There are enough of them that i'm going to divide this up into a few parts over the next few weeks. This will be the first on the Groundwork. Some of which have their origins in Rogerian Person Centred, Humanistic Psychological Theory and numerous other sources, but given that my frame of reference in writing about this is based as much in my past Therapeutic background as my present training and educational one and my own personal relating experience, I think it's worth remembering in reading this, that, as some of Carl Rogers leading critics also pointed out, to some reading this who've been doing a lot of personal development work, some of these may feel a bit more second nature, and to some reading this, it may feel like Olympic level gymnastics while one is simply feeling like they just nailed learning to walk. In that respect, i think the best way to think of it is aspirational, with a growth focus in mind. I say that too knowing that i sometimes read this kind of things and the whole time as critiquing myself on where am i rocking and where am i kind of sucking on this....writing this on the back of a full moon in scorpio, go gently on your gorgeous self. Ok here we go....


The Groundwork


1-Vision: Growth focus

As Stephen Covey, Author of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle Centred Leadership talks about, relationships of all kinds actually require a vision. Friendships, Marriages, Family Units and yes, at work teams of all kinds, need a vision, a set of principles and a mission statement of sorts to accompany them, so that know matter who you're relating with and what life throws at you in the process, you're focussing and hence growing towards something, together. Part of that vision incorporates the individual aspirations and goals each person is working towards, as well as the shared relationship vision or, as it may be, team vision. Nine times out of 10 when I talk to people about their relationship woes, and ask them what their vision of the perfect relationship would look like, or what they want within it, they draw a blank. A little difficult to ask for what you want and both be working towards what you both want if you aren’t clear what exactly that is.
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As i was saying to a friend on the weekend, it's a bit like driving up a freeway. You're in separate cars, but you're going towards a similar agreed upon destination together...you have a course in mind and when something comes up, e.g. a trigger around not wanting to be treated that way, which may temporarily take one off track, down an exit somewhere, the relationship or team vision becomes the map you use to get out of the trigger and get back on course, to your desired destination. Agreed upon destinations may and do change and re-arrange over time, but so long as you're in mutual agreement you're on the same path, you're good.



2-Teamwork

No matter what kind of relationship we're talking about, all members involved therefore, benefit greatly from looking at the relationship as a team effort, if not, dare i say it, to make it a little more fun, a team adventure of life, growth and all things within it. In a team, you're both or all like-principled, like-valued people, in this together, roles and responsibilities need to be created and shared based on people's complimentary strengths and weaknesses, as you, together, navigate the road and traffic hazards of work, of family, of friendship, of marriage, or parenthood, of society, of humanity, of health and wellbeing, of personal growth, learning and evolution, of life. More or less of that depending on wether it's a personal relationship or based on what kind of team you're running at work. But there are different types of teams too. So part of our long term success in maintaining relationships comes from deciding also what kind of team you both or all want to be running together and what roles and responsibilities look like within that kind of team. And then holding to the commitment you’ve made to you both or all as a team, in balance with our commitments to individual aspiration and despite the tremendous fear of inadequacy or of letting go of our comfort zones of familiarity that might come with that.

Founder of Thoughtleaders, Co-Founder of Thoughtleaders Business School and one of Australia's Leading Leadership Experts, Matt Church published an awesome piece called The 4 Teams last year which addresses the question at work  "what kind of team are you building?“
Stephen Covey talks about family team roles in terms of Leadership, Management and Production roles in Principle Centred Leadership.

While both can fit together neatly, the ones with not only the greatest team style compatibility and the greatest willingness to adjust course to keep driving along together in unison in that team are the ones that evolve and grow together.

In the 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work, Dr John Gottman and Nan Silver’s guidebook on how to create a harmonious and long-lasting relationship, they also talk about the importance of accepting influence, e.g. your partners input in decision making and planning, as well as the importance in what they call the spiritual dimension of relationship, of envisioning roles, goals and rituals as a way creating a shared sense of what it means to be a part of one’s relationship or family.

All might be very handy in reflecting on what teamwork at home and at work means and might look like in practical application for you and yours. If you were to then write it down for yourself, what IS your version of team for each area of your life?


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Qualities to Cultivate Within Ourselves


3-Authenticity

E.g. (the willingness to show one’s true self and speak/share authentically, both sides, willingness to let others close enough to see and love you and vice versa, warts and all, as well as to feel the stretch to growth and evolution that is going to grow the relationship forward.)


