With a meaningful purpose driving the company, it will be easier to draw in top-tier employees, influential advisors, financial backers, and loyal patrons. That's because nowadays people choose to buy goods from reputable companies that share their values. The strength of one's motivations is crucial to the development of a successful enterprise. The majority of business owners that succeed are able to define their motivations for starting their businesses. Having a strong sense of why you do what you do can help you persevere through the inevitable bad patches, raise the bar for your company, inspire your employees to work toward a common goal, and draw in and maintain consumers who share your passion. Janine Jakob is the epitome of a purposedriven entrepreneur who followed her dreams to build a successful business with a positive social effect via her work with Full Potential Partners. With an emphasis on self-improvement and happiness as a success factor, Janine is a global citizen, international founder, Passionaholic, Peak Performance Coach, Soft Skills Trainer, Motivational Speaker, and Networking Host. And in Shanghai, China, Janine started her own training and consulting firm from scratch, with no initial capital or local partners, and began working with clients as diverse as Volkswagen, Alibaba, and Givenchy, as well as local SMEs and start-up hubs. In an exclusive interview with Women Entrepreneur magazine, Janine explained her inspiration for becoming an entrepreneur and the experience so far.

Give us an overview of Full Potential Partners.

Full Potential Partners is situated in Shanghai, China. It's a consulting firm that I started, and its principal objectives include training, coaching, and consulting to unlock individuals’ and teams’ full potential. Living in a VUCA world, short for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, or differently saying 'Hey, we’re going through crazy times!' - mental fitness is needed by everyone independently of their position to use their full potential on a daily basis. When it comes to training, mental fitness and leadership are core trainings we provide. Also it seems that all roads lead back to the need for effective communication, whether we're talking about cross-cultural (virtual) understanding, making new connections, or delivering a speech in front of a group. As a result of our many online and offline collaborators, we are able to provide executive, life, business and career coaching, relationship counseling, and health coaching in a variety of languages. Furthermore, because of our firm's belief that a positive work environment is directly associated with business success, we also provide consulting services to businesses.

In addition, as a leader it was crucial to me that we adopt certain measures because we all want to succeed; our teams are made up of unique people, and our leaders all have high ideals for themselves. However, we also want to make sound judgments and take care of our personnel. Therefore, it is in our best interest to provide our workforce with a positive work environment and make them feel valued.

What led to you establishing Full Potential Partners? Tell us about the underlying idea behind the company and some of its most unique features.

When pursuing my master's degree in international business in China and Germany, I concentrated on entrepreneurship, marketing and China as a region. A Success Factor Happiness course was offered to us by Munich Business School. Initially, I questioned the relevance of studying about elements of positive psychology, neuroscience, and biology to my education as a business major. The course's emphasis on the topic's significance impacted me and many former students greatly. The lessons I learned in the class helped me relax about my own short comings and see the world differently. After finishing this course, I decided to relocate for my double masters degree to a French business school in Suzhou, China. That's where I founded the Happiness Student Association at SKEMA Business School next to studying in full-time and still working virtually for HP Germany. Since I believed that more people needed to be exposed to and experience those techniques which eventually became the inspiration to found my own firm Full Potential Partners. Through this experience, I realized that I see my life’s purpose and myself as the bridge to inspire, train, coach, and motivate people to unlock their full potential which ultimately makes people successful and happy at work. Like this, I hope to have a positive influence on the world. Therefore, the company’s vision is about the creation of happy, healthy and successful workplaces and lives worldwide. Our mission is to improve decision-making across the spectrum, both internally and externally to the organization.

Tell us about the various techniques, tools, and strategies you employ as a trainer. How do you intend to empower individuals through your training and coaching services?

With the help of the correct questions and our 64- card deck and published book, you can learn to coach yourself through any challenge. And whether I'm training, coaching, or advising, I always ask a lot of really essential questions that force people to dig deep inside themselves for the answers. In a training, for instance, I might go over everything that needs to be covered in detail, but I never just train by giving answers and tools to follow blindly; instead, I make sure to incorporate some sort of personal element into the combination. Giving each participant the freedom to discover his or her own answers, path, leadership style, and communication preferences while still aligning with the company’s given values/ culture.

