It's OK to Change Your Mind - with Alexandra Dolea

What happens when your dream job stops loving you back? Alexandra Dolea, archeologist, career mentor, and creator of the Career Excavation Framework, walks us through how she spent nearly two decades in field archaeology across Europe and the Mediterranean, only for everything to unravel during the pandemic: work disappeared, burnout set in, and the story she told herself about success no longer fit. That breaking point became a blueprint for change.

We also get personal about health, rest, and the myth of balance. Alexandra shares how severe illness reordered her priorities and why movement (hiking, lifting, martial arts) became a daily anchor. She makes a case for doing nothing on purpose, noticing invisible work, and asking for help without shame. 

If you’ve ever felt trapped by your own resume or worried your best chapters are behind you, this conversation opens a door. Hit play, rethink your next step, and if it resonates, share it with someone who needs permission to pivot.

To discover more about Alexandra's work please visit alexandradolea.com or get in touch with her on LinkedIn. 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us Alexandra!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:40

It's a pleasure to have you on the show, Alexander. Thanks for joining us. So tell me a little bit more about your set. What is it that you do and how did it all start?

Pandemic Fallout And Career Collapse

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Thank you for inviting me. And I'm really, really excited and a bit, you know, surprised that I'm joining your project in the sense of pleasantly surprised because I thought I have to wait for another 30 years to qualify. To share my wiseness, and you know, but I guess I have deep down an elderly soul. And this would be, I hope, a nice occasion to share some stories and some impressions about life. So, a bit a bit about myself. What I have been working for the past almost 20 years, it has been archaeology. So I have been doing archaeology in the way you would imagine. So exactly, excavations, you know, going and being patient and discovering history with your own hands, and thousands of years-old artifacts, and trying to bring back some parts of the puzzles that we are probably most of us or all of us curious about. So this has been my dream job and something that fulfilled me for a long time, and something that uh replaced some things I was missing. Uh, during the pandemic, at the point, uh, things didn't work out because you know, everybody loves some culture, but investing in culture and endorsing and supporting culture is not exactly what's working in a general global pandemic. So the arts and the humanities and everything, this is these are the topics where the things are cut uh from the first time, namely the funds, and this is what it also affected me. I was collateral damage. I never had a permanent position in academia, so I worked from contract to contract, either as a freelancer in denial, as I said, because I still, you know, I had the impression I'm gonna be a big deal, or I was a big deal in academia. Then I was also employed in some academic institutions internationally, uh mostly in Europe, but I've been working also around the Mediterranean and towards Turkey for the past 15 years. So this pandemic uh changed a lot, including my uh professional choices when in my mid-30s I was unemployed for uh quite a while, for over two years, and I had to make some life decisions, and I basically questioned all my life choices from all points of view. So um now I am a freelance archaeologist, but I am also a career mentor, and I am also a founder of uh Pass for Hub, the first attempted global community for archaeologists. So I switched, long story short, I switched from discovering the past with my own hands to supporting the community or trying to support the community that does this, because I believe that if your well-being and your mental and physical state are not in a good place, your profession and all your life are gonna be affected, and namely the job that is gonna be performed. And this is research, this is science, this is a big responsibility. It might look Indiana Josy from outside, uh, but behind the scenes there is a lot of work, there is a lot, there are a lot of sacrifices done. I don't want to sound dramatic, but there is really such an amount of work in extreme conditions, and uh most of the times. And it's a bit romanticized and idealized. And yes, I would like to draw attention about uh a lot of topics and about a lot about a lot of toxicity and unfairness that is brought in this um yeah, career path or job that is wonderful, but it doesn't have to destroy us. So that's uh that's my background.

From Burnout To Mentoring

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Okay. So coming from archaeology, how did you move to uh career mentorship and and coaching? It's not quite related.

