Darina Briu: eSports CEO, Remote Business, Career Grit, and a Life Built on Dreams | Be Yourself Podcast

Darina Briu

CEO of DashFight — on remotely running a successful eSports business, her journey from an occupied city of Luhansk through charity work and the corporate world to a leadership role, why dreaming loudly is not naivety but strategy, and what real fulfilment in work actually looks like

Watch on YouTube DashFight Website
1 hour 4 minutes
eSports · Career · Leadership · Remote Work · Mental Health · Ukraine

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About the Guest

Darina Briu — CEO of DashFight and the Person Who Proves That a Dreamer's Mindset Is Not a Liability

Darina Briu is the CEO of DashFight, a leading platform in the eSports industry that she runs entirely remotely. Her path to that role is one of the more extraordinary career stories you will hear: it begins in Luhansk, a Ukrainian city that became occupied, runs through work in a charity organisation, continues into the corporate world, and eventually arrives at the heart of one of the fastest-growing sectors in digital entertainment.

What defines Darina is not any single role or achievement — it is the combination of qualities that got her through each transition. Passion for whatever she is working on. Grit when the circumstances made grit the only viable response. And a dreamer's mindset that she has refused to compromise, even when the world gave her plenty of reasons to become more cautious and more conventional.

Who She Is
CEO of DashFight — a leading eSports platform she runs remotely. Her career path spans charity work, the corporate world, and leadership in one of digital entertainment's most dynamic sectors.
Where She Came From
Luhansk, Ukraine — a city that became occupied. Her journey from there to a CEO role in the global eSports industry is a story of deliberate reinvention at every stage, driven by passion and an unwillingness to settle.
Her Mindset
Darina describes herself as someone who dreams a lot — and she means it as a serious statement about how she makes decisions. Her dreamer's mindset, combined with real grit, is what has carried her through each career transition.
Beyond DashFight
Host of a podcast dedicated to women players in eSports. She is building platforms for the voices that the industry most needs to hear — not just managing one that already exists.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Intro 2:15 Overview of DashFight's Business 4:55 Darina's Journey to the CEO Role 12:55 Background and Education 16:15 Living in an Occupied City of Luhansk 19:00 Working in a Charity Organization 25:15 Start of the Career in a Corporate World 29:40 Finding Fulfilment in Work 38:15 What Do You Do When You're Stuck in a Career 42:15 "I Dream a Lot..." 46:35 Primary Questions by Tony Robbins We Need to Focus On 48:40 Tell Us About Your Team 53:52 What Sacrifices Do You Make as a Successful Woman? 56:30 Communication is The Key to Healthy Relationships 1:00:00 Your Definitions of "Success" and "Happiness" 1:00:30 My Take on The Importance of Mental Health 1:03:39 Last Word from Darina

Key Quotes

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the only person that keep you keep you uh from your best life is you and uh if you have anxiety for example or you unhappy you just need to write down the thing that you can control and things you can't control the things you can't control you can let go and think you can control you work on this with the plan
Darina Briu
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you don't speak a problem language you speak a solution language if you have if you need to have one and this is a key to success to normal healthy relationship on the work space in the friendship in the love relationship
Darina Briu
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right now I Define it as calmness as a normal read of life when you have balances and everything in in your life in your partner life in your just normal life so it's for me it's happiness when you are a little bit bored uh but eventually it's just lead to calmness
Darina Briu

Full Transcript

BTW: This episode of the Be Yourself Podcast is produced by Beverly Media. Want a podcast that looks and sounds this good? Check out Beverly Production →
0:00 Intro
Serhiy hello everyone welcome to be yourself podcast the podcast on expressing our true s today I have darina briu she's the CEO of Dash fight hi darina
Darina hi J fight is the media platform that Aggregates news and streams all the stuff related to Esports to games different games uh correct me from wrong uh not just esport it's a fighting games it's different from esport but uh yeah so yeah so we do not qualify fights fighting games as Esports uh no it's a part of Esports but it's not traditional one like it's different disciplines different Community different approaches so yeah we just a media we niched media company for fighting games disciplines
Serhiy sounds cool can you tell more about your business now yeah about the dash fight and maybe something that you're most proud of with respect to your company because you're a chief executive officer once again guys theena is the Chief Executive Officer of Dash fight so yeah please tell us more about your business
2:15 Overview of DashFight's Business
Darina uh so yeah if so it's want to be sound like Peach but but I always used to tell is as a peit so yeah the is a esport media company we own the market for three years we have more than five million users for this time readers users and the fighting games Market is in Revolution right now for the past year and the next years because the major publisher are coming into the market like Riot games it's a one of AAA publisher in the world uh gaming publisher they releasing a fighting game called project l the there was different releases like taken eight Street Fighter Mortal Kombat they selling like enormous amount of copies after their launch uh the record sheding in attendance to the tournaments the price pools are growing like in five times uh Global Community grow by 30% and here we are there we started before all these revolutionary things uh three years ago uh when uh we play holding start a big um tournament event in Kiev uh called WL it was intersection of real boxing real sport and uh uh esport fighting so it was one of the biggest tournament in the world related to fighting games with the biggest star in the industry and people still remembering it like the one of the biggest entertainment thing that happened to the fighting games and around that we build this fight as a company that serves everything regarding fighting games we started with three disciplines now we have 15 disciplines to cover uh players use us as LinkedIn to prove their career because you know we are collecting every every stats every win rate they had so uh they have all the necessary information about their career on our website we educate people how to play prop properly in fighting games how to learn how to play from the beginner to the intermediate and uh more we cover events tournaments um everything that's um related to launches of the new game news uh exclusive news pieces like it's just not copypaste news or just press releases we have a great uh exceptional uh journalist who wrote their articles we partnership with the other news aggregate to delivered our point of view on the fighting games market so yeah that's what we doing in a three years Journey with the fighting games market
