Let The Healing Continue
Virginia Nava
In light of the recent events impacting our nation, what advice would you give to people in order to help them navigate the uncertainty?
I want you to remember you ARE a gift, your life is a gift, not what you do, where you live etc. As you navigate changes, whether it is a career change, a financial change or another, please remember your value comes from within and there are incredible gifts inside of you. Go within, listen to your heart, connect with your deeper self, access connection to a higher power if you believe in it.There is wisdom inside of you that can help you navigate new opportunities. The essence of who you are is always constant and will remain, always.
If you are a leader, step into leadership now the light is needed; you are needed, listen within and then lead. Stop being afraid and stop waiting for the perfect moment to lead. Let me tell you, right now is the perfect moment to lead; the world needs your gifts, we are all keys to each-others gifts and when we don't share them, someone out there who needed your gift doesn't receive it.
And as a leader don't leave yourself behind, acknowledge yourself, nurture yourself, love yourself; being a burned out leaders doesn't help. I used to be an over-achiever worked tons of hours traveled around the world and now I don't lead that way. I pause, I listen, I connect within. I connect with a higher power and then I act and I lead through inspired action instead, re-actively most of the time.
Also I almost forgot really important ingredients: self-compassion for your mistakes, self-acceptance for where you are today and self-grace unconditional love for yourself regardless if you achieve the bar you set for yourself. There is a lot of self conditional love out there, I would love you when...... please don't do that, love yourself as you will love your best friend. Self-love is the core ingredient for success. Exchange perfectionism for consistency and progress.
What is your personal mission in life?
My personal mission in life is to serve the person who wants to live their life from a deeper purpose and gifts and help this person in different stages in this journey, from finding their inner gifts and purpose to building a business and career from deeper purpose and gifts. I help people live a life from the essence of who they are and remind them they deserve to be seen and live free and in wholeness and alignment within.
Also my personal mission is to help a person who already has a deeper purpose business to succeed through strategical and aligned tools by helping them share their why stories to those they serve, so they can connect with their purpose to others.
Please share one or two available resources that can help people right now.
1) For those in a self-discovery journey for deeper purpose and share their gifts with the world.
Free E-Book
Your Unique Gift
A self story guide to discover your unique gifts. As children, we are all born with unique gifts. As we grow, we become more socialized and we either get closer to our gifts, celebrate them, or disconnect from them. Your Unique Gift: Finding Your Life’s Unique Gift Proposition (A Transformative Guide to Meaningful Freedom)
2) For those who have a deeper purpose centered business and need tools to share what you do: Special offer on my strategic marketing workbook for purpose driven organizations who are interested in learning to be more effective with their brand story. The Missing Link is the Meaning Link
What is one of the biggest challenges you have overcome?
I had to learn to know the difference between being an overachiever and being an essential leader. For years I've confused doing more as the way to achieve purpose instead of being in alignment deep within and bringing all of me into the doing and creating a life and business from meaning and essential alignment.
Over-achievement vs. fulfillment from deeper purpose: Over-achievement didn't give me the fulfillment I wanted instead living essentially and aligned with a deeper purpose and my gifts has given me that sense of deep meaning and fulfillment.
Expressing full-self vs. parts of self: I also learned the difference of expressing my full self in my work vs. expressing parts of myself in my work and I realized that expressing some parts of ourselves at work is a conditioning we have received from what work is. When we shift the way we work, and work becomes an integral part of our lives, we are more free. It takes too much energy to manage many roles instead of being in wholeness. Through my journey I know now why we live in compartments and our career isn't integrated to other areas of life because we don't realize we are doing it. We have signs of feeling bored or burned-out or feeling a lack of meaning.
A mindset shift: When we go through sharing more deeply who we are there is a vulnerability to it. This sense of self-responsibility of claiming our own vision, voice, and style can be a difficult process unique to each individual, like fear of stepping-out or other fears. I know for me experiencing the difference between being a corporate person in mid management and being an author, offered a lot of growth to me about being truly visible with my own ideas and work as well as being a strategic marketing consultant and a CEO of my own company. I learned to claim myself, my ideas and my own purpose and gifts.