Translating Academic Skills For New Paths

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Yes, it came from my need, it came from finding myself in a crisis situation, finding myself in a degrading health situation, and also my mental health was not at the most uh optimal level. Uh basically I was in a burnout for a while, but I also refused that because you know, when you're in denial, you're in denial. So basically, uh also transitioning after uh working over 15 years to build an international career and sacrificing everything else around it. I found myself in a position of not knowing and not understanding what my options are and actually not knowing that I have any options. So in the beginning, I thought that yeah, that's not that's not how it's happening. I have been unemployed for years, and I was still desperately applying all around the world for jobs and fellowships and postdocs and so on. Uh mind you, none of them are permanent positions. So still, you know, moving from a country to another for a couple of years, which might function for a while, but for me at the point the question was okay, where until when can I do this? Like, is this gonna be for again for the next 20 years? What's gonna happen? How am I going to be? Any person who is an international and who moved countries knows that in general it it can be fun and it can be nice and it's exciting, but for most of us it's not a piece of cake, and it comes with a lot of challenges and with a lot of stress attached. And when you don't have the financial security, also it puts some tolls, and there is somehow a panic, too much panic and not so much disco, so to say, in the whole in the whole situation. So, based on this, um at the point, and I have been doing mentoring uh with my students and my assistants and my colleagues, not calling it mentoring uh like officially or not recognizing it as mentoring, by you know, giving support and trying to be more of something that I didn't have. So giving support and you know, being as much as possible transparent and open and communicating because I think this is this is what is making things working. So I thought that mentoring is somehow a thing on sharing experiences and not being so isolated and not building scenarios in our heads, that we are the only ones who are having troubles, or the only ones who are not succeeding, or the only ones going through depression or burnout or unemployment or all of the above, because one does not exclude the other, unfortunately. And uh when I started doing official mentoring in different uh programs, including I started with archaeologists because you know that's my origin, my source. Uh, and I saw next generations of students that were 10, 15 years younger than me having exactly one-to-one, the same troubles, and going through the same abuse and precarity and uh uncertainty, and really, really uh working and being amazing and international and going through the same problems. I thought, okay, um this is something that is unfortunately not surprising, but it should get better, and maybe we should start uh do something about it. I'm not the first one, mind you, it's not that I'm not uh, you know, there are other people who thought about it and started to do career coaching and also writing about this and addressing it. Still, somehow I think it's not enough, and I think we can bring more in front of the injustices and the abuses that are happening in the field, and also the fact that every time my mentees were grateful for not being feeling alone in this and feeling safe and understood, and it just takes being there, being honest and being open, and it changes everything. It's like, I don't know, like magic somehow. And it's it's beautiful, but it's also sad at the same time, because this should be the normality and the common sense. We should feel safe to open up, and we should not feel isolated, and we should not feel ashamed with our work or our feelings or what we are going through. We should find support with our peers and our colleagues because I believe there is enough place for all of us under the sun, hopefully. And um yeah, I mean, I think the world would be a bit calmer and a bit better if we would take a step back, take a deep breath and saying, why am I doing this to other people or to myself? Let's just write at least if I can't do anything good, let's not do something bad or something harmful for myself or for the others. So this is how I went because I felt I didn't have support, I felt lost, I felt um I had a deep sense of injustice towards me, and nobody explained me that it doesn't matter, or nobody prepared me actually for the fact that it doesn't matter if you become very good and you sacrifice everything, and you build the CV and the career track, that it's at a at a I would say decent, at least international level, that all of this don't matter. You need to have a chance, you need to to know some people, you need to have a form of privilege and a form of support, and sometimes you don't have it. And you need to be prepared that things are not working out even if you work decades for it, because uh or you know, prepared in the sense of at least not blaming yourself that you're a figger. Yeah. In this sense. So this is you know what I'm trying to build and to create the normality of in very, very few people get a permanent position in archaeology and academia, uh, at least in Europe, Central Western Europe, probably like 1% or something like this. It's ridiculous. We should be the first thing when you try to apply for the faculty, you know. Like, uh, are you sure you want to join here? Because it's not exactly it's not a promise that uh it's gonna give you stability and stuff. So yeah.

Advice For Early Careers

SPEAKER_02 12:08

But I don't think it's just academia, to be honest. I think now in the 21st century, in any kind of job, you don't know what's going to happen next year, even or in five or ten years' time. The landscape has totally changed. Yeah. So as a career mentor, what advice would you give to somebody who is at the beginning of their career just starting out? Is there anything that you would uh any message you would give them?

