Irina Benedict is a professional engineer turned certified business and relationship coach. A graduate of Tony Robbins Strategic Intervention Coach and Business Mastery, Irina founded the Entrepreneur Enlightenment Academy to pursue her mission -- “to make the world a more peaceful and loving place.” In this episode, we discuss the potential to become a powerful leader by making choices based on positivity.
Irina helps CEOs heal strained business relationships, so they can continue to grow. She guides entrepreneurs to success by providing coaching, curriculum, events, and community. Irina started her professional career in nuclear engineering and later was managing large engineering teams and complex projects.
Since 2010, Irina has been committed to devoting the rest of her professional life to helping purpose-driven entrepreneurs find inner peace and strength to expand their businesses and make a difference. When working with clients, Irina uses her sharp intellect, problem-solving ability, and strategic thinking, in conjunction with a strong intuition to deliver practical solutions and strategic plans that produce results.
In this episode, we talk about the potential to become a powerful leader by making choices based on positivity. Irina emphasizes that being afraid or having negative emotions is absolutely normal, but that we need to learn to acknowledge these emotions, be aware of them, and not make any choices based on these fearful feelings in critical situations.
She references the book of Viktor Frankl, “Man’s Search For Meaning,” citing that choice is the one thing that humans always have even in difficult times. During the episode, she invites leaders to accept the situation and their subsequent emotions, and then make the choice to stand up.
Find out more about Irina on her website: https://entrepreneurenlightenmentacademy.com/
Connect with her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IrinaEntrepreneurEnlightenment/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/irina-benedict/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/irinabenedict/
- [Céline Voiceover] Welcome to "Leading Through Crisis," a conversation series exploring the idea of leadership in challenging times.
- Hi, and welcome to "Leading Through Crisis." I am Céline Williams. And I'm here with Irina Benedict, who helps CEOs heal strained business relationships, so they can continue to grow unimpeded. Thank you so much for joining me today.
- Thank you for having me, Céline.
- I'm really interested to hear, because you work with CEOs and business owners and people at that level, I'm really interested to hear your perspective, either from your own experience as a leader or from dealing with leaders right now, how they are coping with or what's coming up for them inside of this "crisis," but leading through it, because like all things, it will end at some point.
- Yes, a very good question. I mean, it's on everybody's mind. Everybody goes through stages. So when the crisis came, there was a lot of fear, a lot of, "Oh, my God." Then you are into it. And once there is that initial stage that we're all afraid, and I teach that we have to feel all of our emotions. Like being afraid is a human emotion, and as long as we're human, we will be. So there initially is that fear that rises up. And then is the next moment, when you take a hold of that and say, "I am afraid." What am I afraid for? And I advise when I work with clients, we have to list all of them. That I would lose... Like I have some people that they have their business in their own commercial business, so they're holding both the mortgage and the business. So they are afraid of losing the commercial business, losing the business. So what are you afraid of? And once you put down what you're afraid of, then this fear, which is kind of a monster hanging around you, becomes a list of things that you can then start to manage. This make sense?
- Absolutely. Because if we don't know what it is, if we haven't named it, we cannot be aware of it to change anything or to move through it or to process it or whatever. So making that list and being really specific about what it is, not just fear, because fear is nebulous and could be anything.
- And, for example, this is like a practical client that I'm working with, the one with the business. And her businesses in telecommunications, so it's an essential business, so it has to stay open. So once she listed all of the things down, then we were able to look into it. So the mortgage was put on hold. So the practical things. So when the fear arises, acknowledge it and put things down. Now, the next is, that you can always, and always, always have a choice. And you probably read the book about being in a Nazi camp, "Man's Search for Meaning?"
- [Céline] Viktor Frankl.
- Yeah. Which that quote stuck with me ever since I read a book, maybe 15 years ago. And it's like, "You can take everything from a man or a woman, "except the choices that they make in the difficult times." And this choice is with all of us in the difficult times. So, for example, a story. My mom this summer fell down the stairs and broke some bones. And she was visiting me in Canada, so she was a visitor. Luckily, we had the insurance. So when I heard the yell in the time, I went and looked and the fear kinda overcame me. And then the next moment, I snap out of it, 'cause I needed to be the leader. So that's why, I have goosebumps, I invite all the leaders to acknowledge and then make the choice. Because what I very quickly realized because of my training and because of how I train my mind, is I cannot change the fact that she fell down the stairs. That was given. The same with the virus and the same with what happens in the business. We cannot change the fact that there has been a major disruption. No matter how much we whine, complain, or moan, done, it's done. It's happened.
- [Céline] Yes.