What one action helped you to overcome this challenge?
The moment when I realized that the source of deep fulfillment came from within and alignment.
To learn to change my perspective from the outside-in, to the inside-out. Instead of outer driven leadership finding inner leadership.
In regards of expressing myself through work it was the knowing that my life experiences and gifts and talents could impact another person and they weren't there to be kept. My life has been positively impacted by many people and I can't keep my gifts to myself.
Looking for the outside is really fleeting. The inside is a sustainable way to live and self-actualize. Also serving others with our gifts is part of our social responsibility.
Creating a core vision and coming from there for me is deeper purpose and I lead with this vision from my inspirational books. Sharing my story of how I found my gifts and deeper purpose as well as, leading other companies in creating and marketing their deeper purpose businesses as I created my own. It is becoming the author of your own life instead of letting others write the pages.
How do you define leadership?
I define leadership as inner leadership. A person that knows themselves as a gift, a person that knows their heart and wisdom and uses their mind to bring all gifts and talents into the service of humanity. A person with a clear inner light and compass that is driven from a depth that is rooted and strong.
Many times leadership isn't convenient however it is an opportunity to help another. I remember writing my first book years ago and I was pregnant at the time. I launched my books 1 month before I gave birth to my son and I did it because I wanted to help another person. Leadership starts with one and then moves to others.
I have also lead through my strategic and communications abilities to international teams around the world, consulting start-ups and transformation leaders. During these opportunities I realized that when we are a leader who has a clear vision and mission others can come together with their own personal motivation to the mission and with love, collaboration, and growth, the opportunities that we can create together are beautiful. I believe the glue of leadership is story. Story as an author of a story; the way we live as the way we lead.
What advice would you give to someone ashamed to share their story?
Stories are powerful because they help us connect with each other. Ask yourself if someone would have taught you all that they learned and you have had access to their tools what would have been different to you now? Would it have stopped you from going through the painful process of learning value? We are all learning, we are in the school of life. I have had many wisdom teachers all my life since I was 3 years old, each person who has taught me since then has had a significant impact in who I am now. Learn the value of your life experience and when the opportunity to serve one person or many comes, open your heart to share your story.
You can contribute to one life with your story. I know it is true because it has happened to me. I have felt deeply humbled for another person to be open to learn about my story and share how it impacted them. When you share your story for service of others, you create a treasure from what you learned.
How can people reach you?
Virginia Nava Hieger, CEO
Transformative Power
virginianava@thetransformativepower.com
404-388-2657
www.yourgiftjourney.com
www.thetransformativepower.com
Virginia Nava Bio
Virginia is the author of Your Unique Gift: Finding Life’s Unique Gift Proposition and Meaningful Freedom: Finding Freedom Through Wholeness, two new books aimed at empowering women on a journey of self-discovery, authenticity, wholeness and personal freedom. As a Transformative Power® guide for those ready to emerge into wholeness, she believes each one of us has our own GIFT, our own source of inner wisdom to be received and then shared with the world. To share our GIFTs with the world, Virginia says what we need are the tools to reconnect with the heart of our gift, our inner-why, along with the courage, commitment and heart desire to live and share a GIFTED life rooted in love, gratitude and truth.
Virginia became a guide after undergoing her own transformative journey after leaving her corporate career in the field of international business with DuPont, Merck and Sanofi, marketing and transforming brands, concepts and strategies into products and profitable ideas worldwide. Vibrant, fresh, and with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, she jumped into the world of freedom by starting her own company, Transformative Power, LLC, in 2012. Her GIFT is to empower others to reunite, receive and share the heart of their GIFT. She helps companies discover and share their GIFTs from the inside out. She believes in the importance of living a life of contribution, a life of IMPACT.