Finding strengths: Whanganui facilitator offers personal development training

Andra Lazarescu (front) with course mates at the Centre for Dependable Strengths in Seattle Photo / Supplied Photo / Supplied

Whanganui-based facilitator Andra Lazarescu has found her dependable strengths and encourages others to find theirs.

Dependable Strengths training may sound like an esoteric, New Age convention but Lazarescu said it has been around for more than 60 years and she discovered it for herself in 2015.

"Bernard Haldane was an English-born doctor working with American war veterans in the 1940s," she said.

"He was helping them to re-enter the civilian workforce at the end of the war and developed the methodology of helping them find their individual strengths and transferable skills."

Lazarescu came across the methodology while seeking career advice for herself.

Having worked as a regulatory lawyer for 20 years, she was looking for something that would satisfy her needs as a "communication addict" and her philanthropic tendencies at the same time.

"I wasn't excited by any of the suggestions the careers adviser offered me but a footnote on the printout she gave me mentioned the Centre for Dependable Strengths.

"I was intrigued and discovered that the centre was in Seattle, USA, and I was in Melbourne, Australia."

She researched Haldane's work and discovered he had developed many of the ideas that are now common practice in personal and professional development.

Haldane co-founded the Seattle centre before his death in 2002.

Lazarescu adopted the principles of Dependable Strengths training and says they permeated her thinking in terms of her own development and all her personal and business interactions.

Andra Lazarescu looks forward to helping Whanganui people find their strengths. Photo / Supplied

While working primarily in financial services, Lazarescu was also consulting in water policy, science and management. Her profession was not portable and she was travelling extensively with her husband Paul Bayly.

Bayly, an international recovery specialist, was appointed permanent secretary for infrastructure and transport in Fiji after Cyclone Winston in 2016.

"I was working to help a school to recover after the cyclone and I incorporated the principles of dependable strengths in rebuilding everyone's confidence," Lazarescu said.

"I'm a person who is always looking to the future and it was frustrating to see children's education interrupted."

In order to help the children and their teachers keep momentum, she encouraged them in exploring their dependable strengths.

Lazarescu said the experience made her realise how adaptable the training is.

"While we share talents, what makes us unique is how our respective talents are combined in us.

"As soon as we have a real understanding of this, we start to view the world, and ourselves, differently. Regardless of how old or young we are."

In 2018, Lazarescu went to Seattle where she became a certified Dependable Strengths facilitator.

"I was the only person in my intake from a corporate background and the people I met there were so interesting.

"The centre is in a lovely setting beside a lake and we looked out the window one day and saw these four beautiful bald eagles circling in the sky.

"A native American woman who was studying with me said it was a very good omen."

Experiencing the training as a client before moving on to the facilitator training was quite startling for Lazarescu.

"You realise that you have been living as someone else's version of yourself because people will tell you what they think you're good at.

"When you really reach down and discover your own strengths you will know when you have it right because you will be doing something that gives you joy and it won't feel like work."

In 2019, Lazarescu was invited to join the Centre for Dependable Strengths board and she is the only member who is based outside the United States.

She describes the process as "experiential".

"That means the participant is actively involved and helping to shape the process rather than simply answering an algorithm-driven questionnaire.

"It is suitable for anyone with the ability of memory and self-reflection.

"At the heart of the process is the idea that there is excellence in each of us, even though it may demonstrate itself differently."

The Centre for Dependable Strengths has developed curriculums for middle and high school students which help them identify their innate strengths and talents, and Lazarescu says she looks forward to offering training to Whanganui schools.

The other string to Lazarescu's bow is her communications company Seven Peaks which she has directed since 2010.

Although she grew up in Australia, Lazarescu is delighted to be settled in Whanganui, where her husband grew up, and their two sons will complete their secondary education here.

Lazarescu can be contacted by email at ruxandra@sevenpeaks.net or by calling 027 355 6338.