To my “Dream Team,”

Happy New Year, everyone! As we close the door of 2016 and welcome 2017, today is an excellent time for reflection. What did we accomplish as a team? What journey did we take to get to where we are at?What are our plans for an exciting and fruitful 2017?

I am thankful for everyone in our team. I appreciate each of you and everything you bring in. I know we would not be where we are without your contributions and hard work.

Last year was a year of challenges, transition, and growth. At the beginning of last year, we transitioned from Elance to Upwork. We were hesitant to move platforms, but we knew it was inevitable. We are still in the process of building our name in Upwork, but we are on the right track. Clients who moved with us from Elance are still with us. New clients outside Upwork were also added.

Kate who worked so hard for the last couple of years moved up to a new position as the Assistant Office Manager. Her management training had been slow because of all the unforeseen changes in the office, but we are hopeful that this year, with all the additional support we have, we would be able to fully train and transition her.

The year 2016 was a very challenging year (to say the least.)  With all the delays in construction, problems with the builder, turn- overs, hiring and termination of workers, setting up of the new office, ending years worth of project, losing customers, starting of new projects and relationships—we were still able to gracefully overcome the challenges that were thrown our way. From a small office that could only accommodate eight workers per shift, we were able to build a bigger one that now can accommodate up to thirty. With prayers, sacrifices, long hours of hard work, flexibility, patience, and resilience, we were able to put together our dream team and make our dream office a reality. We welcomed Jacky, Mari, Jeanette, Josef, Dona, Ryan, and Jordan under the administrative assistance team. Maria joined the management team and started assisting with recruitment and HR.  Philip’s expertise in bookkeeping and accounting helped our team handle more tasks from clients by providing us training and sharing his best practices.

With a more solid management team in place and with the help of our awesome VA team, we are ready to make bigger strides in improving our service offerings, growing our existing customers, and expanding our client and worker rosters.  We have earned an excellent reputation as a trusted partner to our clients. We want our reputation for excellence to extend to other areas within our customer community. In a nutshell, that is our goal for 2017.

Because of the efforts of our amazing team, we not only survived the challenges of 2016, we succeeded.  We want 2017 to be even more successful for the company and you.  It is an unbelievable feeling to know that when I talk to existing and potential clients, it is hard for me not to oversell the competency and commitment of my team.

The Help is committed to making its team members’ situation better. As our company continues to grow and flourish, we promise to provide you with more opportunities and benefits. You are the reason behind our success, thank you for all you do.

Sincerely,

Astrid 

P.S.

For those who work from home, here are photos of our new office. Visit us soon!

Time is a limited resource and we are often told to use it wisely. Being able to manage time is one of the skills that highly productive people have (almost) perfected. As part of the series of “building super habits,” we will talk about the building the skill of prioritization. To prioritize means to rank in order of importance. But how do you know which tasks are important when everything has a post it or a glaring red neon sign that says “me first!”

Here’s a secret, not everything is of equal importance. If you sit down and take the time to think about your tasks, you would clearly see that there are things you can put off for later as opposed to pressing matters that you must attend to…like 15 minutes ago. The key is to spot those urgent tasks from your growing pool of things to do.

If you remember only one thing from Steven Covey’s book “Seven Habits of highly Effective People,” let it be this:

This is the famous Covey Quadrant, a guide to effectively prioritizing tasks. If you can spend time putting your tasks into the proper quadrants, then half the battle has been won.

The first quadrant is where you put your absolute must-dos. Passing an article whose deadline was 5mins ago? Taking care of revisions go into that quadrant.

The second quadrant aligns your goals to what you hope to accomplish by the end of a given timeframe. Preparing reports for end of the month go into this quadrant.

The third quadrant is also called the “deception” quadrant where the tasks you mistakenly thought were important because people have been bugging you to do it fall into. These are distractions. You must learn to say no to these unless they are absolutely necessary. The blinking notification light on your phone is a perfect example of things that fall into this quadrant.

Quadrant four is where all the time wasters fall. You’ve been thinking of checking out that cool new Thai place for a while now. And though it may be one of your life goals to try new cuisine, this task is neither urgent nor important for now. Try to find out as many of these time wasters as you can and put them all in this quadrant. What you are left with will simplify your prioritization process and leave you with a list of only the essential tasks.

Don’t be running around like a headless chicken. Using this quadrant will give you direction and structure. After you’ve listed your tasks and placed them in their proper quadrants, you will find that you have successfully gotten your life back and your time under control. All the important things should come into view, and you’d a have a clearer handle on which tasks to tackle first and what projects to work on for later.

With practice, you can master the skill of prioritization. Do you have a technique for strengthening your prioritization skills? Let us know in the comments! Remember always stay humble, hustle hard!

Written by Jaie O.- The Help

Are you ready for the Holidays? Do you have all your gifts wrapped and ready to go for Christmas day? Is your calendar filled with invitations to reunions, get-togethers, and office parties? Have you already planned your menu for Christmas Dinner?

With all the gifts, festivities, and food going on during the holidays, it might be easy to lose sight of the reason for the season. Let us always remember that Christmas is about sharing, giving, and being thankful for all that we receive, both the blessings and the challenges: thankful for being able to share our blessings, and thankful for being able to overcome the challenges that life throws our way.

2016 has been (quite arguably) a very “colorful” year, so to speak. And to say that news outlets and social media feeds are filled with stories that are shocking is an understatement.

