↓ Skip to main content
Expert LinkedIn
Professional Development Paths & People

From Vietnam to Singapore to Paris - Why Progress Beats Perfection Abroad

9 min read
Olivia Bennett
Olivia Bennett Leadership Development Expert & Work-Life Balance Advocate

Editorial note: This Paths & People essay draws on public videos published on the Growing with Vanny YouTube channel between July 24 and August 4, 2026

The line that stayed with me was not about ambition. It was about permission.

“Seventeen years ago, I left Vietnam with one permission: growing myself.”

Most international career stories get told backward. They start with the visible proof - the city, the employer, the title, the language - and hide the more fragile thing that had to exist before any of that became possible: a willingness to move before the evidence arrives. That is what I hear in Vanny’s early videos, and it is why this week-old channel already feels more useful than most polished career advice. - Olivia Bennett

A documentary-style Paris street scene at dusk shows a Vietnamese woman in a dark coat speaking with a neighborhood shopkeeper across a small produce counter, a folded page of handwritten French notes visible in her hand while both lean in with focused warmth under rain-dark pavement and apartment windows glowing behind them.
Belonging abroad usually starts before fluency does.

The Thank-You Video That Says More Than Thank You
#

On August 4, just one week after launching her channel, Vanny published From Vietnam to Singapore to Paris | The Story Behind Growing With Vanny. On the surface it is a gratitude video: thanks to the first wave of subscribers, acknowledgement of mentors, former bosses, clients, colleagues, friends, and family, and an update that the channel had already reached nearly 250 subscribers in its first week.

The milestone matters less than the governing belief behind it.

Vanny does not describe her 17 years across South Korea, Singapore, and France as a neat upward ladder. She describes them as a long journey filled with lessons, valuable experiences, vulnerabilities, setbacks, and the need to grow herself from scratch. That phrasing matters. Many people share the finished version of an international career; far fewer volunteer the repeated beginnerhood underneath it.

She also says something unusually direct for a personal-brand launch video: she is not a theory-based person. What she believes in is taking action day by day, step by step, so people can improve themselves over time. That matters because it tells you the channel is not being built around polished expertise from a distance. It is being built around practice.

That is also what gives the channel its shape. In the August 4 video, she says she created Growing with Vanny because she did not want to keep those lessons to herself. She wants to share not only skills and wins, but setbacks, so other people can grow at the same time. That is a stronger editorial promise than “follow my journey.” It is closer to: here is what repeated adaptation actually costs, and here is what it can make possible if you keep going.

International Careers Punish Perfectionism First
#

Her July 27 video, 17 Years Abroad: My Advice for Living Well Overseas, is the clearest statement of the channel’s deeper thesis. Living overseas, she says, is about far more than visas, jobs, or learning a new language. It is about resilience, cultural adaptation, uncertainty, and continuing to grow through each challenge. The specific lesson she chooses to emphasize is local language. Speaking it, even imperfectly, opens the door to better conversations, stronger relationships, deeper cultural understanding, and a greater sense of belonging.

The important line in that video is not “learn the language.” It is “it doesn’t have to be perfect - it just has to be genuine.”

That is not a side note. It is the whole philosophy.

In Why You’re Not Improving (Even Though You’re Trying Hard), published on July 30, Vanny pushes the same idea from another angle. Real progress, she argues, starts with better diagnosis: What is the real problem? What is the root cause? What actions will create the biggest improvement? Many people try harder before they understand what they are actually trying to fix. That pattern shows up in public speaking, language learning, sports, and work. It also shows up in international careers.

Too many professionals approach cross-border ambition as a finishing school exercise. First I will become fully fluent. Then I will become fully confident. Then I will become fully legible. Then I will apply, move, speak, and share. By the time that version of readiness arrives, the opportunity has usually moved on without them.

Herminia Ibarra made a related point years ago in How to Stay Stuck in the Wrong Career: people do not think their way cleanly into a new professional identity. They act their way there through experiments, partial steps, and imperfect evidence. For people building careers across countries, that truth becomes more severe. The experiment is not just a new task or industry. Sometimes it is your voice, your language, your confidence, and your social position all at once.

If the former banker in my June Paths & People essay on identity after career success showed what happens when a title stops feeling like a self, Vanny’s videos illuminate the reverse problem: how a self gets built when the title has not arrived yet.

