Sonja: Financial Success Doesn’t Equate to Happiness

Wow, this is like everyone pissing on a fire hydrant. Everyone is trying to prove that they are the best and the brightest, but the title of most successful woman in this group is really up for grabs. These ladies don’t seem to understand that financial success doesn’t equate to happiness. Who has time to always be delving into other people’s lives when that time could be spent improving your own life and the life of those you love and who support you! I just don’t know if these women have their priorities straight.

I don’t even feel like I can be my fun-loving self around this crew anymore! At Dorinda’s birthday party in the Berkshires I was just trying to lighten the mood and stay out of fray. Everyone was being so serious! Did everyone miss the memo that this is a birthday party, not a courtroom? Everyone is always judging and picking on each other. I’ve spent enough time in courtrooms over the past few years to know that! When I’m hanging out with my girlfriends, I want to be able to just relax and stick to light-hearted chit chat, but that doesn’t seem to be a possibility with this group! Who wants to make plans when they are like this?

I understand what Bethenny is saying when she says that she wants to have a wall up. She’s protecting herself. She doesn’t want to feel like she’s seeing a shrink whenever she’s with Heather! She has a shrink! I honestly do not believe that Heather is nurturing and caring. I certainly haven’t seen that side of her. I’ve only seen a bossypants who feels the need to control everyone around her and drag them down with accusatory statements so that you finally give up and just yes her.

I love Luann, but I did not know where she was coming from with that toast. It seemed like she was trying to prove to the other women she is close to Dorinda. (I guess a knee-jerk reaction to her blow up with Ramona concerning Dorinda. I thought that Carole was the one claiming to be in the lesbian phase? Maybe I’ve discovered the secret to Luann and Carole’s fast and new friendship: They are both going through a lovey dovey girly phase. LOL. Just kidding.

I’m very torn about the branding summit I attended with Bethenny. On the one hand, I really do think that Bethenny is coming from a good place and that she is trying to help me, but her delivery is tough! She makes it sound like I’ve never been in a business meeting before. I’ve been in conference rooms my whole life! It’s like these women all think I became successful by just snapping my fingers and hoping good things will happen. Well guess what, ladies?! Money doesn’t grow on trees, and it took a lot of tenacity and a good work ethic for me to build everything and everyone in my life right now! I look forward to the next chapter in my like now that I have cleared the woods of the movie lawsuit and the subsequent Chapter 11.

All of these women--excluding Ramona and Luann--are girls that I really only know socially, and yet they all seem to believe that they know my life story (and we know Ramona likes to make drama for drama’s sake and that Lu cant remember a fracking thing). What they don’t understand is that I have been working since I was a very young girl and that I have been in the fashion industry for decades. I’m not just some new kid on the block. I have modeled, worked in retail, wholesale in the garment center, went to The Fashion Institute, schlepped to many o’ warehouses, been praised for my personal fashion taste, and now I’ve created the beginnings of a fashion house. I am not someone to be underestimated as Dorinda has said.

When I was commenting on Bethenny’s fashion, I was actually giving my opinion on her shape wear line, which I think is fabulous by the way! Of course shape wear is the aspect of Bethenny’s business dealings that I felt most strongly about since I have such a long history in the fashion industry. I know these are licensing deals and Bethenny hasn’t been in fashion her whole life, but I have lived it and am happy she has established herself as a worthy partner for licensing deals! That’s exactly where I am. I am reestablishing myself in fashion after the unfortunate lawsuit I ensued while owning my own production company.

What Bethenny is doing in this episode and what I’m doing with Sonja Morgan New York at this very second are completely different things. I am starting my business from the ground up again and in this meeting Bethenny is doing licensing deals. Bethenny has established herself as a successful businesswoman and has decided to extend her brand to partnership with a plethora of products. But she isn’t the one making the Orville Redenbacher popcorn or Arizona Beverage drinks! She is partnering with these successful businesses to extend her market value, and good for her! She is clearly very successful and very intelligent, but at this moment, she is not back to building a business from the ground up. Sonja Morgan New York is a new company, and we are still in the exciting time of a new company’s life when we are soaring upwards on our own--not doing licencing deals with other established businesses. And Bethenny can tell you that takes some time. One day we will also be doing licensing deals, but not today, and I am turning them down at the moment to develop my brand ID to a T. At this moment, I am enjoying the wonderful success my business has achieved thus far, and I am looking forward to continue doing what I love. 

I still don’t like that Bethenny keeps referring to her past experiences as failures. That’s just not my mindset. I am amazed at her path and look to it for inspiration. I look at everything she has done as a success. Bethenny Bakes, the Bethenny show, and Bethenny’s marriage are not failures to me. They are life experiences. I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to produce a film, and I don’t look at being sued in the movie industry as a failure. It was a life experience that made me who I am, and I enjoyed movie producing immensely. My work in film production, modeling, and acting have better prepared me to be in front of the cameras today. To me, every experience is a building block that leads you somewhere new and exciting. Looking at an experience as a failure is limiting since these moments actually make you who you are. Instead we all need to recognize that roadblocks are put in our path to show us what we can truly endure and that we can overcome. That’s how I have looked at my life and therefore I have always been able to be in the moment while building myself back up.

But enough about me! Shockingly, I do know that not everything is about me. LOL. That AOA party is just another example of Heather and Kristen being dramatic. Why does everyone feel like they need to clear everything with Bethenny? Kristen and Heather aren’t even friends with her, so why are they so invested in her opinion? That dynamic seems very forced to me.

The conversation between Avery and Ramona is very touching. Avery has an amazing head on her shoulders, and Ramona should be a very proud mother. Avery is doing the best thing staying out of her mother and father’s relationship. She offered Ramona a wonderful perspective, but she is smart enough to know that the best thing for her to do is be supportive of the two people she loves most. All of these women should take a page out of Avery’s book! Let’s all just try to stay out of everyone’s business, be supportive, and see how that works out. When did being supportive become such a novel concept?!

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