Entrepreneurship is like an extreme sport. But Raluca Bocai, Managing Partner Mediascope, he also needed one in his spare time. And he discovered kiteboarding on a vacation with friends. Kiteboarding is a combination of snowboarding, wakeboarding, surfing and windsurfing and although it is an individual sport, Raluca has discovered a special community of people with it.
“It’s a sport that has increased my resilience and resistance to frustration, more than I trained at home with my 3 children. There were a few moments when I wanted to give up, when I wondered if it wasn’t better to sit in the sun on a deck chair and with a cocktail in hand, but every time I found reasons to keep going,” says Raluca.
We continue to talk with Raluca Bocai about entrepreneurship, communication, sports and resilience.
A puzzle under construction
19 years ago I started on this path of entrepreneurship and I could say that Mediascope was my first real job, which I started working on since my first years of college. I attended the courses of the Faculty of Social Assistance at the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași, a faculty that developed me and laid the foundations for what I have managed to achieve until now, even if apparently it is not related to the field in which I am active.
There’s always been a creative side in my DNA that I’ve tapped into and used in less conventional situations, and when I set up Mediascope it was like a puzzle that started to take shape and I love it still to add pieces, without leaving the impression that it is unfinished.
My professional path did not skip a single stage, I started by saving files on CDs that were sent by minibus to Bucharest to go into production, I managed regional projects, large projects at national level and implemented many product launches and events of all types, and currently I hold the position of Executive Director and manage a team of 45 employees.
Extreme sports
I have always been a dynamic person who loved sports and exercise. The maturity of age surprised me with the desire to do an extreme sport, and for several years I started to practice Kiteboarding-ul. A long time ago I loved watching kites flying on the water, but the passion really started during a kite vacation with some friends who had already practiced this sport for a long time.
Although it is an individual sport, I discovered a community of beautiful people, people I was able to talk to much more easily than I expected and make friends, without the impediments of social status, possessions or what we wear .
On the beach, when you prepare your equipment to enter the water, there is talk of the direction of the wind, how many knots there are, what size kite is suitable, when the wind starts to blow, when it is low tide/high tide and many other aspects that you cannot do without you could practice this sport safely.
Kiteboarding-ul it is a combination of snowboarding, wakeboarding, surfing and windsurfing. This sport can be practiced in any place with water, the important factor being the wind speed. In addition to this decisive aspect, you need an equipment consisting of kite (kite), board, harness, bar and lines. It is a sport that requires high speed, height, high physical effort and spectacular stunts when you have reached a high level of performance.
The first steps
It’s a sport that has increased my resilience and resistance to frustration, more so than training at home with my 3 kids. There were a few moments when I wanted to give up, when I wondered if it wouldn’t be better to sit in the sun on a sun lounger with a cocktail in my hand, but every time I found reasons and arguments to make me not i give up
The first lessons were on land, in Tarifa, a location in Spain known and appreciated by professional kiters.
In the first courses, I learned notions about the physics of the kite, the favorable conditions to practice it, the wind directions, the assessment of dangers on land and water and safety rules, very important to be able to prevent possible injuries. I also learned what kitesurfing equipment is made of, how to handle it correctly and how to set it up.
How did you learn
Kiteboarding-ul it’s a complex sport that you can’t learn on your own. It involves speed, height and spectacular tricks, in a context where you have to take into account many factors: wind strength, wind direction, whether there are waves or a lagoon (flat water), the conditions for launching and landing the kite the
Equally complex is the equipment used depending on the conditions on the shore, starting from the size of the kite (if there is a strong wind, depending on the kilograms you have, you can use a 6-7 m kite, and if it is light wind you use a bigger kite, as big as necessary to walk on the water).
The lines that catch the kite, the most used are 24 m long, and the harness is the one that holds the kite and fastens around the waist. The board is chosen according to the height of the person using it, and later the level of performance is added. Then begins the part that for me was the most interesting: the position on the board, how you hold your feet, how you hold your hands on the bar at the lines, how you move the kite from 12 o’clock to 9 o’clock or 2 o’clock.
I didn’t learn all this by myself and it wasn’t easy either, it took training and determination and a sustained physical effort to be able to succeed in my first floats on the water. I needed about 70 hours of training to be able to be autonomous and enter the water without being supervised and be able to return to the same place from which I left.
What has this passion turned into?
It’s a sport that has given me even more courage and confidence about who I am and what I can do, pushing me to know my physical and mental limits. I was the only girl in my circle of friends who managed to get on the board and fly in the wind, to perfectly coordinate her mind, body and soul. It was a moment when I understood myself better and associated it with the business I run – to have courage, confidence and strength, and if you really want to know that it is possible.
challenge
By practicing this sport we started to give meaning to vacations, the goal being to combine the passion to travel and discover new places with the possibility to stay active and dynamic. Fortunately, my business and life partner, Dragos Bocai, has the same passion as me, so we try to find as many opportunities as possible to practice it. We were happy to be able to kitesurf on the Black Sea as well, but what we liked most was that we reached places in this world known only to kite enthusiasts. Even preparing a kite vacation, as we say, requires time to study spots, winds, cyclones that are only at certain times of the year in different places around the globe. The beauty is the very dynamic of this extreme sport that takes you out of your comfort zone in every way, both physically and mentally.
What it takes to follow this passion
The discipline is primarily about safety, because being an extreme sport you have to respect the ocean or the sea, have the equipment in the best condition and do not compromise on any precautionary measure. At the same time, you have to pay extra attention to the other practitioners, it is a sport where respect and safety are at the forefront, the rest is just fun and adrenaline.
Moments when you wanted to give up
When I’m having a hard time, the easiest thing for me is to give up, and that’s because the present times expose the facts and events in a positive and accessible context and leave the impression that everything is possible. Practicing an extreme sport reaches many limits and here it depends on everyone what anchors they have to hold on and move on.
The moment I said I would make it was when I was at the water start stage and I was trying to stand up on the board, something that seemed impossible for a long time, and next to me at the same stage was a senior gentleman who was more than 60 year old.
Discoveries
I learned to control my fears. It’s something that everyone struggles with from time to time, but those who participate in thrilling sports are able to turn the fear into a positive experience.
Kiteboarding & communication
I can say that the values are common: passion and excellence, as well as the fast pace to achieve success when you push your limits and enjoy the results. That’s how I see them. Linked. By the way I live it seems to me that the two aspects are similar. I am motivated to accept the pressure and fears because I know that behind this barrier are things that will make me fulfilled.
I try to find time for everything, this sport is a sport of progression, if you are not consistent you lose the pace of learning, it is a dynamic sport and new things appear all the time, just like in communication, by the way. Most vacations are in areas where I can practice this sport, so I found the solution to combine the role of mother with that of athlete and that of a communicator. Most of the time during such vacations I am much more inspired and then many strategic ideas or solutions come to me that I do not see so clearly when I am at the office.
Source: www.iqads.ro
