The importance of leadership skills and personal development

Personal development is a long process that moves through our daily lives until our examples of personal goals in life become the inspiration for others

My name is Steven Jackson and I was born in a city in the south of England called Southampton. I enjoyed a pleasant childhood with my mother, father and a younger brother. On the whole I remember that life was happy and most of the time we had enough money. I can’t remember a situation when we were hungry even though I do recall my mother searching for coins in the kitchen draws so she could buy milk.

On the other hand, school was not so good. I was not a great pupil, but I managed to scrape through with passes and unbelievably gained an apprenticeship in metalwork for a local company. I think my dark sense of humour came from them years, which I still have a bit today even though I have been away from that life. However, I have fond memories and friendships that still endure today.

My apprenticeship years seemed to move slowly until a friend of a friend asked me to join his band. I didn’t realise it then, but it was a key point in my journey or that something that allow us to say “I can be more than I am” rather than just vegetating into the same old existence. Even then I dreaded becoming my father and that is not to say that he was not a successful person in his own right, but to aspire to be another 9 to 5 employee was something I really did not want.

The years went by and I completed my apprenticeship, I purchased a house with a girlfriend and was enjoying playing the band circuit, but I was still in my mind missing something, even though I couldn’t see what it was at the time. So, I decided to return to school by starting an Open University degree course, which as I found was right out of my comfort zone, but being out of my comfort zone gave me the strength to pursue goals outside my normal social circle.

Examples of personal goals in life

The strange thing about personal development, once someone starts achieving some form of success there is always a negative outcome. It is not always visible at the start, but somehow I believe it is an inevitable process in life. Sometimes to succeed and to gain leadership growth and development we need to leave some of our personal baggage behind. The personal baggage for me was my long-term girlfriend. We had not been getting on for a while and the more personal success I was achieving the further apart our relationship became.

I realised that I needed to change everything in my life. The same year my long term girlfriend and I split and for a while life became a bit crazy with angry exchanges about money and who owned what.

In retrospect, the ending of our relationship was the best thing for me even if it was not for her. I felt freer in setting life goals and moving forward into the next stage of my existence. So, in 1991 I decided to make a trip to Rome, Italy to reboot my life and have time to think over a few things on what I wanted to do next.

In my opinion, independent travel gives the mind time to reflect on decisions one has made in life with the realisation that our future has only oneself to consider. At the same time there is no-one to blame if everything goes wrong and in some ways that was very liberating to know that the choices I make will decide my fate.

While in Rome I met my wife and even though she was not the full reason for being successful she was an important motivation to be successful in something. Nevertheless, success as I realised quite quickly needs to be a personal journey absence of others opinions because finally it was me and only me that was going to decide whether or not I was going to be successful.

Importance of leadership skills

Success is examples of personal goals in life and arguably is the starting point of our real journey

So after a few years of being married, having a child together and living together in the UK we decided to move to Finland. The UK was not working for us at the time, unemployment was high and the general lack of opportunities was becoming an issue, so we sold everything and moved to Finland with a suitcase each and about £250.

At the start, life was difficult, I couldn’t speak Finnish, I couldn’t find a job and it was really lonely, I have to say the loneliness was terrible. After about 8 – 10 months culture shock kick in, everything seems to be darker and harder than it really was, fortunately my wife who was originally from Finland understood what the problem was because she had been through a similar situation herself in the UK, but at the time I didn’t understand.

I can remember when we finally got a city apartment, all we had was a bed for our daughter, a second hand TV and one lamp. We were sitting on the floor eating ready made roast chicken from a bag to the light of the TV set.

Slowly we purchased a bed for us, a kitchen table and chairs that made everything slightly more homely and my wife was working so we were bring in some extra money. Overtime, we managed to make the apartment our home and I have to say that I felt a sense of achievement.

We had arrived in Finland with nothing and somehow we made things work, which seemed like a turning point for me.

It became apparent that I could not continue being the house husband and child carer while my wife worked, even though I quite enjoyed seeing my daughter grow up and being at home when she returned from school.

To rectify this situation, one quiet Monday morning when everyone was gone, I made my action plan and personal goals for work with the intention of getting a job in Finland.

Fortunately, that day a letter fell into the letterbox with an offer of a 8 month Finnish language course paid for by the state. This happened to be number one on my action plan.

My action plan

Here are some examples of personal goals in life that I went through to get a job in Finland.

Learn Finnish

  • Start a Finnish course ✓
  • Use Finnish everyday ✓
  • Learn Finnish ✓

Return to school

  • Apply to enroll for a degree ✓
  • Start a degree course ✓
  • Pass the degree 3.5 years ✓

Get a job

  • First job can be anything degree related ✓
  • Once I have a job, find a better job until I find the one I am content with ✓

So, putting it even more simply Learn Finnish, go to school and get a job in that order and do it all in 3.5 years. Of course, nothing ever goes to plan, because as I found, nobody can learn Finnish in 3.5 years. However, I was using Finnish on a daily basis and even studying in Finnish which was a nightmare in itself.

The main problem or maybe shock for me was that my action plan was completed far too fast and of course that is not a bad thing. I know that I would complete my action plan, but I didn’t know that I would want something more than I had achieved.

