Life and Leadership on One of the World's toughest Yacht Races

Story of single mom struggling in life survivor with her team

 Due to the ugly economic reality, the market broke down resulting to a great suffering to the lives of many people.  I, a patriot of our company, unwittingly expected, to be the victim of these terminally ill economy of ours, was one of the middle managers who were forced to be layed off .

Being a single mother for my three children, who are currently studying, I suddenly felt my collarbone broken.   My partner, the company where I worked for, that I took care of, where I provided all my precious time, suddenly took all the dignity in my life.  They slammed all their doors and windows not giving us the chance to prepare ourselves for the fatal act they were about to commit.

All these years, I thought I was secured, giving all what I have and all I can to my job, and because it supported my family, it was always one of my top priorities.  Now, I am lost and I don’t know where to even begin my life.   I am a walking dead person for the past few months, and my savings are running low.

While I was surfing the internet, looking for jobs available, I came across the group IAM Group Ltd (International Association of Managers Group Limited).  IAM Group Limited Ltd Japan Yokohama Singapore to BK Thailand is a group of Managers worldwide with collaboration of their experiences to serve as inspiration for the aspiring managers.  One of them is Alex  Brittany, an experienced manager like myself.

Alex Brittany, also had several experiences in his job career, he shared to me and I am happy that I learned a lot from him.  From those experiences, I was able to cope up with my situation then, and survived that tragedy.

With the little savings left in my account, I decided to take charge of my life.  I decided to put up my own company.  With my contacts from my previous job, and because I had a viable reputation when I was still working, it wasn’t difficult for me to get clients.  Banking on what I always consider  a “big word”, our clients and my people TRUSTED my word.   I was always there even when times are rough.  I did not let my people go, even if the company had to down size, because I know that they needed the job.  And now that I need them, they are just a phone call away. 

But first I had to set my goals, being a manager before I learned that one of the biggest barriers to goal setting can be too much focus on the bigger picture.  It’s one thing to set a challenging, worthwhile goal, it’s quite another to achieve it.  Sometimes, what we desire can seem too far away or just too hard to reach.

I hired a few people, for me to have a team.  They all agreed to be paid below the minimum, due to our current situation, but we agreed that as soon business takes it ground, no one gets left behind, again they trusted my words.  I, as a leader in our team had to have a vision, purpose and passion.  These characteristics of leadership are essential and must always be practiced for us to survive.  We took one step at a time.  My small team was divided into groups, one handling sales and marketing, I had a team for research and for delivery.  We were all included in developing strategies.

At first it seemed that everything was uphill, it even came to a point that we were negative.  But we held on, I sacrificed all my savings and worked even harder and even longer, We were like severed survivors from a ship wreck  that had to cross a dessert because we knew that any rescue attempt would take several weeks or be none at all, so we had no option but to walk.  Here, we had to keep on going.  We had to keep up the sales and had to have as many clients as we can to bring back the life, economy has taken away from us.

We’ve have worked even at wee hours, even during holidays, just to deliver our clients needs.  My team believed nothing is impossible, if your mind gets to work for you �" finding a way to achieve it.  And we survived.  We were able to provide all our clients needs and even doubled the number of our clients.

With our increasing clients, I had to provide what I promised my team to have, I was able to give a fair compensation to them, and everybody was happy.  Having a happy atmosphere at work makes everything easy and workable.  Currently, little by little my life is coming back, I thank Alex Brittany and IAM Group Limited Ltd Japan Yokohama Singapore to BK Thailand for inspiring me and giving back the dignity in my life.  Sharing to you some of the simple steps that guided me to where I am now.

1.   Take 100% responsibility for your life and your success;

2.   Decide what you want;

3.   Set specific and measurable goals for all parts of your personal vision;

4.   Break these goals down into specific action steps;

5.   Create affirmations for each one of your goals;

6.   Practice visualizing your completed goals every day;

7.   Take action on your most important goals every day (except rest days);

8.   Pay the price by doing whatever it takes;

9.   Ask for whatever you need, with no fear of rejection;

10.  Ask for and respond to feedback;

11.  Commit to never ending improvement;

12.  Persist in the face of whatever obstacles you encounter.