I love my business contacts, so much that in a lot of cases I call them my business friends or my business rockers.

Pictures from yohannaidha.se

The first person I want you to meet is a fine lady. So fine that she’s even won “best actress” at the stockholm film festival this fall. Her name is Yohanna Idha and I have been so fortunate to work with her a couple of years back on some projects and now she is a Swedish moviestar taking over the world.

here’s her answers to some questions I asked her:

What are you working on right now ?

I am performing and producing the theatre play “truth motherfucker” which revolves around lifting the feelings and experiences today’s youth carry. We are gathering 5000 stories on the Internet to tell the truth about how people really feel and to show that they are not alone. From those we will chose 50 stories over the course of 3 yrs which will be performed and end in a festival 2014. A bold project which will hopefully change the way we deal with “problems”.

I am also rehearsing the Hamlet Machine which will premiere in May and is a collaboration with French director Clyde Chabot.
So you received the best actress award from Stockholm film festival for your part in Katinkas Kalas – how has that changed your life ?

First of all it was a confirmation for myself. It is so easy to start doubting your own ability. winning this award will forever be a reminder for

Myself that my work and passion is of value to someone else. From a business point of view The price helped put me on the map as an actress.

You’ve always been digitally curious and I have been so lucky to work with you on some projects, are you thinking about any changes to your digital brand, marketing and identity as it is now ?

I am constantly reflecting about marketing tools and the way I present myself on the Internet and in person. It becomes even more important when People begin to recognize who you are…

can you list 5 tips for anyone out there who wants to work the movies like you do ? What has been pivotal for you ?

1: education and training. Being an actress is being a tool the same way being a dancer is. As Actors we need constant training to develop ourselves and our emotional range.

2: Find a safe place within yourself. Being subjected to constant rejection and judgement can drain you and alter your personality in ways that aren’t constructive. Find a place within yourself where you feel mentally safe and go back to that place when things feel rough around you.

3:Take care of your body. Be prepared

For whatever challenges you may encounter. Taking care of your body is essential to be the best you can be and being healthy and happy.

4: be professional. Be on time, learn your lines, be prepared and act professional towards EVERYONE You meet. Small mistakes can lead to great losses!

5: work, work, work.

Noone Else will do it for you! The sooner you start realizing that you are a company and that all companies need lots of work – the better you’ll do for yourself.

I’ve included the link to the trailer of Katinka’s Kalas you can see Yohanna in action here.

A couple of days ago I received a mail from someone who wanted me to help them out with their business or more specific they wanted to do a rock it session with me. They seemed a bit on the dull side, so I pumped up the rockin’ questions I normally send out before a session – that I would love to have received back answered before the session (of course the more details there are on the answers the better I can help you out)…

Anyway both in the email and in the questions it seemed like, that this thing “to rock” wasn’t anything that they where really trying to do – it wasn’t something I could feel that they where burning to implement and to get going with. So I decided to ask them for a skypechat and it was exactly as my intuition told me. The person who was going to do the session wasn’t feeling it. He couldn’t see the value in the rock it sessions. When I asked him why he wanted to book one he said “my manager told me to do something new”.

I ended up telling him that I thought he should look for something else – and I didn’t believe I could help him if his heart was not in it. then he said something like “but I need to do something that’s not mainstream”. I asked him to reconsider or at least get someone to do the session that had a passion for creativity and building the business bigger. His manager got in touch with me after a while and told me that he would do the session with me instead.

So a good ending to the story.

The most helpful part I got out of it was the “I need something that’s not mainstream”. And I’m not mainstream. I don’t do mainstream very well. I like to be the person who inspire the people in the mainstream, but it’s just not for me. It wasn’t when I was in school and for sure isn’t now. I guess I like being a person that you consider. A person where you take a stand. A person other people thinks rock! or a person that other people think is a bit too much, a bit to geeky or too creative or too edgy to be mainstream.

So together with my “do epic shit” quote on my old computer. the next is “sorry – I don’t do mainstream” on my new… Maybe I should make a whole “Henriette Weber” quote page on this blog ? that would be amusing =) maybe stickers ? business cards? widget ?

So last week I had a competition for my new product ( the one on one skype sessions) here on henrietteweber.com, it’s a part of a major restructuring of the site/blog -where the blog as I write on and as you guys know it is going to be a fragment of it.
I have an excellent advisor that has told me that I really run two companies – toothlesstiger.com (my everyday strategic and creative playground) and henrietteweber.com – the speaking, thoughts and sessions site which is my outburst on everything in the life of Henriette Weber.
Anyway the winner of the contest is: Stéphanie Klebetsanis. Stéphanie has come up with a lot of original ideas for the name for the  sessions, both here on the blog, facebook and twitter. She has won a “rock it” session with me and I am looking so much forward to rockin her online and offline identity together with her. See the sessions are build up of a lot of research and questions from me that I need answering on before I can really get down and dirty in her business, then there’s around an hour worth of talking on skype, where we kick around ideas and put them into action.

So congrats Stéphanie =) and yey for me and the rock it sessions – an excellent name with a dimensional meaning =) and yeah, I will teach you how to rock =)…