Showing posts with label valentine day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label valentine day. Show all posts

Friday, February 8, 2008

Don’t Give Me a Fish on Valentine’s Day

My Valentine Present
Have you ever heard people saying “Please don’t give me a fish today, because I will only eat fish one day; but teach me how to fish, so I can eat fish everyday”

The very first time I heard about that was on university, someday my lecturer just teach us that philosophy. It’s very interesting and sounds so true to me, that’s why I memorize it until today.

Okay, back to our topic. Are you going to give your love ones present on Valentine’s Day? Or maybe you were asked what do you want for present?

If you still don’t decide any present yet, let me give you some suggestions. How about if you teach your spouse, kids, family to fish on Valentine’s day? And you don’t even have to bring them to the river, lake, or even sea that they may don’t like.

Let me bring the idea closer to you, imagine if your kids grow smarter, your spouse become wiser, nicer and more self confidence on themselves. Doesn’t it beautiful?

What you’d better do is just to stimulate them (teach them how to fish). I will give you example to make it simpler.

Your wife maybe has a dream on having a home based business, she like to cook and can cook very well. So what can you do? There’s a lot you can do, you can give her a ticket to have a cooking course, so she can cook professionally, or give her ticket to attend home business seminar that may teach her how to build and manage a home business.

And if your husband like to gardening on weekend; you can give him a new invented gardening tool. But don’t stop there, ask him to improve his skill and talk about the possibility to sell some of his flowers & plants to neighbors. Not only your husband could have fun, but there will be extra income for the family. Even if you don’t want to sell plants, you could give it as a gift for friend who is moving home, having birthday, etc, so you don’t need to spend money on buy a present. It must be a special gift, I will be more than happy if my friend gives me his own breed plant, it’s more than a gift, it is attention.

For your kids who must like to play or to read, give something they need and can help them develop better. You could give puzzle to challenge their brain, after they finish the puzzle, put it on frame and hang it on their bedroom or even your living room. They must be proud of it; and you know such thing can boost their self confidence also at the same time.

Hmmm…. Talking about parents may a little bit difficult, what can we give them? Maybe a full day just to be with them? Sure why not? You may be busy almost everyday, so they will appreciate your effort to spend your time with them, both of you can have a really good time together.

And talking about ‘fishing’ with parent, maybe you can give them some tools or anything that can help their daily activity. If your mom like cooking, why don’t you give her a slow cooker, so she can cook and doing household at the same time. And believe me, a slow cooker can cook very well itself (My mom often use it when she is too busy to cook).

Buy your dad a table lamp; I think he will like it. Usually old people like to read but they don’t have good visibility, a good lamp will help them.

You could give anything to your love ones, but it must be better idea if you could give them something that not only bring joy, but can add a value added to their life. It’s love, attention, and a gift at the same time.

You don’t need to buy an expensive present; price is worthless comparing with love, attention and sincerity.

Let your love ones know how much you love them today, don’t wait until tomorrow for you don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Earning Money on Valentine’s Day. Why not?

Beside the spirit of love, don’t you think that it’s a good idea to put a little pocket money during Valentine’s day? I mean, you can earn some pocket money for your piggy bank. Don’t you think so?

Looks around, I think many people including you might go shop around for flowers, chocolates, gifts, anything to surprise their love ones. Don’t you think it could be a chance for you to earn money?

Okay, let me give you a little idea about how you could make money. What you have to do is fulfill the demand of those shoppers around you.

To be more specific, I will give some steps:
  1. Find an idea. Meaning, such as you have a friend who has flower shop and he could give you some discount, or you can make chocolate based on your grandmother’s old recipe (you could name it Chocolate of Love, if you want) or anything else you can do that work on Valentine’s day.
  2. Is it enough? Well not yet, a plain idea won’t bring you anything. Do some research, whether there’s any market for your product. And don’t forget to look around for your competitors (this is also important to make your product unique, different from them).
  3. After those brainstorming, you could decide what do you going to sell. You could sell product or services (maybe nanny service, during Valentine’s day, why not?
  4. Make a packaging, it can make your product unique (everybody could make chocolate, but maybe you package your chocolate in a bouquet together with a rose and not only that you offer a romantic delivery service). And make a fair affordable price (nowadays as we all realize, economics is getting harder that make people more careful on their spending, why should pay more if you could pay less?)
  5. Promote your products or services, make brochures (and make samples if needed, so people sure about what kind of chocolate they are going to give to their love ones)
  6. And after you sell those things, please don’t forget to make a follow up, ask them whether they are satisfied with your services. This is important, you could build your customer list and offer them your service on another occasions (Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc).

I believe there will be more you can do except that simple steps, what you need only creativity. And if you feel you can not do those business things alone, you could consider working together with your friend, and share the profit with him. Everything is possible, where is a will, there is a way.

Valentine is Getting Closer

Time runs fast, without our notice Valentine’s day getting closer. Not more than 2 weeks the world will be talking about Valentine, especially teenagers and youngsters.

Valentine is about love, about giving. You can give attentions, gifts, nice surprises, whatever more than usual to your spouse, family, friends, whoever around you, even to strangers.

The spirit of Valentine is what we should bring everyday, not only once a year. Imagine if everyday of your life is full with love, no envy, hate, or any negative feeling, I believe the world would be just beautiful.

So please, take time to think what do you going to do on this Valentine, make it just different from before. You don’t have to change the world, but you can try to make your day brighter, and put smile on others.