Category Archives: Publications

May I Understand You?

News Blog, Publications, Uncategorized April 7, 2013 Leave a comment

images-18Research shows that most humans yearn to be understood. Perhaps today you can spend time understanding those around you. At the very least, your efforts may translate into better communication, increased understanding, and ultimately, improved relationships.

Can bilingualism make people more aware of their own and others love languages? I believe so.

So that we can understand and love each other better, Dr Gary Chapman created the model of the 5 love languages: Quality Time, Acts of Service, Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Receiving Gifts.

Most of us grow up learning the languages of our parents, which becomes our native tongue. We later learn additional languages, but with slightly more effort. For those of us who are born bilingual and become polyglots or multilingual, it may be easier to understand others culturally because our brains are used to making an effort to interpret what others are saying and doing.

Our emotional love language and that of others may be as different as Mandarin from English – no matter how hard you try to express yourself in English to someone who only understands Mandarin, you need to use a huge amount of energy to get the message across. Don’t forget that body language (55%) and tone of voice (38%) also have culture specific meaning.

It’s rare for husbands and wives, friends, and colleagues to have the same primary love language. Unless we learn how to alter our own communication, we tend to speak our own primary love language and become confused when others don’t understand what we’re communicating. Once you identify and learn to speak another persons love language, you’ll have discovered the key to a long-lasting, loving friendship, partnership, marriage.

Just with any model, the 5 love languages are meant to guide us and bring us one step closer. We all appreciate all 5 languages, however we usually prefer 1 or 2 over others if we have to choose.  Another way to discover your love language, is to think about how you naturally show love to others, as we often give what we like to receive. We often hear the expression, “treat others the way you would like to be treated”. I think we need to re assess and “treat others the way THEY would like to be treated”.

I had a partner a few years back who thought Chapman’s book was silly. I explained it to him in short, and said to him that I thought his love language was physical touch and words of affirmation. I went on to explain that our lack of connection could be because I did not grow up with words of affirmation and it is something I am learning (I believe I have become genuinely good at it now, especially as a mentor). In addition, because my primary language is acts of service, I would get incredibly hurt when he told me he was going to do something and then didn’t. To me, this showed a lack of love, to him, it was not at all meant to be a disrespect of love, he just didn’t think it was that important to me. Clearly, because we could’t agree to love each others in the other persons language, we had to end it and move on, yet we are still close friends today.

Men, don’t cop out and assume your language is physical touch just because your brain is wired to think so. It might even be worth taking physical touch out of the test until you fully understand how you prefer to give and receive love. Dr. Chapman says, “We’re not talking comfort. We’re talking love. Love is something we do for someone else. So often people love one another but they aren’t connecting. They are sincere, but sincerity isn’t enough.”

Although you may score certain love languages more highly that others, don’t dismiss the other languages. Friends, family and colleagues may express love in those ways, and it will be beneficial for you to understand this about them. In the same way, it will benefit people around you to know your love language so they can express their affection for you in ways that you interpret as love.

Take the test here, and have a relaxing Sunday filled with love and understanding.

My results are:

1. Acts of Service (includes doing work together and small gestures)

2. Quality Time (focussed, fun, experience, not necessarily quantity)

3. Words of Affirmation (I love poetry, what you do means more to me than what you say)

4. Physical Touch (I’m very ‘touchy feely’, I find it hard to be physical if I don’t feel loved)

5. Receiving Gifts (I still appreciate gifts, I’d just rather have the gift of love)

Learn more about Dr Gary Chapman and the 5 love languages here. 

With this backdrop, do you understand why your customers buy? (next article…)

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How to mend a broken heart

News Blog, Publications, Uncategorized March 9, 2013 1 Comment

By Sophia Demetriades

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Anger kills… every day… through an ocean of infirmity such as depression, stress, broken relationships, strokes and heart disease. Yet its victims often never know what hit them.

I’ve heard anger to be a more comfortable feeling for men, whilst it makes women cry, the suffering none the less does not differ between men and women. Either way, the most painful anger is self anger, which leads to anguish and despair, which again lead us to do the most hurtful things to others, and to ourselves.

Once we are angry with ourselves for being vulnerable, denying ourselves to be vulnerable again, we forget to remember that forgiveness is the solution to a broken heart, whether it belongs to you or someone else. No matter how deep you are hurt, there is a way to effectively reduce your anger, improve your mental and physical health and put you in charge of your life again. Forgive to live is not just a dream, its a way of life that can save your life. Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right, and if you want to take your life back and have the love you definitely deserve, you must believe that you have what it takes to forgive yourself and others for being human.

