" I am love and I am a loving, inspirational leader who leads with love. I am strong. I am brave. I am wise, humble, compassionate, soft, sensitive and vulnerable in all the ways I need to be to be me, to love, to be loved, to be of service. I give and receive with ease. I am tremendously gifted and my gifts are needed in the world more than ever.

I am talented.  I am everything I need to be to succeed and what I still need I will become. I can and I will make my dreams happen and surrender to letting it happen. I have a strong, clear connection to my inner and higher guidance and walk the path it guides me to with confidence and faith. 

There are hundreds of thousands of people out there who need me exactly as I am right now, who deeply value my wisdom and gifts and the offerings i am guided to put together with them and for them. They are more than happy to pay me above and beyond what I imagined I could receive for my assistance, my products, my services.  I know with clarity who I am here to help and recognise them easily when I see them. I  communicate to them with passion, humility, clarity and confidence how I can help them be who they're here to be and achieve what they're here to achieve and confidently and clearly communicate all they need to know, including my pricing information, so that they engage and participate fully and ongoingly in my services.

I am proud of and stand fully behind my creations and my work and deliver my part of the agreement with reliability and to a standard which constantly exceeds expectations. I am both a master of planning and surrendering to and trusting in the flow. I love, value and take care of myself and have clear, loving boundaries, communicating what i want and need with ease and grace.  I hold to them when i need to and can be flexible also when i need to adapt and compromise for a win win solution that best honours all involved. I am loved, valued, honoured and supported in all the ways I need to be in return.

I am safe to be who i am. I trust- in myself, in others, in the flow and natural order of life. I trust in that I will always be put right where I need to be. I am surrounded by a beautiful communities of loving, like-valued clients, mentors, colleagues, support people, family, friends and a partner who help me shine in bringing me and my work forward to the world, who bring out the best in me and me in them. My inner circle and I stumble and rise together, we celebrate together and have each others backs through thick and thin. I love, have fun and feel alive in pursuing my making a difference endeavours. The people I love and love working with and I have so much fun together.

I am grateful for my excellent health, well-being and seemingly endless vitality. I have the freedom to rest and take time out, to freak out when i need to. I am abundant financially and in so many ways in life I can barely keep up to count. I am energised by my work. My life is full of love, laughter, fun, passion, pleasure and experiences I love. I am a beautiful, sensual, powerful being not afraid to go after what I want and equally capable of deep surrender and trust to receive what I need.

 I am safe and supported in my journey and in my growth and learning. I live with authenticity, integrity and take responsibility for my experience of life and all that is unfolding within it. I surrender and let go in the realisation of what i cannot control or change. I meet my challenges and opposition with love, honour and grace. I rise from my challenges ever wiser, ever stronger, ever more loving and willing to go deeper and give more.  I love my work, I love where I live. I love my partner, I love my family, I love my friends and they love me. I am one with a life i love and my path as an inspired, soulful, heart-connected leader.

I ride the journey of life and embrace change with ease, grace and deep trust in that all is working out in my favour and that of those around me at all times. I feel so blessed for all of the gifts I have and so grateful for all of the miracles and gifts I am yet to receive, that I know are on their way.  I am grateful for every little bit of this beautiful life and every single person in it and i meet what comes next with open arms and an open heart."

​That's it for today my friends. Thank you so much for reading and stay tuned for a recording that will be available soon and exclusively first to those of you in the Women in Leadership Connection Self Empowerment Support Community and who sign up for the She Lives a Life She Loves "30 Days of Living a Life You Love" challenge coming to you 6 Feb. Stay tuned.

