Women's Intuition, More Than Just Folklore

Modern women are intelligent, up to date with the latest technical trends and financial markets. They know how to balance work with family and they have mastered the art of promoting business through what some males refer to as, 'women's gossip' or social media. They follow the financial trends and consumer buying habits and wait for a gap in the market to launch a new product or service. With all of this know-how, many still question their initial thoughts or give away their personal power by listening to the doom and gloom news. In the end, all of this leads to second guessing the missed opportunities. WHY?

For thousands of years, women have held families together, healed the sick, managed the budgets, made three meals a day and often with very little ingredients. Women are no doubt creative, intelligent and every bit alluring when it comes to being in power. So was there ever any doubt that one day they would want to run a successful business? Is there something that has been forgotten? Is there a key element that lays buried deep inside each and every woman, waiting to be fully utilised?

Think back to when you first decided to create a business. What was the first thought? Did you just wake up one morning and think, "I know, today I will establish a business". How did the idea become a reality or are you still wanting the reality.

Many of you have probably thought of a fantastic, unique idea only to let it go because you second guessed yourself? Months or years later the idea you had is now in the market and you are kicking yourself because the idea that now belongs to someone else, was yours.

Why does this happen? Our ego can get in the way of a great idea. The mental left brain logic and self-doubt kick in while the right brain creativity waits for action. After a while, collective consciousness plays a part and someone else picks up on the thought. Yes, that's right, your thoughts are in the ether for others to grab. A little like when you 'know' the phone is going to ring or the person you have thought about contacts you. Energy has weight and power.

Accessing intuition is as easy as thinking of a great idea. Maintaining intuition is a little harder because the ego needs to come second.

The ego is about letting go of control to allow the gut feelings and inner senses to rise through our consciousness. The more the ego learns to come second the clearer the mind becomes. Our thoughts begin to change as the little negative voice takes a back seat. You begin to feel lighter, creative and even happy.

You will start to manifest a successful business that is financially and personally stable and all by allowing the deep sensations that lie within to surface, your intuition. It will present itself through thoughts, feelings, knowing and visions such as imagination. Intuition also has answers and guidance to solutions on how to achieve our goals.

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The Rationale for Personal Development and Training

The basic rationale for personal development can be understood from the necessity to understand one's own human needs, together with spiritual, emotional and social development, because a failure to understand this about one's own self is unthinkable if trying to understand and relate to other human beings in any meaningful way.

A person's development can be perceived in many different ways; for instance as in Freud's Psychosexual Development Theory (Marshall, 2004) which looks at stages of sexual development and the frustrations connected to each stage, or Havighurst's Developmental Stages (Sugarman, 1986) and Tasks which identifies:

Tasks that arise from physical maturation

Tasks that arise from personal values

Tasks that have their source in the pressures of society

or through Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs(Maslow, 1998).

Or indeed through any of the other methods and theories that have been developed, and which may be studied and related to the needs of a counsellor in training,e.g.:

Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development Theory

Piaget's Phases of Cognitive Development

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development

Gilligan's Theory of Moral Development

Which is to name but a few, and some of which will mean more to one person than to another.

What is really important is the core condition of recognising ourselves and others as human beings with developmental needs and developmental constructs, the understanding of which is paramount to enabling a real understanding of the human development processes and the requirements necessary in order to work towards living a contented and fulfilled existence for ourselves, and for engaging meaningfully with others working towards the same.

An individual's decisions are often influenced by social construction, by adapting our personality to fit in with the expectations of friends, family and employers; whilst in relation to any other person we may act in response to our own unconscious and emotionally fuelled expectations. The person we are depends upon our life experiences and feedback from others about how we inter-relate with those people with whom we come into contact, as well as the physical, cultural and spiritual worlds in which we find ourselves. If we are to be able to relate to others whose personal construct and developmental processes that have led to what they have become with any real empathy and congruence, we must first understand our own construct. In taking responsibility for learning about our own emotional and social actions, understanding and development, we act authentically; but allowing our social construct to make choices for us could be seen as acting un-authentically.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs takes a premise that once the most basic human needs are met it becomes possible to progress through successively more advanced levels of need, to culminate in 'self actualisation'. If we engage in exploring this process we allow ourselves the opportunity to develop a relationship with one's self which leads to and enables the establishment of a more understanding relationship with others.

