Category: Articles – English

„Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” (Albert Einstein)

Diana-Maria Georgescu April 7, 2023 No Comments

Every new year brings hopes and plans for better results, for new clients, or for new ways of performing our duties. The collective mindset tries to leave behind all the bad things that happened during the previous year, and invest the new one with the positive approach that things can improve in the months to come. The mindset is good but usually is not enough. To have better results, we need to understand first what went wrong in the past and what can be improved. Usually, we tend to stick with projects or approaches we are used to.

But is this the right way?

In my Coaching practice, I’ve seen a lot of clients or students that were trying to make a change without transforming their way of looking at things. To be honest, this is natural, because our mind works on maps already built. When new variables appear, our mind may perceive them as an invasion, hence will start fighting against them. I’ve noticed this tendency in the approach of my business as well. And the funny yet concerning thing is that we are tempted to perform the same actions even if they didn’t work before. That seed of hope is so well implemented into our system, that we could tend to become insane as Einstein used to say „Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

So, what can we do to step out of this damaging loop?

What I recently did, was to set my priorities at the beginning of the year taking into account important aspects that will contribute to my well-being, hence to the well-being of my business.

Why is important for me to set my priorities based on things that are contributing to my well-being?

Well… because I used to work a lot and follow trends that were supposed to increase my business visibility and my cash flow, and I found it hard to implement. That’s why I think is crucial to look at things differently, and to assess pragmatically my initial cause of becoming an entrepreneur. For me, it was my inner need to express my services’ added value in my way. My business had to represent who I am, and during the last years, I made exactly the opposite. I was too focused on what the market needs and how the general mindset answers to some stimulus and I lost myself from it. Hence for 2023, my priorities were established based on the following questions.

 

  1. Are my services and products useful to companies and individuals?
  2. Are my services bringing joy and satisfaction to my customers?
  3. Are my services bringing something new to the business environment?
  4. Are they contributing to the current business paradigm change?
  5. Is this business bringing me joy?
  6. Is this business my way to contribute to the business environment and people development?
  7. Do I love my services and products?
  8. Am I happy when I perform certain tasks? (Here I listed all the tasks I have to perform for my business and evaluate which one brings me joy and which one doesn’t).
  9. Who can help me with the tasks I don’t like to perform?
  10. Where can I find this help?
  11. Do I have the budget to externalize some of the tasks?
  12. If I don’t have the budget, how can I make the money needed to externalize some of the tasks? And so on…

As you can see, these are self-coaching questions that can be used by each of us when we try to approach our businesses from a new angle.

My angle was my personal and my business well-being. Yours can be different, but a series of honest questions addressed to yourself can be more effective than any resolution list people are doing lately.

I am not a fan of this approach, as I’ve seen in my personal relationships and during my Coaching practice how much damage can do to people’s mindsets in a long run. From an “I’m not good enough” perception to even depression when we see our resolutions not met, these well-sold lists on social media that apparently can improve your life quality or goals achievement overnight, are more damaging to your brain and self-esteem than you can imagine.

Hence, be gentle and realistic with your goals for 2023, and good luck with achieving as many as possible. If you will not achieve all of them, remember there is another year waiting for you to grow your skills and change your mindset, in order to reach that peak you’ve been dreaming about. The most important thing is to have fun and enjoy the journey!

Happy and joyful 2023!

N.B. The article was published in WEI FOR YOU magazine, here.

https://womenesteeminternational.com/3d-flip-book/womenesteem-international-for-you-no-15

Business Soul2$oul for People Engagement and Profit

Diana-Maria Georgescu August 12, 2020 No Comments

Business Soul2$oul

What would you say if I would tell you that the profit target can be reached more easily than you thought so far?

With the right employees for the right jobs matching their talents, and the perfect infrastructure that best suits the business you run, the above statement has a real basis.

In a new social, political, economic and psychological context, the challenges can be approached with new tools. And if we don’t have new tools, the easiest way is to adapt the roots to the new soil and water them differently from the way we’ve done it so far.

The installation of a new context does not happen overnight. It is announced by various factors, and if you pay attention to the signs, you can sense the inevitable change. Working in the business environment for over 15 years, I had the chance to create, analyze and change the work dynamics both nationally and internationally. This way, I understood that the behavioral patterns and the work patterns are the same. We repeat indefinitely the same loop built by someone at one point and so we expand. And changing or getting out of the loop becomes more and more difficult due to the roots of generations that feed it.