Until next time, have fun, take care xxx

Having facilitated an event recently titled "Ice Cream and Handcuffs: 50 Shades of Sex, Love and Getting What You Want Out of Life", that question above has been on my radar a lot lately. Asking for what you want is kind of an unavoidable part of the success picture in all aspects of life; want to get more clients and more money, you need to make an invitation and ask for the sale, want a bigger mailing list, you might have to ask same JV partners about working together, single and want to find a partner online dating, you've got to be able to send a winky, swipey, messagey sign and ask, want that late night booty call, someones got to ask, have a family member to cater gluten and dairy free for you, you've got to ask, buying a house, someone's got to ask an agent about all the finer details of inspections before putting in an offer to ensure you don't throw away several hundred thousand on something half eaten by termites or, worse maybe with dead people burried in the slab underneath (i'm joking). But seriously though, as we ease into 2017, its an important question to be asking if we want to create something different in business, life and connection this year.  So, here a few things you might like to know about what gets in the way of us asking for what we really want.

We might have to compromise. We might have to adjust our expectations until every body wins. As evolutionary astrologist Tom Lescher once famously said, allow yourself to adjust until it's not "either/or, its both or more." Even if you ask, and the first answer is some form of a no, maybe a fear from a client they don't have the money to buy that program or their partner might not be ok with it, but hasn't thought of a way it could work compared to the way they're seeing it wont..they might be a "yes" if you helped them compromise to SEE a compromise. Maybe he/she says no to a date tonight, but did you ask if they're free instead on the weekend? (Because maybe "no" today meant "no because i have yoga class tonight" not "no, i don't want you in my company like EVER!" It pays not to make assumptions and just give up there. Maybe you and a partner or friend enjoy different food types, or tv shows or you and a partner have a preference for sex at certain times that aren't always convenient to the other. How might it still be possible for both parties to have their needs met in a way and timing that suits both of you?

Two things are inevitable- if you don't ask, your infinitely less likely to receive what you want. (And it's not the job of others to psychically automatically KNOW magically what you want.)
And if one person likes to get it their way all the time, there's inevitably going to be conflict until they learn to give as well as they take.

To be able to successfully create a win win, we thus have to get over our stuff about compromising. Sometimes that means being willing to accept changes to your availability or level of "freedom." Sometimes that means practicing being grateful for and deriving enjoyment from seeing and feeling the other people you love being made happy and thus enjoying with them their joy...without agenda....just...because. Plus being willing to let go of giving with the expectation of receiving back; being willing to let go of the score card and carding system. Plus being willing to be OK with it when you hear a no and you're not going to get it 100% how you first hoped you might.

If we can show up to those moments in our hearts, minus projecting onto it any past baggage from times one had to ongoingly endure periods of not being seen, heard or met, provided one surrounds oneself with people who are genuinely interested in and capable of compromise, and thus mutual trust that you are valued and will both be met at some point can be established, even if not in this immediate moment, compromise becomes not such a biggy. Learning to compromise and deal with our stuff around compromise, is an incredibly important accompaniment to being able to ongoingly receive what you want when we ask for it.

Then of course, there are times in life when we just aren't clear yet what we want yet to know to ask for it. Maybe we've been so busy giving we've forgotten to tune into ourselves, in which case the answer might come from stopping and making time to tune into oneself and actually ask oneself what one wants. Maybe we've got so caught up in someone we love or admire that we need some time to clear our starry eyes and come back to ourselves and see and feel our own truth again. Maybe we'll find the answer in meditation or surrender, other times in taking action. Then sometimes we do know, but we need to give ourselves permission to ask for something...that...awesome. Whatever you need to ask for this year, i hope this gives you a little more clarity on how to ask for and receive what you really want in 2017 and beyond.

Until next time, have fun, take care and i look forward to chatting soon.

Well Hello there and Happy New Year to you! Rather than write another wonderful goal setting blog or create a webinar or workshop among the thousands for our first blog of the year, after seeing Burnt with Bradley Cooper, by chance twice in the last few days, and waying it up against a few of the Leader Life Lessons i'd uncovered in my work in recent years, I thought i'd firstly, if you're still on holidays, suggest you add it to your watch list. Not just because, I'm happy to admit, a have a bit of a soft spot for Bradley Cooper. But also because there's so many themes and lessons about leadership in this movie that one can really learn from Adam Jones' ups and downs in business and life, particularly if you're in Wellness and have aspirations of building a team and a tribe. So, with a little more clarity after watching that movie, here's 7 lessons that had been evolving in my consciousness to share with you when i came back for the year, to help you lead and succeed and be better supported in what you do best in 2017.