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Well, in principle, I would tell them to follow their guts and to listen to their guts and to if they want to study something or go into a direction, in my opinion, there is no right and wrong. There is always a lesson to learn from anything you're studying. So there is not a failure. I know so many people who were forced by their parents to study, I don't know, something fancy, medicine, engineering, anything, whatever, because it was a family tradition or because it would have been a guarantee for, you know, stabile income or fame or so on. And then they were miserable with it, and then they ended up being writers or painters, or you name it, something that they really wanted to do. So um somehow I've had the feeling that what you're studying is does not necessarily define what you're gonna do for the rest of your life. I really strongly believe and I see that a lot of people are changing careers because we are changing. So what you're deciding when you start studying, let's say you're 18, 19, 20 years old, this doesn't have to be for the rest of your life, and it doesn't mean it won't help you if at 35 or 40 you decide that, you know, I don't feel like this anymore. So it's okay to change your mind because we are changing as humans on the way. The thing is to be open and to try to do a bit of introspection or self-reflection and asking yourself, what do I really enjoy to do? Because this changes a bit, you know. I don't want to go in the mainstream like oh, do what you love and you work won't work a day in your life. Yeah, that's that's a bit uh it's still work. Yeah, it's work is work, you know. Like if I could, I would retire in glory and for at 40 years old, honestly. Like that's not but the thing is your guts and your subconscious and your inner self will tell you you will feel that it's something that you would want something else. Yeah. And I hope that the next generation is more free and that they are not, you know, so much pushed by the society based on gender, based on location and everything. If you're a boy and you want to do ballet or dancing or whatever and like that, go and do it. Like if you can do it and if it's okay and this is what you want to do, just do it. Like, don't listen to the society. If you're a girl and you want to become a I don't know, kung fu master, go and do it. Nail it. I mean, we need you know, we need all of these things. So, uh, first of all, not everybody needs to have titles and studies. For me, these are redundant and these are social constructs to divide us even more based on privilege and access to knowledge, which is unfair. So I think do whatever makes you happy at that moment, and you will figure it out on the way, because it's in my opinion, it's impossible at 18 years old to have the clarity of an adult who the clarity of an adult. Most of us adults don't have a clarity. Whatever. Yeah, I was gonna say that. I'm like, what? I did I barely have a bit now, you know. Yeah, and I worked a lot on myself. So that's the thing. Like, nobody guarantees you anything. And even if they guarantee, I mean, we have wars, we have pandemics, we have economic crises, we are in recession after a pandemic, and we still haven't processed properly what happened, you know, since 2020. What are we talking about? Uh life is life is short. Uh try to make it not only bearable, not only being in survival mode. Let's make something that we at least we go back in time and say, well, that was fun. Yeah.

Midlife Career Changes Made Possible

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Yeah. And how about those people who might be more middle-aged, perhaps at a career crossroads, perhaps just being made redundant, or they just feel like I'm on a path that no longer uh fits, and this is no longer what I want to do. What would be the first step for these people? What would you recommend?

SPEAKER_00 17:16

That's a very good question because this is something that I'm I I I had to face myself, and this became like one of my like transforming my pains into gains. So something that I struggled with. Now I'm, you know, using it to to empower people and to support people, exactly in this, you know, so-called middle-aged crisis. This is becoming, this will become a normality, in my opinion, in the next few years. Yeah. And I really, really hope that the employers and the society in general, the professional side, that they will open more to this like people changing career in their mid-career.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

And because this is a result also of the unpredictability of, you know, the global situation from economy to health to social care to everything. The advice to the people doing this is that it's possible. And that you don't start from zero, so it's not like starting again from entering school for the first time. And on that note, there are a lot of people, especially women, who go again to schools and get certifications and get another the third master or the second PhD because they feel the need that they are never enough, good enough, or they need another certification and everything. Really think if you need that certification or you're just trying to, you know, like justify even more in front of the society or running from some decisions or from taking some actions. Because that's okay if you do, but it's better if you are aware, actively aware of it. Everybody who is transitioning careers comes with a set of knowledge, and it's very, very important that you realize this, that you're transferring skills, and that uh you sit down with yourself and put in writing, not only thinking about it, but in writing or speaking with a friend or somebody who is actively listening and can give you some feedback about you what you were doing and just translate it into, for example, if you move from academia to I don't know, corporate people if they would see archaeology, just archaeological terminology, you know, in your CV, they first of all probably would freak out or find it exciting, but they wouldn't understand.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Yeah.