This hierarchy of needs is based on a 'Humanistic' approach and the concept of 'self actualisation' as described by Carl Rogers, who stressed that self-awareness of the person, on a conscious level, is the most important way to work in understanding behaviour by making reference to the internal framework (Rogers, 1961).

Looking at Kohlberg's stages of moral development (Kegan, 1983) helps us to understand where a person might have difficulties if they have not undergone such moral development through lack of cultural or social contact, or through lack of understanding.

It is only by developing our own understanding of personal development theories and practices that we can develop the skills and practices to help others who are suffering from some lack of personal development or some misguided thinking developed during their upbringing.

Hazel Johns in her book on personal development in counsellor training (Johns, 1996) states what her minimum outline for development in counselling should include:

To learn and unlearn

To have enough sense of identity to survive and flourish in personal development and personal relationships

To love and be loved enough

To have sufficient self esteem and personal power to cope with dependence, independence and interdependence

To be resourceful and creative

To notice and oppose oppression in whatever form it comes

To be strong and vulnerable, tough and tender as needed

To understand and apply theory and skills relevantly to themselves and others

To grow in clarity about ethical standards and never be complacent

To be aware of their own and others need for support and challenge

To have a range of effective ways of being alone and in a group

To see and feel connections with a wider society and world; to be political and care about change, however they live that out.

I would take this further and state that these are things that every enlightened individual needs as an outline for their personal development in order to be a success in any form of relationship, no matter if that be personal or business based and I would add to this list:

To communicate clearly

To have an understanding of the spiritual

To understand basic mental health issues and how they affect themselves and others

and:

To understand the linkages between physical, mental and spiritual needs

It would be easy for a non-spiritual person to ignore or overlook what may be a very strong support or conversely a very damaging practice for another person. Understanding the difference between on the one hand spirituality or spiritual practices and on the other hand religion and religious practices is essential, as the first can be extremely supportive and the latter decidedly destructive when teachings and practices are restrictive and/ or unnatural.

Everyone entering into a working relationship with you has the right to expect you as a professional, in any context, to be capable and well enough equipped to be able to attend to their specific needs, and this places great demands on the professional's emotional resources.

Professionals obviously have needs of their own and those drawn into the 'helping professions' are often more comfortable giving than receiving, so it is essential that we recognise from the outset that self-awareness, self-motivation, choice and the capacity to consider alternatives are intrinsic to the human condition of identity and change; hence we need the opportunity to engage with and focus upon these things in order to be fully equipped for any role we are aiming to undertake.

Personal development is essential to the professional no matter what sector they work in, and the opportunity to engage not only in personal reflection but also in working on this personal development with someone having the understanding of the various developmental theories, at both a personal level and in relation to a group of people with various backgrounds, cultures and upbringing who are brought together through attending a developmental course is a vital opportunity.

The advantage of engaging in a personal development training course is that the course provides: A safe place to learn, the opportunity to explore different understanding and approaches to theories and explore the relational personalities of a diverse group of people willing to engage in the same subject matter along with the support of knowledgeable trainers to remedy incorrect understanding and practices and an opportunity to be introduced to theories that may not have previously been encountered.

It is therefore essential to commit to personal development at the outset of and throughout training and professional practice of any sort in order to be the best we can be. It is also important to actively seek and engage with such training after beginning a professional career by attending conferences and workshops dedicated to further personal development, and opportunities for this are available through Indulgence Un-limited as well as other professional organisations.

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Why A Growth Mindset Is Essential For Entrepreneurs

If you're wondering how mindset development is essential for your newly developing business or practice, read on my friend. By the same token, if you've already grown your business to the place you want - never mind - Just go relax in a hammock beside the sea on your favorite tropical island! Most of the best entrepreneurs who have begun the journey of living their dreams are simply being and doing more of who they are. 