Carl Rogers, one of the early Humanistic Psychologists who described Person Centred Theory and out of it founded Client Centred Therapy, called this “genuineness.” In the context of therapist client relationships, described this as being an essential component to the client being able to develop trust and open up to both the therapist facilitating the session space and their own innate healing and empowerment process. At it’s one aspect of Person Centred Theory that has applicability to everyday life is that our relationships of all kinds just as much benefit from our willingness to show up authentically and, as Brene Brown famously put it, vulnerably in our interactions with others, as well as powerfully in being willing to shine in being our biggest, brightest selves. Which means both sides willingness to show one’s true self and speak/share authentically, along with both sides’ willingness to let others close enough to experience, interact with and maybe even love the real us, warts and all, as well as to feel the stretch to growth and evolution that is going to grow the relationship forward. And vice versa.)


I think my best examples of the obvious impact of authenticity on the spark and longevity of a relationship came for me the year I was as a Sagittarian (all about universal truth and meaning) dating a Scorpio (all about integrity relative to the depths of the REAL us). If one of us was 1 mm out on being completely honest with each other on how we really felt about something for trying to please the other instead of stepping fully into the truest and most powerful version of ourselves, the spark (energy) would instantly die and feel like we were over. The second though, we owned up, got vulnerable and spoke to what we really wanted or felt following some recent moment of insight, a necessary emotional transformation, the innate cycle of death and rebirth that happens when you grow out of one old way of doing things and grow into adopting a new way of being, would happen through the acknowledgement of that reality, like hitting the energetic re-set button, it would see the inner fire re-ignite and then it was on again for young and old. Thus authenticity and vulnerability is like the spark that ignites the fuel in our fuel tanks as we drive along the freeway of life together, the more of it we have to ignite, the further we can go.



4- Acknowledgement and Acceptance

Authenticity and vulnerability are further supported, and trust and depth facilitated by the energy they are met with by the other person. Rogers coined the term unconditional positive regard e.g. witnessing someone without judgement or evaluation, but with empathy and the desire to better understand how things actually are for them moment to moment and support them to be all of themselves and grow into their highest potential as the intention to hold if we are to make it “safe’ for others to be their true selves around us. Deep down, even the people showing up purely to functional jobs or relationships of convenience need to know that, when they open up to us, whatever they say (regardless of wether we agree or feel the same, or perhaps have another perspective) need to feel that they’ll be met with acknowledgement of the validity of whatever it is that they’re presently experiencing and to have the sense that there’ll still be love (acceptance and continuity) on the other side of that disclosure when they do, in order for trust to be established and deepen with the repetition of this practice. Most people need to know that we’re committed to making the effort to notice and take stock of what is truly important to them too. Personally and, yes at work too if you’re Manager or Business Leader. Employees are looking for this from their Leaders and Managers just as much as the Leaders and Managers are looking for signs that their team are genuinely supportive and interested in them and the realisation of their cause. Thus acceptance is a bit like the favourable weather that we drive in on the highway that makes for an easy drive. Acknowledgement is the spark that ignites the fuel the car needs to run.




5- Transfiguration and Positive Outlook

Now this one may be a little more appropriate for our personal relationships. But if you’re into a family or a sports team style collaborative team at work, where you want to facilitate the deepening of connection, or if you want to facilitate the growth and inspiration of the people who come to you as clients wanting your support to learn a new skill/s, this might just be relevant to you too. This practice the warmth, the acceptance, and love people feel met with when they interact with us a step further again though if we can practice a little something that the Yogi’s call Transfiguration. E.g. To practice seeing others in this way is truly to, as the Bali Medicine Man puts it to Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love, to see the world through the eyes of our heart.

This basically means always being open to seeing not just the future potential within, but in the present moment, the divine gift and potential that is inherently expressed at all times through all people and in all things. And sitting across from another, essentially means looking them in the eyes and soulfully connecting with the other person, with this intention and appreciation. What is it that makes this person the gorgeous, unique and talented person they are? What gifts can we be grateful for that they offer up to us while they sit in our presence? Even if we’re there to literally teach them something, and especially if we’re there to support them, this practice literally improves the quality of your relationships 100 fold.

Many people out there though have rarely been met with this level of transpersonal, higher love in their lives, yet their whole lives, many people, deep down crave to connect in this way, so when they experience it, be warned, it can feel a bit to them like they’re falling in love with you as they reconnect with this level of love at first THROUGH you (until they, if they want to, also learn to do this for themselves) , because, beyond bonds with biological family, like parents or siblings or children, that’s the main socially societal frame of reference we have to categorise a level of love that pure, graceful and strong. In truth though, the more we practice this as a collective, the more we each just level up in being able to experience the higher levels of love. Imagine then romantic love from this place.