Forgive yourself for breaking someones heart. Forgive yourself for not completing something you started. Forgive yourself for choosing something else. Forgive yourself for what has been and move forward in belief. Forgive your friend for what’s probably a tiny mistake in the big picture of things. Forgive your parents for not being perfect. Forgive your colleagues for not understanding you. Forgive your brother for what has been and move forward in belief.

7 steps to forgiveness:

1. come to a new understanding of what has happened to you

2. discover what forgiveness does and doesn’t mean

3. take steps to reframe your grievance story

4. stop giving control of your life to the people from your past

5. stop controlling other people and events around you to the level of which you can’t let go

6. get your life, and maybe even your health, back

7. find a freedom, peace, and strength you’ve never had

Forgive. Whether its your or own someone else’s heart you hold in your hands today, own it.

Look forward and cherish it. It has someone’s dreams inside.

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What will the university look like in 10 years?

News Blog, Publications, Uncategorized March 7, 2013 Leave a comment

By Sophia Demetriades Toftdahl

A current emerging trend is the shift in western education where we are slowly moving away from the university (which is likely to collapse unless they collaborate more with industry) and towards personalised, customised education which increases engagement in candidates or students. And it’s being replaced my mentors and coaches.

Library is free, internet is almost free, courses are easily available online. What is not so available in the current university are good teachers, and I say that with the utmost respect for those few of my teachers that were excellent, good teachers are a scarcity in the university today because all they do is to sit inside the uni and read and write, and they no longer have industry experience, and so we are not closing the gap between education and industry, we are in fact widening it.

It’s not long ago that Chris Anderson explained the idea of teacher as mentor, teacher as coach, teacher as informant. Who the teacher is will also change. It mightn’t be an academic in the future, it could be someone from industry…

Then, we have internships, which have been very popular in parts of Europe and the US for decades with the intension of being a transition between study and work life. Yet now, because some people are incredibly skilled at taking advantage of others, and some very negative, and some don’t have the skills to make sure they are not taken advantage of, we are experiencing a somewhat bad name for internships. Not everywhere of course, there are some excellent internships out there, and I’d like to believe we offer them too. What I mean is the fear of internships lurking in the university halls and in media.

I’d like to take us back to the origin of the university, I’d like to walk you down the hall with Plato and Aristotle, I’d like to challenge you to ask them what the meaning of university is (learn how to think in a different way) and compare it to what we are doing today (conforming), and then answer this question:

Considering the emerging trend of personalised and customised education, which increases engagement and motivation in students. What will the university look like in 10 years?

Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520) School of Athens

athens

What is fascinating about the fresco The School of Athens is the fact that many known philosophers, poets and mathematicians that lived in different periods of time are depicted together in the same room, as if they were contemporaries. Some say this is just a homage to great thinkers, but others say that the intention of Raphael was to pass on a message. What message would this be?

Read more at Suite101: Raphael – the Symbolism of The School of Athens | Suite101 http://suite101.com/article/raphael–the-symbolism-of-the-school-of-athens-a188908#ixzz2MtYNP38M
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Who am I?

News Blog, Publications February 11, 2013 Leave a comment

By Sophia Demetriades

 

Sometimes I wonder what I’m supposed to do and who I am meant to be. 

I spend my time helping others find their path and purpose, and even though that’s an awesome journey, I only just realised what I actually do for people through a series of in depth interviews and the feedback was pleasing:  ‘you listened to me, and then spent your time helping me get what was important to me.’

Whilst I was wondering if I was doing something meaningful, people around me found meaning in me listening to their stories, and that’s awesome because I love stories and I love working with people. Thank you to everyone who shared this with me, it’s made me feel important.

Year of Growth
Last year was Dream Internship’s third year in business and thus our year of growth. My agents, staff and I spent the year growing our relationships and focussing on the people around us. For three years my focus has been to build healthy relationships and eliminate toxic ones. Last January, I published my promise to spend 2012 helping others be awesome, and the result is that I feel more awesome now than ever before.

I have also been working as a Business Consultant (Relationship Manager) whilst re-writing my thesis on SMB & Corporate Management & Communication into a book (Publish mid 2013). With one foot in academia and the other in industry, hard work and nurture has really paid off, because now we can continue to help other’s build their relationships, be it between businesses, business to customers, between professionals or personally.

