Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
[Music] do do so [Music] so [Music] good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are in the world it’s dr janice hooker fortman with relationship matters i guess you’re wondering where is dr jan is she on some island some mediterranean island is she in hawaii is she where is she well i am in oak brook illinois i’m at the oak brook hilton resorts and conference center where i did a small presentation well i shouldn’t say small and um so that’s where that’s where i am and uh i chose this room because it makes me feel like i’m on an island somewhere welcome everyone i’m very happy to see all of you today you know i always get on my soapbox and you know what my soapbox is my soapbox has everything to do with covet 19 and vaccinations and i am going to keep saying this and i’m going to stay on this soap box until almost i would say maybe 95 of us americans are vaccinated please get your shot please get your vaccine now i know there are a lot of people who say that they don’t want it it’s their freedom and their liberty not to have it but and and then i hear all kinds of conspiracy theories um the latest one was about uh with the uh vaccination they’re implanting something in you but if you think about it if you don’t get vaccinated and you catch covet you could give it to your mom your dad your your relatives your your friends your children and if you watch tv or even social media you will see people who have gotten it tell you it is no joke it is no joke it is nothing to play with and they all say please get your vaccination i have both of mine and i’m waiting for my booster i got the pfizer i am over 65 and i cannot wait to get my booster because i don’t want to i don’t want to get it and i don’t want to give it to anyone so just think about that even if it’s not for you and yourself you really don’t believe in it or you don’t really think that you can get it you don’t want to give it to anyone and especially you don’t want to give it to anyone and they die so that’s my message to you that’s my soapbox i’m going to keep it up even though i get some pushback from some people but i’m still going to keep it up because that’s what i believe in now let’s talk about this evening i’m saying this evening because i am here in oakbrook illinois and it is in the evening we have a wonderful marvelous guest and even though i’m here at this conference i still wanted to go on and do my show because what she has is so valuable and her content is something that i think all of you will get some value from so let me tell you who she is her name is desi and i hope i’m pronouncing her last name right so correct me that’s it when you come on but it’s desi terrage to her raj she is a consultant now let me see i’m going to read all what i wrote of what she gave me because i thought it was so important desi raja is okay is a human resources consultant certified success principles trainer and executive coach with a career dedicated to helping people companies executives and organizations live and work better you know we all need that mr haraj spent 10 years as the human resources and academic affairs manager at columbia university earning the award of excellence for her work building collaborative relationships with various internal departments establishing new departments and supporting her team of five direct reports and 130 indirect reports we’re going to talk about that and she has she’s become a published author of three books we’re going to talk about later burnout what’s next our human race fail and get up and never give up i love that the power of transformation she also has a podcast and she provides advice to aspiring authors human resource professionals and executives suffering from professional burnout so let’s bring on dessie i’m going to call her dessie and then she can tell us if i’m pronouncing her rent her name correctly

Desi Tahiraj
Hi desi

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Hello thank you for having me today and you pronounce perfectly

Desi Tahiraj
I’m so happy and by the way i do have my two shots of vaccine wonder we all got to do that because we protect each other

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes exactly exactly so i want to start off excuse me what is a human resource consultant and and not only what what do you do what is that but do you have to have training specific training to do that or certification so tell me about that

Desi Tahiraj
Oh yes because human resources are in department of hiring people or pushing papers everybody can do it the thing is to be a human pro human resource professional you need a degree for that and you need training in place and of course by practice and practice you create excellence and of course you need continuous continually to educate yourself because human resource what it was five years ago not later and two years ago has drastically changed so in way people are hired in way people are working in a way they are collaborating and in a way they are promoting people so human resource and what kind of technologies are put in a place for retention and for the payroll and everything else has changed drastically so hume resource now is driving force in organization so before it was just a department where you hire people or you fire people but now it’s a totally different story human resources is is human capacity and because you your employees are your backbone of your organization and if you don’t know how to engage and you don’t know how to collaborate and to make a teamwork not one but all that is human resource people who love what they do do that because in my job description it was not to build teams it was not to collaborate people it was not right and there for me it was that i post a job i hire people i do immigration people work paperwork for people i do promotion i do payroll i do housing i do everything right and of course that is what you do every day however a human side of human resource and spoken language in the business is extremely important to bring positivity in a team to bring to build a cohesive team and to bring collaboration different cultures that we are multicultural society here so i work with 20 different kind of nationalities so how you make them to work together with the common goal or sharing information because we are human and the first for us is ego mean is me not we so that i translate it later with everybody that i’ve been in contact i think we that is extremely important especially now that we are half of the employees are remotely working so now i’m sure now so actually you’re talking about relationships and you’re talking about communication and i know now with a lot of organizations are multicultural and so communication between the cultures is extremely important and i think probably sometimes difficult because because there are all kinds of ways that you should say things and you know you shouldn’t say this to this particular culture because this means this and that means that so i can imagine that that role that you play is extremely important so tell me destiny why did you want to choose this particular career

