A part of our contest consists of interviews with the registered people. Participants have to go through 3 rounds of questions (Career, ERS and Creative Innovation) to demonstrate to the jury that they really are Empowered.Resourceful.Spectacular.

This interview is about Elena Capruciu, Life & Business Coach for DreamscomeTrue.ro.

Career

Trainart: What determined you to have a career in this field?

E.C.: I was around 7-8 and I remember it as if it happened yesterday. Every morning before going to school I would stop at the church on the road with a single prayer in mind: “God, please give me the power to help people think, feel and behave kindly…and give me the strength to bring peace and happiness into their lives.”

Years went by and when my parents asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I used to tell them that I would like to be a doctor, to cure people and release them from their suffering. I did not go to medical school because I realized in time it was my mother’s dream, not mine.

So when I finished highschool, I went to the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication and I also had my first job around that time. I was 18 and already working as a journalist for one of the first 5 TV stations in the country at that time.

In the two years I spent there, I learnt a lot about how to work in a team among others. All those tight deadlines, the adrenaline in the newsroom where I was both a reporter and an editor, the pressure before live broadcasts or voice recordings, news, interview and feature report editing from the events I wanted the whole world to know about, almost everything showed me how to work in a team.

The most important thing is that I practically found out how people need to improve their behavior, actions, feedback reaction, planning and strategies to work efficiently in a team, doing stuff in time like a fire which has to be kept burning at any cost.

I spent the next 7 years working for 2 top banks, making strategies daily and having a lot of human resources meeting, initiating processes and procedures, applying methodologies in recruitment and development, leading teams and cross-cultural projects at an international level, developing recruitment and assessment programs in prosper and flourishing times and in transition periods, marked by mergers and acquisitions.

It was an incredible and dynamic period in my professional development ad my progress as a human being, with valuable lessons and ample periods of chance. Because of the business environment and the people around, I also had constant changes on the same topic: as for change management and diverse cultural experiences: from Turkey, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, India and Romania and business strategies and decisions taken by people from various countries with different approaches and perceptions.

In those moments, I enjoyed the chance to learn and the presence of professionals from various fields: from banks to finance to IT and legal, administrative field. At the same time I had lots of opportunities to innovate, to test and validate the processes and people’s potential at every stage of the respective process and actions.

Back then I did not know a lot about coaching tools. However, I realized now how much I used them, following my leadership skills and intuition, thus supporting my people to grow and develop their potential.

In 2007, after I graduated from my second faculty in the Financial-Bank field and after going through a complex merger and acquisition process between 4 banks, I came to the conclusion that the time had come to spread my wings and fly towards new challenges. So I became an entrepreneur, leader of a consultancy and human resources company and understood how different perspectives and paradigms between the corporate and the entrepreneurial level are.

Shortly after this major change in my life, I got familiar with the coaching concept. For me it made perfect sense right away and got me hooked – it was a positive technique with a future-oriented way of thinking and I immediately understood what the benefits offered to me were. I was told it brought fast results and I was intrigued to know more.

The first coaching experience was a coaching trio: Coach – Beneficiary – Observer with a part of the people in the field I had recently met. These sessions really showed me the possibilities of this technique.

My attitude towards my own work changed. I stopped feeling pressured by time and things went smoothly. I developed a way of thinking based on coaching, which I used successfully in various situations. At that time I started to believe more than ever before that I could help people really help themselves.

My personal journey tends to reflect the constant promotion of change in life or at work. It demonstrated that those healthier eating and living behaviors, exercise and continuous self-discovery and development offered me the energy, power, will, courage and clarity I needed to get through new challenges in order to find and follow my calling.

The moment I saw the positive influence surrounding me, I noticed how easier it was to discuss and accept my past. I have recently managed to improve my energy and positive attitude, I learned to foster my emotions and feelings, to tap into that positive fuel which helps me move on. Both Coaching exercises and tools helped me to reach every dream I had. I kept seeing opportunities everywhere only if I were willing to accept them. After some time, while testing the methodology, I decided there are several things I wanted to accomplish.

Shortly after, I decided to make the big step and become an accredited professional coach according to the highest specialty standards in the field. Now, 4 years later, I can say I made the best decision by studying and practising coaching, taking all my accreditations from Noble Manhattan Coaching School in the UK.

I got an A+ for my final exam for Practitioner Life & Executive Coach.

