{"id":5674,"date":"2017-04-01T13:06:28","date_gmt":"2017-04-01T11:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/?p=5674"},"modified":"2019-07-29T13:11:18","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T11:11:18","slug":"marlen-m-soliman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/?p=5674","title":{"rendered":"Marlen M.Soliman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marlin M. Soliman \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the technology in this day and age being based on social media, we sometimes forget to practise socializing in the real world \u2013some of us don\u2019t even know how. Marlin M. Soliman is an expert in communication skills and emotional intelligence, helping people of all ages lead healthy social lives and overcome their anxieties. We got to speak to the intelligent expert, and she\u2019s given us a peek inside her social-science world.<\/p>\n

By: Mayar El-Shamy<\/p>\n

Tell us about yourself and what you do. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a people person who\u2019s fascinated with human behavior and the art of communication and emotional intelligence. I\u2019ve studied French literature and Mass Communication in the USA, returned to Egypt, and worked in the media & production world for more than 12 years, before working in the Communication and Public Relations field. Currently, I\u2019m teaching Communications Skills and Emotional Intelligence courses. I find a great pleasure in empowering people to achieve their full potential in order to lead happier, and more fulfilling lives. After all, I believe that 90% of our problems could be solved if we master communication skills and develop our emotional intelligence.<\/p>\n

How did you first get into the science of communication?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the early 90\u2019s, when I traveled to study in the USA. Back then, there was no satellite; internet and computer access were very limited.\u00a0 I was 16 years old and totally on my own with my broken English, so I had to depend on observing body languages, facial expressions, eye contact, and the tone of voice of people speaking to me in order to manage daily communication.<\/p>\n

When I returned to Egypt and studied Executive Management at AUC \u201cCommunication and Emotional Intelligence\u201d was a big chunk of it. Furthermore, all throughout my life I\u2019ve had people approaching me asking about how to network, or how to have good relationships, the best way to communicate a certain massage\u2026etc.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always got \u201cYou are so easy to talk to\u201d and \u201c you light up in social gatherings\u201d comments, which made me think \u201cwhy is it so easy to me and not to them?\u201d all these incidents helped me to see the importance of good communication.<\/p>\n

You have handled superstars including Hend Sabry and Yasmin Raeis. Tell us about your experience as a celebrity manager.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also handled other stars like Nahed El Sebai, Marwan Hamed, Hadi Elbagouri, and Mohamed Hefzy.\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019ll always be very grateful for this adventure in my life.\u00a0 I had a lot of fun, I traveled with celebrities, attended movie festivals, organized photo-shoots, met so many people and made lots of friendships, but I must say it was very hectic and stressful.\u00a0 It was a very challenging experience but also very rewarding and enriching.\u00a0 The big challenge was to gain their trust and to prove my reliability, which usually happens when you prove your full dedication, sincerity, and good intentions.\u00a0 People may think that celebrities are different from \u201cus\u201d, when in fact they are also regular human beings\u00a0 They are looking for someone to contain and understand them.\u00a0 And of course someone who\u2019s emotionally intelligent enough not to push the wrong buttons.\u00a0 So by understanding each client\u2019s mentality and personality, I was able to find \u201cthe entry\u201d, gain their trust and build some bridges through which we communicated and had a good relationship. For example, to some celebrities appreciating the \u201chuman being\u201d in them more than the \u201ccelebrity\u201d was a major key.<\/p>\n

I really enjoyed that part of my life, and cherish the friendships that I gained through this job.<\/p>\n

What is your proudest achievement?<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the professional level, my proudest achievement is taking a leap of faith, resigning from \u201cemployment life\u201d and starting to pursue my passion conducting courses\/ workshops about communication skills and emotional intelligence. On the personal level, my proudest achievement is impacting other people\u2019s lives positively.\u00a0 Seeing people (especially women) reconciling with themselves and the world around them, changing their lives, and fulfilling their dreams is absolutely priceless. And then they start doing the same with others\u2026 it is a beautiful chain that I\u2019ll always be proud of.<\/p>\n

Does knowing so much about emotional intelligence make it difficult to trust anyone?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Emotional intelligence is not something that you \u201cknow about\u201d, it\u2019s awareness that you develop and you actually practice. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t make it difficult to trust people, on the contrary, it will help you understand yourself and others so that you could select the right people to trust.\u00a0 And helps you to draw boundaries with less trustworthy people.<\/p>\n