Soft Skills That Aren’t Soft

SPEAKER_00 19:54

But if you tell them that you were coordinating In teams of 20 people communicating in three different languages, managing contracts, administration, budgets, attracting funds, and all these things, people would understand that it's not only Indiana Jones, which is not again, archaeology is not Indiana Jones, but you know, the image. So it's not just having fun in the sun. It's never fun, I'm telling you. I mean, it's fun, but it's also it can be 50 degrees in the sun. So that can be not so much fun. But you know, you need to also manage yourself, manage people, manage budgets, uh, manage the heat, manage the dust tools and everything, and do also research and science and understand what's happening there. So this means only from this you realize how many other assets or qualities or skills you're having. So this is something that I needed to translate it into a language that people understand that I can do team management, team leadership, intercultural teams, and speaking different languages and attracting funds and administration and doing contracts and visas and you know, you name it, you know, project management and so on and so forth. And this is something that people can understand, this the regular professional language. So I think everybody can do this, can sit with themselves and say, okay, first of all, to narrow down what to what I want to transition to, which might be the most challenging part, getting the clarity of where you're going, and then you know, just checking out what you're bringing with yourself, because you're not a blank piece of paper. You come with your experience, your expertise, with your personality, which is also playing an exceptional role. And no matter if you're an extrovert, an introvert, if you speak one language or five languages, if you are in your home country or in a different country, there are pluses and minuses. And try not to self-sabotage yourself and try to bring the pluses in the you know foreground and try to teach them and show them who you truly are, because everybody has their role in this whole mechanism.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Oh, I love that. I love that personality and skills that maybe you wouldn't even uh think of as professional skills, but they still count in the workplace, like time management for for example.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Absolutely, what people are calling soft skills, and I'm like, that's not soft. No, like it it requires a lot of strength, for example, to be organized or to be in time, or to be just a person that people are, you know, like enjoying having around, or people, you know, respecting and saying, you know what, that's that person has a nice work ethic, and it's I'm not afraid to go and ask something because they are gonna be there and having the patience to explain a newcomer even seconds or time and not being annoyed or something like this. But these are assets to be patient and to be nice with people around you. It's very easy to ruin somebody's day, just go on the street, you feel good, you feel beautiful, and then there is one person who just wants to share their misery, and in the second your day is rain. So this can happen also at work, feeling tension, feeling everything and stuff. If you're the person who is bringing good vibes and everything, not forcibly, don't force yourself to be like, just try not to be, you know, like try not to harm other people, and this is like common sense in general.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

So, yeah, exactly. The soft skills, the so-called soft skills, they are the ones who are making a big, big difference.

What Truly Matters Now

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Yeah, thank you. All right, let's move to the questions about life. What are the things that truly matter in life, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Well, this also changed in the past decades, so to say. Okay. At least for me. For almost 20 years, my career and archaeology was above everything because it was the place where I could go. So for me, it was building a career and identifying myself with the job, which I know it sounds, you know, for whomever might hear, they would be like, ah, that's ridiculous, like that's destroying you and stuff. It was what worked for me and it helped me for a while, uh, quite a while, so to say. It helped me being myself and understanding myself, and this is why I dedicated everything, because it was the only thing that made me feel good with what I truly am and who I truly am. And then it was not the same anymore, and then you know, I went to to dig deeper in myself, not in the field, but in myself, and to understand uh which are my desires and my pains also, because it they come with a package. For me, the most important thing now is that I am I myself, I am not in survival mode, and that I have a decent life, and that I take care of myself, I put myself on the first place. And in in some cultures or some backgrounds, this uh might sound as selfish, but for me it sounds like this if you're not taking care of yourself, and if you're not respecting yourself, and if you won't love yourself, how would anybody else do this? And why should anybody else do this in your place? This is not a selfish, this is not the choice, this should be, you know, something that comes with the package. We have one body, one mind, one soul. We have to deal with this for decades or for as long as we we have, you know, days on this planet. So me we might as well take care of ourselves and of our body, mind, and soul. Because yeah, we have to deal with this all the way, and it's gonna influence everything. It's gonna influence your private life, your social life, your professional life. And yeah, this is what truly matters in life. The fact that I am on the first place for myself, so I can be in the best shape to give also back to the others. When I am in my best shape, and I am in my, you know, or I am aware that I'm not in my best shape, this is also like awareness. That's okay. We don't have to be at, you know, the top of the top of our lives. We there is not a linear thing, we have ups and downs, and that's okay. But when you have the town, take a step back, take a deep breath and see what you need to recharge. We need to recharge.

Lessons From Illness And Change

SPEAKER_02 27:31

No, I love that. Self-respect and self-love. There there isn't much that we can do without these. So yeah, it starts with that. What are the most important lessons you have learned in life? I'm sure there's quite a few.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

