Raised by educators, Cristina‘s journey is one of passion, resilience, and transformation. Her coaching path began with a love for learning instilled by her mother, a University Professor.
This solid foundation, coupled with her innate desire to support and enhance the lives of others, resonates deeply within her coaching philosophy. Over the years, she amassed a wealth of knowledge and expertise in coaching. Moreover, her journey led her to become a certified facilitator of the Demartini Method, transformative approach to personal development pioneered by the renowned Dr. John Demartini.
Cristina is on a mission to empower entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and individuals to reach new levels of prosperity and abundance. Through her coaching programs, she helps clients cultivate an abundance mindset, master smart money management, and harness the power of Universal Laws to manifest their dreams into reality. With clients across Europe and USA, Cristina’s impact as a mentor and educator is profound. Her dedication to transformation touches thousands and therefore we wanted to know more so…
In this exclusive interview for British Thoughts Magazine, we asked her about her journey, coaching philosophy, and the transformative power of her methods.
QUESTIONNAIRE:
We know that your mother is a University Professor and has played an essential role in shaping and nurturing your love for learning and human transformation. However, we still want to find out what inspired you to become a financial & business systemic coach and how you began your journey in this field?
Cristina: My inspiration came from my childhood when one of my biggest void at one point was to integrate socially into other kids’ groups. I didn’t start kindergarten until I was 5 years old. I was mainly used to socializing with adults. And when I finally went, I realized I was not fitting in very well with the kids of my age. One reason I didn’t fit in was related to money. Even if my family was middle-class, my parents always told me that we don t have money and we can not afford certain things. This is why I was always underdressed, not having the same cellphone as my peers, not having pocket money… which also affected my social status.
This rejection had also a brighside, as I started to value a lot wealth and also the understanding of the human dynamic so I could be part of any social groups I wanted.
At 15 years old I was reading lots of positive thinking, personal development, books and started to apply some principles in my life. I started to master very well the social dynamics, in such a way that I was part of several groups, and became a popular girl with social influence and friends, and also I stared to earn money of mine from different summer jobs in marketing.
At 20 years old I already knew I loved entrepreneurship, business, and coaching (even if it was still a new discipline in south eastern Europe).
I started to pursuit a business career working for top multinational companies. I also founded 3 businesses and learned a lot about financial planning, accounting. My first business was a failure and also a great lesson, as I understood that the mindset and relationship one has with money is going to affect completely the growth of your business and even your career.
At 25 years old after 8 years of a marketing career, both as an entrepreneur and corporate leader I made a shift and started to reshape the Learning and Development department of IBM Marketing organization in EMEA region.
I did my first coaching certification as a systemic coach with MCC Alain Cardon from Paris also learning with him until the present. Also, I was amazed by Universal Laws psychology, and in the past years I studied with John F Demartini, one of the biggest personalities in the personal transformation industry.
After 5 years of corporate leadership, I founded my own company, and here I am today. Now I have an international business, delivered over 2500 hours of coaching with over 500 individual and corporate clients.
We know that you have been coaching for a long time and that you have effectively changed many people’s lives. Knowing this, we would like to know what you think is the most common problem that most people face?
Cristina: When we speak about money mindset blocks, one of the main issues that people have is a lack of authenticity and true self-value. It might sound strange and you could ask yourself what connection is between wealth and authenticity… well I tell you. Each person has a level of wealth set in their mind and it reflects the money one currently makes and can keep and accumulate.
And this level of authenticity and worth is directly influenced by the emotions of shame, guilt, and pride that we struggle with. We wear different social masks and try to keep or avoid them with sometimes the price of asking for more money, increasing our fees, accumulating, saving money.
The second biggest block people have is that they don t value their money enough, so they are not inspired to make more, save more and invest more.
We know that you have been a mentor at the “Start-up Weekend” by Google for 3 editions. Can you tell us the most important things that happened there?
Cristina: One of the condition of growing your wealth is to be inspired and value people enough so you find problems to solve for them. In “Start-up Weekend” this was the main focus of the participants and us as mentors- to find valuable problems to solve, that could massively impact people lives so they are more than happy to pay great sums of money to our business. The level of your financial current income is influenced by the value that you are able to bring now in others lives by solving their problems!