If authenticity is the spark, then Transfiguration is like the supply of fuel that comes from the universal petrol station of higher love that never runs out. Through the transpersonal eyes, we can see others, particularly in their moments of projection, pain and perceived failures with empathy and compassion for their human fragility, as well as their highest potential. Which doesn’t (as other parts of us seem to sometimes fear) mean we’re justifying or coddling or making slight on genuine transgressions of boundaries in any form of relationships. With higher love, it’s actually possible to hold both truths at the same time, that this is a person we love, doing their best to be love and to love to the best of their ability AND these are our boundaries and terms on how we want to be met and loved and what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour as we drive together down this road of life. From this place too, it's far easier to understand another, as well as to be understood by them.

Transpersonal/higher love helps us let GO of the fear that we’ll lose our power or enable the other by pursuing forgiveness. Our true power comes NOT from trying to exert control or pain and consequence over them, but from simply owning our truth and embodying it accordingly and staying committed to that truth, within the shared relationship vision. Thus is the power of transfiguration and transpersonal (divine) love.




6- Service over Self Satisfaction

This kind of love too is more an expression of service, rather than the desire to be loved/the high of being loved or the desire to get what one wants out of the equation, in and of itself. That alone, weather it be through desire, through healing, or ambition, or just the blatant old Captain Jack Sparrow “take what you want, give nothing back” equation, can get pretty yawn-worthy, or rather just flat out unfulfilling  pretty fast for the women or the men on the giving/allowing side of that equation, not being met back in a two way feedback loop. Like Liz in Eat Pray Love with the Bali Medicine Man, healing so she can find her way back to service and love or Bruce Almighty learning to see Grace through the eyes of God again and feel into what she wants again, the Transfiguration/Transpersonal Love practice (which puts us directly in touch with our most authentic, intuitive, fully expressed/embodied selves) helps us balance both being of service and being met at the same time, and more than that, align them, personally and professionally, in perfect order.  Wether at work or personally, if you want to inspire and motivate or create connection long term, try on the transpersonal for size and give the Transfiguration bit a try.


Afterthought: It’s a brilliant skill for de-escalating conflicts in all relationships too, professional and personal.  Because the moment one party can stop, breathe and shift themselves into this heart space, in a heart beat, if we look the other party or parties in the eyes, it will bust people back out of projections and conflict and back into connecting with you and everyone present in the same way.  Note: most effective done live in person. Harder to execute in online discussion, messaging or email, because the person is in their head reading/visually sensing and decoding what you’re saying, they’re not necessarily seeing or feeling your non verbals like they would in person. It helps to move it to video chat if you can.

Stay tuned for next week in which we continue to talk about the qualities to cultivate within ourselves.....

Until next week, have fun, take care.

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Covey, S.R., Principle Centred Leadership, 8th Edition, Simon & Schuster, London, 1992
https://www.amazon.com/Principle-Centered-Leadership-Stephen-R-Covey/dp/0671792806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525068672&sr=8-1&keywords=principle+centered+leadership

Church, C. Talking Point 22 The 4 Teams
https://www.mattchurch.com/talkingpoint/the-four-teams

Gottman, J.M. & Silver, N., The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, HARMONY BOOK, United States, 2015
https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Principles-Making-Marriage-Work/dp/0553447718/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8RYAM958JCN4W76EKREJ

Gottman J.M. & Silver, N., What Makes Love Last, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 2015 
https://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-Love-Last-Betrayal/dp/1451608489

Myss, C. Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential, Three Rivers Press, 2003 
https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Contracts-Awakening-Divine-Potential/dp/0609810111/
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Rogers, C. Client-Centred Therapy, Constable, London, 1951
https://www.amazon.com/Client-Centered-Therapy-Current-Practice-Implications/dp/1841198404/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1525064923&sr=1-1&keywords=carl+rogers+client-centered+therapy

Over my last several years of working with thousands of women business owners and leaders as they've personally navigated the empowerment journey and a lifetime of experience attempting to find the right balance of saying it like it is and create win win outcomes personally and in leadership roles (and both getting it very right and at times, very very WRONG at others) I think it can be summed up a little like this (see the model above.)


