Season 3 - Episode 8 | How Motherhood Ignited My Entrepreneurial Spirit: Truong Ngoc Phung (Vietnam)

Dr. Ramesh catches up with Truong Ngoc Phung, a mother of two and a passionate entrepreneur. Motivated by a desire to become the best mother to her daughters, Phung pursued an entrepreneurial journey in early childhood education.

Phung underscores the importance of embracing crises with acceptance and love, viewing them as opportunities for growth. She also shares her commitment to nurturing an ecosystem that supports Montessori education in Vietnam, promoting interdependence and sustainability.

3 Key Insights from this Podcast:

1. Entrepreneurship Spurred by One's Own Challenges: Phung finds inspiration in her personal challenges to juggle career and motherhood by tapping into her entrepreneurial mindset to found her own business aligned with her passion.
2. Facing Crises with Acceptance: Such an approach can create opportunities for growth and clarity, rather than crises solely being sources of stress.
3. Spirituality Fuels Purpose: Drawing inspiration from spiritual practices, as Phung does with Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings, generates happiness, understanding and love.

Host: Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra, Author, Podcast Host, Founder of Talent Leadership Crucible & Founder of Impact Velocity

Guest Speaker: Ms. Truong Ngoc Phung, Co-founder of The Caterpies and Montessori Center, Vietnam.

Tune in, and together we'll be Thriving in the Age of Disruption. 

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Transcript

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Welcome to the Thriving in the Age of Disruption podcast series, Phung. I'm so excited to be with you here this morning so that we can share your journey.

Perhaps you can start off by introducing yourself to the listeners about yourself personally, your career, and your aspiration. 

Truong Ngoc Phung

My name is Phung. I'm a mom of two daughters. And before I run my own startup in education, I worked in the corporate world for almost eight years. I started my own career following my own passion in education after I had my daughters.

And I'm a fan of nature as well. I love to do things around nature and trying to do as much as possible to reserve the beautiful nature on earth. In the business side, I'm the, one of the co-founder of Vietnam Montessori Center, a Vietnam based organization that is dedicating to developing and nurturing an ecosystem for Montessori education for Vietnamese children. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

That's really comprehensive. And I thought we'll just dive into the first conversation that I wanted to have with you. And it's about the entrepreneurial mindset. I  defineentrepreneurial mindset as one whereby a person is being resourceful in life. It starts off with your ability to look at what's in front of you, whether it's a problem or whether it is a situation.

And you are able to define it accurately because they say that if you can define the situation accurately, then it's at least half solved. And then the second part of having an entrepreneurial mindset is what I call managing risk as well as dealing with uncertainty. And the third part of it is to create value and creating value isn't necessarily financial value, it can be non financial as well.

And it's not just value for yourself, but also value to all your other stakeholders. When we started to look at the entrepreneurial mindset, it was important, not just for someone. To go and start and run a business, but it allows us to be effective in life itself. And I wanted to get your take on entrepreneurial mindset, how you see that pan out and what is the value of that for the next generation as well.

Truong Ngoc Phung

Thank you very much. As you share, I found a lot of similarities with whatever I'm about to share as well. For me, the entrepreneurial mindset can be concise in one word, organic, at least how I am operating with my current organization as well as in life itself. So it's a way of doing business, it's a way of life for me.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

That's really profound, that one word, organic, because it does describe a journey, like you said, a way of life. So whatever that shows up, you're just dealing with it, not like it's bad or it's good or it shouldn't be, it's in that moment, that's all that you can do and you're doing it. 

Truong Ngoc Phung

Yes. And also it's very much a learning journey and unfolding journey.

So every opportunity. We can take it to look deeper into ourselves, to look deeper into the way we running the organization, to look deeper into the way of being parents or the way of being with life itself. I love the organic characteristic of everything. 

And learning is also a very important dimension in life.

Because that's what keeps us relevant and allows us to thrive. So I'm happy that you called out on that. So what was it that had you leave corporate life and take this journey? Is it like you had role models in your life with your parents or relatives? How did you chance upon wanting to start and run a business for yourself?

