I grew up in South Africa and coming from a tourism family, my love of traveling took hold at a very early age. At the same time my interest in the unexplained mysteries, sacred sites and metaphysics began by borrowing library books in primary school and soon led to a deep fascination with energy; understanding the universal laws and exploring the unexplained; self empowerment and personal growth; healing and manifestation; ancient and indigenous cultures and most importantly: how to enhance my own life and career by working with energy.
For many years, I believed my light work was in the corporate world and through the 21 years I spent in the Southern African tourism industry, whilst my career went from strength to strength, I was very proud of how many people I had coached onto and along their spiritual path. Although I didn’t have any ambitions of climbing the corporate ladder and didn’t even apply for any of the jobs I was offered, synchronistic events and my ability to turn businesses around, led to me being appointed as Managing Director of two businesses and then CEO, of what became, the largest inbound tourism company in Southern Africa – a 5 year role which allowed me to travel the world and have a positive impact on the 450 staff the company employed.
Life was grand until one day in 2007. I was at a trade show in Berlin and had taken a quick break so was sitting away from the crowds looking for a moment of peace and the realization dawned on me that my job was no longer my passion. I had reached the height of my profession and now that every-thing was in place, I had become bored. A sick feeling washed over me as I realized the implications of this – my whole world was wrapped up in my job. I travelled for more than 200 days in the year, all my friends were tourism people, I enjoyed the financial rewards and industry perks and if I was going make a huge change in my life, then what would I do and who would I be?
Of course, I didn’t do anything immediately although over the next year I analyzed what I enjoyed about my life and what I wanted to change. In the meantime, I extended many of my business trips to spend time in sacred sites and spiritual retreats and during the process fell in love with a man from Norway (Kris) that I had become friends with at a High Priestess course and pilgrimage in Glastonbury in 2006. I had done a 3-year Reiki apprenticeship and had been attuned as a Reiki Master and knew that I was passionate about my energetic work and experiential travel although still unclear how to combine them or what to do.
Kris and I took a 3-month sabbatical early 2009 and travelled around Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and Fiji and it was on a beach on one of the Gili Islands, off Bali that I declared to the universe that I wanted to change my fast paced corporate lifestyle to one of more authentic living and follow my dream of building up my own conscious business.
2 months after returning to South Africa, I had moved to Europe and despite not knowing exactly what I wanted to do, toyed with the idea of reviving a concept I had at the back of my mind for 15 years and started researching opening a spiritually based tour operator specializing in conscious, experiential and life changing travel experiences. In 2010, I was in a crop circle in Wilshire when I received a strong message that the time was right and Spiritual Quest Journeys was born.
The re-evaluation, transition and rebirth I went through personally before starting the company wasn’t always easy. Even after taking the leap of faith, I still had moments of despair and regret although slowly but surely, I emerged refreshed, stronger and more grounded. I wouldn’t change a thing and in retrospect know that this was the greatest learning period in my life to date. I can now look back at all of the doubt, fear and limiting belief systems that I have cleared and marvel at how everything aligned, slowly but surely, once I had identified what I was passionate about and made the decision to show up and enjoy life to the full.
Whilst I loved and nurtured the now successful Spiritual Quest Journeys, I missed the challenges of the business world and decided to deepen my intuitive ability and coaching skill so studied with David Morelli for 2 years, with intuitive coaching for top executives and entrepreneurs in mind.
I have always believed that in order to be a great leader, you first have to embody a great person and whilst ability, performance, intelligence, determination, industry know how and vision are all essential to success, truly effective leaders are distinguished by a high level of emotional intelligence too – this includes work ethic, empathy, self awareness, integrity, values, motivation, social skills and honed intuition – Self-mastery if you will.
I knew from personal experience that it is lonely at the top, that we all have our blind spots and even the best CEO, top executive or entrepreneur´s performance benefits from a fresh perspective. One does not suddenly have all of the answers because one achieves a high level position and working with a Self Mastery and Authentic Leadership coach allows the executive to grow as a person and leader in a safe and confidential manner.
I have now realized my passion of empowering conscious executives and entrepreneurs to take responsibility and enhance their lives holistically using the personal development and energetic tools that I have personally successfully used.
I have always believed that what we are experiencing in our physical life is a direct reflection of what is happening inside of us. All of the answers and our greatest potential are already within us and once accessed with clarity, it is possible to manifest and magnetize all that you want to experience in life. By the same token, once you understand how energy works, you are able to navigate your business and personal life with ease.
We are living in an age where our planet and humanity face huge challenges and our world needs as many authentic and conscious leaders as possible to find solutions. My big picture payoff comes from knowing that through helping business leaders transform by becoming more conscious and authentic, my work is having a knock on effect on their circles of influence and so on and so on. I believe I can make a difference and live, to the best of my humanness, to be the change I want to see in the world.
My personal mission statement is as follows: To live a conscious, healthy, exciting life of joy, exploration, love and abundance; inspiring others to find their own transformation and self mastery though my coaching, books, courses and life changing Spiritual Quest Journeys. To leave this lifetime having lived life to the full and having contributed to humanity and the planet as best I can.
# Executive Excellence # Self Mastery # Transformational Travel # Authentic Leadership
