm. Once I finished, I walked to el Ovalo Gutierrez to meet a group of friends and we had lunch together. Then they dropped me off in a showroom in San Isidro in which Quiero sleepwear was participating. I supervised how it was going and stayed there for a while. I was incredibly happy because almost all the pajamas had been sold. I went back home and picked Leon, my brother, and drove to Larcomar to watch "Sponge Bob" in the movies with him. My sister and my parents gave us the encounter in Larcomar once the movie was done. We went to KO to have dinner and celebrate. We planned trips and plans together and had a very good time. I then bought things in Metro to receive friends in my house. We had some drinks and piqueos and went to Barranco. We enjoyed some music and good vibes. With a smile from ear to ear after a great day, I went to sleep.
This is not true. It wasn't a description of my day, but it is a description of what I would've liked my day to look like. I need to wake up every day at 6:30 am, I do not sleep in the same room as my sister anymore, I can't have breakfast, lunch and dinner outside, I haven't participated in a showroom yet, I have to go to school and do homework, and I don't have a license yet. Anyways, this is a simple day that I can possibly achieve, and within my definition, it's a great one.
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March 20, 2016, the International Day of Happiness. Today is a day in which we’re supposed to put down any frowns in our faces, leave away any sadness, disappointments or worries, and SMILE. It is a perfect day to reflect on the things that make us happy, and focus on seeking these things to achieve contentment.
If we search for the definition of happiness in the dictionary it is “the state of being happy”, and when we look for the definition of happy in the dictionary it defines it as “feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.” We may show being happy by a simple smile, but what is it what actually makes us FEEL this pleasure or contentment. This leads us to the question “What makes you happy?” This question is very ambiguous and subjective and it definitely has multiple answers. I take a few minutes to think back to the happiest moments of my life. Finding the answer to “what makes you happy?” Isn’t easy, but when I combine these moments of happiness in my life I am able to find a pattern and something that is always constant in my happy moments. For me, what makes me happy is achieving something that I’ve been working on, reaching something I’ve been following. This relates to every aspect of my life, whether it is something personal I achieve, something academic, a material goal, something familiar I reach, or anything. Something I’ve been working on or following can be something as simple as having fun, getting a good grade, learning something, finishing a painting, or spending time with my family. Once I reach or achieve this, no matter what it is, I genuinely find happiness. Every person has different things that make them happy. What makes a 4-year-old happy, most probably doesn’t make a 40-year-old businessman happy. Even, what makes me happy, probably isn’t what makes my best friend happy. Each one of us has a different road, path, or way to achieving happiness. While this is true, it is still accurate to say that to achieve something that you’ve been working on, or reaching something you’ve been following, is what makes you happy. A 4-year-old might be happy because he received a chocolate, and a 40-year-old businessman might be happy because he got promoted. These two persons are happy for completely different things, but both of them found this happiness because they achieved something they worked on; the 4-year-old achieved to get the chocolate he was asking for, and the 40-year-old businessman achieved to get promoted after all his hard work. In the Harvard Business Review article “The Science Behind the Smile”, they question “Who’s happy? The rich? The poor? The young? The old?”. Anyone can be happy. Anyone is able to achieve something that they’ve been working on, to reach something they’ve been following. No matter if they’re rich, poor, young or old. Happiness is a fundamental human right, every human should be happy. It depends on us to live a happy life, and the first step to do so is figure out what are the things that make us happy. I believe that for every person, happiness is achieving what we work for. Personally, I find happiness in sharing moments with my family, being with my friends, painting, taking on adventures, sharing, and creating things. I wouldn't be able to achieve none of this things if I didn't follow them or work for them, that is why they make me happy. Daniel Norris, the millionaire who lives in a van, is a great example of someone who is genuinely happy. He lives by his own code, is always himself, prioritizes happiness, does not mind what people think of him, and he is not afraid of unconventionality. He does not need anything else than his van and his adventures to be happy. He goes against conventionality and what people think of him and constantly works on living by his own code and taking on every possible adventure. He follows his own code and works very hard for what he believes in and wants to do. Admirably, he achieves to live by his own rules and reaches what he proposes. This is what makes Daniel Norris so genuinely happy. Let’s take a step back from what we’re doing and a step back from daily life and really determine what are the things that make us happy and let’s start follow this things. It is different for each one of us, but working for this things and achieving them is a certain pass to happiness. It’s the first time I watch “Good Will Hunting”. This film is 2 hours and 6 minutes long. I took around 3 hours and half to watch it, and it’s definitely a movie I plan on watching again (more than once). It had been a long time since I watched a movie that actually made me think, reflect, learn, and even travel. I had to hit the pause button multiple times during the movie to think, and even replay some parts.