- But when you stand up to the leadership in this present moment, what is it the best I can do? And in that case, was for me to call 911. And in the case of the leaders, is to call the unemployment, is to call the bank, is to call on coaches, consultants, advisors, to call on them and to try to solve the problem. So the choice.
- I think the choice is a really important piece. I think it's a really important element of what's happening right now. Because so much of what's happening feels like it's not a choice, like it's happened to us, and it's really easy to get stuck in that very reactive, limbic brain place, where we are the victims of the things that are out of our control, that we are not choosing, which then limits what we think we can choose. And I think it's a really valuable point to emphasize, is that shifting into what are the choices, what can I choose now, because no matter what's happening, we can always choose a reaction.
- Exactly.
- [Céline] Or a response rather, 'cause like response versus reaction when we're making a choice in it.
- Exactly, exactly. And it's very, very important. And also, when you are in a situation that is crisis-like, like a crisis, like my mom felling down the stairs, so this situation, the only thing you can do is to make the future as good as it can be. So if we have a certain amount of energy, if we take this energy and put it to the past, we have very little energy to function on this present moment. But if we forget the past because what's done is done, we cannot change it, and we take all the energy on look into the future, we don't have to look way into the future, like what's happening in September, 'cause we don't know, we hope we'll get out of this in a month maybe, but we need to look at the immediate future, especially when we're in a crisis. So my immediate future with my mom is for her to get to the hospital without moving her in ways that could damage her more. So that was the immediate future. And then once we got to the hospital, the next immediate future is that she's going to be diagnosed and has the X-rays and stuff that they know. So when you are in a crisis, you're looking to the immediate future, what can you do to stabilize the situation? Because if we look too far out, we freak out. Like if I was thinking, "Oh, my God, can she go back home?" which was two months from the accident, I didn't know that, so my brain would have freaked up. So in a crisis situation, you look at the immediate future.
- Which I think is sometimes really challenging for CEOs and leaders because they are called upon to plan so much further out to have that strategy laid out. And that shift from, "I can't really create a strategy "for next year or for the end of this year "or for September right now, "I need to be dealing with the choices "that are in front of me "and what is really happening now," I think it's quite challenging.
- Yes, it challenges for me, too. Like I'm thinking about my end of June event, and I'm putting it out of my mind right now. I don't know.
- So how, when you're working with people and when this sort of thing is coming up, how do you help them make... 'Cause it is a mindset shift. It's not just as easy as saying, "Well, I'm only gonna focus on the future now," like it is a mindset shift because what we are dependent on or what people expect from us as leaders has shifted, which means our mindset needs to shift in these moments. So how, or is there a way that you help people shift into that or become aware of it? Or do you have any suggestions of how people can be comfortable, as comfortable as possible, inside of the shift as it's happening?
- Yeah. I asked the question, what if this was a blessing? If we can think about if this was a blessing, what would that be? And then I pause so people start to think. So I have a client who, she has like a hair salon, which is closed. And she had something going on with the bank. If this crisis didn't happen, she would have had a personal crisis, but because of the crisis now, there is an extension that she can recover. So any one of us, so when you look at it, it can be a blessing. Because I gave the example with my mom, I was thinking what's good about this. And honestly, I don't like hospitals, I've never been in hospitals, and I have to be there 24/7 to translate. So I had to really dig in order to find what's good about it. What's good about it, it bonded me and my mom. My mom is 77, and towards the end of the life, so that bond. It bonded us. My mom was treated in Canada, which was, it's a good country to be treated in compared to Romania. It's a bit harder there being an ex-communist country. So there were very many positive points. Like my mom's thanking me for helping her, which was actually the first time in my life that I received a sincere heartfelt thing and acknowledgement for the work I do. Like I do my work with my clients, but my mom doesn't know that work intimately. And she saw that intimately and she understood.. Because I used to be nuclear engineering on a very high pay, like director level, and when I quit to become a coach, my mom wouldn't understand. So we never had that resolved. But when she saw my ability to maintain energy and to hold space, she got it. And she thanked me in a way that was very touching actually.
- That's phenomenal. So I'm very happy to hear that 'cause I think it's always important that we get acknowledgement from people when they see that. I think it's really powerful that your mother saw and acknowledge that. And I think it's also really important that, to note that it's okay to see the positive and to see the blessing and to see the potential even in difficult times. We don't have to focus on the negative, we don't have to be in the mucky-muck of a situation only, we can both feel that, and be afraid, and be in the muck, and have that concern, and say, "Look at this positive thing right now, "look at this potential outcome, "look at the possibility inside of it."
