Today we’d like to introduce you to Sonya Fehér.
Hi Sonya, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I launched my business, spaceWise Organizing, in November of 2010 by luck and circumstance. I’d taken a divorce recovery workshop in the spring and been invited back as a facilitator for their fall group. Someone in the group sent out an email asking if anyone could recommend someone she could hire to help her organize her papers. I emailed back, “I’m great at organizing. Hire me!” She did, and my business was born.
I never could have predicted how spaceWise would grow and change over the years. It has been incredible. I’ve gone from organizing primarily space, to helping people organize their time, systems, and lives. During the shutdown, I developed an online organizing course so clients outside of Austin can get my help too. I lead workshops, speak to companies and organizations, and started running happiness groups for women in 2019. Those groups led to my publishing gratitude journals that include some of the happiness tools I use with my clients in individual and group coaching. I work with families, couples, creatives, and solopreneurs, though I specialize in working with women in midlife.
Ultimately, now, I am a life organizer and coach. I help people create space for whatever it is they want. It’s such fulfilling work and I’m lucky to have such amazing clients.
You wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been smooth?
As with anything, there have been some challenges along the way. Being a single parent with a business that had me working all over town was hard. I learned pretty quickly how to give buffer times to schedule around traffic and how to set my service area so that I could be to the school quickly if my kiddo got sick or needed me.
I have ended up getting to help clients with things I never would have thought to offer. When clients asked if I could help with something I didn’t already offer, if I thought I genuinely could help, I’d say yes. I didn’t like all of it and have both added and removed services over the years. Fortunately, I got incredible advice from entrepreneur friends early on that if I was going to be my own boss, I shouldn’t be a jerk boss. It’s one of the first things I tell my business coaching clients now. If your space and time are filled with what you don’t want to do, there’s no room to serve your highest purpose.
And the pandemic was a challenge. With the shutdown, I couldn’t do in-person organizing. My child was virtual schooling from home. Trying to organize with masks and gloves was exhausting. But that’s what prompted me to write my organizing course, to start doing virtual organizing, and to take my individual and group coaching to Zoom, which means I can help anyone anywhere now. So, smooth might be overrated. Those obstacles gave me great lessons that helped me, my business, and my clients.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about spaceWise Organizing?
If people are walking through life feeling like if only they were organized, they would be happier, I’m here to help. Sometimes we declutter from the outside in, and sometimes from the inside out.
What surprises people is that I am not a naturally organized person. I am a right-brained creative and have ADHD so I understand how my clients feel because I have struggled with the same things they do. I spent years trying to learn how to do what I help my clients with now, so I know that there is no one-size-fits-all. No one should have to change themselves to fit a system. I help people create systems that fit who they really are.
My teaching background plus all my years doing meditation and yoga mean that I bring a mindfulness and an ability to explain things and be with people’s feelings that spaceWise has become known for. It can be scary to invite someone in to look in your closets and drawers, or to do coaching about what you really want but are afraid you won’t be able to do. People say I’m kind and fun and that they enjoy the process so much more than they’d ever imagined they would.
Maybe I should mention that spaceWise has been named one of Austin’s Best Home Organizers for the last seven years in a row and has all five-star reviews. For all of that, I am humbled and I am grateful.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it involved you, and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
I caught Covid in February 2020 from a client who had traveled overseas early on, before we knew what Covid-19 was. I was so sick that I sent my teenager to their dad’s so no one would catch it. I was home alone for days and too tired to do anything but be in bed. It was so isolating. I especially wanted to give women a place to connect, so I ended up creating a Facebook group called Women Learning How to Be Happy. That group has offered the greatest epiphanies of the crisis. Watching total strangers support one another and become friends has been wonderful to witness and be a part of. People help. People are good. We can’t always be together in person, but we have all these channels to reach out and find community. We just have to look.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://spacewiseorganizing.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spacewiseorganizing/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/womenlearninghowtobehappy
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonyafeher/
- Calendly: https://calendly.com/sonyafeher/discoverycall
- Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Sonya-Feh%C3%A9r/author/B0843CRWRR
Image Credits
Daniela Murray
