Brew Your Best Year with CBTL and BDJ This 2014!
January is always an exciting time when in Manila. The rush of the holidays are dying down. With the last of the fireworks and the sudden gust of cold air coming in, there’s nothing like snuggling with a warm cup of tea or coffee and writing down your resolutions and plans for the new year. Where else would you write them down but in your brand new planner? The new planner is equivalent to a new year and a new start, so why not make it the best one?
The early morning crowd ready for the best year ever.
Inspired by the Giving Journal, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and the Belle De Jour team have launched a series of events to help you boost your creativity and brew your best year ever! Just in time for January, the first in the series was a Visioneering + Chalk Typography Workshop with our favourite power couple, Alessa and PJ Lanot. Held in Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf’s 26th Bistro, it was the perfect dash of inspiration and creativity to get our best year started.
The event had two parts: the first was a talk on visioneering by PJ Lanot. The man we have now come to know as a beard full of pure energy woke up the crowd with his engaging ideas and simple exercises for setting your life goals. One of the exercises included drawing anything we wanted (we ended up with a simple flower) and drawing a house, the sun and two people in ten seconds. Then we were asked why we were able to draw more when we had a specific drawing and timeframe. “Goals,” as he said to us, “are just dreams with deadlines.”
Setting our 2016 goals in 2014 steps.
Cue a gasp of realisation from the crowd. Like we said: the man’s energy was infectious, and his words were wise and so true. We listed our life goals for 2016, listing the steps we need to achieve those goals this 2014.
The second part of the event had craft goddess Alessa Lanot teaching us the basics of typography with chalk. As daunting as that task seemed (why does creativity always seem so daunting?), Alessa guided us with a firm and gentle hand with her useful tips and basic principles. After the quick lesson on drawing with letters, we challenged our creative selves by creating simple artwork featuring one of our 2016 goals. As you can see, a little bit of instruction goes a long way. Well, that and a contest for a set of Sharpies.
Even we were amazed at what we could create!
In short, it was the perfect way to start our best year. Armed with our Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf drinks, yummy food and fantastic atmosphere, we couldn’t wait to get a move on with our goals!
Alessa and PJ Lanot
Our goals for 2016!
Photos by Mimai Cabugnason.