I just chose to stop the corporate world since I had my daughters. It's just something that pulled me that, okay, this is enough. I need to pause and I want to invest my life being a mom and being with my daughters. And then as I put on the responsibility of being a mom, I realized that I don't know how to do this important work.

It's first time being a mom, I felt myself so inexperienced and especially I didn't enjoy being the mother at that time. I struggle in a lot of challenges and difficulties and then at the same time I want to create the best healthy childhood for my daughters. And I didn't know how because I didn't like my childhood.

So then I started to look into education to learn how to be a mother. And then I got to know about Montessori. And then one thing after another, it led me to being so engaged in this work itself. Now, as a team, we are trying to develop and nurture. An ecosystem for multiple education for Vietnamese children, not only our own children.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Wow. It's interesting because you actually pointed to a very important piece. Most times people become entrepreneurs either because they spot an opportunity, which happens in developed countries. But what is actually more powerful is when you connect to a need. And in your case, it was that journey of being a mom, a better mom, the best possible mom, and how do I do it?

And that journey fueled this passion towards Montessori education. By the way, I've told you before, I was in the first cohort of students who Went through Montessori education in Sri Lanka, where I was born and I grew up. I'd spent my early childhood. It shaped how I looked at life and the creativity that was brought out to the surface because of that early exposure.

So now that you've seen the value of this journey, entrepreneurial mindset, it's almost like you can be organic with anything in life. How do you transfer that to your young girls so that they can also be curious and open and be organic with whatever that they're dealing with? 

Truong Ngoc Phung

I think the only thing that I need to learn as parents is try not to be their obstacle so that they can be as free as possible to be curious about life, be open about life, to go through all kinds of different experiences.

And discover for themselves. Sometimes I think out of love or out of care or out of responsibility or even out of expectation. Parents just become the obstacle for the development of their children. So as long as I've learned to be organic with my daughter. I learned to stop myself being obstacles around them, only provide necessary help when they need, and be there with them, create a safe space for them to grow and to discover.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Excellent. Crisis ready mindset is the second mindset I feel which is very important in today's world. A crisis is a setback or sometimes it can be a failure. And we have different ways in dealing with a crisis. We can either fight, or we can flee, or we can freeze. Really, the key opportunity is for us to be able to deal with a crisis, because that's where we get to create the outcome we want.

So I'm sure in your journey of life, whether personally or professionally, or even in your entrepreneurial journey, you would have met up with a number of setbacks. Now, how have you dealt with these setbacks? And if you can also share with our listeners. What practices that you have done that now support you to actually be effective in dealing with setbacks?

Truong Ngoc Phung

I really love this question. I think I faced with a lot of crisis in my childhood, with my parents, in my work, in my relationship with my husband, my daughters, with my workmates, with my family. Everyone with all aspects of life, through all of those, I discover something really beautiful. And I'm very excited to share this to everyone.

Before the discovery, when I faced with crisis, I felt very depressed because I don't know how to deal with it. And I cannot be with it. I think the non acceptance part to the crisis add a lot to the traumas and the emotional part itself, which make it very difficult. What I discover or learn for myself is that when I'm faced with a crisis, if I can just pause and accept this is the current stage that I'm dealing with emotionally, mentally, financially, or in any aspect.

If it's a crisis, accept it, and then it just creates a space that is safe enough to handle it in a very different way. My approach, or my discovery of handling crisis is like a mother being with a child that needs help. When I faced with crisis, I reminded myself that I need to be a loving mother to myself, provide the motherly energy that is there, that is safe, and provide love to attend to whatever difficulties that I'm dealing with. 

And back from that safe and loving space, I will have more clarity. I have more time to look deeply into the issues that I'm dealing with, and then everything can be unfolded. In time. Obviously, 

taking new actions. Yeah. If you keep taking the new actions, a new reality shows up. Yeah, exactly. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Wow. It reminds me that you and I probably share a common vision because in my soon to be published book about a crisis ready mindset.

I talk about four steps, and step number one is becoming aware that we are in a crisis, acknowledging that. Two is, like you correctly said, it's accepting it, not resisting it. And three is when that acceptance comes and that safety is there, that you've given yourself, having now the courage and confidence to take that next action, because we might have felt that we're not good enough to do anything at that point.