After watching this movie, I feel like I know the characters and I can relate to them, especially to Will and Sean. This movie brought to me infinite lessons and things to think about and reflect on, and I’m sure that if I watched it 20 more times, I would learn something new and find a new thing to think about each time I'd watch it. Probably because of the point of my life I am at right now, what most stood out for me in this film was the strong message that was conveyed about taking risks, challenging one’s self, and taking on new experiences. I refer to the point of my life I am at right now as the senior student I am who is about to graduate and start university. I’m at a point in my life in which I’m about to go through many changes, change my routine, say goodbye to my old friends and hello to new ones, take on new experiences and challenges, and start my new life. It was especially during Will’s and Sean’s conversations in which I had to pause the film as it really made me reflect and realize some things. I may not be an orphan genius-level intellect that is abused by it’s foster parents, is arrested, and works as a janitor and as a construction worker, or a psychology teacher who is unable to move on from his wife’s death, but I was able to relate so much to this characters and apply what they discussed in their conversations to my actual life. In one of Will’s and Sean’s sessions, Sean defined a soulmate to be someone who challenges you and opens up things for you, someone who touches your soul. He also added that a soulmate is someone you can give back to. Although this may not be the obvious answer or interpretation, for me, according to Sean’s definition, Will and Sean were soulmates. The relationship between these two starts with the sole purpose of Sean serving as a psychologist for Will. This connection develops into much more than that. Both of them challenge each other and open things up from each other that no one else had been able to. After many unproductive sessions and failed attempts, Sean is able to touch Will’s soul, and this also happens vise versa. Sean challenges Will in many aspects and helps him realize his potential and push him to accomplish great things. He is able to open up parts of Will no one could ever open, not even himself, and he actually challenges Will’s weak defense mechanism. Sean is also able to learn from Will much more than what it was expected or imaginable. Will constantly challenges Sean and he pushes him to take an objective look at his own life, since the psychologist had been stuck in the death of his wife and wasn’t able to move on. This is why I consider Will and Sean soulmates. Their mutual challenge and push on each other was even hard and challenging to watch, but it resulted into amazing outcomes. Without this challenge, opening up, push, and connecting with the soul, there is no way of achieving great things and route oneself towards a great life. This applies to Will and Sean, to me, and to everyone. There is no sense in conforming with what we know and what’s safe, getting stuck in routine, having a monotonous life, and not seeking for new experiences. A soulmate is the perfect companion and push we need to avoid this. "You’ll have bad times, but that’ll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention to.” -Sean Maguire Taking risks, challenging oneself and others, touching our souls and others, and taking on every experience we can, seems like something unsafe and uncomfortable, but it is the safest step we can take towards a great life. Leaving Boston was Will’s and Sean’s way of challenging themselves, getting out of their comfort zone, and seeking new experiences and great things. How would they have taken this step if it wasn’t for their soulmate? For the challenge, opening up, and touching of the soul from part of their soulmate? Graduating from school and starting classes at La Catolica is the first step I’m taking to challenge myself, get our of my comfort zone, and seek new experiences and great things. And there are much more steps I want to find and execute. As this past semester was coming to an end, we were told to start looking for companies of our interest as we had to do an internship over the summer. We were also given the alternative to work on our Capstone project. I didn't have to think it twice to be sure and completely certain with my decision: I was willing to work on my Capstone project every minute I could of my summer vacations.
