New Mindset Coaching & Training

18/10/2026

Hold space, not answers.
Many voices shape the way.
Wisdom grows between.

Three unforgettable days of immersion into the Art of Hosting and Participatory Leadership.

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Tools are frames. And frames only become limitations when we mistake them for goals.

Participatory Leadership is celebrating 20 years of practice, serving through the Art of Hosting the specific context of the European Commission and EU institutions

Once again and like for the first time I experienced full-size methods such as the well-known Open Space and World Café - only this time, superb practitioners took us behind the tools, into the thinking and design that make them work.

And I discovered approaches new to me: Feedforward, strengthening learning by looking ahead; ProAction Café, an action-oriented blend of Open Space and World Café; and, the king in this kingdom for me, Harvesting Collective Stories.

What fascinated me about harvesting was how active listening takes on a new dimension: multiple points of attention become possible when we tap into the resources of the collective. We don’t all have to listen for the same thing to create shared meaning.

One-to-one coaching and the profound impact that focused work can have for one person remains one of my great loves among growth methodologies.
Yet the EC’s Participatory Leadership practice gave me an invaluable gift: an insight, and a reminder.

Confidence comes with competence.�And competence comes with practice.

An incredible team of trainers, a wonderful community of fellow Participatory Leadership practitioners, and 60 new friends with whom we shared the beginning of a new journey.

Now comes the important part: the practice.



New Mindset Coaching & Training | Svetoslava Stoyanova

10/10/2026

This week in Málaga we joined our European partners in the IDEAL project — and had the pleasure of facilitating a LEGO® Serious Play® workshop for the partners and trainers.

Our work in the project bridges adult education and leadership through design thinking, while exploring an increasingly important question: how is AI influencing the way we learn and teach?

Together, we worked on the curriculum design, refining its themes and content before moving into the next phase — testing it in practice with trainers in Belgium, Bulgaria, Romania and Spain in the coming months.

And, of course, LEGO® bricks joined the conversation. They helped us structure our thinking, make connections visible and look at the curriculum from a more systemic perspective — staying true to our creative ideas while asking an essential question: Will what we design genuinely serve the trainers we work with in our respective communities?

A few intense and creative days of learning, building and thinking together.



Led by Projects and Events (Romania), IDEAL brings together New Mindset Coaching & Training (Belgium) with Social Innovators България and Evolving Education (Spain). Our shared mission: to elevate adult education by integrating leadership development, design thinking, and cutting-edge digital tools including AI.

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IDEAL aims to support adult educators in developing leadership, creativity, and digital readiness, so that adult learning in Europe becomes more innovative, inclusive, and connected to the real needs of society.
IDEAL is a project co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme, 2025-1-RO01-KA220-ADU-000360862

03/10/2026

AI in Mentoring: keeping human judgement at the heart of the AI age

How can AI support mentors without replacing what matters most in mentoring — human connection, judgement and meaningful dialogue?

This was at the heart of the AI in Mentoring Final Conference, held on 30 September in Sofia as part of the Erasmus+ project bringing together partners from Belgium, Bulgaria and Spain.

New Mindset Coaching & Training (NMCT) was glad to contribute perspectives from both sides of the learning journey.

Tatiana Levceva, one of the mentors participating from Belgium, shared her experience of working with mentees and reflected on the practical journey of integrating AI into mentoring.

Svetoslava Stoyanova joined on behalf of the trainers of mentors, sharing insights from the training experience and looking ahead to a broader question: as AI becomes increasingly present in how we learn and work, how do we preserve human judgement and keep our own thinking active?

For us at NMCT, this is an essential conversation. AI can extend what mentors and learners are able to do — but its value depends on how consciously we use it. The aim is not to outsource our thinking, but to use technology in ways that strengthen reflection, curiosity and human capacity.

The conference marked the closing stage of the project — and, we hope, the continuation of many conversations about AI, mentoring and the future of learning.

29/09/2026

🌍 AI Navigators in the European conversation on digital education

We are happy to see Stéphane Biron, one of our AI Navigators in Belgium, bringing his experience from the project into a wider European exchange on the future of digital education.

The discussion comes at a particularly relevant moment, following the publication of the new Eurydice report Digital Education at School in Europe 2026: Bridging Gaps in Access, Teaching and Learning.

Drawing on Eurydice policy data and ICILS 2023, the report examines digital education across 38 European education systems — from infrastructure and access to digital competences, teacher preparedness and the growing role of AI in teaching and learning.

For us at New Mindset Coaching & Training, this connects directly with the work taking place through AI Navigators: Empowering Teachers for the AI Era.

As an AI Navigator, Stéphane has been working with teachers in Belgium and contributing his own classroom and training experience to the project. His participation in this European exchange is another opportunity to bring the realities of teachers into the wider conversation about digital transformation.

And one message from the new European evidence resonates particularly strongly with our work: digital transformation is not only about access to technology. Teachers need the competences, confidence, professional development and space to explore how technology — including AI — can genuinely support learning.

From European policy discussions to experimentation in the classroom, this is exactly the bridge AI Navigators aims to strengthen.

👏 Thank you, Stéphane, for representing the experience of our Belgian AI Navigators and sharing the learning emerging from the project!

24/09/2026

Hands build what might be.
Seven voices find one space.
Bricks hold what emerged.
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Yesterday Svetoslava Stoyanova spent a full day with seven leaders working on the team they chose to be together.

She summarised the day in haiku, then elaborated on the story behind it:
“We started with LEGO® Serious Play®.
We ended with LEGO® Serious Play® and one shared model.

But the most important work happened somewhere in between.

