From Wounded Queen to Empowered Leader of your own empire… and why YOU are the only determinant of your own success.
It’s 2010. I’m working as a mid-level attorney at the world’s number-one litigation firm. It’s 9pm and I shut down my laptop after a hectic day working on an evidence review for an oil dispute worth $2 billion. Blah blah blah. Another day has gone by in a blur. The same thought as always floods my mind: “Is this really what I want to be doing for the rest of my life?”
Soon afterwards, as I open the door to my apartment and switch on the lights, my heart sinks as that same restless voice jumps into my head from somewhere deep within: “... you’re meant for more than this.”
I want to be working in an industry that inspires me, not sifting through paperwork arguing over the vast wealth of individuals whose values I don’t particularly respect. I want to be seen and recognized in the world for something I’m really good at, something that feels like my mission in the world.
I’m a “success” by conventional standards: I’m earning multiple six-figure sums, vacationing on Argentine polo ranches, making good headway in my career. And yet... Why do I feel so uninspired? Underutilized?
It matters to me to be a part of some greater plan for the planet. To be at the forefront of changing the global economic story and helping other women soar and achieve.
I feel frustrated and uptight about my life. I feel I am cutting myself off from people as I try – and fail – to figure out my next move.
I’m not on MY path, and I don’t know how to correct this.
One day I speak with a life coach – a force to be reckoned with in the personal development world, with his own television show.
He tells me: “Sofia, you’re going to have to quit being a lawyer if that’s not what you envision for your life in the long term. If you don’t, you’ll never feel joy or satisfaction. All of us need to be following our own divine plan if we want to achieve success and fulfilment.”
A sense of terror flashes through me. I have no vision of a better life for myself.
Home alone that evening, I ponder over what he said. Having grown up in a family where money was a struggle, and developed a taste for luxury, I wasn’t about to compromise on my visions of wealth. How the heck was I going to make the next big leap without a plan?
{Flash forward three years}.
I attend my 999th workshop, at the height of my searching and despair. At this point, my choice is between squishing my dreams into a smaller box and giving up on finding my “something big”, and keeping going. The honest truth is, my energy is waning.
But the speaker that evening says that we each have a blueprint for our lives: we each know exactly what greatness we’re being called to, and we can access this information via heightened levels of intuition. This blows me away. Could this be a real possibility? And is it practical to use this information to attain this potential?
The speaker argues that the only reason we don’t allow ourselves to go after our really big dreams is a deeply unconscious belief that if we follow those dreams, we won’t be safe, loved or accepted. If we don’t look beyond that story, we’ll never be free or live out our highest potential. We will limit our talents, our power and our ability to be loved by those around us.
Bang. This smacked me between the eyes.
There was something in the speaker’s story about how he unleashed his own potential and rapidly created a business turning over multiple seven-figure sums that rang true with me. To achieve a life filled with meaning and purpose, we have to be brave enough to plunge into the unknown.
{Flashback to 2010}
I meet one of my best friends for lunch on one of those soulless, grey London squares. She tells me she’s getting married and asks me to be a bridesmaid at the wedding. I’m thrilled for her! But it puts my life in such stark contrast.
She immediately senses my sadness and asks what’s wrong. I smile and say with tears in my eyes, “I’m just not very happy and I don’t know what to do about it.” She squeezes my hand and has such a look of sorrow on her face. “I know, and it breaks my heart that I don’t know how to fix this for you.”
The shame I feel that someone I care about should feel so sorry for me is too much to bear.
I wasn’t a victim; I had simply outgrown my world. It was time to move forward. If the frustration wasn’t going to leave me, it was time to strike out in pursuit of my something big. So that’s what I did.
In the six years that have passed since I decided to take the plunge, I’ve learnt everything there is to know about reaching our highest potential.
If I was going to be the empowered leader of my own personal empire, it was time to clean up my life and take responsibility. I realized that all my failures – postponing my big career move, staying single for 10+ years (excepting non-serious flings), failing to get a new business off the ground – were down to the same reason: each time I failed, I’d made THE SAME 26 unconscious choices in a row.
(Shockingly, we ALL have a set pattern of decisions that plays out on a continuous loop, keeping our lives smaller than they would otherwise be – unless we take action to break the cycle.)
As I developed a deeper relationship with my intuition, I came to understand the plan for my life. Who knew that every answer to every question you’d ever wanted to ask might be found in the knowledge one already possesses?
As I discovered more about my deepest desires – my need to live near nature, the depths of my sexuality, my mission of being a women’s empowerment mentor and inspirational speaker – I kept finding fresh inspiration in life.
If only I’d committed the time to learning about my intuition at 18, how different my adult life would have been. After all, no great leader can rule without a plan!
Establishing my vision of a relationship helped me secure an incredible man in just two months (still my partner today). The more I trusted my inner knowledge and the action plans it revealed to me, the more life showed up. I’d spent years trying to figure out how to live without being tied down to a location, but when I got the call to move to Australia, my leadership business developed in perfect synchronicity to allow that to happen.
My clients – investment bankers, senior executives and editors, all of whom had reached a threshold as I had once done – were going on to achieve incredible success in their leadership ambitions after discovering their “something big” through our work together. With me there to cover their backs if they ever got scared, the visions I helped reveal to my clients were bringing them huge life changes.
Life got better and better – and now I was confronted with a new problem. The full scale of my vision began to seem overwhelming. I was so scared of what was in front of me I was paralyzed into inaction once again.
What my heart really wanted felt too big for me. But I wasn’t going to give up just because it felt hard.
I felt fear of success and of failure, fear of being in the public eye and fear of conflict – things all leaders have to deal with. But as I connected with my persona as a seven-figure business woman, the founder and CEO of my own company, a leader of a global movement for women’s leadership, living a life of my choosing and creating wealth on my own terms, I realized the biggest lesson of all – we are the SINGLE most important determinant of our own success.
Until we become the CEO of our own lives, of our own mindset, our own vision and choices, we can’t begin to achieve our greatest leadership potential and build our empires. We live in a constant state of conflict – one part of us wants to soar and thrive, and another wants us to blend in and remain invisible.
It suddenly made complete sense why I’d got stuck into life as a leader all those years previously.
Today I enjoy a life of leadership, love and freedom of a kind I could only have dreamed about if I had remained sat in that lonely and uninspiring London office.
When I sorted out the place of leadership in my life, the rest of my life came together as well. I now wake up each morning knowing that I have a day of work ahead of me that will be motivating and inspiring, and that I have someone to share these experiences with when my day is done. I’m making the impact on the world I feel I am meant to make.
I always had this in me. I just needed the plan and the strength to step outside my “safety zone”. And you have it in you, too.
If this has moved or inspired you ... and you’re tired of running around trying to find external inspiration (ultimately, that never works) ...
…I am now running a highly selective coaching program for women wishing to become the empowered leaders of their own personal empires – and I have room for two more clients.
This opportunity is for women who are looking for a structure to sustain their next big step forward in life and leadership, and for the support and tools to make this a success.
If this sounds like you, and you’re ready to be part of a new global story where high-achieving women live out their dreams, I’d love to hear from you. You can find more information at here.
I’d love to hear your story, too.
Much love,
Sofia
{How would you like to secure a crystal clear vision of your professional and personal future right now – and accelerate your trajectory toward Success 2.0™?}
Success 2.0™= being successful & having purpose and fulfilment in our work
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