Wilkinson George - Thrive

George Wilkinson moved away from Edinburgh, his city of birth, to join the British Royal Navy and left having served during the Gulf war in 91. He subsequently spent almost three decades working with leading organisations such as SKY, Hewlett Packard, Fujitsu, and the NHS. Here he performed strategic leadership, consulting and training roles, and now works with a variety of clients to help teams and individuals harness their real potential.

I have to start by thanking my superb wife, Jane. From reading the early drafts and giving me some challenging but highly useful advice, so I could edit, she was as important to this book getting done as I was. Thank you so much. Also, a heartfelt thanks go to all my immediate family for being patient with me through the efforts of writing this book; without whose understanding it would never have been possible.

In no way would this book even be written if it wasnt for a deep conversation that I had with a true gent Jon Cassell back in 2009, who was the one that planted a seed in my mind; that over time grew into this book. A highly evolved individual, who has a wizards mind. Also to Danny Dobson an outstanding Peak Performance Consultant and Executive Coach, and whose wise and inspiring guidance created my direction, and kept me going in the darker days of my writing. I would also like to thank Steve Williams a world authority in paediatrics and craniopathy, who paid an interest and shared the lessons hed learned along his own authors journey. That interest made me adapt my strategy where I reached the end as a result.

I would like to thank all of my contributors to each chapter: Bill Webster, for being the first to agree to one, and who kept me excited every time I spoke to him. For Diane and Megan, whose contribution I received one Sunday stopped me in my tracks, and frankly inspired me to complete the book. To Jon Cassell, mentioned above, who simply had to help since he unknowingly inspired the idea behind this book. To Clive Smith, a fellow author for listening to the progress I was making and passively holding me to account. To Robert Rogers, for inspiring me in life in general and for providing such a swift response to a contribution to my request. To the extent that it created even more momentum in me. To Derek Taylor, who in the past I have had the absolute pleasure of working alongside - and I know his words count. To Paul New, who was a late but important contributor, but whose words wonderfully complemented the last chapter.

To those who helped me on the journey to improve this work, which included my Beta readers and those who performed additional content reviews: Garry Craig, Alan Handley, Paul New, Deb Seal and Marian Way. Id also like to thank all of those who provided professional support, guidance and inspiration, which included all the team at RedDoor particularly Clare Christian and Heather Boisseau for having the faith in the idea for Thrive and for bringing it into being. To Megan Sheer for being patient with me in the development of my drawings. To Adam Thorpe (The Brand Chap) for the development of my book cover and his understanding. My editors and proofreader who helped bring the final work to life: Martine Chapman, Nicky Gyopari and Kathy Steer.

To all the individuals I have had the opportunity in my journey to lead, be led by, or watch their leadership from a distance. You inspired me to lead myself and to lead and serve others to a greater extent, and for being the foundation for Thrive .

A final thanks to those wonderful and larger than life characters that I have met and worked alongside in my journey to get to this book, in my personal life and through in my time in the armed services and beyond; there are too many to mention. Those that were teaching me the hard lessons and experiences of life, where some I have shared in this book. When neither they, nor I, knew those lessons would ever go down on paper. Life is somewhat strange the way it all works out.

Thank you for sharing this journey of the 7 Steps to Successful Self-Leadership with me. You will have now discovered that these steps are primarily born out of a substantial amount of real-world experience experience enriched with original stories, learned lessons, trial and error, contributions and research. I did not know that any of my life experiences or what I observed in others would one day be accumulated to form a book. But I absolutely felt in the back of my mind, given my journey thus far, this book was in me. I feel thrilled youve got to this point.

Self-leadership is all about taking responsibility to do the right thing in order to thrive hence the book title. Even though, as we all know, that life will have the canny knack of creating challenges along our journey. However, if we make it our goal to make the best choices possible, then, step-by-step, we can at least advance in the right direction towards a better future.

I wholeheartedly believe from my own experiences in my self-leadership and those I have led, trained and consulted with that these seven steps are the fundamental building blocks to becoming a more rounded individual, and to thrive in work and life. In the real world.

I also genuinely hope that you can benefit from this book and gain everything that I intended from it. To self-lead, grow and change is not always easy, and significant change does not happen overnight. But in addition to that, sometimes we are too close to ourselves to see that change is happening and that our character has grown and adapted. Self-leading can be a little deceiving in this sense, we cant always see our growth first hand. But by leading ourselves, we are naturally ever-evolving, and always moving forward. Never overlook this important point, always remain mindful of your growth.

If you encounter a setback, please dont become discouraged by this. Challenges all are part and parcel of the rich tapestry of the building of a more solid leader and more capable person overall. Pick yourself up, as tomorrow is another day. Roll with the punches and keep the momentum going. This is the stuff of life and you need to move and work with what is present and now.

The next steps for you are to ensure that you have undertaken the actions in the Now, over to you sections at the end of each chapter. Dont give yourself the excuse to miss them out this is not self-leadership. Live in the arena of life, and dont shy away from it.

I wrote this book to help you, but you can always seek me out to serve in some way at www.georgewilkinson.co, so never feel you are on your own out there. Either way, good luck!

Now, over to you go lead yourself, and others today to build a better tomorrow.

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It is not the mountains we conquer but ourselves

Sir Edmund Hillary

The definition of success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, and history is full of success stories of one kind or another. In this modern age you only need surf the internet for a short period before someones definition of success is staring you in the face. However, success can be the achievement of any aim or any purpose that could appear insignificant to some, while others it will greatly please; success is relative to the given situation.