But the loop was installed by someone, just as you install a new operating system on a computer. Most of us use Microsoft Windows (released in 1985), but Mac OS (Unix) was released in 1989, and two years later Linux v 0.01 (Sept. 17, 1991). Those who created other operating systems, analyzed existing systems and had a vision for the future. They felt the change long before it occurred at the mass level and contributed to the installation of the new reality step by step.

Our vision has emerged on a similar intuition for change and is focused on adapting the business environment to the new global paradigm. We have anticipated this change in the last two years, but in the current social and economic context it seems that the environment is forcing us all to transform and adapt. And in these circumstances, we are ready to present Business Soul2$oul model to a large level of business users: employers and employees from any industry.

Business challenges

Officially launched on October 30, 2019 at the “Future Business Human Business” conference, organized by the Romanian-American University in collaboration with the WomenEsteem International Community, Business Soul2$oul is an innovative business model that helps companies allocate the right people on the right jobs, taking into account their native talents. Thus, by putting the “right person in the right place”, maximum profitability can be achieved by inner motivated employees, and 100% involved and responsible for what they do.

The direct benefits of implementing such a business model have a direct positive effect on the major challenges most companies are facing, regardless of the industry in which they operate.

Positive effects for People (employees)

  • Increasing the level of inner motivation and satisfaction of people who end up working on jobs that match their native talents.
  • Increasing staff retention in the company by recruiting or reallocating people to the jobs matching their native talents.
  • Reducing the costs of retaining people in the company and / or hiring and integrating new people for positions where the staff turnover rate is high.

Positive effects at Process level

By mapping or reviewing the work process, the emphasis is placed on optimizing and adapting it to market needs, eliminating loss (i.e. downtime, excessive manual checks, role duplication, etc.).

Positive effects at Profit level

Increasing the profitability rate per project or business line. The impact is different depending on the size of the company or business line, and the industry in which the company operates. So far, we have obtained a minimum of 10% increase after the full implementation of process optimizations and organizational structure (minimum 1 year, depending on the implementation speed of the company).

This model is exactly that piece that is currently missing from the business environment. Thanks to the business expertise that our team has, we know exactly how to make this adaptation by focusing on people’s native talents and allocating them to those jobs that they can excel at.

In this way, they will perform naturally and systematically and will achieve the required rate of return, without the need to be monitored step by step and motivated from the outside to do so. And in a world where the trend will be to increase the share of employees working from home, Business Soul2$oul model proactively responds to this general need that has made its presence felt in the last three months globally.

If the above information about Business Soul2$oul model has clarified what we do and is interesting for your business, I invite you to contact us directly here.

WomenEsteem International Community for Spiritual Business Women!

Diana-Maria Georgescu September 11, 2018 No Comments

 

When you learn that change is the only way forward, you feel when you have to readjust your path. That’s why, starting today, September 11th, our community will address not only to business women, but mostly to “spiritual business women”. We have started our meetings on 9th of November 2017 aiming to gather together all the business women willing to support each other in their career. Our workshops were always a mix between business topics and simple human oriented practices that people may call “spiritual” because they are targeting a more profound part of the attendees, quite difficult to be included in the neutral business area. I have chosen this model, based on my profound believe and practice from my professional life, which defines the human being as thecenter of any business.    

The concept it’s not new, and you may find it in different companies. The reality shows that it’s a nice concept, good to be stated in companies’ “Values”, but when it comes to measuring the profit, the first cuts are affecting directly the human being – that “most valuable resource”, as we use to call it. And living in that environment each and every day, trying to “save some money” and increase the profitability, you may forget to measure your own level of “human behavior” and you may feel like losing yourself. But you are not. You are just changing your priorities.

During the last months, the majority of the ladies attending WomenEsteem International community workshops, mostly appreciated the profound connection with their own feelings in a business situation. We got there with our eyes closed, using imagination, relaxation and reaching a higher level of presence in Here and Now. These are not a custom in a business environment, even if they are clearing our minds and connects us with our true nature. One day, after closing a meeting, someone told me I am doing a great “spiritual work” in my workshops, although I have never considered my methods as being spiritual, but rather “human centered”.

Hence, for the sake of aligning to this general understanding, we will call them “spiritual”, and we will open our doors widely to “spiritual women” connected to a business, their own or just working for a company, willing to approach their professional life inside out. 

If you think you are ready for a new perspective, you can become a member of WomenEsteem International Community here.

Laura Maciel – “What’s one month? It’s not even a paragraph in the book of your life!”

Diana-Maria Georgescu June 21, 2018 No Comments

 

I met Laura in the first “albergue” on the Portuguese Way of Saint James. She lives in in the United States of America, in California, but her origin is Mexican. The way she lived her life makes her a model for WomenEsteem International community and you are just one step away to discover why.

