I have just attended two big events filled with incredible women. Women who are professional supporters. Women who run the worlds of others. Executive assistants, Business Managers & Professional Assistants. They are incredible. The perfect blend of capable, caring and committed. They get things done. They make shit happen. Often quietly and without applause.

These women (and a few good men who are in the profession) do not get the acknowledgement that they deserve. Part of that stems from the problem that they do not appreciate how amazing they are! They do not value themselves. Your value is the difference between what you get and what you deserve.

What do I want?

This is a question I ask myself about 30 times a day…

It’s a check-in. It’s my mind asking my body what it wants. It’s my body asking my heart what it wants. It’s my stomach asking my taste buds what I want…

“What you want leads you to what you need.”

I am fascinated by relationships. Fascinated by people and their relationships with their people.

I think that there are two types of relationships: Incidental and Intentional.

Incidental relationships are those that come free with your life! They are born out of necessity and obligation. They are necessary. A coworker you ‘have to’ work with, a flatmate you have to ‘live with’ or a family member that you ‘have to’ tolerate. These relationships can have a huge impact on your energy if they are not managed with some awareness.

We all know how important water is to us as humans. Our bodies are made up of around 70% water depending on our age, weight and gender. Water regulates body temperature and supports digestion, elimination and the creation of new cells. Water lubricates our joints and protects our brains, spinal column and organs from trauma.

I love people who are different. People who do things differently, learn differently and are diverse in their thinking. I have always thought that being the same is a shame!

Finding people who are “like us” can be both comforting and affirming but learning about people’s difference is one of my favourite things.

Being born to a tiny mother really helped me with my body image. I was bigger than my mother when I was 11! My first bra was bigger than hers is now! I realised that there was nothing to do but accept the body I had. I was constantly compared to my mum, with people commenting about how tiny she was (and quietly judging that I was not!).

Someone once told me that dogs don’t compare themselves to other dogs. Corgis don’t go around wishing they were greyhounds; they just get on with being the best corgis that they can be. My mum was a chihuahua; I was a Labrador. There was nothing that could be done.

1. Get to know yourself.
Know what you are like and what you do like. Learning about yourself is your job. Listen to what the world says about you and decide what you want to offer the world.

2. Get your needs met.
While we are very similar - each of us has particular needs. We all have preferences. Things we like and don’t like, need and don’t need. It is your job to get your needs met, to complete yourself. It's tempting to lean on others but being codependent on a partner, spouse, sibling or friend is not the best way to live your life!

How good is your relationship with your body?

Our relationships with our bodies are often difficult. When we are young, we often think that we are bulletproof. We think that our bodies will do what we want. We choose to do terrible things to our bodies in exchange for being thin, or fun, or a good time at a party.

I had the most amazing Mother's Day - I got to help my eldest daughter with her first-ever art exhibition. At the ripe old age of 23. So clever and so brave.

We had lots of people through - friends, family and people off the street. The exhibition was an amazing collection of street art, paintings and poetry. It was extraordinary. I heard one guy say out loud ‘I could have done that’ while looking at one of the canvases. It took me all my time not to say something to him.

The reality is maybe he could have. The truth is that he didn’t.

Being a Mother is the hardest job that I have ever done.

It requires me to be hard and soft, relaxed and astute, brave and vulnerable.

From the moment that you find out you are pregnant, you start putting the baby's needs ahead of your own. You stop eating certain foods, you no longer allow yourself the joys of coffee or wine!

And once they are born your life is unrecognisable. Nothing is the same. Not your body, not your relationships and not your timetable.

I have just returned from an incredible trip to Shanghai. It has been nearly 5 years since my last trip and so much has changed. For years, I ran shopping tours to Shanghai. Many people confuse them for a week of blatant consumerism for the spoiled or the wealthy! Wrong. So wrong.

These trips are about people discovering things - often themselves!

I spend the week encouraging people to step into their light, to realise that they are important, valuable and deserve all the joy in the world.

Energy is the essence of our existence. We are all energetic beings, and I think that understanding the dynamics of energy is the key to unlocking our true potential. Our energy is transferable and absorbable. Our thoughts begin it, our emotions amplify it and our actions increase or decrease it.

I think there are four steps to living a life you love:

We need to know what we want.
We need to believe that we can have it
We need to allow ourselves to have our needs met
We need a plan.

Sounds easy right?! If only it was!

I was recently helping a friend who is suffering from anxiety.

Her head is a theme park - it’s filled with adventures and ideas and wonder. The trouble is that her theme park is open 24 hours! It’s an exhausting, messed up, busy place that she wants to escape. She thinks her head is a problem- something that she could ‘get rid of’.

I talked to her about reframing her thinking. About turning the box around and looking at it from another angle. “Sometimes the only thing we can change is our mind.” is a quote from my first book, Look Gorgeous Be Happy. Changing your mind is powerful - but changing your mind about your mind is completely mind-blowing!!!

Thinking has become my favourite pastime! And now like all passionate people with a hobby, I am aghast at why more people are not doing this thinking thing more often. Of the thinking that I have done - my most profound thought is that…

“Our beliefs are the foundation of our lives!”

I believe that the quality of our thoughts determines the quality of our lives. I have spent most of the past 20 years examining, exploring and choosing what I think about everything in my life.

Living an exhausted life is no fun. There is no room for fun and then one day you wake up no longer sure of how fun even works…

We are a nation of exhausted women. So many exhausted, boring and unhappy women. We don’t get enough sleep, don’t eat the right food, have lost the art of being curious, have no time to wonder or wander and are too tired to make an effort, gather some support and change the way we live. And our unhappiness is contagious! We start to affect the people around us - unhappy partners, unhappy children. Our children want us to have lots of energy and have lots of fun. Our partners want us to be happy, sexy and interesting.

How is your parenting experiment going?

In the past 25 years of being a parent, I have finally worked out what parenting actually is - it is an experiment!

Sometimes thoroughly researched, sometimes intuitive, sometimes flying by the seat of my arse, thinking on the spot, kind of experiment!

There are lots of different types of parents running different types of experiments as we speak.

I have been doing a lot of planning lately. Planning is my answer to overwhelm. Every Monday, I have a meeting with myself. You can join me on my podcast - every Monday morning, I have a live meeting with the world juggling all the things that I want to do, have to do and need to do.

I am delighted to be a mature woman!

Don’t get me wrong. There are days when I wish I could pop back into my young body and party all night wearing not much! But mostly, I am very happy with my maturity. There are some amazing benefits to being on the other side of fifty!

Mature women know who they are. They are free from their previous limits of parenting and caring for everyone. They have less oestrogen which literally alters your ability to care! Having been ‘professional carers’, we suddenly wake up and are not bothered anymore! We aren’t interested in all your shit - we just want to get on and do our thing!

I was accused of being pushy this week! Who me??!!

I was pushing someone to be better. Someone who had asked me to work with them. Someone who apparently wanted to be better. But when push came to shove, they dug their heels in. They went into full donkey mode.