And on this journey all of us must come face to face with a dangerous tiger, an edge, and an obstacle of some sort. Often, we aren't even aware of the real problem we are facing, let alone how we might begin to move through it. Unfortunately we usually don't mind staying warm and cozy inside our "fixed mindsets". It's so much easier to think the way we've always thought and do what we've always done. 

But, the only way to achieve goals is to move into the "growth mindset" zone. So what is a growth mindset, anyway? A very forward-thinking educator, Stanford Professor Carol Dweck, writes about this in her 2006 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Carol categorizes two very different poles on the mindset spectrum, and characterizes our basic ideas about how we see ourselves:

• When operating from a fixed mindset, "your qualities are carved in stone." In this place your capabilities and possibilities seem finite and are coming from a place of lack. From this point of view you see your qualities and skills as predetermined. You believe that you will continue to lack what you need to go beyond where you already are. While coming from this fixed mindset you also apply this thinking to the qualities others have, and tend to limit your ability to learn from what others have to teach.


• Once you adopt a growth mindset, "your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts...everyone can change and grow through application and experience." Of course one's basic intelligence is a starting point, but success comes as a result of effort, learning, and persistence. From a growth mindset perspective, we are always in the "beginners mind" zone, eager to learn and grow, confident that we have all we need within ourselves and the world around us to achieve our goals.

As you are becoming more and more "smart" as an entrepreneur you must develop an awareness of which mindset you are coming from. This will allow you to expand your thinking habits to be able to just "be with" whatever arises. What happens when we become more of an observer of our thoughts is that we plant seeds of confidence. As our confidence develops it grows into curiosity. And soon our business project is moving along very rapidly, sometimes going in strange directions we never would have expected. When we gear towards growth and expansion we open what I call the "heart mind" (more about this in another post). This is a place in which we become more and more compassionate towards ourselves and others as we practice curiosity towards everything - the good, bad and indifferent. When we have this "don't know mindset" amazing possibilities start to emerge. Even the hardships and stresses we meet in the process of being in the moment become graciously accepted as teachers on our path.

In a way, while living inside a growth mindset the goal is not really "where it's at"! The present moment real-life predicaments we find ourselves in are juicy fodder for our "growth mindset". And as we simply allow each moment to unfold, being fully present with it, our own inner wise mind will teach us invaluable lessons. Once you see that you are operating from a possibility mindset, you can quickly move way out there on that limb where many new ideas and connections will manifest for you. This occurs when you have entered into the "growth mindset" zone.

Mindset development is essential for smart entrepreneurs who wish to grow their business to greater heights. In other posts I will offer exercises and strategies for building a bridge to a growth mindset. In the meantime, just remember - choosing to stay in the comfortable fixed mindset zone is mighty dangerous for your business. Discovering ways to increase your awareness of being either in a fixed or a growth mindset is crucial - not only to getting more business, but in living your dreams, period. 

You see, having the proper mindset not only determines what we perceive in "the world out there" but it either limits or expands our ability to see possibilities in the first place! I invite you to begin to look for the unusual and unexpected connections you are making. 

Perhaps you can become a bit more curious about how these seemingly accidental events relate to the growth of your business and your mindset. And, if you really want to walk the smart entrepreneur's tightrope, give yourself the challenge of doing, thinking or being in some small way, a little bit different, at least once a week. I'll let you figure out your own definition of "different" - but make a weekly habit of it. It will work wonders for your business!

Always Going On Beyond,

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Hebbian Learning - The Value of Repetition

You have always heard that "practice makes perfect." Have you wondered why? It might just be related to the synaptic plasticity of the brain. How many times does a thought need to be repeated before it becomes sufficient hard wired into the brain?

In 1949, Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb postulated a theory in which he said that "the persistence or repetition of a reverberatory activity tends to induce lasting cellular changes that add to its stability." Another way of saying this is "cells that fire together, wire together." Hebbian Learning is a theory that explains that some types of associative learning in which simultaneous activation of cells leads to increases in synaptic strength. Indeed, this may explain why repeated thought or practice strengthens the hardwiring of neurons in the association areas of the various lobes of the brain.

