Back when the time was just a child and progress was measured in moons, there was once a poor family living outside a village called Hope. This family had seven children, all different and memorable in their own way.
The oldest two were Sunday and Saturday, a boy and girl with so much charisma everybody in the town loved them. Friday was their younger sister, that seemed to follow in their footsteps but with a bit more of a rebellious nature. Thursday was a calm and peaceful girl, with her hair always carefully tied in the back and her eyes full of confidence. Wednesday was an energetic boy, always ready to invent something or at least disassemble things to figure out their mechanisms. Tuesday seemed the most unremarkable at first sight and even a bit scary because she used to love wearing dark clothing and rarely said a word. And the youngest was Monday. A scrawny little boy, always looking like something was about to go wrong, and shy as the sun in winter.
Being the youngest and such a tiny creature at that made all his brothers and sisters mock him, torment him, and play pranks on him. After a while Monday isolated himself. He was too tiny to do any heavy work so nobody at home was really bothered that he was gone while the sun was up.
Having nothing else to do, Monday spent most light exploring. That is how one day he found a river and right next to it a little patch of land with beautiful flowers and other interesting-looking plants. He then decided that the land must be magical, and that he will bring there all the little plants and seeds that, just like him, nobody gave much chance to grow strong.
Every day Monday would look around the farm for plants his parents considered couldn’t be saved and put them in a box, then plant them in his new magical garden. After he planted them he would water them, weed them and check each one to see if they are better there.
At first, there were just a few plants. But with every moon, more plants would gather there, until when he would not manage to do all his work before sunset and decided to spend the night there doing even more watering and caring.
That is when his family realized he was missing and got worried. So Sunday and Saturday went out to search for him, leaving the younger ones to rest for tomorrow’s work. They were set to punish young Monday. But when they found him, after hours of searching, in that little patch of land, all sweaty and tired from taking care of his plants they decided to let him go without any yelling or mockery. In fact, they told young Monday to go home and rest for two moons, and they will take care of his garden. Thrilled and exhausted Monday was very grateful, so he went home and slept.
The next two mornings Sunday and Saturday said they were heading for the garden, which none believed to be magical, but wondered instead and had the fun they could not, had they been home working.
The third morning Monday felt well rested and decided to go back to the garden himself and see how his magical spot progressed.
And when he got there…he was shocked by what was waiting for him.
The plants grew tall and healthy, with great fruit and amazing flowers. Everything looked like it was cultivated in the best places in the world and tasted like nothing else his family could afford to buy before.
So he went home running, to thank his brother and sister who came to see the garden themselves then confessed to having done nothing because they did not think it would ever grow into anything useful.
But Monday did not mind. He understood that some things need more than water, good soil, and a lack of weeds to grow. They need time!
From his little magical garden, Monday started selling fruits and flowers until quite a few moons later his family was poor no longer.
But with every sold fruit or flower, he would plant a new one. And do everything he did in the beginning with one exception. When he finished all that depended on him he stopped and rested, giving his plants time to ripen and himself time to be.
His elder siblings learned something too from this experience. If you plant no seed, none will grow. So if you think nothing can change and act like that, it becomes a reality. But if you plant your seeds, believe in them, and do the work, bud by bud things can turn magically better.
This text is a Coach4Marketing creation and is therefore protected by copyrights.
I wrote about ten intro versions for this article, then I decided to replace them with a straightforward one – I would love March to be about more than postcards, happy wishes, rivers of flowers, retail campaigns, and sunny selfies.
I would love us to be able to talk about women without turning it into a fight or drama of some kind, to confront reality without complaining, to look at each other in admiration, not awe or judgment.
A while ago I asked my niece, who is three years old, what princess would she like to be and loves most. And her answer was „Me!”. She is her favorite princess, but not because she is vain, but because she does not understand why she would need to be or imitate somebody else!
And that was a bit of a surprise for me. I grew up with the poor habit of comparing myself to others and continuously coming second. Others were always better, prettier, more natural, more disciplined, stronger, funnier, etc
That is why I wanted to make this month about more than wishing you a great Spring. I want to bring forward womanhood at its best. I want to share those voices that inspire and support many, pioneer roles, and stand for something greater than themselves every day.
And to start this topic, I want to share a few favorite topics:
Do you remember what you wanted to be as a child? Was it something you truly desired or that somebody told you that would be awesome to be, like a doctor or a policeman?
Moreover, when you decided to do something else, less common in your family or group, how did those around you react? Did you feel support? Did you feel discouraged?
Of course, they did the best they knew and could. This article is not about judging, as I just mentioned above. I respect the work our parents and their parents did for us to get here. What I want to focus on is us, now, our present, our decisions, our reactions. We choose every day to fold under or to rise from our habits, our less helpful beliefs. And we choose every single day if we make them last, or we make them lost.