Desi Tahiraj
Well started when i was 9 years old so in my country which is albania oh in europe come because we was communists under totalitarianism come only countries which it was communist countries minis russians and chinese so since i was nine i became friends with the chinese people and with the russian people and italians because they are next door to us and greeks which deserve in the down in south so and for me it was a playground of multi-nationality culture and so i’ve been exposed since i was a child and i love different cultures i learned a chinese song since i was nine and i still remember you see brain plasticity what happened when you were young so in that case to when i come in new york because one guy from brooklyn come to law office when i was lawyer in my city hall and then i come and introduced me to columbia university columbia university is a multicultural society and collaborative teams and multinational teams so for me it was a continuation of working with people and when i was 23 that communism finished in um office that they put me attorney in the city and helping everybody who come to my door and to my life i exhibited leadership qualities that leaders of today needed badly and that’s what i teach leadership as well because we need leaders badly today we don’t need beggars but we need leaders we are all leaders and we need to share what is good for everyone not for one okay and that

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Go ahead i’m sorry go ahead finish

Desi Tahiraj
That is continuation if human resource so translate from from helping people in law and in uh despi disputes or clashes people have in a court before i come in human resource when people have issues or hire wrong people not to match with leadership style that they do have on the way they do work and no everybody we live in multi-cultural world of course sometimes disputes happen so in that case i demonstrate that every time people come to my office with the problems they go out with smile in face so that’s why they called me smiley lady

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh my goodness oh yeah so how is it difficult when like you say they come to you with disputes is it really difficult especially with this multicultural and probably misunderstandings so to speak especially uh it uh with communication is is that difficult sometimes

Desi Tahiraj
Because that’s why we need to be aware and to develop to every employee the self leadership me needs to be aware of different cultures because one culture when you move your hand or you scratch here is different story to another culture in a different story we need to be aware of differences in a culture and to appreciate because and to see the the beauty side in relationship in work means the good side of because if you look for good you’re gonna find good if you look for bad you’re gonna find bad because inhuman exists bene bruto and katibo means good bad and ugly so depend on us what we feel and the other side of that is the development each of the leaders young leaders especially they are in the phase of development they develop them teams and sometimes they are developing themselves in that case sometimes they hire wrong people they see the resume of course the resume is fine perhaps that person works well with a different kind of leadership in another place not necessarily in your place so it’s extremely important to put the four steps of interviewing people in interviewing process before you hire them and at columbia university we did have a beautiful structure which we give three months of of adjusting and learning curve of new person to the new environment which is extremely important to foster welcoming environment to the new employees

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh okay so now do you work for one company or do you go in and consult with different companies

Desi Tahiraj
Well um you see i am old school and so in that case i am loyal as a person okay yeah when i build trust which is not easy to find uh and trust this is not built in one day right so when you get my trust right then i am loyal to them so in that case yeah i am not working anymore for columbia university for 17 years i work there but i am loyal until the end because appreciation of people what you gain in workplace is not just your salary it’s relationship you build your knowledge you build your well-being emotional and physical and everything friendship you build in a workplace is more than a salary so yeah to be appreciated is fantastic

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That’s very true and that’s why i call my show relationship matters because there are all kinds of relationship matters and so now you said when you were nine year old years old you were surrounded by all of these different cultures do you speak all of those languages

Desi Tahiraj
Well in a school they teach us russian okay okay and i learned few um poems russian worms because i love poems since i was a baby that’s why now i write a poem book okay so russian poems and i learned some i was exposed because my father studied italian school and everything and i exposed to italian language more than russian so my probably because i was so much ingrained in my father was used to sing italian songs for me in the morning so in that case i love that kind of uh um [Music] femininity of and the sweet language of italian language that’s why i love that more

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay so you speak russian and italian russian no not much but more that you need more oh okay all right so now you also a certified success principal’s trainer i love that