I was thinking actually, did I learn anything from this thing? So being flexible and tolerant and accepting ourselves that we will change, that things are changing, that our I don't know, from food taste to life choices, they can change and it's perfectly fine. So, for example, that's one of the things that I would be like, that's an important lesson I'd learned, that it's okay to change my mind, and it's okay to make different choices, and it's okay to just, yeah, go in a different direction at the point because it's trial and error most of the time. And people, you know, they should teach this in school, probably somewhere they are teaching it. Uh, not in my school, uh, but uh or in the schools that I attended. But this should be something like this kind of freedom in in the sense of, you know, you thought you wanted in this direction, you tried and it didn't make you happy, or it didn't work, or it worked for a while and it's not the same anymore, and it's not the same priority or the same satisfaction. Go for something else. It's terrifying. Like also, our brain is telling us, oh, it's not so good here, but at least it's familiar. You're acquainted with it, you're accustomed to it. Why do you want to change? Maybe it's not gonna work out. So we have our inner saboteurs and our inner judges and everything, and it's important not to confuse this with our inner voice, true inner voice. So if you want to make a change and you have the possibility to do it, go for it because it's trial and error or our life. I think it's a you know succession of trials and errors and trying to make the best out of it. So that's one lesson. The other lesson is what I said earlier of it took me almost 40 years to learn to take care of myself and being severely ill and v getting very close to death. So that was one lesson that it's ridiculously simple and easy not to be anymore. So that was shocking because you don't think about it. You read in books, you see movies, you see everything, and it's like, yeah, that's not gonna happen to me, exactly like with an illness. Oh girl, that can happen to you. And if you don't take care, you know, like this will happen to you pretty soon. And for me, the first time I think I got severely ill, it was when I was 28 or 29 years old, and I almost died. And I was convinced that I'm not gonna wake up. So it's uh this this was the moment when I decided to move to another place and to I packed my life in a suitcase and I said, okay, I'm gonna try somewhere else. And then it passed another, you know, couple of years, almost decade, and I went through a similar thing again. And yes, I learned that I need to listen to to my brain and to my feelings and to my self. When something you love, like you know, a job or um I don't know, a person or a place, it's not the thing that you know brings you joy, but the opposite. It's time for a change. And that's okay. And you need to be on the first place because it's not gonna work otherwise. If you're a parent, if you're not in at the best shape, and if you don't, you know, take care of yourself, rest, I don't know, do whatever you feel like, take a break from time to time. You won't be there in your I don't know, as much as possible best shape for your kids to support them also, and so on and so forth, you know.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Yeah. And not not just as a parent uh for the kids, but i if you're a partner, wife or husband, or you know, everybody has a family, everybody has friends, or we have colleagues, uh we we all have people uh in our life and we can we owe it to them as well. We owe it to ourselves and we also owe it to the other people, I think.

Rethinking Happiness On Your Terms

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. I'm just emphasizing this because in a lot of societies the belief that yeah, it's selfish to think of yourself before, I don't know, your kids, your parents, your whomever, that you owe things. And for me, I think the only thing you owe is to yourself. Because, as I said, it's very simple not to be anymore. And in principle, you're the main carer, with some exceptions, you are the main carer of your body, your mind, and your soul. And then this is a duty that I think everybody should have to take care as much as possible of themselves. Yeah. And that's I think something that we should switch our brains from, you know, this social impression that no, this is selfish, this is not selfish.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

I love that. What advice would you give to the younger generations? You're very young, of course.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Very young, yeah. No, advice. Who am I to give advice? That's my you know, inner saboteur saying, Who are you to give any advice to to anybody? To the younger generations. Well, uh, I think they can give us also some advice because at as far as I could see, you know, being a millennial on TikTok and on all the social media, I'm learning a lot from the new generation also. But an advice would be if they would ask, but I would give it even if they don't, would be to to follow their guts, as I said earlier. It's it's very, very important to listen to themselves. But I feel that Gen Z and the following generations, but especially what I've seen and talked to Gen Z in general, uh they're much more aware than I was, or our generation was. They they sure they take it to the next level and much earlier, and it fills my soul with joy, but it also makes me wonder like how would my life have been if I would have had this awareness in my teenage years? Exactly, right? Yeah, it's it's like of course it's what ifs, and this is a slippery slope, but still it's like, oh wow, this is crazy to be aware during high school of you know traumas and everything. And they are really, really present in their lives and they are very much aware. And I was like, my life was 90% survival mode, and I don't remember 70% of my life, and I had to do therapy mid-30s to understand this, so crazy, right? And then yeah, I don't know, I don't know if they would need advice, but um I think in principle they are doing well. I think a lot of things are gonna be shaken, but I think that listening to themselves and going on the path, I think Gen Z is gonna shake quite some things from all points of views, socially, politically, you know, religiously, all the and professionally, of course. I think some things will be totally changed. And I think all of us, not only the millennials, but also the generations before, each of us have a contribution on this to bring this Gen Z into a point that they can afford to do this and that they can have the power to do this. So I would tell them to also have the curiosity to look a bit in the back and see what they can take for themselves from it, because it's not everything useless as it might seem. I remember how I was thinking in my you know teenage years that I was the brightest, smartest, uh the middle of the earth. So but you know, if you if you don't think at this point that you're the middle of the earth, when are you gonna think? You know? So that's also fine. But I think they can become stronger by taking some power moves or power information from the generations in the past and apply. That's the thing I would tell them.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

That's great. It reminded me of uh I had a teacher in high school who used to say that uh if you don't don't think you can change the world as a teenager or young adult, there is something wrong with you.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

And I think this uh up and coming generation is pretty awesome and uh I agree with you. I think they're gonna do amazing things. What habit or daily routine has been the most helpful to you? Is there any such thing?

