Bringing out your power
Marina Newington -Bringing out your power
By Ellen Smith
Marina Newington, the founder of award nominated PowerSystem, is an internationally-qualified IIN Health Coach, a Columbia Business School MBA, a best selling author and speaker. After working in finance and marketing for large companies, then raising a family of four children, she felt completely exhausted: physically, mentally, and emotionally.
This exhaustion and lack of motivation led Marina on a personal journey to regain balance in her life, find more time, restore energy, and rediscover her confidence. In short: she had to get her POWER back.
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Having gone through this journey herself, Marina wanted to help other women who were struggling with similar issues.
You are originally from the US, but now living in the UK, could you please share how your American upbringing has influenced you in your professional life?
While I still have an American accent after more than 20 years in the UK, my background is actually more varied. I was born in Russia and my family moved to Israel when I was very young. We then moved to NY when I was about 4 and I was raised in Manhattan. Hebrew, in fact, was my first language and I grew up speaking English, Hebrew and Russian. While growing up, I was influenced by two very different cultures at all times, European in the home and American everywhere else. In truth I took from both of them but felt more identification with the European style and that is ultimately why I was so happy to settle in the UK – it was more aligned to my core personality. Having said that, there are many ‘American’ aspects that have served me well from a professional perspective including directness, persistence and diligence. I am not claiming that these characteristics are uniquely American, but my ability to get straight to the point definitely comes from there!
The personal transformation that you went through ignited your entrepreneurial journey, please share in what way.
About eight years ago, after two careers and four children, my energy levels were at an all-time low. I was snappy and irritable with my husband and kids, I was overweight, I had low self-esteem and though I was going through the motions of running a large family, I wasn’t really present in my own life. While I was dedicated to my family and very hard working, I felt unfulfilled and unsatisfied. I felt like there was something more I could be doing, but I was confused by this stage in life, uncomfortable in my own skin and lacking the clarity to move forward.
Eventually, when the pain was great enough, I understood that I had to dig deep, open myself to learning again and to seek new mentors.
Most of all, I had to see a different kind of future for myself and my family, and I had to get to work. So, I embarked on a journey beginning with diet and exercise, moving on to mindfulness and growth and culminating in health and energy like I never knew before!
I learned how to heal my body through diet and exercise, nourish my soul with a spiritual practice and to walk with my head held high because I had faced my fears, taken responsibility for my actions and embraced new challenges. I learned that transformation is achievable through hard work, and the benefits extend to those we love and to those around us. I was also delighted to discover that the added benefit of this transformation was not only strength on a personal level, but the confidence and motivation to pursue my professional ambitions as well.
To me, this time was when I got my POWER back. Why is it in all caps? Because getting my POWER back became the acronym and foundation of what I do now in PowerSystem.
Having fortified my foundation by finding my POWER, I started looking for what was next. This search was the big question. This was at the heart of the lack of focus I had been suffering from. I knew that the corporate work I had done before was no longer for me. Also, having undergone my wonderful transformation, I knew that I wanted to help others feel great and move forwards in their lives the way I had, but how?
With this mindset, I started noticing that everywhere I went I saw other women who were feeling the way I used to; busy, unhappy, not looking after themselves, exhausted and snappy. I remember thinking ‘I know how you feel’ and found myself in many conversations helping them to see that it didn’t have to be that way. Through these discussions and because it just felt so right helping others, I had an epiphany: I decided I wanted to help other women who were struggling with similar issues to have the same results I was having.
Here was my missing piece. Here was my why. Here was the purpose that I had been looking for but couldn’t find until I first fixed myself and set the foundation for the POWER to move forward. I then went on to study and then graduate from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I opened my practice and began working with women to make them feel good about themselves again. It was at this point that I finally started feeling fulfilled!
You are the mother of four, how do you combine the life of an entrepreneur with having a large family?
Organisation, organisation and organisation! This is the only way. Here is what I have learned:
Before getting organised in your career, you need to first get organised in your head and in your life, identify your priorities and establish a support network, both personally and professionally, to then enable you to move towards your professional aspirations.
To get organised, I have systems in place to streamline work and personal commitments and use the Perfect Personal Planner from the second Pillar of PowerSystem – bringing Order to life. In the Perfect Personal Planner system, I use a weekly planning tool called Big Rocks to identify my priorities for the week and a monthly planning tool as well. I will share the link to get the Big Rocks worksheet for free at the end of this article. I have also created a Big Rocks video which explains why it is so important to prioritise the things that are most important to you first, like your family, relationships and health. I believe that prioritising in this way is one of my big secrets to happiness. I first plan out family and health commitments and then work things are planned out in a way that give me time to deliver and time to create. I will share the link for this video at the end of the article as well.