Desi Tahiraj
You see we have a government right yes but first the government of our bodies our brain yes and if our brain is not functioning well and doesn’t embrace with the change that we are going through and all the time changes in everyday life actually sometimes is big change sometimes small change and to put in a place success principles that you need to build the blocks of being author of your life okay so from there you use that no matter is formula e plus r equal event plus response equal outcome meanings what is it is the event is coronavirus right yeah my response to that is going to bring the outcome so what i did in response of corolla virus in 10 months i write three books okay so i took success principles in a heart and i did it so that is what is mean to build this kind of there is a structure there of course i need to train people to come to that point right you cannot teach people i can bring you to the lake to drink water but i cannot teach you the drink right so in that case it’s extremely valuable for us to educate new generation to have leadership to have a success structure in a life and to embrace the change it’s okay and change is hard i know it is the thing is uh it’s not hard to change actually it’s us is us that we resist the change yes that is depend on us it’s not the change itself no it’s us who resist the change that makes the difference of going forward or stuck in one place

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And so like you said it’s us that resist change and well we can even correlate that with what’s happening now [Music] you know um in in the world and especially with this with this virus i hate to keep going back to that but i try and tell people that wait a minute you’re saying you don’t you you know like i don’t want to be forced to get a a vaccination but what i try to tell people is when i was going to school when i was in elementary school you were vaccinated in order to go to school you had to be vaccinated we didn’t know what was in it no we did that we didn’t know what was in it but we knew we had to do it and we had to do it to keep ourselves safe and to keep the kids and the teachers and everything around us safe and but when you talk about us as far as resistant to change i i guess it’s because if we’re comfortable in one place you know uh in our little box we don’t want to go out of that outside that because that’s comfort you know so uh and and i love that i i love that um that you do that that that you are talking about success principles uh because i just think the world would be a better place if we did not resist change okay so i i think that’s

Desi Tahiraj
I love the expression of the ceo of merck germany i was in a few years back in boston for the big conference and he was a speaker we were talking about the changes in the medical field and in every science field and he expressed something that stuck in my mind okay he says the change the art of curiosity the art of curiosity bring innovation yeah yeah and the change he says with the change come the stress yes accept it to thrive so is fundamental if you take that by heart and i took it off course that’s why i i express uh is extremely valuable when you learn from people who know better than you so yes too [Laughter] so it’s extremely important to to continue education that’s why we are forever students because i learned from 17 years old every day right yeah that is to be open mind

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah you should be a lifelong learner and i’m still learning i learn new stuff every day you know every day so now you also uh excuse me you’re an executive coach and do you use these success principles uh when you coach executive executives

Desi Tahiraj
Yes can you hear uh part of that because yeah yeah because i use part of that and the part is we at columbia university we learn because i did the columbia university business school leading organizational change and how you can build leaders and leadership development so in that case there is a structure in a place and steps that people need to develop habits and structure and the qualities that we all badly need today

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay now with executive burnout what what does their burnout come from mostly

Desi Tahiraj
Mostly um there are different kind of burnouts but especially for high achievers is we are a type of personality okay so as a type we are prone of burnout because we overwork executives they are the ones leaders who overwork i did myself and i got burned out myself so i speak from my own experience so that is all about this one and this one so in that case it’s extremely important to understand why we are is come all the time to the government okay so i see when you’re saying the government you’re talking about this all right is our government wow okay

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And you know what what i can see that all of your as i’ll say careers um are surround positive professional and personal relationships

Desi Tahiraj
Yes and the advice is that there are many advices i put it in a book for everybody in relationship different kind of uh because there are steps that you need to take to go there from where you are where you want to be so in that case is extremely important to sit down and to see the other person perspective before you judge

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh yeah well we know that that’s kind of hard to do sometimes but we know that yeah so desi i’m going to take a quick break and then we’re going to come back and talk more about relationships what i want to talk about and um is how personal relationships affect our professional relationships sometimes we think that we can separate the two but not really so okay so i will be right back with dessie tara here wait a minute i’m gonna say it okay raj yeah we’ll be right back with desi tasharov just a few minutes so anyway stay tuned we’ll be right back [Music] and i am so happy that your relationship with your daughter has improved [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] well we’re back now if you would like to advertise on this show with eye catching videos and increase your visibility contact relationship matters tv at gmail.com that’s relationship matters tv gmail.com and if you would like to appear on the show be a guest on the show just submit a headshot and brief bio to relationship matters tv gmail.com relationship matters tv gmail.com well now we are back with dessie so bessie how important is it uh that we have positive relationships personal relationships and how important are our personal relationships when we talk about our professional relationships

