Verandah Promotion

Do you want to meet renowned Australian businessman, media personality, chairman of Yellow Brick Road, and this seasons host of Celebrity Apprentice, Mark Bouris?

Yellow Brick Road Ballina are offering you the chance to meet with Mark Bouris for a one hour mentoring session where you can get Mark’s personal insights into being successful. They are also throwing in a hefty $5,000*

For your chance to win, register with Mark’s trusted advisers at Yellow Brick Road Ballina for an obligation-free 15 minute financial health check.

In your financial health check, your advisor will look at what your financial goals are, where you are now and help to start you on your journey to a secure financial future.

Contact our Ballina branch on 02 6686 6678 for your obligation-free health check and we can get you started on your path to financial freedom.

* Competition Terms and Conditions apply. Credit services provided by Yellow Brick Road Finance Pty Limited ACN 128 708 109, Australian Credit Licence 393195. Financial Planning services provided by Yellow Brick Road Wealth Management Pty Limited ACN 128 650 037, AFSL 323825.

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“I’ve been involved in numerous successful technology start-ups,” says Dan Swan, who has a PhD in Innovation in the Creative Industries. “I’ve worked in the US, UK and in Australia, and my experience in innovation spans the full project lifecycle which is where I see how I can help people wanting to start a business.”

For Sonia Friedrich, the impetus to work with Swan came from her desire to help entrepreneurs and business owners understand the human behaviour that lies behind business decisions. “I really want people to gain this information before they talk to marketers, advertisers, PR companies and the media because it’s so vital for them know how to present and communicate their ideas to customers and to investors.”

Working specifically on how customers behave towards price, Friedrich, who has a Bachelor of Business in marketing, and has worked for numerous Fortune 500 companies, says that the secret is in understanding what she calls, “behaviour economics. There’s been a lot of research done into the brain and how we (and therefore customers) make judgments and decisions. We understand the biases that are used to support personal beliefs and choices – but what I’ve learned is that we can directly change behaviours.”

Swan, who began StartInno to encourage local businesses through their start-up phase, is a firm believer in the concepts of networking, and co-working. “Byron Bay is a melting pot for new business,” he says. “Outside of the main cities we have the highest density of creative industries anywhere in regional Australia – to me the idea of business start-ups being able to access a community that includes seasoned entrepreneurs as well as fledgling business ideas is a great way to share what’s worked – and why it’s worked. My journey began by just starting, and so what drives me is to help others ‘just start’ as well.”

One of the main topics for the night will be to help participants understand the emotional engagement customers have with price and how to use it to their advantage. Topics will include:

• The path of least effort
• The pain of paying
• Decoys
• The power of free
• Why discounts permanently damage
• and more

Sonia Friedrich, business mentor and consultant

Dan Swan, StartInno founder.

For Friedrich, teaching business owners how damaging it can be to discount their price is something about which she is passionate.  “When I mentor business people on this it’s incredible to see the direct result that occurs from the shift in thinking that prices have to be discounted to never discounting – it’s a very powerful thing to learn,” she says. Until recently Friedrich was mentoring everywhere but Byron Bay, but – a bit like Swan – she too, as a resident of almost 12 years standing – has seen so many creative businesses start up here, that now she has applied her mentoring to herself. “I realised that I’d really rather not get on a plane to Sydney for work if I didn’t need to,” she says. “I’ve also found it’s very rewarding working with business owners in Byron Bay because small business owners are risk-takers. Unlike many multi-national companies where fear of change can set in, or people are worried about introducing something new because they fear they might lose their job, I find principals of smaller companies welcome the change – directors of small to medium size firms can see the advantage of these ideas and actually implement them in a few days or a week.”

