Sanja Milosavljević: Good afternoon, good people. My name is Sanja Milosavljevic and I will be your host today. Today, my guest is Milica Čalija and I think you probably know about her. Or if you don’t know maybe, personally, then you certainly have heard about her cookies. These are Angel’s cookies that you can buy in all major supermarkets in Serbia. What qualifies Milica to be today’s guest, in fact what makes her a good and quality guest is that Milica is engaged in entrepreneurship and promotion of women’s entrepreneurship, that she is involved and I even think she started a Facebook group dedicated to entrepreneurs in March or April last year, in response to Covid. And she is involved in the work and development of startups, she is engaged in mentoring, she is also engaged as a consultant, so all that – not only has her own company and leads it successfully, but she also simply deals with understanding and promoting entrepreneurship. This whole project is supported by the US Embassy in Serbia, and the main goal of this project is to share the stories of successful women and women who are in some way involved in empowering other women, in strengthening some entrepreneurial capacities because I think we all need it, no matter what level of development are we in when it comes to our private businesses and whether we work at all, that is, whether we run our own companies or work at universities, corporations or in the NGO sector. So I hope you will- I sincerely hope you enjoy it. Hi Milica, how are you?

Milica Čalija: Hi Sanja, thank you for the invitation, you made me happy and honored. I’m actually fine – you know, it’s a strange question now, rarely does anyone ask you, they ask you more for the sake of question, and again the answer is debatable. Like, you are fine, in the sense you don’t have a Covid, and then we talked a while ago about how important it really is to maintain mental health. Because, unless you are really in the risk group of getting seriously ill, most people still get over the Coronavirus and recover, and the consequences of this whole pandemic on mental health are very far-reaching and I think we will feel them for a long time. But having all that in mind and the overall circumstances, I think I’m really good.

Sanja Milosavljević: Great, please to hear. I mean, I know a lot of people want to say they’re fine, and then, actually, when you scratch a little under the surface you see that there’s a lot of trouble there. I mean, I’m starting from myself – I’m not great or better, but I’m glad to hear you’re fine. I mean, that’s good, that’s it – you’re spreading positive energy. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, it’s always interesting for me to ask guests what their education is and how it corresponds to what they are doing now. Is it something that is completely opposite to your education, was the faculty your base and gave you the breadth so that you can then deal with some other things. How was it with you?

Milica Čalija: It was interesting. I am turning 40 this year and making a list of what I have been doing. Because, recently I surprised my husband when I told him “I know, I learned that in the training for a tour guide.” And he wondered, “When were you a tour guide?” So I tried to do everything in my life. I’ve actually been working since I was 17, my first job was on RTS, I hosted the show “Garage”, which dealt primarily with rock music, but also with some topics addressed for young people. In fact, the condition to participate in the “Garage” was that rock musicians were on a blacklist at the time, because then RTS was Slobodan Milosevic’s broadcasting agency, and then what was really left? There are some down bands left. So what are down bands? Well, it’s all some young people and rock music and then we somehow developed over time into a show that deals with all the problems of young people – and drugs, and similar problems and how to solve or prevent them. Now for younger viewers and listeners – it was before cable TV. Before the internet.

Sanja Milosavljević: Before mobile phones.

Milica Čalija: Before mobile phones! That is when I worked with Ognjen Amidžić, and at one point, Ognjen and I went to Zaječar to lead the Guitar Festival. It was just like Elvis Presley got up from the grave and came because people only had the choice of watching RTS all the time. So, that’s how my career actually started and in parallel with that job I enrolled in college. I was convinced for years that Italian is what I want to do and teach and just be a professor of Italian, but the only professional touch I have had with the Italian was when I once translated the installation of new equipment and then the training of technologists in the factory Soko Štark. Since both the equipment and the educators came from Italy. And then somehow I fell in love with the factory and the confectionery industry and realized that I would not translate Dante and Petrarch and I would never actually live from it. And now what do I have left? I am left with a love for Italy and Italian and cuisine and everything and I occasionally go there to get inspired. Two years ago, I was at the chocolate academy in Bologna, but let’s not lie, I could have done that with a course in Italian, I didn’t need to finish college for that. My post-graduate studies-

Sanja Milosavljević: Sorry, but I think – I also graduated from the Faculty of Philology, but I’m not working as a teacher. Faculty of Philology, whatever the state of the faculty is – gives you breadth. What you read, who you met, and all those books that you actually read, theory or fiction somehow gives you some breadth, teaches you to read, if nothing else. Well, now it can be literature, it doesn’t have to be – but it teaches you, it enables you to read. I don’t know what your impression is. I mean, I don’t know what opinion you have on that?

Milica Čalija: Before the Faculty of Philology, I went to the Philological Gymnasium, and that’s even…

Sanja Milosavljević: That is a natural step.

