Issabelle Frial and her discovery of true passion

It is not easy for some working millennials nowadays to land a job that they have ever dreamed of having.

Some, perhaps, find it hard to wake themselves up as early as 5 a.m., deal with the daily struggle of going to the office, and do a job they are not happy with for at least eight hours. This kind of situation often pushes them to job-hop, as they look for a company that they think will satisfy them or maybe their hunger for career growth.

While many are still in search for something that will make them feel excited to be at work, destiny has favored this 25-year-old event planner and marketer who has already found the reason to get herself out of the bed every morning. But before she reveals her secret to being happy at work, why don’t we all get to know her first?

Proud Filipino-Canadian-American

Meet Issabelle Frial, a fiery, energetic, charismatic, ambitious, and natural entertainer just as how a lot of people would describe her. She is the fruit of the love between an engineer and a flight attendant who were both born and raised in the Philippines. The engineer left his motherland and flew to Canada at the age of 21. He was already working as an engineer at that time when he got assigned in Kuwait, the place where fate brought him and the flight attendant — who is now his wife — together.

Eventually, the couple’s love blossomed, resulting in the birth of the young Issabelle in October 1993. She took her father’s citizenship, a Canadian, although her mother gave birth to her in Kuwait.

Issabelle grew up being one of the members of the ‘No Permanent Address’ club. Two years after she was born, her family moved back to Toronto, Ontario, where her dad’s family was living and stayed there until she was eight years old. Her dad then got a job opportunity with Cathay Pacific Airways so they transferred to Anchorage, Alaska where she spent the rest of her elementary and high school days.

In 2011, they returned to Canada after her dad got relocated to Vancouver. Her family finally decided to settle down there but not for the teenage girl who, at that time, was about to become a college frosh. Her coast-to-coast journey continued as she started her university life in Victoria, British Columbia at the University of Victoria. She remained there until she finished her studies in 2016.

When she was two years old, the young girl, apparently, was unmindful of her surroundings when she went to Canada for the first time. But moving back there for the second time around as a teenager, Issabelle had noticed how prepossessing the Great White North is and how warm-hearted the citizens are.

“I think Canada is one of the greatest countries to live in. Whenever I travel outside the country, I’m always so proud to say that I’m from Canada. I love living here. Vancouver in particular; the city is breathtaking everywhere you go, the people are kind, and the food scene is out of this world.”

Growing up crossing one state to another, Issabelle was lucky enough, not being able to experience the struggles of a first-generation immigrant. Although she managed to save herself from encountering those, she, however, was not able to get away from the struggles that a second-generation immigrant goes through.

“Growing up, I thought that I had to confine myself to only one nationality and at the time that was the country I mostly knew and was familiar with – American,” said Issabelle. “But the more I traveled and the more I figured out who I was, I realized that I could identify with more than one nationality. Now, I’m proud to say that I’m a Filipino-Canadian-American.”

Being an immigrant with Asian blood also made it somehow difficult for her to blend in a non-Asian country. Issabelle, who has Filipino heritage, shared that she got discriminated by other kids for having “squintier” eyes than others and for bringing certain Pinoy food to school for her lunch.

“Every once in a while, I’ll get a snide comment from someone when I’m walking down the street or if I’m out for the night.”

Unfortunately for these bullies, no matter how much effort they try to exert to pull her down, they just could not win over this strong and positive-minded Filipina.

“There’s always going to be negative people out there who want to bring other people down and I don’t want to give them the satisfaction that I let their negative attitude or actions affect me.”

Discovering her place

After graduating, Issabelle went on with her less gloom-ridden life as she packed her things up again, leaving everything behind in Victoria to reunite with her family in Vancouver. Earning a university degree is a huge accomplishment for every student out there because everybody knows school life is not a piece of cake. You are proud to see how far you have come when you look back to those tough times, but as you turn your head, you notice that you still have a long road ahead of you — that is when you realize that your race does not end the moment you throw your graduation cap in the air; in fact, the trigger of the starting pistol was just pulled.

While some fresh graduates want to immediately savor the life outside the confinement of structured schooling, others, including Issabelle, are already in their quest inside the real world.

Sitting in front of her computer, Issabelle scrolled through a job posting site and found that Yelp, a local-search service, is hiring for the Vancouver Community Manager position. She then applied for it and went through the interview process, and as luck would have it, she got the job.

For everyone’s knowledge, growing up, being a marketer was far from the list that Issabelle wanted to do when she grew up, the truth is she had actually dreamed of becoming a dermatologist or cosmetic surgeon. She never really saw herself in the marketing industry until she took various courses during her days as a Psychology student and realized that being a medical practitioner is not the right path for her.

“The idea of working in marketing came to me when I took a class in Consumer Psychology. After taking that class, I picked up a couple [of] jobs working as an event coordinating intern and digital and social media intern where I was able to learn more about the industry.”

But not only did she gain further understanding of the diverse world of marketing, but Isabelle also slowly discovered her true passion that led her to her current job position.

As an extrovert through and through (scoring as a 99% extrovert on her Myers-Briggs test), Issabelle said she gets her motivation and energy from being around people that is why being employed in the role she applied for was the ‘perfect job’ for her.

“In the marketing/events industry, you’re constantly surrounded with different human beings and personalities. You’re faced with an assortment of new challenges and every single day is so different. I thrive from it.”

As the Vancouver Community Manager, she enjoys growing the local community in Vancouver; as well as hosting several media events, engaging with the online community, overseeing all social platforms, and writing weekly newsletters.

It makes her heart full and content, or as she says, “it gives me the warm and fuzzies”, every time she connects with local business owners and is able to share their success stories with the rest of the community. Embracing changes in the fast-paced events and marketing universe also makes her happy because, for her, it means that she is constantly making growing and progress.

“I wouldn’t be happy if I did the same thing every single day, so I love that I’m in a career where every day is so different.”

As a young professional, Issabelle acknowledged that not everyone in her age these days is doing the job that they really love. Finding what she describes as her “career breakthrough” at 23, Issabelle feels nothing but gratefulness that she became part of the Yelp family which feeds her cravings for passion.

Although she is overjoyed with what she has achieved in her career so far, Issabelle agrees with a Filipino proverb that she still has ‘more rice to eat’ before attaining her ultimate life goal.

“I still have so much to learn and want to accomplish so much, so I think being able to appreciate the success that I’ve had, but knowing that there is still so much more potential and growth left is really motivating for me.”

“For right now, I’m very happy with my current role at Yelp and am excited for what I’ve got planned for the local community this year. If you’re living in Vancouver and love supporting local businesses, come check out one of my events! You can find more info at www.yelp.com/events/vancouver or add me as a friend on Yelp!”

You may not be at your dream career as fast as Issabelle was able to but believe in yourself that one day you will land there too. There might be mornings that you get a scary thought of going to the office, thinking of ways on how can you survive another ‘boring’ day at work.

But what if you do not just think about getting through a long day of work and start searching for things that will help you thrive?

You may not be sure what you really want to do yet, but while you are still thinking about it, you get out of your bed and refresh yourself as you think of something that will turn your dull moments at work into exciting and challenging ones.

No one had a clue that Issabelle would find her true passion when she took that consumer psychology class in university — same goes with you; no one knows where you might land or what will come in your way if only you have the willingness and initiative to reignite the spark in your career.