The Art of Reinventing Yourself
[Music]
as i’m standing here today
what comes to my mind is one of my
favorite
proverbs it’s a chinese wisdom
that says that a journey of a thousand
miles
begins with one single step
and isn’t it so true that each step we
take in life
is just a part of a much bigger journey
today i want to share with you my
journey
of a personal transformation a journey
of stepping out of my comfort zone
a journey of facing the challenge to
reinvent myself
a journey that started with one single
step i often remember myself
as a young energetic ambitious girl in a
business attire
always eager to grow higher and to learn
more i got my third master degree at the
age of
25 and got my first top managerial
position
at 27 career promise to be
exciting and big but life is interesting
because it constantly throws us
challenges
and it had other plans for me
so it took me uh on an adventure of
a constant self-discovery and
rediscovery
by taking me and my family to different
countries and challenging me to discover
new
and hidden sides of my personality
and to reinvent myself each time
with the alternative of getting
completely
lost it all started about
10 years ago when my husband got a
once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to study in one of the best
universities of the united states
and so i left my successful career
and with our three tiny kids
followed him on his adventure and threw
myself
into the unknown of a new country
new culture and what proved to be later
a totally new what they call expat
life uh to be very honest with you i
didn’t realize
fully what i’m signing up for i thought
it’s just a short break from my career a
time
to support my husband to be with my
children
and maybe a time to explore something
new
but the truth is that whenever you take
such
breaks um no matter how hard you try
to maintain your ties with your past it
starts
slowly slipping away from you
and you start slowly losing it
because everything around us is in a
constant change
we change the people we use to know
change the place
the places we use to work for change
as a result you find yourself in a place
where
you are not a part of your new life yet
and at the same time you are not a part
of your old life anymore
it’s a very strange place to be and it’s
filled
with so many ups but with even more
downs novelty is always
exciting especially if you are a curious
explorer like myself but very often
you feel like losing your ground
constantly being
physically in one place but mentally
in another you miss home
your family friends you miss your life
and you miss yourself in that life
what happens in that space between the
past and the present that doesn’t
feel like yours not to mention the
future full of uncertainty
is that you try desperately to keep
floating to rebuild your identity
almost from zero as you realize that
all your past achievements aren’t worth
much
in the new context that you found
yourself
in in those times
perhaps your deepest values are the only
compass that helps you to stay on the
track
and not to fall apart you also start
appreciating and sticking to your roots
more
hoping for them to hold you while you
bend with the winds
and face the whole discomfort of
breaking
down and reinventing yourself
anew what i realized later was that for
quite a long time i lived in my past
and by my past without fully
embracing my life here and now
and for quite a long time my only hope
was to go back there to my past
one day seven years
two different countries three different
cities
between home and places that start
eventually feeling like
home but every time you start
at the new place your whole set of
stereotypes beliefs and
stories gets
questioned challenged falls apart like
pieces of a puzzle and then slowly
gets back together again in a beautiful
yet very different
picture and view of the world
and of yourself in that world
on top of the all the challenges of
constantly
adapting to living in the new places
i remember through all that time
stressing out about that gap in my
resume this is my hr background
speaking here as a result i took
all the uh each and every possibility
uh be it volunteering free and underpaid
consulting copywriting editing
helping people with their applications
helping friends with their businesses
organizing school fundraisers and
negotiating with donors
starting the business myself
i would never say no to an opportunity
to do some work and as a result i got
a bunch of experiences which i would
never have if i had stayed in my
successful hr career i met
hundreds of people from more than a
hundred
different countries and learned so much
about
their cultures and their traditions and
most
importantly i learned to respect and
love them all and learned so much about
the human
nature so different and yet
so alive i started to paint
wrote a book of poems
listened to tons of audio books went
back
to study again became a profit in
cooking of course became quite
advanced in pilates in every moment of
time
i would try to find something creative
and
meaningful for myself to do something
that would be a new learning experience
for me
something that would something to