​1- Silent. At first, many women have started from a default of not speaking up, perhaps out of lack of awareness of what they need and at the times where they are, out of fear of what they'll lose or what consequences will be incurred if we speak up. This typically results in compensation via people pleasing to keep the peace, or women giving to others what they actually hope to be given in return (it's not just straight being of service, there's often that agenda. Or, at times, women simply withdraw instead of risking confrontation.


2- Non impact. In this phase, we start to practice speaking up, but even though we ask for what we want, we often don't feel like we got heard or met in this phase.  Boundaries get ignored and tested. And in this phase women often feel like their words and actions HAVE little power or impact on the people they had incidents with or ask for things. Here, even though we're asking, we're still acquiescing to the needs of the other as more important or watering down the impact to our challenge to the others power, in other words, we're not fully owning and embodying that it's 100% really what we want and need, we'll still drop it if it makes another happy or to avoid a fight or more suffering than is deemed acceptable for all involved and oneself. In this stage,  In women's workshops where we work on this, the remedy is at first encouraging women to feel it, own it and say it like it is in the safety of therapy space, without worrying about the consequences. You just practice owning it and getting it out.


3- Over impact.  Which, now that we're owning it and saying it, but are still overcoming the hangover of feeling like our words have little impact, for a while, we tend to go over the top in intensity, finally feeling the emotions that have been denied flowing freely when we let our energy fire up and flow again (rather than repress it), trying to be powerful, trying to have an impact, learning and practicing how to meet and match a threat or opposition, dealing with the stages of empowerment that involve justice and reclaiming our power through our own action.


4- Interdependent impact. E.g. the phase where, personally and professionally, we realise just how incredibly powerful we already are just being fully present within ourselves, centred in our hearts and in ownership of the truth of who we are, how we feel, of all we have to give, our wisdom, our gifts. In total ownership of our femininity and sexuality too (which can underplay also dynamics in the earlier stages, but that's a whole other blog in itself.  We actually have moments all the time in life of spontaneously BEING stage 4, but often we're not conscious of it so we may not realise how powerful we actually are and keep striving for more impact...even though we actually already landed with the force of a pointy boot kicking a door in, or Mila Jovevic in Resident Evil, frying the undead with verbal flame throwers.

After this realisation, we realise that just saying it how it is and blasting others flame-thrower style with the full impact of our emotional ejaculations, focusing on our own healing and acknowledgment as the primary goal and perhaps missing the huge impact on some people who really cared in our lives in the process, and subsequent conflicts, worst case maybe endings, we've come to the realisation now that, just saying it minus a filter, isn't always the needed thing.  In relationship building, as with audience relating, we must maintain awareness of or connection to the people we're speaking to as best we can at all times and be sensitive to how what we say is received, so that we can love and honour them in ways worthy of the connection we're building together. 

We also start to realise that, one of the reasons people tried at times so hard to get the upper hand back in stage 2 at times when we just spontaneously WERE completely heart centred and embodied in who we are as we spoke and acted and it scared the bejesus out of other people who were invested in our playing small. We realise that, at times, those people may be waiting for your moments of vulnerability, of insecurity before they pushed the boundaries. But in this stage, with all the virtues of the previous stages, like warrior strength and mother presence, this woman can look someone with ill intent or neck deep in their mental stuff in the eyes and they stop dead in their tracks and come back to heart and humanity. Equal impact is possible simply speaking through the eyes of our hearts, with focus on growth and building connection together, with focus on our shared vision/s and how do we create the win win. 


​​Finally, to summarise, as it applies to the bigger picture right now, and us coming into our power as feminine Leaders, one of the first steps to equality and feminine empowerment is for women to own their voices and the next is to realise the sheer power of them to influence in either a positive or negatively impactful direction.

Heart Centred Feminine Leadership is about asking that all-important question of what will be the impact of me saying this in the world and how do i say it in a way that helps most effectively get the point across with heart and helps us create the common outcomes we seek?

It demands that we add a dose of discernment to our urges to deliver disruption within the dysfunctional paradigms that have been.


Remembering that sometimes, truth goes down a little easier with a spoonful of honey, than delivered as a neat shot of Apple Cider Vinegar. Honey = with heart + human compassion + the considered use of good humour. Vinegar = judgement +/- blame, condemnation, being dismissive or apathetic to the impact of the kind of insight about human behaviour that are tied to people's deepest insecurities, wounds and vulnerabilities.


