Conversations: Elaine Tan Comeau
I am a former school teacher who happened to create a multiple award winning product solution to help individuals have smoother and easier days called Easy Daysies®. I am honoured and humbled to have this opportunity to make products that help households and classrooms across North America and around the world. I am also so very honoured to be able to come along side other women and moms in their entrepreneurial journey as the Mompreneur Canada Ambassador and Chapter Owner for Vancouver & Greater Vancouver Chapter. I love reaching out to women entrepreneurs and sharing the wisdom of others who are leading the way on my podcast found on iTunes called, Elaine’s Kitchen Table… the Business of Real Life, too! Raising children and businesses require a support system and tribe greater than oneself. I feel honoured and blessed to have the opportunity to contribute to both.
I am honoured that Easy Daysies® continues to make a difference in people's lives and be recommended by name by speech & language pathologists, occupational therapists, and child psychologists to help children and individuals with special needs and anxiety. And now home care nurses working with adults with memory loss are recommending Easy Daysies too.
Easy Daysies® was created with the goal of helping children have easier days and I am truly blessed and honoured to have created something that is helping to improve the quality of life for children and families with children or adults with special needs. What keeps me working at the kitchen table until 3 or 4AM are the e-mails and messages I receive from families and health care providers. Parents are kindly taking time to share with me how their child with Autism (ASD), their non-verbal developmentally delayed child, their child with ADHD, anxiety, and foster children, are succeeding in their day because of Easy Daysies. My heart is full of appreciation and humility. When I read that a mom with three children, all with autism, under the age of 7 is so happy because Easy Daysies helps her not to have to talk talk talk all day long anymore because of the visual communication Easy Daysies is providing for their family, I know Easy Daysies is helping. When I read an e-mail from a Foster Parent sharing that Easy Daysies has taken away the anxiety and insecurity in their home because their kids now feel safe and calm because they can see and know what is happening when life is so unpredictable for them, I know Easy Daysies is helping.
When doing business, trust your gut. I have learned the hard way that business decisions should be guided by your gut and not by your heart. Let your gut lead, let your mind direct, and always be kind with a sincere heart. To quote one of my mentors and Dragons’ Den partners, Jim Treliving, “I make decisions about work with my heart, about money with my head, and about people with my gut. ... I like to listen to my gut when it comes to hiring and partnering.”
The future is full of potential – make sure to approach it with boldness and kindness.
Life is about stepping forward into the unknown, knowing that all things are possible as long as you try.
Photos by Anthony Goto
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