You might say this is important for parents. But it isn’t. This is vital for humans. All humans, of all genders and on all continents. We all have generations before us that survived helped by stories. As time passes, those stories become legends, traditions, cultural reflexes. So you have to choose every day what you nurture – limits or limitlessness.
We spend so much time running from failure. Have you ever stopped to ponder why? One theory is that we fear failure because we integrated the belief that „failure” = „shame”.
I was talking the other month with a client and friend, who was working herself to exhaustion in order to finish a project she has started. She is a mother, a wife, a (great) friend, a sister, a daughter, a manager on maternity leave, and recently an entrepreneur. Her career was a long and tiring fight not to fail others, not to be less than anybody expected of her. She is truly great, but unfortunately, she is also truly frightened by failure, by critics, by the shame of disappointing. That fear has haunted her and wore her down, despite her constant performance.
In one of our sessions, the subject of making sure everything runs perfectly with her new business came up. She was worried that she might do something wrong. That somebody might not be happy. That she might not have the right visual, the most appealing text, the best targeting. She was worried that she would fail. Somewhere in her list of possible dangers I stopped her and told her:
START FAILING! Do it! Even more, enjoy it! You are so new to this that every mistake you do now is a shortcut to growing. Failing will point out what needs improvement in your brand, your product, or yourself.
Failing can be exciting, and failing constantly will keep you in the area of failing small, exploring, and discovering. Running from failure keeps you in a state of fear, narrows your sight, your mind, and your life. Of course, this doesn’t happen just by reading my advice, the best self-help book, or the best guide in the world. This happens in time, by paying attention to yourself. It takes a lot of kindness to change the perception of mistakes to be pals and not enemies.
Perfection is a lie. We know this and yet, we fall for this. We would love to have the house in the movies that dust never settles in. The perfectly clean white carpets, that kids seem to play on and somehow never put the smallest spot on. The ideal mood of calm and serenity at all hours, with all people, on all topics. We want to be:
This list is endless. No joke. ENDLESS!!!
If these are hopes, aspirations, objectives, it’s great. Especially if they are prioritized and selected from the list, and you don’t aim for everything, every time, all day. However, if you turn them into evaluation (or judgment criteria) then things turn painful very fast. You will feel less for not achieving an impossible goal. And what’s even stranger is that you set those goals for yourself. In other words, you are punishing yourself to be Sisyphus.
I am sure some of these aspects are not new for you. And the point of this article was not to innovate. I wrote it to remind you (and myself) that you always have at least two choices: to do what’s best for you or to just know what that is. What do you choose today?
A person should have aspirations and objectives. These give you a sense of direction and fulfillment as you advance in life. I have heard this ever since I was a child, and I have wondered then just as I am asking now: but what if they don’t?
Aspiring to different things, whether they are possessions or feelings, can come with a lot of disappointment as well. Or, in some cases, with a very dissatisfactory success. And then what? Where do you go from your highest aspiration’s achievement? To a wheel of infinite spinning? To a sabbatical year, decade…life in search of your truth until you give up on it and return home to just hang in there?
Maybe, just maybe, we are not doing this goal-setting or goal-getting thing well. I found in one of the books I was reading the following quote, belonging to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“He who has a WHY to live for can bear almost any HOW.”
Until then, I thought this whole WHY theme is quite a recent issue that Simon Sinek discovered and built upon it. But it seems searching for a WHY has been a struggle that may as well have been here since the beginning of reason. It may have started as a sense of utility, but it has slowly evolved in an inner guide towards what is our authentic purpose.
To be honest, I don’t have a recipe and I do not believe in 7 magic steps to find your “WHY”. Your purpose is closely connected to your identity, so the starting points in searching for it are introspection and reflection.
Pay attention to what motivates you so strongly that even after hours of hard work you feel like your batteries are not drained but recharged. Seek within what inspires you most. What kind of people do you feel better after interacting with? What are the things you spot and appreciate most in others or in yourself? What is your biggest dream, without bringing it down to earth due to your current situation? When you close your eyes and you imagine living your dream, what are you surrounded by?
Try to answer a few of these questions then connect the dots, and go back to introspection. For a few very lucky people this purpose shows itself very early and remains very clear. For most of us, our WHY is something we need to work on constantly so we don’t lose track of it as it might change.
When I was in high school, I had a glimpse of my WHY and decided that I would like to study psychology. I was, however, strongly discouraged by those around me. At that time, we knew no specialist that had a financially comfortable life by practicing in this field. 1-2 years later I joined an NGO and was formed to be a Trainer of Trainers for peer education. I discovered another glimpse of my why, but when I started my university studies in Communication I got partially disconnected from it, but never completely. When the recession hit my field and I lost my job, I went back to training and created a workshop and a few fun-shops. That was my fallback. But even then, I did not see it completely, so I soon returned to marketing and kept going with my career.