On an individual level, a spoonful of honey really DOES help the medicine of truth that at times needs to be shared and taken, go down a little easier. But deliver up a glass of vinegar to your friend for morning tea or spray your audience or community you're speaking to with it a little too often, BEFORE they've strongly connected with why they want and need you in their lives or know, like and trust you and you risk a bunch of rejections to your future invitations. In the end, we all want to be spoken to with love, honour, respect and gentleness in our fragile moments, don't we? Use more honey and you 10 X your positive influence and impact and you truly put yourself on track to making that bigger global difference you're here to make, plus creating the successful business, relationships and lifestyle you love too.

​Until next time, have fun, take care.

​Every awesome, life-changing thing i have EVER DECIDED to do, career path i had explored by the age of 30, every opportunity i have ever seized, that came to me with such (seemingly, to others)  ease, every idea that i ever got and then channelled into action in record time, i got because i went with the impulse to say YES and put my hand up in 5 seconds or less when the opportunities that were aligned with my deepest soulful desires showed up right in front of me, before i could talk myself out of it, or feel the 26 potential consequences of it going wrong (and possibly right).



Being a country kid and getting work experience at Ansett at 15, applying to Performing Arts School, saying YES to performing Arts School, doing comedy pieces with some now world famous actors, catalysing nation-wide changes to advertising companies at age 19, Practice Managing amazing Holistic Wellness Clinics, stepping into support roles to State-Level Managers or to Office Manage RTO's and Psychotherapy Practices when someone else got sick, the women's groups i've been handed, interstate trips, the state-wide social networking groups i ran, presenting and speaking at Melbourne festivals and events, Thoughtleaders, Leading Women, becoming a DYC/WCB/Wellness Leadership Mentor, becoming the Mentors Mentor, co-creating TPC, crewing for Jeffrey Slayter, creating WIWL, speaking on radio and podcasts, Performing Arts and International Coaching Awards, the YES's i said to friend's invitations to parties, to events, to workshops where i met the greatest loves and healers of my life (so far), to interstate adventures.  I had spent lots of timing dreaming up what i wanted and then i followed my heart and my gut to end up positioned in the pathway of those things, or sometimes they found me, and my (allegedly) "over-inflated, vain (or self loving?) ego", is just inflated enough that i said YES and my hand shot up faster than i could think about it to all of them. Then i dealt with the freak out (and occasionally desire to pass out) later. So that's why i GOT those opportunities and acted straight away while i had the resources to actualise them. And if i didn't have them yet, I got to working my butt off to get them. (And for the record, the courage it took to run with them did not come easily, i had been to hell and back, as well as experienced great privilege to develop that kind of warrior courage and faith that you can handle and achieve literally anything,)


Have i been able to convert every one of them that fast or in the time that i wanted to? God no. Sometimes it is frustratingly slow asking for all the pieces to align how you THINK you need them to...and watching some fall apart or disappear while you're waiting for the happily ever after you think is the answer. Sometimes you start to wonder if it really IS like Adjustment Bureau and some dude somewhere, at precisely 4:01pm is switching off your internet on purpose until you thought that major proposal through a little further, or so you don't email the right person with the wrong message, that is only you on half-power compared to how you'll be at 7am tomorrow morning. And then sometimes you just come up against a sophisticated wall of the consequences of your past mental creations and resulting actions. It's a little hard sometimes to undo karma until you acknowledge that it exists and get to work on creating something new. But often times, when you're seemingly stuck, its due to something going on in your head, that you're delaying on making some form of decision and therefore setting in motion the chain of manifesting it's potential consequences in either direction. Don't even get me started on the strategic chess style risk analysis that goes on when you're trying to make the "right" decision when you're too attached to what you think you can't afford to lose or NOT nail first time. Name your self sabotage overthinking drug of choice from self doubt, to guilt, to lack, to hiding, to hesitation, to perfectiprocrastination, at some point, i've O.D'd on them all too.


As Mel Robbins eloquently puts it in regards to getting what you want in life, and one of my former Mentors talks about it in terms of moving faster than the speed of disbelief to be able to get momentum in business, you need to be able to make decisions on those initial intuitive impressions though, faster than your self-protecting, survival-seeking brain has time to find a reason to throw on the emergency break. Or I’d say, when you start talking to others involved, they have time to pull on and start talking to you based on theirs and you have time to take it on and away from the path of growth and challenge. Its funny how, when we're not in our centre, doubt can be as infectious as love or laughter. But our first "impression"(eg intuition) is the remedy.




So much of the time, the answers we might THINK we need to make more time to meditate to find, actually already came, and often more than once, we just didn't listen and now sit there pretending like we don't know, when deep down, we really do.  Sometimes yes, now life has unfolded and now we're overwhelmed with emotion and then we have to process out the emotional energy first, to be able to hear that intuitive voice with clarity again on the other side.) But it is there. Behind all the overthinking and self doubting, the hiding, the hesitation, the perfecti-procrastination, it is there.



