Personal Leadership features as the core of everything for me.  It's the centre of everything I teach and everything I aim to demonstrate as I focus on leading by example.  It is also, in my personal opinion, the key to you  empowering your visions and transforming your life.  While I have my own innate understanding of what personal leadership is I am often reminded that there are many people who do not have a knowing about what it means.  Today I have decided to delve into this topic as the theme for February so I'll be sharing a series of articles over the course of this month to help demystify personal leadership for you, well the Creative Possibility version of personal leadership at least

To get started I feel it's important to tell you about my experience with personal leadership and how I came to be so passionate about it.  I can't exactly remember when it started.  In some ways it's a bit like I've always been interested in what I now call personal leadership.  It is, for me anyway, the deep seated inner drive we all have access to.  It's the drive that fuels your day.  The juice that keeps you flowing.  The magic that makes you sparkls.  It's the choices that you make.  It's saying NO when you know it isn't right and racing up and yelling YES when it's succulently perfect for you.  It's being a leader.  It's living your life on your terms.  It's about saying I can, I will, I do, I am.....

I know that when I'm not in relationship with my inner leader and therefore not engaged in actively living my brand of personal leadership that things are usually not function at their best for me.  It is in these times that I get stagnant, that I feel stuck, challenged, in pain, overwhelmed and just not 'right.'  Things are not working for me and business and my life are often looking pretty bleak. Have you ever had a moment where you just don't 'feel right' but you can't necessarily put your finger on it and put words around what's going on to describe it?  These are the times when you are not in relationship with your inner leader and not following your personal leadership path

"A deep seated, succulent, passionate desire, put into action, to empower your visions and transform your life by staying true to who you really are, aligned with your values, your purpose and your passion"
~ Shannon Bush

_Just so you know, this is not another article promising a magic way to success!

I'm sure you've read a load of articles by now about how this year will be your best yet.  Maybe you're even tired of seeing them land in your inbox, so much so that you've taken to deleting them without even reading them.  If that's the case then first up a big, big thank you for reading this far.  I'll do my best from this point forward to not, I repeat not, make this another one of those articles

Following on from the destination theme of the past couple of days I have decided to devote today's message to helping you to define your destination success.  As someone who embraces and teaches what I know to be key principles to effortless success I often get asked to define success.  This is where it can get tricky.  I don't believe that there is one definition of success as I believe whole heartedly that it's a very, very personal thing.  What I write as my definition of success will not be the same as yours or the next persons

The term success is so popular and shows up all over the place.  You see it feature in personal development, psychology, health, business, education, sports, finances, relationships..... the list goes on and on

When you get to thinking about what it means to you - success - I think you could potentially end up with many different definitions, depending on what area of your life you are thinking about at the time.  What I do know is that your life experience, your path to this point, your environment, your 'map of the world' all contribute to your definitions.  These differences between us are to be celebrated.  It's the differences that make us unique and real.  It's what makes the world an interesting place and a place to explore and journey our own path to success and anything else we wish for

What do you think about these dictionary definitions of success;

Success is the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted

Success is the gaining of fame or prosperityand the extent of such gain

Success is the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like

Success is the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors

Mmmmm.... not sure what I think about these!

After yesterday's article I got to thinking about what additional destinations were important when it comes to creating a clear image of what it is you want in life.  I had lots of different ideas and they all seemed valid so I decided to wait until the end of my day to allow the clarity to come through and then decide what to share with you

Today I spent the day as a participant in an enlightening workshop as part of an alumni program for a Business Breakthrough program I participated in back in May last year (check out the next one happening in Perth this coming March).  The focus of today was on DISC profiling.  Forgive me if you know what DISC is as a profiling tool but I'm going to give a really brief introduction here.  DISC is essentially a personality profiling tool that helps us to better understand ourselves and others.  There are many profiling tools out there that do similar things and all give us critical insights into our unique selves.  That, for me, is the awesome bit and the stuff that enables me to grow! 

I love learning about people, stretching myself to learn more and gain more understanding about myself and others and to sharing my knowledge with other people so they too can be more enlightened, if you like.  At the very least I am opening up opportunities and possibilities that perhaps did not exist before hand

Here's some of my favourite Growth quotes for added inspiration;

"The only journey is the journey within" ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

"Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still"
Chinese Proverb

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom" ~ Aristotle

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever" ~ Mahatma Gandhi

“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live" ~ Mortimer Adler

I've just been chatting to a great friend of mine and during the conversation we covered all sorts of things.  It was a bit of a general catch-up to see how we both were and, in usual form, we got talking about some relatively deep topics and then we got to the topic of balance

We both, as do many of our friends, and in fact a large majority of people I know, talk of searching for balance and suggest, through what we say that is an elusive, out there, thing

This got me thinking, what is balance?  really, what is it?  what do we say when we use the word balance?  what do I mean when I say I want balance in my life?