Today, a person’s value is measured not by achievements but by the ability to remain true to oneself. Evgeniia Romanenko, managing partner of TR-Project, a provider of trade marketing services and IT solutions for major retailers and FMCG companies in Russia, the CIS and the UAE, explains why real success begins with rejecting imposed roles, and why business becomes a source of energy when you are honest with yourself. I have always been irritated by conversations about balance, when someone says with unshakeable certainty: you must be both a muse and a woman, and being an achiever is rather unfashionable now.
You need balance. Have you been to yoga? After such words, a person becomes lost in their own coordinates, unable to understand where to move next.
We have spent too little time trying to understand our own meanings. We only began identifying values in the last few years; before that, we simply took on roles that seemed right to those around us. I started in business at eighteen.
Back then there was no time for existential questions; I simply wanted to earn money, achieve things, prove myself. By 2015, the company employed more than fifteen hundred people, we covered all of Russia, then expanded into CIS markets. Today we are twenty years old, and now we are opening a branch in Dubai, where I see the same opportunities for transformation that I spotted in Russia twenty years ago.
Over these years I have understood: a leader goes through several critical transformations, and each changes not only the business but yourself. First you are an inventor, full of enthusiasm and faith. Then comes a period of defeats, collisions with harsh reality.
The most painful transformation is from ego to system. I had a serious crisis: we lost a significant volume of business, and I had to make tough management decisions. Then I understood: it was time to release the business from myself, to stop perceiving it as an extension of my own ego.
Many entrepreneurs say about their companies: these are my children. Herein lies the trap. When I was just starting out, I often felt awkward about being a woman surrounded by experienced men.
Yes, I am a woman who runs a large business. At the same time I am a mother, I love sport and travel. I can go shopping today and tomorrow conduct the most complex negotiations.
When you feel yourself in this wholeness, you stop being torn between correct roles, and a real miracle happens. Happiness is not yoga on schedule. It is the ability to live in dialogue with yourself, without betraying your nature for the sake of others’ expectations.