Serhiy so you've been operational for three years only
Darina no no I've been been operation for two years I came here as a PR director PR head of the department uh but actually I work as a beev as a community manager like everything at all at once because this was a startup at the beginning
Serhiy do you have direct contracts with big giants like big names in the industry
Darina yeah we had early releases from Biden Namco uh they uh release Tekken 8 so they are publisher of Tekken 8 and when the game is releasing they need media to cover it properly so they are given early access codes to the media that earn it by their work so we have a proof of record that we cover taken uh seven that we have great Journal list over there and we will deliver great review for this game maybe not great depending on how the game is a truthful release objective yeah yeah but uh and they give us the code so what is that I don't know what is that it's not on my side so um the same was with um Capcom with the street fighter with nether Lam with Mortal Kombat with the smallest publisher but the biggest on the other market for example is Asia SE games they um they producing great games and in fighting game Market too so we work with them closely to get the press releases to get their news before everyone to get their review code before everyone so we will have more exclusive content for our users because what we value most is our users and we work for them and the the main currency is their attention and for that we succeed because we have like 16 minutes average uh weekly uh for average user on dash fight it's a great number compared to other to other esport titles because people actually read what we offered to them
Serhiy 16 seconds sounds like like a century in in our day and age it's a lot of time
Darina 16 minutes no seconds 16 minutes oh my God 16 minutes so 16 minutes so actually like those scrolling of the Articles it's pretty high like 85% and the old users are organic and they have from North America so to achieve North America organic User it's quite a challenge and we did that in in the era of like very hard um catching attention for the users in very hard understanding how they how it's hard to get their attention of the user that everyone in the digital Market are in this battle for the user attention and the CEO of the Netflix said that our main competitor is as sleep so because people didn't pay attention when they sleep to the product that Netflix prod so uh yeah so this is the main theme to to win this battle for attention with other media and to produce a great content for people to track them on a platform
4:55 Darina's Journey to the CEO Role
Darina uh then um there was some validational process that company didn't proceed because of the there was a big um team who worked on the development site so after that we relaunch all the business process inside the company so I had my own business vision of the company and I appr it to the board and eventually become a head of product head of product head slash of head of project and coo and with my business plan we moving on till now and uh and further um approaching all the goals we started and uh everything is fine by now yeah
Serhiy it sounds so effortless but what you just said I just want to unpack for our listeners and viewers that in in two years life cycle durena or in two years as in in two years of her career she was able to get to the position of Chief exe executive officer internally so the company was I believe smart enough not to look for the CEO of on the market on the job market but nurtured a real real professional someone who really cared about what she was doing and you were able to get the position by proving your your uh yourself to the board as you said
Darina but pretty much like this but uh it's just because it was a startup and uh the thing is that uh uh this investment project so uh um it's not revenue generated by that time so it was not an easy decision but you know when uh the project half of the team was terminated and everything was changing inside the project and it was heading into completely different direction so that's why I have this different approach because the company developing before like a product IT company there was a lot of ideas the it uh Rd and development team U solid dat like you know different apps we need to launch different approach on the website you mean like you like we we play H has got sort of an accelerator inside like R&D Department inside of the business and they give birth to different startups and whatever I mean in this fight we develop whole different um e system for the users and see what they like most for example like two apps do they do they need apps at all uh like a forum on the website do they would they use this forum uh and want use in Reddit or Twitter at all so this wasn't ideas was validating back in back in the time but I came with the idea that we need to go to the media approach like we need to develop and as a media and develop as many as possible Revenue um streams we need to develop in strong relationship with the stakeholders with the community we need to prove ourself to the community and to the stakeholders and gain our place under the sun with a with a great business development approach so with this approach I came to the board I I prove it and I start to work it on this without exceptional features developing in the dash file so just with the understanding that media Market Works differently than it market
Serhiy who do you call stakeholders in media Market what is this term about
Darina yeah it's publishers it's a companies that delivers games actually so you need to uh work with them directly to get uh to secure early releases for example like we did last year and this year with we with triaa Publisher actually uh this is event organizers and uh this is a big event organizers like uh one of the biggest is Eva if they uh holding the tournament in Las Vegas for like a lot of time um it's a smaller event organizers and comp compies that work with you on the or win-win rates like uh I mean uh the company that provides with price pool for the tournaments company that provides uh some kind of techniques for the tournaments or company that you work on a payable basis so publisher can be both the corporation that actually produce the game such as valver I assume something like that
12:55 Background and Education
Serhiy also your internal team which I'm supremely interested I'm always interested in the organizational structure and motivation and Leadership studies we're going to touch on that a bit later but before that let's let's backpaddle and uh tell me about your I think maybe your students Years starting your students years maybe even your school years where are you from I know where you from but let's sound it up proud were you from and how did you wind up being such a proactive ambitious person who became a CEO of a big company
