In this episode, Teodora Takacs shares her unexpected journey into the field of communication, detailing how her career evolved from a university clerk to a marketing manager. She discusses the importance of continuous learning, the role of personal projects in enhancing creativity, and the balance between work and side endeavors. Teodora (Teo) emphasizes the significance of intentionality in side projects and reflects on her growth, offering insights on trusting the process and prioritizing self-care.
For other shows in the series check out the Women in PR page or the category with the trascripts and show notes.
Takeaways (AI generated with Riverside.fm)
- Teo’s career began unexpectedly in communications.
- She developed a passion for communication through product management.
- Continuous learning is crucial in mastering communication skills.
- Personal projects can enhance creativity and writing skills.
- Intentional side projects help connect professional and personal interests.
- Trusting the process is essential for personal growth.
- Self-care is important for long-term success and well-being.
- Balancing work and side projects requires planning and prioritization.
- Teo encourages a learning mindset.
- Reflecting on past experiences can guide future aspirations.
Transcript (AI generated with Riverside.fm)
Ana Adi (00:11.822)
Hey, so Teo, welcome to the show. Thanks for inviting me, Anna. I’m super excited to be here. Look, this is interesting. I’ve been warning you for quite a bit that the Women in PR podcast is very much about you. And I know talking about yourself is not always easy, but this is what we’re going to do for the next half an hour or so. Tell me a little bit more. This is a question I ask everyone that comes on on this show.
How did you end up in comms? Well, it’s a long story if you have some time to listen to it. My actually my career journey started in working like a university clerk. I started to work when I was still
studying in my third year of university. I was coordinating the Erasmus exchange student program in Cluj at the University of Cluj, Babesz -Bojoi. And after I graduated from European studies, I went to study gender studies in Budapest at the Central European University.
And it was a very interesting experience, but I realized when I came back that I would probably not work in anything related to that field. So I just applied for a random job in an IT company in Cluj and I started as a sales assistant. So I really didn’t have anything to do with communications at the beginning of my career.
But as things evolved and I grew in my career and I started later to work in a multinational company, I developed into product management and that brought me in contact with European business, with European communications and more multicultural environment and being part of the marketing team in
Ana Adi (02:18.464)
in my Emerson role, I found it really interesting. How do we make sure that what we wanted to communicate from a marketing point of view resonated with customers across different cultures, different countries? So as a product manager, I was already involved in many marketing projects and business development projects.
and I was working very closely with my communications colleagues. And without realizing actually, I started to be really passionate about communications and social media, and I was involved in a lot of different country, country level projects, business development projects. So in 2013, I was actually promoted as marketing manager.
in my role in Ridge Tool in one of the Emerson businesses. And that was when I really started to take communication seriously, actually, because I had the responsibility as a manager of a communications team. And I found it really, really challenging, especially in the first couple of years in my new role.
because I had to learn a lot of theory around communications, tools, techniques. So it was really opening up a new world for me. And that’s how I ended up in communications, by accident, let’s say, but it turned out to be the love of my life. But you said you had to learn a lot of theories. I mean, that is usually…
unusual. I don’t find it considering, you know, the history of the people with whom we’ve had the opportunity to chat on this podcast, ending up by accident, usually very fortunate accidents in comms is not unusual. But it is unusual to develop a desire to go and find the theories of
Ana Adi (04:40.428)
of comms, I tools again, I understand they come with a job in the territory. So what theories have you explored? Well, to me, the most important objective was how do we create content that resonates with our audiences? And how do we make sure that what we wanted to communicate was localised and adapted to the local
cultures and languages and what local audiences in each country resonated with. Just to give you a more concrete example, what we are marketing is tools for plumbers, for installers. So imagine you have your home with your heating installation, with water installation.
Everything that you don’t see that is hidden behind the walls, it’s an installation that someone had to build. And we are manufacturing the tools that these plumbers use in order to build those installations. we have clearly a product focus in our communications strategy, but we need to make it relevant and fun.
and interesting at the same time for our audiences. So finding that balance between effective content, but also the touch points and the right communications channels that resonate with our audiences. That was the biggest challenge that I started to basically study by reading books.
