Be true to yourself! What I learned from Akwaaba’s meme.

#12 Thank you for being you!

Hey! I am so grateful to have you back at my blog. Your subscription means the world to me. ❤️ In order to get to know you better, here is a question for you: “Do you wish you were more honest to yourself?” 😊

Now jumping into today’s blog:

Yesterday, I took part in another live session of the blogging course “Writing on the Net”. As usual, the hosts started with warm-up questions and shout-outs to people who have been quite active or doing their best during the course. After multiple screenshots of praise for participants, I saw this slide. 🥹 Thanks

Akwaaba Tung

and

Tuấn Mon

!

It did warm my heart, not because I was mentioned in a meme, but mainly because people saw the values that I truly want to represent in life - regardless whether in my personal life, in the office or at the blogging workshop “WOTN6”. 💖

But it wasn't always like this.

Let’s rewind to my teenage years. 🕰️

Even though I grew up in Germany, loved German food, celebrated Christmas and understood why we have to separate our trash into three different bins, I never fully felt integrated. Since I grew up in two worlds, I was more busy adapting and meeting expectations of my Vietnamese family or German friends - not having the time and energy to think about who I was and what I wanted to represent in life. 😢

This embarrassing photo of myself in my middle school time is the perfect reflection of how weirdly I tried to represent something that I was not. I base cap and long hair, because all my German friends were like that, but also making sure that I was a Vietnamese with a “loud” t-shirt claiming that I was Vietnamese. An incredibly awkward way to be yourself. 🥲

When I see this now, I just want to hide. But well, I can not blame anyone - I simply just did not know, who I was and what I wanted to represent in my life. So that was the best thing I could come up with.

Luckily, I would eventually figured out who I was, when I went to New Zealand, on a journey to self discovery. Being in a new environment definitely helped me to try things out and step by step realize what I really wanted in life. I don’t want to dive too deep into this, because I already wrote a separate blog post about this, which you can find here.

Now you might think: “Well done Thomas, you found your values. Now you should be set for life!” Well that is what I thought, too - until I started to scale my passion project into a business, and suddenly decided from one day to another, that everything had to be perfect and professional. 👔

Back to square one.

In Vietnam, together with two friends we hosted a German language meet up, that was created because we believed that learning a language should be more than just grammar. It should be fun and also interesting. The language meet up was the perfect place, where I could live my purpose and just spread #kindness and #positivity. Each week, I would try my best to inspire Vietnamese students on their language learning journey. We learned, laughed and enjoyed it to the fullest. ✨🤗

Almost a year later, when we made the drastic shift in branding, and tried to appear more professional, I got lost. In order to mask my lack of experience, I would watch loads of YouTube videos about business and read tons of books. I started to act like a completely different person, believing that it would be the best for the company, only to lead my team into total chaos.

The passion and fire that was once written on my face, was masked with a thick layer of a dangerous make up called “authority”. In order to control the new changes, I held onto the newly implemented believes: “perfectionism - first impression counts - the only way to be professional” At that time, I believed that being professional meant, holding on to strict frame works, and follow the line. 🙄

Thanks to my incompetent and inexperienced leadership, I drove my team down hill, without any breaks or safety nets. Covid and the lockdown made the whole situation worse and extreme. 😩

My anxiety and imposter syndrome sky rocked, leaving me paralyzed behind the steering wheel. Again, I was not who I wanted to be. Similar to my teenager experience, I was too busy pretending, that I lost sight of my true values.

Thank god, my team saved us and reminded me of my true values and that it was not necessary to become someone else. “I followed you because of the way you inspired me at the language meetup.” one intern confessed and also shared her concern, that I went the wrong way.

"Give it another shot. Just be yourself—I'll even work for free," she urged.

I could not help but feel ashamed for my stupid mistakes. After stopping pretending to be a business man that I was not, being true to myself, helped the company to shine again. Even to today, the google review of our language center are highlighting, that we are “kind” and that the students have “fun” and feel “home”. ❤️

Thanks to my team, I learned something important.

1. It’s important to find you values. They are similar to a life compass, guiding you towards a fulfilled life.

2. It’s important to stay true to your values, regardless the changes.

3. If you your core values in your personal life and in your professional life are different, then there is a chance, that you have been lying in or the other.

So, what's next?

Today, I'm on a mission to help others see their worth. 🌟

I am the Baymax, creating a safe space for people to share their worries.
I am the Baymax, spreading kindness and positivity.
I am the Baymax, staying true to my values no matter what.
I am the Baymax—I am me.

To all of you struggling with identity and finding your purpose, don't be afraid to show who you are. You may lose some along the way, but trust me: You shine brightest when you're true to yourself. 🔥 The right people will cherish and love you for it. Who knows, maybe you'll even find yourself on a meme, representing your values!

Keep shining, fellow adventurers! ✨

Thanks for reading to the end and I wish you an awesome day full of kindness and positivity. See you next Sunday morning for a new blog of #sonofavietkieu. 🥰

Bài viết thuộc thử thách viết 30 ngày của khóa học Writing On The Net.

#wotn6 #12