As sisters, we have similar mindset to many things. Even if we don’t live in the same country, have different cultural milieus or daily habits, we share a similar way of thinking, which is helpful in all areas of life, but it was especially important when we started writing a book together.
Ria: In 2019, I published my first book that I wrote to teenagers on study techniques (5öst érő tanulási 5letek) While writing it, my sister Hajni helped me a lot: as a trainer, coach and practicing (step)mom of five children, she supported me with lots of tips and advice. In fact, for many years we have been sharing our experiences about coaching, training, raising kids, and life in general.
I’ve been giving trainings on study techniques and self-awareness to teenagers for decades, for which I have been constantly searching for books. But I have not found any that contains the essential knowledge translated for teens, so I started to nudge Hajni to write a book together. One specifically targeted to young people on topics that could help them to gain more self-awareness and to better navigate different areas of life. I thought that we would be an ideal “writing sisters”, as our combined backgrounds (teacher+coach) provide a unique and perfect combination of knowledge and experience. For a year and a half, we just talked about how valuable it would be to write such a book. In the meantime, I was making a list in my head of what would be in this book if we were to write.
Hajni: I helped a lot indeed when Ria was working on her first book. I was proud of her and a little jealous too. Ever since her book came out, she’s been nudging me to write a book with her,
and I thought it was a great idea. But I felt I didn’t have time for that, so one day, maybe when we go with pension, will be a good moment for something like that.
Then, in the first weeks of 2021, everything changed. At the beginning of January, I believed, I hoped: this year will be better than 2020…finally! But instead that the 2020 COVID situation improved, we were facing the escalation of the pandemic (total lock down was introduced and first curfew in the Netherlands was imposed) plus the weather got worse day by day, along with my mood. Finally, on an overcast, rainy, cold Friday at the end of January, I felt so fed up with COVID and being locked in that I felt that if I didn’t change something, I would go crazy. The weekend after I asked myself (as a good coach should do) the question: What would give me energy? Immediately it dawned on me that I should do something creative, as creativity always gets me going. It didn’t even take me a day to come up with a list of creative things that would save me from depression:
- Learn to take decent photos with a more serious camera than my iPhone.
- Teach my daughter Julia to sew with a sewing machine, which she has been asking for 2 years.
- Write the book my sister has been nagging me about for a year and a half.
From there, it was just a phone call away and had a deal with Ria: YES, we will do it, we will write a book together! That same weekend I bought the camera and the sewing machine (mine stayed with my mom in Hungary…) and had a first call with Ria within a few days. My mood changed 180 degrees – I was full of excitement!
Ria: There were many reasons behind why I was trying to pursue Hajni to write the book. First of all, I see that, unfortunately, the Hungarian education system is not really about the personal development of the kids. In our schools it is more typical to have the stance: “it’s your fault, if you are not keeping the pace”. This is one of the reasons why Hungarian students lack self-confidence. The 45-minutes mentor lesson once a week is mainly spent on discussing operational things, and the religion or ethics classes cover very fixed material. There is little time for discussions about self-awareness and self-development, especially as classes have often 30 kids or more.
In addition, I see that today’s teenagers have many questions about changes in adolescence, relationships and life in general. But they have very few trusting relationships with adults from whom they can get answers. Parents work around the clock and teachers are overworked. But often all it takes is a little attention to open them up and get them really, really interested in self-awareness.
Hajni: Raising five children has made me naturally interested in the topic, but I’m passionate to help young people with their journey for many other reasons too. I coach a lot of leaders around the world, and I see that often leaders’ challenges are due to a lack of self-awareness and knowledge of psychology. I often hear my coachees sigh: “I wish I had known and thought about these things 20 years ago”. For this reason, one of my dreams is that one day, when I don’t have to work for money, I will coach mothers to be more effective in their role as a parent, and then every kid could get the right knowledge and guidance from their parents at the beginning of their lives. In addition, I think this is part of the solution to the world’s biggest problems! Just think about it: what would the world be like if everyone was raised by a loving, strong mother who understood and could apply the most important psychological knowledge and could pass on excellent emotional and social skills? I believe that then all kids could become loving, confident and responsible adults! In a world full of such inhabitants, problems that now seem unsolvable (like crime, climate change or poverty) would be a memory of the past. This book is a step towards that world for me!
Ria: So, one phone call and it was decided! Back to writing books! While teaching, being a mentor and in the middle of the COVID pandemic… I didn’t like sitting in front of the TV biting my nails and waiting for the alarming data anyway… Come on, let’s do something useful instead! On 10th of February 2021, we had our first meeting on MS Teams. Hajni shared with me Mural that she uses to work with leadership and project teams. We used it to plan what kind of book we wanted to write, for whom and why. Finally, we brainstormed the topics that we could cover in the book. In hindsight, it’s unbelievable to me, but in 10 minutes we created the “table of contents” of our joint book!
Hajni: My ‘organizational developer and consultant’ self has been present in the writing process from the beginning. For our first conversation I created a Mural board, where we created an empathy map of our readers. We also used the board for the brainstorming session on what topics our book should cover. Here’s how the online wall looked at the end of the first conversation:
The rest is history… in the following blogs you can read more about the content of the book, the process of writing the book, the team working with us and the mysteries of private publishing.
Click to read about the books!
Click to buy the book on Amazon!
