The Neuroscience of Success, with Tanya Chernova

The industrious life of Tanya Chernova

Tanya began her career in the salon industry at the age of 14 and became the youngest government licensed aesthetician in Canada. After graduating with a degree in Business and Psychology in 1995, she became a sales consultant for Canada’s largest salon distributor and exceeded her targets by 300% year after year. Her passion for helping salons grow placed her as head of new business development where she doubled the business in 8 territories.

At 24 she moved to France to work as an international educator in 22 countries and drove over $10 million in distributor sales through empowered business and technical education. As a trailblazing thought leader, she wrote 3 spa industry treatment books that were translated into 11 languages.

In 2001, Tanya returned to Canada to formulate and launch her own brand; Time Reverse, the most effective natural non-surgical facelift on the International shopping channels and won best new Anti-Aging Innovation.

Rated #1 product in over 50 sold out shows in the UK, US, Canada and Australia, Tanya sold over $1million in products her first year. In the last 10 years, Tanya has personally worked with hundreds of L’Oreal Professionnel Salons across Canada, the US and Europe; empowering their teams to grow and succeed together with innovative classes such as The Language of Beauty.

She is also a certified NLP Strategic Business Coach, an expert in the neuroscience of success and co-founder of the women’s empowerment company Courageous Living. In 2013, Tanya wrote her first #1 best-selling book UnderMind. Grounded in the science of neuroplasticity, this revolutionary book helps people discover the 7 subconscious beliefs that sabotage their life and how to overcome them.

Tanya also co-founded the groundbreaking new neuronal therapy called PNRT: Progressive Neural Resolution Therapy, helping people rewire their negative limiting beliefs and create permanent change. In 2010 it was accredited by the Psychotherapy Association of Canada and is now offered as an advanced certification for therapists worldwide.

In 2013, she was prestigiously awarded top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada in the category of trailblazer and trendsetter and Iconic Women Leaders of the Decade by the Women’s Global Economic Forum.

For over 20 years Tanya has been dedicated to helping beauty leaders embrace their self-worth, elevate their standards of excellence and reach their full potential.

Tanya shares her thoughts on what success looks like in the beauty industry going forward.

What made you decide to pursue the beauty industry?

My mother was my inspiration. She was a specialist in Russia who created cream to heal gangrene without amputation. In the 1980’s we moved from Russia to Canada, but she couldn’t get her license there so she opened a natural aesthetics skincare spa and clinic. She was so passionate about helping people. When I was 12, I started working there.

My family also had a beauty school called the European School of Aesthetics. I started going to beauty school at night after regular school. By the time I was 14, I was the youngest government licensed beautician in Canada. I started working in the school until I graduated university when I was 21. I did all kinds of aesthetics including nails, body, electrolysis. I love the industry so much. I certified in reflexology, electrolysis, anything I could get my hands on. I found the variety so interesting.

What are your thoughts on the future of beauty and wellbeing?

The future of beauty and wellness is extraordinary. Every retail experience is now being forced online. I’m really, really grateful and inspired that our industry continues to thrive on human touch. Human touch is indispensable.

“The human connection factor is the most precious thing, especially so with the growth of everything shifting online.”

People are becoming more isolated and anxiety globally is at an all-time high. The necessity for people to be touched, the need to be connected, be seen, be individual, the need to not compete, to have your own special moment with your therapist is healing and indispensable.

Everyone is interested in looking good, especially now that humans are living longer. The younger generations are becoming more interested in knowing how to look after themselves. You see the younger people trying to look larger than life, but what we should be teaching is wellness. We need to teach people how to actually take care of yourself, because your eyelashes eventually fall out and your lips can only get so big. When people can take care of themselves better, their beauty has longevity.

It is exciting that people can look as good on the outside as they feel on the inside. We have the tools to do that naturally now.

The other exciting thing about the future of beauty is that it’s becoming more universal. Beauty used to be solely a female industry, but now it’s become far more unisex and dynamic.  We are also finally starting to embrace different interpretations of beauty. It is very easy to fall into the Kim Kardashian, Jessica Simpson, Victoria Secret style. We are finally breaking the glass ceiling in terms of size, weight, dimension.

“We’re shifting from solely celebrating typical standards of beauty. We’re finally seeing diversity being celebrated, and a greater sense of self.”

How important is ongoing education for business owners?

Education is indispensable. Business is all about growth and growth is hinged on knowledge. Everything is constantly changing and we need to constantly upgrade our knowledge.

Personal growth is just as important (debatably even more important) than strategic business growth. If you’re not focussing on personal growth, you can really sabotage your business, as you’re preventing yourself from expanding your sense of self-worth. I wrote a book called Undermind, which is helping people understand beliefs that sabotage their life and how to overcome them. Over and over when I do these entrepreneurial workshops about the neuroscience of success, I give the attendees a self-consciousness test, to score themselves out of ten when they hear the statement, ‘If I want to get it right I have to do it myself.’ If you score yourself 10, like me, you know already how hard it is to find the right people, who to let go, how not to micromanage.

