Winter Holidays…the stress, the fun, the waiting, the gift-rush and the lists (groceries, gifts, dinners, last minute gifts, the christmas tree, house-cleaning, more gifts…).

We all have our way of handling all of this. I for one always enjoyed the rush and all that Christmas frenzy – I love watching people, lots and lots of people – they inspire me.

But I’ve never been pleased enough with the gifts part of the holidays… Maybe I make a lucky guess when it comes to friends and acquaintances, but when I have to choose a special gift for my loved ones, I always want it to be so perfect I end up buying something random the last minute.

But I have the perfect gift for you!

Enjoying these first few vacation days I had the time to think a little bit about my accomplishments, my wishes and my adventures from 2014. I realised that the things I am most grateful and excited about are the courses and workshops I’ve attended this last year. And I have to tell you, they were LIFE CHANGING!

No matter how much you enjoy reading in the privacy and comfort of your home or how well you do your job or collaborate with other people at work, workshops are a whole different thing.

First of all, I found that the best thing you can do when choosing one for yourself is to go out of your professional zone (kinda like your „comfort” zone). Because meeting people from a completely different area than yours is highly inspiring and energising.

Then all you have to do is exchange ideas and opinions and, if you find useful things or a good vibe in your group, keep in touch.

You never know where opportunities come from.

So here it is: especially for you, THE List – 2015:

FASHION PR with Noemi Meilan and Ana Bucur by NAKED PR

Although I attended this course in a very busy period of my life (while I was working for my bachelor graduation project), being once a week on an evening made it very easy to disconnect from all the daily problems and enjoy the stories, the people and the amazing venue – Margarit House. I found the course to be very useful not only for fashion, but for any kind of creative business or initiative – a blog, a design atelier or a concept store. Even if you want to do something more with your hobbies or your time, but don’t know exactly what, this is a great place to start gathering ideas, inspiration and energy.

 

If you don’t have the time or the money, you can always choose a Naked Short (usually held Saturday afternoon). I chose Creative Planning – it’s like a shot of espresso for your inspiration.

Photoreading with Connie Larkin

Well, this one is a little bit harder to explain. Although you can be sceptic after reading the course description, for me it was really eye-opening.

Photoreading is about reading and processing a lot of information in a very useful way. First of all you change the way you look at reading: no more stress, fear or procrastination when facing a huge amount of pages. Photoreading is all about focusing on your GOAL when reading something. Using mental maps you learn how to extract the most relevant information in a very short time.

Process Communication Model  with Paul Olteanu at Exec-Edu

As my favourite character once said, to improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. (W. Churchill)

I love learning new things about human behaviour, psychology, communication and education. PCM is a model of communication which, based on scientific and objective facts, will help you understand HOW to communicate best with the people you interact with.

In my opinion, the beauty of PCM is the fact that it speaks about the diversity of human kind and why every type of personality is ok.

Are you curious why sometimes you just can’t talk with some people? Do you want to know how to avoid conflict in stressful situations and how to achieve great results working in a team? Are you concerned about your personal relationship?

Whatever your reason is, I’m sure you will find Process Communication Model training extremely interesting, comprehensive, useful and most of all different.

For me, PCM was the best way to end the working year and to start having ideas and energy for 2015.

Happy Holidays!