I am born in Romania, in a small town nestled in the Eastern Carpathian mountains, called Piatra Neamt. I grew up there before immigrating to Montreal, Canada when I was 12. Even though at that point 10 years had passed since the fall of communism in Romania, the contrast between the two countries was staggering.
If there were specific ways to behave and learn as a young school kid in Romania, there were no equivalent unique or stencilled ways in Canada. That was my first experience with individuality and its bewildering nature.
The second experience in this sense came at the moment when I had to choose my field of studies . I intrinsically knew that I was meant for a humanistic or psychology-related field, but the external, security-driven noise was louder. I graduated with a Bachelors of Business Administration from HEC Montréal.
I even elected Accounting as my major, because I had obtained a paid internship in one of the big accounting firms in Montreal. It was a golden ticket for a guaranteed, well-paid and safe career ahead, except my heart was not getting on the train.
Don’t get me wrong, Accounting is an amazing field if you like it and have a fit with it. It just wasn’t for me, and I found myself painfully doing my internship while helping the HR team on what was a much more interesting project to me. I had to take a step back and realize that I was going to continue in the wrong direction if I did not change right there. But it meant switching majors, waiting out one term, not following my cohort and renouncing to the already-signed contract with the accounting firm upon graduation. It felt painful as I did not assume my choices with the same self-awareness and acceptance I grew to have today.
I then switched to HR, which was much closer to my interests and abilities, graduated and started working as a recruiter in an international engineering firm. With the years, I migrated towards an HR generalist role, and then a Learning & Development (L&D) role, which was getting closer to my natural curiosity for human development. I then took Masters classes in this field to better understand how to engage, empower and reward employees, how to manage the human aspect in the midst of organizational change and what makes a manager a true leader. I was getting closer and closer to my truth, yet something was still missing.
In 2022, as I navigated some difficult personal challenges and moved to Switzerland to live closer to my family, it occurred to me. I was missing the one-on-one, less organizational and more human-centered scope in my work. After a period of deeper reflection into who I am and what truly makes me happy, coaching became a natural, aligned and centered option. I am currently completing the ICF (International Coaching Federation) certified training.
Do I wish I had made that choice earlier and took a shorter way to it? Maybe, but I would also not have completely understood how important it is to be true to who we are.