Milica Čalija: Absolutely, but from today’s completely practical perspective, I have probably finished the most impractical course of studies, ie the course for Classical Philology. It is ancient Greek and Latin. And I absolutely think that there is no better education that I could have received in that very sensitive teenage age, because these are just the right pedestals of any civilization that you get then and instead of getting, what surrounded us then, horrible turbo- folk culture and some other things, they taught me to read classical literature in Latin and ancient Greek. It is especially interesting with Greek because when you study ancient Greek, it is much harder and only in the fourth year you can find yourself in the situation of reading with the assistance of a professor, so you study Philosophy and Cultural history much more. So I don’t think any education is in vain and unnecessary, and again I say it’s a very practical time when for most things you don’t really want to be a surgeon or something so complex, but for things like you want to make Angel oatmeal cookies, you can actually be educated through a series of very high quality courses. You can outsource things you don’t know yourself, you don’t have to become a technologist to open an oatmeal workshop. So I think that you are actually completely right and that what is much more important is what education we get for the spirit, for the development of the spirit, for the development of attitudes further in life than what you can ultimately, and now in the 40s for example I’m going to decide to study something completely different, for example – I mean, it’s manageable.

Sanja Milosavljević: Yes. And tell me, how do you understand that division into entrepreneurship and women’s entrepreneurship? I am not overjoyed by this term because it means that there is one thing – what my late grandmother would say – Orthodox entrepreneurship in the sense of “correct” and then there is a sub-variant of women’s entrepreneurship.

Milica Čalija: Entrepreneurship sect!

Sanja Milosavljević: Oh yes. So how do you feel about that? What do you think about that? And what exactly is the difference between a company run by a man and a company run by a woman?  

Milica Čalija: It’s a great question because the first time they called me to talk about it, it was in the “Share Knowledge Become a Mentor” program where we later got together as a mentoring pair. Then they invited me to be a guest on a panel on women’s entrepreneurship. And I started with that attitude as “what is a woman entrepreneurship?” Is it important for a consumer, for example, whether this cup was made by a woman or a man? I mean, that’s important to us for tampons, on O.B. tampons it is written, made by a female gynecologist. In that case, it is important that we understand each other, but with most products, it really doesn’t matter to the consumer. So I think that the division into entrepreneurship and its subtypes in general is actually important within those some circles in which we move, such as mentors, consultants, or in which we work alone. For consumers, I don’t think it’s particularly important. There is, of course, a part of the customers who will recognize your story, so they want to buy pasta from you and not from some Italian chef with a mustache who developed it there, also by hand. But I don’t think that most consumers really care about that gender characteristic of the manufacturer. It is important in the very circle of entrepreneurship and I have a friend who lives in California and I like to say that she lives in the future because we really are not – Europe is not yet where they are in many things. So when I mentioned to her that I have a course for the empowerment of women entrepreneurs, she said that they would declare it discrimination here, and you should absolutely not do that in California. Because there you must not in any way promote or discriminate at any time of any gender, religion, race, age and so on. However, the fact is that there is a need to empower women entrepreneurs, and that shows that our situation is such that it is simply not as easy for women to start a business as it is for men. It is much easier for you and me in Belgrade than for women in Serbia, where the situation is even worse. Not only in the sense that they do not have property in their name, for example, due to some ingrained, old and outdated customs…

Sanja Milosavljević: That a man must be the owner of the land and farm eventually registered to him – although that is also changing. Here I have some data from the field – and that is changing. And I’m glad because of that.

Milica Čalija: Absolutely. What is also encouraging, I know that you go across Serbia, I know that you tell such stories. Because you know, we are generally a culture that condemns failure and we just learn that from an early age – in school you are punished by getting a bad grade because you didn’t do something well. Your search for a solution is not encouraged in any way, but it is either true – what the system says is true – or it is simply wrong. If it is wrong, if you are wrong – I mean in general in Serbia, in any republic of the former Yugoslavia, there is no particular understanding for entrepreneurship. We are talking about it for the last few years, but-

Sanja Milosavljević: We are in the decade dedicated to entrepreneurship. We are promoting entrepreneurship, so it is not a year it is a decade.

Milica Čalija: And I agree that things are changing. Because look, post-war communism had a proclamation of shooting entrepreneurs, as it was the number one enemy of the state – the entrepreneur. They will take his property, shoot him. So things are actually changing fast. What seems slow to us from our small life perspective is actually – we quickly came to a level where we are practically at the European level of understanding entrepreneurship, so to speak. And as far as women are concerned, I think that the need of society to punish a mistake is felt even more. You know, in order to succeed as a woman entrepreneur, you need the support of your close surroundings. In the sense that the whole burden of family and home does not have to be on you because if it is on you, you will simply burn out after a while doing full time work. Entrepreneurship is even more than a full time job. In that sense, there must be support in the sense that when you say that you have an idea that not everyone around you says “Oh, please, you have an idea” but to say “Great, go for it”. And if that idea doesn’t work, I’m afraid that women, especially in central Serbia, will face that condemnation even more, like, “You tried, it didn’t work, so what do you want now?” “I want to try again.” Because the second, third, fifth, tenth time may succeed. So in that sense I think there is a difference, but again the question is whether that difference is only in entrepreneurship. Does this difference exist equally in the company between women and men? Because before- Angels cookies have existed for about eight years. Before Angels cookies, I was the Marketing director at Foodland and before that the Corporate communications director at Jaffa from Crvenka. These are mostly all male collectives. I guess most of the teams in Serbia are still mostly male teams in those managerial circles, and it always took me an incredible amount of energy to simply convince people, first of my expertise in what I do. So I think that in general, women with careers – whether they are entrepreneurs, employees – are facing bigger challenges. Again, last year and the year before last I had the opportunity to work with the Swedish Embassy and the Institute on some environmental projects – there are still gender differences even in such a developed society as Sweden, only Sweden works very hard on it and I learned a lot working with them, for example, to make things seem innocuous and irrelevant – for example, we organize a panel with six speakers. It is very important that there are not five women and one man or five men and one woman. Rather, we place gender equality through all these non-verbal things. So we still have work to do but we are already somewhere. I think it’s better than, for example, 10 or 20 years ago, not to mention 50 years ago.