It took me over 15 years until, after quitting a job that pushed me close to a burn out twice and taking a moment to listen, I saw it. And guess what? It was there all along! My purpose is to support people in getting to their dreams. I coach, train or consult those who are passionate and dedicated to making their dreams true. This is what I have done my whole life, just in a different way. I have always stood by those dedicated to building, but needed a hand or shoulder. And the amount of happiness and energy I take from doing this is incomparable.
But most importantly, when I started Coach4Marketing I had this full-hearted feeling, like when you have had a fun but very long journey and you finally return to your comfortable, made for you, home. I believe that feeling is worth the search, and I truly hope everybody gets it in their life.
The reason why I am sharing my journey is that you might be searching for this WHY and still haven’t found it yet. And that’s OK! As I said, it doesn’t get lost, it just evolves with you. Just keep paying attention to yourself and keep doing the things that make you blossom. Because sometimes it might pop right from under your habits, your everyday life, from the things you have already done or seen a million times.
Invest in your passions, be kind to your flaws and practice the lesson I am still learning: give yourself time!
Every day adds to your story. And I am sure it is already a hell of a story!
Credit Foto: Alina Botica – www.alinabotica.ro, Campania Raw You.
Planning is for sure the word of the month. Every start of the year makes us set goals, draft deadlines and dream a little.
Besides being a very good incentive to buy notebooks, planning is also a stage that helps our brain prepare and distribute its resources. In order for this stage to have the desired impact, a few criteria need to be met when making a plan, especially one that involves an organization.
Even if you are sure you have the best plan in mind, take a moment to think about your HOWs and what some alternative routes to your destination might be.
Let’s say you want to start your writing career by publishing your first book this year. You have your topic all set and you think the best plan is to simply plan 6 hours of writing every day until you meet your goal.
Now, here are some alternatives. The biggest challenge is probably drawing the characters, context, and plot. After that, the story might grow naturally. So an alternative would be to focus more resources on having the structure ready, then allowing yourself time for inspiration and learning. Let’s say 1 month of full-time writing work, with the following months of less pressure.
Another approach would be to write down key information that should be in your book. Then draft a timeline and plan your working schedule based on each module or chapter. 20 hours on the intro, 112 on chapter one, etc.
Thinking about alternatives may offer you new perspectives on your plan. And, most importantly, it allows you to test drive your initial idea by asking your brain to confront it with different options.
Thinking about the macro before the micro allows you to divide attention and effort. You will no longer have to think about everything at the same time. You only need to work on what your current phase is.
To continue the previous example, thinking about all the details in the book all the time might lead to never writing it. However, breaking it in chapters and main events will direct your focus and creativity on one topic at a time. Another great benefit is that having this structure will remove the pressure of uncertainty. What should I write next? What should I do now to grow my business? How should I develop my employer branding to recruit the best employees? The unknown is a strong stress factor and removing it will push your efforts further instead of consuming valuable energy.
To start, find the biggest steps or phases in your project. If nothing else comes to mind, use a classic Prepare – Deliver – Evaluate&Learn framework. Then write down the main steps or actions to be done for each. When this stage is over, take each phase and plan in detail the objectives, actions, stakeholders, and resources.
If you are planning a project you are very enthusiastic about, you will definitely have a million ideas in mind about how things should go: the presentation materials, the title of the first email, the look and feel for the landing pages, the channels, a video script, the design of the room to have a business shooting, the outfit maybe.
Your brain will love these details. They are candy for it because it allows it to focus on the aspects it wants and loves. But too much sugar is bad. And so are too many details. If you focus so much on the little things you risk missing the big picture.
As an entrepreneur or project owner, your role is to sail everybody to success, not to drive the project into the wall because the details are not perfect. After all, perfection is just a sisyphic chore.
Pretty basic, right? How many times have you sent a meeting invite or set an alarm?
Yet practicing this in project management is rare. The reminders I am referring to are however not detail-oriented. They are not the „buy toothpaste” or „pay cable” kind of reminders. They are timeline-oriented, meant to let you know when you are about to enter a new stage of the project. A timeline reminder would be: „you have entered the last five days of project drafting” or „you entered the execution phase. For the next 25 days, your goal is to deliver this webinar to over 200 people.”
Having these reminders set very early in the project will help you and your team with an extra automated project manager. Plus, you can structure them so that you offer a little extra motivation as well. Imagine you would receive a reminder saying: „You’ve done a great job so far. Keep it up and we will get to our goals in no time!”
Know how your destination looks like. Feel it, then break it into objectives and indicators that motivate and help you navigate.
