Executive Coach, Speaker & Trainer Irina Cozma

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. This is going to be a good one. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast Executive coach, speaker, trainer and consultant, Irina Cozma. How are you?

Irina Cozma: Hi, Stone. Very well. Thank you for having me. Looking forward to our conversation.

Stone Payton: So have I. And I’ve got a bunch of questions that I really, really want to ask. But before I go there, maybe just share with us mission. Purpose. What are you really out there trying to do for people Irina.

Irina Cozma: Mhm. Yeah. The fundamental question I the way I think about my work is that I’m, um, trying to help people wake up in the morning without having a stomach pain. And, no, I’m not that type of doctor. Uh, but what I mean by that is. So the work I’m doing, I’m, um, enabling people to wake up in the morning a little more aware, a little more prepared on how to engage in the work that is coming their way in their, uh, work life. They might have better tools, better awareness, better, uh, mechanisms, better insights, uh, something for them to manage better that day. Uh, so they don’t wake up next day with a stomach pain and with stress because they, they feel more in control of their work life. So that’s what’s interesting to me. That’s what I want to do with my life. And I’m one of those people who wakes up without a stomach pain in the morning because I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.

Stone Payton: Well, there certainly have been days over the last 20 plus years of helping to run a pretty successful media company that I have woken up with a little pain in my stomach. So I think you’re providing a valuable service. So what, uh, what was the journey like? What’s the the back story? How did you end up doing this kind of work?

Irina Cozma: Yeah, sure. I’m, um, by training an organizational psychologist. And that profession, um, comes with, um, with some tools that equip you to if you want to become a coach later. So as an organizational psychologist, basically, we are trying to bring some science into the workplace and that we can bring that science in many different ways. And, uh, while I was working, I was working on, um, with a consulting company for for a decade. That’s where I discovered that from all the things that I was doing, um, in my day to day, this piece, when I was doing coaching, uh, that was, uh, that was my happy place, so I kind of stumbled upon it among all the other things I was doing. Uh, I do have to say, I’m one of those lucky people that, um, I did end up in a profession overall that I really enjoy. And then I just found the cherry on the top, which is coaching. That, um, brings me the most amount of happiness. And, uh, in order to maximize that happiness, I open my coaching business in 2019, and I’m having fun ever since. So it was a little accident, a little like, uh, my profession was already kind of preparing me to encounter on my way, a profession like coaching.

Stone Payton: And now you’ve worked and studied in, in several countries. Speak to that a little bit. What’s that experience been like?

Irina Cozma: Yeah, you probably can tell from my accent that, uh, I’m not from, uh, I’m not from Charlotte, North Carolina, where I live right now. Um, I’m originally from Romania. Uh, so, um, that was, uh. What? The story. My story begins. I lived also in Spain for a while. I went to Spain a couple of times, uh, with, uh, studying couple of times. I lived in Republic of Moldova for a second also, and in us for, um, 17, 18 years now. And, um, I think what this, uh, I don’t know, multicultural, global background, how that, what that brought to me is, uh, fundamental understanding that people are the same everywhere in the world. We might we might think, uh, something different, but actually, it’s not. It’s not like that. People are people everywhere. And, um, the same emotions, the same desires. The same, uh. Wishes and and dreams and, um. Yeah. Like that. That brings a kind of relativity. And when I’m, uh, engaging with people all over the world, like, I, I coach somebody in Burkina Faso a couple of months ago, I coach people in Germany. I go coach people in Romania. So fundamentally people are people. And, um, I think one thing that I will add is all these cultural differences that we are hearing about. Yes, there is some truth in them, but there is also a lot of stereotypes. And, uh, from my personal experience and from my work, I’m trying to to just focus on the person. Uh, let’s start there. And, uh, because not everybody, um, not everybody in us is an individualistic person. Even if us, it’s classified as an individualistic country. Uh, not everybody in China is a collectivist person. Even if China is characterized or characterized as a collectivist country. So all the labels that we put on countries might not apply to everybody in that country. So I find it it’s a little, uh, it’s such a relief to just focus on the person versus learning all the permutation and all the variations that we have on the cultural side. So at the end of the day, our human is just a human.

