This month’s guest of Arkas News’ Speaker’s Corner is Inci Sudemen, Arkas Shipping and Transport HR Coordinator, as part of the “The Journey to My Inner Sea: A Mentoring Program” recently initiated by Arkas Academy. Ms. Sudemen talks about the benefits of the mentoring program accompanied by slices of her own life, emphasising that the discovery within us can only be achieved by listening to yourself…
As an 80s child and a member of Gen Y, who was raised by idealist parents, I was able to start discovering myself only during my university years after years of an exam marathon.
In 2003, I finally was at METU, the school that I dreamt of a lot, trying to make sense of life and people in a department that helped me discover both myself and my potential, and changed my view of the world. I graduated with honours in 2008, having the intellectual satisfaction of studying social sciences and enjoying the wonderful campus. 2008…The period of economic crisis… What was the point to bother coming to Istanbul from Ankara and looking for a job in such an uncertain period? As a graduate student for two more years, I could have participated in field studies and gained different perspectives on life and people.
Finally, I crowned my undergraduate education with a master’s degree and took the road to Istanbul like every new graduate. Then, in 2011, my path crossed with Arkas and I started to work at Arkas Academy with great enthusiasm. I was fortunate that I got a job at a company like Arkas and in a department with high job satisfaction and I was transferred to the Human Resources department in a short time. There were positive developments in my career in a short time and I took over the HR structuring of international agencies. Thus, I had the opportunity to do business with people from different cultures and languages in a large organization and to put my creativity in what I do.
In a nutshell, I was thankfully satisfied with the conditions I was in and the choices I made. When I turned 32 after very productive years, it was time to experience the feeling of motherhood and to expand our family. It was something completely different from anything else I have experienced so far in both its good and bad sides. So to speak, I was teleported to a different planet and all my rights and wrongs changed. A great task that I had no experience with was added to the top of all my responsibilities in life. Coaching entered my life at a time when I worked hard to maintain the balance of work and private life, and I completed the training that lasted for 6 months. Of course, there was no magic wand, but the magic was being able to meet yourself halfway through life and to see what was going on in search of meaning from a different perspective.
Carl Gustave Jung says that “The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” Everyone is in the search for meaning by nature and tries to create meaning. Coaching guides us in realizing these desires by making conscious choices. It helps us understand what is essential for us and how our life is aligned with it; eliminate the feel of being stuck in our minds by changing and maximizing our attitudes to life; discover the emotions that arise when we allow to be ourselves by accompanying the natural flow of life and experiencing the moment.
It gives us the opportunity to add meaning to what we do in business life and reflect our originality as well as affecting every aspect of life. It allows us to expand our perspectives on incidents and thus produce different collaborations and solutions. It involves being able to motivate ourselves, develop our self-discipline and deepen our bond with our environment. We can develop our personal awareness and social skills by receiving coaching with the belief that we have all the resources to experience job satisfaction in professional life, to set goals and to move forward.
Everyone is welcomed at Arkas Inner Coaching Program, who wants to write their own story and discover their potential. As Rumi puts it, “Those who find are those who seek. The inspiration you seek is already within you; be silent and listen.”