Let’s look beyond the din of bleak news and dreary forecasts. The only way for us to fight hopelessness is to be the hope we expect in others. Here at The Help, we are all about service. Not only are we committed to providing excellent service to our clients but we are also committed to giving back to our community.

We are a cheerful bunch of busy bees, and we love to share that positive outlook with others. Over the past few years, we have been involved in many outreach programs and community service. Today, we share a few of the programs that we were lucky enough to have been a part of over the years.

In November of 2013, one of the most devastating typhoons ever recorded in history hit Southeast Asia, with the most damage done to the Philippines killing more than 10,000 people and causing an estimated $2.8B in damages.

The first ever outreach program of The Help was born in December of 2013, where we organized a gift giving and Christmas program for the less fortunate of our fellow typhoon survivors. We all lost something that fateful day but sharing what we have with others has given us so much more in return.

With our pooled resources, we were able to put together Christmas Baskets for more than 50 families. We shared food, stories, and laughter. This was just the beginning. The Help has been continuing the tradition of service ever since.

Here are a few pictures of the Christmas Haiyan outreach 2013:

Basic Household and Kitchen Supplies

School supplies for the children

Non-perishable goods

School supplies for the children

Prayer

Breaking of bread

Haiyan survivors sharing their sad stories and their loss

Dinner with Haiyan Survivors

A picture of "HOPE" in the midst of Loss

The father in this photo just got discharged from the hospital.

Dinner

Game

Distribution of Gifts

Haiyan Survivors and The Help Team

In Dec of 2014, we shared a meal, laughter, and gifts with the kids of InJoy Life Children’s Home.

The year 2015 saw more outreach programs with a total of 6 spread over July and December. Some of our beneficiaries were:

• Mangas Elementary School
• Little Angels Home, Inc. (LAHI FOUNDATION)
• Mother Teresa Spinelli’s Treasures
• Bahay San Rafael Home for Special Children
• San Jose Bahay Kalinga (Home for the Aged)

This year has been a busy year for the whole team, but we managed to put together two outreach programs for the year. The Help teamed up with three medical doctors (Dr. Canuto, Dr. Ordonez, Dr. Gellido) and went back to Little Angels Home in July. Medical check-ups were given to more than 50 individuals in the orphanage. Children and adults living in the facility were also provided with free vitamins, first-aid and medical supplies. Just like last year,  our team shared a meal with everyone and even played fun games together.

The last program of the year just recently concluded on Dec 12th. We had the opportunity to feed one hundred- forty students, provide essential personal hygiene items, and gift each of their family a Christmas dinner.  

Our beneficiaries this year are:

• Little Angels Home, Inc. (LAHI FOUNDATION)
• Alfonso Central School (SpEd, K-6th)

Thank you for being part of The Help and for trusting us with your business over the years. May you always have blessings to share, dreams to realize, and relationships to build. We hope you have had a good year. May this coming year be another chance to create great memories. May you have a stellar Christmas and a bright New Year.

Love,

From all of us at The Help

My friend, we’ll call him Billy (to protect his privacy), plays golf…a lot! He’s out on the fairway every weekend, if his schedule permits. But Billy is also a very busy man. As with everyone else who works for intelligence and security, Billy is on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week. He wishes to have more time to practice golf.

Now, Billy is in no way a golf newbie. He’s actually one of the best in his company. So he gets invited to play at this tournament to raise awareness for a cause. The winners get to bag trophies, some cash, and a lot of bragging rights. Billy is up against top golfers but guess what…Billy bags the top prize.

Billy lives in an apartment and doesn’t get to practice as often as he would like, yet he still bags the top prize. His secret? Visualization.

It’s not a fluke, he practices visualization all the time. I’ve watched as he shot a 5 under to win the tournament and he has had 2 hole-in-ones this year alone. He says it’s all about practice as well as mental preparation through visualization techniques.

I know it’s hard to believe but top athletes, musicians, performers, public speakers, and sales executives use this technique all the time. In fact, Tiger Woods and Michael Phelps have been reported to use visualization to mentally prepare for their games. If it worked for them, it wouldn’t hurt to try it out.

Aside from preparing physically to achieve our goals, it makes a lot of sense to prepare our minds as well. After all, what could go wrong with envisioning achieving success? Nothing. We could only expect good things, of course.

As part of our “Building SUPER Habits” series, here are some tips on developing the habit of Visualization. So how do we begin?

Mental Images:

This exercise teaches you to flex those imagination muscles. Practice by looking at a pleasant image or scenery. Then close your eyes. You have to re-create the entire scene by remembering every bit of detail that you can. What were the items, how many, what were their colors, how was the light? Can’t remember all the details? Open your eyes and look again. Be more deliberate this time.

Psych yourself up:

A study done on January of 2014 by the National Strength and Conditioning Association on 16 male sprinters reports the beneficial effects of “psyching up” to improve sprint performance. The study “used arousal to get athletes excited to race, which helped them visualize success.” So get excited and find purpose. Psych yourself up. The positive energy will help you visualize success. Imagine yourself as a superstar and actions will follow thoughts.

Practiced emotions:

I know this one is hard. You can’t practice how you react to a certain scenario. But the trick here is to pay attention to how you feel when you’re visualizing a scene. If your goal is to close out a sale and you’re preparing to deliver a pitch to someone you know is skeptical, imagine yourself as being calm and competent. Imagine being able to address their concerns and answer their question and proceed to make preparations. If you keep visualizing a calm and competent demeanor, you are likely to have the same demeanor in real life.

Do you have other visualization tips that worked for you? Share them with us! Stay humble, hustle hard!

Written by Jaie O.- The Help