Anabel Carrasquel Episode #4 Dream big and the power of mindset in building a small business.

Intro: Forked podcast welcomes Anabel Carrasquel, owner and creator of the brand ChuchayBanana. 

00:01:00 Anabel is in fact my wife and my intention was to always have her as a first interview. Her determination to always work through major life obstacles makes her a perfect guest for Forked podcast. Holding a full time corporate job, going to the gym, and building her start up business has made sitting down with her quite a challenge. 

00:02:00 I’m anxious to share the valuable information for people who may be contemplating starting a small business, or are in the beginning of their journey as a business owner. I thought, who better than to sit down with than someone who is in the early start of seeing their efforts start to take flight? Chuchaybanana is definitely getting off the ground and this makes for very exciting times for an entrepreneur. 

00:03:00 We kick off by trying to make the case that we can have busy lives but still start a new business project. Anabel holds a management position in an insurance company that takes a great deal of her productive hours in a given day. 

Anabel shares how she discovered her initial interest in creating beautiful bracelets and her initial curiosity into starting her small business. 

00:05:30  We discuss the origins of the unique name; Chuchaybanana. It stems from an early nick name that was given to Anabel and her close friend. They liked to sew and create clothing together, and Anabel’s sister would jokingly call them Chuchaybanana, as a play on the brand name, Dolce & Gabbana. The name just stuck and she kept the name. 

00:06:30 Anabel tells us that she never really though of this as a real business. It started more as a curiosity do develop a new hobby. From the curiosity of the hobby, she began to do more research into creating high quality bracelets. What started as a seemingly simple process, she became more aware of the complexity. The beads, elastics, connectors, glue, and charms; all had unique properties that needed to be understood in order to create a high quality affordable finished product. 

00:07:30 The start of the actual process of selling her product started from people seeing her bracelets in the work place and among friends. Its origins really were from word of mouth and direct contact. The niche started to reveal itself as people were seeking more custom designs. 

00:09:00 From the fun and love of just creating bracelets that people adored, Anabel began to think of how she could share the happiness that her creations were bringing to her life. As a Venezuelan immigrant, she came up with the idea to share the joy with children back in her country. The first event was a fun day at the pool with lunch and ice cream. They were children who never have access to clubs with pools. The second event was to provide a fun day with soup and delicious sandwiches on the last day of school. The events became Anabel’s fuel to grow the business, so that she could continue to help the young underprivileged children.

00:12:00 we discuss the importance of putting your energy into your passion. Things that we love to do will help us to weather the storms and frustrations that can come with starting a business. When you are truly passionate about what you are doing, you will always find the time to do what is necessary. Working on your business after you work on your job. Many times we have to put other things that we may want to do aside so that we can work on our business.  The conversation moves toward the importance of small daily disciplines that are key in growing ourselves and mindset for business. 

00:19:00 Anabel gives some advice to people who may be thinking about staring a small business. First, we need to find something we really like. This can only be discovered by trying something new. You have to get out of habitual patters. Get out there and see if people like what you have, so much, that they are ready to pay for it. We always need to dream and see a better future for ourselves. Anabel, as a first generation immigrant, came to Canada, not speaking both English or French. She goes on to explain how it is very important for immigrants to integrate into the culture of the country they immigrate to, in order to open more potential for opportunity. 

00:22:30 Anabel talks about the importance of always being in expansion mode. Always be growing and do things that encourage personal development. Try to use time efficiently. She raises a very valid point that if our start up process is not yielding money, we absolutely must work in some sort of job to make the money to support us while we are trying to grow. We have to do some things that we may not want to do while we are working on our dreams. 

( Here is an excellent article from Forbes that covers much of what Anabel is sharing from her experience.)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikekappel/2017/07/12/10-tips-for-starting-a-small-business-that-you-havent-heard-a-thousand-times-already/#61571bbb6e19

00:25:30 By reinvesting small profits back into Chuchaybanana, Anabel has been able to have higher profitability to the point that she is now able to say she can take some of those profits as earnings. 

Anabel shares her personal development practices with us. She is focusing on studying “Think and grow rich”. She as well, follows the coaching of Bob Proctor. In the past 30 days she has been highly disciplined with the daily rituals encouraged from the methods of Bob Proctor and Napoleon Hill’s, Think and grow rich. She has always been fairly disciplined but has remarked that in order to get to the next level, she must build superior discipline for great daily practices.

00:29:00 We go more into depth of daily rituals of starting with the basics. Going to the gym, morning meditation, and focusing on mindset. We have to walk before we can run. The things we do when no one is watching are deeply important. 

Here is how to reach Anabel:

Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/chuchaybanana/?epa=SEARCH_BOX

Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/chuchaybanana/

Website https://www.chuchaybanana.com