We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sharon Banyas Hefetz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sharon, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I feel like my parents did a lot of things right. All of us can say that a lot of Problems we have in our life came from our parents. Our kids are gonna blame us as well for a lot of things they are going through.
But the biggest thing I took from each one of them that really had an impact on me and my journey is.
From my mom I learned to just keep going. Brush it off and move along. Sometimes it came from the point of view of not creating a scene but I must say that I received a big dose of resilience. In addition the amount of love that I received from her gave me the confidence to be myself at a younger age.

From my dad I have learned to paint the picture the way we would like to see it and remember it. I remember I was telling him a story and my stories sometimes had a lot of details and I was trying to remember that 1 little detail and he said well you can’t go back and change it anyway so tell it the way you remember it. I can say that throughout the years and through my coaching and life experience it is only what you remember that is important. It is the basis of your perception, the story that you tell yourself. It is the reality that exists in your head and affects your life.

.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been on a spiritual path all of my life even though I was a very logical person. I always knew there was something more out there. It was not until my twenties where I started doing a lot of personal growth and became a spiritual junkie. Not because of religion but because of the fact that I was determined to find true happiness and my purpose.

Since I was a child I was always the person that people came to, to tell their problems or issues. They knew they have someone that will listen, embrace and hold space for them. I felt that through what they were telling me I knew how to guide them towards the next step.

Working with people came natural to me it was my passion and my purpose.
My husband and I owned a business of distribution and retail. In that business I trained hundreds of people and coached them towards personal success and reaching their goals.

It was a decade later that I realized that all of my life I have been coaching. If it was friends, during my military service or in my business. That was the moment I realized that life coaching was my thing and that is where I could help people.

In my practice I’ve helped my clients gain perspective in different aspects of their life, maintain a positive outlook and find motivation towards the next steps they felt they need to take. We all have the answers in us we just need a little nudge once in a while.

Through my own personal growth and journey and other’s journeys I realized that the most important thing is to be in alignment with yourself because that is where and when you can reach your happiest moments and the best version of yourself.

Aligning with yourself allows you to do what you’re meant to do, become more focused on what you want and need, be confident, true to yourself and to live a happy and satisfied life.

Another thing I have realized through the years was that it is merely a decision missing that is keeping you away from your true self and best future.

Today, I am a Mindset Coach and I try to serve as a catalyst for women to reconnect and express their fullest authentic version of themselves while finding balance and satisfaction, becoming more self confident and creating a productive, harmonious life that is free of guilt and open to abundance.

I am excited to announce that I just published my 1st book, ‘If I May’ and my online course ‘How to control your perspective ‘ will be launched by the end of 2022.
You can connect with me on my Instagram @banyashefetz or my FB page SharonHefetzCoach

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The lesson I had to unlearn was “what people say and think of me matters”, which I considered to be a fact. I grew up in a house that used sentences such as “what will others say/ think? …..” It may have been in regards to anything – what I wore, how I looked, acted, if I would cry and so on. Of course, it was just a way for the adults to get the children to do something they wanted (by worrying them about what will the teacher/ police/ friends and so on say). In addition, I was raised to be very polite and thoughtful of others, and without noticing it stuck with me through adulthood I become a ‘people pleaser‘. The dictionary defines a PEOPLE PLEASER as “1. a person who has a strong urge to please others, even if at their own expense. 2. someone who cares a lot about whether other people like him or her, and always wants others to approve of his or her actions. 3. a person who has an emotional need to please others.”
The problem with being a people pleaser is that it involves putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own. People pleasers are considered the person that is always willing to help, very agreeable, kind and polite. The biggest difficulty is that they are not taking care of, or good at advocating for themselves. Moreover, it is hard for them to be in tune with what it is they even want and know how to take everyday decisions.
Learning the fact that what others think or may say is not relevant to my life and not to take others personally, was liberating. Once I understood that each of us comes from a different background, with a different upbringing, state of mind, outlook, and experiences, it was easier to unlearn. Truly understanding and staying aware of that allowed me to see that every person has their point of view which is a product of their reality and baggage, even if sometimes they collected this ‘baggage’ only that morning. It usually had nothing to do with me and my personal goal or benefit. For that reason, it made no sense to continue taking others’ needs/thoughts into consideration before my own, while making choices regarding my actions, future, or life.
Obviously staying polite and considerate is still important when staying true to yourself, but it may sometimes feel challenging to do when you are not accustomed to it. Putting all your energy and efforts into keeping others happy, eventually causes anxiety, stress, exhaustion, lack of authenticity, reduced willpower, and in general is not a positive in healthy relationships.
To unlearn this trait, it was important for me to know my limits, establish boundaries that are clear and accurate and most importantly learn how to communicate the two.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In the year 2015, we already had a very successful business in Mexico. The issue was that I was working 7 days a week, from morning till night. I would come home in the afternoon or evening for an hour or two to see and help with my children and was off to work again. I felt that I was living my business and my employees and not my children and home. We were at the point of expanding or creating a change in the structure of our business.
My oldest was about to turn 5 and she never had the feeling of community and family. That is a very important core value for my husband and I and we wanted it to be part of our children’s world as well. In addition, as part of ‘family’ as a virtue- I felt I needed to be more present in their life. The question was- do we restructure our business or do we start over in a new country, closer to family.
Even though the business was thriving, selecting family as a core value felt right. That was when we decided to move to California where my family was residing. We did a gradual transition with our business. We integrated our head managers as partial owners in the company. I worked from afar and traveled back and forth, while helping my husband start and build his new business. This made our financial transition smooth, but I knew it could not go on forever.
Since we created a list of over 30,000 customers throughout the years and built every bit of it from scratch, it was a shame for us to just ‘close the doors’. We wanted to offer the business to our new business partners, have them enjoy the benefits and continue what we started. It is sometimes easier to pass on something you care about and not throw it away.
Even though my main goal now was to become more present for our children, their school and our family it came with dramatic changes in our lives. We moved to a new country, our children did not speak English (they spoke Hebrew and Spanish) and after the transition of ownership we faced financial insecurities. We were now without an income, in a much more expensive life. In addition, there was a huge change in our family dynamics since I became the one that is home, for the first time in my life I was in the backseat and my husband was out working all day.
I knew I wanted to be more of a mother and present in my family’s life. I also knew that it was my time to reinvent myself. As much as it was scary, I felt it was an opportunity for me to find and live my purpose. I knew finding new habits to integrate are necessary for charging my battery while being mostly a stay-at-home mom. I was always charged by the impact I had on people’s growth and never really needed to self-charge.
Looking back, even though we were faced with many challenges it was the best decision we made at the time. Our children today experience grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. They have family beside them on holidays, birthdays and other special events. My husband’s business is thriving and I had the luxury of writing a book, creating courses, workshops and helping women around the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.sharonhefetz.com
• Instagram: banyashefetz
• Facebook: SharonHefetzCoach
• Linkedin: /sharonbanyashefetz/
• Other: ‘If I May’ by Sharon Banyas Hefetz Amazon Link: https://amz.run/5dqQ