Professional Development
‘Creativity is contagious - pass it on.’
The first time I ever heard this quote, I was still in high school and I was not sure how exactly to interpret it. However, after leaving my home country – Bulgaria and moving in the Netherlands to continue with my further education, I unlocked my imagination and passion for creativity. Today, after two years of studying the International Leisure and Events Management program at Breda University of Applied Sciences, I can finally comprehend the meaning of this quote. In just two years, influenced by my creative study program, I gained knowledge on various topics related to the tourism, events and the leisure industries as a whole. Experiences, regarding organisational processes and hospitality work environments are familiar to me. Now I am able to create content that varies from project plans and creating concepts to executing processes and finding different problem-solving methods. (Reports on Guest Experience, Business Innovation courses, etc.)
At this stage of my life, if someone were to ask me to describe myself, I would share my personality the way it is - nothing less, because that is what makes each person unique.
Quotation
’’Your ability to do what you just did is uniquely human. We call it ‘self-awareness’ or the ability to think about your very thought process’’
I am open minded, but disciplined – positive, but realistic – passionate, but frugal young enthusiast, who is aiming to improve and develop professionally as well as personally. Moreover, I am an aspiring future leisure manager, striving to reach his highest potential and truly contribute to people’s lives through the innovative and unique plans I could bring to the table. Howbeit, without a proper communication style you cannot engage with people, that’s why I also rely on active listening and emphatic communication, combined with clarity, body language and confidence. I have the potential, the will and the motivation, and although I know it will not be easy, I'm ready to give everything I have to become a top-notch professional.
Being able to implement what you have learned in your everyday life can only speak that you are on the right way of reaching self-actualization and improving yourself on a mental level. I have taken part in organizing different charity and fundraising events, related mainly to homeless animals. In one of my projects in the university, together with my project group, we developed a project plan for an event, concerning children with disabilities, mainly autism-related.
I also helped in organising events, related to parties, birthdays, dinners, etc. Thanks to that I have developed my communication style on a higher level. Also, improved my organising skills as I most often had to manage with numerous tasks simultaneously at home and in the university.
Moreover, I have done a couple of volunteering experiences, which are also listed in my CV and LinkedIn profile.
Professional Development
✓ Skilled communication style
✓ Flexibility
✓ Convincing and problem-solving ability.
Skills in simple words are the expertise or the talent needed in order to do a job or task. Job skills allow you to do a particular job and life skills help you throughout your everyday tasks. Skills are what makes you confident and independent in life and are essential for success. It might take determination and practice, but almost any skill can be learned or improved. I support the quote: ‘’Set yourself realistic expectations and goals, get organized and get learning.’’ In my opinion a skilled communication style, flexibility and the ability to convince other parties and solve a certain problem ASAP – are my top three skills needed to succeed in the leisure, hospitality, tourism and event industries.
As a tip I could give to the one, who does not have those abilities or skills, but want to obtain them, I am thinking of the term, called ‘reflection’, As human beings, we attach to one way of doing things, and often do not see the other possible options or opportunities that are staying just in front of our faces. As one of my favourite writers – St. Covey states in his book: ‘’Your ability to do what you just did is uniquely human. We call it ‘self-awareness’ or the ability to think about your very thought process’’. In other words, by being able to reflect on your own decisions and actions, you can become self-aware of your own disadvantages and transform them into future advantages. According to Gordon, however, to become an effective leader one must master the “soft skills”, as referred to by him, which are essentially clear communication and active listening.
What Gordon’s study is examining is that above everything it should be clear what a person is saying. A deep understanding is essential to interpret words correctly. Gordon differentiates the expression and the impression, however mentions that it is crucial for them to match. For example, communication and behaviour in a formal setting is different than in an informal setting. In other words, how you express yourself, how you formulate your thoughts and sentences, determines the impression you left in the person. To be understood in a professional environment, I always make sure to be articulate and composed with my speech. Furthermore, Stephen R. Covey’s study claims that an individual should change and adapt according to their situation and environment. The step to success in flexibility he divided into seven parts:
Be Proactive
Begin with the End in Mind
Put First Things First
Think Win-Win
Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood
Synergize
Sharpen the Saw
The first three steps are related to self-improvement, whereas the next three evaluate the behaviour in a collective environment. The last step is focused on the effectiveness of all steps together and continuing the personal and interpersonal growth.
