That’s what a lot of people told me: my university professors, most of my friends, other trainers, even my family.

I was 23 then. I hadn’t even finished my Psychology degree. Had less than 3 months of corporate experience. But I knew I wanted to become a leadership trainer.

So, I started looking. Went to job fairs, told my network about it, sent out emails…and in less than 2 weeks after I had started searching, I got the job!
I was a brand new Junior Trainer of a local company in Timisoara.

Now, what happened were three months of intense preparation, reading lots of books and holding dozens of presentations to quickly develop my skills.

And then it dawned on me. I actually didn’t want that job. Yes, I do love training. But I do not want to stay in Romania. I would like to be a leadership trainer on another continent, to get an intercultural exposure.

Again, when they heard what I wanted to do, my friends thought I was crazy. And probably back then I wasn’t at all sure whether I wasn’t actually a bit crazy.

But I knew what I wanted. So I handed in my resignation and started looking for a new job. This time as a leadership trainer in Asia.

Now, I don’t need to tell you how many people actually thought I would get it. It was very close to 0,1%. And honestly, I understand them: if finding a training position in Romania was hard, how was I supposed to find one in Asia?!?

But, again I started looking.

I sent out more than 100 emails to all the connections I had abroad. I used the AIESEC network extensively (they have a large number of internships all over the world. I started looking all over the Internet. I even started putting pictures on my walls with different locations in Asia.

But after almost 2 months of looking it seemed that indeed my friends were right. There was no sign of any job in leadership training. And I started doubting that I would ever find one.

But I must have remember the great quote from Thomas Edison:

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”

So, I kept on. I sent out more emails. I chatted to more people. I looked at more Asia pictures to keep myself motivated.

And then finally I got a “hot lead“. A friend of mine in Germany knew the directors in a leadership company in Singapore. And recommended me to them. So, although they had no opening at that time, they did open one for me!

So, after 3 months of intense search, endless emails (i actually thought Gmail would block my account and put me on the spammers list), lots of “NO-s” and many pictures and movies about Asia, here I was having the opportunity to be a leadership trainer for Self Leadership International, in Singapore.

Now, I am not writing this story to brag. But I am just thinking what would have happened if I had chosen to believe in what the others told me.

Well, probably NOTHING! Probably I would still be in Romania…doing some sort of HR job that most of the Psychology graduates end up doing.

So, a powerful lesson that I got out of this was: NEVER let other people tell me what I can do or can’t do!

I think I can decide that for myself. And so can all of us!