I am glad to say that today I am a mentor and trainer of the school I graduated from and that I’m part of the assessor’s team for final exams, offering training and mentorship sessions for coaching students all over the world.

Trainart: Which one of your passions would you turn into a business?

E.C.: The secret is being human!

My mission is my biggest passion and that is to support people to reach their career goals or personal life goals and it is the engine which supplies energy to the whole endeavor. I started asking myself how to get rid of all sorts of fears and I found in this journey that… the fear of change is part of human nature but what does not change dies. Being alive means continuously transforming yourself. Now I have the following questions:

“How is it that certain people make changes and strive as much as they can while others just let go or become defensive in their own lives?” and “What can we do to “wake up” these people to enjoy life more in these constant changing times?”

I don’t have an answer to the first question… in my opinion, the answer to the second question is clear: to be awake and present and they should remember that all they have to do is “ask” and they “shall receive”… And this is the business engine!

Trainart: How do you measure your own success?

E.C.: Because of an extensive corporate experience in human resources, communication, presentation and business strategies developed and entrepreneur know-how since 2007 and due to a native understanding of human nature subtleties, I manage together with my colleagues to create, from conception to implementation, training, coaching and team-building programs, for both national and multinational companies which bring value in all aspects, without wanting to brag.

These clearly contribute to the desired organizational changes and to the change in mentality and beliefs that limit, they support the improvement of business strategies, the actual increase in profit, creativity, innovation and development of visionary strategies at top management level, adapted to a difficult business market as it is today.

The other niche in which success is measured refers to the educational field. I have been collaborating since 2010 with the ones who are changing the world: CROS – Resource Center for Student Organizations, which were the first to found universitatealternativa.ro.

In 2011 I accepted Simona David’s invitation from ROI Association to join a pilot project for high schools, „Education through Coaching”, called ZBURD.ro in 2012-2013.

I decided to be responsible for the team of coaches in one of the highschools in Bucharest (a team from the 5 included in different cities in the country) within that pilot project.

At present I am a coach, trainer, and facilitator, depending on specific needs, of the US Action Reflections Learning for highschool teachers in the country who join this program:  „Education through Coaching” called ZBURD.ro

Trainart: Who are you beyond your job?

E.C.: I feel like Alice in Wonderland because I can experiment, learn, assess and evolve all these principles, methods, educational and transformational methods regarding HR, assessment and people evaluation tools. And the most important tools are coaching and transformation, because I always follow the evolution of the people I am working with, subsequent to those processes and mechanisms through which motivation to perform in those respective services and in what they set out to do is stimulated and maintained.

ERS

Trainart: If you had 24 hours to live, how would you spend your day?

E.C.: Like in the “Bucket List” movie.

Trainart: If you had a message for all humanity, what would it be?

E.C.: Darlings, wake up, and notice that we are all “one”!

Trainart: What would you like to do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

E.C.: I am already doing that at present because the concept of “mistake” is not valid, but “what do I have to learn from this experience if I keep repeating it and I still don’t get it and mess it up?”

Trainart: What was the most difficult decision you had to take last year? Describe the situation in briefly.

E.C.: To get pregnant; I can’t be more specific, you can imagine why.

Trainart: Tell us when you last stepped out of your comfort zone.

E.C.: Every day when I have mentorship sessions with my students, coaches in training, I am the client and they are the coaches. The point of these sessions are to always get out of my comfort zone because that’s what they should learn as future professional coaches who will facilitate the transformation of their clients’ lives.

Trainart: Is there a character from a movie/play you identify yourself with? What are the similarities?

E.C.: Harry Potter. We both have a magic wand.

Trainart: If you were in the jury, what would be the reasons for which you would give yourself an award?

E.C.: My entire universe is based on the “win-win” concept.

Creative Innovation

Trainart: If you could invent a new revolutionary product, what would it be?

E.C.: Flying machines around blocks of flats, 100% ecological, totally silent and with no noise pollution or any other form of pollution.

Trainart: If you had a superpower, what would it be and how would you use it?

E.C.: The power to help people in sickness and in health, like brothers do in certain families in which this concept is functional and logical. Because the benefits would be mutual and eternal.

Trainart: If you could pass a law people had to obey, what would it be and why?

E.C.: I would pass a law which would forbid any war and the manufacturing of guns.

I would also stop anything which harms nature, from water or air pollution to deforestation without any other trees being planted, I would protect animal and birds from being killed out of sheer “pleasure”.