Do you believe in manifestation? Have you heard of the book The Secret? There is a documentary film about the book if you ever want to learn more about it and don’t want to commit to reading it.
When I was in high school my eldest sister landed a job with a huge medical company as a medical device sales rep. I had never even heard of such a job. I didn’t know such a career path existed. The more she started to tell me about her new career, what her days looked like and how great her company was the more I knew that I wanted to do exactly what she was doing.
My Dad owned his own company for over 45 years and he was in sales. You could say that sales runs in our blood. I think being in sales comes down to a few things but for me it is all about relationships. I love getting to know people. I always ask too many questions when I meet someone. My husband says I’m nosy, which maybe I am a little bit, but I truly love to know about people’s lives. What do they do for a living? Why did they choose that job? What do they love or hate about it? Where did they grow up? What’s on their travel bucket list? The list goes on and on, but you get the idea.
Now back to the medical device sales career. I decided that I was going to be a medical sales rep for the exact company that my sister was working for at the time. At this point The Secret wasn’t even a thing and I knew nothing about manifestation. I would only come to realize that what I did at the end of high school and all through university was manifest my dream career.
I took Physical Education in University, kind of like Kinesiology…but with dance as a prerequisite class. We were often asked what our plans were after we graduated, and I would say 95% of the students in my degree program answered that they planned to go to teachers college and become a teacher. It makes sense, especially in the degree we were all working towards. When I was asked I would always say that “I plan to be a medical device sales rep for J&J.” People would often do a double take and wonder what the hell I was talking about. First of all like me they had never heard of this career path and secondly I didn’t just name the career I named the company!
I probably said this exact line over 100 times. I didn’t doubt that I would land exactly there. With Johnson & Johnson as a medical device sales rep. I was so young and so unbelievably naive! To land this job right out of University would be nearly impossible. I had zero sales experience. At the time I didn’t know how difficult it would be, I just knew that was my plan and I was sticking to it.
Fast forward, I took a year off after I graduated and I traveled the world. By this point my sister was living in Australia and working for J&J down there. Part of my travels took me to Oz to spend some time with her. She knew I wanted to follow in her footsteps and she gave me my first big break. She sent an email to two of her colleagues back in Toronto and told them that they had to at the very least interview me if there was a position that came up.
I finished out my travels and went back home to my parents and back into the barn. Yes the barn! I had been working as a groom with race horses for nearly 10 years at that point. In the summers I would literally be shoveling shit and brushing horses, and you know what; I absolutely loved it. However I still had my eye on the prize, “I was going to be a medical device sales rep for J&J”.
One of my sister’s colleges in Toronto called me and said that they had an opening for a sales associate role basically in my hometown. I was shocked, they were actually going to interview me. I had no real sales experience but I was going to do everything in my power to land this job. This was it! I had been preparing for this moment for years. I studied the company, I practiced interview question after interview question. In the end it wasn’t one interview it was 8 interviews with a total of 16 people. To say it was a grueling couple of weeks is an understatement. I’m going to be honest, I was very nervous but I felt I had done well in the interviews. Months went by and I heard nothing. No call back. Absolutely nothing. They had clearly filled the role with someone else and I was devastated. I thought that was it, I had blown my shot.
Four months later and out of the blue I got a call. They wanted to offer me a position. It wasn’t in my hometown it was on the other side of the country in Regina, Saskatchewan and then ending up in Edmonton, Alberta to cover a maternity leave. You would think I jumped at this opportunity right? No, I was scared to death! I told them I had to think about it. I am a homebody, the baby of the family and although I had traveled the world, I always came home. I am very close with my parents and my sisters and my friends…moving across the country? No that was not in my plans! Note to self be more specific in your manifestations!
I called them back and I negotiated, I asked for more money, I wanted them to pay for flights home and a few other small extras. Looking back now I can say I was looking for an easy way out. I was 23 years old, fresh out of school and in my mind I was an adult but in life I was a baby! If they didn’t’ agree to my requests I could simply say, “Oh well they didn’t meet my expectations, so I said no.” But guess what? They agreed to all of the things that I asked for.
I made the hardest and best decision of my life. I moved across the country and I landed my dream job. So how is that for some serious manifesting?!
As I said, I didn’t know what I was doing at the time, but now I realize how powerful my words and my mind were. How powerful they still are! I literally believed without a shadow of a doubt I would be in that career with that company. I believed it so much that I said it out loud to people whenever they asked me what my plans were after I got my degree. I tell you this story to encourage you, anything you think you can do you can!
I’ve never taken the time to write this all down. The reason I decided to finally put it in print is that I needed to remind myself of what is possible if you truly believe in your dream, if you truly believe in yourself.
What are you manifesting? Do you believe it will happen? Do you tell other people your plans? Do you write it down? I believe our mind is so powerful. Powerful enough to give a naive girl the belief that she could land a dream job with little experience. Powerful enough that the belief became reality.
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