Darina uh yes I'm from a small City in Lans region they are occupied for 10 years right now uh and uh my school years were great actually I was a good student uh I love to be educated I love my school I love history I love everything that was regarded that uh everything that was in school years was perfect because it was for me it was it was simple and my parents are really great people
Serhiy were you sort of a gifted child for you was easy for you to crack math and all all the studies
Darina not so easy for the math but for the other uh other subject it was pretty easy like I said History Literature languages um politics I love that since I was a student so and I love to read this I think it's very important um thing for the child for teenager to read because because of the reading I understand how the world works and what they need to achieve to to live the life I want to live because it's a small city is a poor um environment the name of the city alv alv cool I have I have a friend from Lich Chans but by the way guys we didn't say the name of the of the country lugansk region Ukraine yeah we're from Ukraine both me and and Arena we're ukrainians yeah okay please go on so I think it's essential to read and so reading would uh give you access to the world that you don't have when you're a child both unreal worlds and real world that you want to C uh eventually so and after that I I don't know why but I chose uh the Chinese literature and language to study in University I came to uh lugansk University to study Chinese literature language it was pretty e not easy but it wasn't so hard you know because I think the languages should go with other more harder skills like to as a as a additional to them just when you're learning just languages in the university is quite boring it was for me uh but maybe for someone it's great
Serhiy what was the name of the University
Darina uh National University terasen in in in yeah it was a filia of the main one with the red uh okay the red in which city in Lans in lugansk so okay so and you were having your student years in lugansk
16:15 Living in an Occupied City of Luhansk
Serhiy entire four years four five years
Darina no it was only for one year because the war came and uh uh the University was shut down eventually and it was transforming into this kind of um Republic thing and everything like this so I need to start it was year do you remember the year 20 uh 2015 uh I started 2013 I ended my year and the Revolution start in lugansk region uh in the end of my school my University year with all of this uh and War started eventually so that's like I finished it with the war already
Serhiy guys for for political references for all the Americans and Global audience watching us this is the year when the Russians first occupied territory that didn't belong to them this is the first time that they came to lugansk which is historically and geographically is part of Ukraine so 2014 and Arena was finishing for her first year in the university and as she said she was forced to you were forced to what to leave
Darina no I was forced to stay because I need to be with my parents and I stay with them uh they they're doctors and they wouldn't leave their City they doctor both of them they worked for a year I think without pain and you need to start thinking like like an adult in this situation so I start working we start a small business with my friends with the China companies we delivered guts uh to Ukraine and back so it was like a logistic company with the China it plays like 18 years old kids
Serhiy how did you sell through some social media
Darina yeah social media it was like uh still Russian social media back in the days it was really interested stting of the career um but that's important so your entrepreneurial Spirit your entrepreneurial habits were de were in the making were developing in after like first year in in your University when you started to um deliver goods and sell it here here to ukrainians right ukrainians yeah to so it was quite uh quite interesting Journey uh you didn't know any um anything about business anything about scaling like how principles of uh being in a business but somehow natively you uh you figure it out and after that I get the SC scholarship Inu uh uni in um for journalistic work because I want to be a journalist so I moved to leiv I studied a little bit for journalist work then I moved to
Serhiy but but just let let me interrupt you for a second in order to get scholarships in order to get a scholarship you have to apply so do you remember how many times did you apply for a scholarship back in that time was this like the first time attempt or you really tried a lot of times to get invited
Darina no I was it was I thought thinking it was the first time attempt
19:00 Working in a Charity Organization
Darina um I I also I work as a English teacher for kids in elv during the occupation and uh I I like this job actually and I try to educate kids about Ukraine because you know a lot of people were brainwashed back in the days and uh it was not just English uh English class it was like we are Ukrainian classes so pretty fun uh but then I realized that I can't stay in alesk more because occupation like it's hard to live in occupation even if uh the like active war is not happening but uh it's hard
Serhiy you can you give a small picture of your memories like what what was so disgusting for you what was so unbearable living in occupation like you were walking the streets and you could see Russian Flags or or Russian soldiers or what did you see exactly
Darina um I can say disgusting because it's my own City I love it the most in the world and it's not disgusting for me I just understand that this kind of disease it Heaven by now uh but like a lot of Russian soldiers they occupied a big uh Residential Building they occupied my friends houses for example they occupied one of the biggest um like it was not luxury but upper upper class um houses and they lived there like and uh they tried to destroy a lot of things uh they were very like Russians I don't know they they have no culture and uh the people with no culture the biggest threat so you live with the biggest threat in and there was a extreme level of pover poverty because people didn't have money from the Govern Ukrainian government they did they still didn't have money from Russian government so and it was very hard for me to watch these people and I try to help in any best possible ways like uh we volunteer we having like these food tracks to volunteer in alesk to feed the people so it was very hard for young person who just started to understand how the world works and want to explore the world but you are trapped in a poverty and in with the Russian soldiers who are really dangerous people with no culture and it was just hard to leave in this situation for young person so this because of that a lot of young people