Of course this decision filled me with excitement and motivation, but it also came with some anxiety and uncertainty. If I wasn't doing an internship as the rest of my peers, I had to make the most use of my time and my advantage. I was also conscious that taking the opportunity of doing an internship could immensely benefit me, not only because of all I would learn, but also because of how "good" it would look in any application or resume I will need in the future. Anyways, having all this in mind, I was still confident and faithful about my decision. I was ready to give it my all and make Quiero Sleepwear the best I could. And that's what I did. On January 4, right after the christmas and new years vacations, I was already hitting the streets of Gamarra. My previous pajama collection "Air" was almost entirely sold out and I had to start working on the new pajamas. I had to make many trips to Gamarra and walk back and forth through it's labyrinthine streets and stores, each one offering amazing fabrics and accessories. Each trip I make to Gamarra, I am more familiar with each type of fabric and each street, and I'm already a "caserita" in some frequent stores. It took me various trips to Gamarra to finally decide on the fabrics, buttons, and every other accessory I wanted for the continuation of the collection Air. Now, I was ready to get the samples done with our new producers in Atte. Once the samples are done in each size and in each model, I need to approve them and make modifications to them for them to be perfect. After this process, I need to go back to Gamarra to buy the remaining fabrics and accessories to get all of the pajamas done. Following this, I have to go back to the workshop in Atte, wait for the production, design the prints for the shirts, get the bags made, go back to Gamarra, be behind each supplier, create presence in the Facebook page, plan the photoshoot, execute it, edit the pictures, film and edit the video, advertise on Facebook, start selling, respond and serve every client, etc. This is just a very brief recapitulation of what my summer looked like. Describing every thing and process I did would take for ever. I'm very satisfied and proud of what I did and how I used my time. If I had to go back to that day when we were asked to choose between and internship and the capstone project, I would have no doubts. This is something that continues and something I'm willing to take many steps forward each time I can. It's not just a school project or a three week internship, it's much more. This summer I was able to get a preview of what my life after graduating will look like by taking a two-week trip to La Catolica's Art Faculty. I assisted 10 sessions of 3 hours each, Monday through Friday for two weeks. The purpose of this workshop was to offer students another alternative (besides taking a test) to get admitted into the art faculty, but for me, it was much more than just getting accepted into the art faculty.
It was 30 hours of intense sessions and non-stop lessons and hands on activities. We explored lines, figures, colors, dimensions, composition, collage, and many other art terms and techniques that I'm sure will stick with me for all of my college years and all the rest of my artist life. I met incredible people and had the luck to work with them and learn from them. I realized the huge difference there is with working with people who have no interest at all of what they're doing vs working with people who are passionate about what they're doing; there is no comparison between working in an environment as my art class in school full of people who were there with no interest rather than their grade, and working in an environment like the art class I-27 in La Catolica which was overcrowded of passionate people full of ideas and interest in what they were doing. The will and genuineness of each student and each teacher was incredible; I'm not sure if I learned more from the teachers or from the students. Honestly, I entered this workshop with the sole purpose of getting admitted into the art faculty and believing I had talent. Now that I finished the two weeks, I'm completely certain there is a lot I need to learn and work on. One thing is being talented in your art class in school, but another is being talented in your university class. I was impressed by all the talent there is out there, the competition I had during the 10 days was something I had never experienced in my life. My peers were able to create spectacular and amazing things with the exact same resources and time I had. Their level really surprised me and filled me with healthy jealousy and jitters. It was incredible to work with such talented people and I'm excited to continue being challenged by them. In the end, I don't know what amazed me and fascinated me the most of these two weeks. Was it the techniques and knowledge I gained? Or the amazing people I got to know and work with? Or the campus? Or the style of teaching and the non-stop hands-on activities? Or the dedication of every teacher, student and individual in there? I could not decide. I learned much more in these 10 sessions than I ever learned in my whole high school art education. If this was just a very petit preview of what's coming up next, I can't even imagine everything I'll learn and how much I will love it. A little of the anxiety I had about the university and the art faculty was already calmed by this experience, but the thrill I have is still inexplicable. Once I grab my blank canvas, my different-sized brushes, a variety of colors, and my palette, I know I’ll be gone for at least two hours. It’s like diving into another world; as if I could immerse myself into the canvas I’m painting and start swimming, creating. Hours pass by so quickly that I lose track of perception and the notion of what is going on around me vanishes. I'm only focused on the now, on the infinite possibilities...what will it be? I choose one with violent passion and so I find myself caressing the top of my canvas with a very thin brush. The point of the brush, which definitely has no more than 6 bristles, is creating intriguing textures, unexpected patterns, and amazing colors. These gentle brush strokes on the canvas start creating amazing figures. Similar to a writer, who needs to finish a thought in order to stop writing, the painter, the artist in me needs to find the perfect moment, the culmination of "a thought", in order to stop and put the brush down for a while.