To help you better understand who I am and what I do, please read on here

I am a Relationship Manager who work to create, improve and maintain relationships with the aim to develop more effective people and organisations.

This modern practice combines working models from fields such as human resource management, coaching and mentoring, public relations,  education, and entrepreneurship. It focuses on three main relationships including Business, Customer, and Interpersonal Relationship Management.

I own two international consultancies that leverage off each other

1. Dream Internship (DIA), is a global consultancy that connect people & organisations through customised mentoring and internship programs.

2. Dream Relations focus on building business systems around people and their values, where open two-way symmetrical communication in Public Relations is the ideal.

For more information visit    www.sophiademetriades.com     www.dreaminternship.com                                                                                             –                                        Sophia Demetriades Facebook    Dream Internship Facebook

Let’s Succeed Together
You need a high level of awareness and effort to build more effective people and organisations. Once you have spent the time to understand yourself and what you are doing, you need to explain it others, sometimes several times. The essential factors in success are always found together, and I hope we can build on our successful collaboration.

Thank you!

A New Vision For Our Future

Publications, Uncategorized November 7, 2012 Leave a comment

How do we facilitate change, and restore and empower the individual?

  • Once someone is happily employed and feel valued, they experience self-actualization.
  • Humans interpret the world based on their environment and experience.
  • Once negative experience in ones un-chosen environment is healed from human memory, and choice is restored, humans are able to live in the present and look towards the future.
  • This starts with an encouraging vision for the future.
  • We need to dream our future out loud and solidify our dreams.
  • Then we must believe in our own and others dreams, and create a reality based on our values and beliefs.
  • This way we deliver our future in a way we could only dream of.

“I hope I inspire people to do the things that inspire them so that a vast majority of people come home at the end of the day fulfilled and thus make better people. And when we are better people, driven by what fulfills us, there is a better chance we will care about each other and have more fun” (Demetriades 2011).

I have created a framework (new solution to old problem) that explores three disruptive industries; technology, education and human resources, affected by a fourth industry as entrepreneurship.

  1. Technology is changing the world

It goes without saying that technology is changing the way we do things. Information is becoming more accessible (to some) and we have moved from the industrial age to the knowledge worker age. What brought success in one economic age will not lead to it in the next, and we are now shifting the focus to release, transform and empower the people behind the business rather than focussing on transactions, machines and increased productivity. Whereas the most valuable asset in the 20th century was production equipment, the most valuable asset in the 21st century will be knowledge sharing, and knowledge workers and their productivity. Technology is the knowledge workers tool.

2. The Education industry is changing

The education industry has turned into big business over the last few decades, yet the coming generations seem to have new and more ethical ideas for business. Although the global landscape   has been quite rough with war, it might have softened behind the scenes and we are moving in the right direction, forward. Entrepreneurship is blooming and especially social entrepreneurship and alternative education institutions. The CEO’s of tomorrow will drive ‘the school as a business unit’ back to its core values of education. We may see that the university will return to its origin where small groups or student teacher relationships become the norm. Imagine the early days of Plato and Aristotle, walking through the university hall in Athens, depicting the true meaning of university, designed for advanced learning for people as part of ‘the whole’, or ‘the society’. You can have a degree without having an education, and you can have education without having a degree.

3. The Human Resources industry is changing

We are increasingly experiencing a more human form of the workplace. HR Managers are welcomed to the board, and HR departments are run by professionals and not by administrators and operations department as previously. Due to emerging technology, people are becoming increasingly aware of the ruthless recruitment industry which must be separated from the HR department. A recruiter works for a company who is the paying client. The recruiter needs to see as many and as suitable people as possible to fill the role, and let the rest back into the pool. That pool is a massive opportunity. Theres plenty of suitable fish in the sea, the question is for what? When you are out of work, the best thing you can do is to educate yourself, if you can afford it, and these days you can. If there is a will there is a way. As the world is over populating, we need to collectively fill gaps and find ways to be more efficient.

“My vision is a healthier and happier future workforce, where people do what they love and love what they do.”

 We dream, believe, create, and deliver – a  new vision for our future.

Network Your Way to Work

Publications, Uncategorized October 25, 2012 Leave a comment

If you are an international student that is just entering the Australian job market and you want to make a big splash in your marketplace as fast as you can, and get people to headhunt you, this tip sheet is for you.

No more floundering around hoping to get a phone call from someone you don’t even know.

Instead, use this great networking technique to take your idea to a group of instant employers.

Read on to join the movement of creative people that get tons of job offers on minimal effort.

Continue reading →

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