Sanja Milosavljević: Oh yeah, recently I heard on the radio one really interesting analysis of why women are traditionally considered to be bad drivers. And the explanation of one psychologist was that when you saw a girl 20 or 30 years ago who is now the mother – when did you see her playing with cars? Boys play with cars and we connect that to boys. As things change now, you will now see a girl playing with cars, but these today’s moms did not play, they do not have that kind of model, for example, for their children. So, you know, things are really changing. I like what you said from our perspective it seems slow but from a historical perspective 50 years is nothing. If at some point we will catch the right train and the right course and just continue to develop. Well OK. And in what way – well, no, it’s important for me to hear because it seems to me that we are sometimes – or we don’t talk about it or its some individual opinions or someone’s lonely opinion. That’s why it’s important to me and that’s why I asked you that.

Milica Čalija: You know which one- sorry to interrupt you, try to remember the question. I noticed working with other women, and before working in teams with other men, it is with men for some reason – now is it a matter of upbringing where like in the Balkans they are always great and women are never great or is it just some chemistry in the brain, I have no answer – but very often women doubt themselves even when they are much more knowledgeable and superior in a skill than men would suspect. And I remember those some colleagues and meetings where when a man says something he is completely sure – that’s it, I said that. While with women, sometimes she changes her mind so when she wants to start, she gets ready, she learns about business, she looks for a mentor or why I mention all this to you – I think it’s much smarter to have a woman mentor if you’re a woman who goes into business because what will mentor tell you, among other things, and how is the famous question “How to reconcile private and business life” and such things and I have the impression that there is no such competence – it exists as in psychology, I learned a lot about it, there is a dilemma whether there is an entrepreneurial spirit or not. And when we define what an entrepreneurial spirit is, is it something you are simply born with as a person or do you simply develop it because you are forced to develop some skills and such are your work circumstances. In that sense, I also dealt with some study of achievement motives and entrepreneurship motives, and whether there is an entrepreneurial motive at all in psychology where men start from those external motives. It is important for them, for example, to use the market opportunity or to make money and buy a better car, while women’s motives are internal. And she wants to realize her idea, or to change the environment, to change the world around her or to organize her life better, so she doesn’t want to work for someone, but she wants something that she knows how to do for herself. That is perhaps another important thing that distinguishes “orthodox” entrepreneurship and women’s entrepreneurship.

Sanja Milosavljević: I use it all the time now, it is – my grandmother always had that saying. And when the cordless phones appeared, she asked “Well, where is that orthodox phone?” And we are all like “What do you mean by orthodox phone?” “Well, you know the real phone.” And then I adopted it and now it’s a thermometer and a digital thermometer – my thermometer is orthodox and a digital thermometer is just a thermometer, yes. Well, you already mentioned that, so you and we were a mentoring couple together in the project “Share knowledge, become a mentor”, you were my mentor and that experience was very valuable to me. Not only as an acquaintance with all these women, but just an experience in the sense that if I have a problem, I call you and you don’t solve it for me, you don’t solve my problems but you can advise me, you can help me not to spend some money, to point out to me the mistakes I make. So I really like the general notion of mentoring. What does the term mentoring mean to you, who are your mentors, who do you turn to when you have a problem?

Milica Čalija: It’s the same – thanks for that question. Mentoring for me – I also wrote an article on the Angels cookies blog about it – and I think that at the time when I was in the same program in a mentoring pair with a girl who started producing prunes and dried fruit.

Sanja Milosavljević: Sandra…Živković?

Milica Čalija: Sandra Zivkovic, yes. By the way, Sandra Zivkovic is a complete hero. She is a woman who was born with cystic fibrosis and who had a lung transplant and who is practically living a second life and just when I met her I wrote about how much mentoring does not mean, in fact it is not consulting work at all and if it is a successful mentoring pair, I always cite you as an example because it’s literally my – my definition of mentoring – where in the end both people grow out of that relationship. We do not enter as a student and a teacher, but literally as two persons, where one has an experience that can share with the other, but in fact a two-way street and in the end it completely develops into a new and quality relationship.

Sanja Milosavljević: Yes, it really gets a completely new dimension.

Milica Čalija: A new dimension, that’s right, I learned things from Sandra that I couldn’t imagine. In fact, even now I can only imagine some of them. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live another life, literally. And how does that then change your priorities in life, in fact. So mentoring is a completely precious relationship, and that particular program is very dear to me because there is no woman out of it who isn’t great, really. Somehow, Svetlana who started it, then Zorana who continued to lead that program – their energy probably just attracts some great women and it is a very stable, very high quality support network that has been working for years and I can really, any of these women, I can ask for advice, for some contact, for anything and it works in the opposite direction. So it’s totally, absolutely just a great program. It is currently closed for application, in the sense that it is currently an ongoing season, but it is always open sometimes in September-October, so follow “Share knowledge become a mentor” because it is

Sanja Milosavljević: Every November is a call for a new generation…

Milica Čalija: That’s right.