Knowing that you want to have a book on the market is important. And to get there answer yourself some further questions:
how many pages will the book have?
how many copies do I want to sell in the first round?
what is the number of pages I will write daily to have the book done in a year?
what readership will my online free chapter have?
how much money will I make from this book?
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are generally measurable so that you can easily track across time. Sometimes breaking a phase into something measurable is challenging but it helps revealing specific actions and resources invested. How do you measure the awareness your project or brand has? What do you guide yourself in order to say your popularity has increased or decreased compared to last year?
These 5 recommendations to plan a great year can easily move to a list of twenty. But it is not the size of the list that matters, but the thought behind it: always search to simplify your work and your life. When it’s easy to do a good job, you might find yourself naturally doing a great one.
Performance is not about effort, but about energy invested wisely.
Coaching is a field that has a considerable year on year growth. This has turned expert eyes as well as media attention towards it.
This growing curve is visible in most EU countries, and Romania follows closely with a considerable number of new coaches or coaching businesses. Unregulated, but also unsupported by a national strategy or business education program, coaching seems to be “the new black”. How and why this market got in fashion you can find out in this Business Review article, entitled Coaching Industry growing fast and specialized, featuring Coach4Marketing.
I invite you to read the article and tell me if you spot different trends or needs within the Coaching field.
For years now I’ve been reading stories about people that had a sudden and extreme change of career. They would go from corporate to agriculture, from employee to entrepreneur, and from safe to uncertain. And I always thought that was brave but surely premeditated. I was convinced they all had a plan and some financial resources when they started. They must’ve! How else can you do it…
Until it got me. All it takes is one moment when you zoom out and you see the real quality of your life. I was unhappy and I felt like I did not belong in my story. The long hours, high work volumes and the conflicts around me brought me to a state of almost constant fever. My body was crying for a change and so was my heart. Something did not fit.
So I looked back, and I saw that was a pattern. I worked very hard in almost every job I had. My first job was in PR, then freelancing during my master’s degree, to decide after marketing is more my thing. I worked in SMBs, start-ups, corporations, and in an agency. Every time I changed a job, I also changed industries, wanting to discover as much as possible.
I took on challenges wanting to learn faster, but also to prove to myself I can do it. It was fun at first. The rush of a project delivered after pulling an all-night to meet the deadline, and the appreciation for the effort…all is so attractive. And then your batteries start to notify you they are running out. Ohh, but that is not when you stop. That is just when you start getting frustrated. You stop when you learn that success is not about sacrifice, but about self-knowing.
I decided to quit my job on a Thursday afternoon, after a crazy day. My glass filled to the point it broke and spilled. I knew then I had no choice but to make a change. Then and there, not when X or if Y. I added no condition to my decision. With no backup plan, no safety funds, and no other job waiting I took a jump. Maybe because I was confident in my experience or because I felt I reached the bottom, I handed in my resignation without fear or hesitance. After almost 11 years of work, I decided I will stop for a while.
When my notice ended, I left the company and freelanced. I was “looking” for a job but I didn’t really want to go back to the crazy work situation I had so far. So every time I saw on a job description words like “enjoys challenges”, “works well under stress/ pressure” or a list of requirements as long as a shopping list for Christmas I would just skip it. So I skipped through all jobs and hoped one would just come to me.
And one did. In December I was doing some research for a client I was consulting for, and I found a page about marketing coaching. It instantly lit up. I felt it in my stomach and I hit euphoric on my mood meter. I always loved working with people, I am a certified trainer and coaching felt like the natural direction to grow. What I found was better than a job: I had found my way.
I love Coach4Marketing because it gives me a lot of freedom to do things my way, to transform marketing into a mindset, more than a service. I coach individuals, even if we deal with organizational issues, and that adds a whole new dimension to my work. Progress is easy to track, I meet new fascinating people almost daily, and I learn more than ever before by just doing what I know best.
All my life, personal or professional, I took care of those around me. I listened, supported and went the extra mile. It’s deep in my nature. And finding a way to put that into a business model is an amazing feeling. I am honored that I get to stand by people in achieving their dreams, because turning mine into a reality changed my life.
These last days the universe has hit the acceleration. Everything around me is in moving, changing or…happening so I can’t do anything else but stay on that wave.
I want to share, from this great period, a video interview with Roxana Tudor, The Coach Approach founder. If you don’t know her yet, Roxana is a life coach for amazing moms, full of energy, passion, and smiles.
I loved the out of the box space to do the interview and how much nature contributed to the content. And as the title says, this interview, part of Roxana’s Inspirational Interviews, got me all worked up. When we ended, I would’ve loved to set up camp and start coaching in the park for a while. With no camp or at least desk to set up, I went back to work and did it old school. Well…semi-old-school.
Business
Coaching
Marketing