I take some steps back and watch how the little dots of paint I’ve added have combined to create fascinating figures that seem to be coming to life. From a distance, the forehead of the tiger seems like a vivid section of a photograph, and the stripes are starting to create a beautiful composition. Suddenly, I realize that I've spend over an hour working on a small section - the tiger's forehead. But this realization goes much deeper than just the time I spent on the small details that make up his forehead. It’s about how long I take in everything I do and the detail I put into everything I do. On a daily basis, I receive comments about my slowness and how much time I take in doing things. Whether it is eating, taking a shower, writing a blog post, designing a graphic in Photoshop, completing an exam, or finishing a painting. This semester I’ve taken on different projects and tasks that have allowed me to know myself better. Through painting, through my pajama business, through CrepeZ, and through writing once every two weeks, I’ve been able to reflect and learn a lot upon the way in which I approach tasks and projects. These projects and experiences have not only taught me business terms and other concepts, but they’ve also left me with extremely enriching experiences and a tremendous knowledge about myself. Through this important journey, that I've had during the first semester of my last high school year, I have finally noticed that I do not have a physical slowness, or that my slowness hinders my work. It took me a long time to realize this, as it is hard to do so when you’re constantly receiving comments of how slow you are, no matter what you’re doing. Yes, my pace is slower than that of others. Yet, there is something beautiful and worthy beneath that apparent weakness. I believe that my gradual and steady pace, reveal my focus on detail, my calm, well-balanced character, and my measured passion for what I do. I attribute my detained focus on detail on a high interest in the task I'm in. And no, I do not consider myself a perfectionist, I would rather describe myself as meticulous. No matter if I’m working on painting the stripes of my tiger, on adding each expense on my pajama excel sheet, on designing an advertisement campaign for Crepez, or on writing a blog post to publish at the night - regardless of the task - I always try to do it the best I can. On most occasions - if not all - I take more time than the rest of my classmates to complete things. This used to frustrate me a lot as it’s very annoying to always finish last. But now, I’m totally cool with it; I embrace it and I even value it. I’ve learned to not only understand myself and the way I work and learn best, but also to love it and make the best of it. It is because of the attention I pay to detail that I produce a lot of excellent work that I am proud of. It is because of my meticulousness that I am able to run two businesses at a time and produce the quality work I produce. I may take longer than most of my classmates and the people around me doing things. It may take me three hours to complete something that someone claims, could be done in one. But this is no longer something that worries me or frustrates me. It is now something I'm learning to love and an amazing discovery I’ve done about myself, that will improve my journey in projects. Everyone should look into themselves, take the time to better know who they are and how they work, to discover the ways they learn the best and perform the best. I’m grateful I’ve been able to do so this semester, through many wonderful opportunities and projects I plan to continue. I look forward to keep on exploring who I am as a person, a student, a business woman and a citizen of the world. “Wow! You sell crepes AND pajamas? Are you a millionaire?”
It was the end of the day on Friday and I was cleaning everything up with my group as we had just finished selling crepes in Elementary. Coincidentally, it was pajama day, so I was drying out the crepe pans with my pajamas on when three little 4th graders approached to me and started asking me a bunch of questions, as curious kids typically do. “Are you the one who sells crepes?” “Do you make a lot of money?” “Can I reserve 5 crepes for next week?” I was kind of overwhelmed after the demanding cleaning and with all the cleaning, but the questions and excitement of these little girls made me smile and feel glad to be cleaning those pans. Noticing how much they loved the crepes and the company and their excitement for next week’s sale was truly gratifying. It was when I kept answering their questions and sharing laughs with them when one of the girls noticed I was wearing pajamas and eulogized it. “I love your pajama, it’s beautiful!” I was already smiling before she said this, but this made my teeth show even more and the curve of my smile lift even higher. “I made them” I replied. My answer made the three girls open their eyes and their mouth at the same time and gave birth to a million more questions. It was then when one of them asked “Wow! You sell crepes AND pajamas? Are you a millionaire?” Yes, I am currently running two businesses at a time. But no, I’m definitely not a millionaire. If I were a 4th grader and heard that a senior was running two businesses at a time, I would definitely be amazed and also expect that person to be a millionaire. The world and how things work seem perfect from an innocent mind, but it is when you grow and actually get in the field when you realize it isn’t; it is much harder than what we expect. These pasts months I haven’t stopped working hard and being involved all day in something related to either school, CrepeZ, or my pajama business. Indeed, last week I had a kind of panic attack as I was overwhelmed with too many things: a math test, the photoshoot of my pajamas, the CrepeZ sale, an essay for spanish, art classes, and a meeting. I was attacked by intense anxiety, stress and tears. All of this hard work and stress is something natural and unavoidable and part of the process that I’ve started to accept and even welcome. I took the decision to get involved in so many things and although at moments everything might seem like a blur and cause me a lot of stress, it turns out being worth it. All of the hard work always turns out giving back amazing outcomes. With CrepeZ, we’ve already experienced many of this incredible outcomes which motivate us to keep on going and to work harder every time. And with Quiero, I’m still in the part of all the hard work, but I’m excited to see all of the outcomes once I launch the pajamas. I might not be a millionaire, but the smiles in the kids faces, the awards for being the company of the week, the feeling we get when we exceed our revenue goals, and all of the outcomes I’ll start taking in once I launch my pajamas, are more than enough. "Isa, hurry up!!! We've got 5 more Nutella orders!" orders Rafa while the line keeps on growing and the stack of papers with orders accumulate in a tall pile.
