Romanian coaches bring a design for life onto a still skeptical market

“A-ha! That’s something I never thought of!” is a common phrase for life and business coaches in Romania to hear from their clients during their first sessions. In a society of people taught from an early age that a job is best done by oneself, more and more people are now turning to professionals for advice regarding their career and lifestyle. Romanian life and business coaches explain how the profession has established itself in recent years and point out the directions in which it is set to evolve.

Corina Dumitrescu

“Nobody was ever changed by what I’ve said. Everybody was transformed by what they understood,” says Mihai Stanescu, a business coach with over 4,000 hours of practice. Needless to say, a coach is not a trainer, nor a therapist. A business or life coach is described as a partner to the client, with whom he/she discovers the client’s real needs. There is no fixed recipe for successful coaching, as each of the interviewed professionals has a different background, but each of them shares the same credo – to discover the best in people and to take it to the next level.

Sandra Ghitescu describes her activity as life design. She is one of those people who found it difficult to decide what they wanted to be when they “grew up” and integrated as many experiences as possible into her formation as a professional, to use them later in a broader area of expertise. Her background covers psychology and training, she has worked as a communication consultant and continues to be involved in numerous projects in the areas of optimism, creativity, the encouragement of reading and the general boosting of social involvement.

To Ghitescu, life design is about communication with her clients, who have to openly discuss their situation in order to discover their true needs. “A life design process begins with the client’s request, with what he/she wishes to improve in their life. Then, based on several hints (significant relationships, professional choices, wishes and aspirations, sources and consumers of energy, etc.), we build together a ‘life design’ to correspond with his or her needs and aspirations for development.” Pessimism and negativity are not an option for a life designer, Ghitescu continues. As a person that dedicates her profession to knowing others, she believes that “every individual has enormous potential to generate joy and energy for themselves, for those around them, and even for their species, on a global level.”

Like Ghitescu, Mihail Musat is a promoter of optimism in Romania and an initiator of the Lume Buna project, “one of the best resources for positive news about things happening in Romania and about Romanians,” as Musat describes it. Life coaching came to him as a passion, rather than a profession, done more for the people and less for the money. The keys to good coaching lie, to Musat’s mind, in communication, which involves active listening and feedback, and in challenging the clients to face their own issues and learn to deal with them. Another tool that he uses for coaching is his book, Eu Cine Sunt? (Who Am I?), through which he encourages “each reader to find their own answers and internal resources for building the life they want for themselves”.

Mihai Stanescu, on the other hand, is a business coach, assisting his clients to achieve professional goals, while helping them improve their personal skills as well. When he started offering coaching services in 2001, the local market in this field was almost non-existent. Just like many of his colleagues, Stanescu has a background in psychology, yet his past as a sportsman and later as manager have also contributed to his business performance abilities. Stanescu says, “Coaching is a process of self learning – most of the clients already have all the information and necessary abilities to succeed in what they seek. Which is why I believe that business coaching is not for those who lack management skills or need specific information in this area.”

To Stanescu, current local skepticism towards coaching might stem from the fact that many so-called life coaches have no qualifications or background in the field. Stanescu estimates the local coaching market at around EUR 2 million in 2010, because of the current low costs of a coaching hour in Romania. The profession is however, on an upward tendency internationally, where coaching is the second fastest developing industry after IT. Romania has a lot of ground to make up, but is on the right path, due to the creation of international schools of professional coaching in Romania.

Coaching is a domain that also leaves room for creativity and innovation. Soulscapes – Coaching with Art is Daniela Andreescu’s project dedicated to clients who are drawn a painting reflecting their personal vision, aimed to inspire and motivate them to achieve their goals. After 30 years working at the Embassy of the Netherlands, Andreescu decided to begin a new career as a life coach a couple of years ago. “While taking the coaching training course I realized that life is not about comfort, money and success, but about fulfillment, excellence, attaining one’s potential,” she says. To her, the main ingredients for successful coaching lie in “adequate professional training, efficiency in networking, appropriate branding, marketing and promotion, and, above all, obtaining results for and with your clients.”

In the words of Ghitescu, life coaching should not be viewed with such reluctance. “If you want a beautiful body, there is no shame in hiring a personal trainer. If you want beautiful and healthy teeth, it’s only natural that you should go to the dentist. For emotional or mental imbalances or ‘aches,’ why would you strive to overcome them by yourself and not discuss them with a professional?” Life coaching, however, is not for everybody, she adds, but only for those who believe in people and know themselves before knowing others, who constantly strive to perfect their abilities, who regard the world with optimism and who still believe that they can make it a better place, in spite of the general skepticism and criticism.

DMCA

PROTECTED