Today Is My Birthday, And YOU Get The Surprise!!

Feb 11, 2025

Hello and Welcome!

Today is my birthday, but you’re the one getting the surprise! 🎉

Quick Recap:

In my last edition of Lead Self | Lead Well, I shared how life threw me a major curveball resulting in me quitting my job in leadership consulting, so I could provide ongoing support and care coordination for my Dad after his recent hospitalisation.

I shared four powerful questions that helped me process this change and identify a silver-lining that had presented itself amongst this major change.

Today my surprise for you, is the reveal of that silver-lining (but I highly suspect that many of you who know me, won’t really be that surprised 🤣).

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Drum Roll Please...

...The silver-lining is that this curveball has also provided me with the most amazing opportunity to stop postponing what I’ve always known was within me — launching and running my own business!

Specifically this means, I am evolving Lead Self | Lead Well into a self-leadership community and coaching business!

Over the next few months, I will share what this means for you, but for today, let me share a bit of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ journey that has led me here.

My (Brief) Journey To Here:

Before landing on Lead Self | Lead Well, I developed several business ideas within the coaching space:

First was Wayfare: A career-coaching concept that never made it past the logo stage.
Second was Thrive and Grow: My first personal development coaching brain-child and the beginning of knowing I wanted to create impact through the power of community (great concept, but people thought I was going to be running a plant nursery! 🌱).
Third was Life Leaders: The ‘parent idea’ for Lead Self | Lead Well, and the idea I got furthest with, as I had actually worked with some clients and ran a few workshops on the side of my full time job.

At the time, these ideas and attempts felt like failures as I went head-to-head with my inner critic, and saw me battle with self-doubt, overwhelm, fear of rejection, fear of failure and (ironically) fear of success, and ‘lost’.

My inner critic fought nasty with thoughts like "maybe my own business isn't for me", "I don’t know enough", "I don’t have enough experience or authority", "maybe I should wait until I have worked longer in the corporate world" so on and so on...

But looking back, I can now see what these ‘failed’ ideas really were: opportunities to get stronger against my inner critic (and win the war), and necessary iterations that helped me gain clarity on what I really wanted to do, who I wanted to help, and how.

So, if you’ve ever felt like you’re constantly starting over, questioning your path, or wondering if you’re wasting time on ‘false starts’, you are not alone.

I’ve been there, and, I will even let you in on a little secret — Every ‘restart’, ‘misstep’ or ‘false start’ is actually a sign of success! They are pieces of evidence that you took action, learned, got back up, refined, and learned again.

Keep doing this and you will eventually achieve your vision!

If you are struggling to maintain your eye on the bigger picture though, and remember what you are doing all this for, then here is a little reflective exercise that may help you:

The Vision Evolution Map:

This reflective exercise is designed to help you recognise the patterns and common themes within in your journey, so you can find the clarity you need to move forward. So, on a piece of paper:

1️⃣ Create a timeline of your last five years (or whenever you had an inkling of what you wanted to do or who you wanted to be). List the ideas, career moves, business dreams, or projects you’ve pursued.

2️⃣ Mark the key moments — every time your vision or goals shifted, evolved, or became clearer. Write down what you learned from each stage.

3️⃣ Look for patterns. Do certain themes, values, or interests keep showing up? What threads connect each version of your vision or goals? Maybe, like me, you’ve always been drawn to a specific type of impact but needed time to refine how to bring it to life.

4️⃣ Reframe your pivots. Instead of seeing them as "starting over," take what you learned from each stage and acknowledge them as stepping stones that shaped your clarity.

5️⃣ Identify your next small step. Based on your timeline, what’s one aligned action you can take today?

When I did this exercise, I realised that throughout all of my business iterations, one theme remained constant: I want to help people develop a strong, secure relationship with themselves, so they can confidently lead themselves towards the life, career/business and relationships, that they know will fulfil them the most.

The vehicle changed, but the mission stayed the same. This, alongside finally telling my inner critic to kindly f*ck off, gave me the courage to stop hesitating and finally take the leap.

I hope this exercise helps you in the same way.

If you’ve had several ideas of what you want to achieve but haven’t made much progress, you are not lost — you are refining. Take this as a sign to revisit your ideas and find the common thread that ties them together.

What’s Next:

Over the next few months, you’ll notice a few changes:

Updated LinkedIn profile to align with my new venture.
More posts on LinkedIn as I build Lead Self | Lead Well publicly.
Updates on my journey and behind-the-scenes insights in this newsletter.
A brand-new Instagram page for Lead Self | Lead Well and where I’ll be sharing more of my self-leadership journey.

👉 Follow me on Instagram @crystal_leadselfleadwell and let’s go on this journey together!

Final Thoughts:

Success is rarely achieved by sticking with the one idea, vision or goal. Every ‘restart’, ‘misstep’ or ‘false start’ is actually a step closer to success!

If you feel like you’ve been ‘starting over’ too many times, trust this: You are not lost. You are refining.

Let me know — what’s a ‘restart’ you’ve had in your journey, and what did it teach you?

Respond to this email, comment below or DM me. I’d love to hear your story. 💛