I cannot say I know theories of communication, but I read a lot of books around how to communicate more effectively. One that really had a big influence on me was Made to Stick. I really try to use those concepts in our project, in our initiative. So everything that I was reading and studying about,
Ana Adi (07:00.844)
I wanted to apply in our day -to -day work with my team. So that was really, really a driver. So Dan and Chief Heath. Yes, indeed. I do have it. I can show it to you as well. cool. It’s also part of my storytelling classes and you can tell it’s part of them because it has a, right, we used to call them donkey ears, right, and you can see that everywhere is a…
It has signs and it’s coloured. But beyond reading books, I know you also have undertaken personal projects that have given you bit of a space to play. Yeah. Sometimes I think too many. Too many. I see the internet is a wonderful thing. I tend to stalk our guests. It’s called research these days.
And I do know that a few years ago you used to have a cooking blog, no less. Indeed, yeah. So I think a few years ago, let’s say around 2018, something like that, I was already in my marketing management role and a lot involved in communication. And I really wanted to
improve my writing skills. So that was a bit my personal objective. Can I find a project that will allow me to practice my writing skills also outside my day -to -day role? Because, okay, when we do more calm and product communication, there is a certain style of writing that we’re using in corporate communications and more calm communications. But I wanted to go a bit deeper into
style and formats and explore a bit and play with my writing skills. So I made a list, I’m very well organized and when I start the project I start with a list usually, pros and cons and I dump all the idea on the mind map and I thought okay what should I write about? It was not obvious but I spent some time really
Ana Adi (09:24.514)
doing a deeper dive into all the things I was interested in. And one of them was food. I’m a big foodie and I always liked cooking and experimenting with food. But also talking with people about what they like to cook and what memories food brings to them. So I really find that food opens up really deep conversations sometimes. It’s like therapy.
So that was one area. And the second area was around business management, people development. I was reading a lot around behavioral economics and psychology and what makes people tick, what makes people motivated. So I was always reading something in this area.
And I thought, okay, maybe I can write about those ideas that motivate me and maybe some people would find some inspiration in them. So I had this, I could see it, a blog called Reading Sponge. That was the idea back then, Reading Sponge. I even bought the domain back then. And then this other project was Moustache Chefs because…
At some point I had this crazy idea that one day I would open a restaurant that would be called Mustachev. So I said, OK, I will write about food on Mustachev. And of course, when I started the project, I realized no way I can do these two things at the same time. So I just picked the food blog first. And I also used it as a playground for experimenting with
photography and visual creative projects. So website building, everything around content creation basically. So I started this Musta Chefs blog. It was a place where I wanted to gather family recipes. So I was doing the food photography. I actually studied some
Ana Adi (11:44.898)
food photographers and I read again some books, that’s how I always learn, I read some books, I follow a training and I was experimenting with food photography and food writing and it was a period when I was reading a lot of Michael Pollan, the famous food writer, he wrote Cooked and afterwards there was also a Netflix series produced, very, very nice.
So that was that year, 2019 until the pandemic hit and I was very much into it. But at some point, and actually I felt like I became a bit more creative in my day -to -day job because I had the courage to test ideas, practice my writing skills, experiment with visual.
