Today, some students from the entrepreneurship class 1412 came to my phở restaurant to experience being its owner and serving customers for a session, engaging with customers and experiencing a simple but highly effective management approach with a customer-friendly sales method.
After the experiential session, I promised to answer all your questions fully. I kept thinking about how to respond in a way that both helps you understand and offers advice on your entrepreneurial journey, so you can nurture sufficiently big dreams, equipped with knowledge and breakthrough thinking for success.
Starting today, I will write a little about my life each day and send it to YUP. If you find it useful, YUP, please share it with everyone on my behalf. This is all a phở seller like me can do to help you. If you think it is unnecessary and unhelpful, I will close it and keep it to myself, so I do not waste your time!
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REFLECTIONS OF A PHỞ SELLER
(OVERCOME FEAR TO CONQUER YOURSELF)
Has anyone else suddenly lost everything and faced the prospect of begging, as I did? Nearly 20 years ago, I lived through such incredibly difficult days. After the shock, my husband fell into depression. I alone faced countless hardships: a son only 5 years old, another child in my womb and an ill husband. I did not know how to live with a mountain of debt; even selling our house had not paid it all off. I was alone and adrift in Saigon, while all our relatives on both sides lived in the North. It was hard to ask acquaintances nearby for help when I had lost absolutely everything. I lay without eating, drinking only water for 3 days, thinking about the life I faced. This later seriously affected my unborn child. Severely weakened, I weighed only 36 kg. The doctor advised me to terminate the pregnancy, but I loved my child and felt too guilty to do it.
After 3 days exhausted and weak from hunger, I decided to quit my job and find a way to save my family from starvation, because I thought I could not collapse as my husband had. I do not know where I found so much strength to get up and do a job I had never imagined someone like me would have to do to keep my family alive. Do you know what I did? I decided to sell food on the street. That was an extremely difficult decision for someone like me. But looking back now, I believe it was the right thing for my circumstances then.
Now, after a long time working painstakingly to earn money to repay my debts, I have cleared them all and begun a journey to recover the assets I lost. Today, for some reason, I want to share everything I have kept deep in my heart, along with all the hardship, so everyone can know. I do not want pity. I only hope that those who fall into circumstances like mine will not despair, but bravely stand up and move forward. Along the way, try your hardest to do every job well, even the smallest, and the path will open for us. Do not retreat before difficulties; face them and find solutions. If you are in circumstances like mine, listen to these reflections on my journey to recover lost assets and what I plan to do next, and you will gain strength and confidence in yourself.
If you want to hear the reflections of a phở seller like me, each day I will share part of my life and my journey to find an unconventional way to sell phở. Customers now embrace and greatly enjoy many phở dishes flavored with readily available herbs you use daily. The cooking method is extremely simple, easier than preparing soup for a family meal. I want to build a phở restaurant with a distinctive character in my own way, unlike any formal method taught at universities. I like doing what I enjoy; even if others call it crazy, if I think it is right, I still do it. Do you know why? I have not studied as much as you, so my knowledge may be less, but I always know how to turn complex things into simple ones and carry them out easily.
I only hope you do not die from knowing too much. Because I lack so much knowledge, I truly hope for everyone's help.
Is anyone willing to help me?
I am not advising you to sell phở as I do. Do what you love, rather than what you feel forced to do!
The irony is that a Vietnamese person like me sells a traditional Vietnamese dish, but the person guiding me is a Japanese teacher. I am very grateful to him!
That is enough sharing for today. Anyone who wants to hear more can contact this email: mhtdung@yahoo.com.vn. Or call me: 0962848465, my Facebook: Dung Mai.
Phở restaurant address: 32/3 Nguyễn Huy Lượng, Ward 14, Bình Thạnh District, Ho Chi Minh City.
Thank you, everyone!
Wishing the YUP family a new year filled with fresh, breakthrough thinking!
