Friday, May 7, 2010

Hugs


When was the last time you were hugged?

I've always felt better when hugged tightly. Hugs do have the power to erase the bad vibes. So it is no wonder that some people from the US and I think recently from Korea or Japan began lining up crowded streets.

With placards strung or signs hanging across their bodies saying that they are giving free hugs, they wasted no time approaching pedestrians, commuters, practically anybody who they deemed needed a hug. Miraculously, frowns and lines disappeared instantaneously. Of course, there were others who were just fine receiving a random hug from a stranger.

I can't recall if anybody turned them down. Well too bad if somebody did. The hug would have made a whole world of difference.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Words to live by from Sheila Lirio Marcelo

Had a video conference this morning (May 5, 2010) with a Filipina entrepreneur Sheila Lirio Marcelo. Based in the Boston, she put up Care.com, a website offering babysitting services for people (elderly, kids, handicapped, people with special needs) and pets. Aside from babysitting or caregiving services, Care.com also offers tutoring and housekeeping.

Sheila was named as one of Fortune's Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs in the US last 2009. So how cool, how awesome can a Wednesday morning be right? Listening to a founder and CEO, who landed in Fortune's Top 10 List of Emerging Women Entrepreneurs, almost side by side (via conference screens) with people from Santa Clara and New York certainly ought to perk one up early in the morning. I definitely felt privileged to have joined this first networking mixer organized by friends from the Filipino Entrepreneurs Network (FEN), based in California.

Sheila is certainly impressive. Her LinkedIn profile indicates that she graduated magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Economics and pursued dual master's degrees from Harvard University in Business and Law, graduating with honors. Despite being a Type A girl she is nonetheless a very humble woman.

I'd like to share the things which struck me the most during our one hour conference.

Sheila smilingly disclosed that she lives "a life of managed chaos." I think some of us could actually relate as we do tread similar paths every waking days of our lives. Managing and prioritizing (especially when there are messes and hitches) is a core skill we develop and perpetually carry with us for our survival (and may I add, sanity). :) Conducting one's life in "managed chaos" for me is to explore and discover creatively our capacity to overcome challenges and seek the order we want in delivering quality work.

The second thing which struck me was when she said that in order for a business or enterprise to succeed, one must love selling (be it a product or a service) and be an evangelist. This responsibility is not limited to to sales people and heads of sales departments; even CEOs have to sell and evangelize their businesses.

Honestly, I used to hate marketing and selling. I avoided it all costs. That's why I found myself aiming for a career in the non-profit sector preferring to do (what I thought was quiet work) research and project management. Little did I know, when I decided to mobilize resources for the whole Ateneo, fund raising was the counterpart of marketing and sales in the development world.

Fund raising has educated and opened my eyes to my latent skill of marketing/selling. Speaking of selling, Sheila emphasized that it should not only be plain selling. It should be PASSION SELLING wherein 80% of your sales pitch is emotion and 20% is logic - and I've witnessed that this approach well, sells well.

So much so, it made me remember my former boss in Synergeia Foundation, former Finance Undersecretary Milwida "Nene" Guevara. I remember Ma'am Nene saying that "init na init siya" whenever she was asked to talk about Synergeia's work in education and local governance. What drives her in her passion selling is seeing not only children but communities and their local chief executives working together in maturing the education system in their towns, municipalities and provinces.

Lastly (and I should really apply this) is to know how to pace one's self. We all seem to be in a mad rush to accomplish so many things in so little time. Eventually, we experience this premature exhaustion, a depleted feeling as if the life or energy was sucked out clean from our bodies, our minds and our spirits. I think that is what constitutes being burnt out.

Admittedly, I am a victim of pushing-myself-too-hard-and-working-myself-too-hard-as-if-no-other-day-would-come follies. Nowadays though I make a conscious effort to remind myself, "Pace (and prioritize!) your energy, ideas, activities Nicole" or else, my health (and my sanity) will suffer. And I don't want to feel that I won't be of tremendous use anymore.

Sheila had so many wonderful things to share but these three are my tops; these are what impressed me the most. Now, the next step would be for me to take all these to heart and share these with as many people possible.