New Beginnings as a Mentee in the 2014 Mentoring Women in Business Programme of the Cherie Blair Foundation

“At each point in our lives, we are at a crossroads. We are the fruit of our past and we are the architects of our future… If you want to know your past, look at your present circumstances. If you want to know your future, look at what is in your mind. ~ Matthieu Ricard”

Reinventing one’s self stops only when one chooses to stop learning. Over the years, I saw myself making decisions that took me 180 degrees away from where my corporate life began. There is a newfound desire to make the rest of my life meaningful and life-changing. I rediscovered my passion for knowledge, feeling like a sponge that just wanted to learn and absorb new things. Just recently, I blogged about those chapters of my life that brought me to where I am today.

And that is again about to change in some way as I embark on yet another twist in life, a challenge that I decided to take up recently. I was accepted into a one-year Mentoring Programme for Women in Business as a mentee under the Cherie Blair Foundation.

Cherie Blair Foundation website
Screenshot from the Cherie Blair Foundation website

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Another Chapter in my Life Journey: Speaking and Social Business Consulting

“Life always has different chapters. You just can’t be in the same chapter forever. You’ll get stuck.” ~ @WilzKanadi

This quote jumped out at me as I was checking my Twitter timeline. I did not exactly think of my life in terms of chapters but when I look back, I can indeed see the “chapters” and how they have led me to where I am now and what I will be doing down the road.

Life has no limitations
(photo courtesy of “Inspire Positive Soul Sensations” on Facebook)

Chapter 1 – The Driven Life of a Type A Person

In this article, it says “Type A personalities experience a constant sense of urgency: Type A people seem to be in a constant struggle against the clock.  Often, they quickly become impatient with delays and unproductive time, schedule commitments too tightly, and try to do more than one thing at a time, such as reading while eating or watching television.

That pretty much summed me up during my growing up and early corporate years. I lead a very academic- and career-oriented life. Graduating at the top of my class in high school and college were the fruits of that labor. I was just as driven when I joined SGV (over 15 years) where I was exposed to financial audits, research, lectures and training, computer audits and IT consultancy.

In between projects abroad and local work, I also took a 2-year hiatus and went to Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania where I earned my MBA degree under a scholarship from SGV.

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My Second Life Coaching Lesson with Coach Pia

The SoMoms had another life coaching session with Coach Pia recently. After my first coaching session with her, I realized how important it was to have a life coach that can look at your state of life and concerns from an objective and FEMALE (important!) point of view.

Click here to find out how my first life coaching session with Coach Pia went.

 

Coach Pia
Coach Pia coaching the SoMoms and other mommy guests

 

Coach Pia mentioned several factors that make a relationship with one’s spouse a healthy one:

(1) I can be myself – I can still be myself while nurturing my partner (AUTHENTICITY)

 I can trust myself – I can trust my partner (BASIC TRUST)

(2) I feel respected – I respect my partner (BASIC RESPECT)

I feel understood – I can understand my partner (DEEPER UNDERSTANDING)

(3) I can nurture our children – Our children feel nurtured by us (BASIC PARENTING)

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It’s Never Too Late to be a Better Me with the SoMoms

It’s never too late to reinvent or better one’s self.

I’m a golden girl who has been out of corporate life since the mid 90s. It was not a very difficult decision. I almost lost my 4th child while working on a very critical joint venture. The incident made me rethink my previously busy and stressful life and made me exchange it for a homemaker’s hat.

In 2006, I discovered the joys of blogging and began my yoga practice. In 2009, the opportunity to become a citizen advocate opened up to me when I became part of Blog Watch, a citizen watchdog made up of bloggers who pursued social, economic, civic and political issues in order to be catalysts for change. As social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, among others, mushroomed, I found myself engaging netizens more and more on these platforms. With my kids all grown up and half of them out of school and working already, I had more time to pursue activities that were not just personal passions (I should have done these ages ago!) but advocacies that I hope would shape the future for my kids,their kids and everyone else’s kids.

It was a good feeling to see myself transform from 1) this career-driven, corporate woman whose wardrobe consisted of mostly office suits to 2) homemaker who spent a good decade just raising kids and being active in school and once more to 3) an active citizen in the arena of social change through blogging and social media.

What I did not realize was that I was to go through another transformation. One that is still a work-in-progress up to now.

The opportunity first presented itself when Noemi and I joined a group called the #SoMoms (short for Social Media Moms).

Read about how I joined the #SoMoms here.

Soon after I became part of SoMoms, I attended a life coaching talk by Coach Pia Nazareno-Acevedo of OneCORE with the mommies.

Coach Pia

You’d think that at my age, I would have all the experience and know-how I need for the rest of my life. But no. Coach Pia opened my eyes to even more possibilities and opportunities to make the rest of that life more meaningful, not just for me but for my family too. Another chance to be a “Better Me”.

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