A friend invited me to join her toastmaster club meeting. I received a private message from the chat during the meeting ‘is that you?’ from an old friend who quitted his job as an software engineer from a tech company to become a coach and speaker and travel around the world. Last time I heard from him was more than a year ago. He posted a video after arriving in China to start the new chapter…He didn’t turn on the camera so I didn’t notice him earlier. ‘What a surprise to ‘see’ you here, where are you now?’ I replied the text. He explained he is not camera ready (well, he sounded like a celebrity now) yet wanted to catch-up so we schedule a call to chat today.
I called the number…same laughing, energetic voice answered the call, ‘wow, it has been a long while…’ yet more assured and lighter accent. We’re back to the old time quickly. He is now in Puerto Rico. He and his wife fell in love with the beach, layback culture, and friendly people. He was beaming with the current focus – coaching Indian engineers in US to be confident of themselves and he thanked my support in changing his life…
His words struck me…First, India is the power house of engineers. Many of them work in hot shot tech companies, speak English at home, and never shy away from expressing themselves…they need more confidence? I thought that’s a challenge for the ‘shy’ Asians, e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean. Many of us wonder if others would understand our English. Second, thanked me for what?
He told me he was debating for a while if taking the coaching training. $4k fee is not a small amount. He took Landmark forum after my positive experience and after the program, he signed up the coaching training…
I’m very happy for him to live a life he loves and is passionate about what he does. I’m also humbled by his thanks. My simple sharing and encouragement have spurred what neither of us have imagined.
We never know what little thing can do; it costs us nothing and we often forget afterwards yet the ripple effect could be magical…