moved from these cities and they eventually became very um deadly one because there are no young people there um right now people people growing over there there there is a lot of young people but back in the days almost everyone who I knew moved from uh from the city um so yeah that's why I decided that I need to move but I need to move for something like not just to move in Ukraine and what it was hard for people from Eastern region moving to Ukraine back in the days because of the moving to Kev which city moving to other cities because it was hard to rent Flats it was hard to find a job uh but I figured it out and I got this uh scholarship and this was because of I was from an occupied City too because they have like it was for the person who started their life from the scratch okay the C uh and this course it was a course that helped me a lot uh because there was exceptional journalist from all over the world who talked about uh regimes about dangerous situation I even decided that I wanted to be Frontline journalist I didn't finish up there but it was interesting uh interesting way and yeah after that I moved to Kev and um I started to work as a journalist for for several newspapers but it was like more of influencer sty star life covering I didn't like this um I had interpret ship in LEL it's condas I don't know if it's condas in Ukraine still but it was one of the publisher big publisher World house and after that I finished up in charity because uh it was a great opportunity and I truly could recommend anyone who just started their career go to charity because charity could teach so many things uh all at once in the with the business approaches with a creative minds with the understanding of marketing social media PR um
Serhiy you get some big big well-known NGO right with all the systems in place know
Darina back in the days uh it was just a big NGO for it was the first um fundraising platform in Ukraine it's like what was the name of it uh it's the BR are right now but back in the days it's called Ukrainian philanthropic Marketplace uh and it uh it was like Amazon for charity Foundation you could apply as a charity Foundation you can get funding you can place your uh social project and fundraise for it so it's a very great technical uh solution uh it was very trendy for Ukraine for back in the dead days and um and I started to work as a content manager but I grew to PR manager then I grew to our Direction then I grew to marketing manager then I grew to SEO
Serhiy so how long did it take for you to to get a promotion from position to position was it was it happening fast for you can you recall
25:15 Start of the Career in a Corporate World
Darina I was here there for six years uh but uh yeah like year toye grows uh but you could have a lot of position just in one you you could be called marketing manager but you have a business development um issues that you need to solve you need all also like even Financial things operational things you need to solve creative things you need to Sol like in a marketing manager there could be a five position at once it's it's great for young people who have passion motivation and and lot energy
Serhiy uh I think of course when you are in some stages of your career it's not so easy uh but if you just started and you can have access to the whole world of uh influencers companies Stars even uh big companies that could work with you uh on the charity ways uh to promote your brand you could promote their brand and uh you can't had this access just in the corporate world uh but you can get have it in the charity world and be and with that you can make a great impact in the life of the people that you are helping yeah let's let's let's note this lesson from theena that wearing different hats even inside of one profession is supremely supremely beneficial and do I get it right that for a person from that comes from more of a creative background for journalists I we would call journalism and as a creative profession you you believe that the best the best starting Tipping Point is actually not a corporate position not a position in a corporate world
Darina no it depends it depends if if you want to start your carean in corp it could just take more time than in a uh Char to get the skills so you got all the skills much faster than you would working just in corporate world like like in in newspaper or in big Media company or something like that because uh corporate world has more money uh and uh every person is in charge for one solution they bring to the table in corporate world in charity world you don't have such many resources so you need to fulfill everything at once and you need to uh find different approaches on the on the problem that you're solving so and you start to thinking creatively but creative cre creative mind just when you are I don't know come with a exceptional idea it's when you find a different solutions to the problem so your creativities is always developing when you have limited resources in the work space it could be bad thing too in a corporate world because you could be exhausted after that uh if you didn't feel impact or you didn't feel that are developing you're just working at a dead horse so it's not okay for this kind of work it's it's good if you have a benefits from that for me for example it wasn't a much pay paid for the for the like corporate world but I had developing my skills I had access to Great Network that I established with the days of my work and I have an impact because it was important for me to have an impact it's not just numbers like you know in corporate world you see spreadsheet with numbers this is your results uh in the charity world you see people who you helped you see equipment that you bought to the medical stations you have a child that you help you have a dog shelter that you fed it so it's like not the numbers eventually it's numbers in the spreadsheets but you know the real story behind that so it's very important was for me and I think for a lot of people right now especially with the changing of the world so quickly that's why a lot of people volunteering now they taken it like uh like their part job so I think it's great way to help their relative
29:40 Finding Fulfilment in Work
Serhiy Andrew hubber huberman he's a well-known scientist now I listened to his podcast with organizational psychologist Adam Grant recently and they were discovering the correlation between deadlines and creativity and this is interesting what they discovered that actually procrastination has got something to do with most Creative Solutions like for example if you have a deadline approaching and uh you are the type of person who procrastinate and you got this deadline coming up but you're not on you're not super close to the deadline right but you but you're still not not in the beginning right so you're somewhere in the middle so they say that the studies suggest that the most Creative Solutions come from procrastinators who are in the middle of their procrastination who got not like one day left but a few days but and they and and you know like you get right to the chase they start thinking and coming up with the best ideas and that's that's I think what um is responsible for a lot of Creative Solutions for people who do a lot of a lot of work um at once you know maybe you're overwhelmed do you remember being overwhelmed at this position yeah like a lot of stuff but you still come up with cool ideas