- Yeah, and it was not even fate. Because once I decided that I'm stepping into leadership, I accepted she fell down the stairs.
- [Céline] Yeah.
- And I had the moments when I wanted to ask myself, because I work a lot, so if I would have stopped my day and maybe be with her, you get all of those thoughts. But with the crisis that we're facing now, none of it was our choosing.
- [Céline] Sure.
- And the people, I fully believe, and I'm talking directly into the camera to the leaders, the leaders who can stay safe in themselves, who can make the choice to lead into a positive future, those are the businesses that will survive, and after this has passed, you will take your business further. That's what I fully believe.
- It's a great reminder, because I don't think everyone is feeling that all the time. And I think there's a lot of negative media out there saying differently.
- Stay away from media. I haven't watched news since 911. Honestly.
- Yeah. I also do not watch news. I don't get newspapers. I'm informed, but not through those sources.
- Yeah, I don't watch news. And the fear doesn't solve anything. Because as you said earlier in the interview, you get to the limbic brain when you're in fear. And you don't wanna be making decisions from that brain. You wanna be making a decision from a powerful being that made you the leader in the first place. You probably took leadership because you have courage. You took leadership because you have knowledge. You took leadership because you have a vision. And those are the things to remind yourself during those times. And the less negative intake that you take from the world, the more... You have to know your vision. And especially when you are a leader of a company, you had a vision, and that's still your vision. This is what I have discovered by talking with my clients, was we set goals at the beginning of the year. So they were like big goals and let's achieve this and that. And when we tuned in, when we really analyzed, those goals are still valid. They are not gonna happen the way we thought they're gonna happen. But they are going to happen maybe in a more beautiful way that we haven't foreseen.
- So I love that. I talked a lot about it's really important to set an intention. Call that a goal, whenever, I don't care what you're gonna call it. It's really important to set an intention, that this is what I would like the outcome to be. This is my intention. And it's just as important to detach from the outcome looking a specific way or getting there a specific way. I think when we can hold the space for the intention, and then go, "It may not happen the way I thought that was gonna happen, "but I'm still gonna hold that space for the intention," I think that is a really powerful place to come from. And I think it's true even inside of a large organization. If I have a team that I'm working with, and I can create the vision, and I can create this is where we're going, and then release how we get there, excuse me, or the time you get to whatever it is, that's the really powerful thing to be doing.
- Exactly. So let's say a team had the goal to bring up culture that where people are working together and understanding together. Well, in a time of crisis, people are more open to one another. So maybe it's an easier goal to achieve than when everything is nice and dandy and people are fighting over who's more important. So if you look at the goals, and my client with the hair salon, basically, our goal with her was that she opens a franchise. But because she was so busy working in her business, like she was not working on developing the franchise curriculum and the franchise system, so now she's home and that's what she's doing.
- There's opportunity inside of this. So because you specialized in one of... Not the only thing you specialize in, but one of the things you specialize in is helping CEOs heal strained business relationships. How are you seeing this affect those relationships, or what are you seeing? And I'm guessing that there's some good, there are positive and negative 'cause it's always a balance. But how what are you seeing happening with business relationships specifically right now?
- Yeah. So the business relationships that weren't that great, to start with, are really struggling in the crisis. Because let's say, so if there are two business partners or three business partners, you have to make financial decisions. And some of those decisions are not easy decisions to make.
- [Céline] Sure.
- And different people have different opinions. And if you add the fear to that, it's not easy. Like it escalate. So in the calm times, the relationship is easy. When they add fear to it, it's almost like you add fuel to the fire. So it's a little bit hard, the conflicts are a little bit deeper, unfortunately.
- For those who are experiencing that, because I think they're... I don't think that's super uncommon right now. Even inside of large organizations, I think that you'll have the senior executives who are in different places emotionally and dealing with things differently. And I've seen that in clients. Do you have any suggestions of what people can do to not make that worse right now?