To book tickets go to:

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/attracting-customers-with-sonia-friedrich-tickets-16854039887?ref=ebtnebtckt

https://www.startinno.com/events/attracting-customers

For more information on Sonia Friedrich go to: www.soniafriedrich.com  For more information on StartInno go to www.startinno.com

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Verandah Magazine’s resident business mentor, author and speaker Sonia Friedrich turns the torchlight on her corporate career, and finds that it was not all that she had imagined it was.   Ask yourselves the uncomfortable questions, she writes, and you may not like the answers but the process can transform your life.

Recently it came to my attention that questions I was asking myself about the lessons I had learned during my corporate career were having a profound impact on my life. If I was to be truthful with myself the answers were confronting. One of the most uncomfortable questions of all was to ask myself if I had ever prostituted myself during the course of my career.

Naturally, the question isn’t about whether I was a lady of the night, or getting paid for services rendered by selling my body. The question was:

Was I a woman of the day selling my Self and my Soul for money?

My first response was: “No way, you’ve got to be kidding.” Then, when my ego stepped aside, I chose to take a closer look. My interest was piqued to discover if I was living with the integrity I had prided myself upon. It was time to hear an honest reply. But when I asked the question again, the answer was clear – ‘Yes’, my inner voice told me, I had sold myself during the course of my career.

In fact, when I thought about it, it was laughable that I’d believed that I hadn’t sold myself. Through the archetypal profile of the Prostitute, which we all hold, I came to understand a core element of my own life that I had chosen. I had never grasped that I was selling myself in the process. I was proud of my job, the company and my achievements and vocal in supporting them. I did this for years on end. Until I stopped.

Survival I learned was too easy an excuse and my definition of survival was a First World version. The justifications flooded in. I needed to eat, pay the bills, pay rent, then my mortgage, buy clothes etc. I did it to keep my job and to get promoted. There were plenty of reasons. My heart sank deeper and deeper. I had bought the bulls#@t and sold my soul willingly for years. But now that I knew, was it o.k to continue? Absolutely not.

Looking back, I was in daily situations at work where people treated each other poorly; where money was squeezed out of every client with the sole aim of making more money; where my integrity was compromised by colleagues; where my integrity was compromised by myself; where I helped build new markets and manipulate the masses for corporate gain; where people were belittled, where numbers and statistics and ‘facts’ were used to communicate perceived truths; where people lied; where some salivated in their seeking of revenge; where clients were ridiculed behind their back and of course, never to their face. And this was in corporate environments held in high regard within industry because they were number one in their field. The conditioned societal expectation – read exploitation – of the Self (our norm), through work is brainwashing of the highest fundamental merit. Yes, they paid me well, when I fought for it. My corporate pimps sold a compelling story and I loved the hit.

My soul never gave up. It fought long and hard to be heard. It took volcanic bellowing from within with an instant requirement for resignations. “I just can’t do this anymore”, my inner Self cried. Finally I woke up. I had sold myself in the corporate world for too long and no matter what I was paid, it wasn’t enough.

Perhaps it’s time to check in with your heart and soul and listen for the answers:

• Where am I, or when have I been a corporate prostitute? In other words selling your intellect, services, skills, integrity, word, morals, time, body, soul or life? Where and when do you feel used and compromised by other people’s agendas?
• Where am I, or when have I been a corporate pimp? Where have you used others (employees, peers, clients, customers, suppliers) and been able to justify reasons for doing it?

The lure of money and power is attractive, magnetic and addictive. So much so, most of us compromise ourselves for money and/or power for our entire lives.

When you see situations where you are about to prostitute yourself again ask “Is it worth it?” Is it worth losing your integrity, morals, time or soul yet again?

The first step is to say “No.” This can be the most frightening thing of all. But do it once and magic happens – your power returns and as you show up, so does the Universe. Removing yourself from these debilitating situations will restore your energy, power and sense of Self. From today make your choice – act with integrity and self love and begin to make choices that support you, and your true self.

Sonia Friedrich is a mentor, author and speaker. She has worked for Fortune 500 companies and helped create markets and build brands worth up to $250 million in Australia & New Zealand. She recently launched her book “11 Steps to Healing – for Multimillionaires and Business Owners”.