I am guessing it took me about 5 years before I said to myself, “I really need something more than a 9 to 5 job” even though I have to say I was quite happy with my life on the whole. However I really needed something more, but what?

Achieving my working life goals had create a feeling that anything was possible, anything could be achieved if only I had a vehicle that would give me the income and freedom I desired.

Examples of personal goals in life

Achieving success and personal development in business

One option that came to mind was running a home based business. I had look at MLM many years before when my wife had been quite successful in a network marketing business in the UK. I had some knowledge and I felt that I really could be successful, regardless what type of business or product was involved.

The main reason I like the idea of network marketing is because it was affordable, I could work while I learnt and I could do it from home while I was working a regular job. So, searching the internet I researched many different business opportunities from tech products, weight loss products and wellness products until I found the company I thought could work for me.

The characteristic I was looking for was:

  • Low startup cost
  • Free webshop and marketing tools
  • Free online admin
  • No monthly fee
  • A small enough product that would travel easily
  • And the possibility to run the business online from anywhere in the world where there is the internet

Finally after weeks of researching I found the company that completed my bucket list and gave me the opportunity to become successful.

Personal development in business

Any personal development in business needs an action plan :

Taken action

  • Join a business (The company was called Doterra) ✓
  • Teach myself internet marketing, web page development and anything else needed in network marketing (Self taught) ✓
  • Create a system that enrolls new consultant automatically (Blog marketing and landing page marketing) ✓
  • Create a system that sales the products automatically (Blog marketing and landing page marketing) ✓
  • Create a system that emails my warm leads automatically (Email auto reply system) ✓
  • Set leadership development goals (Work always in progress)

Set Goals

  • Make enough money to relocate to Spain in 4 – 5 years
  • Earn enough to live in Spain in 4 – 5 years
  • Build large Doterra team (Enroll 20 a month) in 6 – 12 months ✓
  • Help 5 top line leader to achieve Premier in 3 years
  • Earn enough to sometimes live in Finland in 4 – 5 years

Make a plan

  • Enroll 20 consultants a month ✓
  • Develop leadership goals and objectives for four team leaders ✓
  • Get to Silver rank before Christmas 2017 (Achieved November 2017) ✓
  • Get to Gold rank before Doterra conference May 2018
  • Get to Platinum rank by Decemeber 2018
  • Move to Spain for 6 month in December 2018

Work on my business everyday

  • 4 to 6 hours a day ✓
  • 1 to 2 hours on weekends ✓
  • Holidays 1 to 2 hours depending on situation, but always 30 minutes just in case ✓

Achievements so far….

  • I have a downline of over 403 to date (between 16 and 30 new consultants a month)
  • Achieved Silver rank with Gold and Platinum in my sights
  • Income increasing all the time
  • At the moment, I believe I am moving forward at a satisfactory rate, but I still feel I need to do something to push up the pace. However, compared to many of my business colleges I have moving very fast, so I guess it is perspective rather than reality.
  • I am happy to say that I am achieving everything I committed myself to and believe that I will achieve my other goal in due time.

Personal mindset and examples of life goals

I would like to say that in many ways I am the same person I was 20 years ago or even 5 years ago, but in many ways I am not. I have lost something of the happy go lucky in myself and exchange it for the desire for success.

I have become very driven and have found that I find it difficult to understand why others in this business as well as my personal life are not as driven as I am. I have often wondered how other see their own success because the excitement of success itself has become as powerful as my original goals.

The ability to make life choices irrespective of what that maybe is a powerful motivator. However, returning to the true aspect of what makes us successful against failure, is simply that point in time when we physically and psychologically take action and choose to be successful.

Yes, it is a mindset and personal reboot that we have to work on everyday, but very achievable for anyone who wants success in their lives. However, the second we express an opinion that it can’t be done we are sending a message of doubt to ourselves and declining the chances of success.

I have found that creating small personal successes, daily mindset reboots and reflecting on the importance of leadership skills in my business is a way of helping influence myself that everything is achievable.

Importance of leadership skills

It starts every morning with these examples of personal goals in life:

  • What will I eat today?
  • Will I go to the gym?
  • How positive will I be?
  • How much work will I do on my business?
  • How will I speak to my partner?
  • Will I call a friend?
  • How much will I socialise with friends?
  • Will I be excited about life?
  • Will I be happy with my relationships?
  • Will I be happy with my life?
  • Will I go to bed early enough?

Success is in this list, because success without supporting other parts of our lives will create an unsuccessful future. So, as financial freedom move forever closer I have also needed to work on other parts of my life.

Arguably, personal success such as relationships and personal wellness is more difficult to achieve than business success. Changing a lifetime of unhealthy living or a history of toxic behaviour in our personal relationships forges an unpredictable and dysfunctional future.

However, as with personal success being a choice, personal successes are also choices because at the end of the day we are all looking for one thing and that is a happiness.

I don’t believe my journey will be ever over, because there will always be something to achieve or aim for in life but that is how life should be.

Take the journey with me

Few have really helped me to be successful and not because I didn’t want help, but more so, people I worked with did not know how to help me. As you may have notice through this article, I am a self starter, diligent, persistent, motivated to succeed and too stubborn to know when enough is enough.

So, if you want to become successful and you want to learn the importance of leadership skills in one of the fastest growing home based businesses around at the moment – Click here or PM me and I will get back to you asap….


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