If you want to change the world, start with yourself: Irina Silina is a clear confirmation of this. Using the Nutrition System, Herbalife Nutrition has lost 12 kg of weight and 17 years of metabolic age. And this year she and her team exceeded all sales plans. Coincidence? We do not think!
Marie Claire: Last year, the range of your responsibilities in the company increased greatly, now you work with 13 countries - from Kazakhstan to Israel. If we draw an analogy with the work of a musical group: there were 15 people in the orchestra, and suddenly there were 45. How has the role of the conductor changed?
Irina Silina: The main change is that now more time should be devoted to the members of the orchestra - new countries. Free up time by doing tasks that are less relevant and that someone else can do. And look more broadly at the entire business as a whole, constantly including strategic thinking.
Do you manage to maintain a balance between work, home and personal life in the new circumstances?
Of course, with the increase in the volume of work, I became less at home. But the free time, which was traditionally spent on lessons with children, on joint trips to visit, to concerts or to play sports or music - it remains, I keep it very carefully.
Women often flaunt multitasking, appealing to their natural ability to do several things at the same time …
Absolutely not about me! I am not a multitasker, it is very important for me to stay focused on what I am doing without getting distracted. For example, I do not even call my loved ones during the day, so as not to be distracted from work. They know this and do not call me themselves, unless it is, of course, an emergency. At the same time, if I work with a child, I do not sit on the phone at that time, trying to simultaneously respond to messages in the messenger. And I completely devote my weekend to family and self-development.
Share the secret of time management
It's simple: you need to allocate time in the calendar and allocate it in great detail. This also applies to weekends. On weekends, like on weekdays, I have every hour scheduled for meetings and classes.
Are you planning far?
I plan 1-3 years in advance, everything else is, rather, dreams. The specific goals for the next three years are to send my son to study. Not such a distant goal, considering that in the remaining time it is necessary to understand which direction he will choose for himself, where he will go.
Are you going to somehow influence his choice?
Not. Choose a university for a child with the words "here's a check from mom and dad, fly!" - the exact opposite of what we do. We try not to voice our point of view. He must decide for himself.
But do you need to direct somehow? After graduating from school, many teenagers simply do not know what they want …
Yes, to avoid this, you need to give the child a choice from the 9th grade. Open a "barrier" for him to the world, help answer the question: who he sees himself in this life.
How to do it?
There are tons of ways. But until you personally try it, you will not understand. My son, for example, recently completed an internship at the Moscow office of Herbalife Nutrition as a call center operator. My task was not so much to acquaint him with the company's activities as to demonstrate what opportunities there are now in the professional world. My son called me on the first day of work and said: “Mom, my temples hurt”. And it is not surprising, because the work of a call center operator requires communication skills, the ability to concentrate and switch to different tasks. He realized that it was hard work, and he also realized that bridging the distance in the office, which physically separates the workplace of the call center operator and the director's office (and this is only a few meters), in career plan takes decades.
It took me 20 years to get to this chair.
20 years ago, did you already plan to be the CEO?
Then I had no such task. But ten years ago - already yes.
Can you become a CEO without setting yourself such a goal?
Can. Because the question here is not so much in a specific position. I left the institute and decided that you would become the general director. Here, rather, the speech is about what role you want to play in life. For example, I always, in addition to the scope of my duties, I was looking for what else I could do at a specific place in order to increase work efficiency. It has always been important for me to achieve ambitious results. I always liked it when life challenged me. Difficult situations motivate me.
If we are to play a game, then play it 200%.
Were you so ambitious as a child?
Sport played a big role in my life. At the age of 6, my parents sent me to gymnastics, I almost got into the Olympic reserve. Professional sports, serious training, I think this greatly influenced my perception of life. While my peers were walking in the yard, we ran with bricks tied to our feet.
Yes, do not be surprised, in those years there weren’t much simulators, and trainers used bricks to make weights: such an exercise to develop speed. Climbing a terrible tightrope, jumping over a goat, which was getting higher and higher - artistic gymnastics taught me to overcome myself, to strive for a result. Then there was a music school, another important stage in my childhood, without which there would be no me today.
The analogy with sports is understandable. But how are music and efficiency related in big business?
Music teaches you to listen to the world around you. And this is one of the competencies, which at different stages of my career was key - in the consulting business, where I worked for a long time, in the pharmaceutical industry, where I was engaged in analytics, and now, in the role of the head of a large region. The habit of listening attentively, sincerely and naturally, listening in order to understand a topic, in order to understand it, is all a music school. And if you treat your daily life in this way, not only to music, you will be able to catch and assimilate much more incoming information.
How is your relationship with music going now?