I pretend to bee having everything under control and trying to look relaxed, while I'm preparing two crepes at a time. This is a time in which I wish I were an octopus and had 8 hands; while I'm dipping the pan in the mixture with one hand, I'm flipping the crepe in the other pan with my other hand, right before I pour more mixture into the bowl with any hand I find free, and while I pass one crepe to Rafa. While I’m performing this non-stop process, I look out with the corner of my eye at the lovely customers waiting in line. The little kids standing on their tiptoes, sniffing the delicious smell of the smoke that the hot crepes release, wondering how the amazing pans work, staring at how the SENIORS prepare them food, waiting anxiously with water in their mouths for their hot and tasty crepe. This Friday was our first sale in elementary. It was beyond awesome. Alex, Gaby, Rafa and I walked out of the crepe with an immense feeling of satisfaction and pride, not only because we sold out and had more sales than ever, but specially because we fell in love with our customers (and so did they). This is when a previous topic we touched in class came to my mind; The purpose of a business is not to make profit. A business is all about creating customers and maintaining them. This is Peter Drucker's belief and I couldn't agree more with it. When we first read in class about Peter Drucker and Milton Friedman's beliefs about the purpose of a business, both beliefs made sense to me but I didn't really stop to think about them and didn't consider which one was actually true. After the 6th CrepeZ sale, I am certain that a business' purpose should NOT only be about creating profit. If everything in a business is about money, then the company is lost. If a business focuses only on the profit and not on the customers, they will end up losing their customers, and no costumers means no profit. The true purpose of a business should be creating costumers, and -- very important -- maintaining them. If a business focuses on creating costumers and achieves to maintain them, it will be very valuable and successfully, AND consequentially it will make profit, as this will just follow naturally. Selling so much crepes and making so much profit this day wasn't what actually made us so proud and satisfied. It was the customers we created who did. The faces of excitement and satisfaction of the elementary kids were much more rewarding than any sol. "Will you be selling again?", "When will you be back?", "Can I have another crepe?". The CrepeZ team is not focused on creating profit. The CrepeZ team has created new customers and is aiming on maintaining them, and this way, profit will follow naturally. “Hey, why weren’t there CrepeZ yesterday?!”