Sanja Milosavljević: It starts at the end of summer and there is a call for participation.

Milica Čalija: Regarding my mentors, it is silly, but my mum is my mentor.

Sanja Milosavljević: Why not, for me it is perfectly fine. I mean, it is not…

Milica Čalija: Mum is more like a role model, in fact-

Sanja Milosavljević: Now I’m sorry to interrupt you again, I sincerely hope that no one will misunderstand now, but our mother is our opponent at some point, right? When we grow up, and then when we are mature, then mother really becomes one very important pillar – she is your pillar all the time, but that is different – a different relationship actually develops.

Milica Čalija: Yes, in fact you are absolutely right. I have this infantile phase where it is literally just a role model. And I wasn’t aware of that for a long time. Mom worked in a cardboard factory. It is a completely non-female occupation. She finished the organization of work and was working in that field. And she was actually dealing with the fitting of which raw materials, in what way and in what time, cardboard, boxes and so on will go on further production. Many times it happened that they called her and said that the machine had stopped. The raw material is not good, the raw material is late, it is gone. Many times she sat in the car and returned to the factory because she could not solve it by phone. So to me, when they say our moms come at two, they have no obligations, I am like, that’s right, yes. And mine, returned a thousand times to the factory. But what I was seeing just became completely normal for me now, that, like I never even thought when they asked to choose children or a career, it never existed as a dilemma at all, it was just whether one two, three or more careers and not to choose – family or career.

Sanja Milosavljević: One or the other.

Milica Čalija: Yes. And then, comes that period of adolescence when you have to deny the primary family of whatever gender and whatever parent you have and it’s a normal process to build yourself into some independent personality and then what comes after that period when you actually fully understand and that the mother is the same being, and that she has some flaws of her own and you accept those flaws and learn something from it and you can talk to her and she will advise you. Mom is actually an HR manager among other things, because as a company with a social mission, it simply did not come as a decision, now we will, from tomorrow, we will employ women from vulnerable groups. It really turned out to be something that happens in practice. It started when my mother had some former colleagues who did not yet have fulfilled prerequisites for retirement, they did some fine office work such as accounting, and then they suddenly lost their jobs and wanted to clean houses, for example. Then my mother asked, well, why wouldn’t you make cakes at my Milica’s because it’s much nicer and easier and she always has coffee and tea and everything, and then it just started that at one point I realized that all of women, older than 50 work for us, and that most of them actually all have some kind of chronic condition at the moment that doesn’t stop them from doing those jobs but it just kind of happened. So she is somehow very important to me and it is a great situation for me at work to have a husband both as a partner in life and as a partner in company and that we have completely different views of the world and job, that are complementary, but different. So I really learn a lot from him, he says that he also learns from me, so it’s a life-mentoring situation where you really just choose someone from whom you can learn about history and culture and everything and some business things, not in the sense the knowledge that he has in business than in terms of those of his reactions, the way he observes, the way he plans, it is somehow very valuable to me that I just have such a person in life and work, somehow it is very important for me.

Sanja Milosavljević: It is…

Milica Čalija: And I would say that this women’s network is very important to me, women that I sometimes call just like that to talk about work and life and some…

Sanja Milosavljević: Because it’s our life, I don’t think you can exclude any part. How do you feel about the role of our media in the past year? I mean, when you came today, you made a joke as if you knew this was going to be a question, the one that a food blogger said “follow us for more recipes.”

Milica Čalija: Yes. Well, I look at that crisis headquarters as the gods, someone who shapes our destiny, and today there was an extremely important session at which no measures were taken, but they said a new session is in three days, and then I’m kidding like, follow us for more recipes. You watch them on Friday and they say you won’t work or you will work and then you change your business somehow. Not to be misunderstood by people – I am a very responsible individual, I did not have Coronavirus. For all these months, I have managed to be very responsible so that neither I nor anyone in my family and team get sick, and I think that it is really valuable to be healthy in any sense, both during the pandemic and while the pandemic. Secondly, what particularly strikes me is that at this moment there are 170 deceased doctors from the consequences of Covid-19 – it is completely inadmissible and scandalous, and the health care that is falling apart and those who continue to work and who work with full dedication. I personally know some of them who completely stopped their lives because of the pandemic, and then it is completely irresponsible for me to go to cafes, this madness, gatherings of any kind, gatherings to light a candle for someone or to take communion, which means absolutely anything. – no matter how important it is to someone at this moment, it is completely inadmissible to do that. And the media, which somehow did not stand up in any way. You know how you have some pro-regime and anti-regime media and that is as important, when we politically glorify or slander, but people it is completely irrelevant. You know, it’s important to really raise the awareness of individuals that we need to be responsible individuals. So I don’t know what to tell you about the role of the media. I’m not even a media follower, let’s say we don’t have cable in the house and I get information through the portal when I want it, not the application, so they bomb me with – Nole won, Nole lost, this happened, that happened. You know, what I have to follow because of my business, I follow, and what I don’t have to follow, I don’t follow. And I deliberately allowed my circle of Facebook friends to create it for me – to be a filter of information for me, because when something is really important, everyone shares it on the networks, so for me, it’s very important to hear and find out. And the latter I actually find out what my friends have already filtered out and I know it’s a balloon and I know it’s some kind of pink glasses but I just feel comfortable there.

