Making the most of opportunities

Hi hi peoplez!

What’s up? How’s it going? How are you?

So for today I thought I’d write about what can happen when you say hello to people. Trust me it's a powerful word.

So on a particular day I decided to contact a manager whom I worked with in San Fran, just to say hello and ask her about how her Amsterdam secondment was going. Next thing I know I’m telling my manager that our Amsterdam office were looking for a short term secondee. One of our partners sent out the firm wide email notifying everyone of the opportunity. My manager encouraged me to apply.

Having just come back from San Fran only 6 months ago, thinking of working in another country wasn’t on my radar. But my manager insisted, I mean, he advised me to apply, because an opportunity like this doesn’t come around too often. I mean…

An opportunity to work and live in Amsterdam.

An opportunity to travel Europe during the weekends.

An opportunity to meet new people.

An opportunity for another international secondment.

Basically everything about this was good, the only down side for me was waiting another year before resigning. What’s another year of audit ey?

So I applied and was successful in getting to interview with a manager and partner from our Amsterdam office.

Now, after finding out I scored the secondment, things were slow to start and I mean slow! I think I interviewed in mid-Feb 2015, pretty much everything was approved towards the end of March and I literally flew our 2 days later!! Talk about slow then BAM! Rushed!

Then off I was to Amsterdam land!

Imagine if I didn’t contact the SF manager. This opportunity may never have happened. Who knows where my life would be now. One day, when scientists figure out how we can travel to parallel universe maybe I can ask my doppleganger what happened when the Amsterdam secondment didn’t happen.

Anyway, the whole point of this is, you never know what will happen. Who knew a simple hello would lead to a trip to Amsterdam. 

Let me set this task for you, think about someone whom you have met, yet haven’t spoken to in a while. Just pop them a message saying hello and asking how they are. Organise a catch up. You never know what opportunities they can help create for you down the road! 

Another example of this, a few weeks ago, when I was just scrolling through Facebook, I saw a friend’s post. It was very cryptic. So I decided to pop her a message to say hello and ask how she was doing. She, at this particular point in time was also unemployed. Or as I call it, also in the bum stage. =D Anyway, turns out she needed someone to help drive her to a friend’s place as she was off on her way to merry old London. I told her I’d be happy to help. Turns out her friend, was a former client of mine and we had a great time catching up. She told me she’d keep an eye out for any opportunities in her company. Can anyone say #networking?

It all starts with a simple hello. Who knew how powerful that word could be.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Next time I’ll try to write a bit more about my time in Amsterdam.

Until next time peeps!