By being here in the Philippines, this is what I look forward to the most – having 1 on 1 time to develop people who want to improve their skills.
Manuel is a great case of that. He does some freelance graphic design for me – as well as many companies in USA. One of his current clients is an event company in Florida that is doing a big event – and he even joked maybe my parents are going to the event he is doing the graphic design for hehe!
We met up on Saturday just to get some “face time” and I was also able to learn about his journey.
He told me how he was laid off many years ago and couldn’t find a new job. He stayed on a couch of his friend’s house and lived off his friend – while trying to find a new job.
Nothing was coming up.
Finally, after 1 year, his friend who was housing and feeding him gave him an ultimatum – either you get a job, do some web projects for me, or leave / even sleep on the streets if you have nowhere to go.
So Manuel took the challenge and started to do web projects with his friend. Learning new things, he found his passion in web design and graphics, and after working with his friend’s agency for a while – started to also get clients of his own.
Now he is married, has stable clients (many from USA), and also is learning new things.
His wife is learning now e-commerce, how to sell her handmade jewelry and handicrafts online. He and I talked about strategies where he can find his competitor’s factories (some reverse lookup tools) and also some other insights – he took notes and hopefully will execute.
Thanks Manuel, it also inspires me.
High res image resources.mikesblog.com/highres/manuel-mike-gathering.jpg
