Manfredi Jewels New Canaan hosts New Canaan resident, client, and award winning author, Jennifer Mrozek Sukalo, to help our clients Sparkle and Shine in 2024!
On Tuesday, January 13th, a select group of clients were invited to our bigger and brighter New Canaan store to hear from Jennifer Mrozek Sukalo, author of Claim Your SWAGGER. Jennifer is a leadership and personal development expert with a science-based educational foundation. She has been highly sought after by companies around the world and has consulted with high-performing individuals, cancer survivors, leaders, and multinational Fortune 500 companies for over thirty years to empower her clients to unleash their potential.
We planned this event with Jennifer in the spirit of the new year and after our own positive transformation in the form of our renovated store in New Canaan.
Jennifer Mrozak Sukalo addressing Manfredi clients in our new bridal
and diamond salon.
What is swagger? It’s usually a word associated with confidence. But for Jennifer, it’s not just a word, it’s a practice and lifestyle designed to change the way you think, act, and behave. Jennifer kindly gave us an overview of her background and program before she dove into the first component of the SWAGGER approach: self-worth.
To Jennifer SWAGGER stands for:
Self-Worth
Appreciation for your strengths and weaknesses
Gratitude for how your life experiences have helped shape who you are
Grounded in your core values
Empowered to overcome your self-limiting beliefs
Renewed through a greater focus on your passion and purpose
Have you ever met someone who lights up every room just by walking in? This person has self-confidence, quiet self-assuredness, and an undeniable sense of self-worth.
As humans, we have been conditioned to attach our identities, and thereby our worth, to various external factors such as our stations in life, our possessions, and our relationships. These are the things we think make us who we are. But what happens when we lose the factors by which we identify ourselves?
The high achieving student who finds that there are no report cards in the real world.
The hard working employee who loses their job.
The devoted parent whose children have all left the house.
So many experiences can drastically change the perception of our own worth. But, self-worth is a funny thing. By definition, it is the belief that our worth is innate. It is an internal sense of being good enough and worthy of love and belonging, often misunderstood as reliant on external signs of perceived success, achievement, and approval. This is why so many of us lose confidence in ourselves when facing big changes and challenges.
We are more than what we do or what we have, but believing this requires a change in mindset of how we view and respond to our life.
Consider the age old adage that juxtaposes an optimistic and pessimistic outlook. You know the one… “is the glass half empty or half full?” How about this: aren’t we lucky to have a glass of water in the first place? In life, we all face highs and lows, and we cannot choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we see it.
Just like when we get into shape physically, it takes time and practice to harness our mental power and use what we already have to foster positive life changes. One practice that Jennifer encourages clients to adopt is her R.E.P. approach – just like doing reps at the gym.
Challenging situations typically go hand in hand with self-limiting beliefs which we learned from Jennifer are the biggest hijackers of our self-worth. The first step of the R.E.P. approach instructs us to first Recognize that you are experiencing a self-limiting belief. Then we need to Evaluate where that belief is coming from and why we are experiencing it. Finally, you need to Pivot and reframe the belief into something more productive and positive.
Jennifer Mrozak Sulako and Elena Niejelow of Sokayri Atelier in Darien, CT.
Manfredi clients listened to a few of the tips and science behind the approaches that Jennifer shares in her book while aptly sitting in the new diamond salon of our New Canaan store. The setting was appropriate for the definite parallel that can be made.
Think about what goes into making a diamond... There are three main components: they need an extremely high temperature, they need an exceptional amount of time, and they need the utmost amount of pressure. With the SWAGGER approach, the pressures we face in life become opportunities to hone our own sparkle and shine.
Learn more about Jennifer and her program here. Jennifer’s book Claim Your SWAGGER is the first in a trilogy and can be purchased through Elm Street Books on Elm Street in New Canaan or through various online retailers. We are so grateful that she was able to share some of her insights with our clients, and that our clients enjoyed her presentation and left with valuable, applicable direction.