Biologically this means that a dominant thought created through our will power will stimulate new synaptic connections in our brain. Once these connections are made, repetition of the same thought (or action) will stimulate more corresponding connections. These redundant connections become engrams, which are holographic stores of memories. These engrams involve a network of connections which facilitate synchronized synaptic firing thus producing a more efficient expression of a given thought. The more a thought is held, the easier for that thought remembered or activated. For instance, think of acquiring a new physical skill such as dancing or the martial arts or learning a new language.

Conversely there are thoughts or memories that have reached that level of engram efficiency, but are no longer rationally desired. This could be a phobic memory that somehow is hardwired into our survival mechanism. This means that this gestalt (a collection of memories) is connected to the hypothalamus and pituitary and thus creates neuropeptides, which in turn encode this memory at the cellular level. Therefore, any contrary thought will be resisted as our body will have a defensive reaction to the contrary feeling. So, how to be rid our self of these unwanted thoughts? How can be get out of our way?

Again, our will power is a key factor. But, often this is not enough. Obviously, if you follow the postulate of Hebbian Learning, you would say "use it or lose it." If you could select a contrary (hopefully positive) thought, make it as vivid as possible, and have it recurring, you will biologically rewire your brain to develop new neural pathways while weakening the unwanted neural networks thought disuse.

Hypnosis is a great tool for helping bypass resistance and to install new thought patterns. However, repetition is still the key. Repeated hypnotherapy or self-hypnosis sessions can be used effectively to create new neural networks and to allow unwanted networks to atrophy.

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Six Minutes to Success #1

Very powerful from the wonderful Bob Procter

The Triangle for Success

There's a particular kind of tired that comes from wanting something to change and not knowing why it hasn't yet. You've read the books, you've written the goal down, you've had the morning where you felt certain this was finally the version of you who would follow through — and then, quietly, the feeling faded and the goal slid back into "someday." If that's familiar, I want to tell you something that might come as a relief: you were probably never missing willpower. You were missing a plan for the moment your willpower ran out.

There's an old idea, decades old now, that success comes down to a kind of triangle — three qualities that hold each other up, with one quality at the centre that makes the whole thing work. It's a lovely image, and the bones of it are sound. But the original version leaned almost entirely on old quotations and a fairly rigid idea that trying hard enough for long enough will always get you there. Life is rarely that tidy, and you deserve a version of this that's honest about that.

So here's an updated one — same shape, sturdier foundations.

The Triangle, At A Glance

1

Mind

Choose, and keep learning

2

Meaning

Care about the direction

3

Movement

Turn intention into behaviour

Held together by

Adaptive Perseverance

A Note From the Elite VIP Circle Editorial Team

This piece draws on research into motivation, habit formation and goal pursuit — Angela Duckworth's work on grit, Peter Gollwitzer's research on implementation intentions, and BJ Fogg's and James Clear's work on behaviour change, among others. Where the evidence is strong, we've said so plainly. Where a popular idea (like "passion guarantees success") turns out to be shakier than the quote-graphics suggest, we've said that too. You deserve honesty here, even in the areas we're writing to support you.

Mind — Choose, and Keep Learning

The first corner of the triangle is your thinking. Not in the sense of collecting more information — most of us have read enough books and watched enough videos to fill several lifetimes of good intentions — but in the sense of staying open: willing to test an idea, get feedback, and revise your thinking when the evidence asks you to.

This matters more than it sounds. Psychologist Carol Dweck's research on mindset found that people who believe their abilities can develop through effort and strategy tend to persist through setbacks that would otherwise feel like proof they should stop. It's worth being careful with this idea, though — it doesn't mean you can achieve absolutely anything simply by deciding to. It means most skills genuinely can be built, with the right feedback and practice, even when they don't come naturally at first. That's a meaningfully different, more honest promise.

A gentle question worth sitting with: what skill, if you developed it, would make the goal you're circling right now noticeably more achievable? And what's the next small step toward learning it — a conversation, a chapter, an hour of practice?

Meaning — Care About the Direction

The second corner is usually called "passion." I'd rather call it meaning, because passion has a way of coming and going, and building your follow-through on a feeling that fluctuates is asking for trouble.