Darina yeah yeah but I think in a in a proper world uh it's better to have system systematic approach because great results um may be the results of systematic approach and not the you know the precise heroism because uh this thing that you uh that you talk about just before this is precise heroism when you are like uh in the middle of the burning deadlines and you come with the ideas or solution but when you have this systematic day byday operation that you need know how to fulfill in a better way it's in um in the future it may come for the better results there just one creative solution
Serhiy no for sure in long term if you want systemic systematic methodological methodological sort of uh process completion this is this is the way to go um yeah but I'm I'm on B I'm on board with you that when people not only chase the numbers then not only outcome driven but they also enjoy the process and maybe you can elaborate on that it seems like everything that you were doing back then you were having a lot of fun even though you were underpaid can you say that you were always excited and you it was something that really d drove your passion
Darina yeah but it wasn't a fun Journey like every day a fun Journey it's not a Disneyland that I come like oh my God guys let's save the planet no I'm not we're not chip Andale and things like it's uh uh it was hard working environment with a hardworking people who dedicate their life to the charity Solutions uh we work with the foundation when people work there like for 20 30 years of their life to save their kids lives or to save some kind of minority so it was very hard it wasn't a fun at all especially when you feel the people's stragegies as tragedies as your own because you know these people you help them it's not just a picture on the screen is a real person with the real problems so it it isn't Fun it isn't Disneyland it was hard and it was dedicated work and especially I I've stayed there for six years but I know a lot of people who are still there and who working in charity for like more of their life so this real real heroes um and I really admire this people because I burn out and I choose a corporate word but uh they staying there and they still feeling this impact despite all the problems I feel the impact I feel enjoyable I love my team because this was very close people with whom I was really close but uh but it's hard work it's hard very hard work especially when you work on the field like we didn't work on the field we work in the digital Solutions or with companies we was close to the problem solving just in some cases but people who were Charities who work with people who need help this is a other level of burnout this is other level of tragedies obstacles and problem they may have all the time it's not like uh we come to office and save a bunch of kids no you come to office and you hear millions of tragedies and you need to solve that
Serhiy did you know back at that time where were your career going how did you decide de on the next step you said that you had to change to corporate world what how did you make this decision
Darina um but when I work in in charity uh organization I have also some project uh on my own uh that I developing by myself uh it was like uh I I was a producer for big charity event with a star in Ukraine I was uh I working with UNICEF and USA for the teenager problems with the covid things because childrens's were trapped with a uh with their parents in the houses and they need help mental help and I have my own small company that helps uh companies to make corpor corporate social responsibility projects as when you in a big company and you need some kind of marketing impact on your charity thing so here I am I came with the ideas how the company could save or help some kind of problem and they implement it in their marketing strategy and they become a big PR case so this everything I done before with my big work in a charity so it was too much I think for me in some of the time because when you have like five three eight projects one at the time it's very exhausting so I just I just feel exhausted and I decided that I want to have one job uh and one work that I go every day and I deliver results in One Direction not in a t Direction that's that's what I choose
Serhiy what was the motivation the motivation was the burnout you wanted to have a more of a tunnel vision because you were you were really really exhausted that was the main reason why you changed
Darina I read this mainstream book essentialism essentialism yes by um I don't remember remember yeah mhm so there is a main main thoughts of this book that you need to be focused on one theme and I understand that never in my life I was focused on one thing and maybe it's a time to be focused on on something that you have one in your life and you will be succeeded in that thinge uh and yeah it's burn out it's normal thing um because I know a lot of people who changes from the charity to corporate and then come back and then come back to corporate so it's like uh never ending Journey um so I just decided to try uh to see how it goes and it goes well
Serhiy and from that point forward you were on the mission you were you were making a huge progress which ended up you being in the in the position where where you're at right now
38:15 What Do You Do When You're Stuck in a Career
Serhiy I'm I'm assume what would you say the biggest takeaway for you uh like what would what would you say like for people who are stuck in their careers and I and I've spoken to a lot of a lot of people especially in mid mid 30s who realize that what they're doing in life is not something that fulfilling them not something that bringing joy to their life and maybe they're not as lucky as you are because I know you're it seems like because I I've had some dealings with uh we play uh that you recommended me to thank you very much for that and I I get the vibe of a really very liberal company and um if Dash fight is like that I understand that you have an incredible leadership there and people who make decisions are really open-minded and really understand the value of the people who are uh who are passionate about what they do in inside of the company and they give them props and they give give them all the opportunities in the world to grow but for people who are stuck maybe we even have one friend mutual friend with you what what do you think uh how can you what how can you reinvent yourself do what do you think should happen for a person who's inside of this um crisis feeling that what they do at work know longer interest them but they're they can't leave a lot of times because of the obligations because of the financial uh kind of stuff that they need to cover so what do you think how would you behave in such a position for example