Desi Tahiraj
It’s a correlation between personal and professional relationship first we need to know our leadership style our ourselves first because we are inclined to judge others to see others how they act how they speak how they do the job and how they present however we are not prone of analyzing ourselves leaders that are well developed first they analyze themselves what kind of leadership style they have what does them strengths and what their weaknesses are and when i speak with you that hey i have my strengths i am hard worker my last name is discipline and you know that i am the one discipline so my weakness is them i’m workaholic and i forget the rest of the world when i work to that weakness and the blind spot is first i was ingrained in the culture of totalitarianism and i didn’t adapt with free world so that kind now i know what kind of leadership style i have what kind of behaviors i do how i work how i interact with others what kind of language i use and that how you build a relationship with others and are you authentic do i do what i say i’m gonna do and do i accept you in a way you accept me so in that case in that case is we think we we don’t think me relationships is when you build a bridge with others so it’s a fundamental for all of us to understand that we don’t live in a vacuum [Music] and

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh so let me ask this question now you talk about leadership styles now i know about leadership styles as far as you know in your profession or uh and so their different leadership styles however in your personal relationships do you still need to know your leadership style

Desi Tahiraj
Yeah everywhere because that we call self-leadership self okay remember when you were aisle when you was a child how you play with other kids what rule do you have in your little tribe you are five six girls right or five boys or whatever what rule you was playing when you were as a kid and then you remember that that is a pattern that you carry on in your life and in your relationships with others because i was a baby since i was a baby i was the one that my sister sent me to my aunt and my aunt sent me to my sister i was between them to fix them up and that’s what i do for the rest of my life

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow you know i never thought of it like that so now i’m looking back to when i was a kid and when i played okay so uh some people say some people i don’t agree with them but some people say i’m bossy so that’s right right okay so so now i’m looking back when i was a kid and i love to play school but i was always the teacher okay and all right so now i’m bringing this all the way forward and i’m an educator i mean in so many ways you know i mean with this show um i became a teacher you know i taught kids and and adults and so now that i’m looking back it’s like all of my life that’s what i have been doing educating people never thought of it as a leadership style i always thought leadership styles as far as you know professional if you’re authoritarian or you know democratic or whatever

Desi Tahiraj
Those titles other people give you that is the title others give you and because we love titles as a people and but actually actually you can be a leader without titles so unfortunately we live in a society that titles are a must otherwise people don’t recognize you the thing is determination what qualities i have as a person that is a must for us to ask ourselves

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah you’re right you’re right you’re right so i’m gonna uh i know you’re an author of some books and so let me find your books here they are okay so now get up and never give now which book did you write first

Desi Tahiraj
The first one the green one

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay so he’ll get up and never give up so so now tell me about that book tell us about that book

Desi Tahiraj
Well that is um where i learned to connect the dots okay when i got burned out myself and being workaholic for me it was a part of life and i was going like a you know ongoing without that was getting out and when friends was telling me hello i didn’t listen uh if that for me too i was a working machine actually and i still am but in different moderated way the thing is that when we fail on something relationship or anything we crush as a people and when we crash because we are attached we are attached so much to that relationship we are attached to that job we are attached to that that thing that you love so much and when you are attached you get hurt so much when you but when you are committed instead of attached then you don’t get burnt out the next one so in that case okay so yeah the next is the first one what’s next look it was my journey journey yeah so burnout this one is when i yeah this one the burnout what’s next is that okay after i i face that i come to the point which i got almost dead from burnout so yes because international of uh health benefits and all organizations they are talking that burnout in workplace is is a medical condition wise medical condition because as i speak to you in metaphoric way before this is our government i mean it why because speaking scientifically is that when neurons in the brain fires on something they wire minis in practical way you can say that if i do every single thing one thing then in my brain is wired and we continue to do it that way and when that is disrupt we stuck in that wood we stuck in that that pattern hate yourself to disturb disrupt the pattern then is the time when you take these steps to have a better relationship and to have fulfilling life in whatever you do because relationship is a must for the and how you build them is up to you

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah you have to have that relationship with yourself first

Desi Tahiraj
First first we need to find out how much we love ourselves how much we know about ourselves we don’t know many things about ourselves you know when we hire people in human resource what we do reference letter what is reference letter then or 360 for leadership we do 360 evaluation for them what is that mean is what your boss talking about you what uh what the opinion is about you what your co-worker speak about you what your ex-wife or child talk about you that is what you don’t know about yourself minis is extremely valuable to understand your blind spots we all have them

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah and we don’t want to wait we don’t want to hear them either

Desi Tahiraj
No we don’t because hurts i know it hurts my very much but the thing is that [Music] to come to the point that i accept yourself that nobody is perfect oh i love to be perfect myself i was the one oh yeah i want to be everything perfect yeah everything in my yeah but perfection doesn’t exist

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah that’s true

Desi Tahiraj
Yeah and i learned that in hard way because a friend of mine was telling me that don’t accept other people to be in your level not everybody is in the same level of awareness or education or anything i want to be in precise time if you say you’re going to fix it six o’clock afternoon you are going to do it so yeah so that kind of discipline is out of the window why because we need to meet people where they are