expression and then the pandemic hit and it was a bit of a blockage. I had the writer’s block. I couldn’t really find any energy to even to cook, not to mention taking food photos and it was also a period where I started to rethink
what I was doing, my life as a whole, my career, my direction in life. So I think it was the time when many of us had the moment to stop and reflect, where am I, what do I want to do with my life, with my career and so on. And that was also the period when I started to work with the change strategist, with the coach. And
his Andrej Roška, maybe your Romanian listeners know about him. And he really helped me understand a bit or zoom out and look at my life from a broader perspective and see what needs maybe I had unmet and why I felt like there was something missing at that moment in my life. And what I found out and what I
Ana Adi (14:05.144)
came to realize was that what I was missing was a level of contribution. Like I felt I had something more to give besides my day -to -day job and besides all the projects that I was doing. And that contribution and that thing was not food, was not cooking or food photography or anything I was doing on that side because it was not really something scalable and it was not something I really want to invest
my time and effort for the rest of my life. What I realized was that still I wanted to play with writing and continue to master that skill. So I see writing as a skill that it takes a lifetime to master and it’s something you want to continue. There’s no end to it, right? So you continue improving that skill as long as you live. And
Actually, the food blog gave me a foundation for what I started afterwards with parking drives. So that was my second blog project that I’m still doing right now. And that’s the reading sponge. Sometimes things come in cycles and it’s with ups and downs. And I realized, yeah, I continue to be passionate about management, people development,
people motivation, behaviour, psychology. what is that contribution there? And this is how my project with Sparking Drive started. But it’s internally driven. So was you feeling you need to contribute without necessarily seeking a motive? Because, mean, call it funny, but I think from the outside, these projects can
can be seen sometimes as someone seeking a promotion, very willingly and being very planned about it. And they start to put themselves out there or they work with teams to help them out, which is not necessarily bad as long as they acknowledge the teams, but they work with teams to create a personal brand in a sense. But you’re saying you’ve done this all.
Ana Adi (16:30.932)
intrinsically motivated and because you know that all of that knowledge needed maybe a different storage space. It needed to go somewhere rather than all sit with you. How’s it going? How’s the sparking drive going? I remember it as a newsletter rather than a blog. Yeah, the idea is that I have like a
list or you can call it an editorial calendar. I have a list of ideas that I want to write about that really keep my mind busy and I keep on thinking about those things in my day -to -day life and work. So it’s not like repeating the same ideas from the books I read, but it’s okay. I have this idea that I keep on thinking, how do we apply it in a certain situation?
How can I translate that to other people so they can act upon it? Or how do we make more concrete and actionable things out of big ideas? And then I have this list of themes and I usually write once a month a longer article. I’m still…
working on formats and I keep on thinking, nowadays people want to be served the bite sized information and maybe I need to rethink a bit the format and so on. But I write a longer piece and then I send the newsletter at the end of the month or beginning of the month where I talk about that idea and then I send a link to the longer.
article that’s on the blog. But usually the blog is the source and then the newsletter is more like a vehicle to also add some other interesting articles or inspirational resources that I found on that theme if there are people who want to deepen that topic. So one month it can be about how do we develop more personal agency, personal leadership and what are some
Ana Adi (18:54.958)
foundational tools that I found helpful and that helped me become more empowered and confident and really having that sense of feeling driven to act, feeling more motivated.
Another month it’s more about how do we talk about emotions. Because that’s also something that shows up every day, not only in our personal lives, but also at work. And we see that it’s not easy to talk about emotions at work. It’s sometimes seen as a sign of weakness and people have difficulties finding their words or even labeling their emotions.
that can create a lot of other issues and the feeling of not belonging and things like that. So that’s another topic. So every month I go deeper into one of these themes and then I send the newsletter with a link to the article. Do you care about your statistics at all? Do you ever look back into topics that do well and topics that don’t do well? Or is it…
I do, but I’m not overly concerned about it. So I do more as a…
Because I’m a marketer and I’m used to know my metrics and I want to have results. I’m also as a person, I’m very results driven. So I do, but I’m not really, what I write about is not linked necessarily to the statistics or to the topics that were most popular because I want to keep
Ana Adi (20:59.392)
I want to, like you mentioned, you know, this came from an intrinsic motivation, from something that was really inside myself, something that I needed to express. And I think that’s important in order to have this project sustainable in the future. I’m also having a really busy life and a really busy career. And there are always other things that happen.
So it’s easy to say I don’t have time to write, but I want to continue. I really see this as a life journey. So I want to keep myself motivated. And I know that’s the only way this is sustainable, if it comes from genuine interests that I have. And of course, linking it to what I see, what I experience every day around me.
I have an inkling that you’re going to tell me if I ask you how do you make time that you’re going to tell me that you make a plan. How do you make make a plan. Definitely, Anna, I make a plan because without a plan and without organizing skills, I would not be able to do everything I do, that’s for sure. But I also decide what not to do.