Sanja Milosavljević: I don’t see anything wrong with that bubble because it is unrealistic to be constantly exposed to all the stresses and fears of this world. It is completely logical for me that everyone builds their own balloon, has a close circle of family and friends and so, it is natural for me. It is not an argument for me against someone like you living in a balloon because that other one also lives in one, but in one of his own balloons. We’re all in a balloon. Maybe just a war reporter. I don’t know now, I’m making it up, but that’s it for me, it’s realistic for me.

Milica Čalija: Well, these doctors, for example, they are also in a balloon in which they probably never wanted to find themselves, not in a million years.

Sanja Milosavljević: But it’s their bubble at the moment. Yes, that is scandalously real. First, the number of deceased doctors, second, our behavior, that is, the behavior of individuals. It is clear to me exactly about that – communion, opening of monuments, lighting of candles, it is clear to me that people can no longer… I mean, that’s the one from the beginning of the story, people can’t do it anymore. They need it – I think that someone who has never listened to Djordje Balasevic may have suddenly had to go there because he can no longer withstand the pressure he has been living under, for the last year. And how do you think they communicated with us? Was there any strategy at all to communicate important things during a pandemic? It is clear to me that it happened at one point simultaneously all over the world, you have nowhere to look for a role model, how to behave in such a situation, but where is common sense? I mean, you don’t have to have 10 pandemics to know how to behave during the eleventh. How did that work for you? That reporting, that anticipation of the three afternoon crisis group sessions, that little ambiguity about how you should wear a mask, does it have to go over your nose or can it, and some things. Did they scare us or did they inform and calm us down?

Milica Čalija: I think it’s global and it’s great for me as an in vivo experiment in crisis communication, how did any government in the world cope with that – because it’s a de facto crisis situation.  

Sanja Milosavljević: Very serious one.

Milica Čalija: Very serious, that’s right. That’s what happened – I was in Jaffa by chance while I was still in the position of Assistant director of marketing, I got into a situation of crisis communication and a serious crisis when a laboratory in Slovenia allegedly found salmonella in Munchmallow. And it’s just such a serious crisis because Munchmallow is a brand, a serious brand even today and it threatened to seriously threaten it, especially since it’s a crisis where consumer health is at stake. It later turned out that the mistake was in the laboratory that they themselves contaminated the sample with some other sample. Of course, it was never officially acknowledged, and then it went like that, but it actually brought me that kind of twist from marketing to communications, and that actually sent me to New York for specialist studies in communication with a focus on crisis communication. And then I held many training sessions later in management, how do you put yourself in crisis communication, where when someone’s life is endangered, it is absolutely unmatched by the crisis of the first, first priority, that red bell rings non-stop. And the rule in such a crisis is that you have to communicate, that you have to communicate constantly and transparently and clearly, and that you constantly communicate that you care about someone. That is, to those endangered or non-endangered lives. So, from that professional perspective, it was very fun to see how some different countries managed in the world, how they solved that crisis. I have an impression that, say, the Italian media were even more surprised than ours. Because with them, in fact, it started in Europe first, so maybe that also contributed to the fact that they were all kind of out of it. But just like ours they were looking for clicks in those crazy times and as they were posting some pictures of the coffin and raising a panic to keep people still reading. So, in general, I don’t know if the code of journalism exists at all. One of my hobbies to say so, or one of my pro bono activities, the mission to say so is the administration of a Facebook group called “It’s important to you” group was started by Ane Mari Ćurčić who had the misfortune that her daughter committed a suicide and she actually wanted to turn that life tragedy into something that makes sense, and that is to draw attention to the care of mental health, to start talking about mental health and what has become something – what crystallized along the way and what The small team of five of us that Ana gathered around that idea is dealing with, and that is the way in which journalists report on suicide, on any kind of tragedy, because it cannot happen, that someone suffer and the media doesn`t dig in there. Their farewell letters, to guess why something happened, to go into some details, to go to the family’s door, to disturb that family in their pain, it’s just so normal with us. And then having such reporting as a base and normal, then it’s normal for us to report on everything like that – and on the pandemic, it’s all so scandalous, shocking, click for a disturbing photo, why on Earth would I click to watch disturbing – why did you post at all disturbing photo? But it is clear why. Because we just all have that innate confirmation – in fact, we are driven by those instincts from the cave period that were then used to survive in the cave and now they are completely useless, you know. You don’t have to know why someone was killed and in what way. Because there is something called information of public importance and of course it should be transmitted, and there is nonsense that exists to get clicks and it should not be transmitted. So I’m not sure, in our country the media are in such a bad condition and I’m not sure that they can raise something on their own because simply when they try, it is not financially viable. We just have to have someone come from the side, I don’t even know some European funds from the side to teach us again about that nice behavior in the media.

