When we see what makes a person succeed in life, it starts with a vision. Some people call it a dream, and then followed by a plan. If I look at how Gilas has achieved its success, it started with one person’s vision to unite basketball leadership and come up with a strategy. And that is Manuel V. Pangilinan’s vision for Philippine basketball team.

When he supported Gilas, it served as “one simple and small step forward after so many years of neglect, stupor and worse, resignation to our fate as a basketball doormat because of our size.” While I agree that Filipinos will always have limitation due to height, it is so difficult to abandon this sport which is loved and played by so many Filipinos, even Manny Pacquiao. MVP has proven that the Philippines can dream big and will do the best we can in order to achieve it. We should all continue to strive to become a better nation through our different advocacies for nation building. And that is what we are doing in Go Negosyo through the different summits and programs.

That is why we were fortunate to spread the entrepreneurship advocacy in Cebu last week. The forum was filled with inspiration, idea generation, and knowledge enrichment. The brief thunderstorm and flash flood in Cebu last Thursday night did not dampen the spirits of the Cebuano SMEs who joined the dinner forum. Everyone listened and dialogued with the panelists led by Sen. Bam Aquino, myself, Johnlu Koa, DHL country head Yati Abdullah, Josiah Go, and top Cebuano entrepreneurs Jay Aldeguer, Justin Uy, Kenneth Cobonpue, and Manny Osmeña.

Cebu City mayor Mike Rama gave an inspiring message and led the group in recognizing the selected Inspiring Young Cebuano Entrepreneurs. Partners from Smart Communications, James Bernas, and PLDT SME Nation’s Gabby Cui flew all the way from Manila to join their SME communities in the event. We thank them, together with DTI regional director Asteria Caberte and our partners from the Mandaue Chamber, Jerry Roa, Wilson Ng and Cebu Chamber’s Tess Chan.

The following day was the Creativity and Innovation Summit which was well-attended. This shows that more and more Filipinos nowadays want to take control of their destiny and move up in life.

Bam gave a very informative and enriching keynote presentation, as he cited innovative approaches to entrepreneurship and economic freedom shown by the R2R stories of Reese Fernandez Ruiz and the Kalasag Farmers from Nueva Ecija.

For my part, I said that,” Go Negosyo helps anyone who want to reach their dream”. I know that out of the thousands of people attending our session, there will be those who will be encouraged and transformed to be more enterprising in life and become fulfilled.

Every entrepreneur faces challenges. I experienced some myself. If one has the passion and the knowhow, it will “keep them going, even when the going gets tough”. Our marketing guru Josiah Go discussed how BIDA or barriers, irritants, disappointments and annoyances are sources of market opportunities can transform ordinary ideas into innovative ones.

During the summit, we heard countless cheers for Kenneth Cobonpue. He amazed everyone as he showed his marvelous designs and what inspired him. His source of inspiration were from simple objects as he finds beauty in everything. He is truly creative and innovative.

We were also grateful to have Maria Ressa, who flew to Cebu just to speak in the summit. I am sure a lot of the students who were present were amazed as to how Rappler creatively changed the world of social media and news reporting. She is now harnessing those strengths to develop crowd sourcing and big data as base for her business model.

One of Go Negosyo’s pioneers, Jay Aldeguer, wowed the crowd with his creativity when he started with Islands Souvenirs and how he leveraged the brand into a broader range of related business. A lot of innovation-filled discussions benefitted the participants as panelist like Justin Uy, Johnlu Koa, Yati Abdullah, Bunny Pages, Rey Calooy and previous Cebuano awardees Jan Rodriguez and Wesley Chiongbian joined in. This year’s awardees such as Koh Onozawa, Lorenz Florendo and Ruben Ybanez shared their knowledge and gave advice to the crowd.

All must be innovative, because like what one of our awardees, Lorenz Florendo, said, “It is more expensive not to innovate”. One must think out and beyond the box. Offer what others cannot, and soon you will be the game changer in the market.

And that is why we at Go Negosyo will never stop in our advocacy for entrepreneurship. We will continue to promote a creative and innovative-oriented idea-based entrepreneurial mindset.

Growth will never stop unless one stops learning. I advise everyone to continue their quest for knowledge not only in entrepreneurship, but in everything that they do and for sure, success will follow.