This is a long overdue explanation I need to write, but I promise to keep it as short as possible! For a long time, I have kept quiet, meaning I did not publish anything on my personal blog. That did not happen for I had nothing to say! :-)) I chose to take the time to focus on those priorities that mattered the most. That meant to keep quiet, do things my way.
What happened
Lots of things happened, but to keep it brief, here’s a bullet point list. Some of these deserve more attention. Most probably I am going to talk about them in my future blog posts.
The sabbatical year – I needed it and as I hoped it paid off! It gave me plenty of opportunities to reevaluate at a more deeper lever my life with all its aspects … career, family life, friendship, things I enjoy doing etc. To do so, at least for me, does not mean “a tell it all approach”, meaning revealing it on social media. Evaluating and rediscovering yourself is internalized hard work. It takes time, confronting your hidden inner fears, but also learning to appreciate better all your gifts. And, it’s only fair to say that it also brought me a lot of (un)expected joys!
A new career challenge. Back in November 2017 I decided I to try something new … use better and differently my expertise.After all, I had over 15 years of experience – played many roles; diversified digital and marketing projects across all major industries; mentored many people and startups.
Plus, I wanted to develop more projects with some of the business partners I already knew as being great. So, I started working as a Digital & Business Transformation Consultant @ Business Booster. I worked on a number of interesting projects, met a bunch of awesome people and enjoyed nice results.
Beautiful & Proud Romania
I was very much enjoying my work and personal freedom when I met Liviu Cristea, an extremely experienced media production consultant. We were telling each other “good morning” almost every day when zipping our coffees and remotely working from a nearby coquette terrace cafe.
It took us one year to actually talk to each, but less than a month to decide to launch iscodescu.ro. We had mutually shared beliefs about Romania’s potential, complementary professional knowledge, personal drive and willingness to try “something impossible”. The latter one meaning talk the good things happening in the country, and not the bad ones! Plus, we knew many like minded people!
The Roadtrip to Wellbeing
This is definitely the closest to my heart personal project. It started back in 2016 while I was the General Manager R/GA Bucharest and went through challenges of all sorts. Initially, all I wanted was to use my digital background and become a digital enabler for authentic and honest therapists willing to share with people personal development, alternative therapies and spirituality experiences.
I was familiar with such topics, so it was not that hard to launch the content platform. I did not imagined back than that this will evolve in what it is today, 4 years later. Briefly, to those people interested in their well-being and aware that change is one thing life guarantees, ChakanaVibes.ro is a generous source of inspiration and motivation for personal transformation.
Setting expectations
Having gone through so many professional and personal changes, it was only natural to draw some clear conclusions. Therefore, here is what you should expect finding on this blog from now on:
- New topics – So far I kept privately or shared only with my closest friends certain thoughts related to human treats, politics, people, life experiences and so on. This is about to change! And here’s the first two stories about Cuba: Hemingway’s Floridita and Papa’s Daiquiri
- Posting frequency – yes I know, frequency matters, but with the things I do and my unwillingness to write just for the sake of numbers, I shall only publish when I feel like it. The topics tackled here are of personal interest and written by Ana Maria, and not by the digital and business transformation consultant.
All being said, I can only hope you’ll enjoy the things I share with you. And feel free to comment!