And then if we consistently keep taking that new action, what shows up now is an actualization of a new reality. We've turned that crisis into something beautiful. Great minds think alike. I'm glad that I didn't give you the definition and you actually created that. So it's even more powerful. And when you look at learning how to accept And having your visualization of you being that mother to yourself and surrounding yourself with love and giving you the space, was it from some practice of meditation or what are the practices that you do to ground yourself so that you can consistently use this perspective whenever you're in a crisis.

Truong Ngoc Phung

I'm trying to have more awareness for myself. I am conscious of what I'm doing to myself during crisis. I think it's thanks to the journey of being a mom and also the nature of work in education that I'm currently engaged in. It helped me a lot. Montessori is very spiritual and it It enables people to pause and observe and live more effectively, peacefully, and organically by itself.

So I feel grateful for my work, nature, that gives me that practice and nurture that capacity more and more. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

So it's great that you are working in an area which supports you. To have this mindset and to develop and strengthen it. 

What is spirituality for you and where are you in that journey? 

Truong Ngoc Phung

I thought to answer this question by borrowing a quote, a very respectful Zen master. Thích Nhat Hanh, I'm sure you know about him. Vietnamese Zen master, a global spiritual leader, a peace activist and a poet as well. Thích Nhat Hanh, he says that spirituality is not a religion.

It is a path for us to generate happiness, understanding, and love, so that we can live deeply each moment of our life. Having a spiritual dimension in our lives does not mean escaping life or drowning in a place of bliss. Outside of this world, but discovering ways to handle life difficulties and generate peace, joy, and happiness right where we are on this beautiful planet.

It's so true to me about what he's saying. And it's also my discovery of my spirituality is that when we can create a space to pause and to go back inside, connect to ourself. Long enough and frequently enough, we can touch the deepest part of human nature, which is love, and that's spirituality. We feel more compassionate to ourselves, and we have love for all living and non living things in this planet.

And for me, that spirituality, we see the interdependence of everything in this universe, and we appreciate it, protect it, contribute to it. We want to be part of it and also enjoy the beauty of it. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Wow. That's in some ways, like you said, living life organically, but in a way whereby we are conscious. With awareness, rather than just living, right?

Yeah. And what is that one thought that you would like to share with the rest of the world that could make a difference in this space of spirituality? 

Truong Ngoc Phung

Every one of us deserves a chance. Or can create for ourselves the spiritual dimension of our life, and we should do it to create a happy life for ourselves and a sustainable life for everything and everyone on this planet is really critical and important where we can discover and generate the joy from within, we will start running after the physical aspects of life.

And that will help the earth be more sustainable, and that will help everyone become more joyful and peaceful and be more resourceful in life in a sustainable way. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

That's right. Yeah. What's your definition of Sustainability and how does that show up in the workplace and at home for you? 

Truong Ngoc Phung

I think Sustainability is a natural outcome when a system or every entities in the system can function independently and interdependently with each other and sustainability becomes a natural outcome of that when things can operate harmoniously for a long period of time and same for an organization, at least what we're trying to build for.

Our organization, we consider ourselves an ecosystem for Montessori education development in Vietnam. Whatever we do, we base on that outlook. We are an ecosystem, and we're trying to build a space in which everybody knows what their roles are and how they contribute to others. And as a whole, things can develop effectively and sustainably.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

In your ecosystem, who are the main players or stakeholders? 

Truong Ngoc Phung

In the Montessori education system that we're trying to build for the Vietnam community, we have teachers, educators, parents. And anyone that loves children. 

Of course, the children themselves also. Yeah, of course, the children themselves as well.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Yeah. Yes. It's important that all these stakeholders are engaged in creating the shared vision or future themselves as part of this community. We have a similar definition in our consulting practice as well that Sustainability is the ongoing thriving of any living system. And when you have that as a focus, then it's easy because you can see interconnection, the interdependence, and that you want to always look at the whole rather  than the part.