Angela Duckworth's well-known research on "grit" — perseverance and passion for long-term goals — found it does predict achievement to some degree. It is worth knowing that later reviews of this research found grit overlaps considerably with the more established trait of conscientiousness, and that its predictive power, while real, is more modest than the popular version of the idea suggests. So: passion and drive genuinely help. They're not a guarantee, and you're not failing some character test if you don't feel a constant, burning enthusiasm for your goal.

What tends to hold up better than passion is meaning — a reason that matters to you, specifically, that you can return to on the ordinary, low-motivation Tuesday when nothing about the goal feels exciting. If untangling those two things is part of what feels hardest right now, our piece on turning passion into purpose is a natural next read.

Movement — Turn Intention Into Behaviour

The third corner is where most self-help advice gets vague: "just take action." It's true, and it's also almost useless on its own, because it doesn't explain why so many well-intentioned people never do.

Here's the missing mechanism. Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer's research on "implementation intentions" — a meta-analysis covering 94 separate studies — found that people who plan their actions in a specific if-then format are significantly more likely to follow through than people who simply intend to act. The format is deceptively simple: if situation X happens, I will do behaviour Y. Not "I'll write more," but "if it's 8am and I've had my coffee, I will write for twenty minutes before I open my phone."

BJ Fogg's research adds a second piece: motivation alone rarely produces behaviour. Behaviour needs motivation, ability, and a prompt, together, at the same moment. If any one of the three is missing — if the action is too big, or there's no clear trigger — the behaviour doesn't happen, no matter how much you wanted it to. Which means the fix, most of the time, isn't "want it more." It's making the action smaller and attaching it to something that already happens in your day. If mornings are where your good intentions usually fall apart, our guide to building a morning that actually works is a natural next read.

The Centre: Adaptive Perseverance

And here's the quality that holds the other three together — not raw stubbornness, but what researchers sometimes call adaptive perseverance: continuing long enough to learn something, while staying genuinely willing to change your method when the evidence says to.

There's a real difference between persistence and stubbornness worth sitting with. Persistence learns from feedback and adjusts its tactics while protecting the goal. Stubbornness ignores the feedback, repeats the same tactic, and quietly starts protecting the ego instead of the goal. Persistence takes rest seriously; stubbornness treats exhaustion as proof of commitment. If you've ever wondered whether pushing harder was actually the answer, that distinction is usually where the honest answer lives.

If you're currently somewhere in that gap between "I know I should keep going" and "I genuinely don't have anything left," our piece on emotional resilience as a superpower speaks to that specifically.

Milton Hershey is the example the original version of this article reached for, and it's a fair one — his first two confectionery companies failed before his third succeeded. But the fuller story matters: his eventual success wasn't perseverance in isolation. It was persistence combined with an apprenticeship, technical skill built over years, lessons genuinely absorbed from the earlier failures, and a viable product at the right moment. He didn't repeat the same failed approach three times. He adjusted it. That's the more useful lesson.

A more contemporary version of the same pattern: a woman starting a personal-development blog after a career pause rarely knows SEO, audience-building, or what actually resonates when she begins. The mind corner develops as she learns. The meaning corner is why she keeps going when the early numbers are discouraging. The movement corner is the unglamorous, consistent publishing schedule. And perseverance, done well, isn't refusing to change anything — it's reviewing what the data actually shows, improving what isn't working, and not confusing a slow start with a permanent one.

A short checklist, for the next time you're deciding whether to keep going or change direction: Is this goal still meaningful to you? What evidence do you actually have about whether the current approach is working? What have you learned so far that you didn't know when you started? What's one thing you could change, rather than abandoning the whole goal? And, honestly — are you continuing because it matters, or because stopping would feel like admitting the plan needs revising?

If you're ready to turn intention into an actual plan — the kind that survives the week your motivation dips — the VIP Performance Playbook walks you through exactly that.