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah

Desi Tahiraj
And walk them through

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes yes wow yeah wow that’s that’s that’s really it’s really profound you know uh and that’s why they ask you sometimes to ask some of your friends what what do they really think about you you know uh and how do they see you and a lot of times it’s like what you see me that way i never see myself that way but that’s really who you are right rather than because when you look in the mirror you see what you want to see yes you don’t see what is really there but you see what you want to see you’ll see

Desi Tahiraj
Yeah and we we don’t want to face or to get hurt and what we do we dismiss and we don’t admit to be a better version of yourself that is where you build yourself up when you admit your mistakes your weaknesses we all have them why we need to find ourselves perfect nobody is so in a process we are it’s a journey it’s not destination so in that case yeah

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow okay so now now did we talk about all three of your books let’s see oh okay so this next one our human race tell us about that one

Desi Tahiraj
Well working with people for i don’t remember myself human motivation is the key and the qualities that we aim to be a better human is a must educate new generation and new leaders so this is called for unity and love is a poem book that comes from my heart to yours so in that case this is extremely valuable for people to be united as we need to be more than ever today for a better future for our future generation because it’s going to come one day they judge us

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah yeah so now you know right if you want me to to read one of my poems

Desi Tahiraj
Yes that was my next question you know i’m going to ask you to read a poem okay so let me choose one okay okay desi it’s called when you read your po when you read your poem don’t move around because yeah move back you freeze okay yeah so yeah so don’t move around a lot when when you’re reading your poem because we want to hear every word okay so you okay you and it’s funny okay it’s funny how easily we judge others funny when we can’t see ourselves and funnier we when we prejudice others as we think we are better than them it’s funny how often we fool ourselves and get the better of us we cannot see the beauty in others as we are so busy within us we feel the fear to speak our mind to face our internal bias to find that urge of the apparent mind and be better a version of what we already are how we can see the beauty that lies in eye of the beholder we cannot help but glare it’s something that our psych can’t accept what is diverse is not my kind imagine if the other side think the same our society would break down and our culture would be drained assumptions are awful as questions instead as a clarity brings prosperity we are all able and fully capable of crafting and building a great society

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Very nice oh okay i love that that is very profound very deep oh wow so now jesse before we go i understand you are a toastmaster oh you froze again oh my goodness you have frozen okay well i lost you for some sec the toastmaster technology we love it when it works right and we hate it when it doesn’t now desi has frozen so you are a toastmaster yes okay because uh uh is building but and you became a better speaker you became a you became better um collaborator you build qualities that you need to be people around you so the quality is when we are backpacker and we organize our speech path and we know our leadership styles how we work with others collaboration with others is a great tool and organization that is a must for people who ask themselves to be a better version of themselves i’m also a toastmaster yeah we both are so yeah yeah yeah yeah uh and we gotta comment marcy hill who is also a toastmaster uh said that she enjoyed your poem very much so now so how can people get in contact with you yes they can go to of course www com at info desi tahirai.com and i have tons of free information in humor now you have leadership and many articles that i write and podcasts that i did you take advantage it’s education free education for you thank you all right so that’s uh www dot i t d-e-s-i-t-a h i r a j dot com or info desi tahirage.com jessie um i wanna you know i told you this time is gonna fly by and um i really want to thank you so much for being a guest this evening uh look uh i’m gonna think about this government here because i never thought of it that way but i’m going to think about this is my government and i’m going to i’m not going to say i’m going to try but i am going to really delve into this government but i want to thank you so much for uh being my guest on the show i know that uh the audience has gotten a lot of value and i know they got a lot of great information so i i again want to thank all of you all for coming this evening i know you got a lot of value so desi i want you to be blessed and keep doing what you’re doing so take care

Desi Tahiraj
Thank you so much for having me and thank you everybody for listening to us

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes yes all righty bye bye oh i really enjoyed that um i’m going to keep running that so you can see just so you can write it down and get in contact with jessie this has been another great show another some more valuable information and i want you to remember relationships matter because they’re all kinds of relationship matters now for those of you out there who have friends and colleagues that could not watch this show tonight it is on youtube and there will be an encore presentation on jd 3 tv that’s jd 3 tv i am on both of those major wonderful platforms e360 tv and jd 3 tv so check both of those platforms those networks out so this has been another episode and you know what i think i’m going to uh try to find me some real palm trees this has been dr genesis hooker fortman and uh next week tune in again for relationship matters so we will see you next week so i’m trying to find my closing all bye bye [Music] do [Music] you