We often think we need to become someone else to be an inspiring leader. But in truth the most inspiring leaders are often very human and no more or less wounded or flawed than anyone else. We can get so caught up in thinking we lost people because of this character flaw or that one. But it's worth remembering, as Simon Sinek puts it in his TED Talk "Start with Why- How Great Leaders Inspire Action", it's not you alone that is what is motivating the people around you, so much as what you believe/stand for that they need to believe in within themselves and that hey need to believe is possible for them.
You can be entirely likable, charming and good with people and still fail to get a new program or offering off the ground if you don't understand the WHY of why people really believe in your cause and what you stand for achieving through their eyes.

​So it's one important thing for you to understand why you do what you do (that bit gets you out of bed every day) for your success this year, then for your website, understand THEIR WHY, so that they can get up every day believing in what's possible for them on their journey.

​Yes, we can do it alone, part of our growth requires learning to leap out of the nest and see and hence believe that we can in fact fly on our own. And when some of the other things we deeply crave in life are temporarily absent, this kind of surrender to our desires and throwing ourselves fully into our own life's work or the work of others who's missions are our visions for ourselves realised, can be a god send when life happens, or mental health happens, to give you a focus and a sense of purpose. When you discover your own WHY and YOUR BIGGER PICTURE WHY (the one REALLY inspiring your target market) and REALLY let the desire for these in, surrendering and allowing ourselves to become emotionally invested in our visions and every action we take towards them is crucial to our success in realising our dreams, not just having them become another New Years SMART goal that's already been abandoned by the 16th Jan because it seems to big, too hard and unachievable.

​​Our fears of not being enough and letting down the people we love, of being too much for the people we love, feeling not loveable or enough for people because of our past mistakes, and feeling unworthy of receiving and ongoingly holding both our dream and the beautiful people who really love and want what's best for us in our lives, can tear us apart. These thoughts and the stories beliefs they evolve into can become the basis for sabotage patterns that not only keep us out of the ring of success, of connection with material abundance, but also keep us out of the ring of meaningful human connection of all kinds too. A timely lesson and a good one for a week with full moon in Cancer, despite whatever challenges life brings you, it's time to love and back yourself fully in 2017. Yes, you you are enough, yes you can do it, yes there will be support. Connect and align and you will find you will flow in it. And there are a whole bunch of people who will love you warts and all exactly as you are along the way. Plus they will believe in and support you fully in your mission and vision, that is really theirs too.

Ok yes, for many Leader types, like Adam, and also Meg, played by Lesley Mann the Sexy Obstetrician in How to Be Single, there comes a time when we realise we may not strictly NEED others and can definitely succeed without others. But there also comes a time when we WANT others around because life is just that bit more beautiful and easy in a whole other way WITH others. It's OK to want others. More than that, it's really good for your health NOT to go it alone and let others love and support you. Literally, the Heart Foundation say it prevents the development of Heart Disease. 
Sometimes it's not truly connecting with others that is the problem, so much as what we're telling ourselves in our heads about how scary it is and why (or some past trauma on auto pilot is telling us it is) that causes the massive degree of distress . Hence the thing to ask is, first, how do we deal with that in healthy ways to reduce the potential discomfort of connecting and ultimately embrace intimacy, minus the fearing being annihilated within it?

Then, If you don't have a close connection with your biological family or partner in your world, and even if you do, how can you create a family that brings out the best in you and mutually supports you to be your best selves? Take a look around at the Leaders you admire who you view as successful. They're all either partnered, have close ties to their family, or have created their own family who are there for them and love them in the kind of moments where Adam hit the deck.