And that’s something I learned the hard way by hitting walls and trial and error. And I realized that sometimes if we want to do more qualitative things and have more impact and have results that are more impactful, we need to also let go of certain things. cannot…
do everything and especially not do everything in one day or in one week. And that’s something I see with many people because I also mentor and coach some people. I also became a change strategist myself after working with Andre and after following his training. And that helped me enormously also as a manager in my day to day job. So I always looked at
Ana Adi (23:21.686)
improving some skills and following those trainings that I can apply and not just go to a training because it’s interesting and it sounds nice on the CV or something. But really, can I apply? Can I do something with that? And following the change strategy course training that was really, really transformational, I would say. And that’s also something that I realized
If when I forgot my I forgot the idea where where I came from that I see with many people that I mentor. Yeah. And I work as a change strategist that they have a list of things they like or they want to do. And they get very frustrated when they cannot fit everything in a day or in a week. And they think they’re doing something wrong. They are not productive enough.
they are not fast enough or there’s something that they’re doing wrong. it’s also the problem is also that least, the least itself and all the things that are on the list because we cannot do everything and we have to make choices and focus our energy on the things that are most impactful and meaningful for us. Can you think of some things that you’ve decided to say no?
The food blog, first of all, so I was spending a lot of time actually with food photography and writing the recipes and designing the blog and so on. And yeah, I realized that’s not really where I need to spend my energy on.
Although I love it and I love photography and I love writing about food stories and talking to people about food, but yeah, it didn’t work with all the other projects in my life. So that’s one thing.
Ana Adi (25:42.026)
At work, in my main job, I also had to let go some projects that were interesting and I really wanted to be part of, but then I couldn’t focus on what was the most important for me and using the skills and my strength that I wanted to develop long term. So I also learned how to say no in my role as a manager and a leader.
Maybe travel, like travel and entertainment in my personal life. I realized that I really want to spend as much time as I can with my family, with my partner, with my son, doing active fun, not just passive fun and entertainment, but doing more active fun. So I said no to a lot more passive activities like going to the movies or just going.
shopping, you know, I don’t do shopping. That might be curious for some people and when they ask me, okay, how do you have time for everything? And yeah, that’s one of those things. I don’t do shopping. I don’t even do a lot of makeup. So I save a couple of hours, maybe a day because I don’t do makeup.
But all those small things, they add up. And I think it’s important to just be aware of them. OK. So you’re a great advocate, are you, of doing things on the side of your job as a way to, I don’t know, finding balance, finding yourself and going quite intentionally about those. Yeah.
I like to call these side gigs, know, all these side projects. Yes, balance, but also I really believe they are a source of creativity and innovation. And it really helps us connect the dots better between things that happen at work, things that happen outside work, in our personal lives. And we start really
Ana Adi (28:09.408)
exercising that muscle of making connections, thinking broader, having a new fresh perspective on things. And that’s where I see the advantage, the biggest benefit of all these side gigs, because it really helps us look at things from a new perspective and connect some dots that we didn’t even think about before.
And this is also a bit the philosophy of design thinking and creative confidence, right? So try to expand your horizon and look at the world with the mindset of abundance and not scarcity. So I really believe that doing something that is meaningful, that I want to highlight that, not just doing whatever side gig.
just to fill up our time, but doing something that has some adjacency to what you’re already doing and it’s intentional. You mentioned that word intentional. That’s really, really important. So you don’t need to really have everything figured out and have a super exact plan. It’s important to leave that freedom of thought and let yourself experiment, but it should still be in the area.
of your interests and of your main work. Okay. Do you sort of support that rule in your team? So if you’re in Teo’s team, it comes with welcome to the team, you need to find the fine gig. Maybe not exactly with those words, but experimenting.
That is definitely something that I encourage everyone to do. Of course, in a team we have different personalities, people with different levels of curiosity and interest. you cannot really force that into people, but you can open the perspectives and you can suggest certain things. And experimenting, learning, so having that learning mindset.
