Herminia Monica Cain

You know you can do it.

It’s never too late to learn something new.

(Excerpt from an interview with Judy Lee Chen Sang , Author, Entrepreneur and Performance Coach for Landmark Worldwide)
California, USA

The roots of who I am has been nurtured by my relationship with my mom. My mom was kind. She was loyal. She was a listener. She was patient. She was generous. She was loving. Those are all qualities that inspire me to this day.

My mom grew up humbly in Panama with her mother and brother. She didn't have a relationship with her father. As far as good work ethics, she developed this early on. My grandmother was a hairdresser, and my mom grew up helping make women’s hair look good before they went to work. The clients would come in very early, and my mom’s job was to wash their hair. After that’s done, mom makes breakfast and then go to school. She’d come home and help my grandmother finish up with the clients, do homework and take care of her brother. Mom knew and valued the importance of hard work. On top of that, Mom was naturally a caregiver, nurturer and she loved helping people.

As I reflect on her influence on me, I truly see her in all aspects of my life. My love for people, my patience, my loyalty and my determination comes from her. I have great friends from kindergarten that are still close to me 40, 50 years later. People who I just meet, they call me Mama Bear. I love hugging, and I love people. What I’ve been able to overcome I attribute to my mom’s guidance and belief in me. My siblings and I learned from her the value of working hard, having a “can do” attitude, and strong belief that anything is possible.

One important thing she always said to me growing up was “You know you can do it.” She said this when I was doing my homework, studying for exams, or taking piano lessons. It always felt like she had no doubt I could do anything. These very simple words are the words I held on to when I was going through cancer 6 years ago. I had a double mastectomy. Interestingly enough she passed in July and I had my procedure in August of the same year. The "I can do this” mindset got me through dealing with the impact of cancer in my life. In those moments that I was saying those words to myself, I felt like my was my mom right there beside me. I'll forever treasure that .

My mother grew up in an era where the woman’s place was to make sure the home was taken care of. She did that and more. She was all feminine and loved beautiful things and at the same time, she was resourceful and quite the entrepreneur. She became the backbone of my father's business. They worked together 24/7. She learned new things and nothing was off limits with what she could learn or do. That’s how I understood that “It's never too late to learn something new.” When mom and dad were in Florida, they had an auto part store and a machine shop. Mom learned how to cut the rotor of brakes, change the carburator, all other mechanic work. In her 50s, mom actually lifted an engine block, loaded it on to the truck and delivered it because the client was expecting it. I learned from seeing all that there's nothing that I can't do and no matter what, I can get the job done. She also taught me that being a woman is not an excuse for doing any heavy lifting (literally and figuratively).

I remember taking this advice on when I first became an entrepreneur in 1999. I had just bought a house and then I got laid off from my job as an executive assistant. Then I broke my ankle and couldn't work. That was stressful. And one day my mom surprises me by telling me that I have a cake order to fulfill. I was shocked and didn’t understand what she was talking about! Apparently she went to the school and announced I made custom cakes and got me my first cake order. And my first cake order had to be a shape of a violin because the client’s father was a famous violinist from Iran. That launched my cake business. I started making cakes even with a broken ankle, crutches on. I made cakes for companies and some famous people, then it expanded into cookie business and we were shipping all over North America. In that moment, I learned and adapted and not let circumstance stop me. And that's a prime example of what my life is like now. Nothing stops me and I learned all this from my mom.