Personal development is a lifetime commitment to one’s own greatness. It is not a weekend project. Stepping into the powerful character qualities that cause one to take risks, stand in one’s boldness, be a man or woman of honor and integrity can stretch one to becoming a powerful leader.

For that matter becoming vulnerable, compassionate, giving, loving and forgiving could be the stretch one needs to live in one’s greatness. And that might mean taking on the fiercest opponent of all. Your deepest gut level reactions, your beliefs, and your programs.

In Brian Klemmer’s first BEST SELLING book, IF HOW-TO’S WERE ENOUGH WE’D ALL BE SKINNY, RICH AND HAPPY, he calls one’s deepest beliefs our “sunglasses.” At Klemmer & Associates Personal Mastery Seminar one discovers one’s deepest sets of “sunglasses.” As hidden as they might be from our conscious mind the games and exercises played out in the seminars surface them so that they are up close and in one’s face, so to speak.

Now what one chooses to do about them is a different matter. Doing the work to bust up those sunglasses is real warrior training. Taking on one’s deepest beliefs, those gut level responses to life’s circumstances can be the greatest battles of one’s life.

In Japan, during the sixteenth century a peasant boy, who became known throughout Japan as Toyotomi Hideyoshi, dreamed of becoming a warrior but not just any warrior. Hideyoshi dreamed of becoming a Samurai. The fiercest of warriors, battled seasoned and completely committed to the whims of their Lords, their Daimyo.

Hideyoshi was not born into the Samurai class. He was born into the poorest of families who relied on farming to survive. However his dream was so big that as he became older he took action that would culminate in his achieving even more than he had dreamt.

Hideyoshi was “short, unathletic, uneducated and decidedly ugly”. “His oversize ears, sunken eyes, tiny body, and red, wrinkled face (“as wizened as a sapless apple”) lent him a distinctly apelike appearance, resulting in the “Monkey” nickname that followed him throughout his life” as stated in the book THE SWORDLESS SAMURAI.

Although he would never master martial arts Hideyoshi became a master of his beliefs, his own sunglasses. He rose from his start as a sandal bearer for his Daimyo to becoming Japan’s supreme ruler. Had Hideyoshi fallen victim to how others viewed his physical stature this would not have been possible. In committing himself to his dream of becoming a Samurai warrior Hideyoshi developed the leadership skills necessary to lead a nation beyond the times of feudal Japan.

What are your self-limiting beliefs that prevent you from creating the life you say you want? Attend Klemmer & Associates Personal Mastery Seminar and surface your sunglasses that are holding you back. Go to www.klemmer.com to enroll into a Champions Workshop where you’ll learn more about Personal Mastery or enroll into one of the online webinars and begin your journey of self-discovery and developing your warrior within.

John Edwards

Advanced Leadership Seminar Facilitator