The Question Nobody Asks
In Article 1, we left you with a piece of armor and a rule: leave your ego at the door, because the Adult World trades in value, not potential, not promise, not the number of applications you sent into the silence.
You did the work. You applied, absorbed the rejections, applied again. You learned, as Siana put it, that “the sun still rises the next day.” And eventually, because armor compounds, and motion beats hesitation, you got the offer.
Now everyone around you is asking: how much? Which company? Which title?
These are not bad questions. But they are the wrong first question. The one nobody seems to be asking, the one that will determine, more than any salary band or brand name, whether your first job becomes the beginning of a career or a very expensive year of going through the motions, is simpler and more uncomfortable than any of them.
The question is: Who will you be sitting next to?
In the second session of our series, the Gen Z squad from West University Timișoara: Siana, Anelia, and Maria, gathered with Serban to unpack the rule that Peter Mallouk, one of the most recognized names in American wealth management, puts at the center of his advice to young professionals: “proximity (to the right people) is a very big indicator of success.”
Not prestige. Not salary. Not the floor you work on or the logo on your badge. The right room.
The person sitting across from you, the manager two desks down, the senior partner who occasionally walks through the room, these people are not just your colleagues. They are your curriculum. And unlike a university syllabus, nobody hands it to you. You have to build it yourself.
Money Can Wait. Learning Cannot
The squad’s position on this was unanimous, and it surprised nobody more than Serban.
“For me, exposure to the learning curve is the priority. At this moment, I feel I lack professional competence and, fortunately, I don’t have major responsibilities like a family or rent to pay. I can afford, at this stage of life, not to put money first.” (Siana)
Anelia went further:
“I would accept at a lower salary level because that is not my goal now, and I am not motivated only extrinsically. I don’t think a very well-paid job would motivate me enough if I didn’t like what I was doing.” (Anelia)
In the Adult World, compensation eventually catches up to competence. But competence, once lost from your developmental agenda, is very hard to recover. The candidate who spent three years in the right room, learning from the right people, will almost always outpace the one who chose the higher starting salary and learned very little.
Serban says: The salary gap between a RON4,000 and RON6,000 entry-level role disappears in a maximum of two years. The learning gap between the right mentor and the wrong one can follow you for a decade.
The Imposter and the Amateur
Before we could talk about learning, we had to address the voice inside every new graduate that says: “I know absolutely nothing.”
Serban stopped the conversation there. He made a distinction that stayed with the room:
There is a profound difference between knowing nothing and not knowing enough. The first is what imposter syndrome tells you. The second is the truth, and it is a much more manageable problem.
He gave a simple exercise: think about a bank. Think about the hospitality industry. Now tell me what you know. Where are products sold? How are they made? Who regulates them? What drives margins?
The squad realized, somewhat sheepishly, that they knew quite a lot. Not at the level of a senior professional, but enough to be a student rather than a ghost.
This reframes matters because imposter syndrome does not just hurt your confidence. It makes you passive. If you believe you know nothing, you wait. You wait for instructions, for permission, for someone to hand you the manual. And in the Adult World, that manual never arrives.
The adult professional world does not distinguish between someone who knows nothing and someone who acts like they know nothing. Both stay still. Both stay junior.
What Psychological Safety Really Means
When Anelia described her ideal first workplace, she did not say “friendly” or “nice”. She said safe.
“It’s very important at the beginning to have colleagues or a boss I can go to without fear to ask about things I don’t know. I want someone open who will answer me and guide me when I get stuck, precisely so I can learn and avoid bigger problems in the future.” (Anelia)
Serban introduced the clinical term for what she was describing: psychological safety, the condition under which people feel they can ask questions, make mistakes, and offer ideas without fear of punishment or humiliation.
But the squad added a layer that is often missing from the management literature.
Anelia:
“Psychological safety means being able to say something without feeling like you are being judged. The way they offer feedback also matters a lot, it must not affect me negatively.” (Anelia)
And critically: the kind of feedback that feels safe is not just “positive” feedback. It is feedback that comes with a path forward.
“I don’t just want to be told I’m wrong. I want the mentor to also come up with solutions: to show me how to proceed in the future or ask me how we can resolve the situation together. I want them to help me progress, not leave me stuck in that problem.” (Anelia)
Serban nodded. Then he added the counterpoint that comes from the mentor’s side of the table:
“In practice, finding a truly great mentor is rare. It doesn’t happen often, and many people go through entire careers without ever encountering one. So if you are lucky enough to find someone who knows when to guide and when to step back, treasure that relationship. Don’t take it for granted.” (Serban)
The Fire That Tempers the Iron
Not every mentor is Master Yoda. And the squad acknowledged it.
Serban put an uncomfortable question directly: What do you do when the person across the desk is not safe, not a guide, but a destructive force?
Anelia responded that she would push back: Give me clear steps. Tell me what you expect. If the environment is chaotic, she’d build her own structure anyway and work from there.
Siana went deeper:
“The line is when you start actually believing the mean feedback—when it gets inside your head. It’s even harder if that’s your very first boss, because you have nothing to compare it to. You might just think, “Okay, so this is how it works.” This is what I signed up for.” (Siana)
But she also offered something more nuanced: a difficult person is still a teacher. Not of what to do—but of what not to do. And that negative curriculum is often more memorable than the positive one.
“In such a situation, you learn much more about managing people. If you start directly working with a difficult person, you are forced to learn how to interact and adapt—and that gives you valuable lessons you might not have received if everything went naturally.” (Siana)
Serban brought in Louis Litt from Suits—the imperious, relentless, feared mentor who produced the best junior lawyers in the firm. The squad recognized the type immediately.
