The Journey of Connections and Unexpected Growth

The Journey of Connections and Unexpected Growth.

Being an Influencer is now one of the most popular career aspirations for children. It surpasses traditional career options such as veterinarian and teacher in the United Kingdom alone. In a study conducted on Awin of 2,000 parents with at least one child between the ages of 11 and 16, YouTuber and Influencer ranked as the 2nd and 3rd most popular choice after being a doctor.

 

With my educational background in biomedical engineering and starting as an entrepreneur in renewable energy, I never thought being an influencer would be a label I would ever be called. My career has always been in B2B, selling renewable resources to distributors or later going into management consulting working with corporate leadership on organizational transformation.

 

I strived to be in the background. One of the main reasons I love management consulting is to make a transformation impact on an organization and the people working within that business while playing a strategic mastermind role and not being too visible. Maybe it goes back to my Asian upbringing of not standing out too much; being visible and public speaking made me so nervous that I felt judged and saw that I preferred to do the thinking work in the background. Life had a different plan.

 

In the summer of 2017, my life seemingly started falling apart. The relationship I had at the time, while it seems well, just stopped working. Aside from all the personal crises that unfolded, which I’ll spare you the details of, I worked in the Corporate Strategy Group at Liberty Mutual Insurance. I stopped finding joy in consulting as I used to.

 

While I love corporate strategy, I reached a point in my career, after ten years, that I needed to determine what direction to pursue next. Whether to build a stable job within corporate, go down the Partner route in Management Consulting, or follow the love of writing and entrepreneurship that I had left years ago.

 

I think Entrepreneurship has always called to me. The feeling of creating clarity on a vision, a dream. I was then brought a group of like-minded individuals together, creating the foundation and environment for people to collaborate and build something unique together. In the process, creating change and seeing what was in your imagination become a reality and making a tangible impact in the world and the lives of others. I cannot imagine a more rewarding cause to dedicate my life to.

 

If you know me, you would not be surprised that I took the more uncertain path. It was not logical, but it felt right, and it took everything I am and even more to pursue this path. There was a reason I had waited ten years to do this. I was afraid, afraid of failing, of visibility, of rejection, of success, of not being good enough, and so much more. The entrepreneurship journey pushed me to face all my worst fears and with very high stakes – that if I couldn’t overcome them, it would be financial ruin and no way to pay the bills the next month.

 

It pushed me to make those cold outreaches, learn how to make sales, lead a new team, motivate people, balance very tight finances, market, and leverage every channel I could to get in front of prospective customers clients and make a living. That journey took me to social media.

 

Being visible to an audience I may only vaguely know through text, building a connection, and learning to do anything from videos, reels, graphic design, video editing, copywriting, and storytelling – all the necessary skills needed to be successful in influencer marketing. I learned that posting regularly was not enough, but I had to open up and share my journey. How healing that was once I overcame the fear of being seen. To recognize the difference between sharing and seeking approval and how much more freeing and fun the sharing experience on social media can be once I see it from a different light. The mindset and perspective that helped me enjoy this journey more:

 

·      I’m sharing, not selling – Not needing anyone who sees it to approve or do anything.

·      Call to action are Invitations – Invitations are for people to feel welcomed but obligated, truly being unattached to what actions people will take.

·      Expressing my creativity, not marketing – It made content creation so much more fun rather than a task I needed to do for work.

·      Having fun with it rather than being perfect – I don’t need an ideal strategy; I can learn and grow along the way.

·      My story is enough; I am enough – So there is no need to do the extraordinary to get attention; being real is enough.

 

My influencer journey became a journey of self-acceptance, so I no longer sought acceptance from strangers who just found my profile online. Being unattached made connections fun, and I built new relationships over various social media channels because I already gave the approval I needed.

 

Today, I see social media as a way for me to find like-minded individuals, share my story and journey with folks with whom it resonates, to walk the trip separately but connected. It’s a blessing and a joy. My mentor, Mary Morrissey, has shared this with me, and I have found it so true – the long walk is the gift – the journey was meant to be long, that is the gift, whom you become in the process.

 

May your journey be blessed.

~Ngan

 

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Hi there Change-Agent

I’m Ngan Nguyen, I work as an Intuitive Strategist that is committed to empowering you to create your best life and bring your unique vision to the world. Originally a Portlandian now turned Bostonian, I love personal development, spending time reading, writing, and learning. What I enjoy most is helping passionate and committed people like yourself to transform their lives, revolutionize their work, and create greater impact in the world.

I do this by bringing together over a decade of business strategy experience and spiritual principles of success in a cohesive way to create immediate results, meaningful impact, and fast-paced amplified success.

My passion for the knowledge and principles that I now share with clients came as a need that later became a passion. Growing up in post-war Vietnam, I suffered from every possible form of abuse. At 16 years old, was homeless after leaving home to avoid a challenging situation.

When we are pushed to our limits, we find out what we’re made of. I quickly realized that if I wanted to stop being a victim of my circumstances, I needed to create a new reality for myself. I decided to transform my experiences into wisdom, resilience, and bravery, and that decision changed my life.

At that time, I had a longing for more. More meaning, growth, and purpose. Eventually, this longing drove me to enroll in night school, eventually graduating, and build several successful start-ups in renewable energy while working on my MBA. This journey led me to a rewarding and exciting career in strategy advisory. Through this, I worked with business leaders of Fortune 100 companies and at McKinsey & Company.

Over 10 years in an advisory role with major companies allowed me to develop an expertise in strategy. Combining this with my love for personal development and people coming together to create something beautiful that inspires and benefits others, I now work as an intuitive strategist that empower my clients to step into their truth in order to create what they desire most in their lives, and in the world.

When we believe in ourselves, we grow. Growth and personal development go hand in hand with success. That’s why I help people who dare to question their realities step back into their power and create the extraordinary results they’ve longed to experience.

We need more people to bring their passion, humanity, wisdom, and mastery into the world. Are you ready to discover your purpose and create your best life? I would love to learn more about you and support you creating your own unique expression in the world.