There were bricks, metaphors, Character Strengths, movement and carefully designed questions. And then there were moments when the design needed to give way to the conversation.

Because something I often say to clients proved true again:

The tool is not the goal.

The goal is to create the conditions in which people can think together differently: speak about what matters, stay with different perspectives, notice what is already strong, surface what is difficult, and discover something they could not have reached individually.

At some point, my role shifted almost entirely from bringing the methodology to holding the space - listening, asking, allowing silence, and trusting the seven leaders to do the work that only they could do.

By the time we returned to the LEGO bricks and they built their shared model, something had already changed.

The model did not create the conversation.

The conversation gave meaning to the model.

A good reminder for me, too, about team coaching and facilitation: design carefully, bring good tools, and be ready to let go of both when the team reaches the place where the real work is happening.”

19/09/2026

The final conference of the Erasmus+ project “AI Navigators – Empowering Teachers for the AI Era” took place in Skopje with a full room, lots of knowledge, great energy, and even more emotions. When you coordinate a project like this, you learn that behind all the agendas, deadlines, emails, meetings, presentations and reports, there is something much more important – PEOPLE. ❤️
🇧🇪 Belgium: a story of meaningful navigation
At the Skopje conference, Stephane Biron represented the Belgian AI Navigators and shared how he uses AI in his work as a teacher and how he approached the journey of being an AI Navigator – supporting colleagues, experimenting responsibly with tools, and co-creating practical classroom resources.
📚 Belgium’s journey in numbers (1 year):
• 20+ teachers supported
• 4 AI Navigators
• 50+ excellent, ready-to-use lesson plans
This was not just about tools and plans. It was about knowledge - collaboration - friendship - change. About teachers who didn’t stay at “we’ll see what this AI is”, but rolled up their sleeves, tried, made mistakes, learned, created, and showed how AI can truly enter the classroom with the teacher, not instead of them.
🙏 Thank you to all partners, navigators and teachers from the five countries – Bulgaria, Belgium, Serbia, Croatia and North Macedonia – who made this story special. We started as partners, and along the way a friendship came to life: with laughter, support, ideas, and the now-inevitable question: “So, what are we doing next?” 😊
We’re not leaving this conference with the feeling that something has ended. On the contrary – we’re leaving with people who will stay, friendships that will continue, and ideas that are only just beginning to grow. And AI?
AI will keep changing at incredible speed.
But the real navigators will always be people. ❤️
Thank you to everyone who navigated together with us.
AI Navigators: Empowering Teachers for the AI Era

22/08/2026

The future should not be just automated, but authored by critical thinkers.🧭
Svetoslava Stoyanova has put professional interests and passion into the development of the AI Thinking Gym! This project is the result of three months of intense experimentation, co-creation, and mindful engagement with AI.

Her goal with it?

To use technology not to replace human judgment, but to sharpen it. 🦾

📥 Check out the article and test the AI Thinking Gym via the link👇
https://svetoslavastoyanova.com/self-awareness/ai/critical-thinking-in-the-age-of-ai/

Keeping your brain in charge Artificial intelligence is changing not only what we can accomplish at work, but also the way we think while accomplishing it. Across organisations, professionals are increasingly using AI to draft reports, analyse information, structure ideas, solve problems, prepare pr...

15/07/2026

The AI Navigators LLT2 workshop in Belgrade has successfully come to a close, marking two days of rich exchange, practical learning, and strong collaboration among partners from five countries. The sessions highlighted the growing impact of AI in education, from shared reflections to hands-on lesson design and testing.

A special thank you goes to Centar for their warm hospitality and excellent organization, ensuring a seamless and welcoming experience for all participants. Particular appreciation to Jelena Pavlović, director of the hosting organisation, for her leadership and care in bringing everything together.

A truly well-delivered event that strengthened both partnerships and future ambitions within the AI Navigators project.
AI Navigators: Empowering Teachers for the AI Era

15/07/2026

The second day of the AI Navigators meeting in Belgrade showcased a rich exchange of classroom practices, as teachers from five countries presented lesson plans integrating AI across diverse subjects.
Serbia contributed practical examples from chemistry and health education, while North Macedonia focused on chemistry applications. Bulgaria demonstrated how AI can support both mathematics and Bulgarian language learning, highlighting its versatility across disciplines.
Belgium stood out with an interactive social entrepreneurship lesson led by Stephane Biron, who engaged participants in real exercises. Working with AI as a thinking partner, groups explored links between the UN Sustainable Development Goals and NGOs, and developed persuasive pitches for social causes.
Croatia brought an important inclusion perspective, presenting a civic education lesson adapted for students with dyslexia, alongside a mathematics lesson.
Together, the sessions illustrated how AI can enhance subject learning, foster critical thinking, and support more inclusive and engaging classroom experiences.
AI Navigators: Empowering Teachers for the AI Era

15/07/2026

Part Two of the AI Navigators meeting in Belgrade moved from reflection to practice, with a standout contribution from Belgium.
Stephane Biron delivered the only fully immersive session, inviting participants to experience his lesson plan exactly as his students do.

In this social entrepreneurship workshop, coordinators, AI Navigators, and teachers from five countries engaged in hands-on exercises designed to stretch their thinking.

Using AI as a creative partner, participants explored connections between the UN Sustainable Development Goals and real NGOs, then developed and presented persuasive pitches to support a chosen cause.

The session demonstrated how AI can move beyond efficiency and become a tool for deeper learning, critical thinking, and meaningful engagement.
By placing participants in the learner’s role, Stephane showcased a powerful, practical approach to integrating AI in the classroom, one that inspires action, beyond understanding.

AI Navigators: Empowering Teachers for the AI Era
Stephane Biron