Paradigm Shift Part 2: Late Bloomer Entrep? Nah.

It was my Ateneo HS Education that taught me about the mindset of "entrepreneurship" (though the term has not been born yet, I think, in 1996 - my freshman year); I simply understood it as "going into business". Fr. Caluag, then the HS principal, used to say that unemployment rate in our country will continue to rise yearly so why compete with people who graduate year after year for the limited available employment? He encouraged us to stir up the economy by starting our own business thus providing more employment for Filipinos.

I bought that idea. :) Though I always dreamed of being hired as a top executive of a multi-national company (wishful thinking :D), my desire to have my own business has always been there because of that. So I decided back then that I will surely enroll in a business course and pursue business after I graduate college until one discouraging incident. I remember vividly in my 3rd year high school, a classmate asked me what course will I take in college and I readily answered "Business Management." He quickly replied, "Bakit may business ba kayo? That made me think (and offended me too). Hindi naman kami mayaman, I know that fact. I was one of those priveleged to study in that prestigious school because of Tulong-Dunong and have always been a proud TD kid.

Good thing, I had REAL friends then who told me not to mind that discriminating comment.

Thus my dream of being a businessman someday continued (BUT only in my mind). I worked as a call center agent, sales officer, printshop supervisor... for ten years my dream was just inside my cabinet.

Fast forward - Year 2010. Exactly 10 years after I graduated from AHS. A friend (more like a brother) invited me to partner with him and another one to put up a company to offer printing, advertising, graphics and events management services.

We called it - Freestyle Media.

The company collapsed after barely a year in operation. I partnered again to put-up two lomi houses but we closed down after four - five months, one after another. After came the spa, the coffee shop, a lending business, manpower cooperative... but none came to beautiful reality.

I didn't give-up... And God made me realize in my lowest and cash-strapped juncture that I never sought God's will (seriously) when I did all those. No kneeling down either to wrestle with Him. Precisely the reason why they never worked out. 

All the while, I thought I am a late bloomer entrepreneur... nah. God is in control from the very beginning. It wasn't His will yet that time. And I discovered the secret He revealed long way ago in Matthew 6:33 "...but seek first His kingdom and righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."