‘Pour Myself a Cup of Ambition’ is said to be the lyric that Dolly Parton is most proud of.

That’s quite a statement for a women with a 6 decade long career and countless hits and accolades under her rhinestone belt!

Being a huge inspiration to me, I have often wondered in times of challenge and uncertainty – ‘What would Dolly do?’. Without question, she will have had struggles in life, we all do. But what a craft of authenticity it is to bring your true self to your art and inspire others, whilst being adored for it.

When I started this business, there were lots of questions to answer, mostly for marketing purposes;

• What’s your purpose?
• Who’s your target audience?
• What’s your niche?
• Why you?

It took me a while to figure all of this out, some if it is still evolving, but the main purpose for all this, my un-shiftable vision was simple: I want to create something to help others in a way that this had helped me.

When I first started in leadership I was sent to so many courses, luckily being in high end fashion retail, a lot of these were around:

‘Inspiring Performance’

              ‘Delivering the Brand’

                             ‘Role Model Leadership’

Amazing, glossy, inspirational content that has not only shaped my professional outlook but my personal one too.

When I started out in Learning and Development I was sent on lots of courses, a CIPD* programme, to understand every element of the world of training and development. The same thing happened in my Coaching accreditations, my mentoring qualifications… all alongside countless books, webinars, networking events, in-house courses, away days and CPD… the list goes on… you see where I’m going!

Each time I hoovered up the content until I had thousands of pieces of an incomplete jigsaw puzzle made up over the last 20 years.

So I considered, what would I want if I was my target audience? Which, to be honest, I pretty much am! A female with tons of experience and achievement who struggles to see her value and worth and be heard in a very noisy competitive world. In need of more:

Self-Awareness            Self-Confidence          Help to Find my Vision

Knowledge on how to make an Impact

What if I created something that brought all of those pieces together?

Self-Awareness

                            Vision Setting

                                          Inspiring Leadership

                                                         Personal Development

And so YLD – Yvonne’s Leadership Development (happily also my initials!) was born!

12 months in, for the first time this month I called myself an entrepreneur – it felt odd but it felt GREAT!

I’m not making big money, but I am making a difference to my clients and others around me and that is what I’d call a success. Here’s to the next 12 months and beyond. And to finish in the way I started this reflective piece, in the inspiring words of Dolly:

‘Find out who you are, and do it on purpose!