experiment with something that would
keep my brain
active agile and challenged
and yet all that time i felt like
i’m not enough something is missing
just because of that gap in my resume
which was bugging me the whole time
and dragging my confidence down and down
by taking away the last chance my last
chance
of going back to the great corporate
career
i once had until one day
i realized that that gap on my resume
was a blessing it gave me an opportunity
to discover so many other sides
of my personality
and to learn so many new things
in life and today i’m not
trying to fill that gap
anymore i’m proud to say that
that gap was so full of events
and experiences that it can hardly
be called a gap and it made me so rich
as a personality
that today i feel like i can do
virtually
anything and anywhere
and as a part of my work i empower
those people who face similar challenges
to reinvent themselves and to transform
their careers and their lives
so we all have stories each precious
and so unique we all
partly have to face what life throws at
us
and partly write our stories ourselves
but it’s important what we take from
each and every experience
that we face whether it’s positive
or negative we all reinvent ourselves
many times throughout our lives even
without traveling
we often find ourselves in a place
between the past where we don’t fit in
anymore
and the present where we haven’t found
ourselves yet
life isn’t standing still as ancient
greek philosopher heracletus said
you cannot step in the same river twice
for it’s not the same river and you are
not
the same person we all go through
relationships we change workplaces
careers we find and we lose
we rise and we fall even today we speak
of a new normal
new reality created by the pandemic
and it’s almost like a new country with
its own new rules and we all
have to reinvent ourselves once again
to be able to keep going to adapt
and to thrive into this new environment
so what is this process of reinventing
yourself
all about i’d like to share with you
five wisdoms if i may say so which come
straight from my heart but they
many of them can be also found and
backed up by a scientific research and
studies from the field of positive
psychology
so reinventing yourself is about
letting go of your past and old
narratives and not getting stuck
there no matter how glorious or
miserable it was it’s over it’s behind
it has shaped you as who you are
today appreciate it take
all those useful lessons that will serve
you in your journey
but focus on your present and look
forward life is happening here and
now it’s about allowing yourself
to be a beginner
because every time we find ourselves in
a new
reality let’s face it we become
beginners
and it’s not an easy concept to grasp
especially if you have been an expert in
something else or somewhere else
but allowing yourself to be a beginner
gives you permission
to learn and not to be too hard on
yourself
it gives you permission to start again
and to reach your full potential at some
point
it’s also about being aware of your
weaknesses but relying on your strengths
in the times when we feel like falling
apart
we become even more vulnerable and we
tend to
dig on our failures and on what we did
or didn’t do or what went wrong
and that drags us even further down
creating this perpetual cycle of
self-blaming and self-pity
and we tend to disregard those things
that went well
and those small wins that we had
nevertheless
along the way so it’s important to make
that shift
and to think of your strengths and
to hold on to them and to rely on them
because you’ll be able to
build your new identity around your
strengths
not around your weaknesses we always
speak about
what we need to do and how we need to be
to achieve something but we often forget
about the power and the importance of
support
so i would say that the process of
reinventing yourself
is greatly about leaning on your support
system
and your social network human connection
and human
support are one of the most valuable
things
that we may have in life and it’s um
and there are always people around you
who are willing and ready
to support you in your journey
just look around don’t be afraid of
being
vulnerable and trusting people and
you’ll find
all you need to move on and not to feel
alone
in your journey reinventing yourself
is about connecting the thoughts it’s my
deepest
belief that all your past experiences
will come together once
all the things that you learned or did
along the way
will serve you in one way or another one
day
along your journey be open to
experiences
don’t deny anything coming your way
don’t close the doors
even if it’s not a positive experience
it still
makes you rich it adds to your wisdom
and to your
resilience and it makes you so
you can unique and exquisite
and finally it’s about keeping your
mind and heart open life
is an adventure and as much as your
ability
to uh succeed and to maximize your
well-being
depends on your ability to plan and live
up to your goals
it depends twice as much on your
ability to be flexible and to adjust
when your whole plan falls apart
so keep your mind and heart open
to new experiences and to new
you thank you