However, what both authors have in common is the focus on understanding and communication. In the fifth step, “Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood”, Covey also emphasizes on communication as a most important skill in life and work. The essence of it is that people should more often hear others out and actively listen and understand, instead of just trying to get their opinion out. In his opinion, there are four steps to listening and understanding: evaluating – where you agree or disagree; probing – where you ask questions; advising – where you counsel and interpreting – where you analyze based on your own experience.
“Synergize” is also a perfect example of how to work in a team, but also work in a team manner with your employees. It is essential to take their ideas in mind, listen to their opinion carefully, involve them and make them contribute. “Think Win-Win” is also a strategy useful for an effective leadership. It proves a strong spirit, ability to solve problems and most importantly, care for the ones you lead. These values were taught to me in my first year of education in the Netherlands, as working in a team is an essential skill. Beforehand, I had worked with people - both in a team and with clients. The atmosphere was very different, though, and somewhat unprofessional. The experience helped me grow as an individual, but I knew I could make use of more knowledge. On the path of developing my communication with people in different roles than me, I hit many bumps and tripped many times. However, every time I made a mistake, it taught me a lesson and my teamwork has dramatically improved since the very first semester of my education. I got to be in the role of a leader and a follower, which helped me recognise the pluses and minuses in my own and other people's behaviors.
During the process of learning and aiming to become professionals, we can stick in a routine that may not be working effectively, just because we are adjusted to it and we are used to this way. To think on a regular basis about your own skills, improvement points and ways to develop your creativity, can help us identify changes that we might need to make further. We should always take into consideration our strengths, weaknesses, problems, achievements and try to make solutions for better dealing with the upcoming situations.
If we speak about development, the thing that contributed and helped me to develop myself the most, is not my previous or current
job. I have experienced several interactions with leisure experts and professionals within the event industry. As a result, I can clearly say that not only student-student and student-teacher relationships have importance at this stage of my life, but the student-expert relation takes an important place most of all. In our competitive and busy world, networking and good professional relations play a really relevant role in managing with processes. You can learn a lot from experts – from observing or working for them to simply having a normal conversation. Most of the times, they really appreciate students’ enthusiasm and are willing to help and provide with advices. By giving you a live example of what a professional should look like, you can improve yourself behaviour-wise and create yourself better habits. I realised that as stronger connections I have as possible, the more efficient it would be for me for my future career. Howbeit, the best outcome from this is the knowledge that comes from those collaborations. The mutual learning is essential and I am extremely thankful for all knowledge and skills that I gained from the professionals I have met throughout my studies so far.
My values
Achievement
"I feel alive every time when I succeed a personal achievement. The size does not matter, I will build the goal and analyse it, I will follow every step, fix the mistakes, stand and fall, but always achieve."
Courage
"With a little bit of courage and a lot of determination, we shall conquer the world. Courage has sentimental value for me,
therefore I built my personality around this sincere and irreplaceable human emotion."
Understanding
"Seek to understand - then to be understood. (S. Covey).
Thanks to my interest in spirituality and philosophy I was able to learn how to put understanding first. The world is complex enough - without understanding - mission impossible."
Perfection
"Perfection is a gift and a curse.
Since I remember myself I am a perfectionist. In personal and professional plan is extremely useful, If you know how to use this value. It feels like a weapon - powerful, but still dangerous."
Values are fundamental beliefs that shape everyone's personality.
They are elements of the inner being which define it and differentiate it from the rest, making it unique, but they are also bonding material, that can easily connect you to other people. Values are based on how one perceives the world, his role in it, his place and space, they are formed through experiences, learning moments and obstacles. They can also be influenced by outside factors throughout the years of development – like culture, family and surrounding environment. However, when a person completes enough steps of growth, values are fundamentally established inside their consciousness. Personally, I find my values very easy to determine. Most of my life I have stood behind a few basic morals that have driven me and my decisions throughout the years both consciously and unconsciously.