As separate to the dynamics you might have with a business support team, to whom the support may go as far as they've paid you for training or you've paid them for service. It's important to have clear boundaries around where the friendship in these starts though and the business ends and what your needs are around both. So that everyone has realistic expectations of what's really going on and can fulfill their roles and obligations to each other, plus build their support networks accordingly in ways that honour all involved as much as humanly possible. The teams and tribe with clear boundaries around such things stay together and grow together over the long term.

​And then, finally, that growing and staying together requires having the courage to be honest and willing to communicate what support you really want and need and when so that you can reach your full potential. Plus being open to hearing about where others are at and what support they need and when so that they can keep bringing their best selves to the table too. Not to mention keep you both in connection with each other's visions for your lives and leadership, which is again essentially if people are to grow with you within your business or tribe.

​Burnt so beautifully illustrated how we can get stuck in the past trying to make amends for our mistakes and then our whole languages shifts to I miss you and I'm sorry I wasn't enough, which OK at times, may be needed in itself if we played out a bit of crap in the grown ups world. But then what also really helps build and ground what we desire to be and experience in the present, is gratitude. There is the most beautiful moment in that movie where a very hung over Adam peels himself off the kitchen floor to ask his former colleague/now "rival" Reece why he helped him the previous night when a very drunk Adam came and disrupted the kitchen and pulled a sous-vide bag off Adam's head and cradles Adam while Adam has his break down.  To which he basically replies, "because you're better than me and we need you. We need you to be you and be incredible at what you do to challenge us to be our best too." So much healing and bonding happens in that moment of honesty and acknowledgement when Reece chooses the high road and gratitude.

To thrive in 2017, might i suggest trying a little more gratitude for literally everything around you and hence acknowledgement of what wonderful gifts are really showing up for you in any given moment. In place of the other  g's and j's....guilt, grief, jealousy or judgement. Not every thought or emotion that ever crosses our mind and experience need be shared to our mutual benefit, but before you consider sharing one, is there a way you can re-phrase it as a gratitude? What you feed with gratitude grows, what we hammer continuously with the other g's and j's sometimes goes.

If there's one thing women excel at in business that men can learn from, it's knowing when to intuitively go with the flow, when to push and when to rest during the process of creating one' vision. Only sometimes all that going with the creative, feminine flow and the depths of experience gets a bit chaotic and needs a container. This is where continuing to utilise some basic good old fashioned masculine clever calendar and planning tools, like the one the lucky women doing my group and one on one coaching programs get to use, to create some structure and a safe container for your inspired creations and the inspired actions your taking towards them is STILL important, regardless of how awesomely intuitive and good at going with the flow i know you are. But, for the sake of your leadership and entrepreneurial endeavors, might i suggest always be willing to surrender despite them to a "better" way to get it done.  Maybe you thought you'd start on that book in April...now an opportunity to start shows up in Feb. It's Gold! Do you say no, just because it wasn't in the plan? Uh uh. You say yes and then see about the HOW. Likewise, 10 clients come to you that aren't strictly in your target market, but you love them and think it's a great opportunity that's shown up. Plus you have capacity to take them on and need the income. Do you say no because it's not in the plan? Hell no! You say yes. Because the most successful entrepreneurs are the ones that have the capacity to let go of how they thought it should look and let life in when its right in front of them. Did that make the planning a waste of time? Hell no. Once you put it and how you could get there on paper, your brain doubly believed it is now achievable. And that my friend, is a shift we all need to take to walk up the mountain of achievement, by creating some manageable short legs on the way, with a few rest breaks thrown in for good measure.

So there you have it, as it turns out, lessons from x2 Leadership Professionals and 2 brilliant movies to help you lead and succeed in 2017. I could go on and on and on further, but i think that goes you plenty to contemplate for now, plus two great movies to watch if you haven't already before the end of the holidays. It's a win win. If we haven't already checked in for the year, i'd love to hear from you, what is inspiring you and what will you be creating in your leadership and life in 2017?

Super grateful for you there reading this and looking forward to our shared journey and helping you make that vision happen in 2017.

Until next time, have fun, take care.