Neten Biri
Neten Biri is an ICF Certified Life & Wellness Coach, BICBT Certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Practitioner, Spiritual Teacher, and Holistic Healing Practitioner who is committed to guiding people to their highest potential and back into their hearts. Formerly known as Isabela Cojocaru, she received her new name “Neten” during her shamanic apprenticeship in Peru where she learned about Shamanism, Spirituality, and Holistic healing modalities.
As a master coach, she combines life coaching with the principles of psychology and spirituality. She has been coaching people since 2011, holds a Master’s Degree in Communication, and is trained and certified in Cognitive behavioral therapy, Life & Wellness Coaching, Human behavior & Psyche, Holistic Healing, and Shamanism. Her diverse expertise comes from training and working in numerous healing centers around the world, where she immersed herself in many healing modalities and helped countless people heal and lead fulfilling lives.
Her most important and extensive training is based on her powerful life experiences. Family neglect and breakdowns, career confusion and failure, sexual, emotional, and physical abuse, drug addictions, relationship toxicity, depression, panic attacks, and other health issues, have taught her lessons in life that she is naturally inspired to teach you now. With a compulsive desire to break free from the conditioned mind, she discovered the importance of self-love and living in the present moment while nurturing a healthy balance in life.
She spent years traveling the world, researching and experimenting, studying and questioning everything around her. Her mission is now to bring clarity and light to each being by helping them discover who they really are and supporting them out of suffering and limitation and into fulfillment. She embodies truth and clarity, allowing teachings to be channeled right through her being and out into the world. Her superpowers of intuition and compassion help people conquer challenges and have life-altering transformations.
What were your initial years of growing up like? Tell us about your life before starting your corporate journey/venture/initiative.
Growing up in Romania was both a blessing and a curse. And I mean in the most beautiful sense of it. My childhood taught me so much about life with its challenges, the depth of resilience, and most of all taught me about empathy and the true meaning of compassion.
I grew up in a family and society that pushed me, too hard, to aim for superficial things and to forget about myself and my well-being, to forget about what is valuable in life. All I knew was “build a career and find a husband”. Thus, blindly, since young, maybe 14 years old, I started working with my mother at the little supermarket she owned and learned the value of money, or what I thought at that moment. And while I did that, I kept on wondering what it is that I really want and what I am, and why I am like this, so so sensitive.
Eventually, I left Romania pretty early and started traveling around the world, aiming at this corporate career that I thought would bring me happiness. Little I knew at that moment that what’s actually very important, is to follow your heart and what you love most, building faith and presence.
Was there any turning point in your life that changed your journey? If so, what was it? Please tell us the backstory behind it.
After a few good years of office work around the globe that helped me develop professionally in my career, and also made me feel so insufficient, in parallel to my fear of not having enough money, I noticed how I was deeply drawn to understand more about the psychology of the human mind, the connection with the heart, and what it entails in general human behavior. I wanted so much to understand who I am and why I am this sensitive and aware. Why I had to experience difficulties in my life and how to move past them. So I studied, questioned, wondered, and experienced, I didn’t stop until I felt a tangible change.
Plus, people were stopping me everywhere to tell me their problems, (this happening since I was a child), until the point where I realized that it feels better when I focus on helping others rather than launching a product for example (I was doing marketing). So courageously, I changed gears and built faith knowing that if it’s so natural for me to help, then this is what I must do. I dropped corporate life, began my practice as a coach and therapist, and with time moved to another continent, South America, where I dove deep into ancient shamanic wisdom, healing modalities, self-discovery, and spirituality. And from there, to this day, I am happy, at peace, and content.
Every industry that is now a large-scale, top-notch business once started as a small idea in the minds of entrepreneurs. What was that idea or motivation that made you start your business /initiative? What motivated you within to say “YES, go for it!”
The motivation to change gears and focus more on building a stronger practice to help others came straight from my heart, it felt so good, so right, and so aligned. And everything unfolded naturally as guided by invisible forces. What fueled it, was my desire to know who I am, to the deepest subconscious level of my being.
Everyone has their own set of challenges when starting an entrepreneurial journey. Still, the most essential part for others to learn is how you deal with those. Would you like to share with us your challenges and your coping mechanisms?
The biggest challenge that I had to overcome was my own limited mind, with its fears and old mindset of lack, which was inherited from the family and the culture I was born into. It took a bit of time, a bit of study, and a bit of patience, but the more awareness I brought to what I am and who I am, the easier it got to understand what is real and what is false, a pattern. Thus my confidence in my own skills grew as soon as I was receiving some form of evidence for it, in particular for my faith.
Sometimes, even a simple process of accepting where I am, just as I am, was powerful enough to move me further in life. Other times, I had to take big risks or cry out in fear, regardless, what helped the most was breathing, and realizing that life is a beautiful rollercoaster, and one can’t go without the other. Light can’t be without the dark. Everything does happen for a reason and breathing is helping you become more present with everything especially yourself, creating a bit of space in your being, maybe to help make the right decision from a heart impulse rather than fear.
While the global pandemic of COVID-19 is associated primarily with adversities, it has also brought about a true boom in startups, with successful entrepreneurship in many countries. The pandemic has impacted all of us in one way or another. Would you like to share your experience on a personal and professional level?
The pandemic was definitely an interesting experience to live in this life. For me, personally, it helped me so much to build faith and presence. It feels like it forced all of us to stop running so much and just live a little closer to our loved ones and our hearts.
I was already established in Costa Rica by that time, and the need for mental and emotional support grew this time, which enabled me to grow so much more.
Your journey and your vision are very inspiring, but are there any achievements or accomplishments you would like to mention?
Throughout my ever-expanding self-discovery journey, I have unveiled a level of awareness so profound that everything else, while equally important, seems less intriguing to me now. In my life experience, I have achieved multiple certifications, degrees, and top jobs in the best countries on Earth and yet nothing is more powerful than being present with everything around just as is.
Would you like to share with our young budding women entrepreneurs the change you would like to see in the world if given an opportunity?
Always leading by example and with our hearts, building more faith and presence in ourselves, and being kinder and less judgmental, is the change that I would love to reflect back into the world and thus see in others too.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned in your personal life and professional journey? What is your personal motto in life?
The most important lesson I have learned is living in the now. Life is now, not yesterday or tomorrow. Life is now.
My personal motto “be here now, present and alive“
Women are a growing force in the workplaces worldwide, standing shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts. There are cracks in glass ceilings everywhere, with many women breaking through to carve out a space right at the top of the pyramid. What are your thoughts about women’s leadership today?
I feel there’s a beautiful balance in the world that yes, might not be easy to see with the unconscious mind but that doesn’t mean it is not there. Both women and men contribute to this reality we call life, this ever-expanding consciousness and there is no need to create separation. Every soul has a role to play, every plant, every bird. Regardless of gender. We all contribute, simply just by existing and breathing.
With your grit and determination, you are making a considerable impact, breaking through, and serving as role models for many budding entrepreneurs. What would you want to say to our young women leaders/audience reading this?
Have faith, in life, in yourself, in everything supporting you, pay attention to your beliefs and limited mindsets, break through fears, release resistance, have fun, and try everything until something feels deeply, and intuitively right for you. Simply remember that everything starts with you, no matter what you choose to do in life, you can’t serve from an empty cup. Find yourself first, keep your heart open, be kind, smile more often, be present and enjoy this journey we call life. Everything else will come to you, naturally.