My collection of personal values is a key factor for shaping my professional, individual and all other social roles in life. I tested the strength of my values, stated above with the Schwartz value test. Doctor Schwartz uses a model to systemize the ten main categories the values are placed in. The two dimensions of the model represent two opposite pairs, representing the self and the collective mind. The first pair is “openness to change” and “conservation”. It assesses the conflict between progressiveness of the self and following the proclaimed social norms and standards.
In the other pair “self-transcendence” appears as the empathic behaviour towards others, whereas “self-enhancement” is charged as a pursuit of one’s personal or “egoistic” interests.
Overall, the first hemisphere represents the individual’s values and the second one, accordingly, corresponds with collectivistic and environmental norms. Despite already being aware of the ethics I stand behind, I did affirm my beliefs and do feel satisfaction with my newly obtained level of understanding about my own personality.
Check this out!
Leisure sectors that fire up my interest
As every leisure expert, I am also interested in particular leisure industries with the goal of developing myself as a professional. My main focus is on the wedding industry and the GLAM industry. I have oriented myself in gaining knowledge and potentially working in one of them -
or both!
The museum industry or more generally represented as GLAM -
is an acronym for "galleries, libraries, archives, and museums" and refers to cultural institutions that have access to knowledge as their mission. More generally, GLAM's are institutions in the public interest, collecting cultural heritage materials.
This wedding industry is an industry that is made up of multiple smaller enterprises that are part of different industries like caterers, wedding consultants, dresses, various beauty suppliers - hair, makeup, photographers, music, bachelor parties, honeymoons and other related. It can shortly be described with the following three quotes:
´The wedding industry is a modern phenomenon.´
´Working “smarter not harder” is not a thing. You need both.´
´The wedding industry is a dream job, and we need what you bring the table.´
But let's leave my sectors of interest aside for a moment, go deeper and dive into the sub-sectors that have the most relevance to my professional growing at this stage of my life - Destination Wedding & Outdoor Education.
New 2021 learning objectives
With the start of my 20-weeks placement I did set several goals on what I am mostly aiming to achieve considering my professional growth & even personal qualities development – which combined together create the strongest skill set of a future industry professional. I was able to learn more at ACREW than I was expecting – how to manage working programs as the SketchUp 3D creation app or Asana task manager – which until recent time were unfamiliar to me. With the work process I was able to learn how to benefit from their usage.
progress: I did receive insights not only within the events department, but also in marketing, design & operations. After, experiencing the creation of floorplans, protocols, marketing plans, runsheets, etc. I was also able to have it all organised in a time frames, with set deadlines, so the work is done in the most efficient & rapid way, accordingly to the estimated plan. Even though sometimes I was surprised with new tasks or research I was always prepared and did not lose the end thankfully to the Asana task manager, which online program played really important role during my internship. As I had everything on the table and sorted out all the time, so track could be kept with less confusion. In which I also elaborated with the whole team all the time, so everybody was aware of each other’s tasks.
However, technical improvements as these were not all I managed to ‘steal’ from ACREW as received knowledge, but also, I gained understanding of the yachting industry as a new industry of which I am already aware. Since I had no idea what is going on in yachting at all as it was an untouched ground for me – eventually in the end I was even talking with professionals from the yachting industry. Conversations that were probably never going to happen, if the ACREW's Yachting Insights Webinars & Discussions or Google-Meet business meetings did not stand as a communication bridges for that purpose. For the next 20-weeks placement within the company I set as a new goal learning objective to create an actual in-person networking contact with yachting industry members & experts.
