Why I Do What I Do
It is not for the money (although I need to make a living), and it is not for the fame (there certainly is no fame in what I do), but there is a lot of satisfaction in watching one of my students brave the unknown and overcome the challenges of leaving the comfort of home for an overseas experience. The reward is later hearing how they overcame their fears and gained many new life experiences, skills and perspectives that they could never have gotten living at home. The transformation is the prize.
I was reminded of this again a week before Christmas when a 10-year alumni student of mine and her mother met with me for coffee in Bangkok. My student (let’s call her Manee) was no longer a student but a married young lady, a newly anointed Canadian citizen, and a professional self-employed entrepreneur soon to be a mother. A lot has changed over those ten years.
When we first met all those years ago, Manee was your typical shy, somewhat insecure young teenage girl, not wanting to leave her gang, the big city with all of its malls and familiarity of warmth, sound, sight, air, food, friends, and family to make a journey to an unknown, much colder country most things were foreign. After a week in her new reality
Manee begged Mom to let her come home – she was sure she would not survive there. Mom stood firm despite the late-night calls, pleas, tears, anger, and threats of running away. Mom knew better having made the journey a lifetime before and experiencing first-hand the transformation that could be had by staying the course. She coached her daughter through the troughs and praised her when she overcame. She encouraged Manee to try as many things as possible regardless of the outcome. Be it a good experience or a ‘bad’ experience, she told Manee that winning was in trying and failure was not trying. Regardless, those first few months were not easy for both Manee and Mom, and more than once, it looked like Manee might not make it … but mom stood fast. And did it ever pay off! I could see that day in the coffee shop just how rewarding it was for both the Manee and Mom. As Manee told me her story and spoke of her successes, Mom sat quietly next to her with a big grin on her face and pride in her eyes. They had come to thank me, and I, too, now sat there with pride on my face.
A few days ago, I was listening to a podcast on “What is Your Why.” Like many people, I was familiar with the concept but had not really spent any serious thinking time on the matter. But this time was different. I started thinking about why I wanted to continue doing what I had been doing for the last 20 years instead of focusing on other work that would be much more financially rewarding with a lot less friction. And then I realized I had been that student so many years ago.
Many of my friends and family see me as a world traveler, not afraid to seek out adventure in faraway lands, dealing with daily unknowns, lack of home comforts, and ‘bad’ food (the food was not bad; it was good, only not to my liking). But I certainly did not start that way. As a young boy, I would holler and scream every time my parents wanted me to stay overnight at a relative’s place away from them. I was shy, scared easily, socially awkward, and never had much confidence to venture out alone. I was the same age as my student when she first left to join the NSISP program in Canada.
It took me a few years longer than Manee, but I made my first solo trip to Europe during my 20th summer as a university student. I had landed a job in Barcelona, Spain, with a university agency called AIESEC, but the job fell through before I left. I had bought the ticket and quit my part-time job, so I decided to salvage my summer and go it alone. I have never looked back.
Even as a university student and much more mature than Manee when she departed, the life lessons I picked up were measuredly more important and impactful on me than anything I would, or could, learn staying home and sleeping-walking through university.
From a far, I gained a new appreciation of my home country (Canada) as well as the challenges it faced, something that would seldom be discussed on the news. I gained a new insight as to what it meant to be Canadian. I learned to make my own way as I traveled around Europe and to ask complete strangers for help. I learned to deal with the negative aspects of traveling alone and to get myself out of potentially awkward or even dangerous situations. I learned to motivate myself to get up and move and see the good when everything looked ‘bad’. In short, I got years of life lessons in a short period of time. Most importantly, I gained a new self-confidence that was not there before. As my father would say years later, “When you got back, something was different about you, and I felt it was for good.”
Now, many, many years later, living alternatively between Canada and Thailand and having worked in 6 other countries, I still get excited when I go to a new city or country or return to either Thailand or Canada, as I know something will be different and there will be something new to explore. I realize now that without knowing it, the allure of the work I am doing is not only about lifestyle but also about purpose. I really believe that any travel outside of one’s country (preferably not with a tour package packed with nothing by photo ops all day) will make you a better person, even if it takes you half a lifetime to realize it. And that is why I will continue to promote Canadian study programs to Thai students, even if it can be frustrating to do at times, and the financial rewards are greater down the road. I know my ‘Why’ and it is a good.
And so, the ‘Why ‘of what I do is the reason my team and I go out of our way to help the students find the right program for them, prepare them as best as possible before they depart, and remain available 24/7 throughout the year to ensure they are fully supported while in Canada and can have the best possible experience in Canada.
Rene is a Canadian education consulting and student recruiter based out of Bangkok with over 20 years of experience in the S.E. Asian market. He can be reached at info@gostudycanada.net and followed at GoStudyCanada (FB & IG)