She had her first child when she was 18 and she got pregnant during College. 26 years ago, the US rules were against pregnant women in College and she had to fight the system to complete the last three months of her studies. She succeeded and two years after having her first child, she started studying to become an Ambulance paramedic. Four years later she enrolled into the firefighters school and she was the only women out of the four enrolled who graduated the program.

 

 

The current precent of firefighter women in US is 3%, hence why her job makes Laura a model for the women we are promoting in our community.

She is involved in a special program launched by the “The California Firefighter Joint Apprenticeship Committee” (Cal-JAC) and dedicated to promote the firefighter career among young women and recruit the ones who have what it takes to be a Hero. Because that’s how the firefighters are seen, and for sure they are the Heroes of our modern days! And when you add a woman in this combination, the message is even more powerful. By nature, the women have the power of creation, of giving birth, and saving other people’s live as a medic or firefighter, makes them even stronger and special.

 

 

For our Community, Laura is a true model because she managed to put together her personal life raising up two beautiful boys, Antonio 27 years old and Alfonso 21 years old, being a single mom, fighting the US system while she was pregnant, building up her career as a firefighter, being a daughter and becoming a wife. She is a great mix of all these aspects of her own Self, however she is more than that in the same time. She is a woman walking her own path and discovering new dimensions of herself, aspects she always had but they were quite for 47 years. 

Laura became an important part of my life. I’m watching her walking everyday, getting still (she is such an active person), paying attention to all the details outside and inside her own being, and just be… Here and Now! And she reminds me of myself, of my own journey in understanding my own light and my shadows. But the most important part is that she challenges me everyday to look and think from so many perspectives at certain things to be able to answer her questions. And that’s what I call mutual growth support, the most powerful skill women have!

 

So, Thank you, Laura, for stepping into my life so unexpectedly and walking side by side one of the most important journeys of our lives. We both think everyone should do the Camino and as Laura said today: “What’s one month? It’s not even a paragraph in the book of your life!”

 

 

WomenEsteem International Community for Women’s Leadership

Diana-Maria Georgescu June 4, 2018 No Comments

 

WomenEsteem International Community is one of the projects close to my Soul. I have started this community, WomenEsteem, locally in Bucharest, Romania in November 2017, however in my head this idea it’s bigger than what I had the chance to manifest during the last 7 months. The intention came out as a direct result of my professional experience in international business environments where women are always proving to be strong, determinate and extremely reliable, but most of all, they have this talent of being managers by nature.  However, the path of a women in business it’s not easy at all. That’s why, usually women tend to lose their native strengths by copying men’s behavior to be able to succeed. I used to do that unconsciously as well, and I didn’t get it right away. After some years, I understood I was losing myself on the way and decide to change the direction. It takes time, but it’s good for the Soul, trust me. 😉

Going further, there is another aspect, more profound I would say, that unleashed my inner voice and made me start doing concrete things for women in business. And that’s called competitivity and “killing mode” women activate against each other when having similar career objectives or when they sense another strong woman around, that could prove herself more suitable for a certain responsibility. Even if I can understand the psychological reasons or the genetical information heritage, I am not willing to “close the eye” and not trying to transform it. I used to build teams and create the needed professional environment to cultivate the natural caring spirit women have and it worked out very well. So, if it can be done at a lower scale, why not at a higher scale as well?!

That’s why I choose to dedicate my journey on the Way of Saint James (the Portuguese part) this year to women around the world that know they are able to do anything they wish to accomplish, but most of all, to raise the awareness that women together are stronger than anything else. The feminine energy is actually the creation energy and the energy of the subconscious. I’m sure we all have seen what 3 open hearted women can create in a personal or professional life. Whether they are friends or just open business women choosing to achieve their goals together, the results are astonishing when they are creating and working together. Now, try to imagine for 30 seconds and extrapolate that power of creation to 3.5 billion women around the globe! Wouldn’t be that something you wish to move towards at?! 😊

That’s a big dream, I know, but as Walt Disney used to say “If you can dream it, you can do it!”. Not overnight, of course. That’s why, WomenEsteem International Community’s campaign on the Way of Saint James stays under “One step at a time” motto.

5 years ago, I walked the Way of Saint James the so-called French part, and during the first day I had this profound understanding that to reach Santiago de Compostela, I just need to focus on each step, not on the destination. And that made my journey extremely insightful and amazing. 

