Fredericton Team-Building Business Teaches You To Walk On Fire For Co-Workers, Company
FREDERICTON – Any organization, be it a big corporation or a small local startup, is only as strong as its team of people.
That’s the philosophy that drives Fredericton’s new team-building courses, Level Up. Offering activities from trust falls to hot coal walks, the exercises are meant to increase individual or group performance through team building.
“We work with companies, they come to us, they tell us their goals, their desired outcome. Then we customize an individual program according to their needs,” said Martina Bernhofer, a co-founder and President of Level Up.
Bernhofer started the business with her partner, David, in May – four years after moving to New Brunswick.
In Austria, where she grew up, Bernhofer finished her Master of Business Management and was ready to take on something new. One weekend, a friend brought her to a weekend seminar with activities challenging participants to push their limits like walking on a path of glass and walking on fire.
“I was like, this is what’s missing in my collection, so I figured, yeah, I’m gonna do this,” she said. “I loved the trainers, and I loved their motivation and their hard-working philosophy. I figured this is what I wanted to start next, so I became a trainer there.”
Martina and David, both trainers, met in Austria and after spending a couple of years living in Malaysia, they made their home in Canada.
It was May of this year that they decided to begin offering the same types of team-building activities that brought them together.
“[Our friends] basically convinced us to bring the business over here, because they said there is nothing similar to it right now in New Brunswick,” said Bernhofer. “I did my research and they were right. There is nothing compared to us here in New Brunswick.”
Now, Level Up offers professional development which takes the form of team-building games, outcome-specific activities, or challenges that push participants to exceed their limits, like the glass and firewalks.
“If you are in focus, you can go so deeply … that you develop kind of like a tunnel vision, and you eliminate everything else around you, you just see your goal ahead of you. Then you start walking, and you don’t even feel that you’re walking on hot coals or that you’re walking on glass. You don’t feel that anymore,” she said.
Most group sessions are broken up into three categories: short energizing games to help the team clear their mind, professional development, and then the more intense mind over matter activities. While every session looks different depending on the team’s needs, Bernhofer says the results of the time spent building the team are huge.
“A lot of [teams] profited from figuring out their strengths. Some of them grew in their personal development a lot. And then that of course, manifests in their career as well,” she said. “They got more strength and more belief in themselves, what they are capable of.”
Bernhofer encourages any team to contact her through her website. From there, she will work with your team representative to come up with a program that is tailored for them.
“I always say, if you can manage this, walking over hot coals or walking over glass, you can manage everything in your life.”