1. Tell us about your journey to your success from the beginning to now?
My dad was a Colonel in the Australian Army who often told me he had wanted a boy. I don’t think he meant any harm by it but kids are impressionable and I grew up feeling like there was something intrinsically wrong with me. At 28 I left my home country arriving in the US with not much more than a backpack.
As a single mom struggling to make ends meet, I started my first business with zero budget and eventually sold it. I then pivoted and at the height of the tech boom I became a project manager. I climbed the corporate ladder eventually managing global teams and a $25M product portfolio. A chronic overachiever, I was simultaneously investing in real estate, brokering mortgage loans and juggling a busy family life.
No surprise, I got burnt out which culminated in having a panic attack (thankfully my one and only) on the freeway doing 80 miles an hour in peak hour traffic.
This life-threatening experience convinced me there had to be a better way to “do” life and I wanted to help other people avoid the mistakes I made. I got my first coaching certification in 2002 and have been coaching professionally since that time. I’ve gone on to train in the most effective, evidence based modalities I could find, to help people rapidly get what’s in the way out of the way, so they can create the success and serenity they’re after.
2. What advice would you give to a woman entrepreneur who is just getting started and like to implement the speaking platform like you to grow her business?
Speaking is the great amplifier. It is one of the most impactful ways you can expand your reach and reputation which will translate to revenue. I wish I had started speaking sooner.
When I was 7 years old a teacher taped my mouth shut (for talking too much) and sat me in the corner of the classroom for hours. Apparently, I didn’t learn my lesson the first time because this humiliating experience happened twice. It took me far too long to build up the confidence to speak publicly as my subconscious associated speaking with humiliation. I had to become my own client and learn how to transform fear into excitement. You must make it more about being in service to your audience than those parts that want to keep you “safe”.
I work with a lot of public speakers or aspiring ones because my own experience taught me that the first place to start with creating confidence as a professional speaker and deal with the rigors of the profession is to look under the hood and resolve those limiting beliefs and erroneous patterns that will interfere with your success.
And of course, finding the right toastmasters group or similar forum is a great way to begin. Every group is different so persist until you find your people.
3. What do you do with your well-being?
I typically preserve the first 2 hours of my day to my own practices which includes listening to one of my own hypnosis recordings, breath practice, affirmations, writing and walking the puppy. My daughter (now 27) and I work out once a week at Orange Theory Fitness.
I have learned to honor my energy and give myself permission to have down time when my body needs it. No more excessive pushing to create results. I have this amazing neuro-feedback equipment that I use with my clients to enhance mental performance so I use that a few times a week too.
BIO:
Tony Maree Torrey comes to us with professional experience as a chronic over achiever. While working as global manager at a Fortune 500 company, where she was responsible for profit and loss on a 25 million dollar product portfolio, she was also running a real estate investment company, managing a family and building a coaching practice.
Tony’s intimately familiar with the rewards, and the hazards, of ambition. She turned things around in her own life and has gone on to help hundreds of Executives, Entrepreneurs and even the occasional celebrity massively upgrade their wealth and wellbeing.
Tony Maree Torrey has been cited as a top professional to watch by networks such as CBS, Fox, NBC & ABC because for the past 15 years she has been revolutionizing the way people are creating the success and the life they desire.
Architect of the Synergy Zone Method, she developed this process after personally experiencing a dramatic burn-out. This inspired her life’s work: identifying what it takes for ambitious people to maximize their potential, access their full neural network and leverage their inner brilliance to drive extraordinary results.