READ & LEARN
During this placement opportunity I wanted to focus on learning how to most efficiently run action plans written by another employee. Since my first week in Palma, I have experienced already the must to follow someone else’s planning methods or templates. In my opinion being able to read and understand another professional’s thoughts is not an easy task, therefore I decided to work on this as a first goal.
progress: In order to fulfill this goal, I researched simultaneously for explanations or examples in the web, whenever anything was unclear, had to be changed or seemed difficult. For example, this is how I was able to create several Event Facilitator Guides & Sponsor Packs. Another possibility was to communicate it with my colleagues, for example the steps I needed to follow in case I experienced unclarity or hardship or if I needed further information and details, so the final product is sufficient. I thought in the beginning that receiving help from the team will not always be possible due to everyone’s busy time schedule, however the team turned out to be amazing, flexible & extremely supportive.
The importance of co-helping and sharing in ACREW’s team was a naturally feeling occurring to everybody, which put the base for my sincere gratitude towards my colleagues. Howbeit, to ‘read’ only is not enough, therefore in my first learning goal I also included - ‘finding out the best way to run the specific tasks after understanding them’ part - something with not less importance. Learning is always a debatable aspect – how does one learn? through a personal experience or due to consuming the right information at the right time? Why not both? I decided to focus on first consuming the right information and then put it in action with the aim to turn out in a positive outcome.
progress: Research on the current situations in the different markets world-wide & on successful business strategies provided me with the knowledge I needed, yet will be beneficial anyway. I wanted to closely observe & focus on the international approach over markets, since ACREW is a combination of three markets Spanish-Dutch-English. Business awareness and market recognition are aspects I need to understand more, in order to build my own way to correctly run action plans & execute processes on a better level. This, brought me basic insights onto the ‘read’ part of this goal. However, it will require more time of working within an industry and constant experience and research, in order to skill this objective on a higher level and then put a mark – successfully accomplished on it.
Undeniably, one’s professional communication strategy in his work, public or personal environment play a huge role into his job and life overall. The verbal and non-verbal communication is really important aspect, also when we consider events and leisure industries. Half of the job is done, if you have developed communication skills and of course, if you know how to properly use them when you need them and benefit – nonetheless, how to implement them into both your professional and personal life background.
Thanks to BUas and my own personal development I already had a pretty stable communication skills set before starting as an event assistant at ACREW. Howbeit, I was able to improve my current set and also add other skills I was able to develop during my internship. In my opinion, skills are an asset you do not contain forever once you develop, but in order to sustain & strengthen them your mind have to be with the correct mindset and continuous desire for improvements. I am really happy that at least I did put the start of further improvement of several skill developments I reached within this company. Aside from my set goal communication skills, fortunately I was able to learn also new tips & tricks such as: formal terminology using; quick reasoning; giving good responses even outside comfort zone; applying rather British than international English dialect in speech; top-notch emailing as a native speaker; All these tricks I was able to absorb and copy to my communication skills, because of example I took by all the different professionals from the yachting industry I was able to correspond with. Also, because of tips I was receiving by my team members I was able to differentiate what qualities to continue focus on improving from the ones I have to be more careful with.
IMPROVE FLEXIBILITY & ADAPTABILITY
In the business sense of the word adaptability & flexibility is something essential for success. Nowadays, if we think of the whole Covid-19 situation – these two seem even more important than before. In my opinion adaptability entails being open to new ideas and concepts, being able to work on an independent basis or with a team as the situation demands, and juggling multiple projects without getting flummoxed when conditions change abruptly. The stage to which one adapts in such situations determines one’s level of flexibility — and possibly the heights that could be achieved in the future thanks to these skills.
progress: People are learning how to improve these two qualities throughout their entire professional growth and surely it takes a lot of time & efforts. From this year on I decided to focus on the following, so I can move myself closer to achieving my flexibility & adaptability. For instance, work on aspects such as: embracing ambiguity, exercising emotional intelligence & critical thinking. By educating myself & practicing on daily basis in a work environment, I will continue aiming to improve these skills. It may sound weird, but thanks to this crisis a lot of companies had to strengthen their flexibility and adapt, from which they could succeed or fail. In ACREW we deffinitely managed to succeed by having these qualities and were able to execute both online & physical events.