Get the VIP Performance Playbook

Where This Leaves You

No framework, this one included, can remove the uncertainty from starting over — not this one, not the original one it's rebuilt from, not any quote you've ever screenshotted and saved for later. What you can actually do is think a little more clearly, choose a goal that's genuinely yours rather than borrowed from someone else's life, turn that goal into something small and specific enough to act on today, and respond with curiosity rather than self-blame when the path doesn't go the way you pictured it.

That's not as dramatic as "never give up." It's more honest, and — I'd argue — more useful.

If any part of you is starting this later than you planned — mid-career, mid-divorce, mid-reinvention, whatever your version of "later" looks like — our piece on why it's not too late to build a life you love is worth reading next.

Free download: If this resonates, the 7-Day Self-Worth Reset is a simple, guided path for anyone ready to rebuild their confidence and stop shrinking themselves for other people.

Get the Free Self-Worth Reset

Elite VIP Circle only recommends products and resources we've genuinely found valuable ourselves. If you choose to purchase through one of our links, it may result in a small payment to us — at no extra cost to you. We hope you find it as helpful as we have.

Exploding Myths About Learning

When I was a child, and a string of Christmas tree lights went out, it was my job to replace each bulb one-by-one to discover which one was burned out. To enrich our effectiveness in work or study, we need to first uncover what is obstructing our progress. We need to ensure that we are sufficiently hydrated and nourished. A person dehydrated by just five percent has a diminished cognitive ability of thirty percent. The right types of food will supply the brain with its fuel - glucose. As well, our immediate surroundings must be factored in. Things like temperature, illumination, cleanliness, acoustics, and support materials. A competitive atmosphere is built into the school format, and this discourages some who are less visual or auditory than others.

Ninety-five percent of our behaviors are automatic. They are driven by the subconscious mind, which faithfully carries out clear directives. Like computer programs, these patterns or habits are often established in early childhood, and operate flawlessly until they are changed. This can explain self-sabotage, difficulties with motivation, discipline, and attitudes.

Whether you are a student, or already in the workforce, you have a need to take in information in the most efficient manner possible. For the next few moments, suspend your belief in everything you know about how to learn. Keep an open mind to new concepts.

Some people still believe that incoming data (information) reaches the conscious mind first, and then somehow gets processed so that some of it finally reaches long-term memory. Actually, the opposite is true. Initially, all data hits the subconscious for processing. The brain's priority is survival. If the new information isn't threatening, then it is compared to existing data. If it's not needed, it is deleted. The remaining data is sorted and filtered. Some is handed off to the conscious mind for processing, and some is consigned to long-term memory. This all happens in a flash. The subconscious mind operates at 800 times the speed of the conscious mind.

Why can't people remember things when they are nervous? I am sure that you've heard of the body's reaction to threat. It's called fight-or-flight. It is typified by rapid breathing, and a diversion of oxygenated blood from the visceral area to muscles. As well, blood moves from the brain's thinking area (frontal lobes) to that part of the brain that is responsible for survival reactions (reptilian brain). Under stress, we just don't think as well.

We learn by taking in information through all our senses. The top three ways we learn is seeing, hearing, and touching. Most instructors do not think that learning through touch and movement is useful beyond the lower grades. Generally speaking, school systems cater to visual and auditory learners. Those whose principal learning mode is kinesthetic (touch, movement, experience) operate at a distinct disadvantage. This group makes up a large portion of high-school dropouts.

The concept of different learning styles goes far beyond just visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. I am sure you know that most people have a dominant hand and a dominant brain hemisphere. People also have a dominant foot, dominant eye, and dominant ear. The configuration of how any one person is wired may show one of a possible 32 unique learning styles.

Occasionally, trainers instruct according to how they themselves learn. They blatantly disregard the fact that many of their learners do not share the same approach. This non-inclusive teaching can be remedied by including a number of simple measures. The use of flip charts in lieu of presentation slides is more kinesthetic. It encourages learners to pace themselves with the lesson as it progresses, rather than "reading ahead" and not listening to the instructor. Flip chart pages can be placed around the room to be used as review points. These reviews are done at the beginning of the next class, in groups of three walking around the room (kinesthetic activity). The small group format increases the chance that each student will be discussing the points with classmates whose learning styles are different. This enables new perceptions to emerge.

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