Stone Payton: So are you finding yourself working mostly one on one, or is it group work inside companies or a little bit of both of those?

Irina Cozma: A little bit of both. Uh, probably because I’m an introvert. I’m gravitating towards one on one. So that’s that’s where naturally I’m going towards. Uh, but I did some group coaching and I’m doing workshops, so I do some group things also. Um, I also learned about myself. That variation is interesting to me. So yeah, even me, the introvert, like some, uh, some people and groups from time to time.

Stone Payton: And now you have an athletic background. You also have gone to great lengths to get properly credentialed. I understand that you’re an ICF certified coach. Can you speak a little bit to how those you believe, uh, those pursuits have helped you be a better practitioner?

Irina Cozma: Uh, this is such a hard question for me. This question about my athletic background. Uh, I was actually chatting on LinkedIn on this topic the other day. Um, that’s one one of my dilemmas of my life. How how me being an athlete for eight years. Uh, how me being in a national Romanian team, uh, impacted the rest of my life. I still don’t have a fundamental answer to that question, but I feel like the the answer is start emerging. Lately, the conversation on LinkedIn actually brought a very interesting, uh, awareness for me. Uh, one of my colleagues from grad school, he commented, uh, something that really resonated with me around athletes and life. And, uh, there is something around failure that I knew about myself. That for me, failure is not a thing. I don’t care, I don’t think about it. It’s not. It doesn’t trouble me or bother me. I don’t literally think about it. Uh, and I did have my fair share of failures. But this is not how I perceive them and how I receive them. And, um, I made that connection with the outlet life, because being an outlet like you are failing every week, every week, every day, every training, every competition, you just fail again and again and again and, uh, it usually it can be just one winner. No. So you cannot be the winner all the time. So you are failing. Not only you are failing, but you are failing in public again and again and again for years and years and years. So I think maybe there is something there. That experience kind of, uh, made me a little immune to failure. For me, failure is just a thing that you do in order to become better. And I don’t overthink it. I don’t I don’t think about it actually too much. It’s just like, oh, did not work out okay. What else can we do? So that’s probably one of my biggest insights actually, from a recent weeks around my athlete life and failure and, uh, how that brought what that brought to me.

Stone Payton: Yeah. Well, I would think that that would be incredibly powerful, play a much larger role in your personal development and life than maybe it sounds like you’ve you’ve always, uh, recognized maybe more so than you, than you realize, but it seems like it would bring some depth and texture to a coaching relationship, because I’m getting insights from a person who, uh, who has, has developed a great deal of resilience and is equipped to help me maybe be better at capitalizing on failure as opposed to be afraid of it. So I think that that probably does have a tremendous impact on your on your ability as a, as a practitioner as well. How about the experience of going through this formal, uh, ICF, uh, training. What, uh, what was that like?

Irina Cozma: Mhm. Um, and by the way, thank you, Stone, for um, previous comments. Um, so regarding ICF, so ICF is international uh, Federation of Coaching. Um Coaching Federation. So it’s kind of the biggest institution in the coaching world. Uh, that, uh, credentials, uh, coaches, you don’t have to be certified coach to do this profession. Uh, so everybody needs to decide for themselves, uh, if it’s worth it or not. In my case, uh, I was stubborn. I am a stubborn person, and I was stubborn, and for a while. And I didn’t want to go through this process initially because I felt like, hey, I have two masters, I have a PhD, I have ten years of doing coaching. What do I need? This, uh, certification on top of it. Uh, none of my clients ever asked me about if I’m certified or not. So it took a lot of, uh, thinking about on my part. Like, do I want to do this? Does it worth it? Uh, once I made a decision that it’s worth it. Um. That is. Yeah. A lot of hours that you have to prove that you did a lot of hours of coaching and some training. But for me, I think the biggest, uh, value of going through this process was one of the criteria to get certified is that you have to have ten hours of mentoring. So another coach, more experienced, uh, spends with you than hours, and you go more in depth into how you think, how you coach.