STRENGTHEN NEGOTIATION & SKILL COMMUNICATION
Having in mind that I want to improve my English language skills I highlighted two aspects that I have to work on during my first placement abroad – clarity in speech and understandable explanation. So as a learning goal, I decided to work on two professional skills that I named: “Negotiation & Coordination” and “More Skilled Communication Style” for which a proper and skilled English is essential. It turned out the two professional skills that I aim to develop go hand by hand with the two English skills that I am struggling with. Furthermore, by improving my English skills, I also improve my professional ones simultaneously.
progress: In order to skill my communication style I decided to work on improving my active listening and emphatic communication, combined with reaching clarity, proper body language and confidence. The ability to convince and lead other parties is a necessity for ACREW’s employees, therefore now I also work on learning how to negotiate, but in a clearer, more sophisticated & precise way. I used my creativity in a daily basis to clear my speech and give explanations in a better, more understandable way. I always have used as learning techniques – reading, watching documentaries, etc.
However, during these 20 weeks due to lack of timing and dynamic daily routine, I could only strengthen my negotiating & skill my communicating via the team I network on a daily basis with. So, I am trying to use my creativity to help myself learning. Moreover, all the discussions my supervisor and I had with various clients, businesses & in-kind partnering companies within the event department - discussions based on project-related topics did contribute my exercising and learning process.
So, as a conclusion I can say that being able to implement what you have learned in any other day, is enough to show that you are on the right way of reaching your goals.
Self-management is actually one of my favorite topics, as I am a huge admirer of philosophy, balance & self-actualisatiion. Considering my personal presumptions, the comprehensive self-management consist of a matrix involving the four physical, mental, social, and spiritual realms and creating a proper balance out of them, resulting your own perception of a healthy & free environment. If you are aiming to be able to say about yourself that you are able to regulate & control your actions, feelings and thoughts this would mean that you work towards improving your self-management skills. Likewise, being able to manage yourself can help you be more successful in your goal-setting efforts. Before stepping into my desired goal, I did set before even my placement took place, I would like to share which new learning objective I realized and worked towards during my 20-weeks internship.
Most people struggle to prioritize their goals, decide what they have to do in order to complete a task, to organise their tasks not only in their work environment but also in their personal lives. Considering myself – I have the opposite issue. I am sometimes too harsh on myself, therefore as a result I have always planned, prioritized & scheduled actions for months ahead. In personal matter it is even worse – I have planning of my life for years on moments. Being accountable to complete everything necessary and most of the times even unnecessary is really tiring, pressuring and unhealthy for the mind and the body. It took me quite long period of time from early years until this year for me to realise and put a start on changing this crazy perfectionism on over-organising that is constantly causing me over-whelming, stress, anxiety and even depression on low self-worth.
With Covid-19 happening & experiencing hard times, my vision changed and now I can proudly say that I’m making enormous efforts to accomplish finding the golden-middle. Nowadays, I am taking care of all four self-management realms. I did changes on daily basis as: taking a low profile, aiming for relaxed and easy going – but still efficient & prosperous week. I do not account actions & tasks for both work & home hourly any longer – but weekly. And I do not plan for more than a month ahead. Since I have been living in Palma, focused also on the physical realm by body training & healthy food consuming. All the small steps, eventually contributed positively to my mental & spiritual realms as well. With self-management skills, you can easily manage to follow and deliver qualitive & quantitive work – but always remembered need to be to not overdo yourself.
BUILD EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Emotional intelligence is an aspect I want to continue working on for definite. Applying it on, contributes positively not only to my placement environment, self-management and professional life, but also to my self-actualisation and personal development. Emotional intelligence is a really beautiful aspect in my opinion. It means controlling and filtering your emotions in a constructive manner. This leads to easier adaptation when working with new teams and developing a better rapport with colleagues, as I pointed as relevant also to ‘flexibility & adaptability’ learning goal.
progress: The team environment at ACREW is quite international, so for me was important to understand how to build my emotional intelligence, as this is also a long journey. ACREW’s team is world-wide, considering all 10 different nationalities that outline the team – Dutch, British, German, Spanish, Mallorquin, Polish, Bulgarian, Swedish, North African & Indonesian. (including myself). Moreover, the three offices are located on three different countries, which is creating an additional international vibe. The headquarter is located in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, the MED (Management & Events Department) team is located in Palma de Mallorca and the SAM (Sales & Accounting Management) team – in UK. Also as already accounted, ACREW’s events are being organised at different locations and we work with various businesses – all located at foreign destinations.