Now I do vocals with my daughter, three hours once a week, this Sunday we will have a reporting concert. For me, vocals are not so much singing as emotional relaxation and the same physical training as in the gym. After each lesson I lay in a layer, they are so exhausting in a good way.
Learning foreign languages (Irina Silina speaks French, English, Spanish and German - ed.) - is it also an ability to listen?
Yes, and it is no coincidence that many graduates of music schools then go to foreign languages. Through music, you learn to hear and memorize phonetic constructions and can more easily reproduce the sounds of a foreign language.
How does language help you in life outside of work?
It helps at home, because we communicate with children and my husband in both Russian and French. I'm not even talking about travel. Without a language now it is like without an Internet connection. In addition, language is not only a means of communication, it helps to learn and understand another culture.
When you interact with a person in his native language, the relationship that is built between you is already a relationship of a higher level of trust and understanding.
That is why I am thinking of learning Hebrew, because Israel is now included in my new geographical responsibility in the company.
Do you have time for sports?
I go to the gym every day early in the morning. But before that, it is imperative to give the body the right "fuel", so I make myself breakfast from Herbalife Nutrition, which energizes me in the morning and at the same time is optimally balanced in the composition of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. It is very fast and convenient. It consists of three components: Aloe herbal drink, herbal drink and Formula 1 protein shake. Then I do light exercises - planks, squats, abs, send my family to work and study and go to the gym, where I do more thoroughly for an hour and a half.
I usually walk and run on the track and swim. In parallel with this, I am thinking about things, planning my day. It gives a feeling of being included. I walk on the track and send messages to my colleagues in WhatsApp. When after that I come to the office, I have the feeling that half a day has passed, and the clock is only 9 in the morning.
And the healthy lifestyle club, thanks to which you managed to lose 12 kg in six months, are you visiting now?
I don't go to the Club regularly now, I work with a nutrition consultant on an individual basis. Every morning I send her a report about yesterday: what I ate, drank and how much, and she gives recommendations on what exactly needs to be adjusted in the diet.
And what are the results?
The volumes decreased, the metabolic age equaled my actual age - 42 years old, but at the start it was 59, that is, 17 years more. I became more energetic.
How is this expressed?
The need for sleep has decreased: now I get enough sleep in 6-7 hours, but before I slept at least 8 hours and at the same time I was more tired. I go to bed at 10-11 pm and wake up by myself at 5-6 am, before the alarm goes off. It happens so that the body receives adequate nutrition, but at the same time it does not need to spend energy on processing heavy food. As a result, there is no feeling of fatigue even with a very busy work schedule.
How has Herbalife Nutrition's nutritional system affected your eating habits?
In general, I began to look at food in a different way. For example, she refused fatty meat, which she had previously eaten more than necessary. Mayonnaise or mayonnaise salads are taboo. Now I have a lot of protein in my diet - rabbit, turkey, fish - and many more vegetables and fruits. If earlier broccoli, spinach, asparagus were practically inedible for me, now I am happy to cook them myself and order them in restaurants.
How do your family members react to your changes?
They follow me. Mom has been going to a healthy lifestyle club for the second year (she has minus 5 kg), her husband has long begun to use our cocktails and is looking at dietary supplements, after the last February 14, my son came up to me and asked me directly: “What to do and what to eat so as not to be frail ? " And I am, of course, very happy about that. I didn’t force or pull any of them, I just set an example.
It seems that this is also the basis of the work in the clubs run by the company's Independent Partners - to show everything by example?
Yes. We are greatly influenced by the environment, and when everyone next to you is losing weight and working on themselves, you, too, involuntarily get involved in this. Moreover, the excitement is not only in losing weight, in my experience, it turned out to be not such a difficult task. It is much more difficult to maintain the result and improve it.
I remember how, during one of my first visits to the club, I accidentally overheard what a girl sitting next to me was saying to her consultant. She absolutely sincerely, without hesitation, very simply talked about her changes in a week. At that moment I caught myself thinking: "If she could, then I can."
Can you give an example of someone from Herbalife Nutrition clients who has especially inspired you?
There are many examples. Recently at the School of Leaders - this is a special event for brand distributors - I suddenly realized clearly that the results of working on myself are not in kilograms.
Incredibly beautiful people took the stage. But they are not beautiful because they naturally have good external data. But because they worked on themselves so much.
Here is a girl in a tight dress, not skinny, and the clothes show it. But she has a great posture, a radiant smile and some incredible proud to become. And the fact is that for herself she is Miss World, she lost 30 kg! Having done work on themselves, people come out with a different sense of their own dignity, this inspires them, makes them different, and finally makes them happy.
Photo: archives of press services
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