Learning to run with it and speak with clarity from it, that is the key. To just get up and dance. To just comment on that post, to just email that guy, to click on that ad, to just be audacious and dare yourself to make 10 phone calls to the reception numbers and just ask to speak to the CEO and see what happens and roll with it. As Richard Branson, and my high school drama teacher, once put it, saying yes too to anything you can learn to do before the first/next interview, so that you stay in the solution focused, proactive zone of being the answer to what the other party asked for, and then marry the opportunity with your existing desire, wisdom and capability, that is the very reason you were drawn to it in the first place. We have to practice split second following the intuition. Before you find and feel 26 reasons not to and or underestimate ourselves and our capabilities.



Finally, from my years of managing HR functions and working with others managing HR functions, as well as Relationship Coaching, and as any number of Eastern philosophies will tell us (and every one of the people responsible for the awards i once won told me when i asked them "no, but seriously, why me?"), relationships are built by and opportunities tend to preferentially find their way to the people who, aligned with their own values, are inspired to give generously like no ones business doing what they love, with who they love and thus have the most authentic gratitude for every bit of the opportunity in front of them. “Life” meets their love, their giving, and gratitude back with love, giving and gratitude. “Life” gives more value-aligned opportunities to them because they’re aligned, they’re open, they're proactive, solution orientated and willing to do the hard work when it comes to getting the stuff that they love and want done.


And, as Mel says too, you have to be true to asking for what you really want and asking for what you're worth in going after it too, when you have the opportunities to ask, if you're ever going to receive it. And that's where i lot of us inevitably fall down. We don't ask, we overthink it, we make excuses. Even when one owns 4 properties worth of security and freedom to go after it, still, excuses. So today, that's what i'd tell anyone else who asked me today what my Dad once did.  

That's how you start making the kind of decisions that impact your destiny in a more positive direction and start making some serious inroads to experiencing some seriously awesome things in life.

Where this week could you be overthinking less, tuning in more for your first intuitive impression and practicing running with it in that crucial first few seconds?

Until next time, have fun, take care.

Because something else occurred to me today, or rather over the last 2 weeks, while i must have walked past, through or behind literally a thousand selfies in motion on the Gold Coast pre Comm Games, constructing their social realities, in a world where it's increasingly becoming the case that, wether in our entrepreneurial lives or our dating and relating ones,  our future success and fulfilment is deeply intertwined with the "brand me" identity we put online and it is increasingly the case that, as we consider posting anything, as Stillman and Stillman put it in Gen X at Work, we're all ever-more growing into constantly considering "does this really reflect well who i really am, what i stand for and "brand me?'

Today, i want to take it a step further to the next question, where does the balance lay between trying to please and prove some aspect of who we believe ourselves to be/some aspect of what we want others to see about us online AND just being the empowered embodiment of our highest potential?

Over the years, of most recently working as a Business and Leadership Coach, and prior to that (sometimes STILL now) a Relationship Coach, i've noticed the same thing happening in both realms of selling you and your services online and, in the dating sense, selling YOU online. And that thing is that there is a direct correlation between where the locus of control is sitting in terms of our perception of our personal power and entitlement and our success in engaging the type of clients or the quality of partner that our heart most desires to spend our time with.

The Personifier is a pretty cool place to aspire to be because they're in their power and their totally open to the flow of give and receive, both in business and relationship. They're in other words, masterful at manifesting what they want, relative to what the other person wants too and sustainably being of service. Like the Queen or the King, they are truly the Royal Ruler of their own reality.

Looking at that, does any one or ones in particular resonate for you? Can you see what the path of growth therefore will be to take things to the next level?

To recap on the blogs of this year so far, what can you work on to achieve that?
-Work on your self awareness
-Work on being authentically you
-Work on understanding the value that you bring to the table
-Work on effectively communicating what that is and negotiating for what you and the other party both want and or communicating how you can be of service
-Show up fully for whatever you agree upon and follow through to be, do and deliver upon that

So that you can lead and be of service to those you love while creating a life and a relationship you really love.

If you would like some support with any of that, this is exactly the kind of thing we look at in my 1 year Business and Leadership program and my Leadership Support program. If i can possibly help you out with any part of that process, just let me know.

And that's it for this week. Looking forward to chatting to you on the other side of of the break.