Lost and found. Tale of a reluctant immigrant overcoming adversity and discovering entrepreneurship.

I had an early start in the corporate world. By age 17, I worked as an English and Spanish translator at an American glass factory in my native Venezuela. Experts would come from various parts of the world to train our local engineers about every aspect of running a production plan efficiently, and I was the link that made the communication among them possible. This experience piqued my curiosity about collaboration across cultures and opened my eyes to the power of mentoring and teaching.

A few years later, after completing degrees in industrial production and business, I was sure that I wanted to work in a factory. I knew I would be great at it. And work in a factory I did. A large automotive company hired me as an engineering analyst. By the time I was 27 years old, I had reached a mid-level managerial position and was sent on an international assignment to Asia Pacific.

My appointments were often formidable and quite challenging too. I worked in various parts of Asia and Africa, helping launch new factories and automotive products for 12 years, before returning to Venezuela in 2016, with a promotion to the job of my dreams. My future seemed set in stone.

In retrospect, there was tremendous pressure for young women in my culture to achieve so much within a predefined time period. One was expected to graduate with excellent grades, find a good job, get married, have children and build a successful career, all before the age of 35. Otherwise, it was as if you’ve failed your parents and they have failed the universe.

I had done it all, but not because I was following a checklist. I had a job where I felt supremely confident in my abilities, respected by relevant peers within my industry, a dream home, financial stability, good health, and a loving family.

But as the saying goes, when the waters are still, watch out for the storm.

As I took the training wheels off at my new job in Venezuela, I started to feel a growing sense of concern for the political and economic climate. Although there were not many reliable news outlets left in the country, it was evident that violence and crime were escalating rapidly, fuelled by crippling hyperinflation and straight-up impunity. Yet, Venezuelans are no strangers to political and economic problems; after all, we have lived through one crisis after another since the time of our independence. With all our natural resources and resilient people, I thought that things just had to get better.

But the whole of Venezuela fell apart faster than my mind could make sense of it: politically, economically, morally, socially, etc. Living conditions that would be considered unacceptable in other countries became the “new normal” for many of us. Oppression and misinformation were rampant. Yet before I could overcome my bewilderment about one event, something worse would happen, creating a profound sense of hopelessness and confusion.

Still, as I watched many of my friends and relatives flee to neighbouring countries, I continued to tell myself that things would get better. Looking back, leaving my job seemed unimaginable, especially after my employer had spent significant amounts of time and money on my development. How could I repay them by leaving when things became a little complicated? However, my firm conviction blinded me to the dangerous environment I was keeping my family in.

Then, on a day like any other, a close friend of mine and his young daughter were killed two houses away from my home in an armed robbery. And just like that, everything I had hoped would become better in my country became exponentially worse.

Skipping through the painful details that followed this episode, I will say that as I sat at their funeral with my friend’s wife, holding her hand in silence, a question fluttered in my mind. The kind of hopeless inquiries that you probably think about only at a loved one’s funeral. How much would you be willing to give up to get your life back? My friend owned a reputable architectural company with offices in Venezuela and Spain, and by the time of his death, he had 11 major projects in the making. Yet, in exchange for his daughter’s life, he would have given everything up; unfortunately, he was not given the chance to choose.

However, I wondered if this painful event was a reminder that I still had the opportunity to choose. Was I endangering my family by holding on to a dream job in a region that could be lethal to all of us?

The decision to leave our country was not easy, but it became an obvious one overnight. Several months later, a freshly unemployed me stood in the airport, ready to board a plane and become an immigrant. As I hugged my mom one last time, she whispered in my ear, “don’t bring the children back here.” It broke my heart.

The journey to our new country took roughly a day, stops and all, and by the time we landed in Montreal, I felt both blessed and lost. We could finally feel safe, but what will I do for a living now? And although Canada is a prosperous nation with many work opportunities for all, I couldn’t think of one I would want.

The following weeks passed, adjusting to a new language and building new routines. Everyone in our family seemed to be settling well, but there was one aspect in which I was paralyzed. Where is my career going, I asked myself? There was a great deal of anger inside me because I thought I was back at square one after having done everything by the book.

But I think there should be, an expiration date on feeling sorry for yourself. We may not always see it, but something inside of us grows tired of it and starts to open room to other thoughts and emotions.

Eventually, I found a notebook and started to write about what was going on in my mind. At first, it was just random thoughts, but over time it enabled me to offload the weight that was bearing me down into the pages of my journal. Unwittingly, I had found a way to dissolve a lot of the stress and anger I felt at the time.

As my mind works well with analogies, I then started to write about what happens when someone breaks into your house while you are away. You arrive home and find the place turned upside down; the police arrive and ask, what has been taken? And to answer that question, you have to go through “the mess”, room by room, drawer by drawer, accounting for the missing items with mounting anger. By the time you are done, heartbroken as you may be, you are no longer paralyzed, because now you know what was taken, what was broken, and what remains.

I once heard Oprah Winfrey say that television was her “platform.” It took me a while to understand this because the word platform if translated to my native language, Spanish, means a structure where you stand before boarding a train. Surely she meant something figuratively in English, but I didn’t press myself to understand it back then. But while attempting to inventory what I had lost when leaving my job, the word platform started to mean something to me.

When I had a job, my advice was often sought in business and career matters: my opinion influenced the company’s strategic direction; my persuasion made things happen; I was able to inspire others and positively impact their lives. As I continued to write, I noticed that I hadn’t lost those abilities. I could still do them all. What I had lost was the place where I did all of those things. The company where I performed my job was a platform, and that is what I had lost.

Couldn’t I build a new one for myself? This was my “aha” moment, as it were.

Of course, no one builds a new platform overnight. But I had had a paradigm shift. Now I had a plan.

A few months later, I launched my consulting and coaching companies, and I went back to school to get a formal education on coaching and also in French, the primary business language in Québec, my new home. Although I continue to think about my former employer with profound gratitude, I haven’t looked back.

I now provide coaching and mentoring for aspiring entrepreneurs from corporate backgrounds who want to turn their expertise into a knowledge-based business. Additionally, I co-founded a consulting firm that helps small and medium-sized companies create and implement strategic projects.

Being the master of your own direction and building a legacy that, one hopes, will live on in those you are fortunate enough to work with are sources of lasting happiness.

With time and effort, I created my own platform. In so doing I found my purpose. I was set free.

Copyright Ana Lovera 2020

Find me working and writing at https://analovera.com and https://www.actionainternational.com

P.S. Should you wish to explore further the topic of turning your expertise into a knowledge base business, please contact me for a free 20-min breakthrough call at hello@analovera.com. I will love to hear from you and hopefully share some valuable insights.

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Images in order of appearance by Goran Horvat and Peter H from Pixabay