SPEAKER_00 37:30

So now that I'm getting older, I have some habits and daily routines, but I think one of the best things that helped me on all the levels, like physically and mentally, was introducing a regular movement of any kind and transforming it into something I'm enjoying and not a struggle. So I come from a background of not having too much uh excitement related to sports or activities and actually skipping sports in school and so on, because somehow I don't know, uh I didn't associate it with anything that would be useful to me. That's a very big education fail, honestly, and social and systemic fail. But then in the pandemic in 2021, I decided that okay, I'm gonna rot on my chair, you know, at the hope. It's looking at the laptop. So I decided to start doing whatever. And I joined also some groups for hiking, but you know, not hiking in the mountains or climbing rocks and everything. Urban hikes and just going as much as you can. If you want to walk for 10 minutes, that's fine. If you want to walk for three hours or five hours, that's also fine. Listen to your body when it hurts and it's you know already uncomfortable, it's time to go home and take a bath and go to sleep. But this helped me so much and it opened so many doors to me on understanding that I'm capable of whatever I want to do. Because I was genuinely convinced that I'm not capable, I'm not capable of weightlifting, I'm not capable of running, I'm not capable of hiking, I'm not capable of, you know, and these were my self-limitations. And now I'm organizing hikes and I'm training also, doing martial arts and a lot of other things, and almost on a daily basis, doing something, and I'm not punishing myself if I don't have time or I'm not in the mood, but I'm definitely celebrating myself every time, and especially in those days when I would do anything not to get out of bed or of the house. So I'm like, I would rather die than going out because it's raining and it's cold and it's It's like ew, everything is gray and wet and and in the moment that I go and I do something because it's for myself, even if it's five minutes, even if it's you know, doesn't matter. I'm like, wow, that's so cool that I got myself together to do this. I'm proud of myself. That's amazing. So that's a habit of transforming something that seemed to be a pain or something that I I was not mastering it and stuff. You don't have to master walking, you know, or whatever. Going to a gym and you know, doing something. And by the way, if you're a woman, you don't have to do only, you know, Pilates and yoga and everything. If you want to do weightlifting, go and do weightlifting. That's amazing. That's empowering. That's really cool. That's a great feeling. So um that's a very, very good habit. So it became a habit in the past four years. And if for a reason or another I can't do it, I feel something is missing in my life, and this is when I know that I built something that is really I really enjoy having it in my life. And another habit uh it's taking breaks and not doing anything. We need to rewire ourselves as humans not to be productive or not to do just to have the silence of not going anywhere with our thoughts, with our body, and to try to disconnect and say, yeah, it's okay not to be productive, it's okay not to work, I need to, you know, just stay for five minutes and plug out or something like this. So this is something that for me it was when I heard it for the first time, I was like, it's ridiculous, you know, like who does that? That's that's weird.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

The Italians have a whole phrase for this, the dolce faniente, but it truly means the sweetness of doing nothing.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

And the whole world is judging them on this, you know? But that's that's the thing. But also in a world that it's over-stimulating, from our mobile phone to everything that is surrounding us, we for me it's difficult to switch my brain off. This is also one of the things that it's exciting for me to do sports, yeah. And because, first of all, if I go on hikes, I communicate with people and I talk to people, and I'm like, I'm not just going there and you know, throwing my soul out in the hiking routes, but also meeting people, some of them I don't know if I will ever meet again. But that's nice, you know. And then shutting my brain down from all the worries and everything. Like I go and I focus on basically if I'm weightlifting to wait the lifts and not break my, I don't know, knees or my feet or dropping the stuff. And it's also something that I do for myself that I'm taking my time from it, and it's not something that, you know, I'm not preparing for the Olympics or for whatever competition. It's just going because it's, you know. And if you're having fun with it, even the better. But we are not used, we are always told we have to do something. And sometimes it's like, I don't know, when was the last time, Gabriela, that you didn't do anything?