So, ladies, WomenEsteem International Community calls for you to join this dream, to grow not only this community at international level, but the spirit SHE (as she’s a lady as all of us 😊) has and SHE desires so much to expand. “One step at the time” according to the “Camino’s spirit” we will manifest in the real-life Women’s Leadership as a blessing for this world, not as a competition with men.

To follow our journey and to join our community, please follow us on Facebook, Instagram and on our website for new thoughts directly from the Way of Saint James.

You don’t have to change in 2018!

Diana-Maria Georgescu January 4, 2018 No Comments

 

 

Sounds strange, but it’s not. We really don’t have to change in 2018 if we are happy with our lives. It’s not a contest each year to see who succeeded and who failed. It’s just a general constraint usually covered by a personal development motto. Anybody puts it on their wish list for the New Year, as if it should be a must. But it’s not! In the end, it’s just a matter of perspective, of choosing an illusion instead of a so-called cruel reality or a failure.

 

The trick is, failure does not exist! It’s just a way of looking at the experiences that are not giving you something you have wished for so long. But that’s not failure, it’s just a different step towards a new achievement. Let’s think for instance at kids learning to walk. They don’t have the notion of „failure”. If they knew failure, they would stop walking, and that would be a new reality for all of us.

So, not having on your To Do List for 2018 a point saying „I will change that…” it’s not a tragedy. The tragedy might arise when you have it there, but you don’t believe in it. This can lead to un-satisfaction and lower self-esteem and you don’t need that in your life, trust me.

I did change important things in my life over the years, but none of them were on my To Do List at the beginning of a new year. And you know why? Because change will happen when you are ready for it! And I am talking about changes that are coming in your life to stay for a long period of time. This kind of changes are not suddenly done. Time and other small changes will lead you to transform an important behavior or make a certain decision and stick with it.

In 2010 I quit smoking. It was for real at that time. I did it twice before 2010 but after some months or years of good practice, I changed my mind and started smocking again. Why? Because when I started to smock, I did it during a though period of time, thinking that smocking would make me relax and forget my sadness. And that thought became an axiom of my life. So, every time I had big issues like losing someone dear from the family, the first thing I used to do was lighting up a cigarette to relax a bit and suffer less.

In 2010, I took a two weeks’ vacation. I was really down and I felt the need to take a break. Two days later I profoundly understood I was living a huge lie. The reality is that smoking doesn’t calm you down, but increases the anxiety. I had known it for ages, but I had never felt it inside as being true. That morning, in Greece, I said to myself “I am not stupid. I know I can relax better without smoking and I did it so many times before”! And that was the beginning of a new change that still lasts 8 years later. I did small steps in between, it’s true, but the major one was done when I felt deep inside what my mind was telling me every time I tried to quit smoking.

Basically, you can write down tons of wish lists. However, everything will happen when your entire being, including your mind, your body, your soul and your heart wish for the change to happen. And this will occur whether you have it on your To Do list for a New Year or not. In fact, we often publish on social media channels quotes like “The only constant in life, is change”, yet we are rushing to do big changes when we are not ready for them, and fear change when it’s entering uninvited into our life. That’s why I think we should take out the burden of these lists that are becoming more and more a Must, like eating or sleeping, and just be present each moment of our life, trying to make it better for us and the people around, and be more conscious about the fact that we might do small changes each day, leading us to important changes tomorrow.   

The funny thing is that the well-known “change management” programs for big companies are following the same paradigm, but I will tell you more about this in my next article. So, stay tuned and follow our page for more insights.

Women strengths are kindness and compassion

Diana-Maria Georgescu May 7, 2017 No Comments
Diana-Maria Georgescu & Dalai Lama

Being a successful woman in a world of men, it’s not easy at all. To survive and to be noticed, women tend to become men by losing their true nature. They often understand they need to adapt their behavior to the one men are used to answer too, especially in professional environments. Despite the continuous effort of transformation, men are not treating women in professional environments as their equals. Two months back we all have witnessed the declaration of the Polish Member of the European Parliament Janusz Korwin-Mikke that “women must earn less because they are weaker, they are smaller, they are less intelligent. They must earn less. That is all.” He got suspended for his attitude, but his behavior is a spoken prove of how some men are seeing women, even if they are not saying it loudly.

So, the main question is “how women can position themselves in this world full of prejudice about their skills and capabilities?”.