Sanja Milosavljević: Yes, for me – the first time I realized how wrong they are and how unprofessionally they actually do it is when one of our neighbors wasn’t sure how to put on the mask. Like, from which side – she looked at that three-layer mask, like should it go towards the face and what goes outside. Then, for example, a stretcher – it’s like pressing that part of the nose, she carried it on the bottom. Or she wears one mask for ten days because in the beginning they were 100 and more dinars per piece. But she was literally someone should have explained to her how and from which side that mask is worn, nothing is taken for granted. I don’t think she’s any worse or better than other people – nothing is taken for granted. Explain to people how to put on a mask, if you really want them to wear that mask. Now I would like to ask you something about what self-development means to you. What would that be? Now, we know each other and I know, but I think it’s really important to say that, to spread it, that needs to be heard, further.

Milica Čalija: Yes, but it is very complex and it is a great question and it implies everything. In general, this lifelong learning is a close topic to me. I enrolled in postgraduate studies in 2018 as well, and I really thank Covid-19 for being able to complete them online, because they were supposed to be realized in America, so they were completely feasible online. They are in the field of Psychology and I actually started to learn it from the courses and then I realized that in the courses they tell me some things that I already learned in college and why I wouldn’t actually learn that basic, whole thing that my child says when he asks me “Do you know all Italian?” To learn the whole psychology, that is, not told in the course, but to really take it as a study. And that meant a lot to me in terms of the new tools I would get to lead my team. To empower children to be some great people today or tomorrow, to work on myself and to use those skills through consulting activities. Because it has happened in the last few years that there is actually no moment that I don’t have at least some 2-3 companies that I run in that kind of consulting arrangement. So working on yourself is like-

Sanja Milosavljević: I mean, that really sounds awful. It’s a phrase that I personally don’t like to hear, but let’s say it. What is self-development? Is it working on yourself to block the bad content that comes to you? Is it self-development, that I don’t know, you read one page a day? You know? Is it self-development, because now everyone is too busy and no one is doing anything and there are always some excuses not to deal with oneself? For me, working on yourself is to decide to drink, I don’t know, a fresh orange juice and skip one glass of wine. You know, it`s self-development, too.

Milica Čalija: Well, in fact, it is, you know, either you decide to practice or something like that. By the way, it was too cute for me during the pandemic, how in the beginning we all had worked on ourselves and like everyone, do the exercises, and we all learned something and we all do something because we have so much time at home and then that time went on and on and on and on no longer did anyone have the strength to work on themselves but everyone was, like just not to go crazy. Then we came to the point, and we crossed that point as well, and then it was as if let`s don`t be very crazy…

Sanja Milosavljević: Yes, just to go crazy in small portions.

Milica Čalija: Yes, within certain limits, to stay normal. So for me, working on myself is a concern for mental health in the first place, and I think you have to turn some years when you start to realize that it shouldn’t be a priority. And that you really shouldn’t really care what some people who are not important to you, think. And when they have the opinion, that yours is simply the most important thing to you. In that sense, working on oneself is primarily a matter of mental health. You know, to learn to recognize what is bothering you the most and then eliminate it. With that, you really learn – I see from my children how difficult it is to learn – what depends on me and what does not. Because only the things I do and the way I will react really depend on me. It can’t depend on me what the weather is like outside. What the crisis headquarters decided, whether or not there is a vaccine. These are not things that depend on me, my reaction to those circumstances can only depend on me. And many people tell me when I explain this to them “yes but I can’t control it, my anxiety is stronger” and the things alike. Work on yourself, let’s say you decide to learn techniques that will allow you to control your reaction more, for example. My concrete work on myself – me, learning is really very fulfilling and of all the things we all set out to do on ourselves in a pandemic, I used Duo Lingo App to learn French and yesterday I did a test and now I’m already on a level between A2 and B1, which is completely fascinating to me because it’s been less than a year. So let’s say that self-development is anything that fills you up and makes you feel better the next day. I think that everything you do is self-development. Specifically, working on myself is a regular exercise, not because I want to look hot, but because I would like my body to stay healthy in fact. Because it is also very important, because if your body is sick where your soul will live, then it becomes burdened with some of those diseases of the body. All together is self-development. Diet, for example, I haven’t eaten meat for several months, and that’s part of my self-development.

Sanja Milosavljević: Great, really because when it is said that people are working on themselves or they imagine that it is some work that is impossible and in fact they do not see that it is some small things that you do during the day. Okay, you can work, but if you have some really serious problems, then you should work with an expert on those problems. But like this, if you have something small that you can correct, then today you can do it a little, tomorrow, in a year, you can really drastically improve the quality of your life, which is the point. Finally, I want to ask you something that is very interesting to me as a topic. Recently, you wrote something on your Facebook profile that has to do with TikTok. And with the children who will in 10-15 years, the current users of TikTok, they are slowly entering the labor market. These are children who will work in a company tomorrow, and they are actually, for example, our customers. Buyers of our cakes/pasta. All those children will grow up, have their own children, so they will buy cookies for them. What is this generation like for us? Because that’s what I’m really trying to do – I’m trying to be open and understand all those technologies and all those social networks. Come on, we’ve mastered Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn, I don’t know what, Twitter, but to me it’s completely off the radar that there are some new types networks, like of TikTok – I know it exists but I’ve never seen what it looks like on the phone. What do you think about that? You have children who are at certain age and they are slowly entering and starting to use social networks and TikTok. So, what does it look like – I’m not asking you to be a prophet, but what does this look like, what is their mental structure? They talk to the camera, the phones – they may not have direct communication with the living person. How do we then, as employers or as providers of services or products, how do we adapt to them? What should we do?