Although this simple question may seem superficial and insignificant for most, it left my team and I delighted. Noticing the impact that the company WE created is already having impact on our community is amazing. This simple and unthought question was proving that -- already -- we were accomplishing our goals as a company; we were adding value to our community, we were desirable, and people were looking forward for Thursdays as it is a “CrepeZ day”. After the whole creation of CrepeZ and two successful sales, I can say that I am in love with the company. After a class discussion we this week about Z Corporation's purpose, I realized that I am in love with CrepeZ not only because of how amazing it is, but specially because it’s OURS (team CrepeZ). It’s OUR creation, it’s OUR baby, it’s the little seed WE planted in our community. Raising with baby and watching how it grows and how it creates an impact is impossible to describe with words. It’s like the science behind the love between mothers and their babies; it’s impossible not to fall in love with your own creation. This week we were not able to have our promised usual Thursday CrepeZ sale as we had to take very important decisions and deeply work on our businesses before launching them for real. We didn’t expect it, but my team and I were actually sad about not selling this Thursday. We missed it and we wanted to be there on Thursday's lunch selling so bad -- this feeling was amazing. But what was even MORE amazing and delighting was the reaction of our community. It was not only us -- the “in love” and eager creators of CrepeZ -- who were “down” by an omitted week of crepes, but so was our community -- the one we intended to add value to -- and now, it was so clear that we were doing so. My team and I are super proud about our company. We would have never been this proud if an existing company would have just been passed on to us (BlendZ). We have definitely discovered the huge value in starting a company of our own from scratch, of adding value to our community, putting theory into practice, and getting over ourselves -- just as Z Corporation’s purpose states “launch a business from scratch that challenges us to add value to our community, put theory into practice, and to get over ourselves”. Alex, Gaby, Rafa and I are IN LOVE with CrepeZ and we are super excited about our next sales and future plans. “Pancake Friday! 2 for s/. 8” It was the end of the week, when I was walking with my business group towards the other side of school to take some pictures for our business presentation. My business group? Yeah. In the Innovation Academy we are working on a project called “Get Over Yourself”. The goal of this project is to create a business of our choice, but not only for the sake of starting a business and creating profit, but to actually look beyond ourselves and add value to our community. The business my group and I are working on is CrepeZ. CrepeZ is about serving different crepes to our community; whether they’re sweet or salty, we work on creating the best products we can and having actual interaction with our customers by preparing everything in front of them, right in the moment. This was the second week of prototyping our business and products, and overall, it was very successful! Of course we had some difficulties and struggles, but this is just the start.
Of course, in any other scenario it would have been amazing to find this “Pancake Friday! 2 for s/. 8” sign. How isn’t it gonna be amazing to have pancakes being sold in school?! But in our case, it was everything but amazing. It was tormenting, misleading, treacherous, disappointing, bothersome and annoying. As the four of us, the CrepeZ team, looked into each other’s eyes, we could understand exactly what we were feeling without saying a word. Who could have the effrontery and shamelessness to start selling PANCAKES one day after we were selling CREPES??!! To clarify, the only slight difference between PANCAKES and CREPES is that crepes are thinner than pancakes and that pancakes tend to be sweet while crepes can be sweet or salty. Anyways, besides this very slight differences, PANCAKES and CREPES are basically the same, they’re like siblings, everyone knows that. This promotion not only bothered us because of the similarity fact, but also because of who our competitor was and because of the price he had (I’m sure purposely and ironically) put in his “new” product. To give you an idea of our frustration, our competition is Lekker. The man who runs this business in school came over to our stand on Thursday, while we were selling, and seemed very kind to us. He was like “oh! my competition”, in a friendly tone and even gave us some tips and offered us to sell besides his truck. This is why it was even more irritating to run into this poster the next day, which - as we kept walking - was followed by another big one with the same message. Additionally, when he came by our business, he clearly browsed through the prices of our products, which vary between s/. 6 - 8, so it was no surprise that he strategically decided to price his pancakes half of our price; he was offering two of his products for what we sell one of our products…. wonderful!!! Alex, Gaby, Rafa, and I were shocked. We couldn’t even put in words how we were feeling. For some reason we felt kind of betrayed and it actually hurt a bit. We couldn’t finish processing it for a while, until we went back to class and shared this anecdote with Corey. Once we talked about the topic and started getting our inner peace back, we realized, that this topic that bothered us so much was something very good actually. First of all, it an excellent sign that we had created an actual impact in our community and in the people and businesses around us, starting by this Lekker man, who must have seen us as an actual threat to his own business and as a good and successful idea as he somehow “copied” or got “inspired” by it. Not only was this proof that we had added value and created an impact in our community, but it also served us as an extremely valuable lesson and experience. What a better way to learn about business than to have to confront the actual struggles and challenges of it? And, what a better way to learn about competition than having a real competitor to compete against? We got a real TASTE of real life competition. After all, this project is all about learning, adding value, creating impacts, and getting over ourselves. At first, a challenge may seem very tough, disappointing and annoying, but we need to learn to seek this challenges and surpass them, as they will definitely then become a valuable lesson. (And anyways, we tried Lekker’s pancakes and - HONESTLY - we have nothing to be afraid of).
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
November 2015
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