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Oh, very good question.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

See, we are really wired to be productive, to be useful, and also another trick our brain is playing. We do a lot of small tasks, and at the end of the day, we have the feeling that we didn't do anything. And one thing that I like to do from time to time is to replay my day from the beginning, from the moment I open my eyes, I wake up. And but to be not in my not to be seeing it through my eyes, to see it somehow like a witness from outside. And try not to feel my emotions through the day, but just to be an observant. And then you're like, oh, actually 90% of the things I did it mechanically, and I didn't register them actively. And then you realize you also wash some dishes, you also gather some clothes, you packed some socks, you cooked something, you you know, cleaned also half of the house and everything, and then you're like, why am I so tired? I didn't do anything the whole day. Then it's like, well, how am I still alive? Because I work every day like this, and I don't even realize how much I'm doing, you know, the invisible work. So we need a bit of care and understanding for ourselves that we are basically over-stimulated, overworked, underpaid, most of us. Yeah. So there's the thing like self-care and well-being in the sense of listening to yourself. And if you need on a daily basis to take a break, and I don't know if you have the possibility, or just I don't know, lay down for five to ten minutes and go in a park and listen to some birds and stay in the sun, just do it because that's your time and that's your life.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

That's great advice. Thank you. What is the best way to overcome difficulties or hardship? Anything that works for you well.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

First of all, acknowledging that they exist and that they are, because this is also we we tend to run away from or accepting them and saying that that's a hard time or that's a difficulty, or that's something that I have to confront. A lot of people are not confrontational or avoiding conflicts, right? And that could apply to inner conflict as well. I think acceptance of the things that make our life difficult, it's a first step. It's acknowledging that they exist and that they are there and it that they are part of our life. The acceptance of the fact that also life is not just rainbows and butterflies, but actually it can be quite challenging. But that's that's part of it, right? Yeah. There is no best way to overcome difficulties, in my opinion, because it depends on everybody's experience, personality, mindsets, I don't know, inner saboteurs, inner judging, everything. But I can tell you that in the moment when you are present in your life and you're actively acknowledging and accepting this, things become a bit more easier because then you're not punishing yourself for some things that were bound to happen anyhow. Because then if you're punishing yourself, you just make your life even more difficult, and it's a devil's circle, you know, and a never-ending story. Another thing that what might make your life easier is to ask for support. We are very much used to dealing with the things only by ourselves and being ashamed to admit that some things are a bit over our paycheck or our possibilities or mindset or the moment where we are. So asking for support, which includes from going to your best friend and say, I I don't want advice or I don't want solutions, I just want to vent. That's also support. You know, we need to take it out of the system. Or going to therapy, or taking a career coach, or going to, I don't know, to ask for support in your company or anything, saying that yeah. Or to a colleague or whatever it is, right? Or in your family and in your circle of friends or anything, or finding a program where you would be understood or listened to, or so on. All of us need support. We shouldn't be bound to solve uh everything in our lives alone, and we shouldn't be alone in this journey unless you choose to, and this is a very, you know, responsible choice. But other than that, I think we should support each other, and I think this should be a common sense thing to ask for support and receive it and not being looked or frowned upon like oh, or equalized with oh, you're stupid because you don't know how to do this. Nobody was born knowing. Yeah, that's that's the thing, you know. Acknowledging these things are existing, acceptance and asking for support, externalize it somehow. You don't have to be alone in this. It's it's fine to have, you know, some camera comrades with you to go to the battle together.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

I totally agree. I think we humans, we are social, we are not supposed to be an island, we are not Superman and Superwoman. We are supposed to ask for help, and it's totally fine. Yeah, I love that. Looking back on your life, is there anything you regret or anything you would do differently?

SPEAKER_00 49:40

You know, that's a very, very interesting, and I have small regrets, but they are like, I don't know, I wish I would have spent more time with my grandmothers because you know I don't have them. But at the same time, I also spent time with them and I also acknowledge them, and you know, I love them a lot deeply, and I'm grateful to the roles they played in my life, from being educators and I don't know, my mom's mom. She taught me how to read and write and so on since I was five years old. So amazing and strong women with a crazy past, going through wars and through famine and everything, like totally different from what we're having right now. But you know, let's not life is not a competition who had it worse, but the background was significantly different. And I I regret I don't have time with them, or I that I didn't spend my time best with them or better with them. But at the same time, I did what I knew best at the time and what I could do the most, and I accept this and that's that. So I don't have any big regret, to be fair.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Something that I would go if I could turn back time, I would go and change it. But as I said, I was most of my life in survival mode, and I don't remember most of the things, so maybe there is something there I just don't remember. Which that's okay. But but not something that definitely crucially, you know, important say that my life would be different if I would proceed something like this. No, I embrace it as it is, with good and bad, and a lot of bads, and that's part of it, and it is what it is. I am the result of of all of these things put together.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

What should we focus on if we want a happy life? What makes a happy life?