Which are the most important qualities for women in the world of business, would you say?
Be persistent and consistent! To the first point, you have to hang in there. Especially if you are an entrepreneur building something new alone, you need to keep going even if you don’t see initial success. It takes time for a business to grow and develop, and it takes time for you to learn what you need to focus on and what you need to outsource. It is so important to be patient with the process and not to give up – be persistent and stick it out!
The second point is about being consistent and that is so critical. If for example, you have a blog, a podcast or a video show, you need to show up every week in your potential customers’ inboxes. You need to be on social media every day. Your audience needs to know that you are there for them so that you can build up the know, like and trust factor that will eventually convert them into paying clients. The same thing applies if you sell a product or service, you need to show up consistently in their inbox and on social media in order to see results.
We know that your work has developed into doing very special workshops today. What are the key foundations for your work with your clients and in your workshops?
I am focusing on two workshops this year that are important foundational elements of the PowerSystem programme. In brief, The PowerSystem is a 5 Step Process specifically designed to help entrepreneurial women seeking clarity, confidence and energy to reclaim more time for themselves, build a support network in work and in life, and form an action plan to get results. The word POWER is an acronym for the 5 steps which are:
P – Priority. As women, we are used to putting ourselves at the bottom of the list. We first think of our children, our partners, our work colleagues, our friends, our pets – anyone but us! If you look after yourself first, you will have the confidence, strength and energy to be there for the people you care about. It’s like putting your oxygen mask on first in an airplane.
O – Order. Do you ever feel like you spend the day running from meeting to activity totally busy, but not really getting anything done? I think we’ve all been there! If you are organised and in control of your schedule, you can rule your world instead of letting it rule you. You can then achieve your big goals with time to spare.
W – Communicating with the World. It is so important to be able to connect with the people around you. If you work on your communication style, build your support network and learn to set boundaries, you will be able to share what’s really important to you with the world around you, and feel supported in return. It’s so much easier to achieve your goals when you are not on your own.
E – Energy. By focusing on eating healthy foods, fitting movement into your weekly routine and getting enough sleep you will be able to unlock the energy you need to take on the world!
R – Roadmap. By taking these 4 foundational steps you’ve fuelled your body and life for success and are now ready to look at what comes next. What’s your why? What are your dreams and the actions you need to take in order to make them come true? Together we build an action plan that will get you results.
By taking these 5 active action steps towards getting your POWER back, you can overcome obstacles and achieve your dreams.
The workshops I will be holding will focus on the beginnings of this journey. The first will be about Finding Clarity to Make Life’s Big Decisions. I will be teaching the 10 steps you must take to find the clarity in your particular situation, and how to take the first step towards attaining the goal you decide upon. The second workshop will focus on Identifying Your Zone of Genius. My clients always tell me that they just don’t know what they’re passionate about and what they really want to do. By the end of this workshop, they will come away with a Personal Passion Statement that clearly defines what lights them up and gets them excited for the day ahead. This understanding, in turn, will inform the path they choose to follow. When they are running, both workshops will be accessible from my website.
Finally, we have just moved into a new decade, what are your hopes for this decade moving forward?
You’re right, it’s a very exciting time for us all as we begin not only a new year but a new decade. I am calling 2020 the Year of Clarity. A time to take advantage of the opportunity to see clearly what we really want to do, what we are passionate about and ultimately, what will lead us to a life that is happy, satisfied and fulfilled. By taking a step back and giving ourselves the space and time to make these critical decisions, we will then be able to take action and achieve amazing things.
If we focus on clarity at the start of the decade, the rest of it should be about taking action. I do think that the nature of implementation will change though. For example, I think there will be a lot more automation over the next 10 years as AI starts doing jobs that people now do, and new jobs are created that we can’t yet even imagine. In business, I think marketing will become increasingly customer focused trying to build relationships that create committed communities rather than focusing on short term sales. In terms of community, I hope that people will move forward on repairing the damage of global warming by actively changing behaviour on a global scale. One manifestation of this will probably be a dominance of electric cars and the slow down of car usage and ownership in general. I also believe there will be a decrease in the amount of meat people eat as more and more people increase the level of vegetables in their diets.
Finally, I would like to add that transformation is possible. Progress is possible. I’ve implemented these steps in my own life and coached my clients through the process. Maybe now really is your time to make a change? Maybe this is that moment for you.