Irina Cozma: You are listening some recordings of yourselves, uh, on coaching your clients. So that was really hard to listen myself on the recording, how I coach my clients. But there was so much learning, so much learning from those ten hours of mentoring. And, uh, looking back to all my stubbornness and my resistance of going through this process. I’m so happy that I did it because of those mentoring hours. I learned so much. I did not expect it to learn so much. So all my arrogance and my ego of two masters, PhD and ten years of experience, um, melted away in the in the face of the facts that, uh, that was actually very useful and it did make me a better coach. So very, very grateful. Uh, uh, for my coach, uh, for my mentor coach for walking me through that process. And now I’m actually part of my, uh, recertification. We have to, uh, renew your certification. Um, uh, every three years. I think it is. Uh, so I’m doing that mentoring hours again. So it’s again, like a eye opening, like, you know, you you go with low expectations, and I get so much more, actually. So, um, that’s a highly recommend to anybody if, uh, forget about certification, forget about the piece of paper. It’s not about that. Uh, you might learn something interesting actually in the process.

Stone Payton: I know you do so much work in helping people cultivate, develop, continue to refine and, uh, and, and act on leadership skills. Are there some must haves, in your opinion? Just things that leaders if you’re going to be a good leader, you got to have or do this kind of thing?

Irina Cozma: Yeah. I mean, there’s so much on this topic and probably everybody has their own, uh, opinion on, uh, what what are the critical leadership skills that anybody can have all the leaders should have. Um, I just in the interest of our time here, I will just pick, uh, one of my favorites, which is, uh, courage. So courage as a skill for anybody in general, but for a leader in particular, I could see many times in my life, uh, in my corporate life. In my consulting life, um, whenever there was a failure or whenever something was not working, it was because the leader did not have what I call courage. So this courage comes in many shapes and forms, so could be like, um, an intellectual courage. So when you are, um, trying to, uh, speak up, uh, on something that is important and challenge, uh, something that you think it’s not right. Um, even courage of accepting that you are wrong. Accepting that. Hey, now we have different information. I’ll make a different decision. So that’s what I call intellectual courage. And then there is moral courage. Uh, and that has to do in my mind with, um, aligning to your core values and, uh, doing the hard thing, even if it’s not easy.

Irina Cozma: Um, so that’s, uh, keeping up to your values. Emotional courage. Another important type of courage, and that has to do with being vulnerable and authentic and show human emotions, you know, like there are some leaders who can can be vulnerable and also strict and direct and get things done. But that humanity, like, I feel like it’s a type of courage for people to show that in the workplace. And one of the most important type of courage is the courage to act. That’s another. Another one that I saw so much, so much troubles happening in the in the in the work life, when the leader doesn’t have the courage to actually make a decision and go for it and all this, uh, hiding and, uh, try to diffuse responsibility, lots of, uh, complication can come from that. So the ability to make a decision without sometimes, many times not having all the information. Many times things are uncertain and are not clear, but you as a leader need to make a decision at the end of the day. So all of this steam around the cartridge is one that, um, I wish people would talk more about it or will will embrace it more in their leadership positions.

Stone Payton: So at this point in your career, because you’ve clearly been at it a while and you have so many different mechanisms for for serving people and helping them grow. What, uh, what are you finding the most rewarding these days? What’s the what’s the most fun about it for you right now?

Irina Cozma: Oh, I think it’s the same. Like the same what I said at the beginning. Um, each time I have a coaching call, a coaching conversation, I think my coaching clients are amazing, amazing humans. Like, they are doing so much work to become better at who they are, to become better at what they do, and having those being, being there present and seeing them doing that work, it just blows my mind every time they take me by surprise. So many times they come up with things that I would never thought about it. So just creating that space for another human, for them to realize something about themselves, I don’t know. That never gets old. It’s, uh. It’s what makes me, uh, confirms for me that I’m in the correct profession.

Stone Payton: Well, and you’re clearly the type of person. And candidly, I’m discovering that as I as I visit with more and more established coaches as I’ve been doing this series. But you’re clearly the kind of person. You’re a life learner. You, uh, you’re not the same coach you were last year. I mean, you’re learning stuff knowing you. You even changed your mind about some stuff, don’t you? Along the way, because of the impact that your client work has on you?

