Don't Copy What Everyone Is Doing

Transcript of the audio: Welcome to Monday Musings with Kissa, where I share what the heck happened last week, what I have planned for this week, and a story time, not in that particular order. This is the Audio companion to my Substack newsletter that I send out every Thursday. So if you’re not already subscribed, there’s a button somewhere here where you can do so, and content as of this recording is currently free.Hello fam. So how was last week? Let’s get into it. Well, last week was Halloween and it was actually a really great day. We ended up going to a farmer’s market that Charlie does in our area, and we went trick or treating at the houses that were behind it, and I think it was the most ideal situation, we got something to eat at the farmer’s market. We walked around a little bit there, and then after we went into the houses in the neighborhood and shout out to them because they were prepared, they had the World Series playing out in their front yards they had beautiful decorations, they had tons of candy for the kids. So it was a really good time. Last week on the business side, we also inquired officially about trade showing at an event called Winter Fancy Fair. And so that has been something that we’ve been wanting to do basically since 2022. And I think we. Have gotten to the point where we’ve grown and we’ve learned, and I think we’re ready. So we sent the initial contact and we’re just waiting to hear back.The weather has been beautiful, so we have all been starting to play outside and it has been really great to get out of our house where we live the summers tend to get really, really hot, so it has been inside and indoors for us for most of the time, and so it’s really great to just get outside and play instead of be inside all day long.And then also I mentioned about wanting to improve my environment. So over the weekend, Charlie and I carved out some time and cleaned both of the kids’ rooms and their shared bathroom, and that was a huge win. I can’t tell you how good it feels to look into their bedrooms and not see Kala everywhere. Kala is basically mess in Filipino and it’s just great to look into their rooms and see it all, you know, put away and everything in its place. We also took the time over the weekend to make space because the kids are growing and so we cleaned out their closets, donated all the things that don’t fit them anymore, donating toys that they don’t play with anymore. So that also feels good to just really do a deep dive into that and make some progress on it.Now this week, what’s on the calendar? Well, my intention is to get back into some sort of routine. So when it comes to the last few weeks, of course we had a Halloween and then the week before Halloween we had a Halloween event at Micah’s school.And so we have been off of our normal routine for a little while, and so I’m really just excited to get back into some sort of normal rhythm. And then also planning Angel’s third birthday, which is coming up very soon. So that is what I have planned coming up for this week because we gotta make some progress on that. We’ve just been working, focusing on Halloween and then work things. And so I really do need to carve out time and dedicate time to that.Now the bricks in my backpack, which basically means what are the things that are kind of weighing me down or keeping me from doing the best work that I can or being the most present with my family and I would say that is environment. And I think you can tell because we took the whole weekend to clean up shop, to clean up room, the kids’ bedrooms and everything. So it’s going to carry on to this week, and I’m going to be working on different areas in our house so that the environment is as best as it can be.So an a few areas that I have to choose from that are on the top of my head are probably the playroom area my closet area in our master bedroom, and definitely the backyard because we want to have it ready for Jo’s birthday party.Now going into our story time. Last week I didn’t really share a story with you, more of a reflection, and it goes into sort of a hybrid of the two this week. And one of the things that I’ve been reflecting on is the concept of you don’t have to do what everyone is doing to be successful. I’m gonna say it again ‘cause I need to hear it again. You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing to be successful. So let me give you a little bit of a background on my thoughts on this.So our last day of service at our restaurant that we had open for over 12 years was November 1st, 2020. Like I said, we’d been open for over 12 years. We had just moved from our original location to a location three times the size and the pandemic hit, so we had to make a decision at some point and decided we just need to cut our losses, and we ended up doing our last service on November 1st.Originally when we opened our restaurant, we had so many big dreams. We wanted to be the next red Ribbon, Goldilocks of the Filipino community. That’s what we originally wanted to be. And then even Portos here in SoCal, if you’re familiar, that was one of our biggest inspirations when it came to building out our business. To have a brick and mortar and to have multiple locations expand and grow throughout Southern California, into Northern California, possibly nationwide. That was the goal. That was the dream.Well, when we lost the restaurant, we thought we failed. We felt so deflated and so defeated. It was just really tough to stay positive because there were so many things coming at us at once and having to make a difficult decision. It felt like we were. Giving up, we were letting our customers down.That situation happening, it forced me to realize that there’s more to the food industry that I’ve dedicated 12 years of my life to. I thought the way to be accomplished in the food industry was to open a brick and mortar and expand by having multiple locations, like I told you, and that’s not the only avenue to pursue, and I just didn’t realize that. I just kept thinking that to, to say that I’ve arrived or to say that I’ve made it means that I have a growing business that’s going to expand with multiple brick and mortar locations and like I said, that’s simply not true.There’s the restaurants, there’s food trucks and popups. There’s catering and events. There’s CPG, and wholesale. I don’t have to copy what other people’s paths are. Yeah, let me say that again. I don’t have to copy what other people’s paths are. I can carve out my own path every different avenue within your industry. In my case, it’s the food industry, but any industry has different paths that you can take. And today. If you are in an industry, you are either doing a side hustle, thinking about starting one or are elbows deep in one. I want you to sit down and figure out what all the different paths that you can take within this industry are. Don’t peg yourself into the one everyone talks about.Don’t copy. Weigh out the pros and cons of each path and decide which best fits within your lifestyle goals. And for me, for my family, that was CPG and wholesale, because for us, we want to have freedom to be there for our children, especially during these younger years. We want to have flexibility and schedule. We want to have a small but mighty team. We realized that the CPG industry has given us the potential to live that life. To tell you the truth, I loved being in the restaurant industry. I loved being in the food industry. It was just so much fun. The busyness was such an adrenaline rush.I adored being in the restaurant industry, but one thing that I wish that I did. I would never take our journey back. I would never change anything. But if you did ask me what is one thing that I wish I would have done is I would have from the beginning, explored all the different avenues that I could pursue within the food industry.Because while we had the restaurant, not only were we operating as a restaurant, but we were also doing popups at the same time. We were also doing catering at the same time. But I didn’t explore everything and I think things might have been clearer for me if I really sat down and thought about it instead of just let things come to me and realize, oh, there’s, a street fair in front of our restaurant every year people pop up. We could do that too in different locations. And then I thought those things after seeing what other people were doing, I didn’t do research and so. All is still meant to be, and here we are in the CPG industry and I’m so grateful that we’ve been able to pivot and see what this part of the industry has to offer to us.Thank you so much for your time. I hope you enjoyed this audio edition, and if you did, please share it with a friend for the full Monday musings experience. Subscribe to my [email protected]. Until next time, remember, you are a blessing and I’m so grateful you’re here. Bye friends. Get full access to Kissa - the Notion Mama at justkissa.substack.com/subscribe