The following is an interview done with Voyage Houston.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Anhlan Nguyen.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Anhlan. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
2017 was a year of transformation for me as I changed my 25-year career as an IT Portfolio Manager to become an ICF certified Professional Life Coach, specializing in Emotional Intelligence and Coaching for Transformation, established a social enterprise called Lyceum and started my speaking career. I did all of these while coping with my most difficult challenges as I lost my parents within six weeks from each other, with my husband’s being hospitalized and as I went through all the professional training to achieve my new credential of a professional life coach and a professional fundraiser and built a start-up at the end of the year.

Here I am at the end of 2018, a year full of actions and new energy. I learned to transform the pain of my grief into a source of incredible energy not only to sustain myself but also to uplift me to the next level of my life. God gave me this gift of pain and sorrow so that I can be connected with whom I will serve to help them transform their pain to something that enriches them. I never feel so much alive, living on the fast lane, aligning all of my actions and work with my passion of human development, helping others to be connected with their own best version to become better, happier and be the best they can be. I was very fortunate to be appointed by President Barack Obama from 2012 – 2016 to serve on the board of Directors of Vietnam Education Foundation and had the opportunity to be connected with educators from across the country. My passion has always been in Education and Personal and Leadership Development. With Lyceum, I hope to serve not only young adults but also professionals and entrepreneurs from all walks of life who want to achieve their goals to live a fulfilled and happy life with success both in professional and personal life. I found my purpose of serving others with the focus on their emotional intelligence and promoting the values of GRACE (Gratitude – Respect – Accountability – Courage – Engagement).

As I delivered in the acceptance speech for the “Americanism Medal” awarded by the Honor Society of American Daughters of American Revolution (DAR) in 2017, it has been a tremendous blessing to live in America and living the American Dream, it is truly an honor for me to love, to serve and to give! I would like to share with you the short poem I created as a refugee/immigrant to this great country which I call home in the past few decades.

I was a refugee
Escaping during those days after the Vietnam war
Freedom is not free
In Vietnam, we paid by risking life at sea!
Out of one million who tried to make it
Only one third made it to America!
I consider myself the lucky one,
Who arrived and made a new life here.
I am a proud Vietnamese – American
My motherland gave me birth and identity,
But it is America who gave me freedom and opportunity
To blossom and to be the best I can be!
Now as the citizen of this beautiful country
It is my privilege and honor
To volunteer, to serve and to give!
Thank you, America!

I look forward to serving you!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Life cannot be always smooth, let alone the fact that when you started something new. I stopped working in the corporate world which gave me a very comfortable 6 figure annual income to dedicate full time as a Non-profit Director of Development which reduced my salary to nearly nothing, plus I also started up a new business on coaching, training, and development with basically nothing. However, the most important thing is that you know who you are and you have a burning desire of accomplishing some lofty goal and the tenacity and resilience to work tirelessly until you achieve your goal. For young women who just started a similar journey, here are what I would like to recommend:

1. Solid understanding of who you are and always working on developing and becoming the best version of yourself in term of skills and attitude. What story you are telling yourself about you? If it is not a good story, change it and stick to the good one that lifts you up.

2. Determine what do you want to do in life, focusing on those that make you feel so much alive, your passion will be the fuel for you to continue when things get tough. You have to solidly clear about the WHY of everything you do.

3. Maintaining a positive attitude toward life – You have the power to control your mind, if you do not control it, it will control you. Feed your minds with positive thoughts, focusing on the future and the vision you have drawn for yourself.

4. Work relentlessly, I meant relentlessly, to refine the skills needed to be successful in whichever you determine. Learn, learn and learn and practice, practice, practice… until you master your craft! Failure is necessary to achieve success, so fail fast and learn from them.

5. Try your best and then let faith lead you to maintain your inner peace. After all, you have done your best in your own circumstances and God will arrange the rest. Accept whatever challenges come your way and knowing that you do have the inner resources to cope with them regardless.

Good luck to all!

Alright – so let’s talk your work. Tell us about Lyceum – what should we know?
I am a community builder, a social activist, and an educator.

In 2005, I worked with a few others to establish a coalition of community of colors (Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native Americans) to work on a campaign for the smoking ban in the City of Houston, and after three years, we achieved the goal, it was the most uplifting experience I had seen the whole community coming together for a worthy cause, which is establishing a policy to protect the issue of second-hand smoke in the restaurants and all public workplace.

In 1998, I started a youth leadership development camp for young adults (age 18 – 35) called Len Duong camp for Vietnamese youth from across America. The camp has lasted in the past 21 years, developing more than 5000 young leaders for our communities across the United States and Canada. Youth leadership Development is my passion and the most rewarding experience is seeing your mentees becoming the best version of themselves. This path has enabled me to choose the career of coaching that I currently have.

My specialty is coaching for transformation, providing leadership development training focusing on emotional intelligence and how to improve your life both professionally and personally. I have delivered a speech at conferences, or different groups such as the Google employee network, the Canadian Lady Bosses, or the Vietnamese Canadian Professional Network event, etc. Since I was working with my doctoral dissertation on Emotional Intelligence, my interest shifted to human development and now I am a certified Emotional Intelligence coach and frequent speaker on EI and EQ topic.

Lyceum is a brand new organization specializing in professional development training both in the workplace and for entrepreneurs. We are a team of seasoned professional trainers and coaches who are passionate on helping others to achieve their full potential, to live a much happier, healthier and more productive life and also enjoy their ride through this life. For more information, please contact us through info@lyceumglobal.net for more information. We also develop customized training to address your own company’s needs on employees development and employees’ engagement.

Do you feel like there was something about the experiences you had growing up that played an outsized role in setting you up for success later in life?
I grew up in the war-torn country of Vietnam and witnessed deaths on a daily basis as a child. This taught me the value of life and the blessing of just the fact that you are alive! After 1975, my family tried several times to escape from Vietnam. In one of these failed attempts, I was put in jail when I was only 16 years old. I also had an experience of an escape that failed, I was on a 15-meter boat that carried 300 people on several layers. The boat was leaked as we approached the international border, it had to come back to the shore and about 300 meters from the shore, the boat sank! Half of the people on that boat died while I tried to swim toward the shore fighting for my own life. This experience taught me so much about the price of freedom, the blessing that I currently have that hundreds of thousands of other refugees couldn’t have since they died on the high sea. It shaped my characters of endurance and perseverance, never taking “No” as an answer and never quit once you are on a journey toward a goal you have chosen. All the challenges are only the “blessings” to teach me to be better, more resilient and more ready for the ultimate success.