Ana Adi (30:27.06)
is really something that I encourage everyone so it doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone. So, Teo, what are your favourite resources? I you probably will have to go in Tick’s Parking Drive for all of them, but I imagine after quite some time now in the project, there’s still some resources, some books or tools that are still closer to your heart than others. What are those?
One big source of inspiration for me is the Harvard Business Review. So I read every issue, I have a subscription to it. And actually through Harvard Business Review, I get to a lot of interesting ideas around people, marketing, communications, engagement, new ideas around behavioral economics.
That’s really my go -to source. If I had to choose one that would help me in my career, it would be HPR. And I’m also listening to some of their podcasts. So that’s one. For a long time, I was a big fan of Decato Revista. Nice and fun at the same time, indeed. Yes, yes. And through Decato Revista and
Kristi Luksa’s work and the power of storytelling. I also came to very interesting resources that are more on the arts and the creativity side. So that was a nice bridge with the business world because it kept me, you know, using my left and right brain at the same time. So that’s also important. Let me think. Usually when I read a book,
especially if it’s nonfiction, and there are ideas that I find interesting and I want to maybe go a bit deeper, I write them down. So I have a list of, okay, other interesting books or ideas I want to read. And that’s how I usually get from one to the other. I’m not, I never, almost never jump on a resource that I see or I hear in a podcast or from
Ana Adi (32:52.258)
social media unless it’s related to something that I’m working on, to a project that I’m working on. If it’s really interesting, I use Pocket. Maybe you know. do have it too. Yeah. me, Pocket is really a great tool to save it for later. And whenever I have more time, for example, now I will
go on vacation for three weeks, I’m sure there will be some moment where I’m in the car and there’s not much to do, then I will revisit that list and maybe pick one or two readings from there. And that also helps me keep my ideas fresh, but also always reach back to what is practical, what is linked to something I’m working on.
Tero, would you have ever thought when you were back in Cluj that you’ll end up in Comte and end up having a project that is inspiring others and drives you so many years on? Never, never. Really, I thought a lot about it. How do we look at our future? Let’s say if we imagine how our life would be in 10 years.
We tend to believe it will not be so much different. mean, maybe we will have a different role or a different job, but overall it will be more or less the same. But when we look back at so many changes that happened in our last 10 years, it’s incredible, right? So we should always think about the future with an open mind and no assumptions. That’s for sure.
If we think back 20 years ago, not in a million years, I would have thought I would do what I do today, that I would be leading a team, that I would write, that I would be so much involved in people development, in growth, in change management. that was, it was an evolution. It was a journey that was built.
Ana Adi (35:17.006)
step by step. I always like to do an analogy with the Lego bricks because I think life is like a Lego set. You keep on building on a foundation that you started. Basically, we’re all born with a set of Lego and then we start building our creation. And at some point, maybe we created a tower that is not very stable.
and it can shake a bit and those are those life moments where we rethink what we’re doing and we go back to the foundation and we build some other rooms or gardens or whatever. So I really like to see life like that, that it’s a continuous journey and we keep on building on the set that we started. So one of the questions we leave our guests with, my guest,
with is what would you tell your younger self if you would have an opportunity to you know younger Teo to meet with the current Teo. What would you tell yourself?
Ana Adi (36:26.75)
I would tell myself to trust the process. That would be the, I think, the best advice. Just trust the process, have confidence in whatever happens, have confidence in you. And also I would tell myself to take better care of myself. Because I must say that at the beginning of my career, even I would say until I was in my mid -30s,
I was very ambitious, very driven. wanted to, a bit of an overachiever, you know, I always wanted to do more, to have results, to prove that I was capable, that I was worthy. And that also came sometimes with putting myself last, you know, there’s that question when you ask someone, if you count all your friends on the five fingers of your hand, who would
who would those be? And most people don’t put themselves on the list of five friends. And I was one of them. So I was always at the last, trying to please everyone and then taking care of myself. And that’s something I would do definitely differently. And I would advise myself to put myself first because everything else will follow if I feel OK.
if I feel good in my skin. That’s wonderful. Our time is up. I have so many questions though. But thank you so much for your time and let’s not wait for that long until the next. It was a pleasure, Anna. Thank you for inviting me.