Truong Ngoc Phung

And in our work, we saw that the community aspect of the ecosystem is very critical and important to the growth and the sustainability of the system itself. We conduct Montessori training and it attends specifically to teachers. We also have programs and workshops that attend specifically maybe to parents.

We have Montessori schools for children. Besides that, we are trying to build a community, maybe they're not our direct customers yet, but they are critical to support a system to grow. So we trying to do a lot of activities online and offline, and we publish book and magazines and articles to promote more and more awareness about education, about children, and how we can connect and drive together for a better world. So that's an important part of our work. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Can we live a simple life? And what is a simple life for you? 

Truong Ngoc Phung

I think yes, definitely we can choose to live a simple life and maybe different people have different definition of what a simple life is for them. For me, again, simple life means organic life. When we really understand the true need and the true need of ourselves, and also takes time and space to observe ourselves, how we operate in this world, understanding ourself better. And from time to time, we'll see more and more of the authentic and genuine part of ourselves. And then life's just become more simple and organic. So for me, that's how I define a simple life. 

You're just one face, right? You don't have to wear different masks for different situations.

You're just connected to yourself and you can be yourself. 

Yeah, make space to go back and connect to ourselves. And when we become more whole and complete from the inside, the life becomes simple naturally. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

That's right. Okay, great. What are the key things that you think would indicate that we are thriving?

Truong Ngoc Phung

What comes in my mind now, the first one is free to be, the second one is interdependence, and the third one I would say sustainable. So maybe we can change the word later, but what I'm trying to point to is that those are the three spaces that necessary for thriving. So the first space is about the freedom of one person to be themselves, to be true to themselves.

So that's from each individual and the certain face points to me and others, including others in the world. So that's why I put interdependence. We see how we are interconnected and rely on each other in this very dynamic and emerging nature of life. And, a third phase is about sustainability because when we really thrive and thrive together in the right way, we can create a sustainable environment for life, for work.

Yeah. And for this planet. For me, the thriving will include those three aspects and spaces. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Wonderful. I'm going to ask you some very quick, short questions, top of your mind. So what's your favorite book? 

Truong Ngoc Phung

Oh my God. I have too many remarks. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Okay, we won't answer that yet. Do you have a favorite travel destination? 

Truong Ngoc Phung

I don't have one specific destination right now, but my favorite five travel is where I can be natural with nature.

It's not the place like a beautiful resort when you have everything you need and everyone that serves you all the time. Just really being with nature and really have the space to just be there and enjoy nature, free, however you want it to be. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Great. And if you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?

Truong Ngoc Phung

No one. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

I got that. And what's the most unusual food that you have tried? 

Truong Ngoc Phung

Oh, when I went to Dublin, where I had a Montessori school there, And they invited me out for dinner, and I tried some kind of chicken that was dipped into the red ant's sauce. And I think that's so unusual. So the sauce made out of a lot of red ants?

It's so exotic. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

It is. In fact, I've chanced upon other dishes here in Hanoi as well, where they have ant as a side dish. And I have not tried it, but you tried it, right? Yeah. If you can have any superpower, what would it be?

Truong Ngoc Phung

I want to have a superpower that I can change my form. I can change from a human being form to other forms.

Maybe one day I can be a cloud, one day I can be a bird, one day I can be a tree. Very exciting and fun. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Yeah, it would be. And what was the best advice that you've ever received? 

Truong Ngoc Phung

I think I found the best advice I ever received is from a quote that I saw in Plum Village in Thailand when I visited there recently.

A quote in calligraphy form that hang on the wall, and it says, “Just sit stably and everything will pass.” 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

Ah, nice. And was that ever the worst advice that you ever received? 

Truong Ngoc Phung

Oh, I think there are a lot. I don't remember a specific one, but usually the worst advice is when somebody's trying to give me a solution to my problem.

Because usually only us can really understand what are we facing with in different dimensions. And only our own individual experience can tell us. What is the right thing to do? I think even our good intention, other advices might not work. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra 

That's true. Thank you for engaging with me in this lively discussion. I've enjoyed it. 

Truong Ngoc Phung

Thank you, Ramesh. I'll see you soon in Ho Chi Minh City. I enjoyed the talk a lot. Tell me when your book is published, okay