Irina Cozma: Yeah. I mean, so many things. Um, here. I’m, uh, I’m I’m very open to new information and to change my mind. And, um, Um, I can give you an example of something that happened. Uh, one of the biggest ones, uh, in the recent years, the, uh, the topic here is, uh, values. I never cared about values. I always rolled my eyes when people are talking about values. And I’m here. I’m talking personal values. I mean, don’t even get me started with the organizational values. Let’s not talk about those. Um, but personal values, like, I never understood them. Like, I was like, wow, that’s empty. Words like, never resonated with me. So, uh, I never cared about engaging in that conversation until, uh, one day, uh, again, long story short, here, I decided to do this exercise with myself. I was like, okay, worst case scenario, nothing happens. I’m doing this activity, I’m doing this thinking, and nothing will happen. Best case scenario, this ends up being a useful activity. So I’m like, okay, let’s do it. So, uh, I got myself into the thinking about my values, doing some activities, some exercises, and it took me almost a year to finalize and solidify my values. And I was so shocked and so impressed with the power of that. I couldn’t believe it. How much clarity uh, you can get by knowing your values and how much simple things become. Uh, the values are such a such a good criteria for decision making. So yeah, that was again my stubbornness. I for many years I was like, no, not interesting is not going to work. This is empty words. And and then I did it and it’s yeah.

Irina Cozma: It’s so much I changed my mind. Now this is one of the exercises I’m doing all the time on my client. This is the first, one of the first activities I’m doing with everybody who starts doing coaching with me. And, um, one last thing I will add on this topic is that I still like in order for me to get comfortable with this word values, which again, I still find it pretty empty and pretty overused. I did have to translate it in a different word. That makes sense to me. So the word that I use is instead of saying my values, I say my non-negotiables are. And that’s one thing that maybe our listeners want to take away. In general, this is just one example, but for other things, give yourself permission to redefine relabel things if they don’t make sense to you. Maybe there is some value there on the back end, but you are not allowing yourself to reach to the value because you are stuck on the superficial things. Like how I was like. These values did not make sense to me, but once I translated and rebranded and relabeled it as non-negotiable, I’m like, oh my God, yes, I definitely want to know what are my non-negotiables. Um, so and also my clients, some, some of them, they use my North Star or what? I’m not willing to compromise or, you know, there are different ways to reach the same destination. And that was very freeing for me that I allow myself. And now I’m allowing my clients to play around these words and still benefit of the of the value of the values.

Stone Payton: Well, I know you write for the Harvard Business Review. You teach at Purdue University. You’re an executive coach. You speak, you train, you consult. So I don’t know when or how you would find the time, but I’m going to ask anyway. Uh, what do you do? Hobbies, passions, pursuits outside the scope of your work? Is there anything in particular that you like to do to relax or nerd out about? That’s that’s different from the the work?

Irina Cozma: Uh, okay. I’ll try to be very, very honest here and not give you an intellectual answer. I’ll give you a real answer. Okay. Um, I, I like a lot to cut the grass and pick up the weeds in my around my path. So that is something very satisfying in working with your hands and doing manual work. Um, at the beginning, when we bought the house and we had to separate tasks, uh, around the house, me and my husband, we actually had a very tough, very hard conversation on who is going to cut the grass because both of us wanted to do that. Uh, which I know it’s usually people fight. Who doesn’t want to do.

Stone Payton: That, right?

Irina Cozma: Uh, we were like, no, both of us. And, uh, now we try to split like he does half, I do half, or maybe one week, and he does it one week and I do it. Or, like, we try to negotiate something, but it’s, um, for me, it’s again, it’s one of the. It’s relaxing. It’s one of the very few physical activities I do during the week. Uh, usually I’m staying here in my office, in my chair, uh, doing my work. So, uh, yeah, it’s good for, uh, mental, uh, distraction. It’s, uh, good because it’s practical. And actually, you can see the results of your work immediately. So, yeah, it’s good for the body that you exercise. So I don’t know. I highly recommend to everybody to do some work around the house, and if you don’t live in a house, you can go and volunteer and do some similar works around the parks. Clean the parks. This is what I did before we bought the house. I was volunteering to, uh, clean, um, litter around the parks. So with, uh, the local community here. So something in the. Yeah, just walking and doing something with your hands. I find it very useful.