Siana’s answer was sharp:
“I think it only works if you admire that person very much. To accept a demanding and tough mentor, you must feel that you share the same high standards they do.” (Siana)
This is the fire that tempers the iron principle: demanding pressure builds exceptional professionals—but only when the junior respects the source of the pressure. A feared, brilliant mentor can shape you. A feared mentor who is merely cruel breaks you.
Maria, who joined the session midway through, added the deepest anchor of all:
“If you have self-confidence and are aware of your value, even if their negative attitude bothers you, you manage to get over it, understanding that their reactions may come from their own personal insecurities. When you are sure of yourself, you continue on your path and don’t let a negative opinion block you.” (Maria)
She paused, then added something that stopped the conversation: the last time she had received real feedback of any kind was in high school.
In college, nobody gave her negative feedback anymore. In fact, nobody gave her any feedback at all.
Serban found this in his own research on Romanian leaders. When he asked them about formative mentors, everyone cited a schoolteacher, a high-school professor. Nobody mentioned a university lecturer.
There is a gap in our development system. By the time students are mature enough to absorb complex professional feedback, the institutional infrastructure for delivering it has quietly disappeared. The first boss fills that vacuum—for better or for worse.
Learning the Trade
There is no instruction manual.
Every student who has spoken to a recently employed peer hears the same thing: you are thrown into the water and expected to swim. The onboarding deck expires on day three. After that, the job is yours to figure out.
This terrified Siana. It also excited her.
“From discussions with my already employed colleagues, I learned that many expected that A-to-Z manual, which actually doesn’t exist. They told me that at the beginning you are simply thrown into the water and forced to be proactive to survive. But they guaranteed that you get used to it shortly—and it becomes natural.” (Siana)
Maria confirmed it from the other side—already working, already in the water:
“I think it comes naturally at some point. When you are faced with a fait accompli and see you don’t receive precise directions, you have no choice and must act.” (Maria)
She described being handed a task on a Friday afternoon that she had no framework for: walk through the factory floor, find every operator in the hall, and collect signatures for a training. No names. No map. No guide.
She spent an hour and a half walking from person to person, asking: “Are you X? Do you know where I can find Y?” She was stressed. She was embarrassed. She was also, without realizing it, learning in the most efficient way possible: directly, under pressure, from people who actually do the work.
“The second time, I couldn’t wait to go. I also noticed that management greatly appreciates it when you take the initiative to get involved, want to learn more, and ask questions. Your desire to progress is clearly seen.” (Maria)
This is what learning the trade looks like. Not passive reception, but the oldest form of apprenticeship: watching, doing, failing, adjusting. You don’t wait to be taught. You position yourself close to the work, and you absorb.
How to Walk to the Right Room
The squad unpacked what this looks like from the ground floor.
Serban asked, “What strategies would you use at a new job to get into the right room?”
The answers were specific and practical.
Three Moves to Find the Right Room
- Admit you’re a beginner. This is counterintuitive. The instinct is to project competence from day one. But authentically acknowledging that you are at the beginning of the road—and that you need guidance—makes the people around you more willing to invest in you. Nobody mentors a person who pretends to know everything. Everyone has time for the person who asks good questions.
- Show up at meetings you weren’t invited to. Boaz Weinstein, a hedge fund manager, distills the entire strategy into one sentence: “Show up at meetings you weren’t invited to.” With permission, or at least with the courage to ask. Serban was explicit: your perseverance and involvement will not go unnoticed. The meeting room is where decisions happen, where language is formed, and where the real curriculum is delivered. Find a way in, politely, persistently, with a notebook.
- Be passionately curious, and stay in motion. Mark Jenkins, an executive coach, puts it plainly: the single most impactful trait for a young professional entering these rooms is to be “obsessively curious.” The junior with a notebook and genuine questions is received very differently from the one who walks in to be seen. Siana named the internal obstacle that holds most people back: the fear of asking something obvious, of looking like you don’t know what you’re doing. But here’s the thing: real curiosity, the kind that’s genuine and respectful, gets you places that competence alone never will. So when you’re lost, don’t freeze. Just ask the next person in front of you. The embarrassment of asking is temporary. The competence you build from the answer is permanent. And when people can see that you actually care about what they do, not just about getting ahead, they’ll make time for you, and include you in conversations you were never officially invited to join.
How Big Is Your Smile?
At the end of every session with the squad, there is a moment where the topic lands somewhere human. This time, it was a closing image that no one had planned.
Serban had just finished asking the group what strategies they would use to get into the right room. The answers were all there: the smile, the curiosity, the giver attitude, the uninvited meetings.
And then he looked at the screen.
Everyone was smiling.
Not politely. Not professionally. The full, unguarded kind of smile that happens when a conversation has been so honest, so energizing, so free of pretense that your face does it on its own.
That smile, Anelia’s, Siana’s, Maria’s, is both the answer to the question and the question itself. Because how big is your smile? It’s about the look on your face when a senior colleague takes ten minutes out of their day to show you how something works, when someone finishes explaining a concept and checks if you followed, when you walk out of a meeting you were not supposed to be in. Whether they can see, without you saying a word, that you are genuinely glad to be there.
That gladness is magnetic. And in the first years of your career, magnetism gets you into the right room. The right room is where learning happens. And learning, compounded over a decade, is everything.
Spring continues. The squad is still in the room. And the next question is already forming.
Class is in session. Stay tuned for Article 3: The Art of “Carrying the Bag”. To lead the room, you must first book the room.
This article is the second in the series Winning Your First Professional Decade. It is based on a session recorded on 8 March 2026 with Siana, Anelia, and Maria from West University Timișoara, facilitated by Serban Toader.