Therefore, I gave it a deep thought and figured out that for the accomplishment of this goal I would have to focus on & develop further ‘Cultural awareness, expression & recognition’.
Increasing cultural awareness meant that I had to prepare the ground for effective intercultural co-learning. I have positive odds that I succeeded to build out emotional intelligence as I learned to reflect on different cultural traditions, to understand behaviors in general and in specific contexts – both when working with the team and when working as a professional within the events & yachting industries themselves. I became aware of differences and similarities for myself, so I can react properly in both work & personal environments.
A solid understanding of one's own culture can be the basis for an open attitude towards and respect for diversity of cultural expression. Nowadays, this is something extremely important, as most of the companies world-wide are becoming more and more international - as ACREW is.
However, intercultural communication is not limited to language proficiency and that is far from enough to create bonding and cooperation between people of different backgrounds. Furthermore, learning how to interact with foreigners also does not mean accepting their culture, traditions, mindset and ways in general. It does not lie in abandoning your own either. The key is to look deeply into the differences, smoothing them out and most importantly recover the most useful points that your communication could benefit from. That way there is a balance created, an anchor that supports the interaction and it develops a connection between the people, which results in cooperation, teamwork, understanding and high performance on both sides. As an international student, I did experience a lot of the differences between cultures. The initial shock of moving and the excitement, however, helped me to understand Dutch culture better and to mold my way in the Dutch everyday life. Communication with people was the most difficult for me, because there were so many different nationalities I had to interact with and each one has their own set of norms for manners, speech, humor, etc.
Aside from the university environment I was not aware of how to communicate within a very international environment. Now in my third year of international education and by working in e very international industry in a very international company I did quite experienced myself regarding international contexts. Now I am more aware of the importance to preserve every culture and to understand each individual I am communicating with, depending not only on his personal characteristics, but also on his cultural backgrounds.
TRENDS & DEVELOPMENTS
One of the most popular leisure trends of 2020 that I really support within the leisure industry is the Tripple ´I´ - Invest In Innovation. The industry is investing in attractions that offer innovative and immersive role-playing opportunities, as well as focusing on guest hospitality, with developments such as themed hotels. Moreover, museums are also using social media and other tools to not only attract visitors but also engage them in exhibits. This includes creating digital content. Finally, the lower capital costs and higher operating margins of water parks continued to prove popular with investors across regions.
A CREATIVE SESSION
01/
At the beginning of 2020, I received an invitation to join one Bulgarian young family with their business. The opportunity was suitable for my tight studies schedule, therefore I took it. In this way, I will work part-time and still make a profit, while studying. I am very glad for the business proposal and together with my family I will support and spread the idea throughout other young enthusiasts as me.
-the business opportunity
02/
Details about the business opportunity and the idea behind it I, unfortunately, cannot give due to confidentiality. However, the young couple honored me with a creative session that I wanted to obtain with professionals, in order to broaden my network and gain more experience in the business and management area. I invited them to an online business cafe meeting. I created a live newspaper that was used as a creative technique and consisted of possible questions and topics that could help for the positive outcome of the meeting. So, we made an online discussion via skype with the aim to get to know more from each other and about what ´Business´ and ´Leisure´ truly are and haw most efficiently these two terms can be ´combined´. I can say that the outcome of the meeting was really positive. The goal was reached and I definitely recommend this creative technique, thanks to which I was able to break the ice and observe a joyful conversation and receive knowledge.
As current Media Designer and former Buas graduate, I think Kristina did a great job with her creative portfolio - detailed, but not overwhelming and with a wonderful design just in her style!
M. MATEEV
I work as a marketer (for those who will read my review.
What an interesting design!
You presented yourself in an unique way - both personal and professional. I feel like
I got to know you for a
second time.