Stone Payton: So the mowing the grass kind of thing, that, um, sounds like a marvelous recommendation. I am not so self aware and ready for enough personal development to take that on myself, but I’m definitely going to recommend it to my wife, Holly. Uh, before we wrap, I would love to leave our listeners if we could, uh, a pro tip, and maybe it’s around, uh, this idea of developing your own leadership skills or effectiveness. Or maybe it’s around if you’re considering engaging a coach. Some things to think about. Um, and look, guys, uh, a good pro tip for you is to reach out and have a conversation with arena. But let’s leave them with something to think about or, or read that will let them walk away from this conversation with a little something to to noodle on.

Irina Cozma: Mhm. Sure. So we already talked about the value. So I hope everybody’s convinced now. And we’ll go to that exercise. Um I would say what I will say here is what is usually my one wish. If somebody would ask me hey what is one thing you want your clients to to have already and not have to go to a coach to work on that? That thing is self-confidence. This self-confidence is such a tricky thing, such a tricky small thing actually. But we give it so much importance and we make such a big thing out of it. Um, and all this doubt and all of this questioning ourselves. And I work with my clients all the time on this piece. And, um, the way I see it once, this piece of confidence, once this foundation is there, everything else becomes so much easier to build on. But this first piece comes so hard to some people, and it’s so hard for them to believe in themselves. So I will tell to our listeners to do whatever work is needed for them to stabilize that, to create that foundation for themselves, because life will become so much easier after. And, uh, a metaphor or a sentence that I use all the time for myself and for my clients is we have to play in our team. We cannot play against ourselves. So all this lack of confidence and all the self-doubts is basically us shooting ourselves in the foot like we cannot do that to ourselves. We need to play in our team. A lot of the life or not. Other people will play against us. So play in your team. Or do some self-reflection. Make sure that that foundation is there. And, uh, whatever, however, whatever confidence means to you. Um, don’t struggle too much. Don’t give it so much attention. There is entire beautiful life after that.

Stone Payton: This has been such a rich and informative conversation, I’m sure, for our listeners. But for me personally, a ton of takeaways. A couple I’ll just share with you arena. And one is from that that uh, being self confident, but I’m kind of tying it back to being okay with getting out there, trying something, falling on your face, failing, and then having the confidence that you can you can, uh, you can learn from that, make the adjustments, get out there and try it again. So I find that inspiring and empowering also though on this values thing, because I’ve been a little bit like you described yourself in past years, you know, kind of taking that with a grain of salt, understanding what people kind of meant. But rolling my eyes maybe a little bit. But when you use the phrase non-negotiables, that really resonates with me. And if that can be my frame for my values, I think that will help me put more thought and energy into getting very crystal up mine. So that’s you’ve helped me personally, and you are clearly providing such marvelous impact and value for so many out there. You’re doing good. Good work. Keep up the good work. And thank you so much for for joining us today. We sure appreciate you.

Irina Cozma: Sure. So here is homework for you. I’m expecting an email from you with your values in a couple of months. Let me know how that that goes.

Stone Payton: Yes, ma’am. All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to connect with you and learn more?

Irina Cozma: Uh, two places. Uh, one is LinkedIn. That’s, uh, I call LinkedIn. That’s my office. I live on LinkedIn. So, uh, come and find me on LinkedIn. It’s you. Just search my name, Irina Cozma, and you’ll find me. And the other place is my site, which again is my name. So, uh, come stay connected with me. And, uh, happy to chat with you if you have questions.

Stone Payton: Well, Irina, again, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon. Thank you so much for investing your time and energy and sharing your perspective in your in your story. This has been fantastic. Thank you.

Irina Cozma: Thank you son. It was a delight to be here with you.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Irina Kuzma and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.