Furthermore, we all approach problems differently and have unique solutions, and self-determination ultimately rests on one's own sense of assurance and conviction in oneself. And in my work as a speaker, trainer, and coach, I constantly aim to empower others by providing them with the self-belief, confidence, mindset, and resources that allow them to choose and live their own path.

Throw light on some of the most critical challenges you face in your current role. What steps do you take to overcome the roadblocks that you face as a trainer?

In fact, being a foreigner in China presents the greatest difficulty right from the first, when we establish our firm here. Finding a reliable agency that can assist with business formation is a priority for those of us who are new to the nation. It was difficult; I almost had to leave the country due to visa problems and a lack of reliable support from the agency; I also don't have a perfect command of the local language yet. Even nowadays the process of renewing my visa, as required by law, is becoming more onerous for noncitizens. Secondly, if we're going to talk about cultural differences, it's really tough to win the business of people who choose culturally authentic Chinese businesses. Especially given the trend I've seen of dwindling Chinese interests in hiring foreigners, I think it's imperative that you have a strong network and be introduced to the right people inside the organization who can convince them that you're an asset. Soft skills, communication, and leadership may be themes that are suitable for many Chinese not only international businesses.

Although, mental health is a popular issue on every continent. Nonetheless, it is not significant enough that many Chinese individuals would throw up their doors and invite us to join their companies and join their teams. Because many employers still see their employees as replaceable. And the businesses here think, for what reason should we care about their contentment and mental health  Business expansion and attracting new customers remain formidable obstacles since the service I provide is so novel and immature in this region of the world. Although workplace happiness and mental fitness are still new topics, now that we have been and still go through several very challenging lockdowns that are still costing people’s livelihoods and nerves that may result in a drastically increasing need for such topics.

In your opinion what are some of the most significant milestones that you have achieved throughout your professional journey? What has been the driving force behind your success as a professional?

Many accomplishment stand out to me but I value most the contributions of each and every member of the team. Every single individual who has ever seen or experienced our work is important to me. Having a client or team member remark that they feel 'something has been ignited within them' as a result of our work is, to me, the greatest success. When individuals tell me that I've given them the confidence to go through with their objectives, claiming that it has had a profound impact on their lives and the interests of others around them. Further, the driving force stems from my life's purpose and the influence I've been able to have by sowing seeds and improving society. Although I realized during the 61-day Shanghai lockdown I could perform so much of my job online, I have been able to focus on growing my business outside China through my online brand, Monday Morning Motivation. The globe, or at least Southeast Asia, is ready for Full Potential Partners and Monday Morning Motivation, therefore it excites me to travel to further countries in the upcoming months now that travel restrictions are becoming loser.

“Believe in yourself, think positive, make a plan, take action, grow your network, stay persistent, and you'll find that you have more strength, drive, and inner fortitude to draw on in any situation”

Drawing from your experience as a business leader, what would your advice be to young women and girls who also aspire to become business leaders and entrepreneurs in the future?

As I was not born to wealthy parents who could provide everything comfortably for me, I learned at an early age to work harder in order to make my dreams come true. Since this was the case, my parents had their doubts and thought it was really insane that I was starting my own business without savings in a foreign country at this point after quitting my safe career at multinational IT company HP. If you have a goal and are willing to put in the effort to achieve it, it doesn't matter where you come from or how much money or support you have at all. Believe in yourself, think positive, then make a plan, take action, grow your network, stay persistent, and you'll find that you have more strength, drive, and inner fortitude to draw on in any situation.

Janine Jakob, Founder, Full Potential Partners

Coach and trainer Janine Jakob from Germany started the Shanghai based Full Potential Partners consulting firm after working for global IT company Hewlett-Packard (HP) for seven years. Janine holds a double Masters degree in International Business from two countries. She is the enthusiastic creator of several Suzhou based networking events, such as Girl Gone International, Jinji Network, and fostered mutual understanding at InterNations Suzhou. Janine now advocates for positive mental health and personal self-development in her online community Monday Morning Motivation throughout China and beyond. Intercultural communication, leadership, public speaking, coaching (mental fitness, life, and career), team development, and employee retention are all areas in which she excels.