by Shienna Calimlim

Being an entreprenuer is very hard to do. When I started to build a business with my team, I’ve learned a lot more than I expected. You know why?  I was a neophyte, I was called a young entrepreneur. I’ve also learned and experienced the things that other students might not have experienced.

With my team (Sweet Seven Teens) I learned that , aside from the experience I gained personally, the financial rewards of having one’s business are enormous. For many individuals like my team members, the primary motivation in engaging in business is the desire to be on top of everything. Entrepreneurship can also satisfy one’s creative drive as well as provide other forms of self-fulfillment. Just a seller has its rewards, it too has its attendant risks. It provides you the potential to earn some money, but at the same time you must be willing to sacrifice long hours of hard work and take on new responsibilities.

Motivation and patience are also needed.  If you don’t motivate your self and your teammates, you may not reach your own goal. Having patience is one of the factors that helped our team overcome problems. You need also to have  persistence, commitment to job contract, desire for efficiency and quality, goal setting, information seeking, self confidence and flexibility. Aside from that I learned to use practical  strategies to influence or persuade customers/ consumers to buy or use our product.

Above all, you need a lot of self confidence, a strong belief in your own capabilities as well as on the abilities of your teammates if you want to be  successful in business.

By Yzabel Lesa M. Quinones, VisionQ Team, 1st year, Philippine Science High School, Davao city

The Bayanihan Youth Camp was absolutely great. It provided fun activities so that we would not get bored. Even our co-participants were fun to be with. But best of all were the lessons that we learned.

The camp, we learned from our mentors, was sponsored by On Eagle’s Wings Foundation (OEWF) in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. It  taught us many lessons about surviving this world of business. And one of the great ways to do so is social enterpreneurship. To create wealth and know what to do with it for the benefit of our community was what we talked about. Everyone, even the youth, could be social enterpreneurs, as long as one possessed the passion and effort.

The next great thing that we learned was about the learning organization. Learning organizations are important because each member may learn from each other. You may develop new skills, and even unlearn learning disabilities.

Learning disabilities, what are they? These are the obstacles that hinder us from learning new knowledge and skills. There are seven of them, which are:

• I am my position
• The enemy is out there
• Illusion of taking charge
• Fixation on events
• The parable of the boiled frog
• Delusion of learning from experience
• The myth of the management team

Yes, everyone has learning disabilities. However, do not fret, as these problems have solutions:

• Practice whole-system thinking
• Use a longer lever
• Out-of-the-box thinking
• Create paradigm shift in mental models
• Learn to see slow gradual processes

I learned many more. I know these lessons will be very useful in my life and surely I will be able to use them. This experience changed my life and I am glad that I joined this camp.

by Jezza Luz Sioson, University of Caloocan City

April 3, 2009, the day when I first met the different participants of the workshop entitled “Building Shared Vision” (BSV) conducted at the Institute of Small Scale Industries, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon city.

I learned why vision is very important, not only in our business, not only for ourselves, but also for our society.  If you have no vision in life, you don’t know where you will be going to.

I also learned that in developing your vision, don’t only plan for yourself. Plan for the benefits of others also.  God is always with us. If we praise Him, if we believe in Him, all will be possible.