Darina I think it's a common problem right now in the world I know a lot of people live like that and sometimes I feel like I'm stuck too it's normal thing but then you understand understand what you want to achieve then you like reinvented yourself and you reinvented your goals um so you understand what you want because that's good that's a great understanding when people understand that they're not on their place or they not having a joy in their life if you understand that you made a great progress in life because I there is a bigger amount of people who didn't understand that and they can't reflect on themsel so they just they don't even know that there is a problem they they feel like they they feel um unhappy right but they don't know what is the problem they don't think that maybe that the work the job that they that they connect their life to is the problem
Serhiy that's a good point but you said that you also understand what are your goals so for you you always had a crystal clear goal in your career
Darina no I don't have any Crystal goals in my career I just always change them from for the purpose of life where I'm right now so right now I'm in this stage I need this from my life and from my career and from my work like year ago I was in the whole different stage of my life and I need different things from my life so if this is something that you could uh have at your current work so you could first of all you need to understand yourself the great uh this is a working with a therapy or just um doing by yourself I don't know there is a bunch of free things in Internet how to help yourself to understand what you really want a lot of like strategies and helps and then when you understand you need to see look around and understand what can help you like maybe it's your partner maybe it's your friend maybe it's your work so because you could think like oh my God I hate my work but there could be an other reason you don't hate your work you hate yourself because you do something wrong with yourself so first of all understand yourself understand what you really want
Serhiy wait wait wait let's let's take a break here like what what questions do you need to ask yourself to understand yourself what helped you to understand what you wanted to do in life but because from your story it seems like you were always pretty pretty damn sure what you were going to do next like of course I have how do you do that maybe you can give some life hacks for people who maybe just not doing something that they love or maybe in careers that that they're not suitable for them
42:15 "I Dream a Lot..."
Darina I know I dream a lot of I like in my real life I go for a work with the dog and I'm like Oh my God in two or five years I want to be in this position like not in a career position just position in life I want to have this can you can you give it exact exact specific example what are your dreams for example um maybe from past from present for past I wanted to be a leader I wanted to be a leader of company and uh when I work in the like I don't know PR manager for charity I was uh and it was far far away from me this this opportunity so I like going somewhere and dreaming that I will be leaving near the ocean and really really I was dreaming about that and was dreaming about a dog for example like simple things that you wanted to achieve uh and I just used this T tactics not so long time ago but um right now I understand that what kind of person I want to be and when I wake up in the morning it's like it sounds very Instagram is but just bear with me when I wake up in the morning uh I have my routine and I understand will this person from the future who I want to be will be doing this routine like uh she will she will go and make a sport or she will stuck in the phone and we'll be reading a Twitter um Twitter LinkedIn or something uh she will eat healthy breakfast or she will go and just drink coffee with a cigarette or like what this My Future Self better future self that want to feel great want to live great life will do today if she wanted to be like like that in the future so you're asking yourself what your future self would want you to do now to get to the Future like she wants it didn't work every day but like I started this not not long time ago and in the beginning of the week I wrote a plan with in what I need to go to to give to have my goals to have future me satisfied uh and because like it's it's very vanal thing but the only person that keep you keep you uh from your best life is you and uh if you have anxiety for example or you unhappy you just need to write down the thing that you can control and things you can't control the things you can't control you can let go and think you can control you work on this with the plan this is like very simple line it's like how you want to have a perfect apps just go and do it the same here like just go and do it so um so I think you need to work with yourself to understand what you want back to our team uh you need to look at your environment understand how you have how you can have benefits from that from whom you can have a help like from your friend who could recommend you to a better job from your partner who could teach you something that you don't know in like position that you want to achieve uh to your manager who could um help you and make your goals for the future uh to for the future work or career goals and you could go with this company in the future and fulfill these goals and have better raise better place to work like something like this you need to communicate with the world with the environment to understand uh how you can help yourself
Serhiy yeah yeah you you can breathe breathe breathe out we're not in Rush The Arena but I I feel that you have a lot of stuff to say and you have such a rich experience that definitely a lot of people need to hear I I feel that um the questions that we need to ask like like you said one of them is what you can control what you can't control
46:35 Primary Questions by Tony Robbins We Need to Focus On
Serhiy and Tony Robbins identifies three main primary questions that every one of us should ask ourself do he he always says that where focus goes energy flows so you create the world around you by what you're focusing on so even right now me living in KF I can be focusing on missiles missiles and Rockets flying above my head instead of that I'm I'm I'm I'm making a choice conscious choice to focus on how I can help um people around me to become better how I can help with my knowledge with my skills my with whatever it is and these three questions is first do you focus on your past your present on your future do you focus F on what you can control or what you can't control and do you focus on what you have and I like this one a lot do you focus on what you have or do you focus on What's Missing because a lot of people are focused on What's Missing I don't have this this this but guys look around and and and just be grateful for for a lot of stuff that we we take for granted and I don't I don't I don't think that ever something is something that we say might sound romantic or Instagram is as you said I think that people are stuck in this agenda of being too professional or too smart or you you know I think that we need to speak more about stuff that really touches to the bottom of our heart and being more romantic and naive you know talk about dreams and talk about love and how we value people around us is something that gonna save this world if not that if not love and beauty that gonna save this world I don't know what will definitely not the Armed Forces
