For my 4th entry of this personal story series, I'll let you in on one of our team routines every Monday.

We call it “COVID Watch” where we update each other on the state of COVID in the Philippines. 
 
No news is good news most of the time, and we are quite lucky, because in our small team only a couple of team members got afflicted, and we were always quick enough to take action.

We didn’t reach a point where we had to stop operations because our entire team had COVID. We were healthy in general, though of course we also felt stretched, we felt body-tired and exhausted, we felt all the languish. 

We’ve been watching out for each other this entire time. 
 
We talk about issues and challenges, we’ve normalized that. But of course, we still talk about our purpose, our vision, our goals, and our dreams. 
 
I think this is why we ended 2020 on quite a high. We took the challenges head-on, and through our conversations, we created courage to still have that desire to win.
 
At this time last year, I remember we were almost sold out on our planner products. Physical retail was our bread and butter, but we were unfazed as we adapted to e-commerce, which of course had its own challenges.
 
We made it through many transitions–not just from retail to e-commerce, but from doing on-ground events to having it all online, from seeing each other daily in the office to having all our meetings digitally, from doing business the way we knew to making space for growth and learning in the uncertainty of it all. 
 
The past 2 years have required us to pivot, and we have chosen to do so with courage, and with joy. After all, we remember to ground on purpose: that everything we do empowers people to create lives they love, in spite of, and despite it all. 
 
At the end of the year, we choose to celebrate the hope that remains in each of us, as we begin again. 
 
Let me ask you – what keeps you hopeful in these times? 
 
--Dar