Dialogues Technology - Part 3: From an Intern to a Business Developer

What it takes to be an intern is most of the time networking and determination to prove that you worth something to your future employer. I talked about networking in one of my previous post. It’s time to talk about determination.

When you are in a foreign country, you are not the same person you achieved to become in your home country. You have to start everything from scratch, to push yourself, to start to know people, to build new relations and convince everyone about your skills and abilities, to start working your ass to the top.

My ambition was to prove to myself that I can get an internship in the Netherlands, that I can prove that the studies and experience achieved can be useful for any company in Netherlands. I wanted to compare the Dutch working life with the Romanian (to get the best parts and apply when I’ll move back to Bucharest). And this is what I did. The best decision that I took considering the the learning points, the motivation, de determination, the opportunities that I have found in one place: Dialogues Technology and Dialogues Incubator, the innovation departments of ABN AMRO.

You see, the culture in the company I work is focused on results, very different from what I used to experience while working in Romania. Another aspect is that most of the companies do have a clear process of how to get to the result, thus nobody has to breathe behind your neck :) You have a deadline to meet, you do it in your own way (even if it takes you 3 hours or 4 days) and this approach makes the difference between NL and RO. The results count in the end and. And this working style makes Tudor a happy person that enjoys going to work everyday, compared to others that have “work-suicidal-thoughts” (e.g.: “I hate this and that, I want something else, This is not for me bla bla bla”). I’m lucky and I appreciate this, but most of the time you make your luck. You know that it is said: “You need to like what you do, not to do what you like” - B.Franklin.

I appreciate the environment that taught me organizational processes, strategic moves, development and project management frameworks: design thinking, project planning, Scrum, Dialogues Scrum, time management, strategy and negotiation, presentation skills and tips, always giving feedback. And there will be more coming, because everyday we at Dialogues Technology continually seek improvements, as well on each one’s personal level. We are fine tuning ourselves everyday, this pushed me to even start this blog, to share with you the fine tuning tips for you, towards your ambitions and goals.

I became a business developer mainly because of my determination and the results achieved in 6 months of my internship, because of the mind-openness and sponge type of thinking and relating all the information and the desire to know more. Feel free to discover new concepts, but as well feel free to feed these with knowledge resources (I should make a post soon about the good books that I have read, you also can find them in my Linkedin profile). It wasn’t hard because it was fun from the first moment. But I was determined to achieve my ambition.

Try, find yourself a goal, break it down in smaller, achievable steps, and be determined to do cross them all from your list.

Vacation = a matter of utmost importance

But take a long one. I just realized that 6 days weren’t enough for me and my brain to reset, relax and run again at a crazy speed. I thought spending 6 days on a tiny island I will discover the Superman that is in me. It didn’t happen :(

Even if I planned a motionless days in the sun, where I wanted to trade my white skin for a darker/more tanned color, while having some mojitos, reading a book (which I did) and dreaming of my future kingdom :) … there will always be some forces that will chew your precious plan and you will re-schedule everything.

So, I’ve spent 6 beautiful days in Malta, but these weren’t enough for me. Please don’t get me wrong and don’t take me as an arrogant Moldavian/Romanian ass, but even with a 6 days vacation I came back tired and without THE energy boost that I was expecting to get back from Malta. No, no, no.  I came drained out of any ferocious start in seeking my goals.

If you have any suggestions on getting boosted, except drinking coffee or Red Bull, please share them with me?

Lesson learned:

1. next vacation = 10 days or more

2. vacation and resting is sooooo important

3. Malta is nice, but they are very slow (3 hours for a dinner, mama mia!!!)