Visit soniafriedrich for more.

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Book Review by Barry Eaton here
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Byron Bay business consultant and mentor Sonia Friedrich looks at the price of living an ‘adapted’ life, and ways to find our way back to our authentic selves.

For most of us our life has become a recipe of other people’s beliefs. From early childhood we are told what we can and can’t do, and we behave accordingly or act out in some manner because of ‘learned response’. We soon learn how to manipulate to get what we want OR we stop asking for what we want because of the consequences.

We adapt to the circumstances around us and this creates reactions that we continue to live. We no longer believe we deserve it, whatever our it is. From something as small as a candy bar when we were a child, to as an adult believing we don’t deserve to have a successful business or relationship.

Our adult life often becomes the consequential adaptation to a series of beliefs and resulting behaviours from everything we’ve absorbed from our family and those in our social environment as the “right way to live”. We mould our world believing we needed the approval of others in the process, and this need for approval is often debilitating to our entire life. Many of us as adults find this hard to admit this or bother to take the time to listen to the words we speak and hear the beliefs they support. Let alone question if they are true for us.

A recent example shows this in action. A few weeks ago the government announced a “be alarmed” campaign about terrorism. I was speaking to a friend who said she was seriously considering not going to the grand final of the football because there might not be enough security. She is a committed fan and two days before she was definitely going to the grand final. And now politicians said something that she heard as ‘it might not be safe for me, I could be killed’. Nothing else in this equation had changed. The media alert was concocted to support going to war. Was there a real threat? In my mind, no. In hers, yes. And YES, she did end up going to the grand final. Did anything happen? No – apart from her team losing. Most of us do this every day. We let external influences dictate and overshadow our life. Most of us are unconscious to the influences that impact and change our thinking and behaviour.

How do we become authentic again?

Having adapted so much it can be difficult to know who we actually are and where our authenticity lies. Most people have never truly listened to the words that come out of their mouth to ask themselves:

• “Where did this answer come from?”
• “Who said it to me?”
• “Who’s voice is it really? Is it mine?”
• “What do I believe?”
• “Is what I am saying to others actually what comes out of my mouth?”

Becoming an observer to our own self provides awareness as to whether we are living an authentic or adapted self. Begin to listen to your own words. Hear how often in a day you say what you don’t believe. Ask the questions above to find out where the answer came from and when the first imprint was made. You may get a rude shock. You may have spent a lifetime supporting beliefs that are not yours. This adaptation of life, to the whims and beliefs of others, is what creates our adapted self. It has been learned, so with consciousness, it can be unlearned.

Find your voice again

In stillness and silence you can find your voice again. Tune back into your heart and re-learn your own opinions and beliefs from the life experiences you have had to date. If you don’t know what you believe, don’t answer. It’s o.k. not to offer an opinion. It is o.k to say: “I don’t know”. Give yourself permission and create the space to hear your inner voice.

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
~ Carl Jung

 Feel again

Our ability to feel what is true for us as individuals is critical. We have a society that shuns emotion, yet emotion is what keeps us true to our ‘self’. Continuing to suppress emotions causes contraction and keeps us in a state of constant adaptation. Being vulnerable and honest enough to feel will reconnect you with who you are and the authenticity you had as a child. Learning how to cope with our lives we often lose parts of this innocence – until we may reach a place where we have given so much that the core of who we are is lost. We learn how to mask our feelings so we don’t get hurt. Each time we compromise a little piece of ourselves and adapt to a situation, rather than voice and stay with our authentic self, we lose another part of who we are.

We live an authentic life when everything we think, believe, say and do occurs from a place of alignment with our soul. It is complete and true honouring of the self.

Sonia Friedrich is a Mentor and Business Consultant and works with Directors wishing to align their personal and professional life. Call Sonia 0412359424 or visit: soniafriedrichphotography

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