As a little girl, while playing with my Barbie dolls, I was not dreaming about becoming a coach when I grow up. For many years I was working in a completely different area, when one day it became absolutely clear for me that I needed to change. To coaching and training. But the universe didn’t give this big change in my life easily. You can read about my career change, the challenges and my thoughts about it all in the interview done with me in the Womagic Magazine.

 

Womagic: As far as I know your original profession requires a very rational thinking. How did you start your adult life? What profession were you aiming?

Dóri: When I had to choose what university to apply for, very different options came up for me. English teacher, programming mathematician, finance, psychology. Eventually, I decided to go with finance and had both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree as an economist.

Did you also work in your profession?

After my Bachelor’s degree I immediately started to work for multinational companies, I started my Master’s studies on the side. In the first years I worked at English speaking HR customer service, Spanish speaking customer service, as a soft skills trainer and in the first 13 years of my career mainly in finance and procurement areas. In the early years I worked as a team member, later as a people leader.

If you could go upwards so nicely on the corporate ladder, what made you change your career?

It was a big dream for me, right from the start in my multinational-company-career, to become a manager. Because it sounded so good, this was already a thing, I thought. When I got the position, I was just there, asking myself: “Yes, and now?” I started to think about where to go on. I felt for sure by that time, that I didn’t want to go higher up the corporate ladder. I saw how much it takes (out of you) to be in such a high position and I didn’t want to sacrifice my life for work. Also, in the meantime, I started to see clearly that what I had been doing so far was not exactly the dream from my heart. I really liked to work for these companies, I liked the international environment, the colleagues, the fact that I could work continuously in English and Spanish. It was a separate little world for me, this is what I got used to in the work context.

However, as per my area of work, I lost my motivation. I felt that it would never come back again.

I thought it through, what it is that I am doing with all my heart being there, what I enjoy. The answer was the soft skills trainings, no doubt. In these first 13 years, in all the 3 companies I worked for, besides my normal job I was also delivering trainings internally – just for fun. This was that moment in my life, when I realised that this is exactly what I would like to do as my main job. I also felt like knowing more about coaching, so I enrolled to a coaching course as well.

After registering for the course – with a very brave step – I handed in my resignation at my workplace. Without anything exact for the future. Bye-bye old job, and I hoped that the new one will come.

I decided that after my last workday I will have a summer break, have a rest and after that I hoped that the coaching and training would kick in. I see that now, that at that time it was an overly brave step from me, as the new career path didn’t want to start at all. So, to prevent being completely broken financially, I was teaching Spanish for a while. This was a really unexpected turn in my life and also a very funny one – as I was going back to two of my previous workplaces as a Spanish teacher. After this time, came the opportunity I was waiting for – trainer and coach work at another multinational company. I travelled around the world (when Covid allowed us, of course) delivering trainings. And besides this, building my own business in the meantime has always been there for me.

The newest thing in my life in 2020 was the creation of my own coaching method, which is called Holistic Coaching Therapy. This is the method I use with my coaching clients on the sessions.

What did your family say about your decision?

Everybody around me was supporting me but they were very surprised about my courage at the same time. Many people didn’t understand how I can leave my well-paid Manager position for nothing, especially without any background support. But I knew that this is my way and I need to kick it in. What I didn’t think at that time, that it will have such a difficult start. But now that I have passed it, I can say that I learned a lot from that too.

At what age did you start to learn again?

I was 33 when I started to experience myself and learn as well all the methods that I am also using in the Holistic Coaching Therapy. The coaching course came after this. I am continuously learning since then as well, it is a never-ending story.

How do you feel, have you ‘arrived’ or do you have new plans?

I think I am in a lot more ‘arrived’ status now, compared to anything previously in my life. But I still feel that this is only the first part of my path and there are many new things waiting for me. I have a lot of plans and ideas, on the short-, mid- and long-term as well.

Help me a bit here, what is Holistic Coaching Therapy exactly? Who can turn to you with their issues?

My Holistic Coaching Therapy (HCT) method is based on coaching, which means that the clients brings their own topic they want to solve and deal with, and we start with questions. Based on my own personal experiences, in order to get to a real solution of an issue, we need a wider viewpoint. This is where the holistic part of the method comes forward.

It is not enough to try to solve an issue “from the brain”. I like to observe and solve it in the unity of the body-mind-soul.

The therapy part of the HCT includes all those methods, which can dissolve and remove the current difficult situation and get closer to the understanding and solution. These are mainly alternative methods, such as astrology, energy treatments, meditation, visualisation and any other blockage removal techniques; as applicable. The beauty of the HCT method is that it can completely be tailor-made to the actual client and topic. We use those tools and methods from my bucket which are the best for that given time, issue and person. Mainly those people come to me for an HCT session who have relationship issues, who are looking for their own path, who would like to build, re-build or re-plan their lives. These are very broad topics of course, however,

I believe that if I am the person to help someone with his or her issues, we will find each other.

I have university student and fresh-grad youngsters as clients, as well as people of the age of 40 or 50 and beyond.

Do you deliberately communicate on your blog both in Hungarian and in English as well? Do you have non-Hungarian clients too?

When I started my blogs I only wrote in Hungarian. Later however, I saw that foreigners living in Hungary, who don’t really speak Hungarian, don’t have that much chance to read about such things here in Budapest. This was the time when I started to write my articles both in English and in Hungarian, which was absolutely comfortable for me after working that many years in international environments. I work with non-Hungarians every day, I deliver the 99% of the trainings in English, I do the Holistic Coaching Therapy sessions as well in English or Spanish besides the Hungarian.

What does your work give to you?

I feel complete, ‘arrived’ and I know that I am on my own path. I can help those, who would like to improve themselves, who are ready to change their life and invest energy into the real solution of their issues. It is the biggest happiness for me to experience that I can help people get closer to the solution of their difficult issues, through which they can live a happier and more balanced life. I guess this is when people say, that

this is not work, this is my vocation, my calling. And a vocation is the one that recharges the soul and elevates it.

How could you inspire those women who are in similar situations?

My message for them is that if you feel that you are not living your own life or you feel that you are not at the right place, dare to change! Dare to quit from hopeless relationships, dare to leave the work-grinder behind, if you feel these are not serving the real purpose of your life.

Everyone deserves happiness, contentment and easiness, even if the ‘programs’ running the back of the mind of the individuals make them believe otherwise.

From my example you can also see that a change should be planned well, as not everything can be easy-peasy. You need to be prepared for the more difficult times as well, which can come with a big life change. But all the hardships are completely worth it, when you will feel “Yes, this is it! This is what I was waiting for! And now it finally happened!”. From the bottom of my heart, I wish this fantastic feeling to everyone! Now, only you will need to believe that if you want, you can get there.

 

 

For further information on my work, visit the below links:

My Training & Business Coaching website, Facebook and LinkedIn page.

My HCT – Holistic Coaching Therapy website, Facebook and Instagram page.

 

 

The original interview in Hungarian can be found at this link on the Womagic site.