- Mm-hmm. So what I say is that you have to focus on your vision, like what do you really want? Like what do you want for your department or for your business? And when you make the what you want... And usually, a business owner, like, let's say, that has three partners in a business, they all want the same thing. They want the business to succeed or to keep afloat during this crisis, not to lose money, not to lose clients, not to lose capacity. So if you establish the common goal, like this is what we want, we wanna be safe, we wanna preserve some cash, we want to... Because some businesses have to lay off people, so that's another topic I talk about, like who do you lay off, who do you keep, then the common vision is understood. And also, as each person have to ask themselves, "What is important for me?" Like what are three things that are really important that if I can get? And sometimes that's why I specialize on it because it needs facilitation. And generally, I work with one of the partners, maybe either like the bigger shareholder or the person who has the most influence. Because I believe that it's each and every one of us energy that influence is how we deal with things. So if I'm the CEO and I'm maybe, I have 60% of the shares and other people have less, and I host this horse style, it's my way or the highway, then hostility and anger energy only attract the same. So I'm working with people to maintain their individual leadership. So in a corporate situation where you have different department heads, leads, they need to achieve their department mandate. And as we say, the mandate may change through the crisis, but still they have a mandate for the crisis. And they feel that another leader in another department impedes on their ability to meet. Well, I don't know if you work with both or if you work with one leader, but the leader whom you're working with, I have to be very clear on the energy they output. Because if you output, I wanna say aggressive energy, you get resistance back. Because it's like that, what you push against, it pushes against you. So to be very clear on what is it that you need to achieve, what are the three things that you would like the other person to do in order to not have the push and pull, and then see how you can negotiate that. Is this helpful?
- Yes, and I'm actually gonna ask you a question. So you said, what are the three things that the other person can do? Can it be, and this is an open question, instead of one of the three things the other person can do, can it be more about me? Like what are the three things--
- Yeah, those are the three things that I need to have. Yeah, a good point. So the thing is, what are three things that I need to have in order to not feeling unhappy with the other person? Yeah, what are my three requests, kind of that, this goal?
- Yeah. And I actually really love that idea of having the three requests, of being really clear like, "In order for this to work for me, "in order for this to feel good, "here are my three requests." And I actually, me personally, I like the language of my three requests versus the three things I need, because the other person may not be able to do them. But by saying, "I would like this thing for this to work," the other person can say, "Listen, that's not real because of the system we have "or the money we have," or whatever it is, "But we can do this instead." And then you come from, you have the ability to stay in the energy of the exchange rather than be like, "Well, if I don't get exactly what I want, I'm out," which is not... I know it's not what you're saying, but I can see some people who'd be like, "Well, it's not my exact thing, I'm done." And I wanna encourage people to not be in that energy either, to be in that exchange.
- Exactly. And a very good clarification. And when the person who is upset... We need to have the desire to not be. Like we need to have the desire to overcome that. Because any energy of upset, of anger, or resentment, is only taking our power down. We wanna be powerful leaders, we wanna affect change, we wanna change the world. And if we can maintain that power towards leading us towards our destiny, then we have the power. But if we take power and we say, "This is to fear, "this is to anger, this is to resisting that," then we have less power to actually achieve our full potential. So I think the key element, and that's why I work with certain people and I don't work with other people, the key element is I want to do good, I want to be at peace, I want to succeed. It's not that I wanna be right, and I wanna be at peace, and I wanna put the other person down.
- It's a very important difference. So I appreciate you emphasizing that. Before we wrap this up, I wanna ask, I just want to sort of, I like to end with this, a big question, which is, is there anything that you would like to emphasize from what we've spoken about or that you didn't get a chance to say that you think is really valuable to any of the leaders who are watching or listening to this today?
- Yeah, I think all of what I said, which is funny. But choose. Choose your response. Know that you're powerful and you can either give energy away or maintain it. And I always like to maintain as much as I can. It's not that I'm not frazzled at times, but I like to maintain as much energy. And then be very clear on what is the problem in the near future and focus your energy on solving those, and then you will focus your energy on solving the next. And this crisis will pass. I am in a very positive expectation that this crisis is actually helping the planet heal. I have read some statistics that more people would have died from pollution than from the virus. So I'm looking at the positives of this. And we didn't choose it, it chose us. And it chose us the call as to a greater leadership that we knew it's possible. So be sure whatever you do now, you're gonna be very proud of yourself as a result of this. And I think that's a success.
- I agree. And I would emphasize that having that as a frame, I tell people this all the time that my frame is when I make this choice based on the information I have now, not judging myself in the future, but with the information I have now, in six months, am I still gonna be proud of the choice that I made based on the information I had in that moment? And as long as I am, and as long as I'm constantly making that choice from that place, then I'm going to, I'm always gonna be moving forward in a positive and productive way. So I love that that was what you ended on 'cause I think it's super valuable. So I wanna thank you, again, for joining us. And for anyone watching, there will be a link to Irina's LinkedIn in the show notes of this episode. And you can message her there to book a strategy call if you'd like to talk to her about any of this, more than what we've discussed here. And I highly encourage you to do it 'cause Irina's obviously brilliant. And I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me today.
- [Céline Voiceover] Thanks for listening to us talk around leadership in challenging times. If you would like to learn more about us or any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca. If you like the show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts from.