Milica Čalija: You know, maybe the fact that they talk more through the camera or on the phone actually spared them the nervous breakdown of this pandemic because we who are used to hugging and watching each other are actually in trouble, they are not. Yes, two of my three children have TikTok and it was kind of okay for me to let them use it, because I could not ban them everyhing and introduce all possible parental filters and prohibitions, but they would come in touch with anything on the internet and would not know how to behave. This is how I go through with them what they follow and what they come across on social networks and I know what’s on TikTok and what it looks like and I can tell you that there are really great things, really, so there are young people who try to make sense of some tricks, in order to come up with some very vital jokes – for example, they show small problems of children with which every child can identify. And it’s great for two reasons. The first thing is that they really make some effort to create what is called content, and the second thing that I actually You know how, maybe the fact that they talk more through the camera or on the phone actually spared them the nervous breakdown of this pandemic because we who are used to hugging and watching are actually in trouble, they are not. But the joke aside, yes, two of my three children have TikTok and it was kind of okay for me to let them because I could give them nothing and introduce all possible parental filters and prohibitions, but they would come to touch with anything on the internet and would not know how to set up. This is how I go through with them what they follow and what they come across on social networks and from there and I know what’s on TikTok and what it looks like and I can tell you that there are really great things, really, so there are young people who try to make sense some trick that, in order to come up with some very vital jokes – for example, they show small problems of children with which every child can identify. And it’s great for two reasons. The first thing is that they really make some effort to create what is called content, that is, the content, and the second thing that I actually remember, subconsciously is that everything that is now to us – I don’t know, it won’t mean anything to you, but try to imagine to remember the embarrassment when you raise your hand and instead of the word “teacher “you say mom and then the whole class laughs at you. And I completely forgot about it – it happened to each of us. Now they tell each other these tricks on TikTok, there are some with exceptional skills who play something in those short forms of video, perform acrobatics, roll over on BMXs and skateboards, and I see that, it’s important for me to go through with the children and explain to them the content. What I should explain to them is that not everything they see on TikTok is true because they are like, wow, they will ban TikTok tomorrow. Well, let’s find that news on Google, does it really exist anywhere else except at TikTok. They follow YouTube, let’s say … I don’t know who these people are who watch this Baka Prase, YouTuber who now sees something and is officially sued for something, I don’t follow. But let’s say my children aren’t. They are looking for someone with some skill to watch it. Just like everything on the Internet, TikTok and every other social network offers you garbage and smart things and something neutral that wastes time, so it’s up to you to choose how you will use it. So it’s important to me to teach them to use social networks, to have distrust of strangers, not to be naive, to check the news because I see that even adults don’t know how to do that. He saw some news – I almost saw “Serbia sells blah blah blah there” and everyone immediately shared it, you know no one to check who said that, is it true, did it happen. I mean, the news is irrelevant, but no one checks it. We all seem to believe something we see on those networks. And that’s really scary because it’s amazing how much technology and society has gone and the school system is still on the benches. And instead of not learning by heart the years because the years are in your pocket, you take them out of your pocket and they are available to you on click, it teaches you how to use and filter that information, we still bug something and punish mistakes with bad grades. But then we have our whole lives to correct what they taught us.  remember is everything that is now to us – I don’t know, it won’t mean anything to you, but try to imagine that you remember that embarrassment when you raise your hand and instead of the teacher you say mom and then the whole class laughs at you. And I completely forgot about it – it happened to each of us. Now they tell each other these tricks on TikTok, there are some with exceptional skills who play something in those short forms of video, perform acrobatics, roll over on BMXs and skateboards, and I see that I tell you first, it’s important for me to go with the children and explain to them. What should I explain to them is that not everything they see on TikTok is true because they are like, wow, tomorrow they will ban TikTok. Well, let’s find that news on Google, does it really exist anywhere else except at TikTok. They follow YouTube, let’s say … I don’t know who these people are, the people who watch this Baka Prase, the YouTuber who is now officially sued for something, I don’t follow. But let’s say my children aren’t watching this. They are looking for someone with some skill, to watch it. Just like everything on the Internet, TikTok and every other social network offers you garbage and smart things and something neutral that wastes your time, so it’s up to you to choose how you will use it. So it’s important to me to teach them to use social networks, to have distrust of strangers, not to be naive, to check the news because I see that even adults don’t know how to do that. They see some news – I almost saw “Serbia sells blah blah blah there” and everyone immediately shared it, you know, no one checked who said that, is it true, did it happen. I mean, the news is irrelevant, but no one checks it. We all seem to believe something we see on those networks. And that’s really scary because it’s amazing how much technology and society has gone and the school system is still left behind. And instead of not learning by heart the years when something happened, because the years are in your pocket, you take them out of your pocket and they are available to you on click, it teaches you how to use and filter that information, we still learn by heart and punish mistakes with bad grades. But then we have our whole lives to correct what they taught us.

Sanja Milosavljević: I know, but it’s really hard when in early period, when you’re open to everything and you soak up like a sponge and you are wrongly directed-

Milica Čalija: Yes, they teach you how to close in side yourself.