Singapore Was Not a Confidence Story
#

The video I kept coming back to, after the August 4 origin story, was How I Got a Job in Singapore Without Being There (Zero Experience in My 20s), also published on August 4. The framing is direct: no experience, no connections, not even living in the country where she wanted to work. It is exactly the kind of scenario that makes young professionals default to comparison and defeat. Other candidates are better. The market is too competitive. International hiring belongs to people who already have an edge.

Vanny does not deny that those fears are real. She says she had them too. But her lesson is sharper than generic encouragement. Getting an opportunity, she argues, is not only about experience. It is also about attitude, willingness to learn, and the actions taken day by day. In her case, those actions were strong enough that she says she eventually became the top salesperson in her company after one year.

What I find useful here is that she does not turn Singapore into a fairy tale. She turns it into a sequence.

That distinction matters. Fairy tales make global careers feel like luck or charisma. Sequences make them legible. A person becomes slightly better prepared, slightly better at communication, slightly more willing to act before certainty, and eventually difficult to ignore. The work stays hard, but the path stops looking mystical.

This is one reason her emphasis on communication skills is so important. In her launch video, Welcome to Growing with Vanny | My Story, she frames the channel around living abroad, learning English and French, developing communication skills, and sharing lessons along the way. That combination is more revealing than it seems. Communication is not an accessory skill for an international career. In many cases it is the career infrastructure. It is how you become trusted before you are familiar. It is how you cross the distance between “outsider with potential” and “person we can actually work with.”

Saying No Is Part of Growing Too
#

The most useful corrective inside the channel, though, may be I Said No To a Big Tech Job. Here’s Why, published on August 3.

A weaker creator would use a career story like this to signal prestige. Vanny uses it to complicate the story instead. Turning down the opportunity, she says, forced her to rethink language learning, career growth, and the need to prepare for opportunities long before they appear. That makes the channel more credible, not less. It tells you her version of action is not frantic motion or empty optimism. It includes restraint, preparation, and a willingness to admit that some opportunities reveal what still needs to be built.

That is a harder lesson than “say yes and figure it out later.” It is also closer to how durable careers are actually made.

Professionals building lives across borders often confuse ambition with immediacy. They want the employer, the city, or the brand-name validation quickly enough that they underinvest in the deeper assets that travel well: language, listening, communication, self-awareness, and the ability to keep improving without public applause. What I hear in Vanny’s early videos is a different hierarchy. Prestige matters less than capability that survives context change.

That is also why her repeated rejection of perfection lands as more than a slogan. It is not motivational wallpaper. It is a survival rule for anyone who expects to keep crossing environments where they are new again.

Why a Week-Old Channel Already Feels Believable
#

There is something quietly refreshing about how small and clear this project still is.

In the July 24 launch video, Vanny says plainly that she is not an expert, just someone who believes in continuous learning and hopes her experiences might encourage others. In the August 4 thank-you video, she says nearly 250 subscribers may look small to some people, but to her it represents a community that believes in lifelong learning, personal growth, and taking action.

That restraint is part of why the channel works.

Most people wait too long to begin public work because they think authority has to be fully assembled before it can be shared. Vanny is making the opposite bet. She is building a platform around the fact that growth is still underway. For a Paths & People story, that matters because it shifts the reader’s relationship to the subject. You are not being asked to admire a finished life from a distance. You are being asked to watch someone think carefully, communicate honestly, and keep moving while the process is still live.

For readers who are considering an overseas move, trying to become more fluent in a local language, learning to speak with more confidence, or attempting to compete in a market that seems to reward polished certainty, that may be the most useful part of all.

The real story behind Growing with Vanny is not that she made it from Vietnam to Singapore to Paris. It is that she kept consenting to be new in each place long enough for a life to form around the effort.

That is a better career lesson than perfection could ever teach.

Have you built part of your career in a country where you were initially invisible, under-credentialed, or simply not ready yet? Those are the stories I most want to hear, especially when the growth started before the confidence did.

Email me at olivia.bennett@tlnw.uk.

References
#

AI Content Notice

This article was created using artificial intelligence technology. Whenever possible, we include references and sources to support the information presented. Readers are encouraged to consult these sources for further information. While we strive for accuracy and provide valuable insights, readers should independently verify information and use their own judgment when making business decisions. The content may not reflect real-time market conditions or personal circumstances.

Related Articles

Tags

#international career development #living abroad #progress over perfection #communication skills #career growth