What does it feel like to be a certified facilitator of John DeMartini, knowing that he is one of the people involved in creating the book and the famous film ‘The Secret‘?
It is an honor and a dream that came true. I couldn’t even imagine this happening 15 years ago when I first heard of him after reading the Secret. It was a lot of hard work and development for me, and it paid out. Facilitating with him in the Breakthrough Experience, alongside the Demartini Institute.
What’s the difference between a financial advisor and a financial coach?
Cristina: A financial advisor will take a look on your financial records, understand your struggles, debts, objectives and give you practical solutions you can implement in order to increase your wealth. They can advise you about working with a budget, optimizing costs, getting out of debt, investments. I love financial advisors, and I also work with one personally.
The struggle many people have here is that after paying for a financial advisers service they need to implement everything and change their actual mindset and bahaviours so they can actually change their financial situation
Otherwise they will just apply new tools from their own money blocks and patterns and not having much results.
A financial coach is not focusing on giving you solutions but on accompanying you to transform limiting thinking and behavioural patterns, increase self value and authenticity, align with your values and life mission, dissolve mental limiting believes so you can then apply different financial strategies and get great results.
Can you share a memorable success story of a client who significantly improved their financial situation after working with you?
Cristina: Yes I worked last years with a small company from the creative business. They were offering social media and digital marketing to small-medium companies. When I started to work with them they had 1 employee and making 5k euro/month. Also, their client base was small and their clients were also small companies who struggled financially and couldnt pay them higher fees.
They were two partners and I worked with both of them and also some team coaching sessions with them together.
I diagnosed their emotional, thinking, and behavioral limiting patterns and created a 6-month process to transform them. It was a great process with lots of aha-moments, working also on childhood and family dynamics, charges around the same, guilt, and unfairness that were not obviously connected with their business challenges. But everything is connected, and this is the magic of a systemic coach, to connect the dots of ones life and provoke growth in the life area they want.
After 6 months they had a team of 12 employees, 40K euro income and start working with top corporate clients instead of small struggling firms.
Many people struggle with budgeting and saving. What practical tips or techniques do you recommend for effective budgeting and building savings?
Cristina: Well first of all you need to self-align with your goals, values life mission and vision. They dictate your financial destiny.
If you don’t have value in building wealth, you will spend your money on your other values and end up living from month to month.
So the first thing one can do is to identify their values hierarchy, understand which is their life mission and vision, and create an inspired vision also for their money. It is a process I call Values Linking Process that help my clients to get inspired from the inside to do all the actions they need to so they can budget their money and save instead of focusing on other things.
We know you’re about to start coaching people from the United Kingdom. What’s your plan for those in this country eager to develop? And what’s your biggest wish for possibly the most unsettled market, the United Kingdom’s economy?
Cristina: I already started working with British people as part of the Demartini Institute workshop breakthrough experience. This is an intensive 2 days experience that takes place in London 2 times per year, where Dr Demartini teaches his method and us as facilitators support attendees with coaching.
I also have a few clients from UK that I started to work with and as my business (and also people challenges) are international and today opportunities are infinite thanks to the technological revolution I think there are no barriers for any human being to make a 10x leap in their careers and finances. As per the UK’s unsettling economy this is creating an immense opportunity for those who want to transform themselves and their finances, as any massive change brings massive opportunities to those who are prepared to see and take them.
The challenges from outside will affect us to the level of the crises we have in our insides.
Lastly, what advice would you give to our readers who are looking to improve their financial well-being and achieve their long-term financial goals?
Cristina: First of all to get aligned with themselves which means to spend some quality time analyzing their values, inspired goals, life they would love to live, life mission.
After starting empowering their financial area by dissolving shame, guilt, and pride emotions, transform limiting money beliefs and patterns, and dissolving money fears and fantasies into balanced inspiring goals.
And then to take action towards saving money, getting out of debt, and investing towards their long-term goals. And most importantly keeping a high energy and gratefulness for the wealth they have in their lives in other forms such as health, family, relationships, social connections, and knowledge.
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Article By Charlotte Edison