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Today I went to meet Andrea, a 29 years-old girl, who´s the founder of MINTEYES BRAND- an urban-style t-shirt brand, and also a mother of 2 kids --a girl of 1 year and a half and a baby is about to be born in 3 months.
We knew each other on Instagram and at that moment even though we haven´t met in person, I could suddenly feel her energy and she´s just such an accessible person! It is the second time for a meeting and she´s still as energetic as always despite her pregnancy. I just enjoy chatting with her, in such an effortless way.
M: Me
A: Andrea
M: How do you feel like being a mother? Is that magic for you?
A: You know every time when you see how she hugs you and kisses you and in the morning she crawls to your bed and kisses you, you think everything is worth it. It´s a kinda...magic. You know, no matter how many times you have been told about the pregnancy, you will never feel it until it really happens. It´s the most beautiful thing.
M: You are the founder of MINTEYES BRAND, tell me a bit about it.
A: MINTEYES BRAND was born to dress women in an effortless street style. I started to design T-shirts that are cool, and special but at the same time can be easily combined with everything. The inspiration comes from Asian culture or movies, or...simply avocado haha.
M: How do you carry your personal life with all this process of entrepreneurship?
A: I started my brand when I had my first baby, and I realized there should be a priority. Finally, there´s always something more important than working, for example being a good mother. There´s no rush, you can still wait until you finish this important journey. But I´m still a very hard-working mother :)
M: How do you get rid of stress?
A: Wine! Definitely! I love drinking wine, with my husband. We can chat and laugh while drinking, it just feels so good! Oh, how I miss it so badly!
M: We will certainly have a drink together after 3 months!
Cristina was the first woman that came up to my mind at the beginning when I decided to start this "Mom chat". She used to be my mentor when I had my FBA at the university. I would say that so many important decisions that I could make thanks to her help.
After 50 years old´s journey and being a mom of two boys, one with 20 years old and another 15, she realized how important is the company with her children.
M: Me
C: Cristina
M: Cristina, you were my mentor and I know you have had so much experience. Tell me about it.
C: Definitely Yunyin. From 23 to 50, during this 17 years career, my life has had so many changes. I have been working in banking, in BBVA then I jumped to the jewelry sector. I think those years in SUAREZ have also facilitated my entrepreneurship journey. Now I´m with my own project CONJOYASALOLOCO at the same time combining some mentoring sessions at the university.
M: I just wanna say you are a super mom! I have no kid but only with YUNYINROSE, in spite of it, I still feel so overwhelmed sometimes surrounded by so many things and so many decisions that need to be done. I can hardly imagine how did you manage to deal with different issues, especially since you still have 2 boys.
C: At the moment of my maternity, I applied to work fewer hours so that I could take care of my family and my kids. I usually worked from 8 to 15. Working fewer hours doesn´t mean working less but more efficiently. I would say that now I´m much better than before since I can easily manage my own schedule.
M: You are right, the trick is knowing how to organize your time and everything would be much easier.
M: But how to balance your work with your family?
C: Well, actually I used to work a lot and many times I neglected so many moments to be with my children. Now I would rather split more time with my family. Eventually balancing your personal and professional life has never been easy. We are still learning on the road.
M: I´m curious about CONJOYASALOLOCO, how did everything happen and what´s the real value behind it?
C: Nowadays we are more and more aware of reusing and recycling. Buying less but something with real value is way more important. That´s the first idea of how I started this project. As I said, thanks to my former experience in the jewelry sector, I could have a large collection of real and nice pieces which allows me to form this club of jewelry, to get together those stylish women with certain demands.
M: This is just interesting!