Leesa Rowland - The Charisma Factor: Unlock the Secrets of Magnetic Charm and Personal Influence in Your Life

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I was adopted when I was just a few months old by loving parents who had already adopted another daughter at birth. My father, Dr. George Rowland, was a college professor; my mother, Kay, was an extremely talented artist. On the canvas that was my life, these two were the first painters.

The first, but by no means the last. I have such vivid memories of my childhood and the people who shaped it, who showed me love and taught me the important life lessons Ive continued to carry on to this day. I went through many personal transformations to get to where I am today, and I am appreciative of the generous help I received along the way. For this reason, I have no doubt I will spend the rest of my life helping others and giving back.

After my parents divorced when I was six years old, my mother, sister, and I moved into my mothers parents guesthouse on the beach in the resort town of Rockport, Texas. All of a sudden, I had the luxury of having grand-parents in my day-to-day life: my grandfather, Jesse M. Davis, had just retired as the head of litigation for Shell Oil Company, while my grandmother, Lavina, would teach me the benefits of organic, unprocessed foods and yoga. They also taught me to respect animals and to treat them like the individual souls they are. These aspects continue to be integral to my life, and have shaped the book that you now hold in your hands.

I am thankful for all the souls I have been fortunate to meet along the way. Some have brought me joy; others have taught me very difficult lessons, but I believe there is somethingbe it good or badthat we can learn from everyone. We are all on our own custom-built expeditions, and it is up to us to navigate ourselves through the course our life takes. We are all different, and that is where our strengths liewe need only learn when and how to put the blinders on and remain true to ourselves.

Throughout my life, I have studied religion, spirituality, yoga, chakras, auras, energy fields, and the supernatural as well. I have always been fascinated with charisma and have researched and studied it for more than twenty years. I also often incorporate practices and techniques that I have learned from method acting studies into my everyday life.

I am, fundamentally, a free spirit. Im openhearted, nonjudgmental, candid, optimistic and very adventurous. I appreciate that the length of my time on Earth is unknown, so I intend to make the most of it. Mine is a deeply spiritual road, and I try vehemently to live my life in the present moment. While I do believe in an almighty force which I choose to call God, I have always been a firm believer in karma: I believe we reap what we sow and that we are each of us at the reins of our own enlightenment and destiny.

Life is about living well and taking advantage of every single minute we are given. Experience life as it happens, treat every moment as an amazing gift, and you will be well on your way to discovering the extraordinary spark inside yourself, that It factor.

I wrote this book to share my story and to help guide others as they embark on their journeys or else come to crossroads of negative or conditioned blockages. Im sharing the way I navigated through the tough times and how I have maintained the sort of positive outlook that is essential to attaining and retaining a charismatic personality.

And there have been tough times in my lifeplenty of them, far beyond what I would have ever thought possible. Perhaps my greatest personal struggle has come from my mothers death 15 years ago, something which I still dont have closure for. My mothers significant other at the time (I had moved out of our home at 18 and he moved in with my mother and grandmother shortly afterward) committed suicide by shooting himself several years ago, but not before admitting to family and friends that he had killed my precious mother by poisoning her food. The poison hed used mimicked the symptoms of a stroke; in fact, that is still listed on her death certificate as the cause of death. There was no autopsy, as he had her cremated the next day.

My mothers tragic death has caused my sister, Karen, and I intense, often debilitating agony. It is one of the deepest, saddest, sharpest, most helpless pains I have ever experienced. And it was a pain that seemed determined to bear yet more hardship. After my mother died, I decided that it was a good time to get to know a group of people who had found me through my father on the internet. They introduced themselves as my long-lost biological cousins, and seemed to make a special effort to reach out quite a bit. My real family, the family who had taken me in and raised me, seemed hurt by the thought that I would give the time of day to anyone who abandoned me as a baby, so I hadnt felt good about really getting to know them while my mother was alive.

Realistically, my loving family thought that, given the abandonment issues I already had, that meeting with my cousins wouldnt be a safe risk for me. They were worried that these cousins could be opportunists. What was their real motive to want to get to know me? After I spoke with them the first time, I had this gut feeling that maybe my family was right; they might have gotten in touch with me because I had been in movies, and I was worried that they might just be fame seekers.

But after my mother was killed, I went against my gut feelings and visited these possible birth family cousins at their home in the valley outside of Los Angeles. I thought it was the perfect time to get to know them. Theyd continued to reach out and seemed to care about getting to know me, even growing old with me as viable family members. I was a little uncomfortable around them initiallythey were nothing like the family I grew up withbut I wanted to give them the unconditional love that my adopted mother had instilled in me. The older female cousin seemed a bit jealous of me, but I have dealt with jealous women my entire life. She occasionally made snide comments about my looks, my acting or charity events Id attend, but I just shrugged it off and loved her anyway.

When I arrived at their home, I had in my suitcases a lot of newly inherited jewelry, very expensive designer coats and clothes from my mothers estate. Included in this was a very expensive collection of sentimental jewelry and a fur from Vailbrand new with the (extremely expensive) price tag still on it. It was very sentimental to my sister because shed inherited it from our mother, and the cousins marveled at how beautiful everything was and what great taste my mother had. The older female cousin asked if she could borrow the coat to go to a party the next night. I said okay; she seemed so excited to wear it that I felt good letting her borrow it. All I said was, Just please pray for my sweet mothers soul when you put it on.

At the time, I was planning on leaving Los Angeles to go to New York and establish an apartment there. The female cousin suggested I keep the jewelry collection in their safe; the coat she would keep the in the closet after the party. I could come back later and pick up everything after I had established my place; that way, nothing would get stolen. I thought to myself what a godsend she was. Id been given no reason to believe otherwise.