48:40 Tell Us About Your Team
Serhiy okay um so let's get back to your business now um yeah I think I think I want to hear about your team how many people do you have on board and um what are the things that you're most proud of when we talk about your team
Darina uh right now there are 20 people and I proud all of them because they're very responsible of what they doing and I don't need to manage them I don't need to control them I just need to lead them so it's amazing thing and I just understand it recently that I never do this you know like seal management when you came and like oh my God what you're doing you all doing is not right you just need to micromanagement yeah I never micromanage them like maybe in the beginning of the process I just want to be sure in some process that I didn't understand but it wasn't like micromanagement they have a lot of freedom but they use it very wisely because like we're all remote so we don't have a place to work we have in ke but people like usually don't use it but um in remote work is very hard because people like oh my God I'm a dentist at 1 p.m or I'm I'm in a podcast at 2 p.m bye so it's like it's like very um hard to control people and I don't want to do that so they are very responsible for their own work their own area of responsibility imagine think that they all growing there for like example we have um content Scout it's just a copypaste job like you need to find um information and add it to the website but the guy he developed himself to the head of YouTube Just in like one year because he was very talented and he started to prove that he is talented and he started to take what wasn't his job at all he like okay I do my copypaste job but I also love this discipline and I know a lot of thing about that I could write a script for YouTube I could make a post about that like he started to taking responsibility for thing that he didn't need to do but we uh mentioned that and we started to give him more and more like of course with the race more and more responsibilities and a lot of people yeah yeah so and uh we started working with influencers and give them a script from like they need to voice over the script for YouTube and they all choosing his scripts because he's a really talented guy and eventually he like I could do that I could do that I know a strategy for the YouTube shorts I know the strategy for this YouTube video who he's he's very not just talented he's very creative in a way he is he like like to learn new things he like to understand new things and I must say like almost everyone at our team like here like they want to take more and more because people just not working for pay for like um for paying they're not just working in an hour they need to work they're working because they believe in the product and this is a great thing to to to put uh amazing product in your CV amazing link in your CV in the future and uh they're all working for future them because uh because they understand how much they earn in terms of responsibilities and in terms of experience uh so almost everyone start with whom we started working two years ago they was like there was a girl she was just a designer uxui designer and now she's the head of a product and she leads the R&D team she know everybody everything about um R&D they she know how our users read our website she knows how to implement new features for them uh so she took this responsibilities because she liked that and she eventually grew to this position and uh in her future she could uh look for the better position not for just like designer position but with a lead position because of because of her responsibility so yeah they're responsible they're creative uh they didn't they don't need control on some stages of course we have like um uh weekly meetings with where I check the temperature and what everyone is doing uh but there is no like daily standing I had them um there is no retrospective I hate them because you just spent three hours with the task you didn't need to hear the bet the better is like one to one uh with the managers from their Department sometimes one to one with the with other position they and you need to hear how they manage with their manager but not like when you GA everyone for three hours and everyone just like oh fine bye
53:52 What Sacrifices Do You Make as a Successful Woman?
Serhiy Arena I have a marvelous track record of beautiful women on my podcast and you are just an amazing Edition to this list and I want to share something that I heard not from one not from two not even from three of them they're all successful business women for those of you guys watching you can check my podcast for other episodes but I hear this common theme that sacrifices are inevitable sacrifices are inevitable and I think Margaret Teter or someone said this quote that as a woman in business you have to get used to a thought that you will disappoint someone either in your personal life or in your professional life at the at the same time and I'm and I'm slowly getting down getting to my question but at the same time I heard that and and I had this Lady Jane on my podcast who actually made a system out of her relationships based on her business experience so it seems like her relationships is a project so um and here's the question where we slowly trans transition to your personal life uh I checked your Instagram you have amazing photos from your wedding um you have such a beautiful couple uh I want to ask you how do you how do you yeah how do you balance between professional and personal life are there sacrifices and uh do you bring something from your work to maybe your relationship
Darina um I don't have kids so I don't think think I'm a good source of sacrifices because uh I don't have bigger responsibilities you know because when you a mother it's like an normous responsibilities that you need to help and also your work so it's like a different level of sacrifice but with a relationship if you are with the right person who values you who is independent and who values your independency it's just you don't need any sacrifices you just need to live with that if you have problems you communicate about these problems and uh like like in the business in the relationship in any kind of relationships communication is the key
56:30 Communication is The Key to Healthy Relationships