Sanja Milosavljević: Yes, instead of doing the opposite-

Milica Čalija: I realized that when we were doing a math task and the task was to write the following ordinal numbers. And now if he writes one, my child writes the following one, if it says three, he writes the fourth. And I say, okay, wait, write the following ordinal numbers. And he says yes – they are next. And then I realize that I just did a sufficient number of tasks to understand the task itself and that he will actually fit in, too. And I feel really bad and that actually leads to the answer to your question. I mentioned to you that I read some ancient Roman and ancient Greek texts and it’s totally awesome because some of these people 25 centuries ago, some of these writers watched the younger generations and wondered where this world is going to, with this generation- this is the end of the world, and we will perish after them. And it is literally one and the same mantra that, when people get in some age, they see these young people as “woe to these young people” and to me young people are great and I can learn a lot from them. And I have the impression that, just like every generation so far, at some point, unfortunately, they will become those old people who are whining about these young people. And what may differentiate them when they come to the labor market and in general from us is that it is not really bad for them, it may be bad for the business system. They are accustomed to the way and circumstances in which they grow up … for example, you drink juice or want to eat pizza. You go to a store that works 24 hours a day. Or you don’t even have to leave – Walt will bring you that pizza. That did not exist when we were children. If you don’t buy bread until two o’clock, you buy that horrible dark bread that lasts forever or after five, for example, it doesn’t exist at all. You run out of bread. You know, they have what is called in psychology in English, instant gratification which we could translate as instant satisfaction of needs and they also have it on social media. And they literally don’t have to wait for the News to end to watch cartoons – they don’t have to wait for anything and I think that will happen – that’s perhaps the biggest difference between us and them. Because we are ready to do things that we may not like or do not want to and to wait for a result, and they may have to learn that because there is simply nothing without waiting for the result. Ultimately, think about this, I don’t know, you want to exercise something, so you need at least 2-3 months of exercises in order to see some muscles.

Sanja Milosavljević: First results, yes…

Milica Čalija: So that might be a problem. And I don’t think they need to fit into the system now. Rather, I think we need to learn from them and that there are things that machines can do. And when I say machines, I don’t just mean that someone will be able to make cookies not by hand but by machine, but they will be able to evaluate written assignments. And artificial intelligence. And that’s what artificial intelligence should do. And I think that human resources will be a very important segment of the future and that they will actually deal more with some personal development, and I think that’s fine, then they lead to a balance of business and private life. That you don’t go there to bother and do something that the machine can do tomorrow, but to really give some contribution by working. So that I wouldn’t whine about it, it carries all its differences all the time, and just as we were terrible to our grandparents, so probably grandchildren of our children will be like, woe to our children, the end of the world is coming, but it will not come until we destroy our planet in terms of climate. It does not depend on the young generation. It actually depends.

Sanja Milosavljević: It depends, yes, that’s what I wanted to say, it actually depends. Since we still have- we do not have many natural resources, and they are left with them. So yes, it depends.

Milica Čalija: Yes, but unlike us, they know the difference, they are aware that resources are limited.

Sanja Milosavljević: Yes and that’s great for me. But it is also a job that has been worked on. You know, to tell people we can’t forever – there won’t copper be forever. There will be no metal – there will be no iron. Sorry, I remember my dad’s gray bird, his car – Volga. It is a car that weighed more than a ton. I mean I’m driving a Punto now that weighs maybe 200kg. And that metal went to waste, and that is a metal that can be returned to production, and that same raw material can be used many times, so I think it depends on them. It depends on us, but it also depends on them. Well thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for the knowledge, for the experience you shared with us. You followed the Mondopreneur podcast

Milica Čalija: By the way, it’s a great name, I told you that on Facebook but I have to say it again. Mondopreneur is just kind of the essence of what we do.

Sanja Milosavljević: Well, Ivan Minić came up with the name, all credits go to him. It has nothing to do with me.

Milica Čalija: Ok, that’s not the only genius thing he came up with.

Sanja Milosavljević: It’s not the only genius thing he came up with, but it’s one of many, because everyone says it’s a great name and that he hit the bull’s eye. Because he connected, what needed to be connected.

Milica Čalija: Thank you and you know the English say “thanks for having me” and that’s great. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to wear a dress, for inspiring me and I’m kind of glad that I’m now in period of life- like we used to get ready for some guys for example, and then they taught us you’re getting ready for yourself not because of guy. And in fact, now I’m in the phase in life of getting ready more for friends than for guys – in fact, now I’m not getting ready for boys anymore, only for friends.

Sanja Milosavljević: I’m not getting ready for my boyfriend anymore. Yes, I’m getting ready now – I’m really getting ready for myself and my friends. Thank you, and you inspired me to wear the dress. Those little joys that are the result of a year of being locked in the house, like wearing a dress.

Milica Čalija: Just wait for the pandemic to pass, and it will pass as everything in life passes, as Buddhists would say, everything passes good and bad. And we will wear dresses every day – and heels. Heels and dresses.

Sanja Milosavljević: I can’t wait for both the hair and the dress and all in a row. All. Yes, thank you again. Follow us. Type Mondopreneur – you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, on all the audio platforms that exist. Be good and in good health and see you in a week.