My Forrest Gump life and how that shaped me professionally

Forrest Gump is my favorite movie of all time. Why? I have heard before some friends calling me Forrest Gump because of so many stories I have to tell. Besides that I agree with that similarity, I like how the movie events connect to each other in a crazy way.

Borned in a military family (dad, uncle, grandfather, great grandfather, ...), I grew up having to face changes in life all the time. When I was eleven months old I had my first situation in which we had to move to another city, and seven other times after that one. I have lived in six different cities in Brazil, one in Chile, and another one in the United States. Can I mentioned how many schools I attended in life? Since first grade, there were eight schools until finishing high school.

Can you see now a small similarity with Forrest Gump? But it has much more than that. I love to use a quote from Steve Jobs that says: "...you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.". The movie first feels confusing, so many different things happening and you start thinking that makes no sense at all.... until you look backwards and realize how connected each experience is to each other

I can definitely say I can see that in my own life. Let's fast forward to 2012. I was struggling to get in college, to be more specific, to get accepted at UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) to study Defesa e Gest?o Estratégica Internacional (Defense and Strategic International Management). I failed at that three times... January 2012 for 15 spots, July 12 for 3 spots, and January 2013 for 10 spots. Fast forward again, this time for 2014, in which I completely failed at keeping my spot at my college varsity soccer team and ending my dream of being a professional player. 2015 when I got accepted for the Disney College Program and found out a week before that I couldn't go because of my visa restrictions. 2017 when I failed at landing a summer internship. I can highlight these four periods of time in which I couldn't accomplish what I had planned for my life.

Looking backwards, what can I see? I will break each one of them for you:

• Failing at getting accepted to UFRJ College: I started working at a mall near my house to be able to have some money to enjoy my 20 years old self. With that money I decided to buy a videogame and ended up being friends with the person I bought the console from. Weeks later he invited me to a football tryout (I will not use the word soccer...) to get in a sports agency that prepared student athletes to get a sport scholarship at a US College. I was invited to be part of their athletes squad and on August 2013 I was flying to St Louis to attend Lindenwood University Belleville as a student athlete for four years and a half.

• Failing at keeping my spot in the soccer varsity team: this one hurst me until today, it was a life long dream to make it to professional level. Because of that, I decided I had to use my energy and passion into another extra curricular activity. I found something called Student Government Association, a name I have heard before but thought it was a group to study the american government... but actually it was a group that had the goal of improving campus life for all students and its administration. I applied for a Senator position and worked for over a year writing proposals/projects for our campus. After that year, I applied to be Student Body President and won the campus elections against two other candidates. My goal there was to manage a group of nine people and be the students representative in monthly meetings with the University President and its administration.

• Unable to attend the Disney College Program I was accepted: The program it was suppose to go from April all the way to the end of the year. On May I received an e-mail from the university Director of Student Life & Leadership to a meeting about starting the first Greek organisation on campus. Like the majority of people outside the US, the only thing I knew about fraternities are what we all see on movies: a lot of parties and that's it. I attended the meeting just with the intention of learning more about it, no desire to actually contribute somehow. They explained there were also a focus on personal and professional development, being more involved on campus and within the community, etc. At the end they asked the almost 20 people attending the meeting who wanted to lead the project... and no one raised their hands until I said "why not?". I worked on that project during my summer vacations by searching, studying, and getting in contact with over sixty fraternities headquarters around the country. On Sept 2015 we started the first Greek organisation on campus, Sigma Tau Gamma (https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/sigma-tau-gamma-fraternity/).
• I was elected their President with the mission to build a strong base to be able to be successful chapter for many member`s generations. Over the year and a half as a President, I led around 27 members in many campus events, community services, and the project of being accepted as a full chapter. Besides all professional experience, that opportunity gave me life long friends and an important award: nominated to its Hall of Fame class of 2018, one of the ten selected over hundred of brothers around the US (https://sigtau.org/2018-noble-man-hall-of-fame-announced/)

• Failing at getting a summer internship on 2017: with that plan ruined, I came back to Brazil for my summer vacations. On the last week before going back to the US I attended a Funda??o Estudar conference (https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/fundacaoestudar/) and meet many great professionals, one of them became my friend and two years later helped me land my first job in S?o Paulo, and three months later we both started at LinkedIn at the same day.

Forrest Gump gives its viewers a ray of hope and positivity that no matter how many troubles come in your way, you are going to be fine.

I know sometimes life throws you a rock and you just want to live like Lieutenant Dan celebrating New Year's eve like life is not fair at all. If you watch the movie again you will see at the end him being grateful to Forrest Gump for helping him trough life leading him to get back on his feet and having a successful business endeavour and a great family.

Many times in life we can't reach our goals and dreams. It's tough, there is no argument against that. The only thing we can do is keep moving forward, keep trusting somehow things will connect in the future. Today be better than you were yesterday. Tomorrow be better than you are today. We are all like no other, each one of us has something that makes us special in a certain way.

It's okay to hit a bump on the road. Reflect on the situation, how that happened, how you could avoid that from happening again, and how you can move forward. I can say that I wouldn't be here today if it was not by the many failures I had in life, each one of them not just gave me an important lesson, but also guided me to the path I am today.

And always remember:

“My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.” - Forrest Gump