Country: Colombia

About: I am a psychologist and licensed trainer in Neuro Linguistics Programming. Those are just my titles, I am also a passionate dreamer, enthusiastic entrepreneur, and education leader that has been working the past 16 years to develop the entrepreneurial spirit in Latin America.  At 10, my sisters and I started our first business, a successful chocolate company. I now run The Biz Nation, a network for online and in person development of thousands of  young entrepreneurs.

Recipe for Change: 

I bet all of us at some point have thought about something that could make the world a better place. I know we have all had ideas that could be amazing, whether it is a different way to make people conscious about plastic use, a special type of board that could make education more effective, or a new robot that could help the elderly.  

To me, ideas are important. They are like hypotheses that need to be tested in order to discover their possible potential. Without initial ideas, great inventions would have never become a reality. Ideas are the beginning of great projects, initiatives, companies, organizations, and above all, they are the beginning of change. But ideas by themselves will not create change, they need action in order for the magic to occur.  So my recipe for change includes ideation and action. 

1. Write down ALL ideas for change that come to your mind. There is no small or absurd idea. You will never know if it works until you try it. Ideas come to us constantly and they are very easy to forget. Write them down on your phone or paper, but make sure you are keeping those treasures with you. 

2. Take all of your ideas and perform a due diligence and benchmark process on them. In other words, research if it already exists, and if it does, how could you make it better and how could it adapt to your country or city.

3. Get opinions on it. I personally believe listening to other people’s experiences and opinions enrich our ideas because they make us see different points of view that we might not have considered before. Remember, our education, background, and beliefs makes us see life in different colors. 

4. Here comes the most important part of making change happen:  ACTION. Little by little, small, but start! Take one new step on your idea each week. It is the only way to learn in real life whether our idea makes sense or not. Don’t be afraid to fail. At the end of the day failure is what builds success. 

Recipe: Colombian Tres Leches

I grew up in Colombia and had the opportunity to go to college in the USA. All my friends then wanted me to cook something Colombian, but ingredients for most of the typical dishes are hard to find. So, I created my own simplified version of Tres Leches with ingredients that can be found anywhere. I hope you love it as much as I do. 

INGREDIENTS
For the cake
1 box of Vanilla cake mix
Tres leches sauce
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk
1 cup of milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

For the frosting (optional)
3 large egg whites
¾ cup of sugar
Pinch of salt
¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350℉. Grease and lightly flour a baking dish.
   2.Follow instructions on the cake mix box to bake vanilla cake.
   3.Remove cake from the oven and with a fork make holes all over the top of the cake. Set aside to cool for 10 to 15 minutes.
2. When the cake is cooling, make the milk sauce, whisk together sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, milk and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl.
3. Pour the 3 milks sauce over the cake until it is all absorbed. Refrigerate for a least 3 hours or overnight before frosting.
4. For the frosting (optional), beat the egg whites until stiff peaks are formed. While beating the egg whites, add sugar and salt and continue beating for 5 more minutes. Add vanilla extract and beat 1 more minute. Spread the frosting over the cake and refrigerate it until ready to serve.