“Personal growth is so important because our core beliefs make up our life, and our business is an expression of this.”

We take action based on our perception of reality. Until you actually challenge your perceptions, you will never see the blind spots in your life. People riding in the blind spot don’t see the opportunities, or they feel there are none. If you don’t challenge your personal growth, you’ll never see things from different perspectives.

What are your top tips for running a profitable promotion?

• The number one thing is to know the goal of your promotion. Most people run a promotion like, “Oh it’s Mother’s’ Day, what are we going to do.” There are 8 different typical goals a promotion can satisfy. Choose one.
• Don’t communicate price until the value has been established.
• Have a time limit. Create a sense of urgency.
• Communicate the promotion. You might walk into a store and not even know there is a promotion because there are no signs and no-one said anything.
• Only do one promotion at once. So often you see 15 promotions running at the same time.
• Focus on the service, and the retail is something people take home. Promote them together. Is it a dehydrating time of year? Come in for a replenishing treatment, use a mask and sell the mask at a special price to take home. They won’t buy from Amazon then. We have to leverage what we already do.

Amazon is changing the nature of how we live. If you get really clear on your goals, people have no interest in buying from Amazon. People buy from people they like and trust. When there is no human reason, when the vendor is not reaching out for that human connection, then the customers are going to go somewhere else.

What are your top career highlights?

I have had like literally the world’s best career. I feel like Katy Perry or something. I can’t believe people pay me to speak for a living. I had a dream to inspire people and they show up and think it is great. That is so rewarding.

I started my career as a beautician so young. I was so grateful to get in so early because I saw from a young age how important it is to practice self-care and what a difference we can make for women at every stage of life. Going from single to married, from married to being a parent, through hormone changes — not necessarily in that order. So much happens and you really need support, and you need to learn to take care of yourself. I see women today who neglect themselves. For example, seeing someone who has washed a million dishes and never had a manicure shows that we take care of our stuff more than ourselves.

I moved to France at 23 as an International Educator. I travelled to 22 countries a year. I worked really hard as a sales representative and I taught hundreds of thousands of people to grow their businesses and salons. I wrote books to help people understand how healing it is to be in this profession. The single goal I had, and it still stands today, it is to raise the level of esteem of all these beauticians and stylists — the people in this industry. They misunderstand that when they are doing a facial, they think they are doing tasks. I really help them put purpose behind their tasks and it really ignited their passion. They still write to me, 20 years later, about how a course they took with me really lifted them up. I am so thankful for being able to help others.  As an educator, I made a million dollars in my first year.

When I was 27, I came back to Canada, and I created a product with my mother — the Non-Surgical Facelift. I did the research, created my own name, own label, did all my own marketing. I did everything myself. I went on the Shopping Channel, myself, and it was the number one, fastest selling anti-aging product in the history if the Shopping Channel.

I am terrible at embracing failure. I didn’t know how to digest the mistakes I had made. I sent a shipment to a client and we didn’t test the disc on top of the cream. It shattered inside the cream. We had to recall everything. That was terrifying for me. I really burned out, I truly had a nervous breakdown after that. It was a really big turning point for me as I didn’t know failure was a part of it. All my life it was one success after the other because I only did what I was good at. I had no idea what I was doing and I didn’t know how to manage failure.

I took it so personally. I felt like it was all my fault and I should have done better. The truth of it though is that these things happen all the time. You’ve got to move on.

Back when I was 25, I decided I wanted to work for L’Oreal. My dream was always L’Oreal Paris. I went to their head office and asked for a job. They were happy to hire me, but I was going to be starting right at the bottom and on a wage that I wasn’t used to after years of success. I never understood the corporate ladder until then.

So I cured myself of wanting to work there. I said to myself, next time I come back and work for L’Oreal, it will be at the Executive level. So that’s what I did. At 31, I returned to Canada and worked with L’Oreal on the top level to generate change for their Education program. I created all their content for Global L’Oreal. If you have your intention, hold true to your intention, be flexible in your approach, it will come around.

How do you find time to fit it all in?

For me, business is pleasure. I would always find the best way to have a good time. When I came to Australia I would speak and do workshops only two days a week. I would stay at the Marriot, leave my stuff there, pack a backpack and go stay at a hostel. I went and met people my own age. I went clubbing just like the rest of my friends.

I really thought my life was travel. When I had a baby, I was preparing myself for this whole change. I am so surprised I’m back on the road. I’m the keynote speaker for the World Wellness Summit in the UK next year. It is shocking to me. I can’t believe a woman with a small child can still do that. It’s proof you can continue to stay true to who you are through change. I have tried to close the door on my industry so many times, but it always comes back to me. I would really love to give myself fully to the spa, beauty and wellness industry for the next few years. Then I will feel like I will be complete. I have gained so much from this industry. It will live far beyond you and I.

We need to teach the spiritual principles to the younger generation and make sure they know it will always be about the human touch!