Darina is I'm not talking like for this endless two five 10 hours talks about and nothing I'm talking about like problem communication if you have something that you need to discuss you go discuss it you find solution you don't have a you you don't speak a problem language you speak a solution language if you have if you need to have one and this is a key to success to normal healthy relationship on the work space in the friendship in the love relationship so in your parents relationship you need to communicate your needs you need to communicate your problems and that's how you will uh solve that um so yeah I don't have any sacrifices because as I said we all work remotely I for now I don't have office maybe in the future I will have and maybe it will have like uh other kinds of I know like problems but obstacles you need to find a solution to uh for example like who will go out with a dog and so some kind of these very like small problems uh but I think women who have kids and who at this like second job second full-time job this is a whole different level and in a business it's very hard for women to still it's very hard for women to be in a business in U any kind of business I just had a my own podcast with women about fighting games who are professional players and uh fgc fighting game Community is one of the nicest and fr friendly communities in the world because they're like um they are really very understanding people over there but even in this community they still have problem with women like when women go into the tournament they still judging her like is just a girl uh and I'm sure the same thing happened and always will be happening in business world like uh in this uh movie Barbie uh can ask like uh is there a patriarchy yeah it's still but we hide in it's better so like the patriarchy is still hiding better and it's still the issue in the business world but but regarding the sacrifices I I don't think I'm sorry my dog yeah you can you show your dog she decided to play a game with me but like this is a sacrifice so so uh yeah so I don't think I'm a good source to talk about sacrific because I don't have a kids
Serhiy yeah but at the same time you're you're able to roll with both business life and high high high high rank position in in business and still be present be there for your um man and you see uh what you said and I really liked it that you focus on the solution you don't focus on the conflict you don't focus on the problem and I think this is a good lesson for a lot of us in relationships in any communication we we want to lay judgment on each other who's guilty instead of that how about we focus on how do can we really resolve the case resolve the situation if if it's like who's taking out the dog or uh I don't know who's responsible for our website shutting down in the middle of the night yeah okay cool
1:00:00 Your Definitions of "Success" and "Happiness"
Serhiy yeah some philosophical questions as we wrap up what is um the definition of success and happiness for you
Darina the and take a minute different stages of life it's different definitions right now I'm in a stage where the same for the happiness and success is calmness because when you feel calm when you feel I just watched the video with Y all know Harari
1:00:30 My Take on The Importance of Mental Health
Darina he said that the problem of our world right now is excitement because excitement is not okay like in a long-term thing the great boredom because boredom is Peace So for me the success and happiness is like this uh small uh level of boredom with a little bit of excitement but eventually it's it's go to calmness and peace so like peace and calmness is fine when you stress out when you're too excited of what you're doing at your work and you overwhelm with everything um you can sleep you can't fall asleep quick because of that for me it's my stage of life it's not okay uh but for someone it's a great way of success and happiness it's fine with them but not for me right now right now I Define it as calmness as a normal read of life when you have balances and everything in in your life in your partner life in your just normal life so it's for me it's happiness when you are a little bit bored uh but eventually it's just lead to calmness
Serhiy it's a very good point I like it a lot and I have I have like like a student she she's super excited that she was recently hired officially hired by Janis into PR team and she she passed her probation that took three month three months to best probation yeah and she's super excited and she she was describing why she's excited and I was closely listening to the words that they she was saying she said everyone's are so active everyone's working so hard the entire office is like it's such a profession atmosphere everyone's making decisions and I'm like thinking to myself you're 20 one years old and good for you that you can work in such a high pressure environment which we both know Genesis is but for the people who really want to take care of their mental health and I think it's a must for all of us I don't know maybe I'm 33 now I think maybe at 30 years old it started to be be a problem for me but for younger kids nowadays I think they become overwhelmed and have mental problems even earlier right in their life so don't ever be afraid to take a take take some break just just just rest rest and calmness and peacefulness oh my God you you I mean you're you're like reading my mind this is something that I need and we all need as a PCY because the amount of the entertainment and everything is growing and we just sometimes we just need to um quietly sit you know in silence
1:03:39 Last Word from Darina
Serhiy okay during a last can you leave us with we're gonna wrap this up um maybe you can give like last words some sort of motivation or uh I don't know something that you want to leave our audience with for ukrainians or people who are trying to higher rank in their career who want to reach a lot of different stuff in their life like what can you say to to all
Darina I don't know that I'm right person to tell that because maybe syndrome but I don't think that I like my words will be uh valued for someone uh except for people who ask my advice so um I don't know like maybe that I said before learn what you want and use your resources to be the person who you want to be and don't rely on the images from um from social media rely on something that inside you and this calmness and peace that you want to achieve from yourself if you truly do you want this position or this C or this house or this uh someone or just uh someone show you that and you you um and you fell for that without really knowing who you are so this is most important thing in life I think in every stage of life even you 21 years old who are very excited for her first big job and it's great because it's really exciting and is something they could remember for all of your life or you are in your mid3 that you want to achieve more peaceful stage of life so it's it's for everyone and you need to ask yourself questions like I don't know ly yeah to understand who you are meditate maybe I don't know I I don't use meditation but I think it's a great resource for your for understanding yourself but yeah try to do all this thank you so much it was great
Serhiy yeah that was Darina Briu guys