In October 2016, I went to a two days’ event held by Dalai Lama in Milan. He has also spoken about the difference between women and men. And I remember he said that if we look back in history, we can easily see the work done by men: two world wars and so many other genocides at national or international level that are still happening. All these sad moments are based on huge egos that men manifest more natural than women. A month back, Dalai Lama published this post on his official Facebook page: “Peace is not brought about through conflict, but through compassion—creating peace of mind within ourselves. We all need compassion and women can take a lead role in encouraging others to let it flower within them. My own first teacher of kindness and compassion was my mother.”

So, women’s true nature is kindness and compassion and we should not try to change it. To be leaders in our area of life and career, we should not put all our efforts to learn to behave like a man. We should just try to be natural and take the lead towards a new world, based on authenticity. The key, is not a battle between men and women, is not for sure a competition or a classification based on gender (who’s weak and who’s strong?).

The key is to educate ourselves to mix both strengths and to eliminate the prejudice on women.
But how can we do this?
Well, I think we can achieve this by taking some time to deeply understand, internalize and act upon the following aspects:

  1. Women and men are both human beings with the same potential of doing anything they want with their lives, whether they are using it or not.
  2. Women and men are complementary. Love relationships are proving it, so why not professional relationship can follow the same model?
  3. Both, men and women have been given the “free will”, so both can choose to be good or bad in life, to make peace or war, to be kind or rude, to be balanced or extreme.

So, if we deeply understand these three things, and decide to guide our next steps based on them, we can for sure change the perception of women and men in professional environments. The choice is only in our hands!

Delta Guide is offering the tools for you to reach your goals by building a community for professional women. The new thing is that we are welcoming men supporting women in professional environments. Our aim is to have a continuous exchange between women and men, to learn together and to support each other’s growth. Like in personal relationships… it’s more difficult to experience romantic love without a man or a woman aside. Hence, we are choosing a simple and easier way of learning and developing ourselves in a mixed professional environment.

If you are interested to join our community, please build a short professional profile here. If you agree, we will be using your data ONLY for inviting you to the most suitable events to your profile.

How to become free in a world full of constraints

Diana-Maria Georgescu April 1, 2017 No Comments

In a world full of constraints, we all deserve to be free! This is not a dream, it’s a right we have since our first breath on this planet. The tricky thing is that since day one, the world we are stepping into, welcomes us with a huge list of rules. The majority of people gets vaccinated in maternity, then we are all raised by our parents based on an infinity of rules about the food we are eating, the culture we are living in, the religion they have and other millions of rules, but they are never raising us based on spontaneity.

Have you ever stopped for a second and counted the rules you are respecting on your way out of the building you are living in, for instance? Once you decide to go out, you may start checking if the windows are closed, if the light, or the gas, or the water, or anything else that can put in real danger your house while you are out are turned off. And in the end, make sure you have locked the door, as well. Now, you are outside your house. So, here you may have some rules respecting other people well-being, like keeping a low level of noise between certain hours. And if your baby starts crying or your dog that has just seen a fly starts barking, you are in deep trouble as one of the sleepy neighbors just woke up and started sending you to hell because you are not able to educate your child or your dog. And here you go! Your day just turns out to be miserable because of so many constraints, so many limits, so many rules that are suffocating you. There is no escape, there is no break to take, there is no bad dream, it’s just the reality you are forced to live in even if it drives you crazy.

Now, stop for a second and think. Is this the life you have been born for? Is this the life you deserve? Is this the way you choose to go ahead?

No, it’s not, and you know it. “But it’s not my fault!”, you might be tempted to say. You cannot control others, you cannot control your child’s reactions, you cannot control your dog, you cannot control the thieves that can break into your house, you cannot control anything that’s outside yourself. 

But you can control Yourself! Freedom, is not something material or something you may achieve from someone external. Freedom is a state of mind! Educating your mind to become free in a world full of constraints, will get you closer to the freedom you are dreaming of. Start with the following 3 steps and see how you feel.

  1. Choose right now something that is really important for you and find an alternative to all the constraints that are blocking you to achieve it. Choose your way, but never hurt others intentionally while you are walking your own path. Keeping a compassionate way of treating others can fortunately make them understand they are seeing a problem only from their angle. And some of them can stop or just change perspective. This way you can set an example that others may follow and start becoming as free as you are.
  2. Set your mind to work for your purpose. If you want to be free, educate your mind to think free. Don’t get stuck in a negative vibe, even if an earthquake just collapses an entire building over you. If you are still breathing, focus on the rhythm of your breath and look for a way out if you want to survive.
  3. Feed your mind with positive thoughts even if you don’t see a way out. The positive energy transforms things faster than you may think.

Try all these 3 steps and see the difference. And if you cannot do it by yourself, ask for help. That’s a bonus step you receive today for reading the entire article!