Hristo Neiland
Secretary General at Estonian Discgolf Association
Estonia
I believe that all our barriers are made by ourselves, therefore with proper support, we can also take them down.
What do you do today?
I am mostly in the role of an architect, a programmer, and a relations manager.
As an architect, I like to model and build things, mostly organizations, products, and systems. This means that I also often destroy things to build them up again in a better way. I like to take things in their original parts and then see which parts are missing, which are present, and in what order these parts should be put together to get the best result. It's probably no surprise that most of my childhood was spent in the company of Legos. Currently, I’m constructing educational programs, mentoring tools, and building an Estonian Discgolf Association, an umbrella organization for a sport with more than 40000 players in Estonia.
I am a relationship manager and "programmer" mainly when working with people. In my various roles as a mentor, consultant, and trainer, I help people resolve conflicts within themselves and in their professional or personal groups. As a relationship manager, my main tool is to create an environment where things can improve and everything that has accumulated over time can come out and find its proper solution.
As a programmer, I help people see their internal programs, beliefs and values driving their decisions and actions. If the current ones do not work fully for them so they can not achieve the goals they want, then I help to rewrite them a little here and there. I don't have much personal preference for how people live their lives. The only thing that is important is that they themself approve of everything they do and feel that this is the life that is fully worth living. The moment when the internal and outer worlds of a person are nicely aligned, great things start to happen.
How did you get there?
I have gotten there thanks to the ups and downs. As with everyone, they are where they are thanks to their unique life experience. There are no identical scripts, the only difference is how well a person is able to learn and harvest the power from their personal experiences.
I have experienced burning out, depression, hating myself, suicidal thoughts, feeling worthless, feeling shame to be seen, attending to a psychologist, a quilt of failing oneself and others, acting against the law, painful ends of relationships, losing company, and feeling like a fraud.
I have also experienced all-encompassing fulfillment, dreams coming true, loving and accepting myself, connected and loving relationships, feeling almighty from confronting my biggest fears, nurturing myself, founding companies, putting all my effort into self-development work, life-changing retreats, bringing ideas to life and succeeding with them, helping others to turn their life around or gain the necessary clarity to keep going.
To take stock of these experiences I have formally studied political science, family therapy, grief counseling, motivational interviewing and Toltec Teachings.
Formal roles I have filled are youth center manager, teacher, project manager, sales consultant, trainer, basketball coach, sales manager, product manager, CSO, COO, CEO, secretary general, mentor, and counselor.
Why are you doing what you are doing?
I believe that people need other people to experience life fully, but people can’t connect with others when they are not working to get connected with themselves. I want to contribute to the world by constantly self-developing and then sharing my knowledge with others who want to connect more with the life around them and find their path with a heart.
My main motto is that every single day in the evening I want to look back on my day and feel that this was a day I found worth living. It means that I can sense the meaning of my doings and I evaluate them as being life-supportive.
The short answer would be, that I find these things worth doing. :D
Where are you going?
Forward.
Testimonials
Mart Vainu
Co-Founder & CEO of Cashy
Hristo is that kind of mentor who asks concrete, no BS questions which push me to analyze myself and get to the core of the challenge. At the same time, the feeling is very friendly and empathetic, which created a trustful and open environment. It's great that he always has practical advice that can be implemented right away.
cashygame.com
Andris Zemmers
CMO of JZ Microphones
The session with Hristo Neiland was super valuable! While I didn't expect to get any "aha" moments, I got two breakthroughs during the session. Hristo is a professional coach with solid business background.
jzmic.com
Ranno Käomägi
Co-Founder & CTO of Remato
Hristo is a peculiar individual, in the best possible way. His method of discovering the circumstances by asking seemingly unrelated questions at first, and then precisely pinpointing the core issue truly amazes me. Hristo's constructive suggestions have a noticeable impact already after a few days of following them. Powerful!
remato.com
Olesja Bondarenko
Co-Founder & CEO of Nanordica Medical
Our co-founders' communication was in a challenging spot, and we wanted to find a solution to improve our working relationship.
That's when an acquaintance recommended Cocoon, and we decided to try it. Working with mentor Hristo Neiland, we engaged in several group and one-on-one sessions. It helped us to understand ourselves, each other and our interactions much better.
The outcome? It worked! Today, our co-founder relationship is in a much healthier place. We with my co-founder understand and genuinely value each other. This positive shift allows us to redirect our collective energy towards our shared business growth objectives
nanordica.com
Przemek Jaworski
CTO of MX Labs
I have only good words to say about Hristo - warm, compassionate, very patient and listening carefully. I felt he understands a lot about my situation only by listening, looking and staying aware. He is this kind of guy that makes you feel comfortable to share your internal matters without any hesitations or fears. Trustworthy is a good word - although I don’t know him well, but he made me feel like he’s the guy I can trust.
He also knows what he’s doing - his insights were right to the point, he guessed what’s going on quite well. Experienced (he shared some of good and bad things from his life, which helped me to open myself), and has a good theoretical background on how human psyche works.
In general - I felt unstuck and unblocked after our meetings."
shen.ai