What kind of everyday challenges do you have to face in your field?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My ongoing struggle is the very poor awareness that we have in Egypt regarding communication skills and emotional intelligence. People often underestimate its importance and impact in our daily interactions.\u00a0 I\u2019m having a hard time raising awareness on how by putting a little effort in our ways of communications could save us a lot of trouble every single day.\u00a0 People don\u2019t realize the enormous change that could happen in their professional and personal lives if they learn these skills.\u00a0 They don\u2019t understand why they need to take a communication course.\u00a0 It\u2019s so funny that everybody is suffering and complaining from the mistreatments they receive or the continuous arguing and miss-understandings, but yet they are unable to recognize the root of the problem.<\/p>\n

How can you help those with social anxiety?<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, we need to understand that most of the time our negative feelings (ex. Anxiety, fear, low self-esteem\u2026etc) are rooted in our brains due to a wrong self-image. Secondly, building good relationships with other people can greatly reduce stress and anxiety in our life. In fact, improving our social support is linked to better mental health in general. Fighting social anxiety has to start from the inside first. It\u2019s about self-awareness. We need to be aware of our emotions, and thoughts in order to be able manage and control them. And this concludes the basics of Emotional Intelligence.\u00a0 Social anxiety is most likely caused by low self-confidence. The best way to defeat your fear is to face it.\u00a0 When I get anxious about anything I always ask myself \u201cwhat is the worst that could possibly happen?\u201d Then I keep analyzing the answer and usually I come to the conclusion of \u201cSo what? Not the end of the world\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, one of the consequences of avoiding social situations is that you never have the opportunity to build up your confidence interacting with others, and develop strong communication skills that would increase the chance for successful relationships.\u00a0 Practice will increase your confidence and improve your communication skills. So my advice is to be willing to try and learn by practicing.<\/p>\n

To summarize: Self-awareness, Self-confidence, and practice<\/p>\n

What are the downsides of working in such a field?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The downside is the big responsibility I feel towards every student I come in contact with.\u00a0 I feel that IT IS MY JOB to empower people to achieve their full potential in order to lead happier, and more fulfilling lives. Sometimes the individuals themselves have a very limited vision; they don\u2019t want to help their own selves and at this point I can\u2019t help them.\u00a0 Such situation makes me feel so helpless and disappointed with myself that I was not able to impact this person\u2019s life in a positive way even if it was due to his\/her choice.<\/p>\n

What goals do you still plan to achieve?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My main goal is to keep empowering everyone I come in contact with.\u00a0 And keep spreading awareness about this topic wherever I go, but especially here in Egypt.\u00a0 I would love to see our streets full of people with better communication skills.\u00a0 I hope to see communication skills and emotional intelligence being included in schools\u2019 curriculums in this country.\u00a0 And my biggest dream is to open a school\/ academy teaching only communication skills and emotional intelligence.<\/p>\n

Any advice to those who want to follow in your footsteps?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A good communicator is likely to have better opportunities and succeed in their lives more than highly educated people with no communication skills.\u00a0\u00a0 Be flexible to try anything at least once. Travel when you can and observe human interaction in different nations and cultures. Meditate every day and do a lot of soul searching and reflect on your own actions. Encourage. Never judge.\u00a0 Be real. And keep smiling.<\/p>\n

A word for our readers\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you feel that your life is being wasted in nonsensical arguments and in miss-understandings that drains your energy, then I highly recommend you work on improving your communication skills. \u00a0Learning about communication skills and emotional intelligence is a life changing experience.\u00a0 It will enormously affect all aspects of your life increase your potentials.\u00a0 Understanding yourself and others and being able to communicate effectively is the key to success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the technology in this day and age being based on social media, we sometimes forget to practise socializing in the real world \u2013some of us don\u2019t even know how. Marlin M. Soliman is an expert in communication skills and emotional intelligence, helping people of all ages lead healthy social lives and overcome their anxieties. We got to speak to the intelligent expert, and she\u2019s given us a peek inside her social-science world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5675,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":0,"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5674"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5677,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5674\/revisions\/5677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}