SPEAKER_00 51:49

I don't believe in you know the idea of happiness as balanced life and finding your equilibrium and balance and everything. I think uh happy is a very, I don't know, broadly used term, and at the same time, it's such a specific term for everybody. I think this is this became like a unicorn in in our lives that we are actively chasing for something that seems to never be acquainted, and at the same time, in our chase to making our lives happy or happier, or being happy in our lives, we are making ourselves miserable. So, on this very optimistic note, I think that a happy life is uh case-based on one-to-one. I think the first thing is to sit down with yourself, make a reflection or a thought, and say, what do I really want? And that's a very blocking question because in our life we are told what we should love and what we should do and what we should choose from private life to careers to social to whatever preferences, right? And this is tricky to to find out what you really and deeply would like to do, or what is something that your, I don't know, the society told you that you should function like this because that's what I don't know. A good girl or a brave boy would do it, and so on. I'm not gonna enter into you know sexual and gender preferences and stuff, because that's a whole crazy other new conversation, yeah. It's a whole new podcast or something, but that's the thing, like some people will be happy with something that another person would consider absolutely crazy or absolutely not absolutely disgusting. And there is another thing, it's like jewelry or clothes. I can see you dressed in it and think you look amazing, but I wouldn't see myself in it, right? So that's also with happiness. What makes somebody happy and how they're presenting it, it doesn't mean it would work for you. So I'm going again to the thing of trial and error, and that what makes you happy when you're 15 or 20 years old, maybe it won't make you happy at 35 or 40 or 50 or 60, or maybe at 60 you go back to the mindset that you had at 15 or 18, and that's perfectly fine. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I wouldn't say that yes, if we should focus on something or somebody, we should focus on ourselves. I think we are the centerpiece because we want to be happy. And if we want to have some partners on the way to share the joy and the happiness, that's perfectly fine. If we want to do it and that's our a solo journey, that's perfectly fine. And if happiness is too abstract and you just want to have fun and enjoy and go with the flow, that's also fine. Somehow I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to at least pretend we are happy. And just don't pretend. So you don't have to put a smile every time on your face and just answer like, no, no, everything is fine, thank you. You can also say, like, you know, I had better times, but you know. You probably don't want to hear it because most people don't want to hear it when they're asking us how we are doing. If you're not happy, but you're content, that's also fine. I don't think most of the humans actively realize when they are happy. I think it's more of a past feeling when you remember the good old times, when you remember, like, oh my god, that was so nice. I had such a nice period and stuff. So while chasing something that probably you won't be actively, you know, caught in it, or it's something that is so temporary that then you spend time regretting that you were not more aware or you were not able to elongate, then putting it a bit lower and saying, you know, my happiness is every Friday at 4 o'clock to, I don't know, open a book and go and sit in the park in the sun. I have birds around me, and I, you know, read to something that I love to read, and that's me time, and that makes me happy.

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:49

For me, this is how it works. I have, I see a beautiful sunset. I'm so happy. Yesterday I went for a long walk in uh in a forest around, and it was so foggy and creepy. It made me so happy. I loved creepy things, I love foggy stuff. I couldn't see, I don't know, 20 meters from myself. And you know, but I was so happy, it looked so creepy, and I was like, that's so cool, I'm gonna enter the you know, creepy, foggy forest. So, you know, and most of the people listening to this, they'll be like, oh my god, poor her. No, it's fine, I'm happy. There is no advice from my side, like, what should you focus on? Focus on yourself and what makes you happy. That's your measure. See what you're looking for, what makes you excited. If a fog in a forest makes you excited, go for the fog in the forest. That's fine.

SPEAKER_02 57:39

Yeah, no, I love that answer. So it's self-awareness, figuring out what makes you happy and just go for that.

SPEAKER_00 57:45

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

I love it. Thank you so much. If somebody would like to work with you as a mentor or coach, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_00 57:54

Well, I'm on most of the platforms. My website, alexandardola.com, there they could find all the information and what I'm offering and what I'm doing and how I'm working. Also on LinkedIn they can find me and in general social media, I'm pretty easy to be tracked down if anybody wants to. And yeah, basically, professional career mentoring and coaching, but also like a safe space and an easygoing. My method is drawn from archaeology, like how you know you discover a new place. But basically, exactly like the things are there. I'm just providing the right tools for you to discover what you have underneath layers of things that you buried down. So I'm trying to bring clarity and understanding for you to discover what you truly want and hopefully what it makes you happy, because we discussed about happiness and so on. So that's the approach. It seems pretty simple, but as we know, if something seems simple, it has a lot of work behind. So, yes, that's that's basically me.

SPEAKER_02 59:05

Thank you so much for sending your thoughts with us.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

Thank you so much, Gabriella. Thank you so much.