Organized Sweetness

You will find a piece of artisanal Belgian chocolate on your magic carpet. Yes, it does have a rich chocolatey taste enabling you to soar high. Let it melt in your mouth. Allow your taste buds to indulge while you read this...

In light of the previous events, how would you feel about working day and night, sometimes even waking up at 2:30 am to help your father with his chocolate artisanal business? Shocking to hear after feeling the smooth chocolat-ey taste in your mouth, yet this is how life is sometimes, as you enjoy something, you then get struck with tasks reminding you of 'reality'.

See, Christmas season was the one season my family relied on all year. For us it can be rewarding, and draining. It is not easy to wake up in the middle of the night and see a worn down father toiling his way through night and day in his atelier (an extension of our kitchen), and watch him sometimes bump into walls because of how exhausted he was. With my mom equally exhausted helping him. Not an easy thing to witness at all especially when you adore your parents.

Can you imagine how heartbreaking it was to watch this 69 year old diabetic warrior with a heart condition, and a hearing problem push his way through life even at this age simply because he likes to stay productive? 

Sometimes you even feel you are about to be driven up the wall with everyone around you getting angry, with power electricity cuts, tight deadlines, at the same time needing to maintain the standard and quality of the yummies. When we felt overwhelm, I would stop, breathe, detach, perform a full mind-body scan, take a shower, get in touch with myself, find solutions, and rally on. 1, 2, 3 Pasta, again!
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To help paint a better picture for you: Companies and individuals love our artisanal yummies composed of high quality Belgian chocolates, cookies and cakes. I naturally had to handle the PR/Marketing through social media for the season (which was exhausting and very time consuming!).

I also boosted posts, advertised our page on Facebook, also through WhatsApp broadcast messages. I have to be honest with you, I didn't enjoy it, at the same time, I loved what my father was creating and people loved how delicious these treats were. It helped fuel my Intrinsic Motivation to share what we could offer with people in our community. As a result, we received more orders this Christmas than we had even thought possible!

What happened with a plethora of orders we weren't prepared for? Some got held up, yet we managed to deliver on time. In addition to the above, I also followed up on orders, decorated packages, and made most of the deliveries. It was exhausting and impractical to do all this and more.

I needed to help my father and this was a priority. But to balance this with my real job, I knew I had to get myself organized through a process.

I divided the responsibilities into an organized format. Since my mother is a powerhouse for organization and follow-up, I put her in charge of mediating and following up on orders and deadlines. I was the point of contact with the client, took orders, made deliveries, snapped photos, promoted us on social media and designed chocolate packages, whilst my father was in charge of production. We knew this craze was Temporary (Christmas season), it is separate and Isolated from my other role in Training, and we needed to exert the required Effort to make it happen.

Have I neglected to mention that with all this rush, I managed to prepare our lunches since my mom was busy wrapping chocolates? I mastered wonderful salads, salad sauces and delicious omelettes whilst presenting them with flair. Anyone can turn a chore into something creative and enjoyable.

Well, I certainly hope you enjoyed the chocolate from our homemade business, the one that was on your magic carpet. As a hindsight, there are no additives or preservatives in our yummy treats. Only a natural taste! It really is all about quality!

I would also like to share that all these images are ones I have taken to post on social media and share our yummies and efforts. I am no social media expert, nor do I claim to be a photographer, yet, I did my best to portray my father's talents. When we wish to support, sometimes we needn't look too far, since those closest to us might need us most.

Moral: It is crucial to Navigate our Emotions, organize ourselves within a process (The Process is the Content) to jump right in (1, 2, 3 Pasta!) and adopt the TIE tool during hectic times whilst balancing two very different businesses!